So, after this there's only one more chapter and an epilogue. Hold on, things are going to speed up.
Camilla was coming to know that Darcy did not do boredom with any sort of poise and grace. The young woman was tearing about the living room after having drunk too much coffee, her dark hair swirling as she tried to engage Dr. Banner in a pillow fight. Camilla wasn't sure why Coulson was so jittery at the thought or why Jane was forcefully trying to pull Darcy away and quiet the girl. She watched with detached interest as Jane whispered furiously with Darcy, who only rolled her eyes and swatted ever more playfully at the shy doctor. Across the room, Camilla could see Natasha standing in half a battle stance that contrasted with the flickering laughter in her eyes.
When Darcy had, had enough of her fun, she sat tiredly next to Loki, who wrapped a long limb around her waist and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He relaxed on the couch, piercing eyes taking in the details of the room and keeping an eye on the windows. Camilla watched him watching everything else, wanting to get inside his head and see what he was seeing. He was keenly perceptive, she found, and fiercely protective of Darcy. In return, Darcy refused to let Loki fade into the shadows in which he had become accustomed. She made him walk with her among their peers as an equal and with his head held high, made him recognize that he was just as important to her as she was to him. Camilla felt herself mentally agreeing with Darcy's strategy, confident that the girl would be well taken care of when Camilla needed to leave.
As had become the unspoken routine of the night in the building, they gathered around the television and watched a couple of movies that happened to be playing on cable. The wee hours of the night brought Camilla back to drowsing in the armchair, though she was proud of herself for being able to stay up to three am this time around. She had barely dropped off to sleep when she heard someone shout her name.
The room was dark, far too dark to be a natural phenomenon as even the usual blinking lights of the electronics had faded out. Camilla tried to shift in the chair, but found that she had nothing with which to gain leverage as she was surrounded by empty air. Eyes adjusting, Camilla realized that her body was suspended several feet above the coffee table, seemingly balanced by one arm that hung above her head. She tried not to panic, forcing her breathing to keep calm and even, but she began to see as the lights slowly returned several anxious faces all looking up at her. The grip around her wrist was tight, but not hurting, which she considered a plus. All in all, this was a pretty good start to a haunting in the night.
Twisting ever so gently, Camilla pointed her toes to try to reach some kind of stabilization on the table sitting tantalizingly close to her feet. Her sneakers only caught empty air, a disheartening but not altogether critical matter. She worked her wrist a little in an attempt to loosen the grip of whatever was holding her up, noting how it gave a little but managed to adjust in an unnatural way. With a sigh, she looked down to Lucy's stern face and shrugged.
"This is unfortunate," Camilla said, forcibly relaxing her muscles to hang like some comical ragdoll.
Will stood and reached up to tug a little on one calf, "You're pretty stuck there, Camilla."
Kenny blew out a breath, "Ya think? How do we get her down?"
Lucy pursed her lips, "We could try to break the entity's grip. Or we could throw holy water at her."
"Sounds good to me," Miranda chirped, already taking the cap off her designated jug.
Camilla sighed and closed her eyes, preparing for the dousing she was about to receive. The water fell over her in heavy drop that soaked the front of her shirt and pants. Absently, she was grateful for the dark colors as it would prevent any jokes about fearful urination.
The sound that followed her holy water baptism was inhuman and decidedly angry-slash-pained. Camilla winced as the grip on her wrist twisted and her body weight was shifted to fling helplessly across the room into a large glass display of trophies and awards. The glass cut against her body, slicing her skin and leaving angry welts where it had scraped roughly. She braced herself against the fall, rolling to her hands and knees and calling up whatever power she had available to the forefront of her palms. Pounding sounded against the walls and scratching followed in wild patterns across the floors. She recognized the skittering claws and high pitched growls as gremlins sent from Astar as a demonic gift.
Gremlins were shape shifting creatures with a taste for flesh and bone, particularly the flesh and bones of humans. They were common on the demonic plane, but could be called to the human realm as minions for devils such as Astar. Camilla had always thought they were nasty little things that were, admittedly, a little stupid and a lot mischievous. They could create a disaster zone in mere seconds and were known to start riots in large groups of people with very little effort. Their main weapons were their massive (relative to the size of their hand) claws and gnarly set of teeth. Hunting in packs, they could take down and strip a large mammal in about two minutes. Astar liked to starve his gremlins before a fight and Camilla could bet serious money that there were enough in this room to do some major damage if they cornered one of the team.
"Circle up," she called. "Backs to the center. They're trying to divide and conquer."
Moving slow, Camilla slipped up beside Will who vibrated with the tension of the upcoming battle. He was angled into a defensive stance, his hands held loosely up in front of his body, wide shoulders hunched a little upwards towards his neck. Behind her, Miranda peered out from over her shoulder, craning her neck to see what was going on. Will pushed her back sharply with a grunt, holding her in place for several seconds to emphasize his point.
The room was silent for a few seconds, Camilla's ears having to strain for any signal as to how the gremlins were going to attack. They were probably watching the team with as much intensity and scrutiny as the team was watching the empty air. It seemed completely unfair that they could disappear completely at will, could sneak up on even the most unfair. Camilla had learned long ago, however, that the demonic very rarely called upon fairness in a fight.
She leaned back and whispered to Miranda, "Can you work a little magic? We won't be able to fend them off if we can't see them."
Miranda nodded curtly, pushing her hands through the wall of bodies comprising the circle of fighters and murmuring a spell Camilla couldn't understand. What Camilla could understand was the power emanating from Miranda's hands, pulsing between the Guardians in the room to pick up the latent power from their tattoos and scrambling outwards towards the walls. It moved in slinky flows up from the floor and over the ceiling, nearly dripping with the faint golden glow of magic. Camilla watched as it shifted over the air until there seemed to be a fog of magic all around, painting the atmosphere in twinkling gold.
It only took a moment, but eventually Camilla caught sight of a small body moving by the coffee table, shaking like some malformed dog in an effort to shed the magic. She smiled and nudged Will, whose mouth twisted into a sneer even as his hands flexed to pulse a bit more magic at the target. The little thing stumbled backwards and appeared to sneeze, gold flecks bursting from somewhere in the vicinity of its mouth. Camilla shook her head to still the laugh that wanted to bubble up from her throat, knowing that now was not the time to lose her focus.
The little burst of magic from Will's hands seemed to spur the others on and more movement of gold shifted around them, above them, moving steadily towards them in a pack. From the wall, Tony's suit shot forward and he was suddenly engulfed in mechanically advanced armor. She glanced to her left and caught sight of Thor readying his hammer in her periphery, his body blocking an ever curious Jane from sight. To her right, Will's body dipped lower in preparation for the oncoming battle, a fierce expression floating over his face.
She wasn't sure how it started, wasn't sure who actually started firing first, but soon she was being dragged and tripped and rolled by golden ephemeral beings that tore at her skin without mercy. Camilla took out a few with her internal power, resorting to elbowing one in the eye in order to keep it from taking off her ear. There was no telling how many of the gremlins were presently trying to take the group apart, literally limb from limb, but Camilla guessed that this would have been a small pack, no more than fifteen. Larger packs of gremlins were very nearly unmanageable and hard to control, even for a powerful demon such as Astar. Across the room, she could see the Captain using his shield for the first time, knocking glittering forms from his body and bouncing them to the floor to be pulverized by his fist. The concentration on his face only served to magnify his unnaturally good looks, giving him the air of a fierce warrior.
The whistle of an arrow rang out and Camilla ducked (unnecessarily, of course) when a gremlin was shot down from mid-air as it prepared to launch onto her back. She nodded silently to Clint, whose smile was bright against the golden fogginess of the room. His sandy hair was caked with the shining material, the leather of his uniform receiving a similar smattering of magic. Camilla was struck, suddenly, by how heroic he looked simply standing across the room, narrowed eyes looking for his target with practiced ease.
The fight lasted only about five minutes, but in that time, the group of participants did a hell of a lot of damage, even though some of it was actually caused by the gremlins. Below them, the floor was littered with the newly visible bodies of dead gremlins, the tile cracked under the weight of several of their most powerful death blows. Above them, the ceiling was spattered with gold-flecked blood and some other kinds of bodily fluids she wasn't quite capable of identifying. The coffee table was shattered, along with the trophy case Camilla had been thrown into earlier. It seemed that the only thing that had survived the destruction was the bar, of which Tony was now availing himself quite happily.
"Jarvis, I want this suit cleaned and waxed," he said as he poured a dark liquor into a wide rimmed glass. "I don't want to look like Edward Cullen when I go out next to save the world."
Darcy chuckled as she stood from the floor, "I'm not even going to speculate on how you know about Twilight."
Tony smirked, "You really shouldn't. It's exactly the opposite of what you're thinking."
Coulson grabbed a towel from the bar and wiped a dark smear of blood from his face, "I'm glad we can all make jokes at a time like this."
"Is there any other time?" Tony shot back, the dark liquor swirling as he gestured with one hand.
Camilla rolled her eyes and turned to the other Guardians, counting them off in her head as she assured herself of their safety. They all looked a little beaten, but standing tall and proud, a fact that filled Camilla with a pride all her own. Finally, she pivoted a little on the balls of her feet to look for Clint, wincing when a pain shot down the length of her leg and then back upwards to skitter along her spine. Confused, she leaned down and pressed her hand to the pain, pulling the digits back to reveal a dark mass of blood.
Feeling along the length of that pain, Camilla found a piece of glass tucked neatly into her thigh. Small, but sharp, it had pierced her without her knowledge and had sliced a gash into her leg that was now bleeding freely from the physicality of the previous few minutes. With a sigh, Camilla waved to Dr. Banner, who looked for all the world relieved to have something to do that didn't involve fighting. He hurried over, guided by her vehement pointing to the location of the wound. Peeling the edge of the fabric back, Dr. Banner grimaced a bit and looked up at her with these eye that were so clear and honest.
"You're going to need stitches." He turned and addressed Coulson, "I need a med kit."
Coulson's eyes flicked over to her before dropping to her bleeding leg, "Can you do it here?"
Banner nodded, "But it needs to be done easy. If she moves too much, the glass could rupture her femoral artery. It's at a safe distance now, but I don't want to take chances."
The knowledge of the doctor's statement sent an undeniable stillness to Camilla's limbs, tightening them until they ached almost as much as her leg. The adrenaline of the moment was wearing thin and the pain was increasing in a harrowing crescendo. Camilla eased backwards a little until she could sit down on the half broken sofa, her leg propped out in front of her. Dr. Banner went with her, motioning for hastiness on the part of Coulson, who was ordering a med kit from the AI.
"It must have happened when I hit the case over there," Camilla said, as if the explanation would do anything for her prognosis. Dr. Banner acknowledged her words, but didn't speak, his eyes far too focused on the wound. He didn't prod the skin, merely pulled at the fabric from different angles until he was satisfied that he had seen all there was to see from the outside.
Coulson arrived with the med kit, his hands already opening the small box and laying out the plastic wrapped tools. Banner dabbed at the ragged opening with gauze before reaching to grab a pair of blunted scissors so that he could cut a large hole in her pants. View unobstructed, Dr. Banner's hands were working carefully to ease the glass from her skin as she hissed and squirmed. Hands settled onto her shoulders, surprising her. She looked up, catching Clint's gaze as they left her face to examine the happenings surrounding her bleeding leg.
"Just a scratch," she said, trying to sound reassuring.
Dr. Banner laughed, "A scratch that I think will need twenty or thirty stitches just to close the thing up."
"I've had worse," Camilla countered, recalling a particularly nasty wound from a banshee three years earlier. The raised scar across her lower back was a reminder to protect her spine at all times. She leaned back into the cushions and watched the good doctor work, Coulson still kneeling next to him and handing over medical instruments with methodical correctness. Dr. Banner threaded the needle and then, poised above the wound, gave her one last look to ensure that she was ready for the bite of steel.
Camilla had been stitched up before, had been laid out on the medical table many times in her career, but she never quite got used to the way the thread moved through her skin. It tugged and pulled in strange directions, skimming along her nerves as it went about the business of sealing the cut. The pain was minimal in comparison to the original wound, a sharp lancing heat that seared and faded with quick, sure strokes of the needle. The doctor tied off the thread and applied an ointment and bandage, patting her ankle when he was done.
"You'll need to change the bandage tomorrow morning. I'll remove the stitches in two weeks."
Camilla nodded and eased to standing, testing out her weight on the injured leg with ginger movements. It held surprisingly well despite the increasing pain, not even trembling as she shifted more and more of her body over onto it. She nodded to the doctor in thanks, edging around the broken couch to check on the rest of her team. Lucy was berating Kenny and Miranda was using a nearly clean towel to wipe the golden flecks from her skin. Will looked positively giddy with contentment at the outcome of the fight and the subsequent use of his skills. Everything, it seemed, was as it should be in the world of the Guardians.
The bodies of dead gremlins littered the floor, some still bleeding across the tile. Jane was picking at one in fascination; her crystalline eyes alight with scientific curiosity. Darcy stood over her friend, nearly retching with the smell of the quickly decaying bodies.
"This is a sick, sad thing I'm seeing," Darcy quipped with a curled lip.
Camilla shrugged, "Pretty run of the mill for me."
Darcy shot her a sardonic look, "I bet your manicurist is the crypt keeper."
"Easter bunny, actually," Camilla retorted with a smile. "Fabulous color selection."
Darcy laughed even as her attention was diverted by Jane excited squeal of comprehension, the woman pulling Darcy by the sleeve to show her some discovery she'd made about the gremlins. Camilla didn't really understand Jane's interest, but wouldn't begrudge her the opportunity to pick at the body of something so wholly unfamiliar. She guessed that it was a rare thing for Jane to find something she'd never seen before, and this was a prime example of being confronted with alien life forms.
Knowing that there wouldn't be much more conversation with Darcy, Camilla moseyed on over to the bar and slid onto one of the bar stools. Tony was still in his suit, leaning against the counter with half a glass of—she sniffed—bourbon in his hand. His dark eyes flicked to her for a moment before he levered his body from the counter and reached over to pour her a glass of the same liquor. Camilla had to hand it to the man, he knew his way around engineering. The hands of the robotic suit moved with as much dexterity as and human limb, working with the delicate crystal carefully and precisely.
Camilla thanked him for the drink as he slid it across the table, receiving a curt nod in return. Tony eyed her as she sipped, the open helmet of his mask glinting in the overhead recessed lights.
"I don't suppose your agency will pay to clean all this up," Tony said, his casual tone belying his disappointment at the mess.
Camilla bit at her lip and sighed, "They probably will, if I can ever get a hold of them. I've left messages, called, texted, sent picture messages and haven't gotten a single response." She nodded to the Guardians across the room, "They haven't heard anything either."
Tony threw back the rest of his drink and refilled his glass, bouncing a little on his feet as he worked. "At least you don't have your so-called superiors dissembling your work at every turn."
"Your work could potentially take down the whole city block," Coulson interjected as he, too, sat on one of the stools.
Tony scoffed, "I put in a fail safe."
Coulson's response was to raise a brow and loosen his tie, unbuttoning the first button of his shirt as he leaned both elbows against the counter. "Gin and tonic, if you please."
Though Tony looked peeved by the order, but he poured the drink, anyways, shoving at Coulson with barely a second look. Instead, he regarded Camilla, taking in her snarled hair and the cuts on her face that formed bites from small, sharp teeth.
"You look like hell," he commented, refilling her half empty glass.
Camilla smirked, "Well, thank you, Tony. I feel so much better about myself now that I have your keen observation."
"I'm just making conversation," he replied, lighted hands rising to be level with his shoulders.
"Well, you need practice," she said. "Maybe you could take a class or something."
From beside her, Coulson snorted, probably inferring how difficult it would be to teach Tony anything he didn't particularly want to know. Camilla could see a teenage Tony schooling his teachers in every class, burning them with sarcasm-laden witticisms and lacerating comebacks. She guessed that he was sitting across from the principle many times in his young life. As a woman who usually made every effort to follow the rules, it was an interesting change to see how often Tony simply did away with instruction and plans of correction by his superiors.
An hour or so was spent cleaning up the bodies, which were piled on the balcony and summarily set ablaze to prevent any further contamination of the house. The broken furniture and glass was swept to one side of the room to be dealt with in the morning. By the time they all piled into the pillow pit once again, the sunrise was only an hour or so away. Darcy, of course, took control of the one undamaged piece of electronics in the room, the television that had been safely tucked away into the ceiling. Camilla's leg ached, but she managed to find a comfortable spot that didn't put too much pressure on the wound.
When the sun finally began to rise, the group eased up from the pillows in a tellingly quiet manner that displayed plainly how tired they were despite the brevity of the fight. Camilla trudged towards her room, limping a little at the stiffness in her leg. She made it all the way to her door before she realized that she'd been followed. Clint prowled behind her at a far enough distance that it took him a moment to catch up to her stalled body. He ran a hand down the length of her back and reached forward to open her door, pushing her gently through it. While she worked her shoes and socks from her feet, Clint disarmed his body, lining up his weapons one by one on her dresser except for the pistol he pulled from a holster on his thigh which he laid on the nightstand.
Kneeling down, Clint grasped her thigh and peeled back the bandage to examine her stitches, his eyes lifting to her face. "Does it hurt?"
"A little," Camilla said, knowing it would hurt much more in the morning. "Like I said, had worse."
He replaced the bandage, "You fought on this."
"Yeah," she replied with a slight smile, "I actually hadn't noticed until after we got done."
"Camilla," he drawled in clear frustration. "You have to start taking better care of yourself."
"But, I got it stitched," she replied in an almost whining tone. "Look, taken care of."
Clint raised a brow as he stood, "That's not what I mean. You run into fights without thinking, you get injured without even noticing. One of these days you're going to die and not know it until you're at your funeral."
Camilla huffed, "Don't you think you're being a little melodramatic?"
The glare Clint sent her way was withering and pointed. His hands clenched a little, shoulders tensing with growing frustration at her willful argument. Camilla sighed and dropped her head to her chest, contemplating her twisted fingers sitting just above her fresh wound. It couldn't be helped that she was so often thrown into unpredictable and dangerous situations in which she had little to no control. Some of it was the nature of her job and some of it was simple bad luck. No matter how much effort Camilla may put into a strategy to stay away from evil, it would always follow her, attracted by the power of a Guardian.
Raising her eyes to Clint's face, Camilla tilted her head to the side and observed him in intense detail. From the tips of his disheveled hair to the scuffed leather of his boots, he was emitting this aura of concern and incredulous exasperation. It took her almost half a minute to understand why he was so adamant that she was putting herself in unnecessary harmful circumstances. The realization that his frustration was borne out of concern and that concern stemmed from the fact that he might actually care about her. That thought, alone, was far more dangerous than any demon on the demonic plane. It was a curious, intriguing, and fascinating idea that the niggling emotions she had been trying to keep at bay for the last week or so may have the possibility of being returned.
Camilla spent the remaining thirty seconds of the minute collecting her suddenly nervous and shaking body and concealing the smile that threatened to blossom on her lips. She knew that her efforts were mostly ineffective by the dropping of Clint's brows over his narrowed and confused eyes. Carefully, Camilla stood and approached him, reaching up to pull him into a tight embrace. She held him for long seconds, waiting for his body to relax around her before leaning back and kissing him gently. Keeping the touch light, Camilla soothed the stress from Clint, using all the skills she had (which, admittedly, didn't amount to much) to guide him away from the negative feelings he was experiencing.
Slipping her tongue from between her lips to trace along the seam of his mouth, Camilla explored the wet warmth of him with small, restrained strokes. The teasing lilt of her kiss lured him out from whatever wall he may have been erecting between them in an effort to distance himself from his emotions. Now that she was aware of how he felt about her, unspoken or not, there was no way Camilla was going to allow him to back down from it. She was going to revel unrepentantly in this affection, no matter what form in which it chose to manifest itself. Kisses, hugs, touches, and gazes were all on the table to be hoarded for lonelier future nights. Memories were to be memorized and stored in the vault of her mind to be recalled when the high of his affection faded. It would be the only way she could survive finally leaving Clint when Astar was finally defeated, it would be the only way she could let go.
Bit by bit, Camilla led Clint back towards the bed, easing him down with her own body so that they were sitting side by side, the kiss unbroken. She then slowed the momentum to a near standstill, giving him the barest access to her mouth and body. Still so new to this kind of experience, Camilla could not move forward on her own and was working with the barest notion of what to do. Clint would have to take the lead, guide her to what was needed between them. Without his confidence to stand upon, she could not bring herself to move even the slightest bit towards him as she desperately wanted.
He looked at her with glazed, half hooded eyes, his face slack with lazy desire. Half a heartbeat later Clint was lunging at her, taking her down to the mattress and kissing her with wild abandon. He grasped her hips, hauling her further up on the covers before crawling over her and dropping his weight to press heavily against her body. Camilla groaned softly, her spine involuntarily arched against him to get more friction. The kiss rolled through her, stretching the limits of her skin until her toes curled against the fabric of her comforter. Even the ache in her leg faded in comparison to the rising desire pulsing from the very heart beating in her chest.
Clint released her briefly, peeling the layers of clothing from her skin with confident, cautious hands. He took a little extra time with her pants, his fingers touching the bruising and blushing stitches along her thigh. Camilla touched his arm to bring him back towards her, reaching downwards to strip him of his shirt. Tossing the cloth aside, Camilla took no time in working on the fly of his cargos, running the material off his hips. Clint wriggled comically for a moment, finally freeing himself of the garment with one final shove.
Camilla bit her lip as she observed him, lifting to her elbows in order to get a better look. She had noticed before that Clint was remarkably athletic—needed to be physically fit in order to survive the dangers of his daily routine. It had not, however, occurred to her that such physicality would manifest itself in so complete a picture of masculinity. Compact muscle wrapped around each limb, the skin covered in fine smatterings of hair that thickened as it dipped towards his groin. His erection strained hopefully towards her, a sight Camilla was curious to explore.
Her hands were the first to initiate contact, sliding down the length of him with movements that were more bravado than actual poise. Clint's breath hiccupped in his lungs as he adjusted his stance on his knees, spreading them slightly to gain more leverage. He let her touch him for a long time, eyes alternating between her face and hands. Then, just when she'd gotten the hang of the motion, he gently pushed her back and downwards.
Camilla whined softly, "I wasn't finished."
His answering murmur vibrated against her breasts, sending thrilling little shivers over her nerves. "I know, but there will be time for that later. I want to do this right the first time."
She raised a brow, "And here I thought I was the virgin."
"You know," he replied as he touched along the meridian of her body, fingers gliding sensuously along her skin. "I was going to go easy on you. You know, for the sake of your virtue. But, I think now I'm going to wrench every bit of feeling from your body." He leaned down so that his mouth was just barely brushing her ear, "I'm going to fuck you into this mattress until you scream."
Stunned and blushing, Camilla forced herself to look him in the eyes, "Challenge accepted."
Clint smirked for a moment as the light in his eyes darkened so dangerously that Camilla almost backpedalled into safer territory. She wasn't given the chance as Clint was already dropping open mouthed kisses all along her collarbone. He rubbed his lips over her skin, the blunt ends of his nails digging into her hips where he grasped them. Camilla undulated beneath him, pressing as close as she could to increase the sensation. He was at the same time sweet and fierce, his kisses followed by sharp bites only to be soothed with his tongue.
One hand dipping down, Clint ran the pad of a fingertip over her folds, spreading the moisture over the digit before slipping it inside. It was followed by the middle finger, the pair curling forward to press against the front wall and nudge the bud of nerves. She hissed, bending forward with the feeling, her knees lifting to accommodate more of it. He added a third finger, the feeling of stretching in her body veering towards pain. She twisted a little, trying to ease the ache as Clint whispered hushing noises against her throat. He told her to allow the pain to pass, that he would make up for it very soon.
Switching tactics, Clint pulled from her until just his fingers brushed her curls, tapping gently against her sensitive nerves. He circled the little nub with his thumb, the pressure at first light and then growing heavy. True to his word, Clint eased the pain from her until any other sensation barely registered. Camilla arched and pulled and clenched to get more of it, more of what felt so deliciously good. Clint, however, was having none of it, moving back to working the sensitive skin at her opening. Over and over he moved back and forth between offering her dulled (and, by all accounts, necessary) pain and soaring pleasure. Soon, Camilla wasn't sure which way was up or down. The whole world was one pulsing nerve of feeling that left her boneless and panting.
Half delirious, Camilla watched as he leaned away and examined his work. Seemingly satisfied, he reached over the side of the bed and grabbed his cargos, reaching into the pocket for a condom. She watched him roll it on, head tilted to the side in keen interest. Swallowing back her anxiety, Camilla welcomed him back into her embrace, pulling him close enough that the chill of the room couldn't help to penetrate the heat flowing between their bodies.
Carefully, mindful of her injury, Clint eased her hips open and settled down between them. He kissed her heavily, positioning her so that her body tilted upwards, trembling with the tension of holding herself in place. The tip of his erection probed gently and Clint tightened his hold on her thigh as if in silent warning, finally pushing forward with determined purpose. Camilla hadn't been lying when she said she'd experimented with toys in order to explore her own evolving sexuality, but most of them had been slimmer than Clint. His girth strained her skin, forcing little whimpers from her mouth that she tried to hide in fear that it would end.
Clint moved in very slow thrusts, changing the angle several times before he cupped her jaw, looking at her in earnest, "Let me in, Camilla."
"I'm trying," she replied, using every technique she could think of to loosen the clenched muscles in her womb.
He tried again, sweat forming on his brow with the exertion. The ground gained was minimal and Camilla had to close her eyes to hide her frustrations. Finally, Clint reared back and hooked her uninjured leg over his shoulder, spreading her wide so that he could drop further into her. The motion seared her, filled her, rocked her as her mind worked to grasp how it felt for her to experience this for the first time.
"I'm in you," Clint murmured, stroking her hair softly. He kissed her temple and held the position a moment more before squeezing the skin just above her knee and pulling out only to thrust forward. The repeated strokes grew steadily more intense, as if he wasn't quite able to get deep enough.
The pain dulled somewhat, though she knew she was going to be sore afterwards. Camilla slowly relaxed her body, focusing on the sight of Clint moving above her, the flex of muscle and the brush of perspiration. He was such a sight, his expression determined despite his breathlessness. She pressed a kiss to his mouth, rolling her body upwards to meet him. The resulting sensation was new, but acutely pleasing in that it zinged from her core up her spine to lie heavily at the base of her neck. She did it again, moaning as the feeling intensified.
In the kiss, she could feel Clint's smirk, his hips picking up the pace and twisting in this elegant motion that hit some hidden part of her that responded excitedly. It sent a rampant message to her brain for more, the mind telling her body how to move for maximum effectiveness. Camilla felt the burn of exertion running through her body, coupled with the still present uncomfortable sensation of stressed skin and the rising tide of bliss. The strange mixtures of competing sensations riled her so completely that Camilla could only grip Clint's shoulders hard and bury her face into the bend of his neck. He slipped his hands beneath her shoulders and yanked her forward, lifting her as he rocked back onto his knees.
"Your leg," he said hoarsely, "Am I hurting it?"
Camilla shook her head, unable to speak.
"Good."
And then he was pushing up into her hard, far harder than she should have been able to take, but her body allowed it unflinchingly. In fact, Camilla's body seemed quite happy to be grinding down upon him at such a furious pace, if the rhythmic clenching at the very center of her sexual being had anything to say about it. Out of breath and nearly out of her mind, Camilla bit down on the skin of Clint's shoulder to stifle the cry as she came around him.
With a sound of disapproval, Clint pulled at the sweaty and knotted strands of her hair, "I want to hear it."
Her cry was weak from exhaustion, but present nonetheless, and Clint seemed satisfied with the meager offering. He wrapped his hands around her hips and gave a few quick, ever more forceful thrusts, arching her spine backwards in that final moment so that her shoulders nearly touched the bed. Seconds (or eons, she didn't really care) later, he lowered her back down to the bed and pulled from her, dropping the condom off into the wastebasket by the bed.
Camilla pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, trying to get them to refocus. She sighed deeply, feeling her heart still thudding in her chest, the adrenaline racing through her veins. Clint fell in beside her, one arm slung across her middle, pulling her to the curve of his body. Camilla went willingly, smiling to herself as they settled into a loose, but affectionate cuddle. As her body relaxed, the ache from their activity crept in, forcing her to shift and turn in order to remain comfortable. Clint's hand shifted with her, rubbing the muscles he could reach to ease some of the discomfort.
Humming gratefully, Camilla patted his stomach, eyes starting to droop despite her best efforts. She fell asleep thinking that she liked how Clint's scent seemed to be etched into her skin, reminding her every so often of their activities. Clint, it seemed, was perfectly fine with allowing her time to rest and recuperate, his palm still floating deftly along her skin.
I always think that my writing style doesn't lend itself to really steamy love scenes, but I'm pretty okay with this one. I hope to have the final chapter and epilogue up by the end of the week. Stay tuned!