AN: Wow, long time no write. You know what that means? It means I have summer classes that drain my brain, isn't that great? Sorry this took so long...
Thank you all for the reviews, they make me happy. One thing to keep in mind is that I'm starting a new story soon, so if you want this one to update as opposed to that one you're going to have to bug me with reviews and such. I get sidetracked easily.
Anyway, I don't want to keep you waiting any longer, on with the chapter.
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Chapter Eleven
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While Eric was gone the next day Reeve stole some of his clothing, he had yet to give her anything but a T-shirt, and left his room for the first time since she had been brought there while unconscious. She imagined him angry if he got back before she returned, but in the end she didn't really care what he thought. It was strange of him to be taking care of her in any manner, whether it was bringing her food or forcing her to take sleeping pills because he knew that she wouldn't go to sleep willingly.
How annoying. To have the most irritating Dauntless leader in her face for everything, she could tell that he was enjoying her frustration, and that alone made her want to punch him in the face all the more. Even more infuriating was the way he had touched her since she'd woken up, probably because she was in his room, which meant easier access for him. She hated the way her body reacted to him, the heat that welled up in her cheeks and pooled in other parts of her body, his rough hands on her skin, and his tongue in her mouth. Of course there was the urge to bite his tongue, to make him want to escape from her, but then there was the thought that her actions would only spur on his own. Although Eric didn't like to feel defeated or rejected the man was excited by a challenge and didn't hesitate to bite her back.
Before leaving that morning Eric had told Reeve not to go anywhere, but that wasn't going to stop her, she'd never listened to the man before, why start now? Especially not when he had that hungry glint in his eyes whenever she raised her arms to grab something and exposed the naked skin beneath her sparse clothing. She'd spent the previous day reading one of his books, but now that it was finished she was bored, and since she was well enough to walk around it was time to leave.
His pants were too big for her small form and one of his sweaters did little but consume her torso, but she wore them anyway. She'd decided that CC would be the best person to go to for clothing. The first place she went to before the med bay was breakfast; she hadn't eaten much the day before, even though Eric had been kind enough to get her soup again. Kind, and Eric, the two words sounded strange next to each other and didn't hesitate to make Reeve grin as she sat down next to a surprised looking Will. Tris and Christina sat down in front of her in a few seconds looking as equally shocked to see the girl as Will was. They eyed her bandaged head and looked over the rest of her form for anymore injuries, making Reeve thankful for the huge sweater as it covered her wrapped wrists.
"Morning," she muttered snapping them from their thoughts.
"That it is," Will sputtered.
"Are you staying with Eric?" Christina asked curiously. She was doing her best to start a conversation without asking whether or not the girl was well enough to be walking around so soon. She could see her red headed friend getting bitter over such a comment and leaving them with empty thoughts and unanswered questions. Figuring it was best to start with something small or a topic that irritated the girl it felt as if she was walking on egg shells.
"Do the clothes give me away?" Reeve responded lifting up her arm as if to show them how big it was on her.
"It was just a rumor, but now that we know its real everyone's going to be shocked," Will said with a baffled expression on his face. "The doctor in the med bay said Eric never takes anyone to his room, let alone brings them soup," he said with a gasp.
"Of course Mal would know," Reeve grumbled imagining the mischievous glint in the man's eyes as he gossiped.
"Is it weird?" Christina questioned trying to get something out of the conversation.
"I guess, he's about the same as always," Reeve muttered. It made her recall all the times he had grabbed her or pinned her to the wall before the thing with Peter happened. Somehow she knew that it wasn't because Eric had grown more interested, or she hoped at least, it was that she was right there, why wouldn't he mess with her?
More than anything the fact that he deemed it okay to pick with her so pissed Reeve off, if he got to do those things to her, shouldn't she react in kind? How surprised would Eric be if the next time he forced a kiss on her she bit his lip? Would his movements cease? Or would the battle between them grow more intense as they both tried to outdo the other? Whatever, Reeve didn't care for such things and in the end it was better to ignore what he was doing and push away from him whenever she could.
"I knew you wouldn't have anything exciting to say," her friend shrunk away in disappointment. The red head offered her nothing in return, what was she to say? That she thought everything was going swell until he forced his tongue into her mouth and squeezed her butt? Would they even believe that she was telling the truth?
"Who was it that helped you that night?" It was Reeve's turn to ask questions. Her gaze had turned on Tris who seemed somehow a little ashamed of what had happened to her clearly more injured friend.
"Four," she said his name breathlessly.
"Did they hurt you at all?" She questioned. The act reminded her of the things she would ask of her younger siblings after coming home from school. Had Collin gotten to them before she'd been able to get home and defend them? Even after leaving her home behind there was no shortage of people Reeve felt the need to take care of. Though she would have liked to finally escape from worrying about others and wondering if something had happened to them, it was a comforting similarity. Even as everything else about herself was changing there was still a bit of Sam left inside that refused to be shaken or changed. Her heart had yet to completely turn to stone.
"Not as much as they hurt you," she whispered sadly.
"Oh come off it," Reeve said with a laugh that surprised them all. "Didn't even leave a scar," she smiled at them as if it was a joke. Their answer came in grim smiles, they couldn't even begin to understand their friend, not after all the things she'd been through.
"So we five days left in stage two and then there's the final test," Christina veered off the topic as quickly as she could.
"Four said he'd help you train," Tris nodded towards her friend. "To make up for the days that you missed."
"Awesome," she smiled trying to forget the way Eric had looked when he pulled away from kissing her.
It was beginning to get harder and harder to get the Dauntless leader out of her head, though staying in his room probably didn't help much either. Maybe tonight after he fell asleep she would sneak out of his room and head back to the initiate sleeping quarters. Then again, if she saw Peter at all there would be nothing to hold her back from beating him to death, and no one to keep him from taking advantage of her while she was still injured. The thought made her shiver, to think that she would ever be back in that sort of situation again.
In the way of clothing CC didn't have much for her to work off of, seeing as the medic only wore tank tops and shorts even on the coldest of days Reeve chose the latter. Shorts that showed off her legs and the small bruises that Peter's pinches had left her with, and a tank top that she hid underneath Eric's baggy sweater. She was also nice enough to give her a pair of flat shoes that Reeve couldn't imagine doing anything other than walking in. Good thing the training she was going to was mental; she wouldn't have to worry about how awful in combat a baggy sweater would make her perform.
After clothes Tris took her to where Four was waiting for them, he explained that he had been helping Tris by showing her his own fears and how he dealt with them the way Dauntless would. The first thing she would have to do would be to find out what her last fears were, so far she knew three of them. It was possible that she could have many more fears, though somehow they all guessed that there were only one or two left for the girl.
"I'll go in with you," Tris said squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. Reeve nodded in response before Four sent them both under.
All at once it was dark, murky in a dim light that barely illuminated both of them in the small box they were in. It was familiar to Tris in the way that it was made of glass, but instead of filling up with water slowly she saw that they were already submerged in a lake or tank. With an eerie amount of white shining down on them from the surface far above. There was the soft sound of a splash before a figure come into view in front of them, it was a small form of a child that Tris didn't recognize but Reeve knew all too well.
Reeve tightened her fists bitterly; surprised to feel something in her right hand that was no longer bandaged as it had been that morning. Reminding her immediately that the whole thing in front of her wasn't real, Theo wasn't drowning, and she wasn't trapped inside of a glass box watching everything happen. The gun was heavy in her hand as she looked down at it, growling irritably when she saw that her ankle was chained to the bottom of the box, CC's flat shoes had been replaced with her regular combat boots.
Without a second thought Reeve put the gun against her head, making Tris gasp sharply behind her.
"You can't," she almost shouted reaching for the gun as Reeve leaned away. "If you kill yourself it proves that you know it's not real, it proves you're divergent," she said glancing back out at the drowning boy. "Dauntless would figure out a way to save him," she muttered trying to figure it out herself.
If this was real Theo wouldn't have much longer to breathe as he struggled to pull himself back to the surface, he didn't know how to swim and his arms were slowing. She would have minutes or even seconds to react and go about saving him, Tris was trying to figure out the solution as well but Reeve already knew the answer.
Amity might apologize for not being able to do anything for the child, Erudite would escape after carefully removing the chains as quickly as possible without having to fire the gun, and then use a bullet to break the glass. Abnegation might shoot the glass and drown with him, so he wouldn't have to suffer alone, and Divergent would know it wasn't real, but Dauntless was different.
"Maybe-," the transfer didn't get to finish.
With a determined expression on her face Reeve pointed the gun at her ankle, pulling the trigger and biting back a cry of pain as she shot the chain off her ankle, tearing her own skin in the process. Then she shot once at the glass and tried for another but the gun was out of bullets, the water was trickling in slowly, but not fast enough to allow her to escape. Bracing her bloody and injured foot against the other side of the box Reeve slammed herself into the glass, watching it crack a little bit more. She did again, throwing all of her weight into the glass; it broke underneath her weight as she almost choked on the water before launching out towards her brother.
Behind her Tris floated carelessly in the water, aware herself that it wasn't real and she could breathe just fine, but all the same watching her friends blood mix in with the water. It hurt her lungs to hold such little air for so long as she grabbed Theo and pushed towards the surface, kicking her leg painfully in order to propel them further. Finally they broke the surface and Reeve jolted awake, gasping heavily and looking around the room to see that Four was looking at her grimly.
"That looked painful," he said trying to keep a stoic face.
"Just a little," she replied making him grin slightly. "But if that had been real I don't think Theo would have made it," she said sadly. "I waited too long to react, and if there was no land I wouldn't be able to expel the water from his lungs in time to save him," she muttered sadly.
"But it was Dauntless," Four said trying to lighten the mood.
"So what that's, four fears?" Tris speculated glancing at Reeve warily. She'd been so quick to react that the long hair transfer was a little perturbed by the knowledge; she hadn't hesitated to shoot at her foot in order to get the boy. Quickly she had turned the gun against herself after knowing that it wasn't real, as long as she could escape it didn't matter how. It made Tris remember the one time they had asked the red head about what her fear had been, and her reply was that she had killed someone; did this mean that she'd killed herself? Porbably.
"They'll be one more," Reeve said with a dead expression on her face.
"I'll go in this time," Four said towards Tris.
Reeve couldn't remember what Tris said in reply to him, immediately she was running away from someone, when she turned around Peter was the one chasing after her. It was the same malicious grin on his face that he had worn when he was in front of her, licking his lips at her bare skin. She shivered at the memory and urged her legs to go faster, fearful that he would catch her and finish what he had started.
She ran quickly away from him, her breath catching in her throat when she recognized that she would be running through the training area and might be able to grab a weapon of some sort to use against him. More than anything she wished that she'd listened to Eric and stayed in his room, Peter wouldn't have even dared to venture into his territory to find her. It was that thought that made Reeve's mind come to a halting stop, this wasn't real, and yet she couldn't stop herself from fearing what would happen if he caught her.
Maybe there would be a gun that she could off herself with, because even if it was fake, Reeve was still terrified of the outcome and pleaded with herself in her head for everything to be over soon. Completely forgetting about Four who had run to keep up with the transfer and continued to watch her glance around frantically for something to use in order to defend herself. He could only imagine what she had gone through at the hands of Peter that night, the state she was in when Eric brought her to the Med bay. There was an anger that welled within him for the small red headed girl that was keen on protecting people even if she didn't much care for talking to them.
Seeing this fear, must be in likeness to what the transfer must have really gone through, the fear and vulnerability that plagued her fragile form would have been palpable. This was why she had known that there was another fear; she'd probably been having nightmares about it, or perhaps wasn't even sleeping at all.
She ran to where the knives and guns would have been but the space was empty of anything sharp or painful, making her breath hitch in her throat, as if she could choke on it.
"Keep running, I like the chase," a voice rang out in the darkness to her. It sounded playful and eerie in the black space around them, for only the part where Reeve stood was illuminated, but it wasn't Peter's voice. He stepped into the light slowly, smirking as he always was whenever Reeve appeared out of breath or surprised.
"Eric," she seethed getting ready to fight him.
Over the past couple days they had been almost civil with each other, mostly because Eric was always busy with something and when he got back at the end of the day he would settle for staring at her before forcing her to take sleeping pills. Even though after the first night she agreed to take them by herself he still preferred the first method. Really the only improvement was that Reeve was staying in his room and he didn't try to ambush her every other second they were together, which was good on his part. It was weird, though nice in terms of what their relationship could be, but if Eric was in front of her right now she could only imagine what was going to come next.
"Reeve," he spoke her name breathlessly. His tone of voice made her shiver uncomfortably, in turn making him sneer at her as if he'd won something. He didn't say her name very often, even when he was first starting to bother her he'd never said it, only when he was angry had she heard it leave his lips. Livid, or when he had that deep wanting look in his eyes that she usually avoided.
Every step he took towards her made her take a step backwards, checking behind her to make sure there wasn't a wall Reeve almost jumped backwards when Eric appeared in front of her when she turned back towards him. She reacted swiftly, aiming to punch him in the shoulder and force him farther away from her, but he was faster than she thought and caught her wrist painfully. Forcing her body against his she tried to rip her arm out of his grip but he held fast and shoved her backwards until she felt a wall at her back.
Frantically she moved to escape, twisting her body as much as she could to get away from him but it was useless as he pinned her body against the wall with his own. Something that he had done to her before, but never had it scared her like it was now. He was turning into Peter, hurting her in order to get what he wanted, and twisting her arm until she stopped trying to break it free. This wasn't how he usually was, he'd never gone this far before.
"Let me-," she didn't get a chance to finish before his mouth was on hers. He was rough and slammed her wrist against the wall when she refused to open her mouth for him to invade. With her free hand Reeve moved to grab the flesh on his shoulder and twist, but she could find a hold on it before his other hand found her free wrist. It joined her other appendage on the wall as he bore down onto her more forcefully, biting her bottom lip in an attempt to get her to open her mouth.
From his vantage point Four could no longer see the little transfer, Eric had her completely pinned against the wall and was doing his best to break down all her barriers. He could barely see her arms straining against his weight as she tried to push against him, needing a way to escape. Yet he didn't hesitate to believe that Reeve knew how to get away, somehow over the past few weeks she had gotten the Dauntless leaders attention. Perhaps she was the only one in the faction that knew how to get under the man's skin and still escape unscathed, if anyone could get away from him it was her.
"I have a feeling you know how to beat him, you just have to remember that this isn't real," Four's voice brought her back.
She remembered the thought that she'd had that morning; even though she hadn't the thought to try it on the real Eric it wouldn't hurt to try it on this one.
Instead of pushing herself as far away from the man as she could Reeve leaned into the kiss and opened her mouth for him to explore, which he did so greedily. If he was surprised it didn't show on his face, as she looked to see what his expression might be, his eyes bore into her own before she closed them lazily. It almost looked like she was enjoying herself now, and she was rewarded when Eric's painful grip on her wrists lessened and fell away as his hands traveled down her body.
Reacting almost instantaneously Reeve bit down on his tongue in her mouth, she anticipated him pulling away with a swear before she grabbed the back of his head and forced it downwards into her knee. He tried to recover but she was ready for him and punched him in the throat when he moved against her. It was satisfying, to finally land one of her favorite hits on the man that had been bothering her so relentlessly lately. As soon as she moved away from the wall Reeve's eyes opened back into the room where Tris was looking at the screen to see what had happened.
"Do you know what you have to do in your first three fears now?" Four asked trying to shake off what he'd just seen.
"Yes," Reeve replied softly. "Well in order to be Dauntless anyway," she looked at them blandly.
"That's what he meant," Tris explained.
"I know, just messing with you," the red head smiled softly. Somehow Tris was grateful for the expression on Reeve's face, even though it felt like she was forcing it somehow it was nice to see.
Now she was curious though, after being able to distract fake Eric so easily, all she had to do was kiss him back and he let his guard down, would he actually do that in reality as well? There was only one way to find out.
They trained through lunch and talked about the origin of a few of their fears before Four decided it was enough for the day and that Reeve and Tris should probably put some food in their stomachs. Finding them back at the table for dinner that they had been sitting at not six hours earlier, Will was already sitting down with food on his plate.
"How was training?" He questioned trying to find something to talk about.
"Mentally challenging," Reeve said with a small grin on her face. He offered her an exasperated expression before realizing that it was one of the few times that the red headed transfer offered her friends a joke.
Christina joined them shortly thereafter and they settled into mild chatter that Reeve only half paid attention to, her mind was henceforth occupied by her own musings. Eventually her thoughts found her back in front of Eric's door at the end of the night; if he was already in there then he would be angry that she had left.
What she was planning on trying with the Dauntless leader made her nervous, not because she was fearful of what she had seen in her last and final fear. Mostly it was because she was afraid that halfway through she would lose her nerve and try to run away when she was already in too deep. There was something that offered her a bit of reassurance. Thus far, Eric had done little to nothing that actually harmed her, besides the fact that he liked to bite on her neck every once in a while. He had never smashed her head into the wall or punched her in the throat like she had done during the stimulation. Which made it all the harder to imagine what would happen if her little experiment went awry, how would he deal with her after she tried to escape from him?
Her hand stalled just above the door knob before she could feel someone behind her, stuck inside her thoughts she hadn't noticed him walking up behind her. She knew who it was immediately, almost completely because she was standing right in front of his door, but also for the fact that she recognized the air about him. Somehow whenever he was near everything seemed to quiet down in the area around them, and yet light the small space around him on fire with a burning need to escape or fight back.
"Go inside," he breathed onto her ear. It made her shiver in front of him as she repressed the urge to let a blush envelop her cheeks heatedly; she could imagine the smirk that would find itself onto his lips if she did.
When she did nothing he reached around her slowly and pushed the door open before urging her body to move forward with his own, making sure Reeve could feel his chest against her back. This man that she always was keen to avoid had saved her when she was stolen away; he offered her a place to stay. Though he made her stay the first night by force, he teased her and bothered her to his heart's content at her expense, and didn't bother to ask her permission before he did anything. Sometimes he forced her to do something and bit at her skin lightly if she refused, if only to watch her fall apart in his hands.
He was using her for his own enjoyment, she was sure of it, probably when he had done everything he wanted to and tired of her company he would get rid of her and never look her way again. The thought made her slightly relieved and somewhat angry at the same time, she wasn't some toy that could be used and thrown away. Toys couldn't fight back, they couldn't plan to rebel or run away like she had earlier that day.
On one hand Reeve could care less that eventually Eric would tire of her, it meant that sooner or later she would be back to minding her own business and getting to work in the med bay with Mal. At that point she wouldn't have to worry about Eric anymore and no one else would bother her again, as long as she had a say in it. On the other hand she was angry that she would be so easy to throw away, and for the man to think that he could do whatever he wanted with her and not have repercussions for his actions. If anything she owed him this little bit of payback, to surprise him like she had in her stimulation, and then leave him to wonder what in the world had happened to that little Erudite transfer she had once been.
Perhaps it was time for Reeve to make Eric regret ever taking an interest in her in the first place. She'd make him wish that he'd left her alone.
Taking slow steps into the room she mustered up her resolve, thinking about it was one thing, letting the fire and determination burn in her eyes was easy. Acting upon her raging thoughts and going up against the man behind her was a different story, but at least now she was half way there.
"Are your ears clogged?" He muttered blandly closing the door behind him.
"Obviously not," she said blandly trying to figure out how to get him.
"So you heard me when I told you not to leave?" He seethed making Reeve want to grin at him; he was acting so childlike it reminded the transfer of how her younger brothers acted at home. She hummed nonchalantly towards him, making the man's anger peak as he imagined throwing her onto the bed and letting his hands travel underneath the large sweater she wore.
He'd gotten back just before dinner to see that she was gone, of course, somehow not even a small part of him expected her to still be in his room when he returned. It shouldn't have bothered him as much as it did, but after dealing with Erudite all day he'd wanted to watch Reeve struggle as he elicited another unseen emotion from her stiff face. The fact that she wasn't there meant he had to look for her, because there was a slim chance that she was going to come back by herself.
Yet she had been in front of his door, which had to be some sort of improvement, though he couldn't see why she would even want to come back. It made him suspicious; he'd expected to have to drag her back to his room, to sling her over his shoulder with her beating at his back. Then when he had her back he'd reclaim her neck as his own and slip his hands underneath the bulky fabric of his sweater. His mind wandered slightly at the simple sight of Reeve in his clothing, the sleeves hung from her arms and consumed her torso. Unless she had another shirt from someone Eric would be happy to run his hands up her bare sides and watch her curse at him her face blazing from embarrassment and anger.
Still he was suspicious as to why she had come back, perhaps she had something planned that would catch him off guard, a petty thing that would do nothing to him, he was sure of it. Somehow he was anticipating whatever was going to come next, whatever reason why Reeve had willingly returned to him had to be good enough to occupy his thoughts at least for today. So as long as she was keeping up menial chatter and taunting him with her slender legs he would play along and let it happen.
Is what he had said before, but nothing had prepared him for what Reeve sprung upon him.
They had been arguing about something in a book she had been reading, one that Eric had gone through many times before and always thought that something was left unanswered. Reeve seemed to think that she knew exactly what she was talking about in relation to the answer that Eric had always been keen to ignore. He noticed the way her eyes lit up in excitement at the vigor between them, getting so heated up about such a little thing.
"He's right," Eric said forgetting the humor in everything and getting irritated with her persistence. "It would be folly of him to assume otherwise," he sneered turning away from the infuriating red head who threw out very good arguments. All previous musings of being suspicious and curious about what Reeve was planning had been tossed out the window, he'd never fully realized it before but this girl was infuriating to deal with. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten so heated about something so worthless. "Even if he did-," he continued turning back to look at her.
He'd expected her to still be on the other side of the room, but she was right in front of him, how he had missed that was a mystery, and he had no time to react to her sudden relocation. The sleeves of his sweater covered her hands as she placed them on either side of his face while lowering her lips onto his own. His eyes looked up at hers in complete surprise, she was kissing him! She had willingly placed her lips on his, and yet he was still too baffled to react and settled for glaring at her darkly instead, it was his base emotion.
"He was wrong," she whispered softly before brushing her lips against his. She even went as far as letting her fingertips poke out from inside of the bulky sleeves in order to trail down the tattoos on his neck. In all the time he had been in Dauntless Eric couldn't pick another time like this where he had been unable to even react to what had happened. Reeve shied away from all his torment and even blushed in embarrassment when something was too uncomfortable for her, and yet here she was. She was teasing him with her own lips, almost mocking his inability to say anything against her.
Finally he moved to tangle his hand in her hair but she had already pulled away and was walking towards the bathroom on the far side of the area. It was all so very confusing to him and to be quite honest Eric didn't know what to do against her; he wanted to pull her back against himself, for her to straddle his lap. He wanted to feel her hands on his back and revel at the warmth of her skin in his mouth or the sounds she would make in the wake of his actions.
All he could manage was to stand up from his chair and stare after her form as she walked towards the shower, with an almost nervous look on her face.
"I like that expression," she muttered trying to sound nonchalant. "You should wear it more often," she said before closing the door to the bathroom.
As soon as the she was closed off from him Reeve breathed deeply and slid back against the door, relieved that her little experiment was finally over and done with. For the first time in her life she had purposely given someone a kiss, and it was a man she claimed to hate even! It was the first time she had put herself out in the open. Really, anything could have happened, Eric could have reacted differently and pinned her to the bed, taking her kiss as an invitation, but he'd been too shocked. She'd had to repress the urge to laugh at his flabbergasted face as she pulled away from his lips, he looked so confused.
Slowly she peeled off the sweater and threw it to the other side of the small space, next to the toilet, before glancing at herself in the mirror. She couldn't remember the last time her eyes had been free of the bags that always hung beneath them, but they had disappeared in the course of the past few days. Probably because Eric had been forcing her to go to sleep, much to her dismay, he always made sure to trap her under the covers so if she did wake up there would be no way to escape him.
She hated it. The feeling of being weak in comparison to someone who was always such a bother to her, to be less in the eyes of a man who cared nothing for her feelings and sought only to make her flustered. Did he think her so vulnerable that he couldn't even leave her alone when she wanted to sleep? Or was it the simple fact that if she was trapped beneath him it made it easier for him to roll over and attack her? She decided it was the latter.
The only thing keeping her from cursing herself for what she had just done was the feeling of power that burned inside, she had made him unable to respond, clogged his mind and movements. All of that with a simple kiss; she could only guess what more she could do if only she wasn't too embarrassed to try. A small part of her urged her legs to run away because eventually Eric would right himself and she would have nowhere to run. Another part of her welcomed the Dauntless leader, almost challenging him to make a move so she could respond in kind.
It was an invigorating feeling, to finally have a small bit of power over the man whom she guessed had scarce times been refused what he wanted. For the first time in a long time Reeve was excited for what was to come next, and though it was a little scary to now know the outcome she welcomed it all the same. After all, if Eric was going to get rid of her eventually anyway, nothing said she couldn't have a little fun before leaving.
Eric was gone when she got out of the shower, she didn't spare much thought to it and instead changed back into the tank top and shorts, figuring she could read in bed until the man returned. She lasted for quite a while actually, changing between different positions until she found one that was perfect. She lasted for about twenty minutes in that place, lying on her side, one hand holding the book open, but before long she was out. Her mind had been clouded with thoughts of what the Dauntless leader would do next until finally closing in on itself and giving up to the sleep her body craved.
The light was still on, Eric could see it seeping into the dark hallway from beneath the door, which meant that more than likely Reeve was still awake, which was good because Eric had something for her. In the form of a dominating kiss, in order to show her that he was not going to be pushed around by some red headed transfer, in other words she would never surprise him again.
As soon as the door was open he glanced around the room determined to catch her gaze with his own burning glare, only to see that she was already in bed. She had her back to him and he could see clearly the lines of her tree ring tattoo on her upper back, though some of it was covered by a tank top that he couldn't remember giving to her. She must have gotten from someone on her little escapade earlier that day. Walking around to the other side of the bed Eric couldn't help but bite his cheeks to stop himself screaming at her to wake up.
It was what she deserved after leaving him hanging earlier, she'd teased him with the softest kiss and gentlest of touches before running away. He should flip her off the bed and pin her against the floor, and yet he couldn't get past the way she had been ever so gentle with him, and the way she looked right now. It was rare to see such a calm expression on her face, if she were awake and offering much of the same he would chastise her for being weak enough to let it show. To see it while she was asleep felt like he had finally found something he had been searching for, an answer to a long forgotten question.
All he wanted to do was constrict her movement, to pull her against himself and make sure that she would have no chance to escape if she woke up before him. When he did wake up she would still there for him to mess with, to punish for what she thought had been a victory. It would be so easy and so satisfying that he couldn't pass it up and the day had been long enough to exhaust his other options. If anything he was reasoning with himself, more work or less work, obviously the latter of the two choices won over. The morning would be great; she wouldn't be able to get out of this one like she had earlier. Her body fit so well against his own Eric had to restrain himself from latching onto her neck so quickly, certainly he could last until morning.
It wasn't that he was letting her get away with it, Eric chided himself, he was just too tired to deal with it tonight.
Reeve shouldn't have been surprised, she shouldn't, not after what she had done to Eric the day before, but still the shock rose in her throat as she tried to shy away from the man next to her. Usually he slept on top of the covers, but that morning she had woken up next to a raging heat that was too warm. Naturally she moved to get away from it, when she found that she could not her eyes opened lazily before snapping open completely. In front of her was a halfclothed figure, beneath the covers with her, she didn't have guess twice to know who it was.
Somehow a sleeping Eric was a lot scarier than one that was awake, they were so close she could feel the softness of his breath as continued to sleep through her realization. If Reeve thought that she hated the man before it was nothing compared to the vile words that rose within her at the moment. Perhaps she had been asking for it with what had happened the day before, but if she knew that this would be the outcome she might've done without it. Yet she couldn't help but grin at the memory of his expression after she had left him alone.
Regardless, she did her best to turn away from his form and slink towards the end of the bed before an arm pulled her back against his chest. The heat of his body seeped through the thin fabric of his shirt and hers, setting her skin on fire and lighting up her face as she froze in place trying to figure out what to do next.
His tongue found her neck almost immediately, she could feel him smirk against her flesh when she shivered and squirmed uncomfortably in his grasp.
"What a nice expression," she wanted to growl at her words being used by him. "You should wear it more often."
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AN: Soon we'll be entering the time realm of Insurgent, and that'll be fun.
Alas, what did you think of this chapter? Reeve is finally starting to fight back. Do you think she'll tease him further?
Thanks for reading.