"I'll be back in a second," Ashley says shifting a plastic shopping bag she'd pulled from the back seat into a surer hold as her eyes dart to one of the smaller doorways leading off the entry hallway after buzzing them into her apartment block. "Just gotta drop this stuff in the communal pantry then we can head upstairs for the night."
The mention of a pantry has Cal's mind spinning back to the very first time she'd shared such a cozy space with the tiny but mighty legacy now walking away from her humming tunelessly under her breath as she moved.
The muffled sounds of heavy music thumping against the walls, the grounding weight of the stake in her back pocket, and Juliette's tempting lips smiling shyly at her as she allowed herself to be backed into one of the shelves before she and her legacy had shared their first hesitant kiss.
"Yeah, yeah of course." Cal stammered after her wishing the phantom burn of the shot Ben had pushed towards her that night of the party was a little more tangible on her tongue than just a memory as she watched Ahsley's bag-free hand lift to the pantry door handle.
But the way Ashley seemed to hesitate once the door was opened. The way she glanced back as if the check if Cal was doing something other than watching her, held her as spellbound as she'd always been in tracking her legacy's every move.
The shy smile she gets in return once Juliette's fleeting gaze confirms her more stalker-worthy attentions.
"You know we haven't really had dessert yet." Juliette reminds lingering on the pantry threshold "Wanna come check out the shelves? See if anything interests you?"
Cal's tongue flicks out to wet her lips at the question and she has to bite down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep the "I'm interested in you, does that count?" comment to herself. "Sure thing." She agrees jogging over as Ashley pushes the door open a little wider in invitation.
The stalled air of the small room greets her the lighting overhead just enough to make out the general area of where the shelves were as the door was closed behind her. Ashley helpfully takes the lead for now guiding a following Cal a little further inside. Away from what passed for the sliver of a window set into the door offering a little more privacy.
"So, this shelf here is mostly for the sweeter things," Ashley tells her tapping at one of the shelving fixtures cluttering the wall beside her now. Her own offering shopping bag had already been discarded on one of the side cabinets closer to the door. "Canned cool whip, fruit flavored fillings, readymade pie or tart crusts those kinds of things." She lists off needing to stand on tiptoe to peek into a few of the higher stacked boxes whilst at her shoulder Cal had yet to look anywhere but at the shorter girl next to her.
"What?" Ashley asks in a breath once she'd finally caught on to the taller girl's uninterested feelings towards helping her look over the offered options on possible dessert choices, yet even in the low lighting of the place Cal can see the obvious way Juliette's eyes keep flickering between Cal's equally darkening eyes and her lips as the hunter takes that last leaned in step to effectively trap the shorter girl between herself and the shelving rack of dropped off provisions packed into the too-small space.
"May I?" Cal asks not wanting to risk overstepping things when once again she notices the blunt way the other girl's eyes flick between her eyes and her mouth. "Please." She adds in a breath of a whisper that seems to echo in the stillness of the empty pantry.
Ashley's tongue flicks out just enough to wet her lips hesitating for a half second longer than Cal was starting to panic that she'd pushed her fog-minded ex too far but then just like their first time, Juliette lifted up onto her toes to press a kiss to the hunter's mouth.
And just like that Cal feels herself being pulled back in time as her hands drop to curl over those familiar jean clade hips as she kisses her back far surer than she had been the very first time they'd kissed like this.
Really all that was missing was the annoying muffled sounds of blaring bass music and the sounds of her peers most of them either blissfully buzzed or already mildly intoxicated shouting or mumbling to one another as Juliette's hands moved to curl around the edges of her jacket. Keeping her close as they separate for air.
"Not wasting any time huh?" Ashley groans as their breath mingles a little while longer.
"Not this time." Cal answered truthfully amused at having her own question turned back on her now. "but I've been wanting to do that for a while now." She continues remembering the moment those words too had been spoken in similar circumstances as she holds those clouded but so expressive eyes.
"Humm, I could tell." Ashley praises still keeping a tight hold on Cal's lapels as she rocks back a little on her heels to get a better look at the taller girl her tongue flicking out as if to attempt to taste their shared kiss on her lips.
Against her better judgment Cal leans away giving some semblance of an out should the other girl want one. besides from Ashley's point of view they'd only first met a handful of weeks ago. She didn't have the memories, the baggage of a past relationship, a past breakup that weighed heavy in the back of Cal's mind as well as around her heart as they caught their shared breathing after that anything but an innocent kiss.
"But mind if I do it again this time?" Ashely asks in a low breath.
"Okay."
Cal didn't fight back not that she wanted to really considering both kiss and movement happened at the same time as first Ashley fastened their lips back together in a far more tempting kiss before immediately twisting them around and then backing the taller of the two into the shelves with enough force to have a few of the canned goods resting unclaimed rattle with the jolt of Cal's back hitting the edge of the casing as the kiss grew a little more heated.
Emboldened but also itching to relearn the softness of the shape she'd been denied since that night Cal's hands began to shift along the hard curves of Juliette's body, remapping every dip and curve she could whilst doing her hardest to respect Ashley's modesty in keeping her touch over her clothes.
But it was hard with the way Ahsley's hips roll so tempting into her own when one kiss became three then three became five as mouths and hands continued to explore and claim.
"Please." The hunter begged in a gasped breath not knowing if she was talking to herself or to Juliette in asking this as this new dalliance in the pantry heated up even more.
"I've got you Cal," Juliette promised against her mouth as those deadly skilled fingers slipped a little further down the front of Cal's jeans now toying devilishly along the hem of her underwear as the hunter herself continued to be encouraged to grind even harder against the bracing knee Ashley had slipped between Cal's spread legs keeping her consensually trapped against the trembling shelving rack digging painfully into her lower back as she moved.
Blindly Cal let one of her hands drop needed a surer hold of something that for the moment wasn't her flushed legacy's teasing body still rolling so tempting and open against her own as they kept up their hot trade of kisses and not-so-innocent touches.
The loud clattering of several canned somethings crashes to the floor as the crumpled edge of a cardboard box crumples pitifully under her searching grip before her hands are redirected back to holding the shorter girl keeping her happily trapped until once again Cal catches her chance in reversing their roles.
"Come back to me," The hunter begs in a husky whisper sitting Ashley down on a taller shelving bench so she wouldn't have to keep standing on her toes when they kissed once again.
The distracted hunter had nearly forgotten just how temptingly markable her vampire's throat was under her lips as she dragged her teeth along the soft curve of flushed skin then dragged the flat of her tongue back up chasing the begging mew the action triggered as Ashley's fingers grip all the tighter into Cal's hair holding her hostage a little while longer.
It's like she can almost taste the shift on the air as her dazed legacy sucks in her next breath with a whispered plea of her name before they were in motion once again. Cal feeling the warm press of her legacy's mouth nibbling delicately at the space not so long ago carried that felt the very first kissed pricking of Juliette's fangs against her neck.
"Finally." The hunter groaned as Cal's head tipped in accepting offering for the vampiric claiming to be done again.
"That's it," Cal coaxes at that last hard press of lips against the flushed skin of her throat. Then another followed soon after at the hunter's involuntary groan of remembered pleasure that had only later overridden the pain at that first bond creating bite replaying in Cal's memory at the very real returned feeling of her legacy's lips against her neck. "Do it, Jules." She whispers in acceptance, already feeling the grazing warning of deadly sharpened fangs sliding along the offered-up skin of her throat.
"No."
Then the ticking brush of fangs was gone, and she was being pushed away hard. Like vampire level strength hard as Ashley catches her ragged breathing leaving Cal no choice but to stagger backwards into another clustering of half stocked pantry shelving.
A hand hovering in panicked covering over her mouth, no doubt in an attempt to hide the descended fangs Cal had felt just a few moments before as Ashley stares wide-eyed into Cal's much calmer gaze.
"I-we-I" the blonde stammers unable to meet the hunter's eyes as she drops to her knees instead to gather up the dropped jars of canned peaches Cal had thoughtlessly knocked from their shelves during their last trade of heated kisses. "C—can't." She finally choked out dropping the armload of goods onto the closest available space before bolting out of the pantry completely. Not even bothering to straighten her clothes as she ran.
"Juliette."
Of course, Cal follows her if only to retrieve the left duffle bag she'd dropped beside the doorway to the stairwell once she'd spotted the 'out of order' notice taped to the building elevator.
Ashley hadn't gotten far. A few shaking steps outside the pantry door before she'd had to stop to catch her breath.
"I already have a girlfriend." She growls as if in accusation rather than a reminder of fact.
"I know." Cal agrees needing to physically bite the end of her tongue to keep the "and she's me so why'd you run away from me?" question to herself.
"Then what the hell are you doing to me?" Ahsley demands "because ever since I've met you, you're in my head. It's like I've become infected with you." She spits, still unable to meet Cal's eyes or even turn around to face her as she talked. "it's like now I'm some kind of junky, and being around you is my only cure."
Cal pauses remembering hearing her mother confessing in saying something similar about Cal's own attachments towards Juliette to Margot during a kind of 'begrudged peace talk' between the two mothers in Taila's full disclosure heat to heart with a shattered Cal a few weeks after that dreaded night that had turned their already twisted world on its head.
"Your all I think about." Ashley goes on drawing Cal back from dwelling too long on those kinds of thoughts for a little while longer. "Your all I dream about. Hell, I even stole your damned blood-smeared tee shirt earlier like some creeper just for some twisted way of feeling closer to you even when I've already invited you into the house."
Cal can't stop the laugh she gives at the confession.
"Or you know my apartment building whatever you know what I mean." Ashley hastily corrects misunderstanding the reason for hunter's laughter. " my point is your in my head. You're in my head and I can't understand why when I've really only just met you a few weeks ago."
Cal risks taking a step closer and when Ashley doesn't immediately flinch away from the movement, she takes another step closer.
"Do you want me to leav…."
"Don't you dare say anything about leaving me again, Cal. Don't you freaking dare." her angered legacy snaps going so far as to move her tiny body between Cal's unmoving shadow and the closed door that would lead out of the apartment building.
Cal grinned at the added darkened snarl of her true legacy pushing her way back to the surface again.
"You'll stay as long as whoever it is that's after you are caught and out back where they need to be." Ashley decides still with that angry fire blazing in her eyes. "But you sleep on the sofa. And you find a way to get the hell out of my head."
Again, Cal smiles at the reminder of their bond. "I'll agree to the first part." She says picking up her duffle bag once more. "but as for the second part…" she pauses rocking back on her heels "I'll get out of yours when you leave mine."
Ashley gives a truly Elinor-worthy groan of displeasure at the bargain before stomping off up the stairs leaving a giggling Cal to trail after her up the stairwell.