39 – Known
Her corridor was empty at this hour. Officers' wing, past curfew, the lamps turned low. My boots were loud on the tile and my Observation was picking up heartbeats behind doors I was passing and none of them were hers because hers was three doors down and to the left and I'd memorized the layout without meaning to.
I knocked.
She opened the door in a dark blue sleeping robe, hair down, no lipstick. Her feet were bare. She looked at me and didn't ask why I was there.
"Hina said I'm bleeding information."
"Hina is right."
"You lied in an official document for me."
She looked at me. The mole below her mouth. The black curls falling over one shoulder. Her eyes were dark and level and she didn't look away.
"I know what I did."
"Does it scare you?"
She took my hand. Her fingers were warm. She pulled me through the doorway and the door closed behind me and the hallway was gone.
"Come here."
I kissed her in the doorway. Her back hit the frame and my hands were on her waist and her mouth tasted like tea and her robe was thin enough that the heat of her body came through the fabric. She kissed me back. Her hand went to the back of my neck and pulled and the kiss got harder and her teeth found my lower lip and bit.
She pulled my shirt over my head. I pulled her robe open. It fell off one shoulder. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. The lamplight caught the curve of her breasts and the dark of her nipples and the spider tattoo on her left thigh, partially visible below the robe's hem.
No wine this time. No conversation about what this meant.
She walked backward toward the bed, pulling me by the waistband of my trousers. I followed. She sat on the edge and I was standing in front of her and she undid my belt with both hands. Her fingers worked the buckle. She pulled my trousers down and my cock was already hard and she looked at it and looked at me and the corner of her mouth turned up.
"You were ready before you knocked."
"I've been ready since the corridor."
"Mm." She lay back on the bed. Opened her legs. The robe was still half on, bunched at her waist, her shoulders bare, her thighs open. She was wet. The lamplight caught the slick between her legs and she wasn't hiding it.
I climbed over her. My arms on either side of her head. Her hair spread across the pillow, black and curling, and her eyes found mine and held.
"Different this time," she said.
"Yeah."
I didn't tease. I lined up and pushed inside and the heat swallowed me. She was wetter than the first time. The slide was easy, deep, and she took all of me on the first stroke and her breath caught and her hands went to my shoulders.
"Ah-"
Tight. The walls of her pussy clenching on the first full stroke and then softening as her body adjusted and I was all the way in and the heat was everywhere. I held still. Her legs wrapped around my hips. Her heels pressed into the backs of my thighs. She breathed. I breathed.
I pulled back and pushed in again. Slow. Watching her face.
She didn't look away. Her eyes on mine. The first time, she'd been on top, leading. This time she was on her back with her legs around me and she was watching and waiting.
I found the angle. I'd learned it two nights ago. The one where the head of my cock pressed against the upper wall on the instroke. I found it on the third thrust and her mouth opened.
"There-"
I stayed there. Kept the angle. Each thrust dragging against the same spot. Her breathing changed. Faster through her nose. Her fingers tightened on my shoulders.
I didn't need to search. I knew where she caught. I knew which side was more sensitive. Two nights ago I'd spent two rounds learning her body and now I was using it.
"You-" She started. A thrust cut it off. "Nn-"
I kept the pace. Steady. Deep. The wet sounds started filling the quiet room. Each thrust pushing air out of her, a soft "ah" that she wasn't trying to make.
Her pussy tightened around me on the instroke. My cock slid through the grip and the friction was hot and wet and the sound of it was loud in the room. I was hard enough that every stroke felt like the muscle was stretched to its limit. My jaw was tight. My arms were locked.
She watched my face.
"You're quiet tonight."
I was. The first time, I'd been narrating. You stopped breathing. Right there. I can feel you. Tonight the words weren't there.
"Yeah."
She reached up and held my face. Both hands on my jaw, her thumbs on my cheekbones, and she looked into my eyes and held me there. Held the eye contact while I fucked her. Slow. Deep. Her legs tighter around my hips.
"You know me," she said. Her composure cracked on the word "know" and she pressed her lips together and her chest was rising faster and her nipples were hard against my chest.
"Getting there."
She pulled my face down and kissed me. Messy. Her breath hot in my mouth and her hips were rocking up to meet each thrust. The kiss fell apart because neither of us could focus. Her lips against my jaw. Her breath on my neck. "Ah- right- nn-"
I pushed up on my hands and looked down at her. Her hair spread across the pillow. The robe still bunched at her waist. Her breasts moving with each thrust, her stomach flexing, her legs locked around me. Sweat was forming on her skin. A sheen on her chest. A drop in the hollow of her throat.
I adjusted the angle. Deeper. She gasped and her hands went from my face to my hair and her fingers dug in.
"Don't- that's-" Her pussy clenched around me hard enough that I stopped for a second because the pressure was overwhelming. My hips pressed against hers and I was as deep as I could go and she was shaking.
I pulled back. Pushed in again. Harder. The bed shifted. She was loud. "AH-" Both hands in my hair, pulling. Her eyes were shut. When she opened them they were wet and unfocused.
I kept going. Faster now. The wet sounds were constant. The slap of my hips against her thighs. Her "ah" on every thrust, rhythmic, louder than she'd been the first time because she wasn't trying to lead anymore. Her mouth was open and her chest was heaving and her back was arching off the bed.
Her fingers tightened in my hair. Pulled hard. That was the tell. She'd done it before she came the first time. Both hands in my hair, the pull. She didn't know she did it.
I slowed down.
"Don't-" She opened her eyes. Wet. "Don't slow down. Don't- please-"
I sped back up. Harder. The headboard knocked the wall. She pulled my hair so hard it hurt. Her legs were shaking. Her pussy was clenching in pulses around my cock and the friction was so much I was right behind her.
"Ka-" Her mouth worked. "Ka-"
My name. Cut in half. Like the first time.
She came. A sharp breath. Her whole body tightened. Her heels dug into the backs of my thighs and her fingers locked in my hair and her back arched off the bed and she went silent for three seconds. Her pussy gripped me so hard I couldn't move. Tight, pulsing, her walls clamping rhythmically and the heat was unbearable and I came inside her.
My Armament flared. Just my hands. The skin went dark where they gripped the sheets on either side of her head. Brief. Two seconds. The density was there and then it wasn't. The sheets didn't tear. Nothing vibrated. The growth was smaller than last time.
She felt it. Her eyes opened. She looked at my hands. Then at my face.
"Again," she said. Quiet.
"Smaller."
"Mm."
I pulled out of her. Slow. She flinched at the withdrawal. The air was cold on my cock after the heat of her body. I rolled onto my back next to her. The ceiling was white. My arms were shaking.
She lay on my chest. Her weight warm. Her hair across my collarbone, the curls damp with sweat. Her hand was on my ribs, tracing a line along the bone with one fingertip.
"You came to me tonight."
"Yeah."
"You didn't last time."
"Last time you weren't lying in documents for me."
Her finger stopped on my ribs. Then started again. The line. Back and forth. A habit she had that I was starting to learn.
"I'd do it again."
I looked at the ceiling. Her heartbeat was slowing against my chest. My Observation could feel the rhythm of it, steady, decelerating.
"I know."
"That bothers you."
"No. It scares me." Her finger stopped. "You're risking everything you spent twenty years building. For a guy who showed up five months ago."
She propped herself up on my chest. Her chin on her folded arms. The curls fell across her face and she pushed them back and the mole below her mouth was close enough to touch.
"Hina told you that you don't deserve it."
"Hina told me I'm bleeding information."
"Hina told you what Hina saw. Hina is very good at her job." She looked at me. "Hina did not tell you what you deserve. Hina would not presume."
"You're doing her voice."
"Hina is a good friend." The corner of her mouth. The almost-smile. I'd been counting those. Lost track somewhere in month four. "Kael."
"Yeah."
"I know what I'm risking. I've known since the first note I put in that mailbox." She put her head back on my chest. Her ear over my heartbeat. "You showed up five months ago and you are unusual and I made my choice and I'd make it again. That's all."
Her finger found the line on my ribs again. Back and forth. The sweat was cooling on both of us. The lamp was still on. Through the window the harbor was dark and the execution platform was a shadow against the water.
"Gion."
"Mm."
"Hina said hello."
The almost-smile again. I started counting over.
"Tell her Gion said she's a meddling woman and Gion is grateful."
I stayed until three. She fell asleep on my chest. I moved her to the pillow, careful. The curls spread across the white cotton and the mole was a dark point below her mouth and the spider tattoo was visible on her thigh where the robe had fallen open.
I checked my collar before I left. Clean.
The corridor was empty. My boots on the tile. I walked back to the barracks and the mark behind my ear had faded but the one on my lower lip, where she'd bitten it in the doorway, was fresh. It stung when I pressed my tongue against the inside.
Learn what not to say.
I didn't wipe it off.