[Damon Owes Me]

As they say, the more things change… Of course Lake View isn’t exactly their territory, but there are some late night (…all night…) restaurants, and as she’d been struck with a bit of insomnia, it made sense to hit someplace for a bit of chow. So she makes her way back, strides long and even, her height making her an impressive vision, even if her rage were not present – which it is, muted by the darkening moon.

Her hands are tucked into the pockets of her stylish leather jacket, as the heels of her boots click the evidence of her progress along the cement walk. She rounds the corner, and a brow quirks as she sees someone beating the hell out of a railing down the and punishing the air for existing.

((..fair warning. multi-tasking.))

A block away and nine stories up, it’s a different world. Imogen’s condominium is, by the laws of the Nation, property of the Garou the Nation would call her mate. It doesn’t feel like that to him. It feels like her home to him, even though she leaves very little trace of herself in its space. No pictures. No clutter. No half-read books or magazines or dirty clothes.

She leaves enough. She leaves her scent, which pervades the condominium, and something of her presence.

This is her home, and therefore, somehow in that gray area that she herself inhabits: at once a part of the War and separate from the Nation; a place that, and not at all by accident, Decker has never once intentionally brought his packmates, his septmates, his Garou acquaintances.

—

The lights are on in here. There are no shadows to hide in, but then, neither of them are the shy type. Neither of them have ever pretended modesty. Neither of them have ever really pretended anything about this, the act, which is a raw, wordless thing, on the border of savage. His eyes are on her until he can’t watch her anymore, and then he leans his head back and shuts his eyes, holds her by the hips, gives himself over to it. The air fills with the sound of their breathing, and little else.

They call it fucking. It’s not quite that.
They never call it making love. It’s definitely not that.

Afterward, the room feels warmer, though he knows it’s his own blood that runs hot. He can hear it pounding through his veins: his heartbeat echoing through his ears and his chest, his groin, the tips of his fingers. His chest rises and falls in a ragged, swift cadence; it doesn’t matter if she’s atop him, or against him. He’s strong enough, and he needs the air badly enough, that his breath lifts her and lowers her on every cycle.

He can hear himself breathing. And her breathing. And the hum of the heating system.

And, quite distantly, the angry rattle of someone — some punk kid or somethin’, he thinks to himself, distractedly, perhaps surprised that even this high-class neighborhood has such miscreants — pitching a fit at a metal railing.

And then steps. He doesn’t turn toward them, instead pointing the tips of shoes out into the waters. Closer they might come, and his back straightens as someone intrudes upon the few yards around his seated form he calls his own.

Which means that this one who’s pitching a fit at the lake bears watching, that the ones upstairs deserve protection, and that she has happened upon the job.

She walks on, closer, getting to where he clearly straightens and realizes that someone else invades his space – before she simply stops.

Watches.
And waits.

It’s very much a ‘tell me something I don’t know’ type of look.

His hands unfold to hang at his side, and she slips hers from the pocket of her jacket, only to move them to clasp lighly behind her back.

Still, she says nothing.

She lifts her hand from his shoulder, raising it to her face to push the hair back from her face, over her shoulders. Her breathing is still ragged, her boundaries not quite solid; had it not been for the outdoor sounds, she might have stayed still for seconds, minutes more. As it is, the lights seem too bright, her breath too short, the lines of his face, when she lifts her head to look at him, too harsh, too familiar, too sharp.

She blocks it out by kissing him, by closing her eyes to sight.

Afterwards, she rests her brow to his, her hair spilling forward again, framing his face and blocking out all light except for the impression of red.

Her head tips – it is most certainly an animalistic move, one that speaks of the beast that rests so closely under her skin. A brief expression of confusion dances across a normally impassively calm face, before flittering off again. She doesn’t understand.

He cross his arms again, and that gets a reply – though not one that he might consider particularly illuminating at all. Much like his muttered nonsense of journeys and garbag disposals. Her hand slide free, find the air in front of her, and dance in a language all her own. Perhaps she answered his question. Perhaps she was swatting at an unseen bug.

Either way, she is utterly silent.

It goes on for a while.

After, he does open his eyes. Her hair cascades around them, and the space between is a sort of luminous, dim red. Her brow to his, she’s close enough that her eyes are a blur, but her mouth is a little clearer; her collarbones distinct, fragile wings beneath her white skin. His hands are still gripping her hips. He realizes this at last and he opens them, the fingers rising from her skin, stretching, before he traces her body from hip to spine to shoulderblades. His fingertips linger there when he raises his mouth to her again, gently.

He thrusts his arm out at her, and pale gaze drops to it, even as her fingers curl into a fisted grip. She doesn’t appreciate being touched under the best of circumstances. [as far as anyone knows, of course] Meeting a stranger here, now, at this time of night, is certainly not the best of circumstances at all.

Pale gaze rests on his outstretched arm a moment – before she lifts her gaze to his. Milo, he says, and she still does not offer her arm for him to take. She doesn’t do well with assumptions, presumptions – even one’s that may possibly be innocently taken. Instead, she simply lifts her chin in acknowledgment of the name. Clearly she hears him, however silent she remains.

He asks a second question, and her gaze flicks to the side, across the street, and chin lifts again. Family, of sorts. Closer than one would think.

He is far less fidgety than he’d been only moments before. His legs do not bounce. Outwardly, he is calm.

She shivers as his hands trace her back, from hip to shoulder blades. It is a brief reaction, unchecked and unavoidable.

When he lifts his mouth to hers once more, she returns the kiss, a touch that is described as gentle, no matter how rarely it can be applied to them. Her hand leaves the skin of his back to move between them, cupping his cheek, her thumb tracing his jawline, the shadow of his beard catching against her skin.

When it’s over, she lingers a moment, breathing his air, inhaling the smell of his skin. Then, she presses a hand against the back of the couch, drawing away and turning to sit beside him on the couch. Her hand pushes through her hair, lifting the weight of it then letting it fall as she leans forward, reaching out with her free hand to retrieve her wine cooler.

There were words. He did not understand them. That is not her failing – though perhaps it is to her amusement, somewhere within her. He turns to ignore her and settle on the bench, and lips quirk at the corner in the briefest of smirks. She slips her hand into her coat pocket, and pulls something free. In a moment, it is completely obvious what it is – as she takes a felt tip pen and writes quickly on the small notebook sized white-board. The hated whiteboard, that is necessary, yet annoying just the same.

A step, two, three. A flip of the board, and it faces him, angled so that the low lamplight illuminates it well enough to be read. Her handwriting, for as fast as it is, is also very neat – tight printing that is easily to decipher.

-[AnneMarie.]-

Her name, presumably.

Outwardly, she is calm.
Inwardly, she is the same.