I want to hold you close
Soft breath, beating heart
As I whisper in your ear
I want to fucking tear you apart

- She Wants Revenge - Tear You Apart -

The knife fell with a thunk and he grabbed her and pulled her up against him, grinding his hips against hers and smiling, his teeth nipping her throat.

"I missed you," she breathed, unbuttoning his shirt as fast as she could go and then yanking it open the rest of the way, a couple of buttons popping off towards the corners of the room, and nipped at his earlobe, fingers digging into his sides. "You better've missed me."

"Of course I fucking missed you," he snarled. "What the hell was that in the courtroom?"

She drew back a little, some of the fervor lost, looking up at him with still darkened eyes. "I didn't volunteer for that, if that's what you're asking. Jim told me to. Wanted Mallory to see how close he could get you to prison but still get you off on all charges. Today wasn't exactly stellar, alright?"

"That's all I needed to hear," he assured her, turning to press her against the wall, his hand finding the center of her chest, fingers digging in a little.

She didn't bother to fight for position - she was going to end up pinned against something, and really, she didn't care what - and instead just pulled him closer by his belt, looking up at him with something like hunger in her eyes. "I want you to get me bloody. Don't care who's blood. Yeah?"

He didn't respond, just sunk his teeth into her neck again, breaking skin, though he didn't care if she drew blood from him, too.

She sucked in a harsh breath, the flagging flame of the bloodlust roaring back up again, the regular kind of lust joining it, heat flushing her cheeks pink. She scraped her nails down his abdomen before tearing at his belt, desperate to get it off him. She hadn't had a dry spell like this for ages.

He reached down to take it off for her, joining in by removing her shirt with no regard for the material. He grabbed her hand, pressed her nails into his skin as he shoved his tongue into her mouth.

She didn't hesitate to draw a line of blood across his palm, shoving off the door to push him insistently towards the bed, breaking off the kiss to nip his more height-accessible throat, free hand unbuttoning his trousers. "You are," she scraped her teeth over his collarbone, "possibly," managed to shove him down onto the bed so she could straddle his waist, "the most beautiful man I've ever met. You drive me crazy."

He let her command the motions for once, and groaned under her cutting fingers, the pain spurring him on. "I thought about you every night," he whispered as her teeth scraped his neck. "I wanted you so badly."

She ground down on him almost involuntarily, the feedback loop almost making her dizzy. "Christ," she breathed, kissing him hard for a moment and drawing away after she'd left him with a bloodied lip. "You're the only one I've ever waited for, you know," she rolled her hips a little more deliberately this time, her grip tightening on his hand for a moment. "I'm a serial adulterer. You remember Malcolm."

He let out a bit of a laugh, grinding his hips back up against hers with a laugh. "Barely, but yes," he snorted, pulling her trousers off. "As for waiting, sounds like you need this as much as I do."

"You have no idea," she growled, kicking the troublesome trouser-legs off. "I don't have dry spells, Seb. Look at me. Look at my job. I thought about nailing Jim, for fuck's sake," she huffed, streaking a drop of blood from his hand across his cheek with her thumb and a tiny smirk.

He grinned back up at her, her skin hot under his hands. He was hard beneath her, pressing up against her thigh, and he let out a groan. "Lorna, as fun as this chat is, I've been lonely for three months too..."

"Then do something about it," she retorted, biting her lip. She loved to see just how far she could wind him up.

He wasn't in a teasing mood. With the way he'd treated Jim he wouldn't be surprised if this was his last day on earth, so he just shifted to pin her beneath him again and ripped her knickers off, working on his own.

She helped him get his off and leaned up to kiss him, a silent urging to hurry the hell up, because when he meant business it was hard to keep up even appearances of flippancy. She was far too aroused to care about appearances.

He didn't bother with appearances either, pushing into her slowly but firmly. He didn't hold that pattern long, however, increasing his speed almost immediately.

She muffled a sharp breath into his shoulder, fingernails digging crescents into his back, just barely restraining the desire to go further, to tear him apart, see what he was made of. "Don't fucking stop," she gasped, perhaps needlessly. But then, if he stopped, she might have tried to kill him.

He had no desire to, his hands gripping her hard enough to bruise, his tongue tracing her weeping flesh, the tang of blood sharp and clear as he bucked up into her.

She arched up into him, relishing the sting and heat and how fucking good he felt, she'd almost forgotten, it had been so long. And Christ, did she love him.

He didn't bother muffling the noises he was making. He was wild, unrestrained. He'd missed her, wanted every part of her while he was locked away in that place. He'd spent two weeks in solitary and the only thing that had kept him anywhere close to sane was thinking about her, wondering if she was alright with Jim, and planning ways to murder his employer. He'd fallen short on the last item, but any victory was still sweet, and he reveled in it, body moving against hers with power and grace and need.

He was every weakness she'd ever had towards men rolled up in one burning hot package, and god, those noises. She surged up against him, threading a hand into his hair to wrench his head back to leave a bruising mark under his jaw with her teeth, blood-stained fingers slipping up to slide over his pulse, as if to see whether or not his heart was hammering just as hard as hers was. She lost her hazy train of thought when his hips shifted and the angle changed, a needy groan filtering out from between her lips.

Her groan spurred him on, and he pursued the angle fervently, his head fighting her grip just to feel the painful pleasure of her fingers yanking his hair, her teeth compressing his jugular, egging her on to take it further, to tear back.

She bit down until she tasted blood, then had to break away to pant for breath. The taste of copper, the burning mark on her neck, his thrusts, all of it, were starting to catch up to her all at once. "Sebastian- " she pleaded, raking her nails down the length of his back.

He arched his back under her nails, gritting his teeth and growling and grabbing one of her legs, hitching it up higher over his hip so that he could penetrate deeper, his mouth pressing to her ear, teeth pulling slightly as he rumbled "I need you to come. "

It was like pouring gasoline on a grease fire. She came hard, letting out a harsh swear and scrabbling for a grip on him, arching up into him.

After months of nothing, there wasn't a chance in hell that he would last past that, and he came hard right with her, burying himself in her and holding her tightly to him, his face buried in her neck.

She let out a long, content breath as she floated back down from her high, the tension that had begun coiling up in her chest the moment Sebastian had pulled the knife on Jim gone. "Mm. Christ, I needed that," she mumbled, running her fingers lazily through his blond hair, where in some places it was now stained a very light pink.

He rolled off to the side, but kept her held close, nodding in agreement. "So did I," he mumbled, taking a slow breath, thumb tracing circles on her lower back. His body stung and ached, but he couldn't care less.

She slung an arm around him and buried her face in his neck, just taking a moment to appreciate that he was back, close again, that she wouldn't have to sleep in an empty bed anymore. Three months had been far too long to be apart from him.

He truly relaxed for the first time in weeks, eyes closing, body loose and limp. He didn't care what happened tomorrow, or in a few hours, whenever Jim decided to take revenge. For right now he was completely content.

She fell asleep a few minutes later, giving up on fighting the foggy feeling behind her eyes. Now that she didn't have him to worry about, the sleep came a lot easier.

He fell asleep a few minutes after her, one arm around her, the other tucked under his pillow, closed around the handle of his knife. He was relaxed, not stupid.

She woke up in the morning and shifted, and found she was stuck to the sheets. She made a mildly unhappy noise.

He woke as she let out a whine of annoyance, one eye opening to glance at her. "Issues?"

"I've been crusted to the bed. Looks like you're going to have to bring me breakfast in bed," she sighed dramatically, though she burrowed further into him, belaying that order.

He smirked, rolling his eyes slightly and tucking an arm around her with a sigh. "I'll get there." He glanced at the door, which had remained undisturbed. "Well, I'm not dead yet, which is honestly better than I was expecting, so there's that."

"I don't think he'll come for you. Not when he knows you'll fight back," she shrugged, looking over the marks she'd given him the previous night. Now she kinda understood the other side of it. She prodded a bruise on his shoulder, smirking. "You know, it's probably best you put the fear of god into him. We might go without harassment about... these."

He winced slightly at the prod, and smirked. "Maybe. I'd be surprised if I managed to instill any fear in him, to be honest, but here's hoping..." He raised a finger to trace the outline of his teeth in her neck with a smile.

She chuckled, not bothered by the mild ache where he brushed still-sensitive skin. It was much more pleasant than the jabs he'd given her when this had been nothing more but a way to let off steam. "Well, you did leave your initials carved into his chest, so I'll dare to be a little optimistic about it. Fuck, I wouldn't be surprised if he just shunned us for a couple days. Wouldn't that be a nice vacation..."

"Fuck, I did, didn't I?" he half-sighed, half-laughed, sounding a little stunned. "It's all sort of a blur... I really lost it in there."

"He had you locked up for three months without even bothering to warn you beforehand, or after, so I'm going to go ahead and called that one as justified," she snorted. "Fuck... I can't imagine being in prison."

He shook his head a little. "Don't try to. Just take my word for it that you never want to go beyond imagining."

"I wish we could have gotten you out sooner. I wish Jim didn't decide to make that the thing to show off to Mallory," she huffed, sitting up a little and wincing as the sheet gave up its hold on her. "Not to mention now I have to be careful about coming back to New York. I did what I could with the makeup but showing up on television is an issue."

"You looked different enough. Hopefully if you use makeup to go the other direction it'll be enough of a distinction. Plus, give it six months, no one will remember you." He shrugged.

She sighed, shrugging a little as well. "Yeah, hopefully not. Rather not be surprised, though. Had enough of that recently. Though you've had more than enough. C'mon, you want to get some decent food?"

He groaned as he suddenly realized how hungry he was. "Christ, yes. Thai. I don't care that it's whatever-in-the-morning, I want a good plate of pad thai."

She laughed. "Alright. I know a place that delivers, if you want. I'm figuring you don't want to go out looking like you had a fight with a really angry cannibal. Or, you know, looking like the serial killer that got off on all charges yesterday."

"Delivery sounds good to me," he says, nodding. "Rather not be glared at or shot."

She nodded, leaning over him to get her phone off the nightstand, quietly appreciating the aches he'd left behind, because it meant he was back and in reach, and that was worth just a little celebration. After she ordered two pad thai (now that he'd mentioned she wanted it too) she flopped back down next to him, phone by her head. "Do you think the delivery boy will call the cops on us if I answer the door like this?"

"Naked? Doubt he'd notice much past your breasts honestly, but that's just me," he said with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes, chuckling. "I'd put on a bathrobe, but honestly, that just might make it worse. 'Cause then he won't be distracted. Whatever. I've scared delivery boys more for less."

"That sounds like a fun story," he said with a smirk. Then he sighed, shifting a little to tuck her under his chin. "I missed you."

She did a good job pretending to not be startled. He rarely said anything like that if it wasn't in a sexual context. "I missed you, too," she said quietly. A lot.

He left it at that, but it needed saying once. He had missed her. So soon after getting her back, especially.

"I want this Mallory thing done with," she sighed, adjusting her head into a more comfortable place on his chest. "I want to get out of this place. Away from Armetti, whatever he's up to."

"It'll be over soon, assuming what I just pulled with Jim doesn't fuck over the entire operation." He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. "I miss London."

"Yeah, me too," she muttered, glancing towards the window sullenly. At least this flat had windows. "Everyone here is so rude. Like, Christ, hold it back ten seconds, huh? Mutter under your breath like the rest of the damn civilized world."

He rolled his eyes, nodding. "And god help you if you have to take public transportation. I miss the tube. A sentence I thought I would never use."

"At least the tube is mildly clean," she sighed, getting up and rummaging around in the nightstand as she heard a knock on the flat door. "I'll be right back," she hummed, finally finding her wallet.

"Bathrobe?" he suggested with a grin, openly admiring her arse.

"I don't have one," she winked, smirking and then slipping out of the room, the only thing on her person the wallet. A few seconds later, the sounds of a stunned, stammering delivery boy made it through the hall and into the bedroom.

He laughed, and considered going after her, but decided to let the boy admire his fill in peace, and instead stood to go clean off a little.

She came back in a minute later and put the plastic bag down on the bed (it wasn't as if these sheets could get any dirtier) to begin digging through for utensils. "I thought he was going to have a heart attack, poor bloke. Totally got out of tipping him, though."

"I'm not so sure of that," he called from the bathroom. "Monetarily, yeah, but think of the value of that view. Best tip he's probably ever gotten."

She groaned, getting out the styrofoam containers and flopping down to sit against the headboard, pulling the sheets up to her waist so she didn't start freezing over. She'd clean up after she ate. "Don't remind me. God, I have got to stop getting scars. I get one more and the value is going to start dropping, fast."

He walked back into the room, climbing into bed next to her and grabbing his own container. "Like I said, we'll get some dealt with once we're back in London. It'll be okay."

"It better be," she muttered, starting to dig into her pad thai. "I'm not cut out for a desk job. Rather start doing hits again. Earn back that 'black widow' moniker."

"Mmm..." he said, trying to decide if he should feel disgruntled, concerned, aroused, or intrigued by that idea. He settled on a mixture and dug into his meal, immediately lost in the ecstasy of good food.

She fell back into silence gratefully, mentally kicking herself for bringing it up. Damn Armetti. Why couldn't he have gone and died like the rest of her fucking employers? Those were times she just rather pretend had never happened.

He finished his food a few minutes later with a groan of contentment, flopping back on the bed, fingers absently tracing where she'd bit his neck.

"Why'd you stop me in there?" he asked suddenly.

She knew exactly what he was talking about. She set down her mostly finished meal. "I'm more scared of Mycroft than I'm scared of Jim. He's gotten us twice, Sebastian. And the second time, we wouldn't have made it out if someone hadn't come and fetched us. I don't know who else can get to him but Jim. I don't care if the boss dies, not really. But I care what happens to me. To the both of us. With Jim gone, we'd be at the tippy-top of the list."

He sighed, reaching up to rub at his eyes. "I don't know what to think. A year ago my loyalty was completely with Jim. Totally. I would have done anything for him. I still would, it's my job but..." He shrugged. "Lately I feel less like his employee and more like his science experiment. For a second there, I really wanted out."

"It never even occurred to me that I could have left until I came back," she sighed. "If I hadn't been hard-wired to come back, would I? I don't know. Not for the job. Not for Jim." She fell silent for a moment, running her fingers back and forth over the ugly mark on her thigh. "I guess I just don't think about what I want anymore, not as something that I can get. Maybe I should have let you kill him. Would you have regretted it?"

He was quiet for a moment, then nodded a little. "Yes. I would have. Because I'm a fucking idiot."

She looked over at him, raising her eyebrows a little. "What do you mean by that?"

He smirked slightly. "I don't have control here anymore. Not really. Jim's fucking rabid. I used to be able to predict him, and manipulate his reactions. Not anymore. He's abandoned me to reality and left for fucking gods know where..."

She let out a long breath. "And I don't see any of way of being able to force him to come back. That's the trouble with the smart ones. They're hard to pull back from the edge."

He shook his head. "I need to get him back to where we were. Too much longer like this and the network is going to fall apart."

"My best manipulation begins and ends with people who are easily influenced by my looks," she shook her head, setting the styrofoam container to the side to slide out of bed and head for the bathroom, looking to get a little of the dried blood on her skin off. "But if you know of a way to get that wild card to dance, I'm all ears."

"If I had an idea, I'd've said it by now," he muttered with a sigh, rolling out of bed and stripping the sheets.

She quickly gave up the farce that splashing herself with water from the sink was going to do anything productive and stepped into the shower while it was still cold, swearing under her breath, but desperate to be free of the red crust. This whole thing with Jim was an enormous mess, but there really hadn't been anything they could have done to keep it from getting to this point. He was the boss. He couldn't be ordered around, after all. She sighed, running her hands over her face.

He glanced at the door as he dressed, trying to predict what would occur once he walked out. Would Jim come out and confront him? Shoot him? Or would he stay hidden away?

She joined him a minute later, a little fresher than she'd been before, and grabbed some clothes out of the dresser to change into. "If he comes at you, you gonna fight back?"

He'd been asking himself the same thing. "I'll defend myself, and you if necessary," he said. "Beyond that... no."

"Yeah, I meant in a life-or-death sense," she shrugged, pulling on a sweater and some jeans. It was just starting to become fall, and the weather was getting just a little bit nippy. But she was surprised that he'd defend her against Jim. There had been a time where he seemed like he would let the boss shoot him like a dog. But now, not only was he willing to fight to keep Jim from killing him, he was willing to protect her as well. She was touched.

He shook his head a little, rubbing at his eyes and straightening. "I'm not going to stay holed up in here all day. I need to back my play last night. Act normally."

"Probably the best course of action," she agreed, collecting the takeout boxes to toss in the trash. "I should be safe no matter how I act today. I did technically save his life. Unless that's how he wants to get to you..."

"As logical as that is, he may decide he doesn't appreciate being indebted to you..." He sighed, squared his shoulders, and headed out into the apartment.

Jim was not, in fact, in the flat at all. He'd called on his private jet in the middle of the night and left early that morning, leaving only a note duct-taped to the living room wall. The note was written in his typical careless scrawl.

Holmes made a move. I am not one to battle across an ocean. I fully expect the operation on Mallory to go uninterrupted, and if the two of you become so busy fucking like animals that it interferes I'll have the both of you boiled and skinned alive.

I have not forgotten last night, Moran.

It is in light of those events that I left without explanation. I wanted to be able to imagine you going red in the face.

-JM

He picked up the note, and it was only to spite the last remark that he didn't throw something across the room. He tossed the note onto the table, walking back to his room without a word to start packing.

Lorna looked up from where she'd been using her laptop on the bed, eyebrows furrowing slightly. "Going somewhere?"

"Jim left," he said, the fury glinting just below the surface evident in his voice. "For London."

She was silent for a moment, wary of saying something that might inflame his anger. "Did he leave behind instructions?"

"Fuck his instructions. It's written into my contract that my primary duty above all else is to protect him. Just because I threatened to kill him doesn't mean I would have done it. I was scaring the shit out of him."

"So, yes, he did leave instructions," she sighed, pushing the laptop off her lap and sliding off the bed to head for the living room.

He ignored her, continuing to pack and mentally calculating how quickly he could track Jim down.

She returned a minute later, the letter folded up in her hand. "Sebastian. I can't do this on my own. And someone has to." You know better than to go against a direct order, don't you?

"I can't just let him go, Lorna, He'll get himself killed," he snarled, zipping his bag.

"And if you go after him, he'll kill you." She let out a huff, flinging the letter onto the bed and raking a hand through her hair. Fuck. "Just...fine. Fine. I'll.. fucking figure something out," she muttered, turning to walk back out of the room

He stared after her, angry and torn. "Don't just fucking storm out. We need to discuss this," he asked, exasperated.

She stopped in the doorway and turned, letting out a long breath. "What is there to discuss, Sebastian? I think you and I both know that I can't convince you to do anything, and I'm certainly not going to disobey Jim like that just so we can find him and he can fucking nail my hands to a door or something."

He stood still for a long moment, considering. "Fuck this," he cursed angrily. "What the hell is he thinking?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," she muttered, shaking her head, hands on her hips. "God. Can't have a moment of fucking peace with that man."

He closed his eyes, sat down, tried to think. "What am I supposed to do here?" he muttered. "Either way I'm fucked."

"Honestly? I think our best option is to get this done as fast as possible and then go find Jim," she sighed, shrugging. "Hopefully he won't get himself into any trouble. I mean, doubtful, but still."

He nodded, reaching up to rub at his eyes. "Yeah. I guess that's what we've got." He stood again. "Then let's get on it. I want Mallory down within the month."

She nodded, hands falling down to her sides. She felt tired already. "Okay. Hope we have a lot of coffee. Going to be a shitload of late nights."

He sighed, but nodded. "Right. I'll be sure to stock up. For now... Let's strategize."

She nodded, sinking back down onto the bed and dragging her laptop into her lap. "I know where the woman who helped torture me lives. I figure she'll know where the hell Mallory's base is. The issue is there's no way she hasn't got safeguards in place. Getting to her without resources is... 'going to be a bitch' doesn't really cover it."

He considered her for a moment, then sighed. "I suppose you'll be teaching me to grift, then."

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