Pandora’s box [William]

At her backpack.

Shit.

So, instead of trying not to look in it, he was reading. Or, at the very least, rearranging one of his shelves and trying his damnedest not to think about it. Not to be tempted by the allure of the forbidden and yet… and yet he couldn’t heave well enough alone. William was, for lack of better wording, a creature of temptation. Who was governed by impulses and the need to control them.

Because a man was nothing without control.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we begin today. With William D’Aubigne- brother of a Galliard, blood of manipulators and kings (what’s the difference?)- with his back to a canvas Pandora’s box.

What also feels good is a nice looooooooooooong soak in the bathtub. He couldn’t sleep, and she – due to being on the road as long as she has – loves nothing more then to turn completely prune-ish as she soaks until the water gets lukewarm, only to heat it up all over again and soak some more.

And so, while he tries to ignore pandora’s box behind him, she finally flips the book she’s been reading closed after the last delicious word, and sets it aside so that she can climb from the tub. The water starts it’s run down the drain as she gives herself a quick dry and wraps herself up in one of those big fluffy towels. Heaven is the little things – like a warm towel, after a hot bath.

She doesn’t bother getting dressed – she’s proven more than once not to be modest – other than to pull on a thick pair of socks she’d stolen from him earlier in the evening. She grabs the book, doesn’t bother to look in the mirror or brush her hair, either, and heads to the living room to replace the book on the book shelf. Conveniently the one he’s currently rearranging. “Can’t sleep?”

Hello captain obvious.

She didn’t bother to get dressed, and instead William chose to turn around. he couldn’t sleep, she asked if he couldn’t. And there he stood in all his obvious glory. William D’Aubigne, man of many things, avoiding looking at her backpack for fear of violating that all-important trust. Because he knew its value, because he knew how hard it was and could be to gain it… and yet? And yet there was still temptation. It ranted and rambled in his ear and demanded that it not be ignored.

But he ignored it anyway.

“What’s in your backpack?” because he had to ask.

The question comes, and part of her is surprised that he hasn’t simply looked, while knowing at the same time the control that he has, and holds such pride in. A brow quirks upwards, slightly, as she glances over at her pack, then back up to him. There’s an expression of amusement that flitters across her features, like a ripple across an otherwise forever calm pond, and she contemplates just how much to tease him before answering.

Then she decides to answer as honestly as he had questioned, instead. Her fingers slide along the small of his back as she moves past him to get to her pack. “Ya ain’t looked yet? Ain’t nuthin excitin like the ring finger of some mob boss or nuthin…” Still amused, she flips open the flap and looks back at him. “I ain’t got nuthin to hide from ya. Go on an’ look. It’s alright.”

Had he looked without asking – it might have been a different situation all together. But he did, and so she lets him look on his own.

What does he find? Her clothing that is clean, what little there is, her sketch journal’s twin, partially filled with random scenes and folks from her travels – she had to get a second one as she’d lost the first for a while, but that’s a different story, for a different time. There’s some feminine products, and there’s the important things – her wallet, and not one, not two, but three blades. A switch blade, plus two triple action Cold Steel Blades – one of which he might recognize as being the one she removes from her hoodie’s roo pocket when she gets home.

he was holding the switchblade, and managed to open it in the ways that he had seen done in the movies. He looked at it, and the knife clicked open. William wasn’t so much shocked as he was fascinated.

“… wow. Are these even legal?”

She picks up the triple action – one of them is a double edged blade, the other single. She chooses the double – and flips it open with a practiced twist of her hand. It’s fast – almost hard to see. She turns it around handle first, the blade resting in her palm and offers it to him if he wants to see it. “Got that one in Texas, this one in Florida. Ain’t ‘spect I hitched all over without protection, did ya?”

Okay, wait, we had to realize that this was William we were talking about. He was fascinated by the fact that she was so real and so full of vitality. realistically, he probably found the fact that she was lethal downright sexy. He wasn’t sure what it said about him, but he didn’t explore it too closely. He wasn’t quite willing to do so.

So, instead, he chose to just watch her in quiet awe.

“I pictured you as more of a nine milimeter kind of girl..”

The smile turns into a bit of a smirk, as she flips the triple action closed again too. She really is rather speedy with it. She’s practiced. A lot. “Can’t shoot a gun t’save my ass. Tried a couple times, but prefer the blade. Easier t’hide, easier to get to, and has saved my ass more than once.”

Kinda makes him wonder what happened to the guy who gave her that black eye before they met, hm? “When..” she pauses then, and the amusement fades away. It’s still hard to say anything about her past in something other than generalities. “When I left, I decided I ain’t gonna be a victim no more. So learned to’be better with a blade than folks’d expect.”

And, to him, he saw a difference.

Even as she reaches for her Wallet, and holds it for a moment. She then thumbs the catch, and opens it, offering it to him. “This’ere’s the biggest secret in the backpack. You kin look if ya want.”

There’s that trust. Again.

And so, he took the wallet. He took the wallet, he didn’t open it, and he just looked at the outside. There it was, with the chance to open it and look in and find out what he secrets were, because Maija wasn’t hiding them, and…

and he just tossed it on the table again.

“I’m a romantic and an idiot, Miss Maija, I can scarcely say there is no more dangerous combination.”

He says he’s a romantic, and an idiot, and she reaches for him then, her fingers wrapping in his shirt to pull him toward her, her legs parting so as to pull him closer still, silken inner thighs warm against his. She slides her fingers up to rest lightly above his heart, feeling the thud there under her hand as if for the first time. When their together, alone, she often does this – with hand or head, with lips or ear – as if to make sure his heart still beats, to make sure that he is real, that he is still here, with her -that she’s not dreaming.

“Good thing I ain’t a stranger ta danger, then, ain’t it?”

A pause, and she looks from her fingers, upwards. Her gaze rests on his lips a bare moment, before she meets his gaze straight on. It’s must still be almost a shock when she looks at him like that, when she lets him see her so openly. “If ya ever want t’know. Jus’ ask, an’ I’ll tell ya.”

He came close, fabric of his pants grazing her toned highs. She was warm, and at that moment he reveled in her temperature. And just as she held his heartbeat to be somthing sacred, he looked at her as though her very being was something to be celebrated. Every time,as though the wonder of her never ceased, as though he did not know every inch of her body, as though he did not remember every scent and taste and texture and he craved it.

He made eye contact with her and while he could see her in all her glory, so open an exposed, something ached. And it was hard for part of this not to bleed into his heartbeat. She gave him everything, willingly. He knew this.

And yet he still held back.

And, for the moment, he couldn’t help but want to kiss her, as though that would help alleviate that thought. As if to say thank you, though for what he was unsure. It wasn’t quite hungry but tentative. An impulse that would not be denied, a thought that would not be left unexplored that night. She gave him everything, willingly. he knew this. And yet he still held back. And in that brief moment, some part of William’s manenr made it painfully clear that he didn’t want to hold back.

And yet he still held back.

He craves it. And she accepts it, accepts him even as he holds back.

Her hand slips from his chest, to slide over his neck, to trace the line of his jaw before sliding around to allow fingertips to smooth through the curls at the nape of his neck. He is tentative, almost shy, even as the hunger rages within – begging to fall within her center of calm. Across his lips with her own, she breathes…

“…trust me… please.”

But even if he doesn’t, even if he can’t break through, even if he still holds back – even then, she offers him everything she has once again…

But she didn’t. She didn’t say that at all, and she gave. And for his part, he did not know what to do.

Maija watched him struggle with this thought, with the fact that, for a brief moment, they were both aware that she gave so much more than he did. They were both aware that he held back, though really neither seemed aware of what or why. And for his part, all he could do was hold her, as though she were sacred, as though he was almost afraid that she was going to go away.

Trust me, she asks. Please.
“I trust you,” he said. It made a world of difference to hear it said.

Before his voice even fades across the softness of her lips, she kisses him. There is no hesitation – there never is, not since the first night he decided to take that leap. There is only acceptance, and the knowledge that he trusts her, and holds her as something precious to him, something special. She’s never been looked at that way – not like she meant something, not like she was something important to someone. As disconcerting as it is, the fact that it exists gives her reason to offer her all, be it in fresh biscuits for breakfast, or the careful dusting of his books, or warming his bed…

…or kitchen table, as the case may be here and now.

She smiles against his lips, even as she watches him, dark eyes an inky pool that leads straight to her soul, her fingers sliding up under his t-shirt, thirsting for the warmth of his skin, the familiar lines of his sides, the small of his back. The smile is almost playful as a brow flickers upwards in a barely discernible arch. “Then… ‘ya big stud, take me to bed or lose me forever’…”

Another 80s movie quote. Who’da thunk it?

but he certainly seemed willing to find out, now didn’t he?

but, for his part, amidst repositioning , the gentle guiding to the table, between letting his hand travel down from her waist to her hips and then her thigh, he couldn’t help but grin a little. Couldn’t help but poke a little. “I swear Miss Maija, if you call me Maverick..”

Because he was a romantic, you see. A romantic, an idiot, and a man whose sense of humor hadn’t turned off just because something more primal set in.

“Ya rather I call ya Goose?” is her response as her hands get frustrated with bits of cloth in the way, and she tugs his t-shirt up and out of the way, tossing it to the side without care as to where it lands. There is nothing but terrycloth to separate her skin from his exploration, romantically idiotic as some may think this laison to be. For her – it simply is. Without reservation, without holding back, a chance to fully live in a shared moment with another.

It is what it is – and it is enough.

Her fingers are chilled, even after the long soak in the tub, though it certainly is no surprise even as they dance along his ribs, the flat plane of his belly, settling at his hips to hook in the waistband of his pants. “Or maybe Iceman?”

She can, at times, be incorrigible.

The shirt was discarded. In a quick moment, he pulled it over his head, left it aside and to be paid attention to at a later date. Sometimes, she can be incorrigible. Sometimes. And there were times that all he wanted to do was kiss her, to let his tongue explore her mouth, to let a light and hungry contact move from her lips to her neck to her-

Well, now, wouldn’t we want to know? And, well, if left to his devices, if easing her back was any indication, one might soon find out what those intentions were.

“Are you insinuating I look like Val Kilmer? I’m not sure how I feel about that..”

She lets him ease her back, and in some ways it’s almost comical to realize just how much control she gives over to him in these encounters. Like as not she was as strong, and she certainly had more fighting experience then the pampered pretty boy. But here, he is 100% in charge and she likes it that way – he has never treated her with anything but reverence, and as such, she surrenders easily to his every intention…

“if so, like when he were young an’ hotter, not fat and frightenin’ like now…” She still teases, even as he presses her back, as she stretches her skinny form over that poor kitchen table that’s likely about to be abused. It is rare to see her in such form, to see her tease, to see her face, her eyes, open and vulnerable. In fact, he’s the only to see her this way, the only in quite a long time.

“but i prefer ya just as ya are… s’plenty good ’nuff for me.”

Or maybe it was just him. Maybe it was just his upbringing, his history that said that he was so governed by desire.

And she trusted him. Maija trusted him despite knowing everything he had said. She never asked if he had loved that blonde in his copy of The Republic, if they had been more than friends. She never asked if he missed his wife, because they didn’t factor into here. They weren’t explored, acknowledged, because at that moment she was the only thing that mattered.

She let him take the lead. Maija let him have control, she let him be in charge here and he knew it. And it was a gift, and something to be treated as such. So every kiss, ever quiet lingering caress or moment where his tongue made contact with her skin was treated as though it was a present. And she looked at him, open and vulnerable, and asked for him to trust her.

And he did.

There is no more room for words – but that is not to say she is quiet, not with the freedom offered here tha that they do not find in, say, the bathroom of the local Chicken and Waffles. Here they are able to take their time, linger in the moment, build from slow burning ember to boiling desperation and helpless cries. There is nothing kept from him – not here, not ever, there is no holding back.

It is a long time later – and the table manages to remain in one piece despite the abuse – when they fight to remember how to breathe, when muscles tremble and bodies ache in ways far to pleasant to be labeled as an ‘ache’ at all. Fingers warmed slide over sweatslicked skin in languid caress, lazily tracing the slopes and planes of his frame, his heartbeat thudding in time with hers, in a way that makes her happy in its simplicity.

And that’s the heart of the matter – being here with him makes her happy, a concept that seemed completely out of her reach in the not so distant past.

He was fighting for words, fighting for coherent thought, fighting for some way to make that clear.

“I really do, I promise…” he said. Please believe me.

The words are breathed across his lips, her arms and thighs tightening around him as she holds him closer still, as they remain connected in ways more than physical right here, and right now. Thin fingers, deceptively strong, cup his face as she studies his eyes, the need for her still burning brightly in his gaze.

“Ya ain’t gotta tell me everything, William. Ain’t ever have to do that. All that matters is right here, you n me. Fuck the rest of it. Ain’t important at all.” And it’s clear she believes that, she understands that he struggles, and she will give him all the time he ever needs – even if he never makes it a step past that barrier.