Chapter Thirteen: Fashion First
Bane stole her breath when he lifted her hand and slid his mouth around her finger, yanking the ring free as he wetly ran his tongue around her slim digit.
"We'll return to this conversation later," Bane murmured as he slipped her ring into his pocket when Sebastian brought the ambulance to a stop in the desolate hangar.
After Sebastian set the parking brake on the ambulance, he rushed around to open the rear doors, letting light flood in and shine upon Maureen and Bane, making them both squint against the blinding light.
Maureen watched Bane rise and emerge onto the tarmac, landing heavily on the cracked asphalt.
She watched him converse with Sebastian in too low a tone for her to detect.
Bane spared Maureen a fleeting glance before he resumed speaking to Sebastian. "I require privacy, we will depart upon Isaak's arrival."
Sebastian nodded and jogged off to the other waiting ambulance, the other men packed in tightly, like dangerous sardines.
Bane watched them drive to the other end of the runway to wait for Isaak.
After their privacy was assured, Bane turned to where Maureen still sat on the gurney.
Bane pulled an olive-green duffle bag from the under the bench seat and pulled out a set of clothes that Isaak had packed for him. Bane held out another stack of clothing towards Maureen.
Upon earlier instruction from Bane, Isaak had packed a pair of a cotton stretchy pants, dark gray long-sleeved thermal top, heavy socks, and boots for Maureen.
Bane held out the clothes until Maureen leaned forward and took them from his hands.
She found herself frozen, her vocal cords paralyzed as Bane began to strip out of his Arkham Asylum issued clothes.
"Change your clothes Doctor Hightower," Bane said on a tone just shy of a demand, his non-request as he stood shirtless, wordless as he began to tug at the looping bow of his cotton pants.
"Now? Right here?" Maureen asked.
Bane nodded as he stepped out of his Arkham issued pants, the white briefs all that kept him from addressing her fully naked.
Maureen crossed her arms as she shook her head, tensing as Bane stooped to retrieve his pants and fish her wedding ring from the pocket.
She suppressed a startled cry as Bane slipped the titanium ring around his pinkie finger before walking towards her. "I need to insist that you change," he said as he paused at the step to climb into the ambulance.
"Can't I just keep this on?" she asked as her mind churned thinking of the pills she'd stuffed in the cup of her bra.
Bane shook his head, not wanting to admit the main reason for her need to change was that he didn't want the other men to be able to bask in the beauty of her body and exposed skin.
"Those aren't conducive for travel," he murmured as his eyes found more of her thighs exposed as she slid to the other end of the gurney.
"Where are we going?" she asked, all of a sudden thinking about hiking in the Alps with her red-soled spiked heels.
"You haven't told me where you want to go yet," Bane quickly shot back.
As Maureen cleared her throat, her mind scrambling to string together words, back in Bruce Wayne's spacious estate, Selina tied the belt of a luxurious bathrobe and sought out Bruce as he sat in front of a cluster of HD television screens. The center screen was a myriad of varying stock numbers, SEC activity, all things white-collared and stacks of green money.
Selina slipped her arms around Bruce as she leaned over him and pressed her lips to the curve of his neck as his eyes flicked briefly between the flanking screens, one was blaring with the talking heads of the far right and the other the left, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.
"What's been bothering you?" Selina asked as the tension never left Bruce's shoulders.
Bruce reached up and stroked the outside of her luxe sleeved arms. "Gordon's not moving fast enough to get Bane to the courtroom, I think I should go visit Dr. Hightower again."
"He asked you not to, I don't think it would help," Selina reminded him.
Bruce let out a frustrated groan. "I know I could find something she wants to get her to fast-track the process."
Selina pulled back on the deluxe office chair and spun Bruce around to face her.
Bruce's body temperature rose quickly as Selina reached back to turn off all but one of the screens and adjust it to a jazz station that featured sultry favorites. Songs to sit and listen to with black coffee and get ear fucked by a saxophone.
Selina pulled at the belt of the plush robe and let it fall to the floor, revealing her to be naked underneath, her bare flesh warm as she began to undulate her body and swivel her hips, turning around and sitting back on Bruce's lap, rhythmically gyrating her nude, supple curves against the zippered front of Bruce's pants.
"Let the new mayor do his job," Selina murmured as she reached a hand back to fumble with the zipper and pulled out Bruce's rapidly hardening cock.
Bruce groaned as Selina licked her palm before she began stroking his cock, moving her other hand to her pussy, and teasing her fingers through the pink, wet folds until she took her hand off Bruce's cock and replaced it with her tight, wet opening, sliding down around him until their intimate flesh wetly kissed.
Bruce gripped Selina's hips and encouraged her to bounce up and down his thick shaft, her cunt squeezing his rigid length as she continued to tease her clit until she was gasping the billionaire bat-boy's name in times with his rapid plunges into her wet center.
As Bruce continued to bury his cock in Selina with deep, even thrusts, back under the airy hangar on the outskirts of Gotham City, Bane gestured to the stack of clothes.
"Change your clothes."
"Turn around."
"No," he said easily, not entirely sure that she might not fill a syringe with something that could stop his heart if he left her alone amidst the medical supplies.
Maureen pressed her lips together and tugged the pants around her heels before pulling them up under her skirt, struggling with the pencil cut of the fabric. Bane watched as she slipped the long-sleeved shirt on over her silk blouse, her skirt bunched up around her waist and ended up looked like a bohemian belt.
Bane took his turn to slip on the snug cargo pants in slate grey and near matching thermal long-sleeved shirt, the fabric pulled taut across his broad chest.
Bane half-turned to look over his shoulder at the sound of Isaak approaching in the third Gotham City Rapid-Response Paramedic Services ambulances.
"Tell me the destination doctor," Bane stated as he found Maureen's eyes.
"Cape Maybelle," Maureen said after she blinked first.
She continued when Bane didn't seem to recognize the name and briefly described the beach town.
"Why there?" he asked, curious to her specificity.
"My parents and I spent every summer there, it was the best part of the year," Maureen said, giving him the second genuine smile she'd ever allowed herself in front of him, her gaze softened as she thought of the endless hot dogs skewered with sticks and scorched fingertips from molten marshmallows.
Bane dragged his gaze slowly down her body, disappointed with the oversized clothes that obscured her shape. He narrowed his eyes on the scar on her ankle, "where you stepped on glass."
Maureen mumbled in agreement as she looked past the curve of his large shoulder, tucking the scarred ankle behind the other.
Bane stared at Maureen in the space of time before Isaak pulled up in the third ambulance. He left the engine idling and remained behind the wheel as Bane held out his hand towards Maureen.
"Time to go."
Maureen looked around at nowhere to go. "You can't do this," she tried for, sounding so much flimsier without a desk between them.
Bane kept his expression neutral, his hand outstretched towards her. He waggled his fingertips as Maureen slid to the very end of the gurney. "Leave me here, I won't tell the police anything, nothing to further implicate you," she tried.
"Do you think further crimes will create an impact on what my fate is already decided?" Bane asked.
Maureen could hear the excitement in his voice that he could do anything he wanted.
She sniffed hard and brushed some errant strands of hair behind her ears as she let Bane close his large hand around hers.
Maureen tried to avoid gripping his forearm heavily as she struggled to navigate the small stair with the grid pattern in her spiked heels.
Bane settled his hand on the natural sway of her lower back as he guided her to the rear of the idling, diesel engine.
Maureen let him help her into the back as she settled onto a carbon copy gurney as Bane sat across from her while Isaak fetched the bags and loaded them efficiently before pulling a U-turn and driving towards the waiting Cessnas.
At the end of the runway, each fully gassed Cessna waited. They could travel 800 miles on one tank of gas and reach a maximum speed of 150 mph.
These Cessnas however would be flown at low air speed and utilize radar cloaking technology.
Cape Maybelle was less than two hours away.
On the second Cessna, one of the men was already on the phone trying to source contacts for the quiet beach town.
It was off season at Cape Maybelle and would be easy to remain unnoticed. They wouldn't stand out like tourists, quick to get sunburns and double-park in fire lanes.
Bane watched Maureen's hands shake as she clasped her seatbelt and yanked on the nylon belt until it squeezed her midsection like a lover.
He copied her movements of securing his own seatbelt as Maureen grabbed the armrests of her narrow seat, her knuckles white from the force of her grip.
Bane never considered that Doctor Maureen Hightower was utterly terrified of flying.
Bane let his hand settle over hers, squeezing lightly as he spoke.
His question knocked Maureen off her equilibrium and was an effective distraction when she had to stop focusing on her fear of the flight to formulate an answer that would hold water.
Bane kept her hand trapped as he spoke.
"What thoughts are you having about me that are making you consider transferring my care to another?"
Bane took bountiful, wet pleasure in the color draining from Maureen's face as she realized that he not only had absconded with her blue and white journal but had also read it cover-to-cover. She recalled carelessly scribbling out what she'd written after their elevator ride together.
A flattering blush rushed back to fill her cheeks as she knew he'd read about how she was questioning her ability to treat him as she was beginning to imagine Bane in more and more intimate settings and stages of undress.
Maureen's hastily written words had been festering in the front of Bane's mind, his brain's grey matter had become saturated with the need to know more about what she'd been picturing to make her consider recusing himself from his care and evaluation.
Bane's mind played a frame-by-frame slideshow of Maureen's jotted entries. He recalled scouring the journal for any reference to her husband.
Josef was absent from the entire journal except for just his name being noted on the day in question.
"What thoughts have you questioning the care you are providing?"
Maureen caught her lower lip between her teeth as she shook her head. "I've just been a little overwhelmed lately, I honestly just need a vacation," she tried to say in a casual tone.
Bane rhythmically squeezed her hand, "you told me that I could trust you, talk to you," he stated.
Maureen nodded, "because you can," she agreed.
"You can talk and trust me in the same manner," Bane murmured.
Maureen couldn't look away even as his eyes saw too much.
"I can't share that with you," Maureen finally managed, tugging harder at her trapped hand.
"You are no longer tasked with evaluating me, we are free from our court-ordered, designated doctor and patient roles."
Maureen shook her head and was able to tear her eyes away from him, looking past him and out the oval, side window.
Bane quickly released his seatbelt so he could fully turn in his seat and reach out with his free hand to grip her chin and bring her face back to him.
"What is your clinical mind saying?"
Maureen blinked rapidly, "I don't know what to think anymore. This is way beyond textbook at this point," she added in a harsh scoff.
"Tell me what this is," Bane pressed, taking her words, reforming them, and lobbing them back at her.
Maureen cleared her throat and swallowed hard, remaining wordless as Bane traced his thumb around her full lips, parroting her earlier, tentative touch to his face.
"Tell me how you're feeling Doctor Hightower," he rasped hoarsely.
Maureen's blush peaked under his scrutiny. "Please call me Maureen, you're right about the severing of us being doctor and patient."
"What are we now Maureen," Bane growled lowly as he trailed his rough fingertips along the line of her jaw before smoothing back to cradle the back of her skull, his ragged cuticles snagging on her silken strands.
"I think you need to tell me that," she managed, "you're kind of the captain of this ship," Maureen added.
As Bane tightened his fingers in Maureen's smooth, dark hair, back at Bruce Wayne's amusement park sized estate, Bruce couldn't shake the need to visit Arkham Asylum and press Doctor Maureen Hightower to expediate the process of delivering Bane to the Gotham City Courthouse.
Selina eventually tired of trying to convince Bruce to not go and instead dressed so she could accompany Bruce, thinking her presence would be helpful.
