The Hunter
Pairing: Rumbelle
Warning: T-rated sexuality
This is a companion piece to Duende. The other side of the coin, if you will.
In hindsight, maybe he shouldn't have caught her. Maybe he should have used magic instead, slowed her fall until she floated soft as a feather to the ground. Maybe he should have kept his eyes on the blinding light of the window, instead of letting them flicker to her eyes, follow the curve of her cheeks, stray to the tantalizing plunge of her breasts as they disappeared under her bodice. Maybe, if he was going to stare anyway, he should have made it quick—a darting there-and-back-again, too quick for her to notice.
He should have done a lot of things. Unfortunately he didn't.
And now the game has changed.
She's bolder than before. She does more leaning than she once did, showing off her curves with satisfied smiles. All the tentative shyness has fallen away, and now she walks with all the grace and confidence of a predator on the hunt.
Every so often he catches her sneaking glances of her own, especially when his back is turned, especially when he walks. A part of him regrets the state of his wardrobe and its (suddenly suspicious) lack of loose-fitting pants. Another part of him toys with the idea of shrinking them further, just a touch, and giving her something to really stare at.
The fact that he's thinking it at all chills his bones.
Thoughts like these should be long extinct from his head. He's the Dark One—dreaded and feared. All he should be feeling is the thrill of a deal, the satisfaction of success, the smug intoxication that comes with raw power.
Jitters and nervous arm-swinging should not factor into that even slightly. He is a beast—he will not be stalked like a trembling little rabbit. Especially not by a girl whom he owns, his property by all rights.
But when something belongs to you, you belong to it too, the same way he is in the thrall of the same magic that he commands.
Treacherous, uncomfortable thoughts keep slithering into his head and constricting his sense. Go to her, they whisper. Hold her close. Tell her you adore her. Take her to bed and make her dreams come true.
Her nightmares, others hiss. You're deluding yourself. Imagining things. A kiss from your lips would drive her mad. You're hideous. A monster. No one could ever love you.
Be practical, mutter others. Even if she does love you (not that she does) a kiss like that would ruin you. Take away your power, leave you a trembling coward again. There goes her precious village, and there she'd go too, just like that. Have some sense. Stay away from her.
He listens to reason, if only because the duel between delight and despair are driving him mad. It would be easy enough to obey his faculties, if not for Belle herself.
Because she keeps prowling his castle (and with each passing day he gets a stronger suspicion that she is becoming the estate's true master it and he is becoming her plaything). He swears she listens for his footsteps; when he takes refuge (he swears he isn't hiding) in less-used chambers she finds excuses to clean there. Even now she's coming his way (he thought for sure that she was mopping in the library), her hips swaying, her chin tucked conspiratorially.
He can't help himself. He backs away. One must respect personal space, after all. A wink of the Sight tells him that she's sneaking another peek at his backside, though he still doesn't know how to feel about that. He turns to glance at her—the smolder in her eyes, the playful curl of her lips—and his heart almost stops in his chest. She leans forward, close to him. Closer.
Fire and ice wage war in his veins, and he's left in a wild panic. He dances away from her, too quickly to be casual, and he can see her taking it in.
Enjoying it.
She pulls herself up onto the table, leaning back just so, and the look in her eyes says she knows exactly what it's doing to him.
"Why did you want me here?" she asks.
A question. That he can do. It takes him a moment to remember how to speak.
"Place was filthy," he mutters, barely managing to inject a note of his normal squeak. He takes a sip of tea to keep his mouth shut before he can say anything else.
She gives him a sidelong glance. She doesn't believe him for a second. "I think you were lonely. Any man would be lonely."
Oh gods, if that isn't an invitation he doesn't know what is. All he needs to do is wrap his arms around the small of her back and pull her to the edge of the table—
"I'm not a man," his good reason mutters aloud. He won't give in. He won't be beguiled. Instead he hoists himself up beside her, his thigh touching hers through the fabric, a deliberate show that he's not afraid of her, thank you very much, that she has no power over him.
If only he could mean it.