A Symphony of Ash 4/?
by Reveena

He closed the door behind him, grateful for the warmth that seeped into his damp skin. Letting himself lean onto the surface of the door and drop his things on the hard wood floor, absorbing the silence, he was content to just stand and ignore his less than dry state. He could recall a time when he would not have been able to do that. He'd be too busy assuring his blond lover a little rain was OK, and yes, it was very good to see him. Not anymore though. Trowa pushed the memories away with a mental shove. Such thoughts made him wonder about too much. Questioning the methods of an angle was simply not on his list of priorities.

Overhead the thunder rumbled and the rain pelted the window overlooking the courtyard. He closed his eyes, savoring the voice of nature. He'd discovered a fondness for thunderstorms in La Rochelle, the way the ocean and the sky met in flux and lightning. It was an easy way to distract himself from the questions in his head: Would he try and find Quatre? Get back what he never really had? Or leave him be with the person that brought him in the sunlight, where he'd always belonged. He knew his answer. The problem would be rather the others would understand that severe truth or not.

Silently he pushed off the door and made his way past the dinning room, not bothering to turn on any lights. He didn't really need them. Besides he found that the silhouette of darkness was a small comfort to him as he moved with soundless ease in to the kitchen.

It was her familiar smell that he noticed first. Her own personal fragrance of faint cranberries mingled with the sent of wet rain from the storm. It lingered in the air and tickled his awareness like a persistent child.

He waited for the sense of intrusion and possibly even anger to seep in and reach him. It didn't. Instead he watched with a type of odd fascination as she moved along the counter, slim, white fingers gliding across the tiles coyly, as if feeling something out through touch alone. Curiosity took him.

"Minister."

Relena's slender form shifted in the shadows and turned to face him, her eyes of sea seeking out his.

The lightning flashed and the kitchen was illuminated in a timeless moment when their eyes met and energy ran thick between them. Trowa took a step towards her, interested in her reaction. She didn't move away. Just captured his gaze and refused to let it go.

"Rashid let me in." she finally said.

"Did he?" he whispered softly.

Trowa felt a type of apprehension clinch his chest when she came closer to him. A dryness, settled in his mouth as she passed in and out of the shadows, shortening the space between them. Barton realized in a rush that he craved space between himself and Relena like fire needed air to consume. Without thought he moved around her, causing their positions to be switched around.

Relena held her breath in her chest, her blood pounding so loudly in her ears the sound nearly overwhelmed the cry of the storm just beyond the walls, her heart beating so franticly in her chest she was almost positive he could hear it.

Lighting flashed again, and for a moment that sent chills skimming the surface of her flesh, she found herself lost in pools of the most intense green she'd ever imagined. It frightened her. What she saw there stirred something in her she didn't recognize. Her emotion ached. The need to touch him was a surprising whisper in her ear that held the tones of a scream.

She'd never wanted to run away so much, or stay so badly.

Relena watched him as he leaned onto the counter and slid his slender hands into his dark colored slacks.

"What are you doing here Minister." Not demanding, not in the lest upset.

She wanted to smile at his question. Such normality, didn't agree with him she mused. She turned away from his gaze and let hers sweep over the large kitchen. She looked back up at him from under her eyelashes as the thunder danced above them. What would he say if she told him, she really didn't know herself? He remained unmoving, seemingly comfortable with the web of tension spun between them. She read him carefully before answering.

"Do I make you nervous Trowa?"

He never blinked "Yes...But I frighten/you/."

And she/was/afraid of him, he made her feel things she didn't understand. And yet she wanted him anyway. She had since she saw him in the twilight of dusk at the ceremony. The hunger that had stirred at the nearness of his lips on her neck that day had woken something she'd long denied.

The way her blood moved when he looked at her defied all logic. How did he do it? Had Dorothy ever done such a thing to her? No, with her she'd had always known what was going on between them; A game. One that sometimes ended in breathless passion, other times it ended in pain that would stay with her for days. With Trowa Barton, she had no answers and didn't know the rules. He allured her and she didn't know why.

"There's something going on here." She whispered, " I'm going to find out what it is Trowa."

Relena took a deep breath and began to close the distance between them. If what had happened between Dorothy and herself over the last five years had taught her anything it was that silence and riddles would not deliver. It had been far too long since she'd reached for anything she truly craved, and she needed touch as much as her lungs needed the tease of air. She would find out what it was about him that made her forget that Dorothy had ever touched her the way she wanted to touch him.

Trowa tried to hold himself very still as she neared. She looked like one of the pagan goddesses Quatre had told him of, a wanton angel with her pale skin and gold hair in wild disarray around her shoulders and calm expression with dark sea eyes. She was nothing like Quatre. Where he was cautious she was reckless, when Quatre would gentle his approach and seek another way, Relena was the type who'd knock down the door if it were locked. She was intense compared to Quatre, whose manor was like wind over the desert. She'd do nothing but make things more difficult.

Relena lifted her arms and set them on his shoulders. She glided them up his neck and settled them around his jaw line. She pressed close to him, her curves molding to his angles. He was like a rock under her touch. It didn't hinder her.

He held himself stiff, the urge to put his arms around her and scout out her other differences gnawing at him. He closed his eyes when he felt her lips touch his skin. Would the Minister burn him the same way Quatre's desert soul had? Would he be able to stop her? Did he really want to?

Too many questions Barton, he thought in a rush.

He could feel the heat of her skin press close and seep though the wetness of his shirt, warming his skin. He wanted to posses that heat.

No, no, he couldn't-wouldn't do this.

"This can't happen."

She looked up at him, the kitchen was briefly bathed in white again, and leaned close to him. She didn't say anything. He felt her mouth press over his. Hard, with more passion then any storm, and his body jumped in response, hungry for it. An emotion he hadn't felt in longer then he cared to remember flared to life. Her arms moved around him, pulling him deeper in her kiss. She tasted sweet, fresh.

/The only way to live a good life is to follow you're emotions./

He'd never been good, didn't think he ever could be, but he'd been dead for far too long. He wanted to live again.

He broke it off and breathed in before speaking. "I can't be gentle Minister."

She ran her hands down the side of his face, lips swollen and eyes a hazy deep blue.

"My name is Relena, and I won't be broken."

She kissed him again. This time he kissed her back, earning a soft sound of surprise from deep in her throat. Something stronger then his regret or own guilt broke through the shelter of silent darkness he'd been retreating into since Quatre and he had broken. Something much rawer then anger fueled his touches and made him hungry for more of her. His lips burned across her mouth. There would likely be regrets, but those where in the gray mists of the future, and they didn't outweigh the need to connect, to touch.

It was awkward and hurried. Need made his hands rough as he ran his hands through her hair, passion made his senses spin as he bruised the white skin on her neck.

The hard wood under her bit into her bar skin, but she didn't mind, she welcomed the sting of reality it brought. His kiss was too hard, too full of something that she both craved with a hunger she'd never known and was more terrified of then any battle she'd ever seen. His teeth skimmed the flesh of her throat and his hands grasped her hips, sliding the thin fabric up her thighs, over her middle, once it was gone she gave it no more thought. His hands seemed to be everywhere at once, feeling, searching. Both pleasure and pain nipped at her senses till she couldn't identify what was what. But one thing was as clear as the sky was with its ranging storm; she needed more of Trowa Barton. Much more.

Her breath was rushed as she pulled off the damp white shirt that covered him, the feel of it on her bare skin having gone far past agitating. She ran her hands over his skin, thrilled at the way he felt over her. His skin was smooth and warm under her touch. The amazing deference between the hardness of muscle under silk smooth skin compared to the memory of Dorothy's soft flesh, made her head whirl, but the change was not an unpleasant one.

His mouth was over hers again, teasing her lips open as she spread her hands over his chest, fingers brushing softly over his nipples. Her tongue followed his in drawn breath, between his teeth, caressing him with a fierceness that drew a husky sound from the back of his throat.

He slid his hands under her, taking a moment to register the teal lace of her bra before unclasping it and flinging it away. He groaned when her cool hands found the hem of his slacks, undoing the button and pulling the zipper down. In a moment they were gone and nothing separated them. He leaned down to teste her, her legs moving around him as she withered under him, her soft moans of passion tempting him on. But he was merciless as moved his lips over the swell of her breast while his hands held her. Her taste was addictive, her curves fascinating to him as he explored her. Desire heated his blood.

"Trowa...now."

Relena gasped the bar of his shoulders, as he entered her in one thrust. A muffled cry left her throat as her body tried to adjust to him. The discomfort swiftly disappeared and was replaced with the need to get his closer. She held nothing back as he began to move with in her, urging him on, pushing him as far as she dared and then more. Slowly, erotically, they moved together as the storm played it's own symphony of lighting and thunder above them.

She cried out when her own climax hit her, crashing over her wave after wave. She held him tightly as Trowa came just after her, his sweat mingling with her own. She didn't let go when the tenseness left his body-suddly afraid of what would happen when he left-alone. He didn't move away from her, to her great relief, but found a more comfortable way of them to lay in. For the first time in a long time she didn't know if she should have been afraid or content to feel safe. He mind swam with all the problems this night could bring and how complicated she'd made things. Unsure of what the sin would bring and arms stung about him, her head buried in his shoulder she gave into sleep.

Trowa stared down at the woman resting in his arms. She was lost in an unpleasant dream. Every time she stirred he'd run his hands down over the sleek path of her shoulders, to her wrists and still her, only to repeat the action again. He wondered what it was that troubled her sleep. Was it Dorothy? Or was it him? A small voice deep in the back of his head didn't want it to be either. Another part of him wished he didn't care and told him he should have been able to just get up and walk away. He hadn't realized giving himself to her would wrench him out of that dark place he'd survived for so long in. That she'd drag him into feeling again, with her eyes that were so deferent from Quatre's, when he'd hoped and wished he'd lost the hard in coming ability.

He picked her up with a gentleness he damned and treaded softly through the darkness to the nearest guest room. Setting her bare frame in between the sheets, he meant to pull away, but the still young and sleeping Minister mumbled and held on to him, her cheek resting on his shoulder. The former mercenary ignored the voice that said he'd surly be damned for this and slid in beside her. The warmth of nearness and physical weariness lured the Latin man into sleep.

The sun has just began to rise over the horizon in a blase, setting the ocean on fire with it's kiss when the sound of someone's voice disturbed her from sleep.

"Relena. Relena, wake up."

She opened one tired blue eye and looked into an emerald green one. A sense of forcoming roused her fully, and made her forget embarrassment at being completely naked.

"What is it?" she asked. Unease twisted her middle. Trowa was silent for a moment.

"Quatre and Dorothy are here."