Chapter Two: Whisper Of Your Name
He pulls me forward until my wrist touches the bed. My face is three inches away from his.
My body compensates admirably, bringing my other hand down as slowly and unthreateningly as possible on his far side, keeping me balanced and ready for evasive action.
My mind is less helpful; it's running around in little circles, yapping.
*Why- how long- what does he want- is he going to kill me? He would have already, right? Maybe he wants to do it slow- maybe he doesn't want to kill me- maybe he wants maybe-*
Slowly, very slowly I see him tense. My reflexes are on hair trigger, but the movement is too slow to be threatening. I haul down on my own instincts, my own reflexes, before they make me run/fight. I have no illusions as to how that would end. I'm barely balanced, I'm still pinned by the wrist, he may be beneath me but he's got all his body poised and ready and I'm not. Besides, this is Heero Yuy, he can drive a fist through a wall.
He's moving so slowly -he knows the danger of startling me- that I take a moment to realize that the distance between our faces has dwindled. I freeze, my heart rate going up. He senses my tension. He moves faster now that I know what he's doing and won't be caught by surprise.
His lips stop a whisper away from mine. And a breath, deliberate, caresses them.
The room was hot and humid before, but now the temperature soars. Every inch of my skin prickles and starts to smoulder as that gentle breeze becomes more defined on my lips, blowing softly across the lower one, to the side of my mouth, curving like a touch to my upper lip before gusting out between them as they instinctively open (or maybe my jaw dropped in shock).
O-Kay, now I know he doesn't want to kill me. At least I think.
My mind is old and wise beyond my years; each loved one I lost and each murder I committed has hardened me like old wood. Do I want this, it wonders? I have an idea of what's being offered here. The enormity of this stuns me so much I can barely feel the joy I should. But now that my fantasies are becoming reality, do I really want to take the risk, the pain...?
Well, whatever my mind is saying, it's housed in the body of a teenager who's been celibate since operation meteor started. While my mind ponders the wisdom of burning my bridges, my body is dancing around a roaring inferno of bridge kindling, going "Whoohoo, get in there and get some!"
I realize that his head has relaxed once more against the pillow and that my lips are a bare breath away from the pulse in his neck.
I hesitate. My body's ingrained sense of danger is still making me weary. I'm still in stealth mode too, I haven't made a sound, my body is still poised and ready for action. My heart is beating so loudly I'm sure he can hear it, and my breathing has accelerated. But it's still in synch with his. Who is matching who? I can't say. I just imagine that shared rhythm accelerating faster and faster until we scream in unison.
At the thought my skin ignites, and I'm sure my braid has caught fire.
Heat seems to ripple from his skin near my mouth, and I can smell him and taste the vibrations of his heart beat through the breath of air that separates his pulse from my lips.
I purse my lips and blow gently against that flutter under his skin. His entire body shivers, his eyes almost close and his breathing, suddenly severed from mine, staggers into a silent gasp. I draw the line of the artery to the base of his neck, then curl that little breeze around the dip in his collarbone.
I'm inches away from his face again, waiting for his next move. I feel the iron grip on my wrist suddenly loosen, leaving small welts on the flesh. He doesn't remove his hand though -I think I would have had a heart attack if he did- it's still circling my wrist, possessive, ready to dart forward again if I make a move away from him, but it's a hair-breath away from my skin. Then he moves the hand up, still curling around my arm but not touching as it slowly draws a wave of raw heat up my taut muscles.
His hand twitches a bit, away from the skin and back again. Heero and I have infiltrated heavily guarded bases together, been in spots where a word would get us eliminated in four or five different ways, and a single flick of the fingers could mean the difference between killing and being killed. So I know what that small signal means.
I obey that small flick and shift my balance slowly, still trying not to alarm him into killing me despite the invitation. I lean further onto the bed, leaning first hips and then legs and moving so that I'm crouching over him. My left knee settles into the covers on his far side so slowly the bed springs don't even groan. I look down at him in growing wonder, lying beneath me now, the shadow of my body falling on his under the blanket of street light falling from the window.
In reward of my daring, his hand drifts up over my shoulder and, still with that whisper of air between us, ghosts down my bare chest and cups around my nipple. It amplifies the heat from my skin until I can't even tell he's not touching me yet. I throttle the scream rising from my tortured body. But still I hesitate to lean into that touch.
His hand slips beneath my arm to run that sliver of a touch that isn't one over my side and my back. Tease.
I grin like the god of death and slowly bend my arms and slip my legs back. I see that small triumphant smirk on his face widen a fraction. Hah.
Piloting a gundam and rappelling up airshafts gives you a lot of upper body strength. I stop exactly where I want to, my chest and groin an inch from his and I stay there. My arms complain but that's nothing to the glare I get from those cobalt eyes staring into mine. I see his smile crumble as he licks his lips. Even the perfect soldier is feeling the burn.
You're wondering what I'm playing at. Why I don't touch him when I have an erection the size of L2. I don't know. I'm afraid of taking that first step, that first touch. But I'm also teasing. Shinigami is put out that he was being the hunted and not the hunter tonight, he wants a little payback. And deep inside, Duo wants to know that this is not just a one-nighter, that this really means something before I seal my fate with a touch. Because I know Heero, I know what I'm letting myself into.
The high from this new type of contest is making my head spin, and I know he's feeling the same. Time to take it up a notch, so we actually get somewhere tonight. Time to test the soldier's mettle - and maybe touch his true feelings as well, if I can, if I could ever.But right now lust is calling the shots, and I know what we need to tip the scales in this trial of wills.
We're gundam pilots. The best way to get life-defining decisions out of either of us is to add two essential ingredients: danger and adrenaline.
I rise slightly -his lips form a snarl- and lift my right arm from the bed, into his view. I make sure he sees what I'm doing or the surprise will kill me. His eyes widen then narrow in warning, but I can see the gleam behind the warning, the tongue flickering over the lips again, he can feel it too, the way everything becomes clear, clean and present with our lives on the lines.The noise of my spring-loaded sheathe triggering -yes, I wear it always, when I shower, when I sleep- is like a gunshot in the torrid silence. His entire body shudders as the knife hits my palm.
I bring the dagger forward slowly, keeping well clear of his throat. But that he's allowing me to live this close to him and with weapon drawn is already saying so much, and pushing me towards the brink of my decision. The razor sharp blade barely snags as it slides along the top of his thin t-shirt, slicing down into the cloth with little resistance. The shirt parts over a sinewy chest, scars picked out in monochrome in the night. Our breathing -still in synch, like one body, one pulse- is now ragged and fast, our breath against each other's faces like burning urgent kisses. His eyes glow with adrenaline, excitement, lust and.
I finally see it as the knife cuts through the bottom of the shirt; that little light I've been looking for, that will help me take the plunge. Not affection, I don't know if he has any. But what's there is almost as good. It's fierce pride. We are teammates, partners. He's the perfect soldier and he's allowed me to work with him. He's proud that someone he's let this close to him has managed to stalk him, corner him, has managed to get to his level. Is suicidal enough to take a knife and cut away his shirt, for Shinigami's sake. Is daring to love him, to grab the risk with both hands.
So I do. How couldn't I when he's looking at me like that. The knife tumbles from my hand to the floor in surrender as I lean forward, weaponless, and seal my fate with a touch of our lips.
The floodgates crash open. Arms that could crush my ribcage like twigs grind me down against that perfect body, as his lips bruise mine, prying them apart. Teeth, tongue, lips clash, as if all the pent-up frustration is surging between them. Then he archs his back and rubs himself against my groin just so and I have to break off the kiss and take a huge gulp of breath before I pass out.
He pushes me away, though he keeps his hands firmly on my shoulder and back, leans me back to sit on my knees. His mouth is on mine again as I feel his hands leave me, and I can feel him slip out of what's left of his t-shirt, then his boxers. His lips leave mine and his hands and mouth coat me in small specks of burning light from my neck to my navel. I feel him slow, then a gentle breeze -agh, enough with the teasing!- blows down from my navel.to the waist of the shorts which was all I was wearing to sleep that hot night.
The breeze tickles and blows, insistent. I reluctantly drag my hands away from his body where the little perverts were having a field day, to unbutton and yank down the aggravating piece of clothing. His hands continue to dance over my skin as if he was trying to put out the fires he set there, but he's only fanning flames.
I'm suddenly still, my eyes dropping to those hands as the shorts drop from the bed. I realize something that makes the fire on my skin kindle in my soul.
So gentle.
He's being so gentle. My sex-obsessed mind hadn't registered that those hands that could kill me so easily were now brushing me like a hot summer wind. I'd always assumed that a roll in the sack with Heero would result in multiple contusions (and it'd be worth every one of 'em, was always my mental conclusion). As I watch those strong hands on my body, I sense tension in them, more than lust.
Was that why he waited so long? Was that why he wanted me to initiate the first touch? Is he afraid of hurting me? He's always afraid of lashing out at those who wander into the killing zone.
I lift a finger to his face as he lifts it to me, feeling my stillness. I caress the lips, the eyes looking into mine, nearly inscrutable. I trace the small ever-present frown lines away from his forehead.
His hands slow on me as we realize that the tension is falling from them, the frown on his face slowly fades as he stares into my eyes. A slight surprise and uncertainty flash by in its place, then, I think, a calm acceptance that increases the fire in my heart and soul (and another less cerebral area).
I'm not IN the killing zone anymore, am I, Heero.I've passed through it, and out the other side. I'm in a territory where no one has ever come before, I know that instinctively. It's terra incognita for both of us, and I remind myself that I have to be gentle too in exploring this new land together.
The kiss we share then is the single sweetest thing in my miserable death-ridden life up till that point.
We don't need more. Hell, the last few months have been foreplay! We don't need words either. A lingering sense of danger has us communicating with our hands and bodies only, as we infiltrate this new objective. On a more practical note, Wu Fei is sleeping about six feet away on the other side of a paper-thin wall, and the man sleeps like a cat and hates getting pulled out of bed. I am so not going to see this moment interrupted by a grumpy Chinese pilot with a katana.
Heero eases me onto my back, and swiftly drags those so-gentle hands and mouth down to my navel and this time doesn't stop. I have time to wonder if you can have a heart attack at my age and then I can't think at all. The bed starts to burn, as warm mouth and tongue start licking and biting and teasing.My hands twist in the sheets and I know that despite his lack of experience in this matter -and he's not doing too bad, considering!- I'm not going to last very long.
Every inch of me is drinking in his touch, his mouth on me, the feeling of his tongue running up and down and up and curling.It's like going into full stealth mode, body dissolving, but it's not a dead sea that cradles me, it's a hot ocean of sensation and feeling and, underlying it, joy. I wouldn't be in this warmth if it wasn't this man taking me there. I wouldn't want it any other way.
I dissolve completely, my body liquefies and seeps into his, into his touch, his mouth. I'm sure he knows my body as well as his own by now so he probably wasn't surprised. The room wavers around me as I open my eyes. One of my hands is knotted in his hair, the other in the sheets, and there's blood on my lip from where I caught and held my scream. A kiss, as wild and as salty as the sea, brings me back to the here and now. As I slowly return to myself I can feel his hands on me still, and tears sting my eyes at the touch, still so gentle.
The next bit will probably hurt but better me than him. My mind tries to think whether we have some kind of cream or lotion in the bathroom but wild horses couldn't drag me from this bed right now. I want to give him what he has just given me. I'll take the pain -and I'm wise enough to know that the physical pain is only the start if I ever want to continue trying to make anything work with the perfect soldier- and I'll take more, I just want to see that face lose its rigid lines, the ever present frown. I want to see those eyes wide with the innocence of complete bliss, the momentary absence of all thought, all memory, all pain. I want to do this for him, now.
He uses our melded sweat and his own incipient release. He doesn't know enough to prepare me; if I'm ever lucky enough to do this again I'll have to educate him about some things.He leans into me, slowly, still gentle, and at the same time his body flows onto mine, as if trying to blot out the pain in my flesh with his own. Through the twinges, I feel his breath on my neck, just below my ear, he's breathing in our code, our voice of darkness. I distract myself from the ache by concentrating on that voice, it takes all of my knowledge of him, all of my senses to understand that whisper caressing my flesh.
It's my name. Over and over and over.
The pain fades as I feel that litany run over my skin, up my cheek, and into my lips as he kisses me and starts to move more freely. From the way his flesh is shivering beneath my fingers, this will be over soon as well.
I take it all in while I can, the remains of pain, our synchronized gasps, the sensations, the hot and humid night air, the joy, the slashes of light from the shutter's slats, the feel of his lips, the gentlest creaks from the bedsprings, the knowledge of completeness of his body in mine.
I drink in his eyes as he suddenly catches and holds in the moment, the second, the one pulse of pleasure that slips into the next moment of bliss.I hold him close, and I feel so privileged that he allowed me close to him in that moment when all defences crumble and the body is weakened while life thrums stronger than ever.
Our breathing slowly returns to normal. Every inch of our skin seems to be touching as I hold him against me. My heart melts as I feel him slowly curl up, his head drops into the crook of my neck, the lashes of his eyes brush my cheek as they close. I'm drifting off myself, rapture and lingering pleasure ushering me towards pleasant dreams.
I feel him tense. I knew it was inevitable. I sigh and struggle to sit up even as he does. I see him jerk a thumb towards my bed. I pick up my clothes slowly, trying to soak up the last second of our intimacy into my skin, then make my way to my cold sheets. We need to sleep, and Heero won't if someone's in his killing zone. That's just not going to happen, not even for me.
I take a ten-second detour by the bathroom to wash off, but I'm quick about it. I'm actually pretty tired as well. I've not been sleeping well the last few days. And now.even with that cold jerk of a thumb as last contact, I think I'm going to sleep like a dream, a pleasant dream that doesn't know death, or horror, or blood, only a gentle touch and a whisper of my name.I'm asleep before my head touches the pillow.
When the laptop gives its tinny little chirp less than an hour later, I have my gun out and trained on it and I swear I almost squeeze the trigger in pure hatred.