Chapter 34
Whirrs. The clink of metal stirred in glass. Warm, drowsy patches of sunlight perforating through my eyelids. I lay there, breathing, feeling sheets over my skin, a pillow cushioning my head. Footsteps patter around me. They're the kind of gentle scuffling sounds that indicate half a mind to stay quiet. Finally, the thin creak of a chair being scooted near, a man's sigh as the chair exhales, accommodates new weight.
"You've been awake for a while now."
I can't say that I'm surprised when I recognize the voice. The infirmary has become a sort of spawn point for me, somewhere I can default to. Not exactly a home; more like an inn I've frequented over the years. A building whose employees know my name, whose beds remember my frame. A regular at a tavern. A face recognized by the birds in the town square. I crack an eye open. "Johan."
He tilts his head. "In the flesh. How do you feel?"
Good question. Assessing my injuries takes a moment or two, tallies I have to scratch into my memory as I make note of each grievance my body has accumulated. There's the grumbling ache of my head. The dry, parched valley of my throat. The crackling, bruised throb of my cheekbone. A stitch in the side, a thin pain on the left side when I inhale. "I've been better."
He raps a knuckle against a stack of papers clipped flush against a board. "Mmm. You were quite the mess when you got here, Miss Moreau."
I'm sure he already heard about what happened to render me this disheveled, but I find myself with an urge to explain anyways. "We started sparring; Floch and I got a little carried away."
Johan nods to himself, flipping to the next page on his board. He's trimmed his facial hair back since I last saw him. "Mister Forster."
"Did he come in, too?"
"I'm afraid that's not something I can disclose," he responds evenly, perfectly composed. "Patient confidentiality, you see." I glance past the doctor, out towards the window. It's late afternoon now; the sky is flush with warmth. Pink and yellow cirrus clouds are stretched thin from one end of the window pane to the other.
"Right. What's the damage?"
He clucks his tongue lightly. "Let's have a look at you then, shall we?" I go along with the doctor, letting him flash lights in my eyes and tap my blood and poke and prod until he seems satisfied with his prognosis.
"A minor concussion. You've got a periorbital haematoma in your right eye."
"A what?"
"A black eye." I wince. That, it seems, does not appease the insulted eyeball. "What else?"
The doctor leans back. "Miscellaneous bruising. Truly nothing that can't be solved by some ice and some rest. I've already passed word to your supervising instructors that you'll be pulled from sparring for a few days."
I readjust on the bed, treating my body gingerly. The last thing I want is to upset my muscles and tissues and organs any further. "What about the whole coughing up blood thing? What was that about?"
This time, when I let the question sit, it's like the whole room sombers. Johan sets his papers down and leans forward. "I have a few sneaking suspicions. It's all theory at this point, though. Unless I can monitor you more closely or with more in-depth measures, I can only speculate as to the cause."
"Was it not just excessive exercise?" I frown.
"It might have been," he acknowledges, "or it might have not. I don't doubt that the exercise served as a sort of catalyst or irritative function towards the act of expelling bodily fluid. However, seeing as there was no damage sustained to your mouth or throat during the match, I do not believe the blood was a direct result of your fight. It is more likely that it was a result of your underlying parent illness and is something that only manifested now that both the supply and the half life of your original prescription has vanished from your system. That, or you might have developed a sickness during the winter that is directly impacting your lungs. Several types of inflammations can result in these particular symptoms, should they be severe enough in their development."
It's a lot to process. I'm not sure what answer sounds better: an additional sickness, or the furthering of my existing one?
Johan, at least, seems adept enough as a doctor to see when to leave me be for awhile. He gives me a sympathetic smile. "I'll have you come back in a few days to see how you're feeling. Why don't I go grab you some ice and then let you rest a bit more? You can stay the night under our watch and get back to trainee life in the morning."
"Thank you," I say, doing my best to look upbeat and appreciative right up until Johan leaves the room. After he's out of sight I deflate, crashing against the mattress and tossing my arm over my eyes. Everything aches. Dread seeps between me and the blanket like perspiration. I think of the shadows on the window extending like spindled fingers to swallow me whole, to snatch and seize me before I rot from the inside out. I hope the blood is a result of the fight. If it isn't–if the blood is a result of some deeper sickness–then am I ready to face the ramifications of that? If it's a secondary development, there's a chance I could get my hands on antibiotics to make it go away swiftly. Or perhaps my condition would worsen as the two overlap, forcing me out of the 107th yet again.
The alternative is no less pleasant. If it is from my baseline illness, then would there even be a medicine that would work for me? If I cannot access the outrageously expensive, highly limited remaining medicine from the oleuropein farms, then what else is there that can help me? What else is there to do but curl up and pray I'm not slated to die for years and years to come?
Footsteps sound down the hall. They're light, yet heavy, like weighted boots determined to fall like feathers. A dog that doesn't know its own size. I shift my arm curiously; they're not Johan's steps, at least. That much I'm sure of.
The steps come to a halt before the door of my room. It's nice that I've been granted a private room this time around, rather than the temporary one the nurse showed me into when I was here awhile back. The vague recollection of sneakily writing in my textbook while in the infirmary that day amuses me.
Thin knocks bark against the door in hesitant succession. "Aliva?"
"In here."
I watch the knob twist. The shadows beneath the door warble and reach their blobbish figures to join with their caster, Reiner. Why he's here is beyond me–
"The doctor said to bring you ice," he explains, holding the bag up to emphasize his point. I sigh.
"I feel a bit betrayed. To think they'd just point you back in the direction of my room and let you waltz over here unsupervised."
Reiner looks a bit sheepish, as if he fully intends to apologize on the infirmary's behalf. "Well…I carried you here, so…"
"Wait. What?"
Reiner, somehow still standing in the doorway, takes a half step back. "After your fight with Floch, I mean. We all saw you collapse. I just happened to be close at the time, and your friend was too panicked to pick you up, so I thought it'd be better to act sooner rather than later."
I grunt. Shoulders dropping into submission, I motion towards the chair that Johan was sitting in a few minutes before. "Well. Thanks…for that."
He nods. After a slow pause, Reiner steps into the room and, leaving the door open behind him, crosses over to the bedside to hand me the bag of ice. I accept it and drop it onto the right side of my face, nose crinkling with distaste as the chill immediately afflicts my skin, and watch as Reiner vanishes from sight into the chair.
"I passed Floch on the way here. He asked me to pass along a message?"
"Oh? An apology, or a request for a rematch?"
I swear I can hear a faint chuckle. "Not quite. All he said was that he considered the two of you to be even."
I mull over that. It's not exactly the first thing I'd expect to hear him say, but then again, he was acting weird towards the end of our exchange. I run my tongue along my upper row of teeth, thinking. "Hm. Anything else?"
"He did ask you to stay out of his way from now on."
That, at least, sounds more like him. "Gladly."
"How are you feeling?"
I let my head roll to the side, glaring at him. "Quite dandy. I'm the epitome of health."
Reiner, at least, doesn't seem perturbed by my frigidity. If anything, it's almost like he's grown accustomed to it. Which is weird. Can we really say that we've become close enough to overlook the way we take turns pushing each other away?
"Why are you here?" My voice isn't as loud as I wish it'd be. "Just to ask how I'm doing? Just to deliver ice?"
Outside, the sky darkens. The sunset turns the room awash with flashing golden hues, tantalizing the walls, the ceiling, the floors. It's like the whole space has warmed just for the two of us. The color explodes in his eyes, making them melt, making them oranger and softer and deeper. I lose my footing, tumbling into their depths, falling down into a pit that sends flurries of monarch butterflies up into a tizzy inside of me. Reiner has changed, since we parted. His hair is slightly longer. It's softer. He's got a bit of facial scruff. I get the strangest urge to reach out and drag a thumb over it, let it scratch the grooves of my fingerprints, carve out indents of its own, sculpt the topographics of my digits.
"I wanted to see you," he confesses. His voice slips out like a rumble of thunder in a clear sky. Like lightning bugs grating against the midnight wind. Like orange trees shooting roots into the ground.
"Why?"
Reiner's head hangs abruptly, the corner of his mouth jerking up. "Why, indeed," he murmurs. Then he's looking at the ceiling, pulling a hand over his face, stretching it out, swallowing. His Adam's apple jumps up and down; so does my heart. They leap and lurch in tandem. "When I saw you start spitting blood, Aliva…" he shakes his head. I lean up a little, to see him better, to hear him better. The blanket slips down around my hips. "It reminded me of the way you were in the obstacle course. And I thought to myself, that if you had to leave again, I would regret having things unsettled between us."
"What things?"
His lips part. His eyes linger on my mouth. The warmth in the room begins to seep into his skin, turning his ears and neck pink, flushing his skin in a way that makes him look ripe, dewy, an apple in the fall. "I…you know why I'm here. Why Bertholdt and Annie and I are all here. You know what we have to do."
How to answer him? I do, but I don't. The girl who remembered his past, his motives, the full of his mission, is not me anymore. All I remember is the secret identities bequeathed to me in confession, in reflection, in recent memory. I stay silent. Better to let him continue, than to convolute his current train of thought. "And?"
"And you have your own objective. They do not align. At least…that's what you told me. In the cave."
My uncovered eye twitches. I peel the bag away from my face, giving it a rest from the onslaught of ice. "I remember. I was there. You were there. Why bring that up now?"
His face darkens, withdraws, to the point where that warmth flickers and wavers. It's harder to read him now. "Have things changed for you?"
"Have they changed for you?"
"…No."
I exhale. Of course not. There's no surprise there. But…what of me, then? Why am I here, really? I care about the acquaintances I've made. I fought desperately to get back here: even at the cost of my medicine. Even at the cost of my journal, of my precious memories. I hardly understand what I was so determined to do. The philosophy is lost to me, now. But in its place are emotions, compilations–I want to protect the people I've come to care about. I want to protect this peace, this softness, this hope and these days filled with warmth and exasperation and sickness. This calm before the storm. "In the cave," I start, surprised when my voice comes out hesitant and slightly hoarse. "I told you about the way I was losing my understanding of who I once was, right?"
He nods. "About your time in Marley."
Sure. "It's gone now. All of it." I turn my face, shield my eyes from whatever reaction Reiner's got. The window is a far more manageable audience. "The doctor says it might be self-imposed. Or, hell, it might be permanent. All that matters is that it is gone, and I am less of your confidant than I have ever been."
I slide the ice back into place; a drop of condensation strikes my cheek and rolls down my jaw, dripping onto my collarbone. When I manage to face Reiner again, it's to find the warrior watching the moisture trickling down the length of my skin. "Does that make you my enemy, Aliva?"
"It makes me more of a trainee of Paradis," I say carefully. "A trainee who has come to cherish her comrades. A trainee that wishes no harm unto these moments we share."
I watch him grow tense. "We're on borrowed time. You know that, right? Eventually we graduate. We go to war."
"Against the titans."
His jaw twitches. "Aliva." He rises. Goes to the door–and closes it. I listen to the bolt slide as he locks it and comes to stand at the side of my bed. Now that he's at his full height, I have to tilt my neck back, bare the flesh to him, in order to meet his eyes. "I am a trainee. I am a warrior. I am both; eventually I will be only one. Which side of me do you tolerate? Which side of me, and Annie, and Bertholdt, do you understand best?"
I try to look away, but I can't. His gaze is a sun, bright enough to blind me, hot enough to melt. But it shimmers, in all its fiery passion, in its unfettered passion. I am drawn to it, a body in orbit, an object permanently in rotation. I am drawn to him.
But…
"Reiner," I start, and that is the end of that light in his eyes. He deflates, with a motion so minimal it feels invisible and indescribably grand all at once. Is it for his sake that I continue, or mine? Is he the one that needs to know precisely where we stand, or am I? "The people I care about are all here. I have no one else in this world waiting for me outside of this camp." Thoughts of my father and his wife rise; I bat them away. No doubt they're already far into hiding, making money off the plants that uprooted my own.
"And when they leave? When they divide? Who will you follow?"
Anger surges in a quick flash. "I follow none but myself," I retort, perhaps a bit more icily than I ought. Reiner's puppy eyes bore holes into me. Guilt flashes. Suddenly I'm embarrassed by this whole thing. Embarrassed by the way I'm lounging about in bed. Embarrassed that the answer I gave him wasn't the right one. I clear my throat. Pull the ice away again and set it to the side. "I am figuring out who I am. I am learning what debts I still owe and to whom."
Carla caresses my face. "Can you do that for me, Aliva?"
"It's…I just don't understand. Why me?"
Her smile dims as sleep begins to pull her under yet again. These days, she's unconscious for far longer than she's conscious. Her cheeks have started to hollow. The smell of puss is beginning to seep through fresh bandages, pungent and omnipresent. "Please."
Reiner shocks me, dropping to his knees, landing eye level with me. He's so close. So far. So warm, so vibrant, so gentle. It pains me. I can't decide why. I lean forward. "Aliva. Are we…I can't…I can't just do these things and feel nothing."
My breathing feels too loud. My thoughts are plumes of smoke, obscuring my comprehension, clouding my judgment. My eyes dart–lips nose eyes cheeks neck lips lips lips eyes–and I am too distracted to keep up with them. "You're not making any sense."
He fumbles for words, a hand inching towards me, then clenching and retreating. "I need to know. Who owns your nationality? Who has your allegiance?"
"Why does that even matter? I'm here now. You're here now. Where we were before, where we're going…those aren't things we can know for sure."
"They matter to me," he protests, in a way that makes his brows bend upwards, pleading silently, protesting against my persistent refusal to address his confusions, to offer clarification. "I need the answer."
My voice drops lower, mimicking his. "Why, Reiner? Why does it matter to you who I am? Who I plan to be?"
"Our time here isn't permanent. I can't get involved with you. Not if you're not a warrior at heart."
I exhale sharply. "Of course not."
He blinks, taken aback by the sudden sharpness. The air begins to cool. "Is that a no?"
"Yes. It's a given that this camp won't hold us forever. But don't you think it's ridiculous to hold our present selves accountable for decisions we have no business making yet? We make choices based on how things are now. Then things change, and we make new decisions. That's life, Reiner. I can't promise you something permanent any more than I can predict the future." The inner cavity of my ribs squeezes. It's sort of true in a weird way. I've lost most of the recollection of what was in the journal. Whatever slips from my memory is beyond me. I'm no better at guessing what's to come than someone who read a book once several years ago is.
The man before me breathes deeply. Leans closer, like he can insist my mind change simply by drawing nearer to it. "Then what of this thing between us? Am I to lash out and storm away, like in the cave? Am I to stay still, like in the obstacle course? You may be able to draw near and retreat as it suits you…but I can't."
I scoff. "So that's why you pushed me away, after that snowstorm? That's why you retreated–because you were scared?"
"Yes." Reiner runs a quick hand through his hair. I watch the gesture, captivated and baffled by his bluntness. "Yes. But what else am I to do? I can't trust you. You don't trust me; not in full. And maybe it means nothing to you–hell, you said so yourself back then that it didn't–and I'm the only one affected in full. Maybe it's normal for you to do these kinds of things, exchange these kinds of moments, but for me…I can't. It's not…I just…"
"You're losing me." My eyebrows knit together. The dull itching irritation in my head throbs to life as I try to wrap my head around what he's saying. "Either say it or don't. You're confusing me." For extra emphasis, I plot the half-melted bag on my head. The chill feels kind of nice, but in an uncomfortable way. More condensation slicks down from the bag into my scalp. I shiver.
"I want you," he says.
"Wh–"
"At least I will," he warns, rushing on, avoiding looking at me one second and then staring me down the next. "If we continue down this path, I know that I will. I've no defenses against you."
His breath ghosts my skin. Gently, with all the attention of a careful artisan's touch, he reaches to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. The touch is electric, heated. "Half of me aches to be touched by you. The other is terrified that I will. Half of me begs you to do it, tells me that your eyes betray your desire,your ache, your need. The other prays you'll never dare satiate it." Reiner's hand dwarfs the side of my face, tracing the tender side of my cheekbone, eliciting pain and heat, goosebumps and tingling flurries of my heart. "My skin, my head, my heart, my soul. All of it is caught up in your web. So please, Aliva. Set me free. Set me free or claim it all—claim it, before I lose my courage again."
My head spins. His fingers drift, traveling to my chin, to the side of my neck, my ear, my hair. He draws the strands of my hair through his fingers, draws a section to his lips, kisses it, eyes on me. I'm at a loss for words. How am I to process something like that? Warmth flares to life all over me, darting this way and that, jumping into my heart for one second and into my stomach the next. All I can say, when I manage my voice, is, "Again?"
"Again," he confirms, repeating the word like a mantra. "I couldn't save you, that day when you stopped breathing. I thought–that if our lips touched, even in a situation like that, I would lose myself to you. The thought caught me so off guard I couldn't move."
"So you let Eren do it instead." He sighs, somehow exasperated and defenseless all the same. His head hangs a little. It's kind of cute. Shaking my head, I recenter myself. "I don't understand, though. Why kiss me in the tent? Why go that far at all, if you're so worried about falling for me?"
He glances at the window. Mutters under his breath, hiding his mouth behind his hand. "I…wasn't thinking clearly."
Perhaps I'm not, either: I lean forward, drawing into his personal space, forcing him to address me. His face recenters itself, tilted down towards mine, but he doesn't draw back. If anything, he goes still, breath suddenly softer and suspended between us. "So, to my understanding, you want to know if I intend to turn my back on you and the other warriors in the future. You want to know if I can be your ally, or if we will be at odds. Yes?"
He inclines his head. I inch closer.
"And if I refuse to give you an answer? If all I can say is that we won't know until we graduate from the hundred and seventh trainee camp?"
He falters. "I…"
"What if we did this anyways? What if we accepted that things might end in a few months? Would you rather nothing happen at all: would you rather forget what we've already done?" I reach forward, set on caressing a hand over his cheek, but he catches the hand before I can make it all the way. I can feel the line drawn between us. The door closing. There is only one reason I would fail to give him a favorable answer. "I won't be able to forget," I say, and there's enough truth in it to shock both of us. My hand goes pliant in Reiner's. "Even when I was confused, even when I was frustrated…I couldn't shake you from my mind. For me…stopping now will be too late."
The sunlight peters out, begins to vanish entirely. It's harder to see his face. We fall silent, eyes adjusting to the new level of twilight. "You have Jean," he says finally, so softly I have to take a second to make sure I heard him correctly.
"Sorry. What?"
"I saw you two," he continues. I swear I feel his hand get hotter where it holds mine. "The night of that party in the woods. You shared a long enough kiss then."
I laugh. It spills out easily, rocks tumbling down a cliff, clinking together like coins. "He believes he found love," I tell him, and Reiner's hand twitches. "Not with me–with someone else. It was an awkward conversation at first."
Slowly, his hand begins to relax. I take it as a sign to retract my own, but instead, he slowly guides it up to his cheek. I watch his face, gauging it carefully, watching for any sudden changes in his expression as my palm shifts to cup the side of his face. He leans into the touch ever-so-slightly. "Ah."
"Reiner," I whisper. He looks dazzling, suspended in front of me, a portrait in the process of being created. "I can't give you the answer you want. But…do you want to stay, regardless?"
The last of the light trickles out of the room. All I can see is the light of his eyes, the candlelight being snuffed in the hallway and vanishing from the crack between the door and the floor. "To what end?"
"Just until you want to leave. That's how things should be: no promises unfulfilled, no overstated expectations. Just a mutual understanding to be present until we can't be."
"…Bertholdt will wonder where I am," he says. I nod, but still, he won't let me retract my hand. "And the chair isn't that comfortable."
I laugh quietly. "We can share the bed."
I watch the light in his eyes shift, his expression sobering slightly, focusing on my face in a studious, concentrated manner. "Aliva."
"Mm?"
"I want to continue what we started…in the tent."
My eyebrow shoots up, an amused sort of grin popping up onto my face. "Oh? How polite of you."
His eyes crinkle faintly. "I can say please, if that helps."
"It wouldn't hurt."
Reiner bends his neck, bringing his lips closer to mine. "Please," he breathes, and before he can say anything further I've already caved and kissed him. His breath is soft, ghostlike on the skin, a caress and a cautious exchange. He takes his time, refusing to match my tempo whenever I begin to speed up and get swept up in the passion of the exchange. His lips are soft, downy, plumper than mine. It's like he enfolds me, each dip of his chin deepening our kiss only to tilt up and draw back, sending me careening after him, chasing the contact, determined to keep it going. Heat flickers to life between my legs, throbbing in a low pulse, as I wrap an arm around his neck and tilt my head. His tongue grazes my bottom lip, sucks to savor it, parts my mouth and elicits a faint gasp from me. I want to up the tempo, want to taste more, but he remains soft and gentle, murmuring into my mouth something about how I'm injured and I need to take it easy. I can hardly hear him, can hardly focus on his voice when he's making those tiny little moans into my mouth everytime my teeth graze his lower lip.
He breaks our kiss, adjusting his lips to kiss down to my jaw, my neck, my collarbone. My head falls back, eyes closed, breath hitching. He lingers where I falter, kissing and sucking tentatively, learning the ropes, adjusting to the way that each motion feels and makes me feel. I'm grasping at the first thing available to me, his collar his neck his hair, twisting my torso, trying to pull him closer, trying to pull him over me. "Aliva," he groans, the kind of gravely husk that makes that throbbing pulse even harder, makes my breath hitch in turn.
"What do you want?" I murmur, hardly able to contain the tempest churning inside of me. I want, I lust, I yearn, and it feels like it'll swallow me whole if Reiner lets me get carried away. "Name it. Tell me."
His breath draws into warm huffs against me top of my shift, chilling and thrilling me with every exhale. He glances up at me, in a way that makes it impossible to think straight. "To…explore you."
I find myself nodding, rubbing my fingers against his scalp, soothing and accepting. "Yeah?"
"Yes."
"How?"
He wavers. Shifts, so that he's got a knee propped on the bed now, dispersing his weight and half-looming over me. His wide thumbs drift towards the fabric of my shirt, pinching the hem between his fingers, rubbing it with the kind of caution that makes me want to coax him further. "Can I?" Another beat. "Please."
I laugh. Lift my arms up; he pries the shift off my skin and sets it on the ground. The chill in the air strikes me the second I'm without it, goosebumps and shivers. His warm hands soothe them away, his head lowering, breath assuaging every lingering inch of night air on my skill. He peppers little kisses on my shoulders, on my arms. The stubble prickles, tingles, makes me start to laugh when it tingles. He chuckles, the rumbling sound vibrating over me. I let go of his hair, trail my fingers down the sides of his face, and reach to my brasserie. I dip my fingers towards it until Reiner places his over mine.
"Let me." He tries his best for a second, fumbling with the delicate ties, until he eventually succumbs to his current inability to undress me. "Help," he finally pleads, making me laugh, chest warbling as I take over. I undo the ties and unwrap my breasts, letting them spill out into the moonlight and dropping the cloth to the ground. At the instant they're exposed to the air, I feel my nipples go pert. Reiner's attention is riveted to the sight unfurled before him. It's the most he's seen of me. I guide his hands, encouraging him to touch, to feel, and he does exactly that, cupping my breast, taking his time, kissing his way slowly down towards the mound. The anticipation makes me squirm almost, makes me impatient, eager. His thumb grazes over my areola, over my nipple, brimming me with sensation, with excitement. Reiner's mouth hovers over my nipple, as he breathes carefully, watching the little bumps on the areola form, watching me shiver. "You're so…"
I tilt my head, catlike, practically purring from all the sensations he's eliciting. It's so different from when I was with Jean. "Pretty. Gorgeous. Alluring."
He laughs. "Yes." His neck bows down, tasting his way around my nipple, tracing his tongue between each bump and flicking it tentatively over the center. I close my eyes, breathing ragged as he continues, experimenting, grazing teeth and suckling, pinching one nipple in his hands while teasing the other with his tongue. I let out another breathy moan, fingers twitching, feeling him suck hard down towards the valley of my breasts where the ducts feel more tender. He leaves little red marks in his wake as he switches, devotes his attention to the other breast, hums as he does. The sound vibrates through me, tingly and delicious and utterly distracting. All I can think about is the way the moonlight looks cast over his form hunched over me, the way it illuminates the places where our bodies connect, the places where I long for them to.
With a little popping sound he releases my other nipple, bends forward to claim my lips with his. He tastes different, the breath on my tongue now of my own flesh, as I slip my hand around his neck and arch as he reaches a free hand down to keep massaging my breasts and pinching my nipples as we kiss. He grows more confident in his exchanges, plucks more of the breath from my lungs, draws stars underneath my eyelids. I'm wound up so tight I can't even see straight anymore. All I can think of is him: his touch, his tongue, his taste. "Keep going?" he asks, and I nod overenthusiastically.
"Keep going."
I try to tug his shirt off, but he moves out of reach instead, slipping down to nuzzle his chin against my sternum. He kisses each nipple, the bottom of each breast, trailing tongue and teeth down to my belly button and stopping on either side to suck hard enough to leave red marks everywhere. I can't help but let little sounds of pleasure slip out, skin tightening with goosebumps from the tingling, the throbbing, the pulsing, the electricity and the need of it all, only to flatten out as his warmth smooths them over. He reaches the place where the sheet fell earlier, pooled at my waist, and draws it back all the way to the foot of the bed. This time, he doesn't need any assistance; he's got my pant buttons undone after a few deliberate flicks, and I'm more than happy to jut my hips up to let him slide them off me. He follows them down to my ankles, slipping the legs off one foot then the other, then taking his time to kiss his way back up from one ankle to my hip, then repeat with the other. I'm freakishly hot and bothered by the time his mouth is next to my underwear again, painfully ready by the time he finally ventures a finger over the fabric. He drags it over the top of the waistband, exploring, eyes flickering up to meet mine every few seconds to assess where I stand, seeming almost satisfied at the impatience beginning to slip into each frustrated exhale.
I reach down, hook a thumb under either side of my waistband, and hitch my underwear off and cast them to the side, laying myself bare on the bed, full in my nudity, vulnerable in my exposure. I've caught him off guard by the gesture–for a second he just drinks in the sight, observing what's now available to him, wavering. I take one of my legs and tilt it away from the other, furthering myself to his line of sight, watching him swallow. His hands move, rubbing circles against the inner flesh of my thighs, building me up all over again. Hi fingers move tentatively towards the epicenter, trailing a hand up to the thatch of curls, running it down the outside of each flap, before finally spreading them and slipping a preemptive finger up against my slit. I groan, already fighting the itch to grind against his touch, heart hammering everytime he manages to brush over my clit. He watches me carefully, observing the way my legs twitch when he hits that spot, repeating his broad strokes until he locates that sensitive little bundle of nerves, finding it and rubbing it slowly, with light pressure. I listen to the slick sounds of his fingers twisting against my wet entrance, the way he dips them down lower to let the moisture cluster onto his fingertips before drifting them back up to my clit. My breath hitches. I'm squirming, grinding, arching and grabbing at things at random. He leans forward and siezes my breast into his mouth again as his fingers continue their ministrations; I gasp and moan into his ear, brushing his hair back, tightening my grip where my hands cup his head.
"Fuck," I gasp. "Mmn–Reiner–"
"More?" he murmurs, and I feel my clit throb at the way he sounds, voice haggard and words slurred for nothing more than savoring my skin.
"Yes. Yes."
He kisses me, then pulls back to see what he's doing, focused again, as he takes his index finger and drags it down, circling the entrance to my vagina, feeling how slicked up I've become already, testing the give of my insides, before he lets the first digit slip inside. He groans, and I let my head fall back as he slides it in, twisting and gaining his bearings, before–almost by coincidence–hooking the finger in a beckoning motion, causing me to moan a little louder, the explosive tension of that singular motion making me lose control over my voice for a second. He glances up, surprised by the force of my reaction, and repeats the motion, watches me closely, as I pop a finger into my mouth and bite down on the sounds trying to squeeze their way out. He lets the finger rub around, finding and confirming the motion that appeases me the best, sticking to it, bending down again to grant my breasts attention of their own while he tries and tucks a second finger next to the first. It slips in without restraint, my vagina stretching easily to accommodate the expansion, my breath growing even more ragged as he dips the second finger in conjunction with the first. The broadening of the movement, of the penetration, begins to wind me up and coil the pleasure, letting it build beneath the clit, pulsing it in mounting fervor, throwing ache into arousal, clenching and unclenching the muscles in my legs. I find myself squirming more, clutching more, shaking as he moves.
"Just–yes, just like that–please–"
Reiner groans again, the low moan throwing me closer to the edge, the sounds ambrosia to the ears, taunting me into release. I can't help the way I'm growing louder; it feels to good, I can't help it, I want to–
He sweeps forward, locking his lips with mine, drinking the sounds I spill as my legs seize and my walls clench in dizzying spasm, as I find myself climaxing with sudden fierce bursts of sensation, everything pulsing and pounding and rushing and flushing and throbbing and squeezing. I gasp through it all, panting as I wrangle to calm down and catch my breath and kiss Reiner back properly. I'm sufficiently out of it, the boy above me watching it all, some peculiar expression doting his face while he watches me come down from my orgasm. "Was that okay?"
I nod, breathless, and he grins. "Can I keep going?"
I laugh. "Oh, god. Please do."
Reiner dips back down, kissing his way in between my legs, biting the sensitive inner flesh of my thigh suddenly and making me yelp with surprise. He draws his two fingers out from inside of me, and, watching me watch him, drags one finger over his tongue in curious exploration of my taste. He ducks the second finger into his mouth fully, then, as I'm learning is his fashion, stoops to place his tongue between my legs in thick, broad strokes. I twitch and my legs draw flush against either side of his head for a second before relaxing again. He finds my clit after a few wandering , roving twists of the muscle in his mouth, flicking the tip of his tongue and twirling it around the bundle that makes me breathless all over again. The sensations are so drastically different from the ones I'm used to, the ones I've familiarized myself with Jean. The moonbeams grow in strength, making the pale white bed look as if it's glowing, illuminating the room in full, showing me every pale freckle on Reiner's cheeks, every flushed inch of his cheeks. I feel every moan he makes into my center, the sound rumbling against my cunt, vibrating it with delicious, tantalizing vibrancy. The sounds of him eating me out are downright erotic, the sensations enough to make me lose all reason and restraint. I find myself trying to buck my hips, to grind against his mouth, his pricks of stubble jousting against my sensitive spots, alerting me to the pleasure of it all, the newness.
His tongue slips down to my vagina, ducking inside me, prodding the hole and plugging it with the wet muscle, sucking and plunging and driving me up and over the edge once again when he learns to alternate his attention between that and my clit. My legs trap him in between them this time as I bite down on my release, cumming straight onto his face, trembling as the pleasure mounts to its epicenter and subsequently recedes. This time, it takes me longer to crawl back to awareness, with Reiner looming over me when I open my eyes, smiling softly, face glistening with the proof of his devotion to my satisfaction. He reaches down, brushes a finger over my cheek, smooths back my messy, tousled hair.
"Let's stop here," he suggests, and I find that I'm just about too tired to do anything but nod.
"C'mere," I murmur, opening my arms to him. Reiner is quick to grab the discarded blanket and drag it up over us, sliding onto the thin bed and practically half-draping me over him until we can both fit on it comfortably. He repositions the blanket on top of himself, only to wriggle free a second later to strip down to his underwear when it gets too hot underneath it. "Holy hell." I can't help but drowsily ogle him and his toned pecs, broad shoulders, sleek biceps. I snuggle my face against his skin, feel the heat of him, the erratic galloping of his heart. I've no doubt mine matches his step for step. "I had fun," I say, when I'm finally situated and the world outside our cocoon of body heat and cloth is calm.
"Me too."
"Yeah?"
"Yes," he reassures me, upper body shifting slightly when he laughs silently. His hand reaches to my hair again, pats it down, runs his fingers through and through and through, combing and caressing it. "Go to sleep, Aliva."
"Mmm. Thank you for staying."
"Sleep," he reiterates, and I close my eyes, listening to the blood rush under my ear and the heart thrum beneath even that. His breathing mellows out, grows longer and more even. I feel my body relax an inch at a time. The shadows in the room dance in time with the arc of the moon in the sky, the flickering of the stars in the night. Reiner plants a barely-there kiss on my forehead when I'm half asleep; everything from there is lulled into blissful, uninterrupted rest.
A/N: I'm back! Lots of good news. I got accepted into a psychology research lab as a research assistant! Yay! And my first fencing tournament is next week (holy shit?) I landed an interview to talk about some of the research that I'm about to publish which is very cool. Anyways, to honor all the good things about life lately, here's an extra-long chapter. Much love! Buh byeeeee
