Author's note: Thank you very, very much for the reviews you left. It's not over - by any stretch of the imagination - and the plot doesn't move much over the next two chapters. They're mostly for fun. So I hope you enjoy them.
The room was warm, and the fire was still strong despite the hours which had passed. He wanted to move, wanted to take some action but the thought of relinquishing her body, her soul, was too much to bear. She rested against his chest, one fine leg tangled with the sheets across his own, her vermillion nails raking gently up and down across his pectoral muscles.
He reached for a cigar, stored in the box on the nightstand, and motioned to it, "Do you mind?"
She shook her head silently and her red lips curved up in that delicious smile he'd just discovered. It was somewhere between a grin and a sneer.
There was no space for words, nothing that hadn't already been whispered between skin and ecstasy.
"Gomez," she whispered, "I need a drink."
He withdrew the cigar from his mouth and blew the smoke out into the hot room, where it disappeared almost instantly. Then he set it on the bedside.
"And what," he slid down, so he was face to face with her and propped up on an elbow, "Would my lady like?"
She considered for a second then reached forward and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was slow, torturous. Then in a moment she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and bit down on the over-tender flesh. A yelp of pain, and delight, shot through him and made his flesh tremble.
"So you like that?"
He lifted his hand to his mouth and when he withdrew it there was the scarlet stickiness of his own blood trickling over his thumb.
"Do you always test boundaries?"
She smiled and rolled away from him, "I've just started. I'd like anything…wine, water, anything."
He nodded and trailed a hand down her back before pushing the sheets away and climbing out of bed. He reached for his robe on the armoire and slid his feet into his leather house slippers.
"Please don't be gone for…long."
There was not only tenderness in her voice, but vulnerability too. The sudden desire to prove to her she was more than simply a conquest was fearfully strong. He dropped to his knees in front of her, as she lay like Cleopatra on his bed, and took her hands in his.
"I worship you," he vowed, "And you mustn't be afraid of what is ahead of us. With this, with what goes between us, any challenge can be conquered."
She turned her head away and he knew, though it seemed to be something she would not yet admit, that she would come to need him one day as much as he already needed her.
"Morticia, cara mia, my only love," he propelled her face back with his hand gently on her chin, "You must believe me."
"We are damned," she muttered but there was defiance in her words too.
"Then let's be damned together."
It was only when he made it to the wine cellar that the severity of her words seemed to crash onto his shoulders. He felt an iron band of panic wrap around his chest, different from what it had been over the course of the last few weeks. He slid down a wall of fine vintage bottles, pulling the dust from each one, as the revelation came over him again and again.
Thing scuttled down the last stair and ground to a finger-blistering halt in front of him.
"I know I've done it," he answered the pet spitefully, after an entirely rude gesticulation of digit-insults from his friend, "And she is everything I've ever wanted."
Thing shook a disparaging finger.
"That woman will be the mother of my children," he said sternly, lifting himself up, "Even if I have to give up all of this."
Thing shuddered and jumped onto the wine bottle right beside his face.
"I mean it Thing," he slid one of the French vintages out, "I swear it with every inch of my being."
Thing shook with indignation and began to jig up and down. Gomez lifted him, gripped him firmly, and while Thing flailed about said calmly:
"Listen here Thing; I love you very much but you are not to upset her, am I clear? Don't even go near her. She will soon be your new mistress and regardless of what you think of her you ought to learn to hold your tongue, or fingers, as it were."
He dropped Thing gently back onto the wine rack and turned to go.
Having gone via the kitchens he brought two glasses also, and slid the door quietly open. She was set up in the bed, staring into the fire, the sheets not quite draped over her modesty.
"You are breath-taking," he murmured, setting the wine aside, "You have to know."
She touched his cheek, "You really think so?"
He nodded emphatically, ensuring there was no doubt left in her question, and took her hand in his again.
"Will you marry me?"
He could tell, immediately, what her answer would be.
"No," she whispered, "Not when it will break a bargain…and a family. Right now I cannot say yes, as much as I want to."
He nodded, already accepting that he had a lot of work set out before him, innumerable challenges to mount and conquer, before he could claim ownership of her as fully as fate wanted him to.
"You see it isn't that-"
"My love," he whispered, turning to pour the wine, "You needn't explain it. I understand as fully as it can be understood."
She nodded, "I can't make a promise we, neither of us, may be able to keep. The very thought though…" she shook her head, took the wine he offered, "I think I am in love with you."
The earth-shattered around them then, with the vocalisation of it, and he nodded forlornly.
"Yes, I would have to agree. But aren't they such paltry sentiments to describe how we feel?"
The silence stretched out then as they sipped the fine wine and the clock chimed midnight.
"There is a game in my family," he whispered, "It's called Obligacion de Revelar."
She raised a brow, "Full disclosure."
He grinned and crawled towards her, "Indeed. You are very clever."
"I am," she answered, sliding underneath him, "How does one play?"
"Well," he took his wine glass and poured a dribble into the deep recess between her clavicles, "You take a drink for the sacred chalice, tell a secret, something no one knows about you, and it has to be completely honest."
He dipped his mouth to slurp at the claret liquid amidst her luscious groan.
"The truth is I want you, more than I've ever wanted anything. Full disclosure."
He sat back on his knees, great satisfaction at the way she lay undone before him. It made him powerful.
"I suppose we'll have to work out a way to make that happen," she said, recovering, and reached for her own glass to drink.
He watched, disrobing as he did so, as she sipped at the fine vintage. Her lips, despite the endless kissing, hadn't lost their ruby colour.
"I was rude to you because I desired you. Full disclosure."
He grinned, "I deduced as much, you know, from this."
He motioned with a hand to her body, stretched out against the darkness of the sheets.
"Oh," she joined him on her knees too and there was a delicious vengefulness in her words, "You are too confident."
He panicked for a second but then he saw the joy of her act glittering in her eyes.
"And what do you do to boys who grow too confident?"
"I punish men who do it," she clawed her nails roughly across his chest, where welts appeared almost instantly.
"Ah!" He watched them appear with delighted terror, "Ah I see. I might continue doing that then."
She reached across his body for the robe and, until she started pulling the velvet tie from the loops which held it safe, he wasn't sure what she was doing. When he finally deduced her plan he couldn't resist the grin which plastered itself impossibly across his face.
"Top of the bed, mon amour."
"When you speak like that…." He crawled towards the pillows.
"Yes?"
"Well it's a torture all on its own."
She climbed delicately on top of him and wound his hands and the tie and the bed together, until he was wholly incapacitated. She was good with knots, it occurred to him.
"Oh Gomez," she breathed, her mouth teasingly over his abdomen and trailing downwards, "You haven't come close to torture yet."
His cry of delight echoed through the silence of night.
I hope you enjoyed, and I'd love it if you have time to review.
