Author's Note: Whew, okay. This one is steamy. Spicy, really. Because this is what we're here for!

Also, for some reason, I was struggling with this one. But when it picked up, it picked up, and here I am. Thanks to the Writing Gods who blessed me!

I appreciate you so much! I hope you enjoy!

It is always this with him, and she does not think she will ever understand why her body settles so quickly with his, no space between their chests and ribs. The brick of the wall digs roughly into her back, but it is nothing compared to the way his fingers dig into her thighs, wrapping them tighter around his middle.

There is nothing to breathe but the smoke on his tongue, as hard and hot and heavy as his undying kiss, the way he tells her all his secrets and the way she takes them right in.

He grabs her bottom and pulls her hips to his roughly and it floods her insides with that same delectable warmth. The same feeling he's given her on all the nights like these, the one that reminds her of just how empty she is without him, and the gasp he draws from his tongue sliding against hers drops into a whine. His desperation, molten petals that revive the moor where she chose to come back once more.

Because, in spite of her hand lifted to the sky as a means of protection, despite the need to protect herself from love again, it is this: even the way he sleeps is wounded.

There is a whole life she does not know. And this one had him cross her path, tend to her, give her peace of mind, when he had lost his. He gives her… a chance to ache for.

He tears her away to nothing, just the way she needs it. A blank page and blood as ink to start over. Rebuild. Cleanse. She wants to tell him, she yearns to pray for him to start over.

Start over with me. Start over in me.

Become with me. I see a light.

Do not let it die.

His lies slip off the tongue as easily as his lips pour truth to hers. It is always what he does not say.

Always what is not in his eyes. She swallowed his pain while he sucked down smoke, let him push her away, allowed herself to hate him for the very fact that he left and now it rips through her fingers, through his hair, through her teeth as they cut into his lip. He holds her closer, somehow.

Of course I know your pain. But of course you caused me mine.

Give yourself to me.

She curses as he shoves against her, her words fading out into his mouth. He bites at her, tastes her, sucks bruises down the line of her throat, shaped the way she imagines his broken heart.

She pulls his head back, closes her teeth over his set jaw. He stares at her lips and she stares at him not daring to look at her. His parted mouth, dark like wine and beautiful, how it fits so well on her skin. How the blood rusts in a river of a line down his neck. His chest expands with hers, deflates as she stitches the split seam between their bodies.

She grabs his faces in both of her palms and kisses him hard. The tears leave.

She despises how he left. How he tried to shatter what they have. How he lied. Lies.

She rolls down fully on him, drinks in his heated gasp. Drops to her feet and pulls his down, but he guides her to the window sill and pushes her.

"Go," he rasps, and she complies with a huff.

He is right behind her, and in a second, he fills his hands with her hips and slams her into the wall, licking into her mouth, his fingers wrapping around her bottom and the tips pressing into her inner thigh.

He has always been rough with an undeniable edge of sweetness. Like an animal at play, leaving scars with teeth he forgot were too sharp. But none of the sugar drips onto her tongue now. No fruit trickles down her chin and fingers. What is he now, other than relentless, cruel, bitter? She is forgetting.

She wrenches his hands off of her, teeth bared and sneering. "No!"

But he slams her back against the wall, and it saps her strength, his nose buried in her neck and inhaling deeply. His lips stretch over her skin and his palms melt around her hips. Something wicked, electric, liquifying courses through all the matter that creates her, and oh, X'hal, his mystical kiss, is that what bound her all that time ago? Is that all it takes to sear her soul and succumb? Is that how much she longs to be loved?

She squirms against him, or she forces herself to. She should not want it. She should not be moaning as his open mouth glides hotly over her too-sensitive neck, or gripping his arms so tightly. All he does is make her forget, over and over, what it is she is fighting against.

He licks a line up her throat before closing his teeth over her chin. Then her jaw. Her nose, her cheek, her ear, and then the messy press of his

lips to hers, hands gripping the backs of her thighs and wrapping her legs around his middle.

The rapid-fire beat of his heart melds with the stupefying tenderness of hers — how is it fair?

He sinks his poison back in her and again, she lets it be; how is it fair?

She has never been kissed this way. Darkly, headily, pleading for something she cannot place because the taste of whatever truth hangs on his tongue only calls for the physicality of her. And has it ever been fair?

He never hid the fact that he was hiding his whole life. Yet she let herself believe they were on an equal playing ground, expressing themselves equally, because when it comes to this, the give and take always remains in harmony.

They both have wounds. They both seek each other out, animals looking for shelter at night. They both seal the mess left behind. But she is the only one to pick at hers, to be surprised that he does not do the same. What can she do about it? Has she said enough? Is this all she can give him?

Is this all you need from me?

Is this all you ask?

Her shoulder blades are crushed against the wall, and he continues to deflate her lungs. He always steals from her, and she is always looking, always allowing. She saw the danger in him and leaped in head-first anyway. This is her doing. Her consequence. Her fault.

He drags his core over hers, unexpectedly, hauntingly, deplorably slow, and everything in her that feels trembles with it. She turns her face away and it only draws his closer, nipping at whatever he pleases.

He pulls back and takes her lower half with him, her shoulders still to the wall. He circles her hips roughly over his and she mewls before he leans over and drags his tongue down the space between her ribs, palm hot at her back.

She rips her fingers through his hair and pulls it back. He has not looked her in the eye, not since.

"Why did you lie?"

Even the way the words shape her mouth is awkward, out of place. The embarrassment shoots through her quickly and fully, his far-away stare so mean beside her eyes.

Why does everything you do make me feel thick with need?

He grunts, shakes his head, as if she were a fool to ask such a thing, and dives back into her neck, tongue somehow tasting her sweetly, like a sorry, but the shame still presses her, makes her close around him.

"What do you— need?" she cries low as he kills her and keeps her alive, awake, his lips swollen and swelling the skin of her neck, still—

"Stop."

His voice, deeper than she has ever heard it. More steady and chilling than she could ever imagine, rough and running roughly through her in a rush.

She wants anything but to stop.

It must be her moans in the air that he swallows. Another kiss that she cannot absorb the language from. She slides down onto her feet, but he never lets her go.

Is it possible to be this close with someone? She cannot be deluding herself with false sensations.

She wraps her arms tightly around his neck, purrs from the feel of his around her waist. He is making her forget again, dipping her head back as he kisses her breath away.

He wraps roses around her, pushes the thorns in, lets her bleed out as he keeps her in place.

Why is it that she craves the pain? He exhales harshly, like maybe he is finally letting something go.

Maybe he thought — maybe he thinks he must let her go.

"Do— ah," he moans as he squeezes her hips, "not."

He goes taut, though his fingers are still gripping her flesh tightly, nose brushing her temple. She shifts her neck and tries to capture his too still, too faraway eyes. She frowns.

"Do not let me go," she whispers.

Could it be that he is shaking? His face betrays nothing, but his heart pounds so hard that tremors seem to go through her.

Her throat is dry. "What is wrong?" she says quietly.

He leaves her so quickly that her head spins. The shock registers as fear and her back slams against the wall again. She clutches her chest and stares with wide eyes as he hunches over the window sill, his back and shoulders so taut and still like fine glass.

She is angry — angry that she has allowed this to happen to her again. To even feel this anger again. To have someone hurt her again.

And it tumbles inside of her. It smoothes over, a rock that's survived through centuries of metamorphosis and flows with nature. It becomes her. An actual limb that sticks through her. The reason why she keeps her arms up when she longs for them to break and fall down.

But right now, even though it had come minutes before, she chokes on it. She swallows it because it is tired and she wants to fight this in a way that makes sense for her.

Like him, she is ticking. When she explodes, what will come of it?

How much more is she willing to take?

One more time.

An empty promise.

Just once more.

She lies to herself more often than she would like to admit.

Try again.

Always once more.

He needs a friend.

So does she.

Let me take your pain away.

She steps closer.

I want to listen to you.

She should give it up.

Do not give up on me.

This is between him and X'hal.

X'hal, please ease his suffering.

She does not need to know what happened to him.

I want to know everything.

Walk away.

Prove me wrong, Jason.

He will not.

Do not let me believe this is the kind of love I am bound to forever.

Please.

Please.

Jason.

"Jason."

He pushes himself off and nearly staggers. He gestures to the open window, practically throwing his arm at it. "Go."

She steps back, arms crossing over her chest. Then she forces them down.

"Leave. I already told you," he says coldly. "Bye."

And yet, she dares to come even closer than before, only for him to walk past her with a grunt. "I already told you. What aren't you fucking getting? Leave!" but his voice cracks.

"No, Jas—"

"LEAVE!"

"I cannot."

"Weren't you about to? Weren't you about to? Kor—" he laughs bitterly, and his face crumbles, and she realizes that he was not quick enough to turn around and hide it this time. "I'm sick of this shit. Fucking forget it already. I don't get why you're still here."

She reaches for him, and somehow, he senses it — he pulls his shoulders forward and steps toward the firescape.

"I'm no good," and she catches the way his voice wavers for a split second, the way his body moves with it.

"I want to know why."

He snorts. "Do you now?"

"Why give me the incentive, then?"

He goes quiet.

"You know I am no fool." Her words feel like steam, breath coughing like puffs. "Do not treat me like I am now.

"Maybe you're not as smart as you think, doll," but there is not even an ounce of conviction.

She gives him the time to take it back, but she figures his silence is his regret. It does not make it sting any less. Oh, how familiar this feeling is. When did the ache in her heart begin to feel like home?

"I will admit to you, Jason. That I want to know. Whatever happened to you," her voice trails into a whisper. She clutches her throat and soothes it with her thumb. "Only so you do not have to be the only person to carry the burden. I want to do it. Because…"

What can she say to fill in the blank? Her blood pumps in her ears. That is his blood gushing down his face, his neck, branching into the pure white of his shirt, and when did he turn to face her? What is that shining in his eyes?

"Why?"

She gulps.

He steps closer. It almost seems menacing, threatening. But that must be him protecting himself. That must be how he keeps his arms up.

"Because?" and his voice comes rough.

"Because…"

How does she put it into words? Why is it lost on her now?

"'Cause you just wanna know? You wanna save me? Baby," she watches as the walls come back up, "you've been fuckin' kidding yourself…" He smiles fully with his bloodstained teeth, but it fades just as fast. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."

How she keeps herself from rolling her eyes, she does not know. She raises her brow instead, lips pulled taut. "I am not the one making things difficult here."

"You didn't have to come tonight. And you don't have to stay."

"If you truly want me to leave, then why—" but his hand is covering her mouth.

"Don't."

She nods, fighting the random urge to lick at him, bite him, anything to make it seem like this was just child's play. That this was just something more intense than usual, that he was putting on an act only for them to laugh about it after.

But how could she ridicule herself even more than she already has? She is fighting the part of her that believes him — that her actions are selfish. That she has no right to care this much.

What to feel? What to do?

"If you truly want me to leave… I shall."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes." She shifts, wrapping her arms around herself. "I—I promise."

He chuckles lightly. "That's what you make promises for?"

It seems silly — it is, but —

"I am promising myself…" she says under her breath as she walks to the window on the opposite side of his room.

"Don't come back. Don't come back again," he says, almost no strength behind his words, but it is unnecessary. It almost feels like a joke.

"If that is what you desire, then do not pull me back in."

"I won't. Don't worry." But it is not the truth. It is not the truth, and they both know it, yet she still fears that it is, especially with the way he looks at her like he has never looked at her before.

His crossed arms, his lips twisted into a deep frown. His tired eyes cracking, glassy.

He is lying.

Do not take any more chances.

She forces herself to look him in the eye. "Goodbye, Jason."

And slowly, she goes. Waiting for a sound. Waiting for any indication of movement, any hitch of his breath or a crack in his voice. But nothing comes as the sky of dead, dead stars fills her vision overhead, something meant to be her freedom now her cage.

How can something endless trap her? The void she calls out and cries to, it does nothing but liberate her — she does not have to turn back ever again. She can move on.

She can move on. She can forget, somehow.

But she hasn't said what she truly would have if this was the last time she saw him. Why did she think a moment ago that he would come by now? How can she turn back and speak the words she still cannot find? When did she get here? How? Who can she blame?

Always questions. Never answers. The night devastates her with its beauty.

She watches it grow bigger, so slow yet so fast. She feels so young, yet so old. How has she not given up yet? Did she ever have any semblance of pride?

She is flying — flying — flying down.

No. She is falling.

She twists around and feels something scrape her side. She is falling again.

Of course, again.

Always. Again.

She tries to cry out, but nothing.

Nothing needs to come out.

Because it is his desperate gaze, wild and panicking, his strong hand wrapped painfully tight around her arm.

"Kori."

Despite herself, despite this.

The tears always come so easily to her. They trickle down, they cover her smile in its sweetness.

She has never seen him so openly wrecked. And it does her in.

She stares up at him, and she thinks she sees a glimpse of who he used to be before he came back again.

"You came back," she whispers.

He shakes his head, as if throwing himself out of a daze. He pulls her up, but by the time he has her hand inside, her flight comes back to her.

He stumbles back, and she settles in front of him. "What the fuck happened?"

"Do you not recall?" Another tear drips down, despite the ease of her helpless smile. "When I am in too much pain, I cannot—"

His eyes go wide suddenly, and a spark of anxiety erupts in her chest. He takes hold of her side and bends down until he is eye-level with her stomach. "You're bleeding."

"What?" she says, attempting to turn her hip and look down, but he keeps her in place with both hands firm on her sides.

"It's the same… scar…"

She blinks stupidly. "It reopened?"

"How did you get hurt?" he says, sounding sorry.

"I think that when I…" how can she forget what just happened? "...when I began to fall, I… felt something…"

How can a half-healed scar open so easily? She barely even feels it now. She tries to look down, but his head blocks her view.

"Jason," she says softly. "It does not hurt."

He still does not move.

"Jason," she says again.

Still, no response. She cups a delicate hand under his chin and forces it up. He tries to shake her off, but she holds him firmly.

"Let me see my own wound," she says, almost playfully.

And truly, it is… nothing. No blood had even shed.

She laughs. She should not, but she does, and his expression turns sour. She strokes his cheek with her thumb. "I believe the brick scraped it when I turned abruptly. Though it is strange that it happened."

He stands up, letting her go. She fights the urge to touch him again. "You are still bleeding."

"It's fine."

She steps closer. "Jason…"

He shakes his head, brows furrowing over his darkening eyes, so sad and pained. She matches his expression instantly. "Don't say my name," he rasps low.

"Can you tell me why?"

He shakes his head, not unlike a hurt child. "You know me better than that."

"I merely wanted to make sure," she says in a hush, "that you did not change your mind."

It was meant to be an attempt at humor, but it comes out poorly. All she gets is his sad, sad stare, so heavy that its gravity could pull her down.

But she defies it. Instead, she leans in. Brushes her nose over his, ghosts her lips by his own. "Tell me with your body. Everything you cannot say. Speak to me."

And oh — this kiss destroys her in a new way. He crushes her so hard against him that she begins to fold backwards with the force.

So she equals it out. She meets him in the middle and finds the ground he made her miss, kissing him back with the same amount of fervor.

And it ignites her from the inside out. The supernovas erupting and dying and sizzling inside of her belly, rolling in infinite waves, following each slide of his lips over hers.

Her hands tangle in his hair, run down his arms, grab at the collar of his shirt, push him back until he stumbles onto the end of his bed. He only grabs her and kisses down the line of her stomach, his tongue tracing the marks he left behind.

His hands massage her thighs under her skirt before dragging up under the waistband of her underwear and his tongue right underneath her navel does something to her, and the night combines and crashes down on her.

"Jason." She says it in a way she has never heard it before — never so desperately, so painfully, and oh, that is him tearing her underwear down her legs.

He bites at her stomach before nuzzling into it, and she grabs at his shoulders as she steps out of it. He growls as she shimmies her hips.

"Kori," and he says it like a warning, like she is the one killing him.

Her pants turn into a sharp, hot gasp when he drags her skirt up, kneading her bottom in his hands and pulling her close.

And he — X'hal — he buries his face into her center, spreading her open where he has a hold on her. Each tiny kiss he plants, onto the hair there and above it, sends icy-hot electricity up her spine and to her dizzy head, thrown back and making sounds she has no control over.

Then suddenly, he grabs at her thigh and turns her body before sinking his teeth hard into her bottom. She shrieks and she feels his laugh on her overheated skin.

She rips her fingers through his hair and tugs his head back halfheartedly, too his to give him the punishment he deserves.

He licks his mark on her up, and she sighs at the feel of it, and then at the feel of the heel of his hand gently pressing against her center and circling there, and oh, how does he — how does he open her up like this? He kisses around her hip and then the other, pushing her around wherever he wants her because this is everything she needs.

Needs. Needs. Needs.

He presses his cheek towards the inside of her thigh and tugs at her boot, each breath of his tingling through her body. Once she toes her boots off, he lifts her and falls back onto the bed. He splays his fingers around her hips and shifts them so that his whole body is on the mattress.

And then he — he tugs her forward, so she crawls on her knees to where he wants her.

Right above his face.

"Oh," is all she can and will say.

Because he is staring at her with such awe that the instinct to fold into herself immediately dies. He replaces it with curiosity, with…

She feels herself throb, and she feels him watching so intently that it — she does not know, the heat that surrounds and creates her, swallows her, is her — need.

He licks his lips.

She shudders.

And when he looks her in the eye, she all but comes undone.

"Don't be afraid to ride me, baby," and it falls from her mind down to her toes.

He pulls her down and his mouth on her —

His mouth.

She moans as he fills his mouth with her, too harshly but not harsh enough, too delicately but not delicate enough, and he rocks her hips over him.

She is loose. Lost in it. Gone slack with her head thrown back and her hair falling over his legs. He sucks her and she trembles.

Divine.

He flattens his wonderful tongue over her and licks up, slowly, slowly, and behind her lids, her eyes roll all the way back.

How can this be? How can a sensation be this delicious.

She utters his name, cuts it up, lets it slip off into syllables, fills the air with sound and addiction, because he makes her want this forever.

Whatever he is doing.

X'hal.

He nips at her and she shoots up, shaking, only for him to hold her in place, hips weakly stuttering.

"Sweetheart."

Is she hurting him? Can he breathe? Oh, no, how could she get so—

"Fuck my face, sweetheart," and he says it with such finality that she cannot do anything but comply.

He slams her back down onto his face and she mewls from the quickness of it. So she was not moving enough?

He moans against her, and the reverberations spread nicely inside. She rocks over him, still unsure, but then his moans turn into grunts and she runs herself all over his mouth.

"Ah, Jason," she pants, grabbing her breasts. He licks her thickly and it sends her forward, her hair falling around him. He pushes it aside and squeezes her waist, to which her eyes snap open and find his.

Absolutely destroyed. That is what they are.

To do something so filthy… and look at him like this… so...

She feels a shift behind her, a movement of his other arm. It is too much, she feels herself splitting, feels it come up slowly —

She looks over her shoulder, to his hand under his pants, palming himself to this, to her, and she reaches back and out, only for him to grab her wrist and nip her. She hisses and grinds down hard, but he only seems to enjoy it. He pins her wrist down on his stomach, sucking at her even harsher than before.

It is everything. And it comes out of her in something high-pitched, damaged, cleansing. It overcomes her. It takes her thoroughly from the inside out, shockwave after tidal wave after every kind, and it takes even longer for the tremors to dissipate, his kisses soothing her until they fade.

Somehow, she crawls back down, laying on top of him with legs on either side of his torso. She tucks her head beside his and wraps her arm around the side of his head, kissing his cheek because it is all she can offer. He holds her legs tight, and her kisses grow stronger, like her only purpose is to give them to him. She lays them on his neck, his jaw, the side of his nose, up his cheekbone, his brow, his temple. Over and over and over as his fingertips sink into her thighs, grabbing at her with a need that surpasses all.

It is deep in her, and all over her skin. The fire does not die with him. There is no stifling the primal desire that devours her when she tastes herself and her name in his beautiful mouth.

He sits them up. She takes the chance to remove her breast plate and armor. He dips his hands under her top and nearly tears it off, her bra following soon after. He pushes her flat on her back and drags her skirt down her legs, her hips shaking with the movement, to which she giggles.

He smirks for a split second before she becomes his prey once again. He crushes his lips to her breast, sucking a nipple deep into his mouth before biting down. She groans and he repeats it onto her other breast, frantic now, before sitting up and pulling his shirt off over his head. And oh.

He stands to pull his pants down, but before he can, she is at the edge of his bed and kissing across his chest, nails scraping down his stomach. He moans quietly as she bites down, sucking a lovely bruise over his heart.

She drags her hot, open-mouthed kisses down his stomach, smoothing her hand over his thigh, aching to touch him—

But he has her by the arms and back down, legs spread wide open. He reaches across her with a frown and open the drawer of his nightstand. She pouts and crosses her arms, brows furrowed and returning the same mean look he is giving her.

He tears the wrapper with his teeth and spits it out. She cannot resist watching him roll the latex over his length. She feels so empty without him.

He pulls her forward by the tops of her thighs and drapes her legs over his. He spreads her open with his thumbs, the same look of awe in his expression. He licks his lips.

"Gorgeous," he whispers as he sinks slowly into her, and for forever, she wishes for this.

The fulfillment. The completion. He belongs here. Inside of her, one with her, filling her up because she has been empty for too long.

One with me.

There is nothing else like this. Not the way she fits around him like the moon moves with the sun, and something about this is natural beyond her comprehension.

All she knows is the feeling, enveloping her in its healing, its warmth, its grounding.

Somehow, she is simply herself.

And when he moves, so thick and heavy, gentle and considerate, her vision fades into colors she cannot recall.

There is time in between — she does not count anything. It just happens to her. Pure bliss. And he rocks into her. Harder. Faster.

Fill me up over and over and over.

So hard and so fast it pushes her up, makes her cry out, her hands in his hair and on his shoulder, back arched and trying to touch him wherever else she can. And when her chest touches his chest, she smiles with all her teeth, laughing with her shut eyes and understanding why it took so much to get here.

Finally. Finally, I am filled.

This is hers. The way he gives all of this to her— he feels gorgeous moving in her, his eyes burning into her, hands burning into her hips, and when she opens hers, they take him in.

His harshness grows tender as she watches his expression, so perfectly intent on her.

And there is no thought here. Only time slowing down, his face drawing closer, her knuckles brushing over it. Her finger running over his brow, how his breath stutters, how his hips do, as well. Her finger running down the bridge of his nose, down the crookedness of it, his hips fitting on top of hers. Her finger running over his lips, swollen from many kinds of kisses, and the way they ache around each other.

"You are making love to me," she whispers.

Because what else would devastate her? What else could come of this?

He kisses her. She whimpers and breaks into it as he covers her, lays over her, and rocks her full and right.

The flower blooms, the petals fall. He is hot over and in her like summer, but unfolds her like spring, and the seasons change as she finishes around him.

Nothing else. Nothing else but now.