Author's Note: Long chapter ahead. Massive... I didn't want to leave you with a cliffhanger. Would have been unfair.
The page was covered in her annotations. She had read and read it over and over again. It just didn't have the right flow. Especially considering it was supposedly the grand finale of the book. The pacing was all wrong. But maybe it was not even that. Maybe it was something else. Or maybe it was just her stupid head that wasn't working properly any more! She threw her pen across the room in frustration and slumped back into her office chair. It rocked slightly back and forth under her weight. She massaged her temples to ease the pressure that had built up in her head in the last couple of hours.
"This sucks," she said to the empty room and got out of her chair. With a few steps she crossed her office, then stopped again. Her stomach growled. Did she take her lunch break today? She thought about it long and hard. No, she didn't. If she remembered correctly she had started reading somewhere around eleven.
She took an impulsive decision, grabbed her purse and stormed out of her office. Out on the corridor she crossed paths with a couple of co-workers, some friendly words were exchanged - no, they had already been out to get something to eat hours ago - so she had to grab lunch all by her lonesome. Great! Just bloody fantastic! It was probably raining out as well. She stormed past her boss's office. Just then her boss decided to breeze out of her door. They practically collided. She apologised profusely which made the older woman smile.
"Actually I was just on my way to talk to you. Won't you come in for a second, Ms Gilbert?" she asked, beckoning her to enter her office with an inviting hand gesture.
"I'm not in trouble again, am I?" Liz asked alternately eyeing her boss then the tastefully furnished office behind her suspiciously. Hopefully she wouldn't receive a scolding like that time she had screamed at the publishing houses' star author and called him a drama queen.
Abigail Frasier smiled at her warmly. "Is there something I should be aware of?"
"No, Mrs Frasier. Everything is just fine." It wasn't a lie. She was quite confident she would soon figure out what was up with the piece of writing she was currently brooding over.
"That's good to know. Will you step inside my office for a minute?" She asked with a genuine smile on her face. Abigail Frasier had the motherly act right down to a notch and she was using it on her quite frequently. She would have probably freaked had she known she was behaving motherly towards a woman four times her age. Liz however was vaguely amused by it and took a secret pleasure in playing along.
Mrs Frasier indicated the comfortable Oxford couch opposite of her desk. They sat down. Mrs Frasier behind her desk, Liz on the couch, now both able to oversee the rainy panorama of the River Thames thanks to the large window front of the office. The scenery, however, was of little importance to them momentarily as important business matters had to be discussed.
"There's a book fair next month in Paris," Mrs Frasier announced without further ado. "I want you to represent our publishing house there. Since your French is excellent and know your way around the city, you seem to be the logical choice. So what do you say? Are you ready for a trip to Paris?"
Was she ready for a trip to Paris? Liz wasn't quite sure. She opened her mouth to answer Mrs Frasier's question, but to her surprise nothing came out.
"What's the matter, dear? Not interested?"
"That's not it...," Liz finally said vaguely. Oh, if she only knew how interested she really was! However, returning to Paris would be complicated. Not that she didn't want to see Methos again. But their many phone calls and the comfortable way they talked to each other by now implied something. Their relationship, she inwardly cringed at the word, had grown into something that had a life and dynamic of its own.
They were talking, testing the boundaries of how much they were going to tell each other about their respective pasts. She had pretty much come clean to him about most of the things that concerned what she liked to call her "Sturm und Drang" period. But what about him? Sometimes she suspected he was only telling her the truth in small doses. A clever approach. He was probably afraid that exposing her to the whole truth at once would scare her away. After having lived for a certain amount of time, it was only natural to have a few skeletons in the closet... But what about a time span as enormous as 5,000 years? If she was honest with herself, she sometimes shuddered to think what kind of skeletons Methos hid in his closet...
She was ripped out of reverie by Mrs Frasier's voice. "So are you going then?" her boss asked patiently and gave a lingering look that told her she'd better say 'yes' now.
"Yes, I think I am," Liz finally agreed with a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew that change was looming on the horizon. And her trip to Paris would certainly bring about one thing – change. It would most definitely shove her life quite forcefully into a certain direction whether she wanted it or not.
Well, at least she had a month until her trip to Paris... Enough time to think things through again. To get a firm rein over her feelings, a clear head. Her past self would have laughed about such notions, would have probably called them too cautious and boring, but maybe she should for once listen to what her rational mind told her and not to what her hormones had to say on that matter.
After having received more information on what her boss expected her to do at the book fair in Paris, she left the office and headed down to the pub. After all she was still hungry. She felt strangely invigorated now, there was an extra bounce in her step. However, her good mood was immediately dampened. No sooner had she left the publishing house and stepped out on the street, she froze. There, among the crowd, someone was watching her. Someone immortal. For a good minute or so she just stood there rooted to the spot, trying to fathom which face in the crowd was watching her with particular interest. Her heart was beating faster and faster. It was not a pleasant feeling being watched by a stranger, a potentially dangerous stranger.
Friedrich's last words immediately resurfaced from her memory against her will, as did the name Helen. Was it her? Was she waiting for the opportune moment to swoop down on her when she least expected it?
Her distress must have shown on her face. A passer-by, an older man dressed in an immaculate suit, stopped and gave her a concerned look. "Are you alright, Miss?"
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry. It's just a migraine," Liz forced a smile. "I get them all the time." She thanked him politely and was on her way a few moments later. After all standing rooted to the spot in the middle of the street wasn't an option.
One month had definitely been a too short amount of time to prepare herself for this. Being uncharacteristically monosyllabic, she was staring at him over her glass of water as if she wanted to hypnotise him.
It had all started at the hotel, when he had come to take her out for a few drinks. He didn't seem to have forgotten about their blasted talk about alcohol and 'lowered inhibitions' from over a month ago and she was currently cursing his good memory.
Back at the hotel there had been a soft knock at the door. She had opened it. A smile on his lips, a flicker of mirth in his gaze, charming, mysterious and fascinating as ever, he had greeted her by casually leaning in to give her a light kiss, first on the right cheek, then the left, as it was custom in France. The teasing smile on his face had made it quite clear that he hadn't really gone native and that this gesture had been nothing but a calculate manoeuvre whose sole purpose had been to throw her off balance right from the start.
He had succeeded in doing so quite expertly. His greeting had given her barely any time to adjust to his presence. There had been too many things to register at once. The light touch of his cheek against hers, the smell of his cologne, the soft pressure of his hand on her elbow. He had stepped back and looked at her wordlessly for a second, his eyes ever scrutinising, ever insightful. Attractive. How had she not seen how attractive he was when she had first met him? For the time being he had effectively rendered her defenceless. Her capacity to counter his verbal and non-verbal blows with a snide remark had vanished.
And now she was sitting here feeling completely out of her depth. Here was a smoky jazz club somewhere close to the Moulin Rouge. It was crowded, there was good music, in short exactly the kind of place she would have picked, had she done the picking. He certainly had taste...
Just one more reason out of by now many why she didn't trust herself around him anymore. That was also why she was currently only drinking water, despite their initial plan to share a couple of drinks, an eccentricity which he had only commented on non-verbally, with a raised eyebrow.
She let out a frustrated groan. She hated herself for being such a bore. Too think that her behaviour had once been called frivolous and wanton and now she was scared of a man! After all that was all that he was. A mere man! A really old and cunning one, but still... She shook her head and waved her hand at the waiter. When he arrived, she batted his eyelashes at him and ordered a glass of whiskey, which she quickly downed once it arrived.
"You're acting curiously," he commented with a smirk.
"Do I?" she asked and quickly muttered something in French to the surprised waiter who only nodded and scurried off to bring her another glass of that whiskey. Methos was still nursing his first one. "I'm sure you're only imaging things,"she clarified.
"No, no, you're definitely acting strange." His eyes narrowed. She could already see the little wheels in his head turning. He was trying to figure her out again. Time to panic. Usually his attempts of figuring her out were crowned with success. She would spare him the trouble.
Her second glass of whiskey finally arrived. She thanked the waiter and took a sip of her drink, enjoying its taste and also the extra time it afford her. Extra time was a good thing in her book. It allowed her to call her chaotic thoughts to order. With a certain satisfaction she finally placed the glass back on the table. "There. I've taken my medicine. All better now," she announced with a smile.
"Sure. Should I even ask what's bothering you?"
"No, fear. I'm going to tell you," she sounded a bit smug saying that, probably because she was overcompensating now, but frankly, at that point she couldn't care any less. "Well, what can I say. Water just isn't me? I can't act against my nature. I shouldn't try. It's just a big waste of time."
He gave her a long look, then took a sip of his drink as well. That probably meant something like 'go on talking', at least she chose to understand it in that way.
"Second guessing is just boring. Being hesitant is boring. And I hate doing boring things," the last words she said with a certain vehemence, her Irish accent vaguely shining through.
"A certain cautiousness can sometimes safe you a lot of trouble."
"And sometimes it can spoil all the fun," she replied giving him a long and meaningful look. He held eye contact with her for a couple of seconds, then averted his face with an amused smile on it. It didn't all sorts of funny things to her pulse. She could feel it speeding up just a tiny bit.
She leaned over the table, stretching out her slender hand to him with a coaxing smile. There, take it, her eye were trying to communicate to him. She willed her fingers not to shake. They chose to do her bidding. Unfortunately she couldn't control her body temperature as well. She was nervous, so her fingers were ice-cold. Nevertheless she decided to bluff her way through the situation by falling back on her usual bravado. "Come on, let's step outside for a second and have a little walk," she wiggled her fingers at him invitingly.
She waited. And waited. A second passed, then another one. It seemed to her like an eternity before he finally smiled at her and stretched out his arm to lay his hand in hers. There was a flash of his tattoo again. She was dying to ask him about it, but didn't because it was never the right time. Just like now. It would kill the mood. His fingers brushed over her pulse and then closed around her hand. They were warm. Much warmer than hers.
"You're nervous," he said, placing his other hand on top of hers to warm her cold fingers.
"Nonsense," she lied and shook her head with a smile.
"Alright," he conceded, but the way he looked at her made clear that he didn't believe her one bit.
"Come on, pay up! This is no place for a proper conversation," she told him impatiently.
He actually laughed at her forwardness, but soon waved the waiter over to pay their bill. Moments later they were on their way out. He was still holding her hand when they were moving through the crowd towards the exit. In fact he never let go of it, except for the couple of seconds when he helped her into her coat.
Outside they were greeted by the busy night life of the city. Bright streetlights were shining overhead, the side-walks were filled with tourists of different nationalities and Parisians alike. A multitude of cars was slowly crawling down the street that led to the Moulin Rouge. Sensory overload.
He tugged her close and whispered in her ear. "Montmartre?"
She nodded. 'Yes', anywhere but here. The pedestrian traffic light had just flashed to green and they quickly jogged over the crossing. They turned right, then left into the next small 'rue', soon leaving the crowded street behind. Their hands were still entwined, but now that they didn't have to fight their way through a crowd of people anymore, the grasp of his finger became looser and looser, then he let go. She was disappointed. A feeling which surprised her greatly. Usually she wasn't one for something as innocent and childish as holding hands.
Since they had left the club they had mostly remained silent, but now she felt the need to speak. "Can I be honest with you?"
He stopped walking and turned towards her. "Haven't you been so far?"
She made a grimace. For her that question was more difficult to answer than for most. It was loaded. She often hid the truth behind a sarcastic remark, a flirty line or charming smile. "Trust me. I have. Bad choice of words apparently... 'Honest' just doesn't seem to have to right ring to it." She thought for a second, then smacked her lips in satisfaction. "Blunt? I think I'll go with blunt then. I'll be blunt, which is usually not my style, but I'm afraid if I'm not, you'll just think I'm joking or flirting or whatever..."
He just looked at her expectantly.
"I've been thinking about you a lot."
Silence. She decided to elaborate.
"A lot more than I should be thinking about you if you were just a casual acquaintance, some friend, someone I flirt with occasionally...," she supplied. Apparently she had managed to rouse his interest. He came closer, his steps echoing in the little street that was deserted save for some lonely stray cat rummaging through a dustbin. Now he was only a couple of inches away from her. His gaze was soft, not at all unkind.
"I've been thinking about you too," he admitted finally.
"How much exactly?" she smiled at him gently.
"More than I should," he smiled back, but crushed her tentative hopes with the next sentence. "But we're both too old and too rational to be rushing into this without using our heads first."
She let out a frustrated groan at his remark. "Please don't tell me you're going to say something dull like 'we shouldn't, it's too complicated'." She looked at him expectantly. He said nothing. "You were going to say just that, weren't you?"
He shrugged his shoulders with an apologetic smile.
"Coward," she accused with a teasing smile that was already faltering when she noticed he wasn't going to say anything to contradict her. "You, bloody old coward!" The smile was gone. She was completely serious now.
"I am just being reasonable. You don't even know who I am..." The tone of his voice had changed as well now. It made unmistakably clear that this was by no means a laughing matter to him.
"Don't you think I've thought about that? I'm not stupid, you know. You're 5,000 years old. So that probably means there's a rather impressive collection of skeletons in your closet..."
"Not only probably, most definitely." The way he was looking at her now made her shiver, but she had worked up quite some steam by now and so she only acknowledged the feeling for a short moment, then quickly chose to ignore it again.
"Well, I showed you mine, you'll eventually show me yours. No big deal, right?" she forced a nonchalance in her voice that she didn't quite feel.
"And the fact that I wasn't too scandalised about your past, didn't that tell you anything?" He came closer now. She backed off a few steps. He was stalking her like a predator. It should have scared her, but it did only in part. Strangely enough it also excited her a tiny bit.
"Your past is darker than mine, I get it," he had her pressed up against the wall now. There were only mere inches separating them. She could feel his warm breath on her face. She raised her head and looked him in the eyes, challengingly, stubbornly. Dilated pupils... His pupils were slightly dilated. His breathing was accelerated. Her brain was just about to piece those information together when he suddenly spoke again.
"No, you don't," he said quietly. His eyes travelled down to her mouth. His gaze lingered for a few seconds on her lips, then he pulled back abruptly, taking a few steps away from her. What was he going to do now? Walk away and leave her standing there? Her temper flared. More dramatically than it had done in the last couple of years. All her tries to rein it in were in vain, so she just gave up trying.
She let out a loud growl that echoed in the deserted street. "You're bloody, fucking frustrating! Fuck caution! Honestly to hell with it! Why don't you live a little once in a while?"
He didn't move, didn't say anything, so she shook her head and turned. After she had taken a deep breath, she started walking down the street in the opposite direction. Admittedly she was in no hurry of getting away from him, she was walking slowly, giving him plenty of time to stop her from leaving. Except that he didn't. "Screw you, Methos!" she called out over her shoulder bitterly before she rounded the corner and disappeared into the Parisian night.
She spent the next hours wandering the streets of Paris aimlessly. Eventually she even ended up somewhere near Montmartre. The realisation of where exactly her feet had carried her was accompanied by a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush. Eventually, very eventually she made her way back to the hotel. But that was only when her feet hurt so much, she couldn't walk in her high heels any more.
She crossed the hotel lobby in a couple of energetic strides and headed straight for the lift. She had kept the keys to her room in her bag, so there was no need to stop at the reception, for which she was glad, because right now she didn't think she could even muster the tiniest smidgen of polite friendliness. Not even the fake variety.
The lift arrived at her floor. She got out and her senses immediately went into overload. Another immortal. In fact he was quite close by. And again she wasn't armed. Maybe if she made a run for her room... She rounded the next corner cautiously. And froze.
There he was sitting, languidly leaning with his back against the door to her room. His hands were resting on his bended knees, he was blinking and in general looking disoriented as if he had just woken from a brief slumber. The Buzz was probably to thank for that. Methos rubbed his eyes and gave her a tired smile.
He was blocking the access to her door, so there was really no way around him or a conversation with him. She bravely started walking and stopped a short distance away from him. The tips of her shoes were now only inches away from touching his. He looked up at her. She noticed that he had apparently run his hand through his hair repeatedly. It was a bit tousled now. 'Cute,' she thought. Oh, this was hopeless! She was supposed to be angry at him and not find him adorable.
With a sigh she took one more step and she leaned against the door. She slightly banged the back of her head against it in frustration. They were turning in circles. Why did he have to come here after what had happened between them? Didn't he have enough for one night yet? Why add one more embarrassing scene to the growing list of embarrassing scenes that defined their acquaintance?
"Can we talk?" he said softly.
"Seen from a purely physical point of view, I guess so. From a moral ethical point of view, however..." After a moment of hesitation and a deep sigh, she finally agreed. It was mostly because of his insistent stare, she told herself. Not because she actually wanted to hear what he wanted to say. "Alright." Slowly she slid down along the door so she was sitting right next to him on the carpeted floor of the hotel corridor. Their shoulders were ever so slightly touching.
"Why are you here?" she finally asked. Her question was straight to the point. At this time of night, around 1 am, beating around the bush had lost its appeal. She was tired.
He blew out a long breath. It wasn't a way of deflecting her question. She knew his stalling techniques by now. That was not one of them. This time he was probably just having a hard time actually finding the right words. "I don't do 'sorry' all that well," he finally said.
"So, don't then," she shrugged her shoulders. After all she didn't really need an apology from him, all she really wanted was an explanation for his behaviour.
He gave her a long sidelong glance. He was probably trying to figure out whether she had said those words in anger. After a while he finally nodded, apparently satisfied with what he had learned by just looking at her face. "I just don't want neither one of us to get hurt."
"That's cute," she actually had to smile at his words. She turned her head to look at him properly. "And oddly chivalrous. Didn't we agree chivalry was stupid?"
"We did," he conceded. The smile on his face was almost wistful. As his thoughts took a more serious direction, it disappeared again, however, just as quickly as it had come. "But this is not me being chivalrous. It's much worse...," he announced morosely.
"Aha," she only said.
"I care about you... Enough to not be completely egoistic for once."
"That's awfully nice of you, but I don't need you to protect me...well, from you. I'm a big girl," she reminded him.
He shot her another long look. "That might be true for regular guys. But what about me?"
She gave her answer a good long thought. "Regular blokes are just not worth it. You might be different" Admitting that wasn't easy for her. For the first time in their acquaintance she let on that he was important to her and in a way special.
Romantic 'love' always had been a difficult concept for her to grasp. She had loved her parents, she loved her friends, but she had always failed at relationships. Relationships were doomed from the start because they were destined to fail at some point, so she stayed away from them, because she knew better. The years had taught her that. In order to be in a relationship and make it work, you had to open yourself up to the other person. She wasn't sure how to do that. Also how much opening up to another person was really sane?
Then again she had already somewhat opened up to him. Her reasons for it? Because each time she told him something about herself, he reciprocated the favour. Those little insights to his character were interesting, so interesting indeed she wasn't sure she wanted to stop any time soon. The thought alone send the alarm bells ringing in her head, but she ignored them. It was clear to her that she was being unreasonable. But she liked being unreasonable when it came to him.
She looked at him, waiting to see how he would take her words. Her hesitant admission from before had been rather vague and therefore the safest route to take. Surely that wouldn't escape his notice. He would so pick up on that.
"Might be. So you have the suspicion there might be something special about me, but you're not quite sure...," he said thoughtfully. Apparently he too found her argument somewhat unconvincing.
"That's not quite it. Or rather only part of the truth," she finally admitted.
"I suspected as much. Are you going to tell me the whole truth?"
"Eventually," Liz replied with a soft smile on her face.
"Eventually," he repeated, laughing softly and shaking his head. "You know," he looked at her, "I've never met a woman quite like you."
"Well, I've never met a man quite like you. Luckily."
"What's that luckily got to mean?" the frown on his face made his displeasure with the additional word at the end of her sentence apparent.
"Oh, don't be like that," she admonished him with a smile, "You know what it means. You know pretty well. Or else you wouldn't have chickened out earlier."
"Chickened out?" he repeated with scepticism in his voice. Apparently there was something wrong with her choice of words again. "My head just tells me it's a bad idea, but for once I'm tempted not to listen."
"See, you get what I mean," she concluded.
They both fell silent for a while. She finally let out a sigh and laid her head on his shoulder. "Being reasonable is very exhausting."
"It is, isn't it?" She could hear the smile in his voice. He seemed to have finally made his peace with the situation. The fact that he took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together, was one more proof of that. The gesture had a certain finality to it. His thumb was rubbing pleasant circles on the back of her hand.
"There is no escape, is there?" he finally said. His words only emphasised what his gesture from before had already made clear. He had surrendered himself to his fate.
"No, I guess not. So that means we're going to do the stupid thing, right?"
He smiled and nodded. "Probably the most stupid idea in existence."
"Hey!" Again she gave him a playful shove. "I'm not that bad."
"Well, maybe I am."
Her eyes lingered on his face for a long time. She was looking at him like she was trying to look into his soul. Maybe she had succeeded, but it was more likely she hadn't and was only trying to boost her own courage by the next words. "No, you're not."
"If you say so, love." Despite the mock annoyance in his statement, it occurred to her that that was probably the first time he used that particular term of endearment without adding a sarcastic ring to it. For some reason it made her feel happy.
"I've got one request, though." She looked at him expectantly. As long as he wasn't going to ask for anything ridiculously over the top she was willing to comply. "I think it would be a good idea to take this slow."
"Right. Because reining in one's feelings and hormones usually works out so brilliantly... This is not a bloody Jane Austen novel. You're not trying to turn this into a modern day version of Persuasion, are you? You're cute, but no way in hell am I going to wait ten years for you to come around." Her sarcasm concerning that particular proposal was not unfounded. After all she was usually an expert at manipulating other people's feelings, so she knew how they worked.
He laughed at her comment. "You've read Persuasion?"
"That's what you've picked up on?" she grinned.
"No, I also got that part where you basically said that my suggestion was stupid, which, by the way, was kind of hard to miss thanks to all that sarcasm..."
"It's ridiculous we're even talking about this. You can't control feelings with your will power. That's not how they work. Believe me, I should know"
"It's not ridiculous, given that we are who we are. We are both capable of manipulating other people because we are able to detach ourselves from our feelings. We rather think with our heads than with our hearts," he gave to think. "I am just saying a more rational approach is advisable. You of all people should understand."
He did have a point there, she begrudgingly had to concede. "Okay," she finally said.
"Okay," he repeated. She thought she could detect a considerable amount of relief in his voice. Did that mean they had the serious part of that conversation covered? She would highly appreciate it, because all that seriousness was starting to give her headaches. Also her back was beginning to ache which was probably because she had been leaning with it against the hard wooden door of her hotel room for more than half an hour. A hotel room that came fully equipped with a sofa and cushions. Nice fluffy cushions.
"Hey," she gave him a gentle nudge. He looked at expectantly. "The carpet is lovely but my back's starting to ache. How about we finally stand up?"
"I was afraid you'd never asked," he grinned.
"How long have you been sitting here, anyway?" she asked curiously.
"Wouldn't you like to know..." He let out a low groan when he first attempted to raise himself to a standing position.
As he got up slowly, she couldn't help but make a wise crack about his age. He endured it with a sweet-sour grin on his face, stretching and shaking his legs. Maybe they had fallen asleep.
"Help me up, will you?" she wiggled her hands at him invitingly. He took them and pulled her up.
Suddenly they were standing in front of each other, their noses almost touching. He was close now. Very close. He still held her hands in his, she noticed. Her eyes travelled up from their intertwined hands to his face. They lingered a bit too long on his mouth. She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to kiss those lips that said those deliciously ironic things all the time. There was a slight stubble on his chin now. What did people call that? A five o'clock shadow? Except it was somewhere close to half past one at night now. She smiled at the thought. Their eyes finally met. His left eyebrow was slightly arched up, the expression in his eyes ever teasing. They seemed to say "What now?" She already had a couple of ideas...
"What do you know about kissing?" she asked sort of abruptly. The question was miles away from her usual smoothness. Usually she would have built up to it slowly, but now she was impatient. She wanted to move this situation forward.
Her eyes were fixed on his mouth as she waited for his response. She was fascinated with it. The way it curved into a delicious smile, created attractive laughter lines on his face and revealed just a hint of teeth mesmerised her. "You want to know what I know about kissing?" The question seemed to amuse him. "Enough," he said finally. She nodded almost mechanically. Still they were standing very close. She was inside his, what people liked to call, 'personal bubble'. So close their bodies were touching ever so slightly in various places. Just a brush of fabric against fabric, but nevertheless she could feel his body warmth and the lure it created. The moment was electric. It was one of those "Will-they? Won't they?" kind of situations. He didn't seem ready to plunge in yet, however it was clear that he took pleasure in balancing along the edge of it.
"Why do you want to know?" he asked. There was a mirthful glint in his eyes that was hard to miss that up close. "Are there any special...," insert raised left eyebrow here, "skills required kissing you?" As he said that he leaned even closer if that was possible. She could now see that his irises were not entirely brown but had flecks of green in them that were accentuated by the artificial light from above.
"No, but you would want to make it memorable of course," she said, trying to keep her cool and the upper hand in this situation despite him standing so close it made her heart race. "I've been kissed many times."
"Is that a challenge?" his voice was very low now. Of course, it was not necessary to raise it at this close proximity. Its intimate tone sent shivers down her spine as did his thumb that was stroking the inside of her palm so very slowly.
"No, only a statement," she said softly. "Or rather an early warning."
"Early warning," he repeated, chuckling softly under his breath as he shook his head. His face soon grew serious again when he looked at her. Without any warning he finally leaned in and kissed her. It was a mere peck on the lips and lasted just a fraction of seconds, but she felt it quite intensely. His lips softly pressed against hers for just a moment. They were warm and teasing as they opened just the tiniest bit to caress hers. There was hardly enough time to respond. He didn't leave her enough time to respond.
He pulled back which gave her a bit of time to process what had just happened between them. She felt bereft because there hadn't been enough time to kiss him back properly and also because she had wanted more. This was not your innocent run-of-the-mill peck on the lips. It had left her with a lot of question marks buzzing around in her head and the need to explore kissing him further. It wasn't just something she could ignore, a desire she could quench. He had some how managed to shake her awake (it felt like she had been asleep for years and years) and made her incredibly curious what kissing him a second time would be like.
So she did it. She leaned in for a second kiss. It surprised him, because she had stood there with a dazed and somewhat vacant expression on her face just seconds ago. She almost had him worried for a second there. But now she was anything but dazed and vacant. Her lips softly caressed his in a teasing, yet sort of experimental way. This was unexpected. Even for her. Instead of getting ahead of herself, like she usually did, she chose a slower pace. It was not one long, passionate kiss, not the onslaught of a hungry mouth on another, but a series of small kisses that exponentially grew longer. She wanted to fully explore this sensation, to see were it could go. There was only one tiny miscalculation on her part. She was trying to coax him into a response when coaxing was thoroughly unnecessary as it turned out. Each kiss they shared grew not only longer, but more intense. Her heart rate sped up. Especially when his arm encircled her waist and he pulled her closer against him. She could feel it beating in her ears when she opened her mouth to him and he deepened the kiss further.
He broke the kiss. "Slow," he reminded her although his voice sounded rather breathy and made what was probably meant to be a request sound more like a doubtful question.
She scoffed underneath her breath. Slow was ridiculous. So far she wasn't fully convinced by it. Her hands ran down the labels of his coat as if to smooth them out. Up and down. Up and down. Up and... His own hands abruptly shot up to stop their movement. There was even something remotely resembling a reproachful look on his face. Just that the reproach was overshadowed by the desire that was shining in his eyes. She flashed him a grin which was cheeky yet seductive. "Alright. I'll be a good girl. I promise."
"Don't make any promises you can't keep."
He already knew her far too well. "Oh, come now! This was just some perfectly innocent, good old-fashioned kissing. What harm could it do? It's not like I'm going to drag you into my room, where we'll slowly peel off each others clothes and have incredible hot and sweaty sex..."
He laughed softly and as he was still leaning against her, she could feel the slight rumble of his laughter in his chest. There was an appealing sparkle of amusement in his eyes, but also something darker that told her, her words had hit home and he was probably having thoughts along those lines as well. His laughter slowly ebbed away. His fingers came up to smooth a lock of hair out of her face. As they were tucking it behind her ear, he was gazing into her eyes affectionately "I have a feeling that with you nothing is innocent," he said, without sounding too sorry about that.
"Is that a problem?"
"Not particularly," he grinned and to her delight, kissed her again, backing her up against the door in the process. She smiled against his lips. Now she could definitely feel his stubble against her skin. It was not unpleasant. In fact it felt rather good. She let her fingers trail down his cheek. Definitely good, yes. His lips were more insistent now. Everything about this kiss was more serious and insistent. She slightly parted her lips. Again she wanted to coax a reaction out of him. He was always so composed and in control it was maddening. She wanted to see just how far his composure went exactly, what was beneath all those layers of sarcasm, cynicism and calculated deception. She got her wish and she was not prepared for what she found out. He deepened the kiss. The way he kissed her had something hungry to it, almost wild.
She had been kissed many times. But not like this. Kissing never made her lose control. And she was a woman who was all about control. It came with the 'job' that had defined her life for so many years she wasn't even sure she could count them. A courtesan was always in control. Kissing and sex had been a daily occurrence to her back in the day. She had had to learn to detach her feelings from things that were usually a display of affection and twist them into something else – mere business transactions. At best they were nice sensory experiences. Sort of impersonal. But this was far from being impersonal. It was intimate and the word 'nice' wasn't even beginning to do it justice. Talk about keeping one's emotional distance... his kisses made her swoon, goddammit! What he did to her was more than just a pleasant sensory experience, above all it made her realise that any semblance of control had slipped through her fingers minutes ago. How it could have happened without her noticing was a mystery to her. That he had managed to do this to her was a scary thought. Oddly enough it was also rather thrilling.
She felt his lips on her neck now. Not only his lips. His teeth slightly grazed her skin. Her hands fisted into the fabric of his coat in response. Almost against her own volition her leg came up and wrapped around his hips, urging him closer. He quickly positioned his hand under her knee, keeping that leg in place. This was quickly getting out of control. "Slow," her mind mockingly whispered to her, echoing his words from before. She smiled a catlike smile. For her own taste this was going far too slow.
"That's not slow," she breathed into his ear. The remark was meant to tease him and make him say something along the lines of 'screw slow'. Unfortunately it did the complete opposite of what it was supposed to do. She would later curse herself for that comment. He stopped kissing her, stopped touching her in that deliciously frantic way he had touched her only seconds ago. Luckily he didn't let go off her entirely.
He was looking at her. There was a somewhat disoriented expression on his face that was already beginning to be eclipsed by his frustration with the situation."Damn it," he slightly bumped his head against the door behind them. "Bad idea," he admonished himself, his voice was low and somewhat breathy. He was adorable, trying to be reasonable and what not, but she would never tell him that. He wouldn't take too kindly to that. Nevertheless, she wanted to make sure he had enjoyed the whole experience just as much as she had. She put her fingers under his chin and made him look at her. "But still fun, right?" There was a lopsided grin on her face. She was trying for cute and apparently succeeded.
"More than fun actually," he smiled at her. That up close and personal his smile did funny things to her. Mostly it triggered a strong desire to kiss him again and so she did. She placed a tiny peck on his cheek.
"I didn't think it would be like that," he said.
"Like what?" she asked innocently.
"Dangerous. Difficult to control."
"Yeah?" She gave his words some more thought and came back out of her brief reflection with a teasing question. "Do I make you lose control?"
"Almost," he grinned. "But it's a mutual thing. So I guess it's alright." The statement was a tiny bit conceited, but it was the truth, so it didn't irritate her in any way.
"It's a mutual thing alright," she admitted after a while.
"Look, maybe I should..."
"No," her hands closed around the labels of his coat, holding him in place. She could tell what would come next. "Don't go. Stay. Just a little longer." She would have rendered him silent with a kiss, but since kissing was off the menu for now, because of his... their desire to take it slow, she chose a safer alternative. She pulled him closer by the labels of his coat. There was an adorably confused look on his face. He was probably wondering if she wanted to kiss him again. She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. Her hands were now underneath his coat, stroking his back in a soothing rhythm. She breathed in his scent - a combination of cologne, fabric softener from his sweater and something uniquely him. It made her insides tingle and did funny things to her brain which immediately began to supply her with all sorts of overly cute and womanly comments which she could be making now. She bit her lips and remained silent. Those sort of comments were not part of her repertoire.
"What are you doing?" he asked with a smile in his voice. She could tell by the way he said it that he didn't find her snuggling up to him all too unpleasant. The fact that he wrapped his arms around her tightly to hold her in place was also a huge pointer in that direction.
"I'm trying to make leaving for you extremely difficult. Is it working?" she said into his sweater.
"Yes, definitely working."
She sighed. This felt comfortable, secure. How had she done without that feeling all those years she wondered.
"I've been thinking...," he said after a while. His head was now resting atop of hers.
She took a tiny step back to look at him properly, but didn't not step out of his embrace. There was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes and a cheeky expression on her face."You've been thinking... Oh, really? Interesting, darling. Quite a nice change for once. Do tell!"
"Be nice!" he probably meant to throw her a mock chastising look, but all it did was make her laugh softly.
"I'm sorry... You've been thinking...," she supplied, trying to keep a straight face.
"Yes, about a conversation we once had," he paused, probably waiting for her to make one more silly comment. She remained silent. He continued. "You said you always felt like you had to be on your toes when talking to me. I guess that's not true any more?"
"Why do you always have to ask those kind of questions?" she asked. Her voice managed to sound irritated and amused at the same time.
"What kind of questions?" He was perplexed. He even loosened their embrace a tiny bit.
"All the right ones at the right time. You've got the precision of a surgeon. How do you do it?"
"It's a gift," he grinned a self-satisfied grin. "Won't you answer my question?"
"Okay," she finally conceded. She was a bit hesitant because her words would reveal more about the changed dynamic of her relationship than any kiss or touch could do. But he genuinely seemed to be interested in what she had to say on the subject, so she humoured him. "You'll always keep me on my toes... But in the beginning I was afraid that if I let my mouth get away from me, if I miss-stepped just a tiny bit, you would have eventually used it against me."
He raised an eyebrow. "And now?"
"Now," she sighed. She could put it in complicated words, hoping he wouldn't understand the true meaning of her statement immediately or she could just say it. She chose the latter alternative. "I try not to worry about it any more. I don't trust other people easily. But I'll give it a try with you." In her book those words almost ranked just as high as 'I love you'. She had never trusted someone enough to let him get to know the real her.
He smiled. "Trying doesn't mean you'll succeed," he pointed out.
"Yes," she acknowledged, "but it does however imply I'll make a continuous effort to succeed."
"Well then, let's try together," he relented with a smug grin.