They lay on their backs in the field next to the lake, drying off. Chase was munching happily on the grass nearby, his tail swishing.
"Do you know any of them?" Tessa asked, gesturing to the bright stars in the sky that were beginning to pop up in earnest through the dark. Tommy exhaled smoke and then passed it to her.
"I'm gypsy. I know all of them," he said.
She tried not to be jealous of him. All she had gotten from her heritage was a last name and very red hair on her father's side, and a foot half in two worlds from her mother.
"Show me?" She asked, and he did, pointing out all the constellations in a low voice, sometimes describing the story behind them, bits and pieces of the past. She couldn't decipher half of the strange shapes he was describing, or see how anyone could think that was what the stars formed, but she let his deep voice lull her like the waves of the lake.
"That's Orion," he told her, his smooth cadence halting for the first time. "The hunter."
"And what's his story?" She asked him. She could hear him breathing, deeply. He was so warm in the cool night air that she could feel his shoulder next to hers, even though they were not touching.
"He took whatever he wanted, what wasn't meant to be his. And eventually, he was punished for it."
His voice felt heavy. She didn't think they were talking about stars anymore. She turned her head to look at him, and he looked at her, and he was so beautiful in the night, and so sad, and so broken, and so everything at once that she couldn't have put him into words if she was given ten thousand pages, couldn't have explained how she felt in that moment if she had the rest of her life to try. He blinked and she watched his dark lashes flutter, and then he moved closer and kissed her, hand cupping her face, his fingers against her cheek. There was a callous on his pointer finger from how often he held a gun. He tasted like the mint he had found and cigarettes and something sharp like ichor that was just him. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, gently, and she let him, and he pushed off of his elbow to roll on top of her, his weight pressing against her, and every point of contact between them lit up her nerves and synapses like matches striking into flame. Kissing him made her ache, in the best possible way. He felt better than vodka or whiskey, better than snow, her fingers in his hair and gripping his shirt as he moved slowly, expertly, taking his time. She rolled her hips up against him, moving her body on his, and his hand flexed momentarily on her waist in response and then he was pulling his shirt over his head, or she was, but she couldn't have cared less who was to blame, all she could wonder was why on earth it had taken this long. His hands were under her, unlacing the back of the black dress, impatient now, his mouth hot and soft on her neck, sending shivers down the backs of her legs and heat and tension clenching low in her stomach, and she melted, her hands eager and insistent and touching him everywhere, everywhere she could. Everything smelled like him and tasted like him, clean and dirty all at once, sandalwood and smoke, and she lifted her hips again, this time to let him drag the dress down off her body, and he looked at her with those eyes she wanted to fucking dive in, drown in, jump into like the lake. He ran them down her and just the way he looked at her made her wet, hovering above her, beautiful and dangerous and she couldn't wait to play with the fire, to let him do whatever it was to her that he wanted. She reached for him again, kissed him again because she dearly, dearly wanted to, wanted to make him need her just as badly as she did him, but he slid an arm around her shoulders and in one fluid motion flipped her so that she was above him, his hand snaking down between her pale thighs. When he touched her, she bit back a moan, and then failed to stifle the ones that followed, and he whispered, "Fuck," under his breath as he slipped a finger inside her, then two, using his thumb to keep stroking her and she was diging her nails into his upper back, feeling the muscles shift and flex under them, and her mouth was on his shoulder to muffle her sounds. He threaded his free hand into her loose hair and pulled her back.
"Let me hear you," he said, he commanded, his voice low, but even if he hadn't she wouldn't have had a choice because she could feel it building and it felt so, so good, she didn't think anything in the world felt as good. The crest of the wave broke, and she lost herself for several seconds, and she couldn't remember her own name but she somehow still knew his, and she thought she was probably saying it. He slipped his hand away, let her rest, kissing her lazily down her naked neck and shoulder. She let her eyes crack open, breathing hard, her body floating like it was drifting down a river, then reached down and grasped him in her palm. Tommy grunted with the unexpected pressure. She could feel him throbbing in her hand and smiled a bit at his thickness. Of course he had a nice cock. At least that explained where some of the arrogance came from. She sat up in his lap, pulled him with her, hovered, waited. Her chest rose and fell unevenly, and she should have been scared, perhaps, should have been hesitant, should have told him she couldn't do this with a man who had put a bullet in as many men as women he had been inside. But she didn't. She put her other hand up to his face, felt the breath blow out warm through his parted lips, the constant, fearless challenge in his bright blue eyes, the lines of his cheeks and jaw. His skin was warm, the bullet holes healing but still angry and red, slights on his perfection. She wanted to ask him where every scar had come from, she wanted to know all his stories, knew he would never tell her. He closed his eyes against her touch and she kissed him, softly, like a whispered confession, and slid him inside her, just barely. The ocean eyes cracked open and he said something in Romani, and then,
"You asked me what I am."
She pulled back to look at him, to let him look at her. They, and the world, were still, for a moment. Her father's words, ones that felt so long ago, now, echoed back to her. A predator, he had said. He had warned her. And Tommy made her pray, in that single, frozen moment, to a God she didn't believe in, just one word. Please.
She didn't say anything. She took a deep breath and slid down onto him, slowly, their eyes locked, her breathing and heartbeat stopped like just another deer at the end of a gun, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and felt him move inside of her.
"Yours," he told her, deep and low, his hand on the back of her neck, and for a moment it looked like the steel walls behind his eyes were torn down, he was looking at her like she was the only thing that existed in the entire world, and she thought she might not even make it to tomorrow and all her worries would have been for nothing, because her head and her heart felt like they were going to explode right then and there, and suddenly, she wondered if she had been wrong about who had hunted who.