It would be easy enough to observe their closeness, speaking of audiences. Easy enough to dismiss it, too, and dismiss the disappearance of half his hand beneath her shawl as the natural positioning required by their dance.
So it is private, and known only to them, the way Marcus curls his fingers, lets the tips of them play light across her skin. Too deliberate in the circular pattern of that touch to be excused as accidental, serving first to let him touch her now that he is already touching her, and also to provoke sensation, a quiet little signal.
"That would be nice," Marcus agrees, able to speaking quietly despite the noise of music and laughter and slippers scuffing across marble.
His expression is ever subtle, as she reads him. Searches. Something receptive, though, in his regard of her.
Oh lives more in the exhale of breath than as a fully formed sentiment. The impression of a thing, telegraphing the same reaction as the slight arch of her back underneath his fingers.
The way he is touching her is deliberate; the illusion of accident has fallen away.
"We could go without the fire," is an express deviation from their assignment. (Stay in the ballroom, speak to anyone who will tolerate a conversation, endear yourself to them.) And it feels like a risk, like toeing up along the ledge of a very high wall and looking down.
Maybe the light skim of his fingers on the bare skin of her back means nothing, and she is about to embarrass herself. Splinter their relationship to each other.
It is a rare thing, being so unsure of a man's intentions. Maybe if she had met Marcus first as a stranger, her read of him would be better. But with so much affection between them already, she finds herself uncertain if she is parsing the expression on his face correctly.
There are things in this moment that are certain, to Marcus. That Derrica would not suggest they leave this place if she had objection to the splay of his fingers against her skin. That Derrica is intuitive enough to mark the deliberation of that touch. That she is more then capable of discouraging him, and probably doing so in a kind enough manner that he'd only be left feeling a little chagrined.
It is a certainty that means he can interpret, well enough, the uncertainty reflected back at him.
Leading her through a dance has been a simple affair, telegraphing the next step through the subtle tip of his hand under hers or the press of his touch at her waist and back. If she's picked up the rhythm and pattern of it, the next movement is a deviation, but communicated all the same. A step, two, and three, that pushes them both out of the broad circle the other dancers make.
Safely at the edges, when Marcus draws them to a halt, where no one is liable to crash into them.
He isn't slow to release her, though. That narrow space between them feels charged, and it is more for her sake than his own that he doesn't simply close it, here, although the press of his hand against her back communicates some desire to do precisely that.
"Alright," he says, as if they were as serious about the fire part as they seem to be about leaving.
As if it is so simple a thing as extricating themself from the crush of this ballroom and it's packed edges in search of a quieter venue. Marcus would smoke. They would talk freely about something or other, maybe of politics, maybe of the future, maybe of their frustrations with Riftwatch. And then they would return to their duty. It would be unremarkable on any other night.
Tonight, though, his fingers have not left her skin. Her breath went shallow somewhere after he'd first started trailing circles there, and it remains so now, as she looks back at him appraisingly. She is so aware of their closeness, more pronounced for the carefully preserved strip of distance maintained even as his fingers flex against her back.
A pause here, in which she looks into his face. Not so dissimilar to that day in the training yard in the wake of the dream where he tried to kill her. Incisive and intent, resolving eventually to—
Marcus moves his hand from her back, the bracket his arm makes around her, taking the one she turned in his other to encourage her arm around his. Respectable, at a glance, if more intimate than the polite position they'd been in on moving towards the music.
That day in the training yard, there was a moment where Marcus had considered turning down her friendship. Where in some ways, he'd given consideration to the fact that it might be a better thing for her to have distance from him. And perhaps it might have been given more weight if she were as prominent in Riftwatch's diplomatic affairs then as she is now, but—
No, he would have accepted that friendship anyway. Just like right now, when he considers (passingly) if there is a more responsible, selfless choice than the one he is making, and it too is set aside.
Sometimes, he wants things, and doesn't hesitate very much in the reaching for them.
There's an archway he'd already been considering before Derrica had swooped in, and he steers them that way now. The edge of his thumb settles at the ridge of her knuckles, a minor little rub of contact as if to communicate something he feels less equipped to do while they move through the crowd. Anticipation.
Here, the corridor is not unpopulated. A couple of lingering individuals in small, private conversations. It might have been to their liking, had Derrica chosen an escape path alternate to the dance floor.
The walk on. Past the murmuring pairs of couples, past all manner of gilded ornament and plush draperies, until Marcus finds the archway he had been considering. The music and conversation of the ballroom has faded down, inaudible and muted.
Her entire body feels wound tight, a coiled spring under the slight pressure of his thumb.
"Marcus," she says, grip on his elbow loosening only so that she might face him properly. Her hand lingers there, light clasp over his forearm.
Not exactly a question. She has a sense of his intention, the answer she would receive if she asked it.
The impression of his fingers at her back lingers, still prickling, skin flushed warm even in the absence of his touch.
He responds with a sound, swift and quietly hummed, as if her saying his name were the press of a hand or some kind of halting gesture. That slight pivot in where she faces him, and now there is no getting away with communicating only with touches and barely perceptible changes to his expression.
Unless there is! Unless there are whole sentences in the way he turns his arm, catches his hand gentle at her elbow, thumb finding a tender place to lay just there.
It's quiet, here. The room they've ducked into has no light, just the sheen of moon through the window, some ambient bleed in, unlit candles and lanterns. Book shelves, desk, places to sit. Here, too, they could talk of politics and the future and Riftwatch.
This is unique too: the way her skin feels electrified, like the application of his thumb to the soft bend of her elbow will draw sparks up along her skin.
"Yes."
To a different question, maybe. Something Marcus hasn't asked.
Her hand is still caught up in his. Derrica hasn't given it up, hasn't drawn back. There is space in this room. It is cool and dark, quiet. She could shrug off her shawl entirely, and they could talk free.
Instead, her opposite hand comes back to his chest. Runs along the subtle patterns to thumb at one gleaming button high at his neck.
There is an urge in him that would love to push against that hand. For the one he has at her arm to firm its grip, and direct her backwards and then nearer once her back finds the wall. It is the kind of urge he has practice keeping a firm leash on, where his other instinct is not to quicken away the present gentleness.
An instinct made stronger with a reflexive version of that gentleness where Derrica in specific is concerned.
So instead, his hand moves up her arm, fingertips trailing a soft line up the back of it. Past her shoulder, and then to her jaw, the brush of his knuckles.
He doesn't need to invade her space so abruptly to do this, for it to feel a little like a pleasing transgression, when he goes to tilt her chin up a little further, and duck his head to meet her lips in a kiss.
Between them, that sliver of space has narrowed near to closed. Preserved only in the most minimal of ways, only in that she hasn't flattened herself in against him.
Marcus' hand at her jaw, curled beneath her chin, hooks her attention so thoroughly that when he bends nearer it almost doesn't register. She is still considering the drag of his fingers and the nudge of them at her jaw that it is almost a shock to find him so near to her.
Almost.
As he kisses her, Derrica grips the collar of his fine, pristine coat. She makes a sound right up into his mouth, a gasp of impression as her grip tightens over the fabric. An echo of yes, unmistakable, as her mouth opens under his. She pushes up on her tiptoes, meeting him, or maybe countering any possibility that he might draw back from her.
It is difficult to be less opaque than is his habit, and so maybe the measure of relief detectable in the quietly rough sound rasped through his throat is a surprise. Relief not just that he hasn't made a misstep, because no, he'd been at minimum sure of something reciprocal in her, but just simply this,
her body, warm against his, and the softness of her lips yielding to him. His hands move, arms winding around her as she lifts up onto her toes, encouraging her against him.
The complex swoops of her dresses are still less layers than his formal clothes, and so there is less heat there than there is just the solid press of each other. His hands find places to be against her back, as if to take advantage of what he'd only let himself touch gently back in the ballroom.
Not grasping, not grabbing, flat palmed and savoring the feel of silk and skin beneath the heel of his hand.
More abstractly: a clench felt deep in his chest, something tightening.
Relief mirrors back to him. Relief that she hadn't presumed and embarrassed them both, and relief at even this controlled breach of the tension winding into her from the moment he'd put fingers to her skin on the dance floor. Not such a great deal of time, no, but he had spent all of it touching her in one form or another; coupled with the uncertainty of his intentions, it had been—
Good can only be settled upon because he is kissing her now, because all the coiled-tight anticipation in her has somewhere to go.
The worry is not completely gone; this may still be a misstep. Only Derrica thinks they can come through it together. Trusts Marcus to take all in stride.
Like she trusts him too with the enclosure of his arms. (Has trusted him in the training yard for months and months and months now, and even beyond it.) Marcus loops arms around her and she sways into him, sliding her hand from his collar to the nape of his neck. Makes a softer, more insistent sound directly into his mouth. Encouraging all of this, all the ways he is touching her and holding her and kissing her in this moment.
The contact at his neck is pleasing, something like a promise being kept after he'd sensed the way her fingers had moved at a fold in his sleeve, or played with silver button. There, the texture of a razor having tidied his neck beneath where his hair is gathered into ribbon, a fancy flourish to militant neatness than the usual leather band. There, his skin is warm.
He doesn't match her sound with one of his own, just feels the way it twinges in him like a struck chord. Responds with a deepening of that kiss, permission asked silently with the press of his mouth, that subtle slick touch of tongue. Wine, mainly.
A hand sliding up her back, briefly rumpling her shawl so that his palm finds her throat up under the fall of her hair, all affection in that hold when the kiss breaks and he lays another one more off-centre, at the corner of her mouth, brow pulling taut.
She is very lovely. Sparkling, soft, strong beneath. If he thinks about it for more than a moment, he might shy off of enjoying it too much.
So instead he says, "I want you," and amends it to, "I've wanted you."
The former, perhaps, and not the latter. It is a surprise.
There is the impulse to ask How long? as if that changes anything at all. To try and map out this thing Marcus tells her and lay it over their acquaintance to see where it might have originated.
"Have me," Derrica tells him, making explicit what they have spent some time dancing around this evening. A shrug and twitch of her shoulders, and the shawl spills from her shoulders to puddle on the floor behind them. Bares her shoulders, exposes the swathes of cut out panels at her back, all the while she looks up into his face while her mouth sparks from his kiss and says, "I want you too."
Has she wanted Marcus? Had she been carrying some feeling like this, and let it lie unconsulted all this time? Maybe the question is: can she hold focus long enough to trace back all her feeling for him to try and parse what she had felt, and for how long. It seems a tall order when his fingers feel good tucked up beneath her hair.
Perhaps her answer might be: when he laid his hand on her, minutes ago, and no further back.
Nothing in him would take offense, but then, Marcus would also understand. He's not sure he could neatly unbraid the tightly wound feelings of loyalty and affection that have strengthened at different points in time, in order to locate when he first felt desire. One strand in the rest, and not even as important.
But she says have me, and he feels it at a rush, a certain tension sharp in his expression and a warmth in his appraisal, gaze switching to one bared shoulder, attuned to the sound of slithering fabric.
Here, his fingers come up through her hair, careful not to tug at the way it is fastened and the chains run through it, but until she can feel the heel of his palm at the base of her skull, and his thumb swoop along behind her ear.
Another kiss, now, assertive, still sweet but desire bitten into it. A step, one that aims to place her back against the gilt-papered wall.
She is not so much placed by him as she sets herself there once his direction is understood. (He has been guiding her this evening, and she is attuned to how he might instruct her here or there.) Dropping their linked hands so that she might reach up to him with both of hers and draw him in after her.
A passing thought for her shawl, abandoned on the floor but mercifully set off far enough to the side that they've barely tread upon it.
Her hands are gentle but insistent at the sides of his face, urging him in against her. This studiously maintained slip of space between them has little necessity now. All night they have stepped in and out of each others space, her skirts brushing his legs, a just near miss of their hips as they moved through the dance, and now it is a relief to encourage him closer. She wants the full weight of him, wants that in the same breath as she wants to arch herself up against him.
Have me she told him, and yes, there is some yielding quality to it. And maybe it is even easier with Marcus, to yield by degrees to someone who has already had clear demonstration of her vulnerabilities and full witness to her weaknesses, and has let neither of them diminish her in his eyes.
Permission, acceptance, encouragement. It makes a space that Marcus is happy to fill, and does so now with his greater height, the span of his shoulders, his mouth on hers. His hand, finding a place at her side that simply enjoys the feeling of silky fabric over a warm body beneath it, deliberate in the drag of it as his palm feels along the curve of her waist.
He had not at any point this evening meaningfully imagined getting his hands on her, too distracted besides, but it would be easy in this moment to become obsessed with the idea of it. There is nothing frantic in him now, but unhesitating as he drops a kiss on her bare shoulder, nudging her head to tip aside and permit him access to her throat.
It would probably be a bad look, for them to leave this place overly rumpled.
Which is a thought that doesn't occur to him at all, hand dipping in the space between the small of her back and the wall, pulling her against him, dress fabric gathered into fist.
Even if he is not thinking of it, Derrica is. (Fretful about the demands of her position, the scrutiny that will surely be re-directed at them, maybe all the stronger for their absence.) The soft sound she makes into his mouth is conflicted, encouragement mingled with some cautioning murmur.
"Wait," is not for the dress though. It's for her heavy gold choker and all it's draping chains, strung with tiny bells. One hand settles at his throat, thumb at the line of his jaw while she deftly thumbs apart the hooks fastening it in place. It comes away under her hand, caught and dropped aside in a musical jangle of sound. Without necklace or shawl to temper the effect, the gauzy quality of the fabric becomes something close to indecent.
Her fingers at his throat and jaw recall him back. The heady, directionless quality of this moment could be overwhelming if she paused over it too long. They are far from home in an eccentric's estate, and the door may well be unlocked and there is only so much time until they are missed. The reasons they should put this aside, until the evening is over.
The off-white silk wrapped around his throat is soft, cool, a contrast to the warm skin at his jaw, the subtle texture from having not seen a razor since early that morning. The sensation of him swallowing. Pulse.
Moved to imagine the reverse, of a dress fallen away and only golden chain and bells left behind. But this, too, is good, and more sensible, and Marcus lets himself be ushered in so as to press his mouth to the slope of her throat with a gently growled hum of satisfaction. He does so less out of any interest to mark her up and more so because he knows how it feels, that contrast of sensation, blunt teeth and wet mouth and the gentle pressure both create.
That hand gathers more skirt fabric, until she can feel the air prickle against her exposed thigh, and higher. A muffled sound of want from him heralds the press of his palm against bare skin, a sliding up until the juncture between thumb and finger find the one between thigh and pelvis.
The dual points of sensation, his mouth at his throat and the precisely applied pressure of his hand, draw a low moan of sound from her. The fabric is easily managed, overlapping drapes of delicate panels cinched at the waist, simple to gather in Marcus' hand.
In another place, they could have done this differently. Somewhere with a locked door, without any need to remain pristine. Where he might have unfastened her dress and left the jewelry, rather than Derrica undoing golden hooks, easily returned when all is said and done. They might have taken their time.
(The question mark of the future comes and goes, sliding to some distant part of her mind where all uncertainties have been boxed away.)
"Marcus," she breathes, arms sliding round his shoulders, levering herself up a few scant inches as she arches impossibly closer into him. "Marcus, have me."
Instructive, underscored by her heel digging into his calf.
She is right there, so it's easy for Marcus to lift his head, urge her back into a kiss that has more hunger to it, in the rake of teeth and tongue. An answer, in the way his spare hand gets between them and starts carelessly working at the fastenings of his trousers. As eager to as he is told as he is to do as he wants,
and it so happens these things are aligned.
There is a part of him that is too well used to frantically scraping up what he can, stolen moments wherever they can be found. This is not quite that, not anymore, and the way it reminds him of it is based purely in instinct rather than sentiment. He will have her, here, with a nearby unlocked door and a nebulous future on the other side of it.
Formal silks and linens are opened, pushed aside negligently. Some amount of arrangement occurring, in the close space between them. Then, the tug of her skirts, higher, exposing for the brief moment of time where they aren't in direct contact.
Derrica will feel his hand grip up under her thigh, pushing it up higher and keeping it there, pinning her in place against this wall.
"Now," is breathed directly into his mouth. "Marcus."
It's not that Marcus is delaying on purpose. The minor realigning of their bodies, his fingers pressing hard at her thigh, the work of his opposite hand in tandem with how firmly he has her held in place, there is a necessity to it all.
Over the neatly wrapped silk at his neck, Derrica's nails dig lightly into his nape. Mindful of his hair, tied back tightly enough that she cannot put her fingers into it the way she'd like. The squirm of movement is not anywhere in the vicinity of away; it's a settling, hitching her thigh a degree higher as she kisses him.
"Now," repeated, low, urgent. Followed by her teeth catching his lip, shifting in the absolute absence of space against him, fingers digging in at his shoulder and nape as if to draw him to her immediately.
Derrica spurs him on; Marcus isn't rushed, does not move faster, or more urgently, but does act with greater certainty. Barely a detectable change in him, save that there's very little he'd stop for.
Not while she winds around him, moves like that, his name murmured against his mouth, in a tone of voice he's never heard from her before. Grasping hand firms, and he lifts her up those few more inches against the wall, her remaining foot leaving the floor where she will have no choice but to let it hang or find a place to hitch her knee against his hip.
Between them, his breath catches at that first moment of contact, of the slide of warm flesh, his own stiffness against slickness. Guiding himself inside of her is a sure and practiced motion, and in the doing, the sound out of him is more open-throated, less rasp and growl, and shuddered out of him.
Not exactly tension. But a hitched gasp of breath, awareness of some last piece of leverage falling away. A second inhale, deep and ragged, acclimating before the tight clutch of her hands at his neck relax. Shift by degrees to his neck, fingers at his jaw. Giving over, because she can do little else in her present position but yield.
And though it comes with a rush of adrenaline to do so, there is so little risk in it. Marcus would never do her harm, would never make her regret it.
"More," she whispers, knee hitching up over his hip. Slippered foot digging into the back of his thigh. "Please, Marcus."
Please without any semblance of begging behind it; they have been so in sync that she has no doubts about being obliged. Please only because it is the first thing that comes to her, frayed and affectionate and unyielding all at once.
And there is still something heady that translates to him as dangerous in the way she is so free and open, so welcoming of whatever he has to give. Pushing and then to meet no resistance, only warmth, give, softness, whispers, a clutching closer.
Marcus, for a moment, holds them both there. Turns his head, kisses the fingers that were at his jaw when displaced, formless impulse in the gentle closing of teeth against fingertips, the temptation to draw them in. The edge of an appetite that is still, by necessity, held in check.
And she is saying more and he wishes to give it. He has her, so his hands can keep a sturdy grasp of her beneath, finding the right kind of leverage and angle so that he can move, slide back out those necessary fractions, and into her, firm. There, again, brow tensing at the sliding friction of it.
"Derrica," he says, finally, voice quiet and rough-edged and breathless.
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So it is private, and known only to them, the way Marcus curls his fingers, lets the tips of them play light across her skin. Too deliberate in the circular pattern of that touch to be excused as accidental, serving first to let him touch her now that he is already touching her, and also to provoke sensation, a quiet little signal.
"That would be nice," Marcus agrees, able to speaking quietly despite the noise of music and laughter and slippers scuffing across marble.
His expression is ever subtle, as she reads him. Searches. Something receptive, though, in his regard of her.
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The way he is touching her is deliberate; the illusion of accident has fallen away.
"We could go without the fire," is an express deviation from their assignment. (Stay in the ballroom, speak to anyone who will tolerate a conversation, endear yourself to them.) And it feels like a risk, like toeing up along the ledge of a very high wall and looking down.
Maybe the light skim of his fingers on the bare skin of her back means nothing, and she is about to embarrass herself. Splinter their relationship to each other.
It is a rare thing, being so unsure of a man's intentions. Maybe if she had met Marcus first as a stranger, her read of him would be better. But with so much affection between them already, she finds herself uncertain if she is parsing the expression on his face correctly.
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It is a certainty that means he can interpret, well enough, the uncertainty reflected back at him.
Leading her through a dance has been a simple affair, telegraphing the next step through the subtle tip of his hand under hers or the press of his touch at her waist and back. If she's picked up the rhythm and pattern of it, the next movement is a deviation, but communicated all the same. A step, two, and three, that pushes them both out of the broad circle the other dancers make.
Safely at the edges, when Marcus draws them to a halt, where no one is liable to crash into them.
He isn't slow to release her, though. That narrow space between them feels charged, and it is more for her sake than his own that he doesn't simply close it, here, although the press of his hand against her back communicates some desire to do precisely that.
"Alright," he says, as if they were as serious about the fire part as they seem to be about leaving.
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As if it is so simple a thing as extricating themself from the crush of this ballroom and it's packed edges in search of a quieter venue. Marcus would smoke. They would talk freely about something or other, maybe of politics, maybe of the future, maybe of their frustrations with Riftwatch. And then they would return to their duty. It would be unremarkable on any other night.
Tonight, though, his fingers have not left her skin. Her breath went shallow somewhere after he'd first started trailing circles there, and it remains so now, as she looks back at him appraisingly. She is so aware of their closeness, more pronounced for the carefully preserved strip of distance maintained even as his fingers flex against her back.
A pause here, in which she looks into his face. Not so dissimilar to that day in the training yard in the wake of the dream where he tried to kill her. Incisive and intent, resolving eventually to—
"Alright," as her hand turns in his. "Let's go."
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That day in the training yard, there was a moment where Marcus had considered turning down her friendship. Where in some ways, he'd given consideration to the fact that it might be a better thing for her to have distance from him. And perhaps it might have been given more weight if she were as prominent in Riftwatch's diplomatic affairs then as she is now, but—
No, he would have accepted that friendship anyway. Just like right now, when he considers (passingly) if there is a more responsible, selfless choice than the one he is making, and it too is set aside.
Sometimes, he wants things, and doesn't hesitate very much in the reaching for them.
There's an archway he'd already been considering before Derrica had swooped in, and he steers them that way now. The edge of his thumb settles at the ridge of her knuckles, a minor little rub of contact as if to communicate something he feels less equipped to do while they move through the crowd. Anticipation.
Here, the corridor is not unpopulated. A couple of lingering individuals in small, private conversations. It might have been to their liking, had Derrica chosen an escape path alternate to the dance floor.
Marcus continues on, unhurried.
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Her entire body feels wound tight, a coiled spring under the slight pressure of his thumb.
"Marcus," she says, grip on his elbow loosening only so that she might face him properly. Her hand lingers there, light clasp over his forearm.
Not exactly a question. She has a sense of his intention, the answer she would receive if she asked it.
The impression of his fingers at her back lingers, still prickling, skin flushed warm even in the absence of his touch.
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Unless there is! Unless there are whole sentences in the way he turns his arm, catches his hand gentle at her elbow, thumb finding a tender place to lay just there.
It's quiet, here. The room they've ducked into has no light, just the sheen of moon through the window, some ambient bleed in, unlit candles and lanterns. Book shelves, desk, places to sit. Here, too, they could talk of politics and the future and Riftwatch.
"Is this better?"
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"Yes."
To a different question, maybe. Something Marcus hasn't asked.
Her hand is still caught up in his. Derrica hasn't given it up, hasn't drawn back. There is space in this room. It is cool and dark, quiet. She could shrug off her shawl entirely, and they could talk free.
Instead, her opposite hand comes back to his chest. Runs along the subtle patterns to thumb at one gleaming button high at his neck.
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There is an urge in him that would love to push against that hand. For the one he has at her arm to firm its grip, and direct her backwards and then nearer once her back finds the wall. It is the kind of urge he has practice keeping a firm leash on, where his other instinct is not to quicken away the present gentleness.
An instinct made stronger with a reflexive version of that gentleness where Derrica in specific is concerned.
So instead, his hand moves up her arm, fingertips trailing a soft line up the back of it. Past her shoulder, and then to her jaw, the brush of his knuckles.
He doesn't need to invade her space so abruptly to do this, for it to feel a little like a pleasing transgression, when he goes to tilt her chin up a little further, and duck his head to meet her lips in a kiss.
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Marcus' hand at her jaw, curled beneath her chin, hooks her attention so thoroughly that when he bends nearer it almost doesn't register. She is still considering the drag of his fingers and the nudge of them at her jaw that it is almost a shock to find him so near to her.
Almost.
As he kisses her, Derrica grips the collar of his fine, pristine coat. She makes a sound right up into his mouth, a gasp of impression as her grip tightens over the fabric. An echo of yes, unmistakable, as her mouth opens under his. She pushes up on her tiptoes, meeting him, or maybe countering any possibility that he might draw back from her.
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her body, warm against his, and the softness of her lips yielding to him. His hands move, arms winding around her as she lifts up onto her toes, encouraging her against him.
The complex swoops of her dresses are still less layers than his formal clothes, and so there is less heat there than there is just the solid press of each other. His hands find places to be against her back, as if to take advantage of what he'd only let himself touch gently back in the ballroom.
Not grasping, not grabbing, flat palmed and savoring the feel of silk and skin beneath the heel of his hand.
More abstractly: a clench felt deep in his chest, something tightening.
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Good can only be settled upon because he is kissing her now, because all the coiled-tight anticipation in her has somewhere to go.
The worry is not completely gone; this may still be a misstep. Only Derrica thinks they can come through it together. Trusts Marcus to take all in stride.
Like she trusts him too with the enclosure of his arms. (Has trusted him in the training yard for months and months and months now, and even beyond it.) Marcus loops arms around her and she sways into him, sliding her hand from his collar to the nape of his neck. Makes a softer, more insistent sound directly into his mouth. Encouraging all of this, all the ways he is touching her and holding her and kissing her in this moment.
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He doesn't match her sound with one of his own, just feels the way it twinges in him like a struck chord. Responds with a deepening of that kiss, permission asked silently with the press of his mouth, that subtle slick touch of tongue. Wine, mainly.
A hand sliding up her back, briefly rumpling her shawl so that his palm finds her throat up under the fall of her hair, all affection in that hold when the kiss breaks and he lays another one more off-centre, at the corner of her mouth, brow pulling taut.
She is very lovely. Sparkling, soft, strong beneath. If he thinks about it for more than a moment, he might shy off of enjoying it too much.
So instead he says, "I want you," and amends it to, "I've wanted you."
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The former, perhaps, and not the latter. It is a surprise.
There is the impulse to ask How long? as if that changes anything at all. To try and map out this thing Marcus tells her and lay it over their acquaintance to see where it might have originated.
"Have me," Derrica tells him, making explicit what they have spent some time dancing around this evening. A shrug and twitch of her shoulders, and the shawl spills from her shoulders to puddle on the floor behind them. Bares her shoulders, exposes the swathes of cut out panels at her back, all the while she looks up into his face while her mouth sparks from his kiss and says, "I want you too."
Has she wanted Marcus? Had she been carrying some feeling like this, and let it lie unconsulted all this time? Maybe the question is: can she hold focus long enough to trace back all her feeling for him to try and parse what she had felt, and for how long. It seems a tall order when his fingers feel good tucked up beneath her hair.
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Nothing in him would take offense, but then, Marcus would also understand. He's not sure he could neatly unbraid the tightly wound feelings of loyalty and affection that have strengthened at different points in time, in order to locate when he first felt desire. One strand in the rest, and not even as important.
But she says have me, and he feels it at a rush, a certain tension sharp in his expression and a warmth in his appraisal, gaze switching to one bared shoulder, attuned to the sound of slithering fabric.
Here, his fingers come up through her hair, careful not to tug at the way it is fastened and the chains run through it, but until she can feel the heel of his palm at the base of her skull, and his thumb swoop along behind her ear.
Another kiss, now, assertive, still sweet but desire bitten into it. A step, one that aims to place her back against the gilt-papered wall.
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A passing thought for her shawl, abandoned on the floor but mercifully set off far enough to the side that they've barely tread upon it.
Her hands are gentle but insistent at the sides of his face, urging him in against her. This studiously maintained slip of space between them has little necessity now. All night they have stepped in and out of each others space, her skirts brushing his legs, a just near miss of their hips as they moved through the dance, and now it is a relief to encourage him closer. She wants the full weight of him, wants that in the same breath as she wants to arch herself up against him.
Have me she told him, and yes, there is some yielding quality to it. And maybe it is even easier with Marcus, to yield by degrees to someone who has already had clear demonstration of her vulnerabilities and full witness to her weaknesses, and has let neither of them diminish her in his eyes.
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He had not at any point this evening meaningfully imagined getting his hands on her, too distracted besides, but it would be easy in this moment to become obsessed with the idea of it. There is nothing frantic in him now, but unhesitating as he drops a kiss on her bare shoulder, nudging her head to tip aside and permit him access to her throat.
It would probably be a bad look, for them to leave this place overly rumpled.
Which is a thought that doesn't occur to him at all, hand dipping in the space between the small of her back and the wall, pulling her against him, dress fabric gathered into fist.
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"Wait," is not for the dress though. It's for her heavy gold choker and all it's draping chains, strung with tiny bells. One hand settles at his throat, thumb at the line of his jaw while she deftly thumbs apart the hooks fastening it in place. It comes away under her hand, caught and dropped aside in a musical jangle of sound. Without necklace or shawl to temper the effect, the gauzy quality of the fabric becomes something close to indecent.
Her fingers at his throat and jaw recall him back. The heady, directionless quality of this moment could be overwhelming if she paused over it too long. They are far from home in an eccentric's estate, and the door may well be unlocked and there is only so much time until they are missed. The reasons they should put this aside, until the evening is over.
Derrica draws him down to her anyway.
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Moved to imagine the reverse, of a dress fallen away and only golden chain and bells left behind. But this, too, is good, and more sensible, and Marcus lets himself be ushered in so as to press his mouth to the slope of her throat with a gently growled hum of satisfaction. He does so less out of any interest to mark her up and more so because he knows how it feels, that contrast of sensation, blunt teeth and wet mouth and the gentle pressure both create.
That hand gathers more skirt fabric, until she can feel the air prickle against her exposed thigh, and higher. A muffled sound of want from him heralds the press of his palm against bare skin, a sliding up until the juncture between thumb and finger find the one between thigh and pelvis.
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In another place, they could have done this differently. Somewhere with a locked door, without any need to remain pristine. Where he might have unfastened her dress and left the jewelry, rather than Derrica undoing golden hooks, easily returned when all is said and done. They might have taken their time.
(The question mark of the future comes and goes, sliding to some distant part of her mind where all uncertainties have been boxed away.)
"Marcus," she breathes, arms sliding round his shoulders, levering herself up a few scant inches as she arches impossibly closer into him. "Marcus, have me."
Instructive, underscored by her heel digging into his calf.
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and it so happens these things are aligned.
There is a part of him that is too well used to frantically scraping up what he can, stolen moments wherever they can be found. This is not quite that, not anymore, and the way it reminds him of it is based purely in instinct rather than sentiment. He will have her, here, with a nearby unlocked door and a nebulous future on the other side of it.
Formal silks and linens are opened, pushed aside negligently. Some amount of arrangement occurring, in the close space between them. Then, the tug of her skirts, higher, exposing for the brief moment of time where they aren't in direct contact.
Derrica will feel his hand grip up under her thigh, pushing it up higher and keeping it there, pinning her in place against this wall.
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It's not that Marcus is delaying on purpose. The minor realigning of their bodies, his fingers pressing hard at her thigh, the work of his opposite hand in tandem with how firmly he has her held in place, there is a necessity to it all.
Over the neatly wrapped silk at his neck, Derrica's nails dig lightly into his nape. Mindful of his hair, tied back tightly enough that she cannot put her fingers into it the way she'd like. The squirm of movement is not anywhere in the vicinity of away; it's a settling, hitching her thigh a degree higher as she kisses him.
"Now," repeated, low, urgent. Followed by her teeth catching his lip, shifting in the absolute absence of space against him, fingers digging in at his shoulder and nape as if to draw him to her immediately.
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Not while she winds around him, moves like that, his name murmured against his mouth, in a tone of voice he's never heard from her before. Grasping hand firms, and he lifts her up those few more inches against the wall, her remaining foot leaving the floor where she will have no choice but to let it hang or find a place to hitch her knee against his hip.
Between them, his breath catches at that first moment of contact, of the slide of warm flesh, his own stiffness against slickness. Guiding himself inside of her is a sure and practiced motion, and in the doing, the sound out of him is more open-throated, less rasp and growl, and shuddered out of him.
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Not exactly tension. But a hitched gasp of breath, awareness of some last piece of leverage falling away. A second inhale, deep and ragged, acclimating before the tight clutch of her hands at his neck relax. Shift by degrees to his neck, fingers at his jaw. Giving over, because she can do little else in her present position but yield.
And though it comes with a rush of adrenaline to do so, there is so little risk in it. Marcus would never do her harm, would never make her regret it.
"More," she whispers, knee hitching up over his hip. Slippered foot digging into the back of his thigh. "Please, Marcus."
Please without any semblance of begging behind it; they have been so in sync that she has no doubts about being obliged. Please only because it is the first thing that comes to her, frayed and affectionate and unyielding all at once.
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And there is still something heady that translates to him as dangerous in the way she is so free and open, so welcoming of whatever he has to give. Pushing and then to meet no resistance, only warmth, give, softness, whispers, a clutching closer.
Marcus, for a moment, holds them both there. Turns his head, kisses the fingers that were at his jaw when displaced, formless impulse in the gentle closing of teeth against fingertips, the temptation to draw them in. The edge of an appetite that is still, by necessity, held in check.
And she is saying more and he wishes to give it. He has her, so his hands can keep a sturdy grasp of her beneath, finding the right kind of leverage and angle so that he can move, slide back out those necessary fractions, and into her, firm. There, again, brow tensing at the sliding friction of it.
"Derrica," he says, finally, voice quiet and rough-edged and breathless.
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i sense we are approaching bow territory we must generate new content
it's all on you
challenge accepted