The reflection of the fire in his eyes drew her. As he came nearer Starling fancied she saw him bearing antlers from his head, but then realized it was an illusion created by the winter-stripped saplings behind him. Diana to his Actaeon.
"Clarice, Venus would weep to see your beauty."
Hannibal? Doctor Lecter? Let's stick with what we know. Her own irony did not escape her.
"Doctor Lecter, cut me down from here."
"Cut you," he spoke slowly and cocked his head to the side, regarding her, "down....," he stood directly in front of her. Facing him she became aware of warmth spreading through her, and once again realized that she was not afraid. Crazy maybe, but scared?... just not happening.
A flicker caught her eye. The reflection of the flames flowing down the blood runners of his Harpy. Does the sight of it send cascades of ice down through your veins and into your heart? Will the steel of it let your blood like roses on the snow? Jesus, I am poetic at the weirdest of moments.
"Clarice, my lamb, my goddess. You are bound here to make things easier." His intense gaze countered the gentle calm of his words.
"To make what easier, Doctor?," she waited for his answer as her trigger finger unconsciously explored the terrain of the thick rope above.
"This."
He moved behind her and before she could twist around in the orbit the rope afforded her, she felt the heat of his lips on her neck. They lingered softly for a moment, and Clarice felt the sensation of his tongue barely touching her skin. Such a small contact, thought Starling. But we rock each other's worlds with the gentlest of physical touches, don't we?
Doctor Lecter let out a breath mixed with a moan of pleasure. His exhalation reached and cooled the tiny moist spot on her neck where his tongue had tasted, and it sent a delicious ripple of pleasure through her body.
"And this, Clarice."
Once again he faced her and the flames once again licked against the steel surface of his blade, this time directly under her chin.
"Be still," was his whispered command, and she obeyed, trembling.
The muscles in his forearm bunched and held tight as he drew the blade down her midsection to her navel.
Lecter's face bore none of the tension of his working arm, his expression was detached and observant. He stopped his downward path to look at her, regard her and gauge her. Her shirt had been cleanly cleaved down the middle, exposing her skin to the cold of the air, and the heat of the fire and his eyes. The skin itself was bisected with a thin yet stark thread of blood, where his blade had grazed her. The sight of this roused his own blood, and it rushed through him, igniting him with a humming mixture of adrenaline and endorphins. Clarice was undoubtedly experiencing a bit of adrenaline herself. His eyes moved from the line of maroon to her face and her squeezed shut eyes.
"Open your eyes Clarice. I want you to watch me taste you."
Clarice opened her eyes and looked at Lecter. She looked at the blood against the white of her skin and thought of
Roses, rose petals in the snow. Blood on fleece, gliding easily over the lanolin in the lamb's wool, blood pooling on floor of the smokehouse, the floor is blanched and pale and luminous from the hog fat which had dripped there over the years, and over the generations, salt and lard, and the ground was striated and stripped in places, the voice of her mother's cousin filling in the gaps, explaining to her that when times had been hard and salt was dear they had dug up the salted earth and strained it over and over until they had a bit of salt to put on whatever they were fortunate enough to hunt down and kill....
And then his tongue was there, not barely tasting this time, but lathing over her scratched skin, and blotting out her bloody train of thought. Starling felt the blood pounding through her body, igniting her erogenous zones with a pulse of their own.
Lecter breathed in her blood scent before permitting himself this unbelievable indulgence. His nostrils flared and the coppery smell he was so well accustomed to permeated his senses. Scent could not have prepared him for the sublime taste of her. Her. At long last.
The deer was a doe, as even young bucks would have had the distinctive antler pits which would have resulted from the shedding of their spikes in the fall. She walked through the snow with her head low, in the dazed and stoic manner characteristic of the mortally wounded. The invaders caught up to her easily and cut her throat, screaming in their rough tongue for a bowl or a tin can in which to catch the blood. The boy watching could smell the blood and in his hunger saliva rushed into his mouth, but there was nothing, nothing left
But Her, solid and real, and writhing under his sucking mouth.
Lecter breathed against her, muttering her name over and over between tasting and sucking. The blood was cleaned away now, and he wanted her mouth. Following the light scratch that still remained, he kissed his way up, between her breasts, nipping gently at her collarbones, sucking under her jaw.
Starling caught his mouth with hers as soon as he was within her reach. A sob of pleasure disappeared into his mouth as his hands, fantastically warm, cupped her breasts.
"Clarice, you taste better than I imagined," he purred into her ear, making her shiver against him.
Lecter shivered as his Starling ingeniously gripped the rope above her hands and pulled herself up. Gripping him around his waist with her legs, she was able to feel him, hard and hot between her legs.
Lecter ached to penetrate her, to be deep inside her, allowing his body to join his mind in her. Not yet.. he wanted her to be ready for him. Ready as she'll ever be. He grinned against her breasts, and after giving the left one a parting gentle nip, he disengaged her legs from his waist.
Starling cried out her frustration, and then pleasure as Lecter once again moved behind her, cupping her breasts. His hands roamed down to her belly, caressing her, and then into the waistband of her pants. She arched against him, and felt his chest vibrate with a low groan as she pushed against his erection.
Lecter divested her of her remaining clothing.
She shone, and he was powerless to do naught but take her and use her and be used. Can you do it, Clarice, can you envelop me, may I penetrate you with all that I am...
Being penetrated by him was exquisite and slow. Starling gripped the rope above her hands, and with he behind her, his hands on her waist as a fulcrum, she locked her legs around the backs of his knees.
Lecter was inside her then and she was ready, she was more ready than she had ever been in her life, and the hot tight muscles of her body held him and stroked him. Starling wanted him to feel good, feel pleasure because of her, to please him physically as she had pleased him mentally, and he took her, stroking her clitoris with his fingers until she cried out fiercely, and gave to her all he had to give until he shook with the strain and the sensation that she was pulling the semen from his body and he was helpless, helpless to stop this...
After.
He took her down and freed her hands, and carried her back to her bed. Later he washed her, and pleasured her again with his hands and mouth. When he had to leave their bed for a short time, she did not question him. She missed him terribly though.
After the distasteful task of the disposal of what remained of Krendler was completed, Lecter returned to the great Live Oak which had overseen the wild and orchestrated mating ritual hours before.
Climbing was easy for Lecter, and he used the remains of the rope to reach the large branch suspending it. Once again he ran his fingers over worn tusks in the wood. Lecter rammed the blade of his Harpy as deep into the wood as it would go.
He gazed upward, as much a predator as any nocturnal raptor hunting these woods. His eyes fell upon the golden glow of candlelight in the window of the cottage far beyond in the darkness. Nearly soundlessly he bounded to the ground, and made his way back toward the light.
The End
