james is waiting.

Evelyn Bryant

Sun 11:52PM CST
Late Sunday night.

The 9pm session at the cinema has just ended and a steady stream of moviegoers are exiting, a rising bubble of chatter and smatterings of laughter as they spill out into the street. Toward the rear of the crowd comes the statuesque figure of Evelyn. She pauses by the brightly-lit entrance to the complex, pulling her leather jacket on and tugging out the plaited blond hair from the collar.

Her breath mists barely before her, an indication of the temperature. She glances either way before beginning to weave her way through the crowd, down the street to where one presumes she’s parked the tiny vehicle she calls a car.

Vast

Sun 11:59PM CST
"Dull, wasn't it?" Cutting rudely between two determinedly jaded UoC film majors, Vast is a splinter of ice in an amorphous crowd: sharp, hard, edgy, cool. He stops to pull his motorcycle gloves on, velcroing the cuffs tight about his wrists, his helmet caught under one arm. "Want a ride?"

Evelyn Bryant

Mon 12:06AM CST
She’s got her slender hands in her jacket pockets by the time Sevastian addresses her. And for a beat she doesn’t actually slow her steps. He might think she’s not heard him, or perhaps she has and is simply going to ignore him.

Perhaps.

And then the soft clack of her boots halts, grinding down on the pavement as she turns smoothly, a hint of her vocation even in the smallest things, and a hand emerges to carefully extract a few strands of hair from her eyes.

“Yes actually.”

She glances briefly back toward the cinema, then at the passing students. Eventually her dark eyes find his face again and it’s not imagination to think she seems colder toward him. Guess she’s still holding onto anger from their last encounter.

He asks if she wants a ride, and Evelyn’s full lips quirk against her better judgement, and she steps forward to clear the pathway.

“I can walk. It’s not that far to my place.”

Vast

Mon 12:12AM CST
"Don't lie. You drove." He strolls toward her, arrogant in his negligence. If she'd almost ignored him, if this galls him that she had the nerve to do so, it hardly shows. In his expensive urban gear and his well-cut motorcycle jacket, he's as he always is, cagey despite his fucking noble ennui.

It was almost impossible to imagine him in a tuxedo; when he died, they'd probably bury him exactly as he is now. His gray eyes, with their touch of smoke-blue and their glittering falcon clarity, sweep her briefly before turning to the street. "At any rate, you've failed to answer the question. Want a ride?" A pause and he amends, "To your car."
Evelyn Bryant

Mon 12:18AM CST
Evelyn stills and actually takes a small step away from him as he strolls so easily, and annoyingly elegantly despite his lack of apparent effort to seem to, toward her. She steps away but strangely lifts her chin as if in direct opposition to what could be taken for apprehension.

“Fine. I drove.”

She lifts her shoulders in a light shrug, and glances down the dark street. She stares into the darkness for a moment as if weighing up the pros and cons of walking before she lets out a quiet breath and looks back at him.

“Yes, I would appreciate a ride.”

Vast

Mon 12:25AM CST
Fine, she drove, she says, and he laughs -- "Still angry, are you?" And then she acquises, and he tilts his head toward the motorcycle spaces. Smaller than cars, and rarer, bikes had the privilege of being parked much closer to the theatre, even in this crowded downtown district. "Come on."

As he goes he zips the jacket up to his collar. The leather is soft and supple, taut on his body. It's black tonight, unmarked, and so is the helmet. The motorcycle is still the crimson Hayabusa, the kanji 'tiger' scrawled in place of the usual 'hayabusa' character on the curving engine hull.

She's ridden on the back of his bike before, but perhaps not since they broke it off for good. He seems to pay her little mind, however, as he swings astride and fits his helmet on, busying himself with alarms and ignitions and throttles while she gets on behind him. That he had asked her to dance for him just weeks ago, and had placed his hands on her body, seems all but forgotten.
Evelyn Bryant


Mon 12:33AM CST
“Still angry, are you?”

Her eyes narrow slightly and not for the first time it’s clear exactly which Tribe she belongs to. A lot is said about Fianna women, and not the least of that is about those fierce tempers. Evelyn is uniquely calm and quiet tempered, at least on the surface. Her lips tighten and for a minute she doesn’t move. She just watches him getting on the bike.

Eventually she slips on behind him, easily throwing one jean-clad thigh over the bike to straddle it. Her boots coming to rest either side, the end of her own leather jacket hanging over the back of the motorcycle. She slides her hands around his waist after a minute, and even in this action she seems bolder than before. Can anger be felt in such a way?

She settles in and waits, silently.

Vast

Mon 12:37AM CST
The wait isn't long. It never is. He kickstarts the bike, which was never meant to be kickstarted when it came off the assembly line. Japanese-made, it's designed to be smooth, sleek, fast, high-maintenance: not a bitch to be roughed up and pushed around. Customizations, however, change the little details around, and Vast was never the type to pamper a lady: that much is obvious.

"Point."

He tears down the street and there's no room for conversation. If she doesn't point, he'll take her all the way home. Otherwise, the ride ends at her cute little sports car, and Vast sits back in the slim saddle of the Hayabusa as he pulls his helmet off to see her safely into her ride, or something like that.

"Should I apologize, then?" he interrupts, evidently hellbent on the subject, as she's opening the door.

Evelyn Bryant

Mon 12:44AM CST
She points it out to him. There. Down the end of the street, parked beneath a small, sad looking little tree. The pale blue (sky blue is it’s actual title) sportscar which is suitable for her needs. She doesn’t linger on the motorcycle long either; it’s obvious she doesn’t enjoy the machines much. Certainly doesn’t see the beauty in them.

She steps back, adjusts her coat and is in the process of taking out her keys when he asks—

“Should I apologize, then?”

She pauses; the keys cool in her palm and slowly lifts her eyes to him. She watches him a minute. Taking in his perpetual cool demeanor. The devil-may-care attitude.

“Do you think you should?”

Vast

Mon 12:44AM CST
"I never think I should."

Evelyn Bryant

Mon 12:48AM CST
She smiles, a brief thing probably closer to a smirk.

“Then don’t.”

She turns, and sticks the keys into the lock, pulling open her cardoor. It seems she’s just going to leave, simple as that. Whether or not she’d even except his apology if he offered it to her isn’t clear. There doesn’t seem to be any lingering sentimentality on her half anymore. [Or is she just getting better at hiding it?]

Vast

Mon 12:59AM CST
In one move he's lowered the kickstand and swung off his bike. He might've been born with that machine fused to him; Glass Walkers would envy his understanding of its moods and gears, mechanism and speed. But let's not stray from the topic. In one move he's off the bike. In two, he's pushed -- not slammed, and not shoved -- the door shut.

"I'm not sorry for visiting unannounced." One hand on the car, he wheels to face her, crowding her space. An electric intensity crackles across what remains of distance between. If she moves back, he moves faster: sets the other hand against the car as well, and cages her in. For all that, he speaks calmly, evenly. "I'm not sorry for asking you to dance for me. I'm not sorry for touching you. For insulting you. For stealing you from another man. Twice.

"But maybe I am sorry for not making it thrice." He straightens.
Evelyn Bryant

Mon 01:08AM CST
She’s so close to getting away. She was in the midst of getting into the car when he lowers the stand. Gets off. She’s already straightening up, her heart rate accelerating even before he shuts her door [escape] on her. She stares at him, you might say she appears shocked, but only for an instant before something akin to anger, frustration settles over her attractive features.

He’s caging her in and Evelyn has no place to look but into his eyes.

His last admission, his last statement has her eyes glittering, her lips tightening into a thin line. It’s cold, but until now she hadn’t appeared so pale. That electricity is crackling between them. Such a small distance between them now.

“I don’t want to hear this, Vast.” She sounds angry. Her voice is strained. She hasn’t called him Vast in a long time. She lifts a hand and pushes him away, reclaiming her personal space.

“You mean you’re sorry for trying to make it three times. I wouldn’t do it again. Not this time. Not with James.”

Vast

Mon 01:11AM CST
In the beat after she pushes, and before he shows signs of moving, his pitiless clear eyes flick ever so briefly down to her hand. "Of course not."

Evelyn Bryant

Mon 01:16AM CST

Her breath catches for that instant between her palm pressing against the soft leather of his jacket and his movement away. Stepping away. Whatever he does. Perhaps he noticed, his eyes on her hand, felt the slight tremour. Not as removed as she’d like it seems.

“I have to go. James is – ” She breaks off. Holds his eyes for an intense minute before she goes to open her door again. “I need to go.”

Vast

Mon 01:20AM CST
James is -- "Waiting. I know." A moment. She says nothing; he says nothing.

Then she reaches behind her for the door again. She needs to go. "Goodnight, then," he replies. He takes the door with him as he steps back from her at last, pulling it open and holding it for her. When she's in, he gives it a push, letting it shut of its own momentum, and steps back enough for her to pull forward and away.

Evelyn Bryant

Mon 01:27AM CST
He knows. She feels a twinge of—what? Regret? That James is waiting for her. Good, sweet James who loved her. No, not regret.

He says goodnight and holds the door for her. She’d have considered it chiveralous if it were not him, and it were not her that he held it for. She feels the gentle vibration as the door is shut and she does up her seat belt. Starts the engine.

She spares Sevastian only one look, watching him standing beside his motorcycle for a moment, and murmurs “Goodnight Sevastian”, even though he couldn’t hear it through the glass. And then she pulls forward, and drives away.

the black swan.

Evelyn Bryant
Tue 01:17AM CST
She’ll never get used to the cold.

California girl born and raised, she’s defying the turning seasons and standing out on the balcony of her apartment. Her slender fingers wrapped loosely around the stem of a wineglass. Eyes shut, gentle breeze soothing the tired muscles beneath the honey-gold tan. Evelyn has a liking for loose fitting garments. Jumpers, sweaters that slid off one shoulder, she likes them especially when she’s relaxing. As she is now.

The curtains flutter out every so often, tickling the bare skin of her thighs. She defies this cooling weather and wears a loose knitted jumper and shorts. Her gaze absently fixated on the street below her, elbows resting on the cold steel railing. There’s an edge of exhilaration for her, leaning over like this. Four stories up is a long way to fall.

Glass is raised to her lips as the stereo inside lets out the sound of something classical. Could be Mozart. Could be Chopin. Not exactly what you’d pick as her musical tastes but then, she’s a complicated woman Evelyn Bryant. Never exactly what one expects. If he’s stepping off the lift, he might hear the flourish of the rising crescendo. She never plays this sort of music when James is around. This is for her own private enjoyment. As is the open bottle of wine.

Another sip and she turns her head slightly, glancing over her shoulder as if she heard the door.

Sevastian deValois
Tue 01:35AM CST
But it's not the door Vast knocks on. It's the balcony he lets himself in through. The turn of her head makes her miss his grand entrance: not so determinedly grand after all, his athletic grace understated as he climbs down the fire escape from above and swings -- easily, as though the 12 story drop were nothing -- onto the edge of her balcony.

For a moment he is balanced on the edge of the rail, crouched. They say man is descended from apes. He, at the moment, looks to be descended more from mountain cats. Then he lowers himself to the floor, one foot and then the other, lean and powerful and silent. All in black, like some sort of cat burglar. No, wait: the shirt, closefitting and longsleeved, the material heavy but thin, ribbed, high-collared, buttonless, closed instead with a zipper up the front -- the shirt is forest green, dark enough to be mistaken for black.

He tosses something at her. It's large, irregularly shaped, heavy, solid, with a bit of give. A plastic bag rustles around it. If she opens it -- it's a wheel of smoked gouda cheese, a large sliver cut out of it.

"I was visiting a friend upstairs," he explains, carelessly, as though it were perfectly normal for men to climb onto their ex-lovers' balconies. The zipper is halfway undone on his shirt; there's lipstick on the edge of his jaw, smeared where he'd wiped, and not thoroughly enough. One can guess what sort of friend. "I had to leave rather suddenly, but I smelled your wine on the way down. Thought you could use some cheese to go with it."

Evelyn Bryant
Tue 01:53AM CST
She’s silent as he makes his grand entrance. Startled a little, yes. Obvious in the way her hand tightens around the glass. In the way she straightens up and after a minute, steps back. Her dark eyes crawl over his torso, his black outfit as if he were trying to escape all notice at all, before he tosses the large object at her and she catches it. A little awkwardly. It’s cradled in her arms, droplets of white wine spill over her arm, some onto the concrete beneath her bare feet.

“Thanks.”

Really, what else is she supposed to say? When your Ex Lover arrives a la Tarzan from your balcony in the late hours of the night. Evelyn glances at him once more, her gaze lingering on the lipstick a minute before she turns smoothly and slips back inside, the curtain sliding against her body before regretfully being lost as she walks toward the kitchen.

Still the music plays, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was mimicking her reaction to Sevastian’s sudden invasion of her evening of solitude. The way it dips low and slowly builds again, the violin’s melancholy eerie in the otherwise silent apartment.

She doesn’t open the cheese. Simply places the plastic bag on her counter and leans against the edge of it, feeling the slight press of hard plastic against her hip. Her eyes surprisingly clear for the amount of wine it appears she’s consumed. At least half of the bottle. Those large obsidian eyes are watching the dark figure still hidden by the curtains.

“Rough night?”

Sevastian deValois
Tue 01:59AM CST
"Rough?" He cants his head to look at her, remaining on the balcony. After a moment, he levers himself slowly up to sit on the edge of the balcony. "No. Interesting."

As though he could see sound, his eyes trace the music to its source. He studies the stereo with its deliberately subtle lighting; none of the flash and glitter of cheaper college boomboxes. Then he looks at her again, his eyes pale, clear like ice. Raptors have no mercy.

"Be hospitable, Evelyn." Always, it sounds like a command. "Pour me a glass. For old times' sake."

Evelyn Bryant
Tue 02:13AM CST
Hard to trace where her annoyance stems from.

Maybe it’s that she’s absurdly pleased to see him. Maybe it’s because James hasn’t been in contact for a few days. Maybe a thousand other things.

She lets out a soft breath that could be a quiet laugh of sarcasm, amusement. Most likely a combination of the two. Still, she obeys. Moving around, the sound of the cupboard door opening, the soft clinging of the wine glasses as she selects one muted by the music.

“I wondered if you were alright.”

She pours out a generous glass, refilling her own before she moves around, walking back out toward where he’s still perched. She wonders absently if she should feel guilty for his presence. Wonders if she’s slightly cruel in not entirely caring. Certainly there is a part of Evelyn that’s naïve enough to believe she’s just offering a friend a glass of wine. But even as she thinks it. She knows.

They have never been friends.

“After the other night, you just took off. I assume since you’re here now that you got home alright.”

She finishes, holding out the glass to him, her eyes slowly rising from where their fingers may briefly touch to hold his gaze. She settles back against the railing, strands of hair blown by the wind impatiently pulled aside with her free hand.

Sevastian deValois
Tue 02:23AM CST
The reminder of the other night seems to annoy him, displease him. A shadow crosses his face -- those noble features, anglo-gallic; norman-gallic, nordic-gallic, if you traced his lineage back far enough. His mother descended through the Latinate peoples that have lived and died, bred and ruled in France for thousands of years: olive-skinned, Romance languages; his father descended through the old money aristocracy of New York, and back through the old money aristocracy of England, and back through the Norman conquerors and kings, and back through the north-european northmen who first conquered Normandy. That history is a part of him, no matter how he tries to buck it. It's writ in his face, in his carriage, in his bearing. Wolfkings and kings of men. Warrior kings and poets, philosophers, lovers, rebels and revolutionaries.

And now, distilled down through a thousand generations: him, Sevastian de Valois Sturtevant, motorcycle-riding, slumming, careless he. He turns away to look over his shoulder at the skyline. When he turns back, he is composed, accepting the wineglass with a hint of a smile dismissive on his mouth.

"Of course I did." He swirls the wine in the glass. Without warning, he slides off the balcony railing, briefly too close: maybe that was his own cruelty, to push and see how far he can go, without ever entirely caring. He brushes past her. "You may not want cheese with your wine, but I do. One complements the other, or didn't you know."

Evelyn Bryant
Tue 02:35AM CST
She watches him a moment before she too glances out over the nightlife milling down below, glances upward at the cloud-ridden sky, if it’s out of some kind of sympathy that she looks away, that she senses he doesn’t want to discuss it, it’s not shown. Either way, he eventually turns back, smiles and so does she.

She can’t help the tensing of her figure as he’s briefly [achingly] too near to her. He brushes past and for a minute she’s still. She stands outside a minute longer, staring out over the balcony, before she slips in behind him, her own smile painted on. Some slight curve of the full lips.

“It might surprise you to know that I did know that.”

She moves into the kitchen, sliding open drawers and finding a cheese knife. Holding it out toward him, a slightly too sharp smile on her lips. Her eyes slip down to where there’s a faint smudge of red.

“You have lipstick on your jaw. Might want to get rid of it.”

Sevastian deValois
Tue 02:40AM CST
Sevastian glances down at the knife held out blade-first. How impolite. He closes his hand over hers unhesitatingly, prying the knife loose.

"Handle-first next time. Please." He unwraps the cheese and sets it on the cutting board. Distractedly, he rubs his jaw automatically against his shoulder as she mentions lipstick. "Do I? My mother won't mind." Knife sinks into cheese. He catches her eyes abruptly; he hadn't been absentminded on the subject at all. "Why, do you?"

Evelyn Bryant
Tue 02:58AM CST
He catches her eyes, but only just. She glances away and lifts her shoulders in a careless shrug. Leaning back into the corner of the kitchen, where the small counters intersected and draining a large portion of her wine with a hand that trembled just slightly.

“Why should I mind? I don’t care what you do with your time anymore.”

She catches his eyes perhaps briefly, before turning to place her glass on the counter by the sliced cheese.

Sevastian deValois
Tue 03:02AM CST
"Exactly. Why should you mind?" He leaves the lipstick stain where it is, steadying the wedge of cheese with a finger as the knife cuts it from the wheel. Turning it on its side, he further splits it into uneven quarters, takes one for himself. A twist of his fingers spins the entire cutting block around, and sends it sliding over to her. The knife wobbles dangerously on wood.

"Help yourself," he offers, lifting his glass and strolling from the kitchen. At the stereo he pauses, listening for a moment. "Mozart? More classical? Don't you get sick of it, dancing to this drivel day in day out?"

Evelyn Bryant
Tue 03:10AM CST
She glances down at the dairy, then at the knife, stained with flecks of the cheese before picking up her nearly finished glass and following him out of her kitchen. The food is untouched by her. Most food is. She leans her slender body against the wall and again it’s a light shrug, followed by a small swallow.

“Sometimes. But since James insists on playing rock all the time I find this rather soothing.”

She moves smoothly, sinking into the cushions of the sofa and tucking her small feet beneath her. A plush throw pillow is drawn to sit against her stomach. She watches him, her eyes rarely leaving his form as he moves about her apartment. They moved differently to normal people. Evelyn had begun to notice. First with James and now as she watches Sevastian she notices it again. A sort of confidence that regular guys didn’t possess. Or at least, very few did.

“Don’t you like it?”

Her head tilts to one side, the fall of her gold hair over one shoulder a gradual thing.

Sevastian deValois
Tue 03:38AM CST
With a certain measure of deliberation, Sevastian sets his wineglass atop the stereo. When he crouches in front of it, his knees do not pop, and there is no strain in him. There are dancers who will never approach his consummately self-possessed, self-enclosed balance. The messy cube of cheese is devoured all at once. Let his manner tutors turn over and over in the early graves he doubtlessly sent them to. No one spoke of manners to him anymore, and none have since his first change.

"No." CDs clack on one another as he flips through her collection. Eventually his fingers pause; he's found an acceptable replacement. "I don't like it."

The piece cuts off mid-measure as he ejects the CD. A lifetime of agony and ecstasy, creativity and strife, condensed into one imminently breakable disc: a piece of plastic that fit in the palm of the hand. And people wondered why creativity had no value anymore. He slaps the CD atop the stereo and slips another into the tray in its place. Rising to retrieve his wineglass as the first strains of something doubtlessly familiar to Evelyn uncoils into the air, he turns to face her.

"Though I could, and did, make an exception for you." His elbows resting atop the stereo, the Silver Fang is lean, dark, full of shadows and flashing pale eyes. "Poor Tchaikovsky, countryman of my most distant ancestors; sixty tortured years and all that noise, and this is the only truly great piece he ever produced, and no one even really knows it. Swan Lake number twenty-seven, Act Four, Scene Two:Danses des petits cygnes in Moderato. You know it?" He pauses for the inevitable nod. Lower, rough like raw silk, "Dance the Black Swan for me."

She's not in the scene. And--
--what would James think?


Evelyn Bryant
Tue 03:54AM CST
She frowns lightly as he cuts Mozart off mid way through. One does not simply turn off a master now do they? Well, if you were Sevastian apparently you did. He might feel the intensity of her eyes upon his back as he rifles through her CD’s and slides in what he feels is acceptable and you can almost see the recognition flicker in Evelyn’s dark eyes. Watch the slight smile curve her lips. Oh yes, it’s barely needed the nod she gives. She knows this dance.

Knows it the way a lover knows the swells and dips of their partner’s body. She’s played with the intricacies of it for years to perfect it. And yet, even now she finds she discovers new delights in it as she dances it. But, she also knows, this dance is far too intimate for her to dance for him. Isn’t it?

Evelyn just looks at him for a long moment, then carefully rises from the sofa, placing her glass on a small side table. She shakes back the mane of blond hair. It slips over her shoulders to settle against her spine like a golden rope.

“I shouldn’t be doing this.”

She murmurs, a brief smile curving her lips before she closes her eyes to his gaze, shutting out everything but the sound of the music, unraveling around her and then—

--She begins to move.

Sevastian may never have seen Evelyn dance before. And certainly this is not her most polished work. But there is a certain sensuality to the way her body twists and turns. The smooth makeup of her pretty features, so composed as she turns about, dancing for her former lover with the sounds of the street below faint through the open window, and the faint stirrings of her guilt beginning to sound in her head.

What would her Mate say...?

Sevastian de Valois Sturtevant
Sat 02:05AM CST
Improvisation. The ability to, they say, is the mark of a great artist. And she's obviously up to the task. No Black Swan in this piece at all, and yet -- and yet, in that subtly insiduous minor melody, some touch of her intoxicating evil. Black swan, black magic.

And he who had once shared her bed, and shares now only her living room, watches, his expression closed, his eyes unreadable, leaning against the stereo. Maybe she loses herself in the rigid structure of the dance, which paradoxically calls for grace like water; or maybe she can feel him watching her body, the way three thousand eyes watch her body on opening night when the curtain lifts. Taut lines, impeccable balance, impossible twists and archings of the spine: ballet is demanding. One gives one's body over to another. To the dance coach, to bend and push and stretch to breaking. To the choreographer, to position and angle and ply. To the audience, to consume and devour, hungry for the shreds of beauty found in the shattered and reknit remains of the dancer.

She can feel him watching her, not quite like the masses watch her.

At some point she turns, pirouettes crossing the hardwood floor of her living room -- leaps, gazelle-like, and suddenly he's there: his scent not quite that of his aftershave, rawer, more pungent -- wine and illicit sex. His hands at her waist assist her in her jump easily, effortlessly, sending her far above the floor in what is too negligent, to careless, to be the lift of a trained and practiced partner.

"Do you know what I've always liked about you?" When he sets her down his hands remain at her waist, impersonal yet firm, stilling her.

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 02:16AM CST
It wasn’t quite like dancing for the masses that flocked in their finery to watch Swan Lake. Them she could so easily tune out, ignore, pretend that past the edge of the stage there was nothing but black space. It wasn’t quite like dancing for James, either. He never touched her. Just watched. But with Sevastian she was acutely aware of those gray eyes upon her figure. Even with her eyes closed. And when she moves, leaps, there is suddenly that which she was unprepared for and did not want—

Touch. Contact.

She is still as his hands lower her, his grip around her waist firm. It takes Evelyn a moment to respond, to speak. As always, she’s been moved by the dance. By the music. It takes her a moment to shift her realities. From the motion of the dance, to the stillness of the present.

“What have you always liked about me, Sevastian?”

She murmurs, her blond hair loose, framing her flushed cheeks. She meets his eyes after another moment. The clash of dark brown with the lighter shade of his. And all the while her body and mind are in agreement on one point—

He was too close.

Sevastian de Valois Sturtevant
Sat 02:34AM CST
For a moment he's silent; he makes her wait. Too close, his hands at her waist, his chest inches from her back if her back was to him, closer still if she faced him directly. Perhaps she looks over her shoulder to see him, her face a profile. Perhaps her hands rest on his forearms, stabilizing.

"The way you dressed again," he replies at last, a faint half-smile slowly seeping onto his mouth like a bloodstain, "after we'd made love. The way your fingers moved when they put your hair up and threaded your earrings in. The way you tilted your head for that, and kept your elbows in. And how you always put your blouse on first, and then your underwear.

"And how you laced up your boots when you were finished. Bent over just like this," his right hand shifts, slips up her back, and he bends her over easily, smoothly -- you might even think chivalrously, somehow, in spite of time and place and situation, "from the waist, legs straight. With neither effort nor thought."

The pressure of his hand on her back and at her waist eases. His hands stay on her as she straightens again. "I would've known you for a dancer even if you hadn't said a word."

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 02:48AM CST
He cannot see, perhaps given their position, how her lashes slip closed and her lips part in a silent gasp that could easily indicate her pain [not physical, just emotional] or something else entirely as his hand slips up her body to press her forward. She allows him to guide her movements, her body is trembling so finely as she rises again and his hands do not move.

She makes no remark at first, still with him so close behind her. Still with that light touch on her waist perhaps, or her arms. Finally Evelyn’s eyes open again, staring ahead of her, and there is a faint crease in her brow, the soft lips form into a frown. Because…something he said upset her.

“Is that all?,” The pause as she takes a breath, turns around finally, his hands sliding over the material of her shirt till she can finally clearly look at him. “Is that all you like about me then? My body…”

She gazes at him, and then her eyes lower, tick over to where she can still see the smudge of lipstick on his jaw. Her lips twist into a smirk. She lifts her hands to where he still touches her and gently seeks to removes them. “You shouldn’t.”

What exactly he shouldn’t she leaves unsaid. But her actions speak it for her.

Sevastian de Valois Sturtevant
Sat 03:03AM CST
His hands don't move for a moment --

"Yes. Isn't that fair?" He gives her a shake, small but firm, forces her to look him in the eye again. "I enjoyed your body. You enjoyed the freedom I let you taste. You think you loved me, Evelyn; you didn't. I never said a kind word to you. You very nearly hated me. But you loved what I did to you. You loved what I made you into. Free, wild, angry, scandalous."

-- and then he lets her go, stepping back to turn his back and suddenly clip off the music mid-strain. "And now look at you," he closes the glass door of the display case that houses the stereo, "the respectable Mrs. James Wagner," click -- he turns to face her, "still dancing for her illicit fuck."

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 03:15AM CST
Her face would be fascinating to watch as Sevastian speaks—shakes her once, her hair slipping into her eyes—and then lets her go. Her features seem to harden. Still lovely, even in her most distressed state, a state that Vast is quite talented in bringing out in her. But harder. Paler.

“I loved what you---?” She breathes, then lets out a soft laugh. It’s shattered, and then silenced as he turns back to face her and his next words have barely left his lips before Evelyn—Soft-spoken, fragile little dancer—is advancing on him and lifting her hand to slap him clear across his cheek. She lifts her hand to do it, that is, before she stops herself. As if she couldn’t quite let him bring out that sort of violent reaction in her.

“You don’t know anything about me, Sevastian. I think you should leave.”

And, just like that.

She turns away from him.

Sevastian de Valois Sturtevant
Sat 03:24AM CST
She lifts her hand -- he comes forward a bold unflinching step and his eyes flash like lightning, snap to her hand and back. Silken, "You don't want to--"

She checks herself, speaks.

Sevastian falls silent. A pause lingers thick. He licks his lips briefly, but it's not nerves. Something of the wolf in him, always, and his motions steady as a mountain cat's. In the end he says nothing, and there's nothing more to say. A moment later he brushes past her back, and a moment after that he'll let himself out.

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 03:35AM CST
She stands, resolute and still as he stands silent behind her a moment before she feels briefly his body brushing past her and then the sound of him making his way to the door this time, not the window, still open, the curtains moving in the night’s cool breeze.

Evelyn turns, looks after him as if she would say something. [What, exactly?] But, as before her action is stalled, and instead she simply watches him leave with a maelstrom of emotions flickering over her face. Not the least of which is longing. And not the least of which makes guilt quickly follow it.

basketball and the ballerina.

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 02:48AM CST
Grant Park, at this hour of the morning, is for the most part, deserted.

Should, in fact be deserted. Except for perhaps your run-of-the-mill weirdoes and other creatures of the night that enjoy the twilight hours. Strangely, this morning the silence of the grassed park area is broken by the repeated smack of a basketball against the cement court somewhere in the depths of the park.

It’s lit rather poorly by buzzing lights positioned above the rings at either end. A figure, standing at one end, stands with practiced poise, lifting her arms and dunking the orange ball through the hoop, where it then bounces and rolls away into the shadowy area beyond the reach of the lights.

Evelyn, dressed casually in her jeans and a white tank top, walks after it slowly, her purpose of being out here this early unknown. Maybe she just needed the time to think. Or maybe she just likes this time of morning. Her sneakers barely make a sound as she stops and bends over to scoop up the ball. Rolling it in her palms and absently blowing aside escaping blond strands from her ponytail.

She’s flushed, pink sufficing her cheeks. She’s obviously been here for a while. Somewhere nearby lies her bag.

She turns and makes her way back to the court, bouncing the ball.

Sevastian
Sat 03:15AM CST
"Now, that's not what you'd expect from la prima ballerina." The commentator is, of course, a Mr. Sevastian Sturtevant. Unmistakeable, those laconic, deliberately droll tones, as if all the world and its offerings were boring to him. Arrogant and upper-class, even if his semantics and grammar could sometimes use a little help. "Basketball, how unladylike. Wait until the newspapers find out."

Unseen, however, his voice comes to her from a patch of shadow just out of reach of the nearest path lamp. And strange -- there's a raspy quality to his voice. Strained.

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 03:28AM CST
She’s in the middle of a shot. Lining it up carefully, his voice breaking the silence and causing her to miss. The ball hits the board with a dull thunk and rebounds off, bouncing and rolling into the grass. Evelyn turns, her eyes seeking his form in the dark. Her lips compress into a line. The taunt about the newspapers is not lost on her. Since that night in the club she’s been quite the minor celebrity at the Ballet. Of course, the company’s motto has always been to deny all knowledge. So according to them, Ms Bryant was never at the Excalibur Nightclub.

“There’s a lot about me that people don’t expect.”

Her voice isn’t strained, but it’s quiet. She either doesn’t hear the strain in his, or she chooses, like she often has to with him now, to ignore it.

She walks toward her ball, instead of him. Maybe she wants to maintain the distance. She bends over and scoops it up, then turns to face where his voice seemed to echo from, holding the ball against one hipbone.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Swift Raven
Sat 03:30AM CST
::::::a cherokee man standing 6'4". He wears black jean shorts, black tanker boots , plain white shirt covered by a black leather vest. Long dark black hair almost hanging to his waist wildly. Seeming fairly calm, but with a slight bit seeming agitated as he walked :::::

Sevastian
Sat 03:35AM CST
"I believe that," he replies, laughing -- and quiet; edged.

Then, couldn't sleep: "You could say that." An overwhelmingly strong scent pours from him the closer she gets. Unpleasant. Not even human. It smells like he's waded through a septic tank, rolled in rotting corpses, and then did a dance in acid rain for good measure. The fuck...?

"--don't come any closer." She's a good ten feet away. "Do me a favor, will you?" Undergrowth rustles; his shape moves in the dark, leans against a tree. "555-4933. That's the number of my mother's chauffeur. Tell him -- I need a ride."

Swift Raven
Sat 03:40AM CST
:::::simply continuing on his walk through the area. he enjoyed more of a woodland escape recently , but he had been ofered a place to stay by Leroy and the children of gaia. Good man he was . He had to get out of that house. Walking through here was not the greatest place to be , but walking the city he had to find out every bit of the area.:::::

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 03:43AM CST
"--don't come any closer."

She blinks, pauses. The ball loosening in the slackened grip. She lets it drop to roll away, toward him. Toward that smell. Oh yes, Evelyn can certainly smell it. She has no clue what it is, but it makes her lift her hand, perhaps reflectively, to her face. She lets it drop back down as he speaks. Her expression gradually fading from its original one of amusement, to concern.

Don’t come any closer. She takes another two steps toward him. Now she can hear the strain. Now her own voice sounds tinged with the concern mirrored on her features.

“I- I have my car. I can take you. Sevastian…? Are you…are you alright?”

Sevastian
Sat 03:48AM CST
"No," instantly. Then, "I mean, yes, I'm fine, but no, thank you, I won't need a drive from you. Call my mother's driver. He's ... experienced in such matters. He--"

--breaks off; even seen as nothing more than a shadow, she can sense his sudden wariness as he looks past her in the direction of Swift Raven, still distant.

"Who's that?" low. "Do you know him?"

Swift Raven
Sat 03:50AM CST
:::::stops a moment just looking into the sky a moment and then continued to walk noticing a few people standing there. Perhaps he should walk some ways from then on his same path::::

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 03:54AM CST
She frowns. Clearly taken aback by the emphatic and instant refusal. Her eyes linger on him, shadowed and unclear, before they move to briefly focus on the figure in the distance. She turns back to face him. Shaking her golden ponytail back and forth in the negative.

“No. I don’t know him. Sevastian…” Is it real, the slight pleading quality to her voice as she lifts a hand as if to reach out for him? She curtails the gesture and her fingers fold back into her palm. “If you’re hurt, I can help you.”

How she can help doesn’t seem to be a concern.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen… with James.”

She worries her lower lip between her teeth.

Sevastian
Sat 04:01AM CST
"I said don't come any closer," he snarls. The rough edges of his voice grate on the ears, like lakebottom rock breaking through the glassy smooth surface as the tide recedes. Wounded animals bite: didn't anyone ever teach her that? "You'll attract undue attention. And get yourself dirtied too.

"I'm not hurt," he goes on, low and tense, almost a growl. "It's nothing. I don't need your fucking help, except to make one little phone call. Is that so difficult? Is that beyond your powers of comprehension? I'm not your James; I don't need you to mother me. Just call my mother's fucking driver. That's all I ask."

Swift Raven
Sat 04:05AM CST
::::over hears some screaming and his eyes fall on the pair now. A frown now on his face. Peering eyes now. he stops where he is a moment. :::::

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 04:10AM CST
Evelyn recoils, as if he’d just hit her.

Her eyes, always slightly large and doe-like, seem to instantly cloud over with his snarled words. Even at his cruelest with her, Sevastian had never spoken to her like that. As if she were truly stupid. Truly beneath him. Hurt is evident in the trembling to her lips, to the softly- spoken—

“Alright.”

--Before she turns, moving toward her bag, dumped casually at the other end of the court. She drops to her knees, reaching through her belongings. Tears are threatening behind her eyes as she finds her phone and rises with it. Still with her back toward him. She lifts it to her ear and waits for the connection. It’s picked up and she relays his message.

“Come quickly. Thank you.”

She presses her thumb to end the call, turning with the small device pressed to her chest.

“He’s on his way.”

She stays where she is now. Doesn’t come closer.

Sevastian
Sat 04:17AM CST
Even in the shadows, somehow, she can sense his hot glare, the feverish intensity of it boring into her face without ever quite seeing the hurt writ there. When at last she reaches for her phone, he closes his eyes and -- sags, really, against the tree trunk. Exhaustion is a taste on the air.

Afterwards, there is a long silence. She tells him the driver is on his way -- Sevastian merely nods, a small gesture visible or not in the night, and remains as he is.

Moments tick by. Then, deliberately or otherwise, he slides down to sit at the base of the tree trunk.

"I apologize," he says quietly, "for my rudeness."
...ratchet...
Sat 04:18AM CST
shadows. park is filled with shadows. scurry of feet, scuff boots - sturdy where all else is tattered. coat of many pockets covers neck to scrape against ground, flare about quick steps, fall again. pockets bulge here and there. treasures tucked deep. knit hat pulled down over [misshapen] ears, sullen dark gaze glitters underneath.

movements quick. animalistic. accustomed to the darkness. clinging to shadow. accompanied by constant sound.

clickclickclickclickclick

flash of silver in hand. sudden silence when voices are heard. sharp snap of head that direction. head tips - body halts. Slow, body twists, and heads that direction. wary.

Raven
Sat 04:20AM CST
::::::it seemed everything was alright , but he looked at the man now odd as he seemed to walk just a little bit closer and sniffed the air :::::::

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 04:27AM CST
Evelyn listens to the wild tempo of her heart for a moment, the edges of the cellphone pressing into her chest from her tight grip before she loosens her hold and slips it into the pocket of her jeans. She rubs her palms against the denim on either thigh. Not sure what to say. Her uncertaintly and some faint trace of injury from his words lingers in her expression, and in her voice.

“It’s alright. I didn’t mean to be…I didn’t mean to mother you. I was just… concerned.” She walks closer now, but toward her ball, that had rolled and stopped several feet before his tree. She scoops it up, anger licking at her words. “But generally speaking, yelling at people doesn’t tend to inspire their good will.”

Despite her words, she sits atop her basketball, balancing easily enough. Her dark eyes resting steady on him.

Sevastian
Sat 04:33AM CST
She can almost sense it: his tensing as she comes nearer again, and then his relaxation as he realizes it was merely the ball, and not he, that drew her attention. Never has she seen him more animalistic. Cultured, urban, urbane, slick, streetsmart, jaded Sevastian: a beast at heart, after all, in his animal tension, in his wary stare that rested palpably on her, in his flashes of animal anger --

"I wasn't trying to inspire your goodwill. I was trying to get results."

-- coming and going like desert storms. He lets his head fall back against the tree trunk. Exhales. His eyes move from her, onto Swift Raven. He asks again, as if Evelyn would know, "Who the hell is that?"

...ratchet...
Sat 04:39AM CST
clickclickclickclickclick sound muted by folds of heavy coat. peek of denim from movement, tattered t-shirt. street rat at best. don't want to know the worst.

slight bit away. three people. gaze narrows. nostrils flare. head cants as body falls to crouch. chest to knees. ass to heels. coat flaring around to settle.

Swift Raven
Sat 04:42AM CST
:::::still eyeing them. After some time the situation seeme dok , but there was another like himself here and he really didn't know what he should do at that. Instead he continued on his walking towars them , but not in thier direct path. Who's teritory was this again? he wasn't sure at this moment . he found it odd that all the packs were taking tritory in the city. This city was mostly a shit hole to some extent. Certain areas anyway. :::::

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 04:42AM CST

She stills. Amazing, how she can manage to be sitting atop a basketball. In the middle of the park. And still hold that upright carriage. The almost proud way she straightens her spine, lifts her chin. Colour stains her cheeks now, but any exhertion is long gone. It’s pure reaction now.

Her hair is resting on one shoulder. A soft golden mass whose ends slip beneath the curved neck of her shirt. She focuses on her sneakers. Her soft lips curved in what could be taken for a slight pout.

“I told you, I don’t know who he is.”

Maybe his anger, animalistic as it was, was catching. She makes a soft ‘hmm’ sound, turning her neck as if she thought she might glimpse Evangeline’s driver emerging from the darkness any moment.

Sevastian
Sat 04:46AM CST
"Well," gingerly, he shifts an arm, winces -- it's probably not visible in the dark, "get him out of here."

...ratchet...
Sat 04:51AM CST
Closer. closer to Vast rather then the others. easing up on the far side, skittering through shadow. Sound muted. silenced. then fall soft again. click. clickclick. click.

inquisitive, almost. watching.

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 04:53AM CST
She stops searching for the elusive driver and turns to regard him. Something, akin to annoyance crosses her features.

“What do you suggest I do? Flash him?”

But even as she speaks, she’s expelling a soft breath, casting him, [perhaps he doesn’t see in the dark] an expression that clearly reads her concern, and some other emotion far to confusing for her to name. She rises, picks up her ball. And moves toward Swift Raven. He’s too close to them. Too close to Sevastian.

“Hi. My friend over there is…sick. Throwing up, you know. Too much to drink. He’s a bit… wired. Doesn’t like strangers much. I think you better keep your distance.”

She gives him a brief, distracted smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

The lies spilling from her lips so easily. Without thought.

Swift Raven
Sat 04:56AM CST
:::::everything seemed fine so he would just walk by. He just seemed to nod at them. :::::: " Just walking. " :::::his edgeness was readily apparent but he didn't know who ran this part which was still an odd concept. ::::::::

Sevastian
Sat 04:59AM CST
Poor Evelyn. Whether or not he would've thanked her for running interference, she'll never find out -- tonight, at least. He says nothing in return to her, and after she turns away, she's realize at some point that the stench has begun to fade. No more than a lingering scent now, the next night wind scatters it completely.

As for Sevastian? Gone across the Gauntlet. Guess he was going to find his own way home.

Evelyn Bryant
Sat 05:04AM CST
Poor Evelyn indeed.

If ever there was a more confused Kinfolk when it came to her emotional attachements…

She eventually turns, finds Sevastian is simply…gone, and lets out a soft sigh.

She moves to collect her bag and make her way to her car, parked somewhere on the edges of the park.

for old times' sake.

Evelyn Bryant
Wed 02:21AM CST
She hasn’t been home long.

Barely past an hour.

Such is the life of Evelyn Bryant currently that when she’s not assisting battered Kin, or trying to talk down strange adolescent teenage girls from slitting their own throats, or even just being in the wrong place at the wrong time—she barely has time to take a breath before her normal life. That one that she once upon a time lived and breathed for, the one before she knew about Werewolves and death and how easily life can be snatched away-- reclaims her.

So tonight she donned her former skin, her past persona, and celebrated the conclusion of her ballet with people who knew nothing of death and darkness. Of violence and the sound human bones make when they break. [The sound of a child screaming in pure terror.]

She drank champagne, she smiled, and she laughed. She danced and was flirted with. And all the time, she ignored the nagging voices telling her this was not her world any longer.

So when she got home, she peeled off the red dress. She washed away the traces of that human world, and stared at her flushed reflection in the bathroom mirror for several minutes, trying to figure out when exactly it was she transformed into this creature that didn’t quite fit in either worlds.

She moves about the bedroom now. Shedding the towel, slipping a silken dressing gown about her body, enjoying the sensation of the cool silk against her still shower-flushed skin. The gown is palest blue. And as she ties it loosely at the waist, it barely disguises the swell of her breasts, wet hair darkening the silk in patches to a darker shade.

She continues this unwinding. This undressing. Combing her damp hair, picking up black panties and bra and tossing them into the washing basket.

She does things so mundane and domestic. She finds it soothing.

This is a brief reprieve in the fluctuating storms of her lives.

[It won’t last.]

Vast
Wed 02:34AM CST
A buzz on the intercom.

Down below, in the street, one crimson-red Suzuki Hayabusa parked at the curb - two wheels, moulded body, flash of chrome, and a design worth more than many compact cars.

On the intercom, when she presses the button, Vast's voice -- albeit rusty through the old speaker, full of pops and hisses and static.

"Evelyn. May I come up?"

Evelyn Bryant
Wed 02:49AM CST
A pause. The lower lip is tugged between the fine needlepoints of her teeth a moment before she responds.

A million thoughts surface and shimmer—

[No. No you can’t. Because every time you do I break a little bit more. I hate you so goddamn much. I won’t let my body dictate my decisions. No. No you can’t.]

--She leans forward.

“Sure. I’ll buzz you up.”

Pressing the button, she takes a step back. Rubs at her bare arms. The tiny hairs rising at the sound of his voice. Her heart rate increasing. Muscles tensing. She moves to the mirror in her bedroom. Stares at the reflection staring back at her—

[Who are you?]

--and tries to reign in her wild thoughts.

The fingers curl around the edges of the varnished wood for only a brief second. The knuckles turning white before she releases. Expels pent up breath in a hiss. Shakes her head. Stands and makes her way, barefoot to the hall.

She doesn’t bother with clothing. The gown has slipped open a little. A sliver of golden flesh visible. Nothing but a glimpse. She has nothing to hide from Sevastian. There is nothing here that he has not already seen. Tasted. Touched.

[I cannot be having these thoughts. Stop it.]

She can lay blame on the alcohol. [she always does.]
She can pretend it’s just physical. [she wants to sake her lust.]

But she just can’t seem to say no to him.

Vast
Wed 02:57AM CST
She can hear the intercom click, and then the hiss of dead air before she turns her end off.

Below, the door opens with a buzz. Vast reaches out and turns the handle, and lets himself in. Shortly thereafter, the elevator reaches her floor and, at the very least, she might content herself that he remembers her well enough to know which apartment is hers. A rap on the door announces his presence.

Navy-and-white jacket unzipped, black jersey taut against his hard body, Vast peels his bike gloves off and stuffs them into his pocket while he waits for her to open her door. When she does, he looks at her for a second, and then brushes past her, into her apartment.

"I meant to come sooner, but I thought for a few days I might have to leave town." He peels his jacket off and hangs it up on the coatrack, if she had one. Otherwise he simply leaves it by the door. "Tell me something, Evelyn -- you have other suitors? Interested parties?"

He turns to face her, just past the foyer, just into the living room.

Evelyn Bryant
Wed 03:05AM CST
What is it about him that excites her so damn much? As he sweeps past her—and the brief foray of eyes over her thin layer of silk makes her shiver just a little—she tries to put her finger on it. He infuriates her. Challenges her. Makes her rage and quite often cry. But he also frightens her. Just a little. And perhaps she should fear him more. Perhaps the shiver she gave should be one of fear and not desire. Not the stirring of her lust. But the fact that she’s always just a little uneasy around him, that she knows he has the strength to hurt her—perhaps this excites her just a little too much.

She lifts a hand, tugging the edges of her robe closer around her slender frame as she follows him a few steps. A slight frown pulling at the corners of her lips. She looks him over, eyes slipping back to study his face as she responds slowly, as if testing each word before it leaves her lips. Trying to place his mood.

“Well I…yes. I suppose I do.”

She tilts her head to one side. Strands dip in front of her eyes and a hand lets go of the gown to brush it aside.

“Does that bother you?”

Vast
Wed 03:16AM CST
"Why should it?" It's imperious, that tilt of his head. Motorcycle leathers or ripped jeans, muscle shirts or stained tees, he is was and will always be Silver Fang. Even mortals respond to it. Even humans defer, just a little, when his burning purity of blood walks in their midst.

"I'm not faithful to you."

There, he said it -- but it's no confession, and really, she knew from the start. He crosses the room to her, grasping the lapels of her robe and tugging them together a little more, folding one under the other. For a second, his left hand is trapped beneath his right, sandwiched between the layers of her robe, with only a sheath of silk between his skin and hers. Then he withdraws, his fingertips skimming faintly over her body.

"...but yes. It bothers me, a little." He thinks for a moment, his eyes following, musingly, the trail his hand had taken. "Sometimes."

And finally, he too brushes her hair from her eyes, focusedly, tendering the strands behind her ear. "Should I let them have you, then?" he murmurs, musing aloud. "Would you be better off without me? I think you would."

Evelyn Bryant
Wed 03:30AM CST
[“I’m not faithful to you.”]

Yes. The words do make her wince just a little. But it’s barely perceptible. He would have noticed it no doubt. But she doesn’t look enraged at that admittance. She already knew. Somewhere deep inside, where logic and intellect has not been corroded away by her feelings for him. She knew that. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still burn just a little hearing it spoken aloud.

She’s perfectly still as he crosses the floor toward her. She doesn’t even look up as his fingertips briefly brush against the flesh hidden behind those thin layers. But she does shut her eyes. Lashes sweeping shut against those beautiful cheekbones of hers. And she doesn’t open them until again—

Touch.

The bare brush of his fingers as he sweeps her hair from her vision. Now the face lifts. The eyes open and focus on his. There’s a bare hint of a smile quirking the soft lips as she nods very slowly. Her voice a gentle murmur to match his. Albeit, softer. Infinitely feminine.

“Yes. I think I would be too. There is barely a day that goes by that I don’t wish that you’d never come over that day in the café.”

Are her words harsh? Not particularly. But they are truthful. As she speaks them though, a hand slips up his chest, barely brushing against the fabric. Just enough to be felt. The gentle brush of her fingers now as she runs them over his shoulders, before her small hands trace over his cheeks, the backs of her palms stroking his flesh as she watches him all this time with those dark brown eyes.

Her smile still barely enough to be called such. But now it curves a little.

“We don’t belong together. You and I. We’re from two different worlds.”

Vast
Wed 03:37AM CST
Moving with sudden, viper-strike speed, he grasps her hand and pulls it from his cheek -- only to press her palm to his lips, and scorch her lifeline with a kiss. A man like Vast could shorten a life by ten or twenty years. But who wants to live forever, right?

"We've never been together, Evelyn." It's a night for truths. "It's been a series of one night stands, you and I. But it has been enjoyable."

He holds her hand curled in his, looking down at the interlacing of their fingers. "So. What will you do? Who waits for you, when you cut yourself free from me?"

Evelyn Bryant
Wed 03:50AM CST
Her brow furrows just a little as he presses his lips to her palm. She shuts her eyes. Squeezes them shut and lets out a soft little breath. No more hiding from this now Evie. This is real. It’s not a fairytale. You might be dead tomorrow.

[Carpe Diem.]

She looks at him now. Her voice tiny. Uncertain. There are hidden layers to it. Her sorrow. Her desire. Her anger. [Her love.]

“I—don’t know. I don’t think I want to think about that right now. I think I…”

She takes a small step closer, pressing her body against their intertwined hands, molding her soft body against the harder curves of his own. Her eyes attempting to trap his gaze. To hold it for as long as possible even as she leans closer. His name from her lips is a whisper. And a question. And a plea. And she’s just damned either way.

“Sevastian. Kiss me?”

Her cheeks burn. She’s trembling, and her body is on fire for him once again. Just one last taste of the forbidden fruit. One more kiss. What’s the harm in one last kiss?

She doesn’t say please. But it’s clear in her expression. She needs this. She needs to cleanse him from her heart. From her body and mind.

But before she lets him go.

She needs just one more fix.

To break this habit.

Vast
Wed 04:03AM CST
(Kiss me.)

Call him Judas, then -- betraying with a kiss. Call him Lucifer, master of the forbidden fruit. Call him what you will, but at the least, he is not wholly ungenerous. Or perhaps, he is wholly unkind, and selfish.

For old times' sake, isn't that what they say?
(Why not, darling.)

He places her hand upon his shoulder. Then his hands grasp the lapels of her robe, twisting into silk. She's pressed against him, the robe trapped between, but a hard tug still brings the knot slipping loose, the two halves falling apart. His hands are on her skin now, warm despite the ride through the cold night air, his palms rubbing over her breasts, then slipping back beneath the loosening folds of her dressing robe to caress the taut dancer's curve of her waist, to cup her ass. He picks her up against him and kisses her: but not her mouth.

He kisses, burningly, the swell of her breast. Lifts his face to her, his pale eyes hot as a magnesium fire.

"Kiss me," he replies, repeats -- husky and low, "and tell me you want it. Tell me you want me, just once more."

Evelyn Bryant
Wed 04:24AM CST
She lets out a soft gasp as his hands slip over her flesh once again. There is no hiding from this passion. It burns within her. This tempest to her desire. It flows like liquid amber through her veins, pounding with the rhythm of her heart.

And she will let this amber spark and burn.

Because she needs this.
Because she wants this.
Because she doesn’t know what happens when this night is over.

He lifts her against him and presses his lips to her breasts. She arches her spine against that movement, blonde hair falling over her shoulders, licking down her back like golden flame. Her hand tightens upon his shoulder, her other resting somewhere against his side. She lifts a leg, wrapping it around his waist, pressing herself against him just enough to feel the throbbing between her legs intensify. The flutters of tiny muscles contracting, as helpless in their response to the friction between them as she is to the fire consuming her.

[Beloved sensation. Come and wash over me.]

He speaks…

…and she opens her eyes to meet that hot gaze. Her own eyes matching his for heat. He speaks and she drops her head down, sweeping in to claim himwith her kiss now. To level himwith the intensity of this fire that seems to ignite within her at the barest brush of his body against her own.

Feel this.

Her kisses demand it of him.

Taste this.

Her tongue makes forays into his mouth.

She’s taking possession of him tonight.

Her body trembles and she’s so very ready for him. Liquid with want. The spice of her arousal unmistakable as she releases his mouth long enough to breathe out.

“I want you. I always want you. Show me how much you want me.”

not quite a ménage à trois

Josephina
Sun 06:15AM CST Like a fucking crimson tide.
Ebb in. Ebb out. Feel the flow.
[Its all woman.]

Its always like this. Same way. Same people. Same pouty glossed lips on featured perfection. Its the same suits, the same broad shoulders, the same spiked, styled, artfully coiffeured hair, just rejuvenated and regenerated on the socially elite. Or those who want to be. Slide right in, they invite, pretend you belong. That you're one of us. That we can feel the pulse of you singing like a firestorm through the heat of this room. Like each is a fucking individual with something fucking different to say.

Or they're just like the others. Sheep.

Well she is a black one.
Do not be fooled by the white.

The crowd parts, and all eyes would see is skin. Low, lower, alone the supine curve of her back, the smooth pale skin elegant in its revelation. The way the silk falls is a teasing invitation to look, its leisurely folds a caress which covers just along the rounded curve of her derriere, well exposing the twin and small hollows in her lower back. When she shifts against the bar, restless as her eyes swing watchful over the seething, writhing [drug-inhaled; drug-sucked] dancers, the ivory folds tantalise, threatening to expose more, but never quite making it. Its too thin, that silk, too fragile: like one good hold could rip it – or not one firm grip at all, just a touch. To coax it to be discarded.

Not so far from the truth.

Guest DJ tonight. Someone into subversive beats, sweltering riffs: hot, hot, hot. London loves him, and now he’s come to share. It could be she is here to enjoy him. The languor of that body, revealed as false when she moves and smooth thighs stroke against each other exuding a heat that is solely her own. You don’t need to feel her, to know. Just watch.

While she waits.

James F W Vaughn
Sun 06:24AM CST She waits.

And in he walks. As much as the guset DJ is here for her enjoyment. She is here for his. Sure, he's made a pretense of debriefing, of buisiness. BUt they know, both of them that it is so much more. [No interruptions. Nog ames, or all games. Just as long as it ends up....] A thin, ragabash, smile creeps over his lips he enters, parting the crowd, in much the same way.

Men want to be him, or be with him. Women just...want to fuck him. And he will, for the conquest for the release, for the easy checkmate. But they'll love it just for another hint of that beautifull smile.

Every black hair in it's place, every facial hari trimmed to perfection, suit is black on blue, no tie, collar buttoned down, pressed. Just one extra button open, feeling that bit of freedom it provides the skin to air. Eyes roam over future and past conquests, but only linger on that of the present. Heart rate quickens a bit as the skin is taken in [and no one, wears white, like you do.] recorded, remembered.

All options considered, he takes his own seat right next to her. "Josephina, it's been to long..." [Waiting.] Voice is a perfect baritone, soothing to one's ears. Loosening of one's senses. [It's getting hot in here.]

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Sun 06:38AM CST The beautiful people.

Well then, if that is what this club consists of, if that is whom frequents its doors, it’s floors. Then perhaps Evelyn Bryant belongs here. Because, she might be emotionally unstable. She might have a bruised wrist and grazed knees, even the longest shower-

[Water sluicing over tanned flesh. Breast and thigh. Spine and ass. Turning blood soaked blonde hair a darker shade]

-might not have rinsed away the filth she feels she consists of deep inside but she looks…she looks…delectable. [Vulnerable.]

The eyes would start perhaps at the feet. Black heels on those tools of her trade. Wrap around straps. Encircling her ankles. And then…nothing but smooth, sleek flesh. The slip of a dress [silk. Black] covers nothing but what is needed. A slit exposes a teasing amount of thigh. When she moves [oh god her body is one fluid extension. All limber grace and poise] the material catches and hugs her curves.

She’s a broken ballerina. [fractured soul]

But her blonde hair licks down her shoulders like shimmering gold flame. And her lips are a shade of red reserved for whores and sinners. [are they not one and the same?]. Evelyn Bryant might be dying on the inside—

But her shell is luminescent.

And so she enters. And so she stands.

Josephina
Sun 06:48AM CST It could be on the tip of her tongue.

[Or not long enough.]

Except it is never uttered [Because I like to savour---], her smile flirting wide along the rouged smear of her lips [---and you’re like a wine.] as she turns on the bar stool that she sits, legs crossing deliberately, slowly, one over the other and she gives the expected response. “It has been.” The sky-light azure of her eyes has, in this environ where the red of the décor would splash garish against her cream-gold skin and sink deep into those irises, been cast into indigo dark. The currents that swirl beneath hidden by that veil of feminine mystery women like her so often enjoy to employ, and the knowing. Shining like a dare in those compelling depths.

The drink at her fingertips is cradled into her palm, and all her actions are liquid. Not the dancer’s grace that the woman in black envelops, as she steps through that archway into this decadent realm [--black queen.], but something else, borne of the innate. Animalistic in its mould, made slow, made luxurious and tempered to enjoy. Completely predatorial. Cocktail in a martini glass, its drawn to her lips, her tongue swirling to taste the sugar at its rim before a sip of the honey-sweet concoction slides down her throat.

“Would you like a drink?” A beat, a second: and as she waits for a response, her eyes are drawn away, again over that crowd. Again: like it is not him who she waited for.

Infuriating.

James F W Vaughn
Sun 06:57AM CST Inhale. Hold.
[Like it's the last you'll ever take and that sweet perfume makes it all the better.]

And it works for the briefest of seconds. But then he's back, perfectly composed, studious, predatory. "Yes. That would be nice." Teeth slide into focus behind lips as the man remembers the explosion of passion last time a drink was passed between them. And the first. A hedonistic running twist through their unconventional [call it what you like when you burn in malfeas. sinners.] relationship.

"I've wanted you-" let that linger, watching the steady rise and fall of bosom, those beutifull lips, up to the ose indigo darkened eyes. Meeting with his own green eyes, emeralds even in the dark. "-so that we could get together and discuss our joint holdings." Finishing the statement in a way one may or may not have expected.

"I was hoping to get at least a bit tipsy too. Never quite know when you'll get to share a cab with beautifull french girl." Wink comes in slow motion, light but direct cap to innocent flirtation with serious undertones.

Enabling.

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Sun 07:08AM CST [How can happiness feel so wrong? How can misery feel so sweet?]

Dark eyes sweep over the club. Faces take no form. They are all blurred. Inconsequential. She doesn’t care. All the same. These people. Any of them could have been that young boy earlier. Any of them could have been the blood she bathed from her flesh. [Baptized the flesh, scented it with vanilla.] She’s beyond it all. Only one of the faceless forms swims into focus. Feminine features sharpen. She keeps her focus on this one face for a long moment before—

She moves. Closer. Toward the bar. The features impassive. But the eyes tell all. A hundred thousand hours of pain and misery. Confusion.

[How did I get in so deep?]

She splays her hands over the bartop. Stares down at her left wrist. The soft flesh stained by a bruise. The imprints of fingers. She could be an abused woman for all any of them know. There could be more bruises, like a strange rash, scattered all over her figure. Dip beneath the dress where the shadow of the breasts teases and perhaps she is bruised. Or perhaps the other other bruising she has…is internal. Emotional.

Evie stands at the bar and stares at the bottles.

Does she really want to lose herself?

Josephina
Sun 07:20AM CST “Well then, perhaps the business talk can wait, mm? Or was there was there something urgent to cover that required our meeting?”

The French is there, the lilt on her fine-tuned tongue, the way it simpers and smoulders on each exhalation, given passage through the bare parting of her lips. Like a murmur. Like intimacy, and her words are something poisonous, or wrong, or just too delicious to share with any other. So is that smile, that same secret smile, and this time when the martini is dropped back onto the surface of the bar, the sound of the glass swallowed by the drive of music and chatter around them, she leans in towards him with her hand lightly on his arm. Fingertips, they penetrate.

“Come, greet me properly.” One high-angling cheek is offered, the fall of her platinum blonde brushing at its periphery as she closes the space and lightly kisses his own. A fraction before touching, she pauses there – though not quite, perhaps, for the reason he might think, as her curious eyes fall on a familiar form.

“Mmm.”

The low purr barely heralds the diversion of her thoughts.

James F W Vaughn
Sun 07:30AM CST "I'd love nothing more." Wry grin meets her own.

For the longest time we're jammin in the pary, and you're winin on me...pushing everything, right back on top of me...But if you think you're gonna get away from me you better change you mind you're going hoooome. You're going home with me tonight.

The feel of those fingertips does penetrate directly into his soul, if a member of a race who are all murders, to the last can be said to have a soul. Either way his spirit is affected bythe touch his deviant thought matching her own, or those she may have when the moon is a bit less full.

So let me hold you girl caress my body you got me going crazy you turn me on turn meon....

Her cheek kissed lightly as he leans into her, barely conscious of anything but skin on skin, lips that linger to long on said skin. And that sign, moan, fucking sexually urgent scream into every part of his mind.

"May I ask you somthing?" Grin as lips are pulled away, replaced on opposite sides and dreadfully torn away. "Do you have any commitments you can't get out of tomorrow?" Sly and cool it's asked, and waited for.

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Sun 07:42AM CST If Josephina is gazing at Evie…

…She’s finding her gaze met, and held for an agonizingly long minute before those dark eyes slide away as her drink [something sinful. Something strong. Something like straight vodka.] is set before her. And it’s barely a moment’s pause before she’s lifting that glass to her lips and letting the bitter sting of alcohol slide down her throat.

Those crimson lips? Now wet. And gleaming. A soft pink tongue darts out to sip up the remnants of the liquid as she turns, and leans back against the bar. Sliding one heel up to lean against the surface. A slither of thigh revealed. She shakes back the honey blonde hair, and it slides over her shoulders, settling against her spine.

Holding onto her glass with one hand, and rubbing her fingers up and down the cool surface with the other. Little, subtle gestures that say so much. Is she inviting seduction? Or does she just look like a lost little girl?

Either way, those curves settle back against the bar and she turns the sable eyes upon the bar. Searching. Seeking. But the question is, what is it she searches for?

Josephina
Sun 07:55AM CST "Not at all." And suddenly the smile as she eases back to him is silken, mischievous, as she holds his gaze to say it, <>mean it, and gauge him by the same, before letting it drift to the woman beyond his shoulder.

But that respite is brief: cursed, or longed for. Josephina, in one deliciously measured slide comes off the bar stool, her hands - not fingertips this time, not teasing penetration, but full and blatant - brace warm along his thighs, the thumbs caressing through the material to that inner domain. Long, slow, circular strokes, as she draws her body between his knees and over, breaching that breath of space. The silk at her neckline is loose and obeys gravity's eager pull, revealing the valley within, the slope of full flesh swimming briefly before his eyes before her own beckon them back to her.

A whisper.
Games.

"Mon loup, you can have all my day," A tongue slips out to moisten the fullness of her pout like the presence of nerves. A presence, which does not meet her calculating, hungry eyes, "and my night. If you can prove yourself to her."

Although that gaze drifts, from him to Evelyn standing at the bar, her attention is not lost. Not with her hands still toying where they touch, and not with her lips they press close, the flick of her tongue wet and hot in its flirt at the corner of his mouth. Prove yourself. And in her words, in this little play, there can be only one way she would mean.

I like.
I want.
You fetch for me.

James F W Vaughn
Sun 08:06AM CST Grin turns into a smile, a twisted almost evil pleasure taken in this sin. Hands graze the insides of his thighs, thumbs coming close and then making contact with uncontrolled arousal. Fought down, though it will take a few moments. "Two nights and a day?" [My kingdom for your sex.] question asked with such simplicity, such remorselessness, such eagerness as to belie the true feelings behind it. Only a shadow of what's there, but a glimpse nonetheless given from a man who makes all others blind by proxy.

[Qa6+]

"Yes, Josephina." Obediance not easily given, but understood. Dominate and then be dominated. Perhaps it's her breeding, perhaps it's part of the game, perhaps it's just that same immaculate measure of excitement pressing still warn against her thumb thinking for him.

Doesn't matter. Her face is gripped strongly in hands that maove quickly, silken soft up her sides. lips meet hard, hot, wet, passioate.

And break. Tongue brushing just across her mouth. [you missed a spot.] Standing, sliding, turning toward the object of her desire.

[Bb5]

"Hi, are you.. waiting for somone?" Warm smile hides perfectly the thoughts beneath. A pleasant veneer on depravity.

[Missing my post here...]

James F. W. Vaughn
Mon 10:27PM CST
Her form taken in, beautifull, more than most in the room. She's dressed for it too, a vision of lust in front of the man who merely sends that multi-million dollar smile her way.

"Good to hear." As he takes his previously oredered drink from the bartender. "I'd hate to have walked over to see the best looking thing in the entire club and find her taken." Articulate, conversational, smooth cultivating a warmth through her audio senses. "I'm James."

Extending his hand to her as he sips the drink, sliding across a bill that's many times too large for the price of the drink. Hand extends toward her and waits for the touched response. [Don't you want to feel me? Skin on skin?]

Not a glace back at the commander on this most debaucherous mission. No, perfect face keeps eyes locked on hers, emrald and intense. Beautifull, like everything about him, neat pressed, and attractive doesn't begin to describe it.


Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Mon 10:43PM CST
Skin on skin.

Touch.

Sensation.

These words to describe the act as she slips that smaller, infinitely feminine hand out toward him to shake. Forgotten perhaps, the inflamed colors that encircle that seemingly fragile little thing. Evie sees which wrist she’s extended and for just a minute she tenses, color that is already infusing her cheeks from the alcohol, deepens a shade or two as she snaps her eyes up. The gaze almost daring him to comment on the bruising as the dancer clears her throat. Tosses back the blonde hair.

“Evelyn Bryant. But, you can call me Evie…James.”

She pauses before she says his name; her voice seems to caress it a minute, teasing out the word as if it held a deeper meaning than it did.

And her eyes shift, from him [hard to look away], to her and then back.

She takes another sip of her drink. Lashes shutting against those flushed cheeks a moment. Drinking down the clear liquid. [Give me strength. Set me free. My absolution.]

James F. W. Vaughn
Mon 10:54PM CST Hand lingers a bit, tip of the center finger pulling light across soft palm. He notes the bruises, the shape, newness of coloration, calculates the time it's been there. Not incredibly long, half a day at most.

It's good being a genious.

"I'd love to call you Evie."

[I'd love to call you(r) name as our skin touches in more than a perfuntory handsake.
I'd love to call you back to bed after the third hour.
I'd love to. tonight.
tomorrow.
Any fucking time.]

"I'm hoping for the same of my making good entertainment that thats not water..." he grin and points to her glass. A glance down the bar into it's surface to see a reflection four seats behind him. That european wonder who sent him on this crusade.

"I going to be honest," he speaks up a little but does not shout as a particularly bassfilled hook hits the speakers in the club.

"-I came over here because I couldn't help but noticed the best looking woman here is by herself. I hoped maybe I could find some company." He's moved closer, his body only a few inches in front of hers, hand on the bar lips near her ear, turned just slightly toward the bar to give a feeling of freedom to the conversation. "You mind humoring me?"

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Mon 11:16PM CST She feels his fingers upon the slightly sensitive flesh of her palm and can barely repress the little shudder that runs up and down her spine. The fine hairs on her arms rising as he gets nearer to her. And whether or not she means to, she finds herself arching just that tiny bit closer to him.

She can smell him. [It’s been so long since..]

And as he grins, she lifts her chin a little and tightens her grip around the glass. Another sip taken leaving those lips wet again. [red lips that were made to be tasted…] She shakes her head a little, a soft laugh drifting from her throat, a little breathy sound.

“No. It’s definitely not water.”

[I’m going to be honest…]

She levels her gaze. Finds her eyes draw to his mouth as he leans in to speak closer to her ear. If she leant forward just a little, she could feel him beneath her fingertips. She could experience touch once again. She begins to shiver, just a little, and her lips part in what could almost be a soundless pant.

She shifts her legs, feeling the caress of the silk as it rides up those muscled thighs. She has the build and shape of a dancer. But it’s also a woman’s shape. A shape that was made to be touched. Explored. She is at her peak at this moment. Teetering on the edge. Just a little coercion needed really.

She breathes out. Lets her head fall to one side, hair falling back to reveal the swan like arch of the neck.

“I’d love the company.”

[...I'd love to be shown I matter...]

James F. W. Vaughn
Mon 11:34PM CST Wolfen senses pick up the sounds, smell, sight of arousal. "and I'll love providing it for you." What 'it' is is left purposely ambiuous to let her mind wander.

Breath touches the side of her face as body turn slightly back toward her, filling her world a bit more. Warm, crimson heat on her skin from thaat breath still. He speaks softly, low. And that breath, closer.

"What do you do?"

The sound soft compared to that background bass thump. Wanting to be heard over that breath's feelin on her cheek. A bit closer even, lips could move an inch, body not much further and be on top of her.

Against the bar.
Here.
Now.

The vision of carnal release not followed through, not yet. [All things in time.]

But then- [There's always a 'but then' right here.]

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Mon 11:47PM CST The heady scent of him, of her, the slightly asthmatic quality of her breathes [soft, barely heard, but hitching as his own fans over her flushed cheeks] and the aftertaste of vodka still lingering upon her lips, her tongue. Those lips feel parched, too dry. She needs to be saturated. [dampen them, make her wet, soak her…]

She can barely remember to think, but somehow, the synaptic messages reach her brain and she murmurs gently, stretching out a hand blindly to place her glass upon the bartop. Never turning from him. From the anticipation of that touch.

[Let me loose myself in you.]

“I…I’m a dancer. I dance for the Ballet.”

Now her eyes are tracking over his features, as intent and probing as if she were tracing them with the tips of her fingers.

James F. W. Vaughn
Mon 11:59PM CST Those features? Dark, a perfect mailky tan that hints of afternoons spent getting that perfect tan. Cut perfectly, symetrically. Bold green eyes gleam inot hers while lidded with perfectly groomed dark hairlines, even perfect eyebrows. His hair is spkiked, short, black, the randomness of it looking even more so in the light product that mahis hair seem to naturallly do that. Every strand in it's place, none are in a more fixed position than he'll allow. Teeth sheen, natural white and straight from beneath lips for an instant as he lets a quick grin.

"Wow... I have ticket for next week, I've heard it's quite the show." [I can't wait. Can you?]

Hand takes hers, leading her out toward the dance floor. "Mind giving me a preview?" [Of next week or later tonight? I'll take either.]

Other hand taken as he leads her closer to the dance floor before elbows drop pulling just so slightly to bring her closer.

The pulse grinding house tempo hits from around them as the DJ continues spinning those grind, hard, quickening Fuck-me beats."

Unless you're scared?" Hint of daring comes to his wry lips as eyebrows dare her. [Are you nervous?]

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 12:14AM CST Is it some incident that he looks like Sevastian to her? The hair is different. Longer. And the eyes a different shade. But that same boldness is inherit in them that cannot but intice her back. Again and again. Like it did with Sevastian.

He was her greatest addiction. [Break the habit.]

She misses his body. [Here is one just like it. Feel it? Run your fingers over its contours…]

She does. Slip her arms lightly around his neck, finding the rhythm of the music easily enough. She catches his eyes for just a moment, hooking a corner of mouth upward in a smile that is pure sensuality, the alcohol singing pleasantly through her veins, making her vision just that tiny bit unfocused. Not drunk. But not quite sober either.

“I’m not scared of you.”

The way she whispers that, arms sliding from around his shoulders so she can turn, and nustle herself back against him, arms rising to link behind his head, drawing his face down toward her neck, that smooth column exposed. The way she says those words could almost sound like a challenge. Is she trying to sway him into showing her dominance?

Her thighs slip against the soft silk, as do her curves as she moves back against him. Warm, soft flesh that is begging to be explored. Aching to be touched. Wanting to be seduced.

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 12:29AM CST "Good." Sly grin, cooly meets her now.

His eyes meet hers as she turns in front of him. Hands find themselves meeting hips movning slightly in, over her upper thighs, then stopping just before they meet the beginning of those area untouched but in the most intimate sense. His face follows it's lead to her neck, geting lost inthe layered smell of her perfume, her shampoo, her skin. Lips meet the skin, lightly at first, then giving a bite, small, a lover's move to be sure.

Arousal evident to her now more than ever as she presses back into him his cest into her upper back, hips meeting in near perfect juxtaposition. [They were designed to.] Lips, tongue, breath, teeth, sex are all hot on her neck and shoulder. Fluctuating pressure, tempo, all of it, perfectly. Only hinting at later pleasures, should you only stick around until late enough to find out.

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 12:51AM CST Her own hands, for a time busy threading through the soft hair at the nape of his neck, slip away to rest over the hands exploring her hips, her inner thighs. Evelyn Bryant, it should be noted, is not some seducress. She does not often give into her desires and simply exist for her own pleasure. As she is currently doing. But she’s at such a point that really all she can focus on is the pyshical. Her mind is still too fractured, too bruised like the flesh around her wrist. Coherant thought, those that whisper harsh sentiments of sense:

[stranger’s hands upon you…look like a whore…have you no shame…get away now]

Is dimming to a bare whisper. And overpowering it all, stifling till she’s nothing but the sensation of the silk sliding against hot flesh, his hands on her body and the feel of lips nipping at her neck, is the undiluted master of the physical body—

Desire.

She lets out a soft sound. A whimper of seeming need. Perhaps of surrender. Maybe beneath it all, once the layers have been stripped away, all that she wants is to be possessed. To be taken and dominated. Perhaps. But still, a hint of dominance in her own movements as she guides his hands over her thighs, sliding them across her abdomen. And then, she’s twisting around, her eyes slightly unfocused, her cheeks flushed. She’s staring at him [but does she see him?] and whispering in a soft husk.

“Kiss me?”

[Show me I’m desirable. Show me I matter. Remind me my heart doesn’t own me.]

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 01:01AM CST Lips break from skin and bodies eparate as she turns, his hands now on her back, holding her so that his hands rest on the beginning of that distinctly feminine curve at the samllest of her back. Middles, legs touch, still swaying to the beat with her.

"Of course." Nodding toward her gently, harmlessly, but witht that undercurrent of openess. Allowing herself to get lost in him. Eyes lock. Faces move into one another, chests press toether and bodies meet. Hands lip lower, cupping gently her ass. Hardly to be noticed as soft lips nibble suck and bite at her own, dominating, but so much so that she may not even realized she's lost control. And when she does?

She still loves.

Tongues touch in a dnace like there own, that has become increasingly sexual in it's display. Lips part for a moment, and he looks down into waiting eyes. "Amazing..."

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 01:22AM CST Their bodies connect and for just a minute Evie seems to hesitant. That first intimate brush of lip to lip. The barest glimpse of soft pink tongue as it makes a foray into his mouth. Tasting. Testing. Exploring tooth and tongue. There’s something wrong here.

[This isn’t what I want..]

The thought is swept away before it can even take shape and the brow barely furrows before she’s brought closer still and her hands slide up his chest to curl into little fists. Grasping hold of his shirt to her steady, to keep herself pulled so tightly against him. Ankle to thigh, hips to chest. Her breasts just barely brushing against the soft material of his shirt. The evidence of arousal present as the friction stimulates the sensitive flesh.

She makes some soft whimper into his mouth as the kiss deepens and Evie lets go of another of the threads binding her to some false sense that Sevastian cares whether she lives or dies. He didn’t care. This is her mantra. He didn’t care. And so…neither would she. And this is what James might read in her eyes as he pulls back. Looks down into dark eyes burning fiercely. Lips swollen with his kisses. Cheeks a deep pink.

And she smiles at his comment. And lifts a hand, unfurls it from his shirt and runs it down his cheekbone, over his lips. Her eyes now stray over him, toward the woman whose eyes have been upon them. And she gazes at her a long minute before looking back at him. The questions clear in her eyes.

[Is she watching us? Do you know her?]

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 01:45AM CST It's noticed but in an abstract way. Mind focuses on the contact. The fire of the skin on skin touches. Her hand runiing along his face draws out long exhale on his accord now. Almost a pant, but more on the end on ecstatic.

"She's a friend, i'll introduce you before we leave." A wink don't worry.

His hand slip around her back resting on the opposite hip, under the side cut of the dress. The touch is blantantly erotic and becoms more so as they start moving back to the bar. Face flicks between different people behind the counter before picking one. Hands slides down, slowly, tantalizing flesh beneath silk gving a squeeze to a much more satisfying area to the touch. "I'll be right back, turning, looking blazing into hers.

----cut to James at the bar.------

"Tender?"

"Yeah?"

"How much to clear the VIP room?"

"Only four people there, $3,600 man."

"That all?" PLastic slides toward him and is accpeted between large fingers. "I'm heading back with somone, make sure it's empty.

He returns only secons later, sipping his drink. Come on, i've got a place more private to talk, dance or... well just folow me, you'll see.

Hands take her by the hips leading her toward him as he walk back ward along the bar toward the back, the VIP room. And perhaps she doesn't see the wink thrown over her shoulder as he leans in to lay as kiss on her reddening cheek.

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 02:17AM CST She stands, swaying a little to the music, still pounding on around them as he moves to speak to someone. Arrange something. She should be taking notice. She should not be swayed so easily by his handsome face, by the touch of his hands, his lips upon hers. But she is. Because she craves that touch, that carress as surely as she lives to dance night after night on stage.

And so as she’s guided away, out of the public view, away from her eyes, Evie’s linger upon her face as she passes. But only a minute. She knows her. [Recognition. Who does she remind her of?]

And then his hands are on her hips, and his lips pressing against her warm cheeks and all Evie can do is focus on that sensation.

[I just want to be wanted. I need to be needed.]

Dark eyes open. Settle upon his face. Can he see the yearning written there?

[I want you to crave me like I crave him.]

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 02:27AM CST The entrance to the VIP room, a doorway with heavy, thick red curtains that obscure sound and view from the rest ofthe club. Once they're inside they view a small couch, a lighter shade of red than the almost pink walls. It's dark in there, large loom lit only by dim, upward facing wall sconces, frew and far between, twin crimson lights in the ceiling give an almost surreal feeling to the room. It's just, raw and pure the feeling evoked is viceral and it has it's efeect. she is led past the black steel and glass coffe table in front of the couch.

It's empty save them. Perhaps they can hear one anothers hearts are beating. He leads her to sit on the couch, no hesitation truly as his hand cups her face. "Good that we have some privacy."

Strained, as if using nothing but willpower to hold back from ravishing her where she sits. That tone amplified in his next statement laid cler. "I almost-" Pause. Bodies move closer, leaning into one another on the couch. "lost control on the dance floor."

Lips meet, hesitantly exploring, them growing bolder. Lips move away from her mouth down her jawline, just where it meets her neck. "Fuuuck." It sounds as if it's a word that never or rarely comes from him, a word so unused it's prescene is a wonder in it self. It's statement rings through like a bell from lighthouse in her psyche.

[I need you.
Need this.
To touch you.
Feel you.
Have you.
Here.
Now.]

Evelyn "Evie" Bryant
Tue 02:47AM CST She’s crying.

It’s as though she suddenly realized where she was. What was occurring. And her body trembles with this sudden realization even as his lips move from her mouth, where she had been responsive, pliant, her lips parted beneath his own, down her neck. She arches back, honey blonde hair, scented with vanilla [is it the soap she uses or is that just how she tastes? Smells? Is that just her?] cascades over the back of the couch. Fanning over the material as her fingers, uncurled and splayed over his back, his neck, slide down as if this realization, dawning upon her, has taken with it her desire. Her want. Her lust.

[I want to be craved. But it’s the wrong fingers. The wrong lips. The wrong eyes. Everything…]

“I…”

Her pulse flutters wildly beneath his lips, her hands now reach up. But is it lust or panic that she clings to him with now?

Again she fights to locate her voice. Her words slurred with the husk that comes with sex. With stolen kisses and sinful temptation. She opens her eyes and sees the red curtains. The crimson…so much blood.
A whimper now as she struggles against the pliancy alcohol has encumbered her movements, her limbs with.

“…wait, I…”

[What is it you want?]

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 02:59AM CST "What is it?" he slides away, now only the sides of legs touching. "Am I being too forward?" Voice is penitance, contrite.

"It's just you're so beautifull, and well... you're the most amzing woqmn i've met in a long, long time. I guess I just lost control." He looks into her eye, "We can just talk for awhile..."

He smiles tilting his head to hers, arms wrapping in a close hug. "If that's what you'd like."

Vast
Tue 03:09AM CST It's called a Questing Stone.
It's called a club.
It's called one too many shots at the bar.
It's called catching a glimpse of a couple moving up toward the VIP room.
It's called impulse.

SLAM. This scene of seduction is officially getting crashed; no pun intended. The door flies open. If it was locked -- well, it flies open anyway, and takes a chunk of wall with it. Down the stairs someone protests, "Hey..."

Vast--

in torn and distressed jeans, a few hundred dollars a pair. In black muscle shirt, taut to the sculpted lines of his hard body, a pulse hammering at his throat. In silver wraparound shades with red lenses, that he rips off his face and then tucks, with surprising delicacy, into his collar. In(en)rage(d).

--pays no attention.

The door slams shut again behind him. Then it flops sideways, lists like a sinking ship, and crashes to the ground. The doorway is a gaping hole behind him. Some clubber's round eyes peer in, and then she decides to go for the fucking bouncers. Vast, again, pays no attention.

No, his pale hot eyes are on Evelyn, flickering to James for only a brief glance, and a brief, curt, surprisingly gentlemanly nod of greeting. "Sir." -- like they were light acquaintances at a pool hall. A country club. A bordello, sharing the same whore. Vast comes across the room then, step by step. There's a very slight drunken weave to his path. Other than that, nothing.

He reaches into his pocket--
--and pulls out a scrap of paper.

Harmless, right? Until he wads it up and throws it like a projectile weapon at Evie. Unfolded, it's her note to him.

"My my," his voice is cool and deadly soft, amused, "don't you have an odd way of showing true love, Miss Bryant. 'I do care and I always will'. Is he a part of your tender loving care, I wonder?"

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 03:17AM CST The liquid shimmer to her eyes is broken as he draws back, releases her. The glossy film that had been beading in her lashes slips over those flushed cheeks as she struggles, pressing down with her bruised wrist. Feeling the flare of pain as the sensitive flesh, marred a myriad of purple and blue, is used to lever herself upright.

Fingers that tremble too fiercely fumble to pull at the black scrap of dress, to tug it down over the exposed flesh of thigh. Skin that he had been caressing only a moment earlier. Evie’s lips are a swollen red slash as she looks at him, blonde hair a pale cloud against her cheeks.

“I’m…I’m sorry. I just…I thought I could but I…oh God what am I doing?”

She tenses as his arms close around her again, to reassure. To embrace. But she knows him as her seducer now. Her shame is in the memory of kissing those lips. Of touching that flesh. And she just shudders. A barely perceptible movement.

[If that’s what you’d like? What would she like? Does she even remember herself at this point? Who are you?]

“I..”

A softly breathed word. She looks up, James’s arms still around her. Her eyes widen. Her lips part. She looks positively frozen. The color draining from her cheeks. As she stares.

Here are the gray eyes she craves. The body she misses. The kiss she can’t seem to forget. And then, as she stares. He throws her letter at her.

Frozen fingertips reach for it. But she can barely see through the haze of shock, alcohol and tears.

“Sevastian. I…”

Her eyes move to James. Then, as always.

To him.

“He is…he is…”

And then…rage.

She pulls herself to her feet. [Just a little bit tipsy. Just a little bit shocked. Just a little bit stunning. Rage suffusing back the color to her cheeks.]

“He is none of your concern. What the hell right do you have to storm in here like you have some say in what I do?”

A fine quiver to her lips. A fury igniting and blazing in the dark eyes.

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 03:25AM CST "Evie I'm so... I did not mean-" Entrace of the other stops him short. The interloper is studied frowned at. Green eyes cooly sizing him up.

He just sits, staring on at these two for a moment.

"Sucurity didn't stop you on the way in?" Absently looking down at his watch.

Vast
Tue 03:29AM CST Vast is silent. Even his violence had had some measure of coolness to it. A flame of chill. Leashed and controlled.

And now?
Frozen solid.

He gives James a cool glance. "Would you please excuse us, sir." It's not a request.

And then back to Evelyn, looking unblinkingly at her, looking down at/on her.

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 03:40AM CST Evie is on her feet now. Standing tall. Standing proud. [Standing like a dancer.]

Spine rigid. Those small hands curled into small fists by her side, the nails digging into her palm. She’s trembling. It’s something fine. A tiny little quiver that’s running the length of that body. From the heel clad feet to the squared shoulders. The chin raised as she continues to stare at Vast. That gaze is not broken even as he turns it upon James. Asks him to leave.

She rocks a little on her feet. Turns her face and the smile she gives is harder than any she’s given James all night. Those were muted. Softer. But this one is hardened by anger. By annoyance. By fear. She looks down upon her would be lover and the brown eyes seem to shine just a little too brightly.

“You don’t have to go James. Sevastian and I have nothing to talk about.”

She practically hisses these words. The gaze flashing back to him before she stalks to a corner of the crimson clad room, with its sensual lighting. Red like passion. Red like blood.

And her back is turned on them both. Discarding any thoughts of words. She wants none. Not with him. Her pride has been torn down too many times. She refuses to let it happen again. Her figure, in that bare scrap of black silk, the blonde hair resting loose and slightly ruffled about her shoulders, is a stark contrast.

Her black to the room’s red.

But her face, that which neither can see, is struggling to retain her rage. To keep it from dissolving into fear.

[Missing Damon's post. Vast grabs Evie and kisses her.]

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 03:49AM CST

"She's ri-"

Face turns to fury. As stands and cooly walks outside the room, at the door turning, voice the picture of calm. "When you're quite finished, i'll be waiting for you right outside Evie." A look to Sevastian like none he's ever seen probably.

He is small.
He is nothing.
He is an insignificant problem to be dealt with.
He is nothing.

Stance is taken right outside the dooor as he begins to speak with the bouncer.

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 04:00AM CST For a second she’s pliant in his crushing grip. His fingers digging, bruising her soft flesh. And she does yield to him. Her rage, her spiel, her blazing fury abruptly halted as he pulls her to him and her body flows into contact with him.

She doesn’t leave her eyes open. But does she fight him?

Oh yes. She won’t be taken in so easily. Not again. Not when he’s broken her so well this first time. She knows this game. And. She. Won’t. Let. Him. Do. It.

“No.”

She whispers it, her voice a breath wrenched from her lips as she pulls away, begins to struggle in his embrace. And her hands are pushing at him, her nails scratching into his flesh, as she becomes wild. Unconfined. He said he enjoyed getting a rise out of her once. And so perhaps as she fights with him, he enjoys this too.

But Evie, her heart thundering in her ears, her body reacting to his close proximity as it always does [instant submission to the want, to the desire], still rages against him. Her eyes dark with rage and somewhere deeper down, love.

“Let me go you bastard! I hate you! Let me go!”

But even as she wrestles with him, she’s beginning to weaken. And her struggles become less frenzied. She can’t fight him. She never could.

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 04:06AM CST [I hate you! Let me go!]

Wolfen ears pick this up from directly in front of the curtains. Only this time it's James returning, but not alone.

As he pushes through, the man in the suit [It cost more than you're worth. Do not forget that.] Is flanked by two, then four men. All the size of trains. Everyone stands at 6'4" or taller, With arms looking in varying degrees like they came from a fitness magazine. All have shaved heads save the single dark skinned man who sports a squared off buzzcut. And right behind them only a few seconds later they're followed by a single blue uniformed police officer.

Hey, this is the richest part of the city, the peace is kept here.

He's about thirty, not showing any signs of being out of shape thoughthe advice of the Garou fetching him that this one was dangerous has his palm aready resting on the top of his pistol.

"Sir, we're gonna ask you to come with us for a moment."

Vast
Tue 04:10AM CST Evelyn struggles.
She fights.
She scratches, she bites.
(...imagine her in bed.)
And she weakens.

Sevastian releases her then, suddenly, the same irresistible strength that had dragged her close pushing her back now to arm's length. Release. He's breathing hard. The pupils of his pale eyes are wide, pitch black centers to a blue-gray like winter ice on an overcast day. There's red on his lips. Her lipstick -- no. His blood. He touches his cut lip roughly, then stares at the blood as though he'd never seen such a thing.

Pure fuckin' blood.
Blood of kings and conquerors, of madmen.

He wipes it carelessly on his shirt. You can't see red on black. "That's what right I have," he breathes, barely above a whisper. Then he firms. Steels. He grabs her by the chin, his thumb rubbing roughly over her tender, kiss-swollen lips. "That's what gives me the fucking right, Evelyn. You give me the right."

Then Vast lets his hand fall away. He takes a step back. Throws a glance over his shoulder. Fuck it all.

"I'm leaving." He's collected again. No, wait, he's not: his breathing is still rapid, his pulse still pounding. And right on cue, the bouncers arrive. Vast casts them an impassive, brief look. Then his eyes fix on Evelyn again.

"Are you coming with me?"

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 04:25AM CST […imagine her in bed…]

Oh yes, this rage, this fury extends into the bedroom. Imagine all that energy and fire that she puts into her dancing, into her passion? Now imagine how it is channeled when she’s alive with passion. With lust. When sweat glimmers on flesh and the only cries she gives are ones that signal her pleasure…

[Hurt me just a little bit more…]

She has his skin beneath her fingernails. She clawed. She scratched. And now, as he first grabs her and rubs at her swollen lips, and then looks back at her. Posing her the question.

[Are you coming with me?]

Something wild. Some darker desire awakening. She wants him. Right now. She stares at him. Chest heaving. Swell of breasts visible as the dress cuts low over the hollow of her chest. Her hair in disarray. To any as she left the VIP area she’d appear a woman who had just been severely ravaged. And they wouldn’t be wrong now would they?

Her eyes meet James. And for a second she hesitates. Lingers on what might have been. But, the gray gaze is penetrating. Down past the marrow and bone.

[He is her addiction. She cannot break this habit.]

And, she reaches down, picks up the discarded letter. And takes the few steps necessary to reach his side. Her hand reaches out for his, eyes challenging even as she succumbs to his unspoken command.

“I’m coming.”

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 04:35AM CST The policeman just gives a shrug and takes off, James turn to the bouncers the look in his eyes telling them to go as well.

"You're going with him." Statement. Disgust in the other man's direction.

He reaches toward her toward somthing inside himself some supernatural persuasion.

"That might be a bad idea."

Vast
Tue 04:39AM CST He's only got eyes for her.

Does that sound romantic? It's not. Ordinary humans can't bear that stare. They wither beneath it. Look away. Bow to it. Fear it. To be on the end of that stare is a trial by fire. Beyond red is orange. Beyond orange is yellow. Beyond yellow is pale. Pale fire is the color of his eyes, and his hand closing on hers sends a jolt of electricity up her arm.

Up his as well. The hairs are all standing on end on his forearm, gooseflesh scattered on his tricep.

No matter his trappings, he is half-wolf. All predator. The moment stretches like taffy. For an instant: was it her imagination? His lips seem to yield a sliver of smile.

Then he just turns, his hand closed on hers, and starts to walk out with her in tow.

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 04:59AM CST She turns at James’s statement of disgust. Her hand firmly clasped within Vast’s. He’s leading her away and she’s shivering, trembling, reacting to that prolonged contact between them after so long. It seems so long since she last found herself locked within his arms. And she looks up at those green eyes that she was seduced by earlier. And her footsteps waver. Slow down.

“It’s…it’s okay. Please James. It’s…I-I need to. Please.”

Why does it sound like she’s asking for permission? Why does it seem like she’s being dogged by the disaproval in his voice?

[Because she is.]

Strangely torn. Her fingers tightening around Vast’s hand. She doesn’t want to break this contact. But she can’t seem to make herself look away from James.

[Search her gaze. Does she really look so unhappy to be in his clutches again? Is there not some lightness to her eyes, her face that was lagging even so recently?]

Her eyes are asking him to let her go. Her body has already decided. The minute contact was made.

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 05:06AM CST Hse is a prize. This is clear from the look he's giving.

But she's also a step toward a larger one.

"Go." It's not characteristic of him, and he seems almost annoyed at himself to be waving them off. "But if you do, just remeber you what the burebreed did earlier." Not even a glance at the bruise in it's newness. It may have been him, it may not. But something made her hate him.

"But just do what you want." Soft words, pleasing to the ear as he takes a seat on the sofa. Eye hold hers now.

"You don't want to."

Vast
Tue 05:09AM CST And finally, Vast turns to face James fully.

"Jedi mind tricks, now? Congratulations. Your kind was born in the gutter. You may have risen to the skyscrapers now, but you haven't forgotten your roots and your old tricks. I laud your for that."

He lets go of Evelyn's hand.
Eye contact is fleeting but fierce.

"You know where I live."

Then he turns and walks out alone.

Evelyn 'Evie' Bryant
Tue 05:21AM CST He lets go of her hand.

And she looks set to let him go. Her head is aching. Not drunk enough for it to be a hangover beginning, but enough consumed for it to make a difference. She seems to be unable to leave James’s presence. Her eyes go from him, to Vast’s departing figure. And finally. Down to the letter. Scrunched up in her hand. He kept it. He kept her letter.

Something flickers behind her eyes and she looks to James.

“I do. I do want to. I…it’s complicated and I…”

She turns her head again. Hands tightened into little balls. Her arms are bruised from the fierce hold he gripped her with. Her lips swollen afresh from rougher kisses. Kisses that made him bleed. Such passion. Noone else seems to elicit that sort of animalistic fury from her.

“It’s what I want. It’s what I…Sevastain! Wait.”

Her hands upon the curtain. Still that pull. That tugging.

A last look over her shoulder.

[Because the love is stronger than the lust.]

James F. W. Vaughn
Tue 05:24AM CST Payment.

It always comes after this. "Trash..." He's scowling under his breath. A few moments are spent lazily sipping his drink before he presses the intercom button on the table in front of him.

"There's a striking woman in white, her name is Josephina. Send her in, now." Voice leaves no room for the peon to argue, withthat, he just sits back and goes about finishing the drink.