Author's note: Dear readers, thank you for sticking with this story for so long. I've enjoyed writing it. In fact I've had so much fun that I'm considering writing an installment which will be more action packed. My thanks also go out to Jennaya who has bravely beta-ed her way through the majority of those chapters!
Liz was about to greet her friend, but he beat her to it. "If it isn't the man-eating, self-centred, obnoxious kleptomaniac!" Methos sneered at Amanda, whose grin broadened a little more, because thanks to his comment he had let her known just how much the whole situation irritated him. Also she knew for a fact that Liz would elbow him in the side and whisper a few words of reproach to him any seconds now.
Amanda and Liz spent the car ride with telling him over and over again to behave himself. They followed up their admonitions with a detailed briefing on the hosts of the party, two German brothers by the name of Johannes and Leopold. Twins apparently. Amanda told them that both were into art, but on Johannes part it was only for the sake of the ladies, whereas Leopold, a history buff, was interested in the cultural aspect of it. Now Liz's task was to target Johannes, while he was to distract Leopold with some chatter about art and culture. The distraction they were supposed to provide was meant to keep either brothers from going down to their shared office, where Amanda, dressed as one of the catering staff, would delete all surveillance material that would allow others to link her back to the recent art theft she had committed by robbing the brothers' vault back at their house in Munich. It sounded a simple enough plan, but from experience Methos was already able to tell that nothing ever was quite that simple. Then again there wasn't much of a risk for him and Liz, so he could lay back and enjoy the show, possibly even get some free food in the process.
They were now standing on the gangway where the guests were forming a bee-line, getting ready to flash their invitation at the security personal when their turn had come. Methos was waiting behind Liz, one of his hands was placed on the small of her back, the other on her elbow. An outside observer might have gotten the impression that he was being polite, but what he was really doing was teasing her. He had not wanted to come and she had badgered him into it. Plus, there was still the fact that he had yet to goat her into giving him a kiss when no one was looking. He had every intention to make her beg for it at the end of the evening. She had made joking remarks about his moves before, but he was going to make sure she would never tease him about them again. He leaned closer to her, as if to make some casual observation. "I'm sure you're feeling a bit cold now with that chill breeze, huh? Nothing a nice, long hot...," the way he pronounced the word 'hot' was positively sinful, "bath couldn't fix."
As he regarded her profile, he saw her delicate eyebrows arch up and couldn't help but chuckle maliciously on the inside. His glee, however, abated somewhat at her next words as they were spoken with a certain amount of dry irony. "Or just a plain old, simple cup of tea. Much quicker and much less trouble."
They arrived in front of a heap of meat and muscles, for a lack of a better description, which awaited them at the end of the gangway, guarding the entry. Liz flashed their invitation at him, telling him an outright lie without even flinching or batting an eye. "Benjamin and Ava Adams." The man nodded and waved them past after having in chronological order first bestowed the invitation, then her and finally him with a critical gaze.
When they left the cold night breeze behind them by entering yacht, she let her stole slip from her shoulders, so he would get an eyeful of the graceful curve of her neck and her delicate white skin.
Liz smiled at him from over her shoulder. "Now we just have to figure out which twin is which, dearest brother of mine," she told him, indicating their hosts with a nudge of her head. They were both two tallish good-looking guys in their early thirties with sandy brown hair and a rather lean physique. "I say, we just walk up to them and introduce ourselves and harp on a bit of how nice it was of them to invite us. They'll keep wondering how they were ever able to forget acquaintances as charming and good-looking as us."
"Why thank you," he said with a smug smile, adjusting his bow-tie she knew for a fact didn't need adjusting.
"How come I have told you numerous times already that you look quite scrumptious today and you have never even deigned to bestow a single word of praise on me, huh?" Liz said with narrowed eyes. She never took them of him even as she nicked a champagne flute from the tray of a waiter who had just breezed past them. She took a sip from the beverage and made a face. She didn't like champagne, he remembered.
He took the flute out of her hands, which earned him a disapproving glance and exchanged it for a glass of Martini from another one of those trays that were carried past them. With a surprised expression she looked between the drink now clasped in her hands and his face. Methos grinned and used her distraction to pinch the toothpick with the three olives, which had been previously swimming around in the Martini, from right under her nose. "Perhaps I just wanted to wait for the most opportune moment..."
"Pity. You've missed it. It was back at the hotel room," she remarked, once more displaying her dry sense of humour.
He clasped the olives between his teeth and slowly tore them off the toothpick. It was distracting. His teeth, his lips, the way he appreciatively closed his eyes before he swallowed down the olives. She became aware she was staring and averted her eyes. "I'm not so sure of about that," he said after a while. "I thought the right moment would be later, on deck, underneath the moonlight against the backdrop of the soft rushing of the waves."
Liz couldn't help but envision the scenario he had described in her mind's eye and she begrudgingly had to admit that it was quite appealing. A couple of well-chosen words of praise could indeed go a long way in a setting like that. The realisation she had come close to indulging in daydreaming on the job dawned on her. She shook herself out of her daze with a considerable amount of self-loathing and a surge of dislike directed towards him and his tendency to be right too often. "I hate you," Liz hissed at him and turned around to finally walk up to the hosts of the party to introduce herself like she had planned all along.
She heard him follow her. He was chuckling softly. "You know, I'm really starting to enjoy myself," he whispered to her as they made their way through the crowd. He had in the meantime snatched some hoers d'oeuvre from one of those passing trays – Wait a second! They had sushi? - and had also procured himself a drink of his own.
"Benji...," she started, throwing him a hooded side-long glance to make sure, he found that particular nickname just as annoying as she thought he might. Upon hearing it he cringed and almost spilled his drink. Yep, jackpot! "I just hope, you'll still enjoy yourself once this kicks off.
Are you sure you can handle it?" They had stopped walking by now and she had taken the chance to gentle pluck the food and drink from his hands to deposit them on a nearby table.
Now she was waiting for his answer. Quite obviously she had been referring to her flirting with another guy which would be happening right under his very nose. Methos seemed hesitant to answer.
"You know that I can handle everything you throw at me," he tried to evade giving a straight answer again. They didn't have time for this. They were working on a tight schedule. Great, just when she needed him to be concise, honest and up-front! When he set his mind to it, his personality had the potential to be ever-antagonising.
"That's not what I asked. I was asking about your feelings," she said in a more appeasing tone of voice, laying both her hands around the crook of his elbow as she tugged him a bit closer to her.
"It's a bit too late for that, don't you think?" his tone carried an acerbic note, though he made an effort concealing his emotions behind a mask of nonchalance.
"No," she said. "You of all people should know that what I feel inside is different from what I let people see or believe. You'll just have to trust me, okay?" She searched his eyes. He held her gaze and after a couple of seconds had trickled past he nodded. "Okay."
The exchange between seemed unimportant, but it was far from that. In the brief amount of time of only a couple of seconds they had taken a huge leap forward in their relationships. If their mutual reassurances were indeed genuine, they would have even managed to take a larger one, but only the rest of the evening would be able to tell. With a final nod Liz turned and continued walking.
Seconds later they stood in front of their hosts. Liz turned up her charm full force. Introductions were made. She smiled at the two brothers in a charming way and when she had learned which one of them was Johannes, she flashed him an even friendlier smile. Soon, just like Amanda had wanted them to, they had them wrapped up in conversation.
"So, Johannes...," she started, about to ask her vis-a-vis something about his job, because usually men liked talking about their jobs, as most of the time it entailed talking about something they were good at and which also earned them money.
But he interrupted her before she could ask her question. "It's Hannes, to friends actually," he corrected her gently in that slightly accented voice of his. Because he was quite the cultured guy, it was hard to place him just by listening to him talking. His 'th' and the way he pronounced his 'r's didn't give away his origins immediately.
"Hannes," she relented with a smile which was as artificial as they came, but he didn't notice, just like he didn't notice the fact that she stole a glance at Methos and his brother. They seemed to be engrossed in conversation which was a good. "So Hannes, what is it you do for a living again?"
"I thought that was common knowledge," he answered with a charming smile, politely pretending like her question hadn't been stupid.
As a matter of fact it hadn't been. She leaned closer to him, laying both her hands on the sleeve of his jacket in a gesture of confidence. "Of course I know what everybody knows. That you inherited your father's company and doubled the earnings, but I'm more interested in your personal version of the story. I find people far more interesting than sales figures and market speculations. In fact... ," she downcast her eyes strategically to convey an air of shyness, "I'm keen to learn more about you."
The smile on his face signalled her that he had taken her bait like she had planned all along. In the past that would have made her feel satisfied. Now she still felt satisfied, but not in an exhilarating sort of way, but the same kind of satisfaction one would probably feel upon solving a calculation. It was sort of clinical, only task-orientated. It wasn't as much fun as it used to be. Inevitably her eyes landed on Methos again. Crap, Johannes had noticed!
"So your brother and you are quite close?" he asked her.
Liz pretended to think about it for a second. She would have loved to fire his own question right back at him, to evade having to answer his, but that was not how conversations worked, at least not, when you wanted the other person to trust you and establish a certain intimacy right away. The aim was to reveal a little, but not too much. To entice, but not to bore. She smiled. She'd try a half- truth for now. "Honestly? He's terrible sometimes, but he's my brother," she shrugged as if that was explanation enough.
"Leo seems to be taking to him rather well." His voice implied that his statement held some kind of deeper meaning. She decided to find out more.
She turned her head as if to verify Hannes' observation. At first glance what she saw did not strike her as anything out of the ordinary. Two members of the male species talking to each other at a party. No big deal. But then, at a second glance, a number of things occurred to her. Of course, those things were mere details, nothing an outward observer would notice straight away.
As she studied Leopold's body language a little more carefully, it occurred to her what Hannes had wanted to imply. Leopold seemed to be fully engrossed in the conversation, but despite that he acted sort of fidgety. His cheeks had a slight pinkish tint, his free hand, the one that wasn't holding his drink, tugged at the collar of his immaculate dress shirt every now and then. This was almost textbook. She had to bite the inside of her cheeks to keep herself from laughing.
"Benji, does have that effect on people once he turns his charms on," she said, laying out the bait for Hannes to take and verify her suspicion concerning Leopold's sexual orientation.
"I hope he's prepared for the reactions that'll get him," Hannes replied, throwing her a curious sidelong glance.
"Are you meaning to tell me that your brother, who you claim is only interested in stuffy history books and art, might also be interested in Benji? My stupid old brother?" She wasn't able to suppress an impish smile any longer. Amanda would love to hear all about this.
"That's precisely what I am meaning to tell you. I hope your brother's comfortable with it..."
Liz gave the implied question in Hannes' statement some thought and to her surprise it occurred to her that she was unable to answer it. She had no idea whether Methos was uncomfortable with being on the receiving end of the advances of a member of his own sex, but it would without a doubt be amusing to find out.
"He's a pretty open-minded bloke, but I have no idea. At any rate he's very well-mannered and will be a perfect gentleman," she tried to reassure Hannes who out of worry for his brother had decided to switch into worried sibling mode.
Lucikly her words seemed to be able to reassure him somewhat. Hannes just smiled, while he proceeded to tell her some little anecdotes about Leopold and him in their younger years. Liz artfully feigned interested and let out an amused laugh in the right places, all the while discretely keeping an eye on her partner in crime.
Surprisingly Methos seemed to fare rather well too. When he wanted, he could be quite charming, as she had already told Hannes. Also one had to take into consideration that this was easy play for him; after all he had lived through several centuries of history, so talking about the past was no difficult feat for him.
Johannes had just ended his rather lengthy monologue about his and his brother's art collection, which was quite impressive if half of what he had said could be believed, and therefore she only had to fake enthusiasm to a certain extent. Another woman turned up, a stunningly beautiful one, which made Liz feel a fleeting bout of self-consciousness, more so even as she tried to whisk Johannes away from her and almost succeeded. Liz couldn't let that happen, so she pulled all the tricks in the book. She laughed at his lame jokes and touched him whenever she could fathom an excuse for it. In her desperation she even dragged him off to the dance floor, asking him with a charmingly wobbly German sentence to dance with her. In reality she had quite a firm grasp of the language after having lived in Germany for quite some time in the past, but she wanted to come across as particularly charming and judging by Hannes' smile she succeeded.
She could feel Methos' gaze on her as they were swaying on the dance floor. As a consequence the first stirrings of remorse took a hold of her. This situation was disaster and deep down inside herself she resented Amanda the tiniest bit for forcing her into it. With a discrete glance at her wrist she checked the time and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Ten o' clock. Amanda should have pulled off her little stunt by now and therefore they would no longer be forced to engage in this stupid charade. She fabricated a flimsy excuse to get away from her dancing partner, telling him she had to powder her nose.
Liz had just stepped of the dance floor when she bumped into a member of the waiting staff. Not just anyone. It turned out to be Amanda. The fact that Amanda had come up here, clearly indicated that something was wrong. Liz tried to keep her cool and dutifully muttered an excuse to keep up pretences. The other woman had been smart enough to bring a tray of hoers d'oeuvre as an accessory which gave them an excuse to talk. Under the pretence of Amanda advising her which of the small delicacies on the tray to sample, they exchanged a view hushed words.
"What happened?" Liz tried to keep the edge of panic out of her voice.
"I wasn't able to crack the security code of the door, that's what happened. It's a state of the art lock. Electronic. 10 digit combination," Amanda tone of voice sounded nonplussed and belied the artificial grin on her face that was supposed to help uphold the pretence of a conversation between waitress and party-goer.
"I thought there was nothing you couldn't break into? Getting old?" Liz scrunched up her nose and shook her head as Amanda indicated a tiny slice of white bread with caviar on top.
"Don't be ridiculous! The corridor's buzzing with guards. I didn't even have enough the time to get out my equipment. We've got to get the code some other way!" She whispered to her and trust the caviar covered hoers d'oeuvre at her with grim determination.
Liz almost automatically threw a glance across the dance floor to where she had last seen Hannes.
The man in question apparently didn't nurse a broken heart over her departure and had already found a substitute for her. He was talking to one of the many pretty women that had been invited to the party. Liz frowned. She knew that woman's face from somewhere. Right! She had been on one of those huge billboards, advertising fancy lingerie. She stifled a frustrated groan. It would be close to impossible to get Hannes out of that woman's clutches. It could be accomplished, but it would be extremely challenging. There had to be another way... What about Methos? If one took into consideration the way Leopold had looked at him, his chances of success seemed pretty high.
She flashed Amanda a wicked grin. "I think I've just figured something out... Wait here!"
"I love it when you say that," the other woman replied with a smug look on her face and discretely faded back into the crowd.
It was no trouble at all tracking the two men down, in fact they were still were she had last left them. She tugged at Methos' arm and flashed an apologetic grin at Leopold. "Might I whisk away my brother for a second, love?"
"Of course, if you bring him right back afterwards," the young German art connoisseur smiled at her, shooting Methos a lingering look of goodbye that almost made her drop a snide remark. Suddenly her smart idea of letting Methos procure the security code to the office didn't seem quite so smart anymore, as the beginnings of a heavy onslaught of jealousy and possessiveness stirred in her. Damn Amanda and her bloody plans!
"I need your help," she whispered to him, as she was dragging him away, her hands linked around his elbow.
"I've been wondering when you'd finally admit that. Actually it was clear to me from the day we met," he grinned at her from the side. His grin fell when he noticed the tense line of her mouth and frown line between her eyebrows. "What's going on?"
She stopped walking and turned around to face him. With a solemn expression on her face she finally proclaimed the following words in a low voice: "Amanda's not getting into the office. There's an electronic lock that's giving her trouble."
He rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Somehow I've seen that one coming. And now?"
"Now we need you to procure the code," she told him.
His excitement regarding that proposal was comparatively small, so small in fact that he rolled his eyes once more. "And how am I to do that?" She took a deep breath, getting ready to say something, but before her suggestion could even leave her lips, he held out his hand to her. "Actually, don't answer that," he pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "You want me to flirt my way into the office, right?"
She hesitated, but then nodded. He just groaned in frustration and stared at her for a while. "Sure, you really want me to do that?"
"No, I'm not, but I don't want Amanda to end up in jail," she said with a sigh.
"Alright," he nodded after a moment of contemplation. "Apparently tonight is switch-the-roles- Saturday. I'll do it. But just so we're clear, I'll do it for your sake, not for Amanda's. And you'll owe me afterwards. Big time!" Upon hearing those words she was emotionally stuck somewhere between relief and dread. Nevertheless she acknowledged them with a nod. He had already turned to walk back to Leopold. "Just get me one more of those Martinis, okay?"
After having gotten Methos his drink of choice and also procured one for herself, she quietly slipped outside, on deck of the yacht. She wasn't in the mood to witness him flirting with another man. Also she was quite sure it would doubtlessly raise a few eyebrows if she jumped across the floor and tried to strangle Leopold in front of all the other party-goers. It seemed like something fairly counter-productive to do. The air outside was quite cold and it made goose-bumps run up and down her skin. She couldn't help but ask herself wherever she had left her stole. It would have helped to ward of the cold somewhat. She took a sip of her drink, Vodka on the rocks. It burned on the way down her throat, but it did nothing for her freezing extremities. She looked down at theglass and frowned. The frowned deepened as she asked herself what the hell she was doing here at this stupid party, letting her boyfriend flirt with some other man to keep her best friend out of jail.
Her fingers wrapped more tightly around the glass. Her frustration grew. With an angry yelp she hurled it over board. Her outburst must have startled some kissing couple because she heard a cry of surprise behind her which she acknowledged with a bitter "Oh, shut up and get back to slobbering all over each other's faces, you lot!" However cold the night, it was apparently not cold enough to discourage some smooching lovers from coming out here. She sighed in annoyance.
Kissing couples were really not helping much, especially when she had a fleeting moment of depression and jealousy.
For several minutes she revelled in those glum thoughts as she stared up at the full moon and at the starlit sky above her. Her thoughts were strangely oscillating between outright jealousy and panic whenever she thought of how Methos might have felt seeing her flirt with Hannes. Now that the tables were reversed she couldn't help but think it had been wrong to put him through this. Maybe she should have reassured him some more of her feelings beforehand, maybe she should have told him that flirting with other men had lost its appeal to her. She was good at it. But that was about it. It didn't bring her any joy. The ability to flirt other people into submission didn't give her the same thrill it used to. It was more like a job. Something she did for Amanda's sake. This realisation had been one of the more unpleasant ones of this evening. That and the fact that she was now insanely jealous of some German art collector.
A rather familiar male voice startled her out of her reverie. "Under your skin the moon is alive."
She half turned, throwing him a quizzical look over her shoulder.
Methos shrugged his shoulders. "You did say you wanted to hear a compliment. So here it is. Not good?"
It was.
Her eyes scrutinised his appearance. Was there something different about it? How far had he let it go? Had he kissed the other man? Thoughts like that were driving her insane. Also they were not very productive, so she, being a fundamentally practical sort of person, suppressed them. She chose to go for an air of normalcy. Judging by the way he regarded her, he had picked up on the fact that something had her preoccupied. She hurried to distract him from the issue.
"Either you've taken something or you're quoting Pablo Neruda. Both ideas are equally disconcerting, Benji."
"Yes, I'm quoting Pablo Neruda and no, I haven't taken anything. Not in a long time," he narrowed his eyes pensively. "I think the last time was back when Queen Victoria was still on the throne. At any rate, will you please stop calling me Benji? It makes my skin crawl," he told her as he stepped next to her and leaned on the railing with his forearms, mirroring her posture. Her eyes glittered amusedly in the moonlight as she turned her head to look at him.
"I was not aware you read Pablo Neruda. Ode to a naked beauty? One of my favourites," she smirked. "Are you trying to tell me something?"
"Maybe," he let the sentence hang there, like an invitation, like an itch that needed scratching. She turned her head to study his profile. He looked serious, pensive even. Her eyes travelled lower to the collar of his shirt at which he had been tugging from time to time during the evening. She smiled. The way he behaved made clear he didn't wear posh clothes very often. He was uncomfortable, but he was enduring it for her sake. That realisation flooded her with a feeling of warmth, despite the cool night air and her rather glum thoughts from before.
"Aren't you going to offer me your jacket?" Liz asked, looking from her own bare shoulders to him.
"Advanced age is no excuse for a lack of manners, you know," she added, trying to tease him with her remark.
"Why? It will only make you slightly warmer and me considerably colder. What good is there really in us both being uncomfortable?" despite his words he stepped closer to her and laid his jacket around her shoulders. She smiled up at him, one of her first genuine smiles tonight. As a consequence he felt encouraged to not step away from her immediately. His hands rested on her shoulders for a while longer than necessary before he stepped back and assumed his place beside her from before. They both stared out at the ocean for a while in companionable silence.
"Jealousy is a rather stupid notion, isn't it?" he asked, breaking the silence between them with his unexpected admission.
"I don't know...," she answered. As a matter of fact she didn't have a lot of experience with being jealous, but judging from tonight's experience it was not a pleasant emotion. As always he had the advantage of more experience and she envied him for it, in a way. It was hard to suppress emotions that intense.
"I thought I had outgrown jealousy in the 1800s. Apparently I was wrong." The hint of annoyance in his voice was unmissable and reassured her that despite of his cool facade this evening had been challenging to him as well.
"Well, I for my part have been somewhat jealous tonight," Liz blurted out. Some much for sweeping the issue under the rug. Really suave!"And I usually don't get jealous at all." The second part of her admission was spoken in a softer voice that sounded rather vulnerable.
Quite automatically they both turned to face each other.
He saw her as his, which was sort of... an antiquated notion. Seeing someone as your possession? She was not sure what to think about that. She didn't belong to anyone. She was her own master. She was free. And yet... And yet there was no denying the fact that she had been jealous tonight. Full-on jealous. Which meant that they had both been jealous. Mutual jealousy. Now that sounded very messy and like a recipe for disaster! Begrudgingly she had to admit to herself that she probably was as much his as he was hers.
If her reasoning on jealousy was close to being sound, tonight must have been rather difficult for him too. She knew he appeared to be calm and collected on the surface, but beneath all those layers there were feelings. Quite intense ones. The ones he showed to her when they were making love, when they were kissing. He was rather passionate and intense, for a lack of better words. He fuelled his true feelings into private, soft spoken words, into small touches, into the in-betweens. They were there in the interim. You just had to know where to look. Those intimate moments between them were precious to her, even more precious than the words "I love you" that weren't often spoken out loud between them. So the fact that he might have shared something as intimate as a kiss with a person other than her made her go insane.
"Let's leave," she said determinedly. He threw her a puzzled look, because her wish to leave had come somewhat abrupt and unexpected. But after a moment of brief contemplation he nodded. He was quite ready to go too. They quickly left, hastily descending the gangway without a word of good-bye to their hosts.
Methos and Liz started walking away from the peer with their arms linked. They were yet to continue the conversation they had started on deck, but both of them knew that now was neither the place nor the time for it.
Amanda awaited them with an euphoric grin on her face behind the stirring wheel of their "getaway" vehicle. After all everything had worked out quite nicely for her in the end, despite a few minor glitches. Her grin fell when Liz informed her simply, that instead of driving away with her, they would have a stroll along the promenade and take a taxi home later. Watching Methos out of the corner of her eyes, she could tell he was just as surprised as Amanda, but again he didn't protest.
He had been rather quiet ever since they had left the yacht, probably still waiting for her to make a comment on his remark about jealousy. And she did eventually, but only after Amanda had driven off and they had taken a few steps down the deserted promenade.
Seacouver had its ugly corners, down at the docks, but this was the nicer part of town. It came with flower beds, benches and freshly mowed lawns. The waterfront was stretching out before them, illuminated somewhat by the streetlights above the promenade.
"Jealousy is not really that stupid," she finally admitted with a shy grin, her eyes downcast. Her gesture stood in contrast to their linked arms that suggested a comfortable level of intimacy, while her words indicated that her feelings were still lagging somewhat behind. She loved him, but she was giving herself to him only bit by bit.
"It's certainly not very modern," he conceded and with a self-ironic smile he added the next couple of words, "But you know you're at the wrong address anyway if you're looking for modern."
A cold breeze swept over the promenade and slightly mussed up her perfectly coiffed hairdo. She smiled at him and squeezed his arm. It was warm underneath the palm of her hand, despite the fact that he must have felt cold thanks to his previous, somewhat forced lapse into chivalry. Somehow she regretted having forgotten her stole back at the yacht. If she still had it, she could have given him back his jacket and he wouldn't have had to freeze himself to death because of her. Well, not to death. She was speaking metaphorically of course, but she still felt a bit remorseful. So she did the next best thing and edged a little closer to him.
"Is there really such a thing as modern?" she surprised him with that down-right philosophical question. "Life is repetitive. New ideas are a rarity. Some things that stand the test stay, others are discarded along the way," she ended her musings and stopped walking to look at him, giving her following words more meaning this way. "Jealousy is not something I'd discard quite so quickly. Especially after this first hand experience tonight. Actually, I think it's rather important. It makes one realize how much one cares."
"Important?" now she had piqued his interest. It was clear by his tone of voice and the way he inclined his head. Even if she didn't tell him – as a matter of fact she would in a second, but he didn't know that yet – even then, he would try to badger her into voicing her thoughts. She was glad it wouldn't have to come to that.
"It tells me what you feel for me. You think I'm yours...," she let the statement stand between them for a while, dangling it in front of his face like a carrot.
"Is that wrong?" He was clever enough not to say anything more now. It would deviate their conversation from going straight were he wanted it to go and let it turn into something more complicated and convoluted instead. When it came to feelings, the direct approach was sometimes more beneficial. Apparently she shared his view on the matter.
"No, not at all. But it's a two way street, as I'm sure you're aware," she stepped closer and he could smell her perfume, all sweet and powdery. The way her red lips formed words was mesmerising.
"If you spent less time in the company of your books... If you weren't always so frustratingly," at that word her fingers briefly dug into the fabric of his vest and actually tugged at it, "hell-bent on blending in, you would notice that you're handsome enough to turn quite a few heads."
"I do?" he grinned smugly.
"Not the point," her eyes darkened. An explosive bout of anger flared up inside of her. "You should be aware of that after tonight," she flung her next words at him.
"When you said you were somewhat 'jealous' before, that was sort of an understatement, wasn't it?" he enquired, regarding her with his head inclined to the left.
"If you must know, the thought of you alone with him made me go insane with jealousy. There you have it! Satisfied?" her voice had assumed a shrill pitch by now.
"No," he shook his head with a sad look on his face. In contrast to her he had modulated his voice to a lower much more calming frequency, trying to appease her. "You shouldn't have worried. Nothing happened."
"Really? You didn't let him kiss you?" Her facial expression was slowly transitioning from anger to hopefulness.
"No kissing, cross my heart and hope to die," he smirked. "I'm rather good at playing hard to get."
"I can imagine," she smiled.
"So about that little theory of yours from before. The part were you claimed that I thought you were mine..."
"Well, I am as much yours as you are mine of course," she said softly.
"I am yours?" he repeated teasingly. "I am not sure how I feel about that..." His comment earned him a reproachful swat on the shoulder, a dark look and finally the minor inconvenience of having to hurry after her quickly retreating back. How fast she could walk in shoes like that was rather impressive. Of course, it was all part of their artfully choreographed dance, of their constant back and forth he enjoyed so much. That was why he even broke into a jog to step in her path and keep her from walking away.
"Still not sure how you feel about it?" she glared at him, wrapping his jacket a bit tighter around her slim form. Its shoulders were a bit too broad and the midsection hid her curves.
"I wasn't being serious and you know that," he told her taking one more step closer to her. She did not retreat, but watched him approach her with a challenging look on her face.
"Well, alright. After all you did play along nicely tonight. I suppose I can forgive you for your crimes," she sighed, making a show out of inspecting her nails and the diamond ring on the index finger of her right hand, ere she directed her attention back at him. "Let's kiss and make up then."
Oh, this woman! She was a master at this game. Just like her he had not forgotten about their talk from earlier and how he had promised her that she would come begging for a kiss by the end of the night. The left corner of his mouth curved upward into a lopsided grin, as he tugged at his bow-tie with his free hand. It eventually came loose, both ends of it hanging around his neck casually. "You know my terms."
"Begging?" Liz arched her left eyebrow and stepped in front of him. "Are you kidding me? So not gonna happen," she scoffed.
He shrugged, looking down at her with a superior smile. Actually he didn't have to look down that far, because with her heels on she was almost as tall as him. She threw him a rather suggestive and lingering look before she pulled him closer by the loose ends of what was formerly a bow-tie and was now reduced to a posh piece of black fabric hanging from his neck. Methos complied taking one step, then a second closer to her, but did not lean in. He was a man with certain principles. Now a smile of her own appeared on her face. It was positively devious. She seemed to be quite amused by his attempt to outsmart her.
"You know you can't win. So far I've always gotten a man to kiss me when I wanted him to kiss me," Liz informed him smugly, as one of her hands let go off one end of the tie, while the other one slowly tugged it out of his collar. He watched her with a certain cool interest, which turned less cool when she bit down on the fabric to tease him. Red lips that bared white teeth biting down on black velvet, now that was an image. Her eyes watched him knowingly and with a certain satisfaction, took in his accelerated breath and his dilated pupils which reflected her own image back at her. But he was not one to let it go and turn the other cheek when he was being provoked. He would take action, which he did now by leaning forward and nuzzling her face with his. She sighed. It felt good and it was an assault to her senses. Touch, smell. The smell of his cologne made her nostrils quiver delicately. His mouth ghosted across hers and caressed it so fleetingly that gesture didn't rightfully qualify as a kiss. Suddenly the warmth of his touch was gone and she opened her eyes to look at him almost accusingly.
"Say it," he tried to coax those words out of her. She shook her head once and quite emphatically before she proceeded to wrap her arms around his midriff. Her hands traced down his back and playfully squeezed his butt, which earned her nothing but a knowing smirk in return and a considerable amount of frustration.
"Come on, say it, you little minx!" his voice was low now and very close to her ear. It sent shivers down her spine. Right now she was quite close to dragging him over to the nearest bench – there had been quite a lot of them along the promenade – and having her merry way with him, if only he wasn't that stubborn. She shook her head.
He turned his head so that his mouth was right next to her ear. Little hot gusts of air tickled it as he spoke and made her almost squirm in his arms. "Desire is a funny little emotion, isn't it? Leave it unfulfilled and it will just grow and grow. Your mind will inevitably torture you with fantasy of what you're depriving yourself of. Anticipation rises and rises. It becomes downward unbearable, because you know that when you finally give in the simplest of touches will feel like the Earth is spinning so very fast underneath your feet that you'll feel like falling. So very, very fast you can't possibly hold onto your sanity."
She gulped. Her mouth had gone dry at his words, just like her heart rate had increased to the point that you could feel the beating in her ears. His touch made her shiver in pleasure, the way his eyes looked at her made her want to forget all her stupid little principles. "I hate your moves," she
whispered to him crossly, her hands were now resting on his chest, while his arms were wrapped around her.
"Why?" He smiled at her.
"They are too bloody effectively."
He laughed softly and finally bent down to kiss her like he wanted to for the better part of the last few minutes, willing to overlook her impossible stubbornness for now, for her sake and because deep down he would have actually regretted it if he had reduced her to begging her for something he was quite ready to give to her.