Fic: Assassins (1/1)
title: Assassins
fandom: Pretty Little Liars
pairing: Aria/Ezra
rating: NC17
word count: 5,076
spoilers: Set post-There's No Place Like Homecoming, ignoring The Homecoming Hangover because it included no Ezra and hence was LAME.
a/n: Remember how last time I wrote like six things for the Porn Battle? Apparently this time I'm writing one, and it's ridiculously long for a PB entry. dearygirl was my beta, however I was too impatient to send her this last draft, so any mistakes are mine. Also if you find dom/sub themes disturbing you . . . probably won't like this? There's a safeword, and a tie is used unconventionally. So, there's that.
Suddenly I'm in over my head and I could hardly breathe
Suddenly I'm floating over her bed and I feel everything
Suddenly I know exactly what I did, but I cannot move a thing
Suddenly I know exactly what I'd done and what it's gonna mean to me, mean to me
I'm gone
Assassin - John Mayer
Ezra passes by the ambulance as he’s turning out of Rosewood High’s parking lot and without a thought u-turns to follow it. He tails the paramedics inside and, as he knew he would, sees Aria in the small crowd the uniformed men approach. He lingers on the periphery of the crowd for a few moments. Emily looks shaken but fine, but the same fear in her eyes rumbles through him as he replays Aria’s broken-off confession about last summer and someone trying to mess with her.
Like she knows he’s there, Aria scans the crowd and finds him quickly. Ezra waivers a moment before nodding down the hallway toward his classroom. She blinks in surprise but nods back and he turns quickly and walks away.
_
They stand ten feet apart in the dark classroom. Hands at their sides. Silent.
They’re stuck; his outpouring before pushed them into a foreign place where she’s not safe to ask anything more of him and he’s promised himself he won’t approach her again. They’re already crossing lines just standing in the same room.
Ezra shifts on his feet. His face is hard, throat clenched painfully.
Aria’s glad she can’t see him clearly under the shadows, and she feels the spark of motion in her muscles, suddenly leaving without her as she pivots to step toward the door.
“Aria.” It’s authoritative, controlling. He never sounds like this, ever, and when she turns back sharply a strand of hair flops messily against her cheek. She’s been so scattered and unfocused all night; pulled in too many directions, her head pounding from the loud music and swooping lights in the raucous gym. Something in his voice, some undercurrent, cuts through all that and quiets everything so she’s left waiting, hanging on a breath for him to finish his sentence.
Ezra stands quiet with his mouth open, grasping. He needs her to know, to understand that he still can’t say no to her. Just to know that.
“If you need-” he stops; suddenly the tone is a mask. She eyes him and nods before she turns away, leaving everything else unsaid.
_
As he drives home he sees headlights tailing him through the streets the whole way. He grips the wheel and taps his free foot against the floor of the car erratically.
_
She walks several paces behind him across the small parking lot of his building. He can almost feel the sounds of her heels clicking on the pavement on the back of his neck as he approaches the door. He stands still for a moment and listens to her steps slow as she catches up to him. When she stops just behind him he puts the key in the door and walks in.
_
Her hands clench at his shirt, ghost over his ribs, trail down to his hips. When she picks at his belt buckle he protests into her mouth and grabs her hands, bringing them up to the wall on either side of her head. His palms press gently against her inner wrists and his fingertips reach to stroke against hers. She starts to pull away, unconvinced by his efforts, and his hands close into fists around hers, shoving them back against the wall firmly.
They’re both caught off guard by the gesture; when it comes to Aria Ezra’s restraint is, historically, gentle to a fault. When a bolt of worry is about to strike him, open his eyes wide and step him back and apologize with his mouth, she groans and the sound cuts the worry off at the knees.
He feels her hands curl up into fists within his own and she tilts her hips forward, reaches her tongue deeper into his mouth. He shuts his eyes and leans into her, pressing her back further, flattening them against the wall so he can feel her ribs against his stomach.
She bites at his lip, and her breath comes in and out heavy between them. He transfers both her wrists to one of his hands, holds them in place above her head. He’s lost in the frenzy of it for a moment, foggy-headed and singularly focused on making her groan like that again. He reaches down to bring her leg up to his hip, but she’s so much shorter and they struggle with the position until she twists away and drags him with her to the bed. She falls back and pulls him with her, trying to tug him the rest of the way down when he braces himself on both his hands and one knee with his other foot still on the floor.
When he sees her like this, horizontal and underneath him, flushed, bright-eyed, her mouth open and reaching for him . . . the frenzy somehow dies down and all he can think is how crazy this is, and how the one minor saving grace of things ending where they did was that they’d never had sex. It was a strange comfort, knowing that as much as she boiled over into his dreams and lectures in class and any other inopportune moment, he could at least hold on to the fact that they were only fantasies.
Aria pulls herself up by her hands fisted in his shirt, craning to catch his mouth with hers again, and when he evades her she lets out an infuriated whining breath from the back of her throat. She hits at his shoulder with the side of her fist and he grunts and turns away, closing his eyes.
“Aria, we can’t-”
“Don’t say that, it’s-”
“No, it isn’t-”
He feels her slacken, her arms go limp wrapped around his neck and after a moment he cautiously rests his forehead against hers.
“Please,” she says. “Please don’t be scared of this anymore, I want-” she swallows harshly - “I need-”
He smoothes the hair away from her forehead, hushes her and feathers kisses over her temple and when he passes by her ear on a trail down her cheek he hears himself whisper, “Okay,” before pressing his mouth to hers.
As ever, she overturns every logical stronghold he’s constructed around their situation in his head.
Her arms around his neck instantly tense and pull him closer and one of her legs winds up to the small of his back, her dress rustling as it’s crushed between them. He tries to hold back, telegraph to her with soft movements of his mouth on hers that she doesn’t have to be afraid he’ll slip away again. Their mouths slide messily with the combination of her eagerness and his reticence. She ignores his signals and grasps tighter, increasing the strength of her hold on him until she’s almost lifting herself up off the bed.
Honestly he’s disturbed by it, by her sudden rush into this territory; up to now he’d been able to convince her (and nearly himself) that deep kissing could remain the entire world of their sexual contact. Now she’s shoving them forward, over lines and into foreign territory and she can’t know what all that will mean. She can’t, but she’s too good at coaxing him onward for her own good.
He needs her to see this, needs her to pause and listen and let him set the pace. Somehow he’s still convinced there’s a right way to do this. In the back of his mind he knows he’s just being careful to give her an out if she ever needs to explain all this; if he was in charge, if he took the lead then she’s protected. That desire overshadows the others, and that scares him all the more.
He leans down against her and slides his knee up between her thighs and she gives a short sound of approval at the contact. She’s a squirming, wriggling thing beneath him, light jerks of her hips against his leg, and he can feel the frown of impatience on her mouth against his. He sighs and presses his knee up tighter against her, grabs her hands again and stills her. He pulls away and mutters, “slow down.”
“I want-”
“Stop, Aria. Stop,” he repeats harshly, and he gives her wrists a jarring squeeze for emphasis.
He has her attention, her eyes wide and dark. He waits a moment, then with great purpose, leans in and barely touches his lips to hers. She reacts immediately, opening her mouth to his, and he pulls away again. He waits, and watches her, and sees a deep twist of pain in her eyes.
Aria tries again to wrench her wrists out of his hands and he pins them back roughly, clenching too tight for it to be comfortable. Her expression changes; something lights up in recognition and eagerness and her reaction shocks him. This was not what he intended.
Slowly, she clenches her leg against his back, attempts to pull him closer. Ezra moves his knee to press into her thigh until she’s forced to let her leg slip down, pinned to the mattress by his.
She blinks up at him, still but tensed up like a live wire pulled tight.
She shifts one last time, flexes her hands and tries lifting her shoulders, one last measured test of her strength against his. She gets nowhere, and he’s not even trying that hard to hold her down, just supporting his weight above her. When she slackens back into the mattress Ezra can swear he hears a sigh of satisfaction.
He glares into her eyes, wills her to understand what’s going on, wills himself not to shy away because this expression she has is practically euphoric and he put it there.
He sees the intricacies of what she wants, can probably objectify it all better than she can, but it’s no good for him to understand unless she can trust him to fall with her down the rabbit hole, away from romance, tenderness, and caution.
He takes a breath, and clenches his jaw, decided.
He leans in again, and when he speaks his voice is low and rough against her cheek. “Hold still,” he whispers.
Ezra tightens his hands around Aria’s wrists just a little more, and the glaze that comes over her eyes prompts him to shift his leg against her again. Her thighs tense, but she holds still.
He’s conscious for the first time of the heat of her through two thin layers of fabric. He stares down at her, feels every point of contact of their bodies, reminded how small she is. Suddenly he’s not sure where to go from here, if he can keep up this charade of surety and control he’s throwing himself into.
But this is what he can give her; something to break through the turmoil outside his door, something to obliterate the tension in her mind by building it to a breaking point in her body.
He dips closer again, opens his mouth a centimeter from hers, feels her breath touch his lips, and waits. He counts the exhalations, one . . . two . . . three . . . He touches the tip of his tongue to her upper lip and traces lightly.
He backs away. Her eyes are closed, her brows upturned just a bit.
He takes a deep breath, silently, and lets go of her hands to lean back and stand. He’s too ready, over-run with adrenaline, focused only on her laying still on his bed. Her legs hang over the edge and her hands remain resting open on the mattress above her head.
He reaches up and loosens his tie, air against his neck a relief. He knows she can hear the quiet rustling of fabric, and he looks away, stares blankly at the floor below her feet as he unbuttons the cuffs of his dress shirt and rolls them up above his elbows.
It’s been almost longer than she can stand already; he can see worry flickering across her features as she hangs there alone, waiting.
His mind is racing, panicked and overwhelmed with images, sounds of her, of them. One more thought makes its way through, and he devises a plan quickly.
“Aria, open your eyes.”
She does, slowly. He sees her glance toward him before her gaze snaps back to the ceiling. “Sit up.” She does. She sways slightly, and her feet hang a few inches above the floor.
He steps forward, slow and measured, and she carefully keeps her eye line trained straight ahead, counting threads holding a button on his shirt for all he knows.
He slips open the latch on his watch and looks at it a moment, reading the time twice to be sure he has it right, not trusting even his vision as he feels himself spiral away from the familiar. He can feel her eyes on him, desperately curious, but she waits obediently. He reaches down and picks up her left hand and buckles the watch around her wrist. He holds her hand in both of his, gently but without affection, and she glances up at him for confirmation before looking down at the worn face and reading the time.
It’s after 1 a.m., and he realizes she must have called her parents before she followed him from the school, must have planned on staying here. A small well of fear masquerading as annoyance at her unfailing confidence in his inability to refuse her opens up in his stomach and he holds onto it to use later.
“You see what time it is now?”
She nods.
“At midnight,” he says slowly, “this is over. Until midnight . . . you’re mine. And then it stops. Do you understand me?”
She nods slowly, and he’s grateful. He’s not sure he could have stepped back into the shadows if he’d broken the spell to take care of this first. Still, he doesn’t trust it.
“Say yes.”
“Yes.”
She looks up at him, her fingertips brushing over the face of the watch, and her eyes are clear and sharp. He can see her waiting for confirmation back from him, waiting for one more beat before it begins, but he folds his arms and steps back.
“Stand up.”
Her hands fall to her sides, and her mouth drops open a little. He sees her searching his face for a moment, checking to see if he’s still there, but he gives her nothing. She slides down from the bed and stands, teetering on her heels.
He looks her over, and scrubs a hand slowly over his jaw. He wonders self-consciously if the shadow of stubble turns her on, reminds her that it’s a man and not a boy she’s playing with.
“Take off your dress.”
She pauses, dips her chin and almost raises an eyebrow, her eyes widening.
“Now, Aria.”
She exhales and her hands fly to her waist to unfasten the thin belt around her waist and drops it to the floor next to her. She twists her hair over her shoulder and out of the way and reaches for the zipper at her back. When she brings her hands up to pull the sleeves off her shoulders she pauses a moment, eyes him. He watches her back and keeps his expression neutral.
She slides her arms out of the cap sleeves, thin glittering chains catching the dim lights as they slip over her skin, then wriggles her hips slightly as she works the dress down over the stiff tulle slip she’d worn underneath to make the skirt stand out. She leaves the dress on the floor and steps out of it carefully.
Ezra clenches a fist. She looks like some sort of pornographic carnivale fantasy in the high heels, ballerina-like slip and a black lace-edged bra.
He raises his eyebrows and gives a curt nod to motion her to continue. She waits the briefest moment again for him to break, to blush, to make any reassuring gesture, but he doesn’t, leaving the choice up to her.
Still, she’s caught a whiff of his reaction and is starting to break from her role. She pushes the slip down slowly, working her hips back and forth deliberately now, and going so far as to catch his eye and raise an eyebrow as she does.
It’s a challenge, and he can’t ignore it.
When she’s stepping out of the slip he turns abruptly and leaves her there and she stumbles as the elastic waist of the slip catches on one of her heels. He takes a few long strides to the kitchen and opens a cupboard to retrieve a never-opened bottle of Scotch Artie’s older brother had gotten him as a gift when he graduated college.
He selects a glass from another cupboard and adds a few carefully chosen ice cubes from the freezer. He pours slowly until the glass is a quarter of the way full and replaces the cap on the bottle. He lifts the glass and takes a sip.
He’s laying it on a little thick, maybe, but he needs the distance. He leans his palms on the counter and swallows, willing himself not to cough at the burn in his throat. He can feel her waiting behind him.
He wants to drop the pretense, the game of it, and just go to her and have her already. She’s waiting, and it seems so wrong, leaving her there, but when he turns and catches her in the periphery of his vision as he moves to the table he regains his resolve.
He pulls out the chair and sits, adjusting the glass in front of him.
It’s just an impression, maybe an air about her posture or some detail his brain catalogues without him realizing it, but in an instant he’s recommitted to the role she needs him to play tonight. He leans forward in his chair and runs a fingertip around and around the rim of his glass, contemplating her even as he appears to ignore her.
From the corner of his eye he sees her shift and move to sit down on the bed. “No,” he says without looking over. She freezes and then stands up straight. He takes another sip. Aria closes her eyes and takes in a deep, slow breath. He glances over and when he sees her eyes are closed, turns and watches, transfixed, as tension melts off of her even as she stands with her back ramrod straight.
He realizes then, how skewed the balance of their power really is. Every second he spends sitting at the table not touching her, not looking at her, is another second she has to choose whether or not to call it off. Every order he gives her is a choice to obey or not, to decide that she’s still in control of this, if nothing else.
“Sit,” he tries, glass forgotten.
She does, dropping in-gracefully to the edge of the bed, eyes still closed. He gets up and she barely contains the eagerness in her expression when she hears his chair scrape against the floor.
He approaches slowly, hands in his pockets. He stands in front of her for a moment and watches the twitch of her lips and the way her hands clasp over her knees. He reaches out and runs a fingertip in a line down her forehead, over the tip of her nose, down to her mouth where he presses lightly against her closed lips until she opens them. Her tongue darts out just as he pulls his hand away to cup her chin and bends at the waist, brings his face in close to hers.
Her mouth is open but she says nothing and doesn’t move to kiss him, just waits, daring him.
She’s caught up, and he needs to stay ahead. He’s working hard, following threads of thought he’d normally never let himself pick up to begin with, and he doesn’t like where they’re going. But her need is magnetic - he has to do this for her, make this night, this room, some place foreign and unpredictable to occupy her mind. He picks up a dark, dark thread, and follows it.
His heart punches rapidly against his ribs. He straightens and at the same time slides his hand down to her throat and wraps his fingers around. Digs his thumb in against the jagged curve of her trachea.
He squeezes.
Her pulse surges against his palm, her mouth closes and then opens once around nothing - air not moving - but her eyes stay closed. Her hands make small movements at her sides but don’t come up to touch his arm.
“Open your eyes, look at me,” he orders, hurried but controlled.
She does, and her pupils are dilated, lids hooded. He sees what he needs.
He waits three more seconds, almost longer than he can stand, then loosens his grip. When she inhales with a gasp she reaches up and grabs his wrist, clutching tightly to keep his hand in place. He gives her two deep breaths before he squeezes again. He stares into her eyes, watches a sheen of tears well up at the corners as her face reddens. He feels her lean into his hand almost imperceptibly, but enough to squeeze her throat closed just slightly tighter. Muscles in her stomach tense and jerk and he lets her go, stands up and backs away completely. His breath comes deep and harsh; he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it until he let her go.
She braces her hands on the bed next to her hips, drifts forward and lets out moans with her exhalations, the sound of her sucking in breath after breath loud and graphic in the silent apartment.
She lifts her eyes and watches warily as he numbly reaches up and pulls off his tie and tugs the knot out slowly. He straightens the fabric between his hands, feels the tension of it, tries to use the concrete sensation to wake himself up and out of this version of reality. Panic starts to climb over her face as she waits and he can’t be sure, really, if she’s scared of him, or herself.
He steps forward again and watches her as she stares at the tie in his hands. When he reaches her, like before, she doesn’t look up at him. He knows she expects him to tie her hands, that she’s probably feeling partially-disappointed relief at being able to anticipate his next move and ready herself for it.
He wedges the tie between her lips and wraps it around the back of her head, drawing it tight. Her eyes fly up to his and it’s the most bizarre combination - her mouth gagged and her eyes utterly grateful. He stares straight ahead as he knots the fabric decisively.
When it’s tied securely he looks down at her and grazes a finger under her chin affectionately as he steps back.
This is not who he is, is all he can think as his fingers slide buttons through their holes one after the other down the front of his shirt. But he’s losing the dress shirt because it won’t be comfortable for what he’s going to do next and somewhere this stopped being an act because the things he’s thinking - planning - to do to her (that he’s already done to her) are nothing a sixteen year old girl could imagine to want.
He shrugs out of the dress shirt and untucks his undershirt, unbuckles his belt and, after the slightest moment of thought, doesn’t drop it to the floor but lays it next to her on the bed and leaves it there.
He kneels in front of her, grasps the backs of her knees and pulls her forward until she’s perched at the edge of the mattress with her feet just touching the floor, still in the thick-strapped black heels she’d worn to the dance. He doesn’t pause, doesn’t look up at her for confirmation or reassurance or for any reason he might have if they were doing this under normal circumstances. If they ever could have had normal circumstances.
He threads his fingers under the straps of her panties that stretch across her hips and pulls, not too hard, but without finesse, and barely waits for her to lean and shift so he can slide them down her legs. When he has them off of her he holds them wrinkled in his hand and inspects them briefly. He rubs his thumb over the wet spot on the crotch, glances up at her as he draws the pad of his finger over his tongue before he tosses the panties aside. He reaches for her knees again, and she starts to lean back on her hands.
“Sit up, keep your eyes open.” He won’t look up as he leans in, just presses her legs open further. “Watch,” he says, and without preamble presses his lips to her and sucks. A low shriek escapes around the tie gagging her and her hands cover his on her thighs, her nails digging in between the narrow bones below his knuckles.
He works slowly and firmly, building the sensation purposefully to a point, and then stops. He pulls away, and she falters forward, trying to follow.
“No one’s ever done this to you, have they?” he asks calmly as he shakes her hands off his and adjusts her legs.
She shakes her head. She’s starting to tremble. He nods in approval, then goes back to lick at her again, increasing his pace and intensity. He reaches up and works his fingers into the knot in the tie, and it’s slipped to the base of her neck now so it’s easy to loosen.
“You’ve been good,” he explains in a monotone, then adds, “don’t scream,” pulls the tie away and it falls down over her shoulder as she throws her head back, fists her hands in the blankets and clenches her thighs as she comes. He grips her by the back of one knee and slides his other hand around to the upper curve of her ass, keeping her pressed to his open mouth while she quakes head to toe.
Her hips twitch and she finds his thigh with one of her heels and presses, shrinking away from his tongue still rolling over and over her clit but he digs his fingers in behind her knee and jerks at her, pulling his mouth away only to glare up at her and snarl, “No.”
He lets go of her knee - she’ll have bruises from how hard he’d grabbed her, but she’s easily creative enough to hide them. Let her be bruised. - to trace over her slick reddened skin, pressing dangerously close to inside before he swirls the backs of his fingers away over the inside of her thigh.
Almost an afterthought, he leans in close again, and just when he feels her tense in anticipation, veers to one side and sinks his teeth into a particularly appetizing bit of her inner thigh. She yelps, and her hands dive into his hair, her nails scraping against his scalp. He pulls away and averts his eyes from the gruesome tooth marks and smear of saliva on her skin. The surge of possessiveness that runs through him is frighteningly unsurprising. He snatches her by the wrists and her hands fall away immediately and they stay that way for a moment, him kneeling, her opened up before him, looking down at him with a wild gleam in her dark eyes.
“Move,” he orders, motioning toward the head of the bed with his eyes. He lets her slide away, watches her struggle with weakened muscles still slackened by something he’s never known he wanted to see - a harsher version of afterglow.
She lays back on the bed, bare, starting to shiver. Ezra counts to three before he approaches her again. His belt lays next to her thigh, and his eyes trail over it slowly. He picks it up, transfers it from one hand to the other, lets it rest loosely on his fingers. Aria watches intently. He glances down at her and reaches out to trace the line of her collarbone lightly. She closes her eyes and swallows thickly.
He swallows, and when he licks his lips he can still taste her. The belt in his left hand, the heat of her skin radiating to his right, he feels a line drawn between the two, down the center of him. He’s momentarily frozen between the two, paused in the midst of the night’s inertia.
“Ezra,” he hears her murmur, her voice hoarse. He feels her hand brush against his and looks down at her. She swims in multiples in his vision - he’s dizzy and wired.
“It’s midnight.”
She says it softly, as if it’s safety and relief for him and not her. Maybe it is.
He sighs, a deep exhale of breath and sound and turns to collapse onto the bed next to her. He sits doubled over with his head in his hands and feels her sit up next to him. He hears sheets rustle as she covers herself with them, and then she touches his shoulder tentatively. He flinches but turns and takes her face in his hands and stares at her, searching. Her fingers curl lightly over his wrists and her thumbs rub over the backs of his hands.
She whispers his name again and he closes his eyes, dips his forehead against hers and just holds them both there, breathing. He looks up after a moment, rubs over her cheeks lightly with his thumbs, feeling her skin soft and smooth under his fingers. She gives him a little smile, exhausted and heady, and he leans in hesitantly, touches his lips to hers. She kisses him back, slowly this time, not rushing but present and appreciative.
She’s docile, familiar again, and still terrifyingly different.
She leans up on her knees, the sheets tangling around her waist as she crawls into his lap and curls up with her arms looped around his shoulders as she places soft pecking kisses over his neck. He rubs her back with one hand and rests his other on her knee, and it feels comfortable, simple.
Ezra stares blankly out into the shadowed room, his hand still running continuously in wide circles over her back. He feels numb and utterly alone.
Aria tucks her head against his neck and sighs quietly.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
_
Her head is heavy on me
She's sleeping like a child
What could I do?
Should have turned around
And left before the sun came up again
But the sun came up again
fandom: Pretty Little Liars
pairing: Aria/Ezra
rating: NC17
word count: 5,076
spoilers: Set post-There's No Place Like Homecoming, ignoring The Homecoming Hangover because it included no Ezra and hence was LAME.
a/n: Remember how last time I wrote like six things for the Porn Battle? Apparently this time I'm writing one, and it's ridiculously long for a PB entry. dearygirl was my beta, however I was too impatient to send her this last draft, so any mistakes are mine. Also if you find dom/sub themes disturbing you . . . probably won't like this? There's a safeword, and a tie is used unconventionally. So, there's that.
Suddenly I'm in over my head and I could hardly breathe
Suddenly I'm floating over her bed and I feel everything
Suddenly I know exactly what I did, but I cannot move a thing
Suddenly I know exactly what I'd done and what it's gonna mean to me, mean to me
I'm gone
Assassin - John Mayer
Ezra passes by the ambulance as he’s turning out of Rosewood High’s parking lot and without a thought u-turns to follow it. He tails the paramedics inside and, as he knew he would, sees Aria in the small crowd the uniformed men approach. He lingers on the periphery of the crowd for a few moments. Emily looks shaken but fine, but the same fear in her eyes rumbles through him as he replays Aria’s broken-off confession about last summer and someone trying to mess with her.
Like she knows he’s there, Aria scans the crowd and finds him quickly. Ezra waivers a moment before nodding down the hallway toward his classroom. She blinks in surprise but nods back and he turns quickly and walks away.
_
They stand ten feet apart in the dark classroom. Hands at their sides. Silent.
They’re stuck; his outpouring before pushed them into a foreign place where she’s not safe to ask anything more of him and he’s promised himself he won’t approach her again. They’re already crossing lines just standing in the same room.
Ezra shifts on his feet. His face is hard, throat clenched painfully.
Aria’s glad she can’t see him clearly under the shadows, and she feels the spark of motion in her muscles, suddenly leaving without her as she pivots to step toward the door.
“Aria.” It’s authoritative, controlling. He never sounds like this, ever, and when she turns back sharply a strand of hair flops messily against her cheek. She’s been so scattered and unfocused all night; pulled in too many directions, her head pounding from the loud music and swooping lights in the raucous gym. Something in his voice, some undercurrent, cuts through all that and quiets everything so she’s left waiting, hanging on a breath for him to finish his sentence.
Ezra stands quiet with his mouth open, grasping. He needs her to know, to understand that he still can’t say no to her. Just to know that.
“If you need-” he stops; suddenly the tone is a mask. She eyes him and nods before she turns away, leaving everything else unsaid.
_
As he drives home he sees headlights tailing him through the streets the whole way. He grips the wheel and taps his free foot against the floor of the car erratically.
_
She walks several paces behind him across the small parking lot of his building. He can almost feel the sounds of her heels clicking on the pavement on the back of his neck as he approaches the door. He stands still for a moment and listens to her steps slow as she catches up to him. When she stops just behind him he puts the key in the door and walks in.
_
Her hands clench at his shirt, ghost over his ribs, trail down to his hips. When she picks at his belt buckle he protests into her mouth and grabs her hands, bringing them up to the wall on either side of her head. His palms press gently against her inner wrists and his fingertips reach to stroke against hers. She starts to pull away, unconvinced by his efforts, and his hands close into fists around hers, shoving them back against the wall firmly.
They’re both caught off guard by the gesture; when it comes to Aria Ezra’s restraint is, historically, gentle to a fault. When a bolt of worry is about to strike him, open his eyes wide and step him back and apologize with his mouth, she groans and the sound cuts the worry off at the knees.
He feels her hands curl up into fists within his own and she tilts her hips forward, reaches her tongue deeper into his mouth. He shuts his eyes and leans into her, pressing her back further, flattening them against the wall so he can feel her ribs against his stomach.
She bites at his lip, and her breath comes in and out heavy between them. He transfers both her wrists to one of his hands, holds them in place above her head. He’s lost in the frenzy of it for a moment, foggy-headed and singularly focused on making her groan like that again. He reaches down to bring her leg up to his hip, but she’s so much shorter and they struggle with the position until she twists away and drags him with her to the bed. She falls back and pulls him with her, trying to tug him the rest of the way down when he braces himself on both his hands and one knee with his other foot still on the floor.
When he sees her like this, horizontal and underneath him, flushed, bright-eyed, her mouth open and reaching for him . . . the frenzy somehow dies down and all he can think is how crazy this is, and how the one minor saving grace of things ending where they did was that they’d never had sex. It was a strange comfort, knowing that as much as she boiled over into his dreams and lectures in class and any other inopportune moment, he could at least hold on to the fact that they were only fantasies.
Aria pulls herself up by her hands fisted in his shirt, craning to catch his mouth with hers again, and when he evades her she lets out an infuriated whining breath from the back of her throat. She hits at his shoulder with the side of her fist and he grunts and turns away, closing his eyes.
“Aria, we can’t-”
“Don’t say that, it’s-”
“No, it isn’t-”
He feels her slacken, her arms go limp wrapped around his neck and after a moment he cautiously rests his forehead against hers.
“Please,” she says. “Please don’t be scared of this anymore, I want-” she swallows harshly - “I need-”
He smoothes the hair away from her forehead, hushes her and feathers kisses over her temple and when he passes by her ear on a trail down her cheek he hears himself whisper, “Okay,” before pressing his mouth to hers.
As ever, she overturns every logical stronghold he’s constructed around their situation in his head.
Her arms around his neck instantly tense and pull him closer and one of her legs winds up to the small of his back, her dress rustling as it’s crushed between them. He tries to hold back, telegraph to her with soft movements of his mouth on hers that she doesn’t have to be afraid he’ll slip away again. Their mouths slide messily with the combination of her eagerness and his reticence. She ignores his signals and grasps tighter, increasing the strength of her hold on him until she’s almost lifting herself up off the bed.
Honestly he’s disturbed by it, by her sudden rush into this territory; up to now he’d been able to convince her (and nearly himself) that deep kissing could remain the entire world of their sexual contact. Now she’s shoving them forward, over lines and into foreign territory and she can’t know what all that will mean. She can’t, but she’s too good at coaxing him onward for her own good.
He needs her to see this, needs her to pause and listen and let him set the pace. Somehow he’s still convinced there’s a right way to do this. In the back of his mind he knows he’s just being careful to give her an out if she ever needs to explain all this; if he was in charge, if he took the lead then she’s protected. That desire overshadows the others, and that scares him all the more.
He leans down against her and slides his knee up between her thighs and she gives a short sound of approval at the contact. She’s a squirming, wriggling thing beneath him, light jerks of her hips against his leg, and he can feel the frown of impatience on her mouth against his. He sighs and presses his knee up tighter against her, grabs her hands again and stills her. He pulls away and mutters, “slow down.”
“I want-”
“Stop, Aria. Stop,” he repeats harshly, and he gives her wrists a jarring squeeze for emphasis.
He has her attention, her eyes wide and dark. He waits a moment, then with great purpose, leans in and barely touches his lips to hers. She reacts immediately, opening her mouth to his, and he pulls away again. He waits, and watches her, and sees a deep twist of pain in her eyes.
Aria tries again to wrench her wrists out of his hands and he pins them back roughly, clenching too tight for it to be comfortable. Her expression changes; something lights up in recognition and eagerness and her reaction shocks him. This was not what he intended.
Slowly, she clenches her leg against his back, attempts to pull him closer. Ezra moves his knee to press into her thigh until she’s forced to let her leg slip down, pinned to the mattress by his.
She blinks up at him, still but tensed up like a live wire pulled tight.
She shifts one last time, flexes her hands and tries lifting her shoulders, one last measured test of her strength against his. She gets nowhere, and he’s not even trying that hard to hold her down, just supporting his weight above her. When she slackens back into the mattress Ezra can swear he hears a sigh of satisfaction.
He glares into her eyes, wills her to understand what’s going on, wills himself not to shy away because this expression she has is practically euphoric and he put it there.
He sees the intricacies of what she wants, can probably objectify it all better than she can, but it’s no good for him to understand unless she can trust him to fall with her down the rabbit hole, away from romance, tenderness, and caution.
He takes a breath, and clenches his jaw, decided.
He leans in again, and when he speaks his voice is low and rough against her cheek. “Hold still,” he whispers.
Ezra tightens his hands around Aria’s wrists just a little more, and the glaze that comes over her eyes prompts him to shift his leg against her again. Her thighs tense, but she holds still.
He’s conscious for the first time of the heat of her through two thin layers of fabric. He stares down at her, feels every point of contact of their bodies, reminded how small she is. Suddenly he’s not sure where to go from here, if he can keep up this charade of surety and control he’s throwing himself into.
But this is what he can give her; something to break through the turmoil outside his door, something to obliterate the tension in her mind by building it to a breaking point in her body.
He dips closer again, opens his mouth a centimeter from hers, feels her breath touch his lips, and waits. He counts the exhalations, one . . . two . . . three . . . He touches the tip of his tongue to her upper lip and traces lightly.
He backs away. Her eyes are closed, her brows upturned just a bit.
He takes a deep breath, silently, and lets go of her hands to lean back and stand. He’s too ready, over-run with adrenaline, focused only on her laying still on his bed. Her legs hang over the edge and her hands remain resting open on the mattress above her head.
He reaches up and loosens his tie, air against his neck a relief. He knows she can hear the quiet rustling of fabric, and he looks away, stares blankly at the floor below her feet as he unbuttons the cuffs of his dress shirt and rolls them up above his elbows.
It’s been almost longer than she can stand already; he can see worry flickering across her features as she hangs there alone, waiting.
His mind is racing, panicked and overwhelmed with images, sounds of her, of them. One more thought makes its way through, and he devises a plan quickly.
“Aria, open your eyes.”
She does, slowly. He sees her glance toward him before her gaze snaps back to the ceiling. “Sit up.” She does. She sways slightly, and her feet hang a few inches above the floor.
He steps forward, slow and measured, and she carefully keeps her eye line trained straight ahead, counting threads holding a button on his shirt for all he knows.
He slips open the latch on his watch and looks at it a moment, reading the time twice to be sure he has it right, not trusting even his vision as he feels himself spiral away from the familiar. He can feel her eyes on him, desperately curious, but she waits obediently. He reaches down and picks up her left hand and buckles the watch around her wrist. He holds her hand in both of his, gently but without affection, and she glances up at him for confirmation before looking down at the worn face and reading the time.
It’s after 1 a.m., and he realizes she must have called her parents before she followed him from the school, must have planned on staying here. A small well of fear masquerading as annoyance at her unfailing confidence in his inability to refuse her opens up in his stomach and he holds onto it to use later.
“You see what time it is now?”
She nods.
“At midnight,” he says slowly, “this is over. Until midnight . . . you’re mine. And then it stops. Do you understand me?”
She nods slowly, and he’s grateful. He’s not sure he could have stepped back into the shadows if he’d broken the spell to take care of this first. Still, he doesn’t trust it.
“Say yes.”
“Yes.”
She looks up at him, her fingertips brushing over the face of the watch, and her eyes are clear and sharp. He can see her waiting for confirmation back from him, waiting for one more beat before it begins, but he folds his arms and steps back.
“Stand up.”
Her hands fall to her sides, and her mouth drops open a little. He sees her searching his face for a moment, checking to see if he’s still there, but he gives her nothing. She slides down from the bed and stands, teetering on her heels.
He looks her over, and scrubs a hand slowly over his jaw. He wonders self-consciously if the shadow of stubble turns her on, reminds her that it’s a man and not a boy she’s playing with.
“Take off your dress.”
She pauses, dips her chin and almost raises an eyebrow, her eyes widening.
“Now, Aria.”
She exhales and her hands fly to her waist to unfasten the thin belt around her waist and drops it to the floor next to her. She twists her hair over her shoulder and out of the way and reaches for the zipper at her back. When she brings her hands up to pull the sleeves off her shoulders she pauses a moment, eyes him. He watches her back and keeps his expression neutral.
She slides her arms out of the cap sleeves, thin glittering chains catching the dim lights as they slip over her skin, then wriggles her hips slightly as she works the dress down over the stiff tulle slip she’d worn underneath to make the skirt stand out. She leaves the dress on the floor and steps out of it carefully.
Ezra clenches a fist. She looks like some sort of pornographic carnivale fantasy in the high heels, ballerina-like slip and a black lace-edged bra.
He raises his eyebrows and gives a curt nod to motion her to continue. She waits the briefest moment again for him to break, to blush, to make any reassuring gesture, but he doesn’t, leaving the choice up to her.
Still, she’s caught a whiff of his reaction and is starting to break from her role. She pushes the slip down slowly, working her hips back and forth deliberately now, and going so far as to catch his eye and raise an eyebrow as she does.
It’s a challenge, and he can’t ignore it.
When she’s stepping out of the slip he turns abruptly and leaves her there and she stumbles as the elastic waist of the slip catches on one of her heels. He takes a few long strides to the kitchen and opens a cupboard to retrieve a never-opened bottle of Scotch Artie’s older brother had gotten him as a gift when he graduated college.
He selects a glass from another cupboard and adds a few carefully chosen ice cubes from the freezer. He pours slowly until the glass is a quarter of the way full and replaces the cap on the bottle. He lifts the glass and takes a sip.
He’s laying it on a little thick, maybe, but he needs the distance. He leans his palms on the counter and swallows, willing himself not to cough at the burn in his throat. He can feel her waiting behind him.
He wants to drop the pretense, the game of it, and just go to her and have her already. She’s waiting, and it seems so wrong, leaving her there, but when he turns and catches her in the periphery of his vision as he moves to the table he regains his resolve.
He pulls out the chair and sits, adjusting the glass in front of him.
It’s just an impression, maybe an air about her posture or some detail his brain catalogues without him realizing it, but in an instant he’s recommitted to the role she needs him to play tonight. He leans forward in his chair and runs a fingertip around and around the rim of his glass, contemplating her even as he appears to ignore her.
From the corner of his eye he sees her shift and move to sit down on the bed. “No,” he says without looking over. She freezes and then stands up straight. He takes another sip. Aria closes her eyes and takes in a deep, slow breath. He glances over and when he sees her eyes are closed, turns and watches, transfixed, as tension melts off of her even as she stands with her back ramrod straight.
He realizes then, how skewed the balance of their power really is. Every second he spends sitting at the table not touching her, not looking at her, is another second she has to choose whether or not to call it off. Every order he gives her is a choice to obey or not, to decide that she’s still in control of this, if nothing else.
“Sit,” he tries, glass forgotten.
She does, dropping in-gracefully to the edge of the bed, eyes still closed. He gets up and she barely contains the eagerness in her expression when she hears his chair scrape against the floor.
He approaches slowly, hands in his pockets. He stands in front of her for a moment and watches the twitch of her lips and the way her hands clasp over her knees. He reaches out and runs a fingertip in a line down her forehead, over the tip of her nose, down to her mouth where he presses lightly against her closed lips until she opens them. Her tongue darts out just as he pulls his hand away to cup her chin and bends at the waist, brings his face in close to hers.
Her mouth is open but she says nothing and doesn’t move to kiss him, just waits, daring him.
She’s caught up, and he needs to stay ahead. He’s working hard, following threads of thought he’d normally never let himself pick up to begin with, and he doesn’t like where they’re going. But her need is magnetic - he has to do this for her, make this night, this room, some place foreign and unpredictable to occupy her mind. He picks up a dark, dark thread, and follows it.
His heart punches rapidly against his ribs. He straightens and at the same time slides his hand down to her throat and wraps his fingers around. Digs his thumb in against the jagged curve of her trachea.
He squeezes.
Her pulse surges against his palm, her mouth closes and then opens once around nothing - air not moving - but her eyes stay closed. Her hands make small movements at her sides but don’t come up to touch his arm.
“Open your eyes, look at me,” he orders, hurried but controlled.
She does, and her pupils are dilated, lids hooded. He sees what he needs.
He waits three more seconds, almost longer than he can stand, then loosens his grip. When she inhales with a gasp she reaches up and grabs his wrist, clutching tightly to keep his hand in place. He gives her two deep breaths before he squeezes again. He stares into her eyes, watches a sheen of tears well up at the corners as her face reddens. He feels her lean into his hand almost imperceptibly, but enough to squeeze her throat closed just slightly tighter. Muscles in her stomach tense and jerk and he lets her go, stands up and backs away completely. His breath comes deep and harsh; he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it until he let her go.
She braces her hands on the bed next to her hips, drifts forward and lets out moans with her exhalations, the sound of her sucking in breath after breath loud and graphic in the silent apartment.
She lifts her eyes and watches warily as he numbly reaches up and pulls off his tie and tugs the knot out slowly. He straightens the fabric between his hands, feels the tension of it, tries to use the concrete sensation to wake himself up and out of this version of reality. Panic starts to climb over her face as she waits and he can’t be sure, really, if she’s scared of him, or herself.
He steps forward again and watches her as she stares at the tie in his hands. When he reaches her, like before, she doesn’t look up at him. He knows she expects him to tie her hands, that she’s probably feeling partially-disappointed relief at being able to anticipate his next move and ready herself for it.
He wedges the tie between her lips and wraps it around the back of her head, drawing it tight. Her eyes fly up to his and it’s the most bizarre combination - her mouth gagged and her eyes utterly grateful. He stares straight ahead as he knots the fabric decisively.
When it’s tied securely he looks down at her and grazes a finger under her chin affectionately as he steps back.
This is not who he is, is all he can think as his fingers slide buttons through their holes one after the other down the front of his shirt. But he’s losing the dress shirt because it won’t be comfortable for what he’s going to do next and somewhere this stopped being an act because the things he’s thinking - planning - to do to her (that he’s already done to her) are nothing a sixteen year old girl could imagine to want.
He shrugs out of the dress shirt and untucks his undershirt, unbuckles his belt and, after the slightest moment of thought, doesn’t drop it to the floor but lays it next to her on the bed and leaves it there.
He kneels in front of her, grasps the backs of her knees and pulls her forward until she’s perched at the edge of the mattress with her feet just touching the floor, still in the thick-strapped black heels she’d worn to the dance. He doesn’t pause, doesn’t look up at her for confirmation or reassurance or for any reason he might have if they were doing this under normal circumstances. If they ever could have had normal circumstances.
He threads his fingers under the straps of her panties that stretch across her hips and pulls, not too hard, but without finesse, and barely waits for her to lean and shift so he can slide them down her legs. When he has them off of her he holds them wrinkled in his hand and inspects them briefly. He rubs his thumb over the wet spot on the crotch, glances up at her as he draws the pad of his finger over his tongue before he tosses the panties aside. He reaches for her knees again, and she starts to lean back on her hands.
“Sit up, keep your eyes open.” He won’t look up as he leans in, just presses her legs open further. “Watch,” he says, and without preamble presses his lips to her and sucks. A low shriek escapes around the tie gagging her and her hands cover his on her thighs, her nails digging in between the narrow bones below his knuckles.
He works slowly and firmly, building the sensation purposefully to a point, and then stops. He pulls away, and she falters forward, trying to follow.
“No one’s ever done this to you, have they?” he asks calmly as he shakes her hands off his and adjusts her legs.
She shakes her head. She’s starting to tremble. He nods in approval, then goes back to lick at her again, increasing his pace and intensity. He reaches up and works his fingers into the knot in the tie, and it’s slipped to the base of her neck now so it’s easy to loosen.
“You’ve been good,” he explains in a monotone, then adds, “don’t scream,” pulls the tie away and it falls down over her shoulder as she throws her head back, fists her hands in the blankets and clenches her thighs as she comes. He grips her by the back of one knee and slides his other hand around to the upper curve of her ass, keeping her pressed to his open mouth while she quakes head to toe.
Her hips twitch and she finds his thigh with one of her heels and presses, shrinking away from his tongue still rolling over and over her clit but he digs his fingers in behind her knee and jerks at her, pulling his mouth away only to glare up at her and snarl, “No.”
He lets go of her knee - she’ll have bruises from how hard he’d grabbed her, but she’s easily creative enough to hide them. Let her be bruised. - to trace over her slick reddened skin, pressing dangerously close to inside before he swirls the backs of his fingers away over the inside of her thigh.
Almost an afterthought, he leans in close again, and just when he feels her tense in anticipation, veers to one side and sinks his teeth into a particularly appetizing bit of her inner thigh. She yelps, and her hands dive into his hair, her nails scraping against his scalp. He pulls away and averts his eyes from the gruesome tooth marks and smear of saliva on her skin. The surge of possessiveness that runs through him is frighteningly unsurprising. He snatches her by the wrists and her hands fall away immediately and they stay that way for a moment, him kneeling, her opened up before him, looking down at him with a wild gleam in her dark eyes.
“Move,” he orders, motioning toward the head of the bed with his eyes. He lets her slide away, watches her struggle with weakened muscles still slackened by something he’s never known he wanted to see - a harsher version of afterglow.
She lays back on the bed, bare, starting to shiver. Ezra counts to three before he approaches her again. His belt lays next to her thigh, and his eyes trail over it slowly. He picks it up, transfers it from one hand to the other, lets it rest loosely on his fingers. Aria watches intently. He glances down at her and reaches out to trace the line of her collarbone lightly. She closes her eyes and swallows thickly.
He swallows, and when he licks his lips he can still taste her. The belt in his left hand, the heat of her skin radiating to his right, he feels a line drawn between the two, down the center of him. He’s momentarily frozen between the two, paused in the midst of the night’s inertia.
“Ezra,” he hears her murmur, her voice hoarse. He feels her hand brush against his and looks down at her. She swims in multiples in his vision - he’s dizzy and wired.
“It’s midnight.”
She says it softly, as if it’s safety and relief for him and not her. Maybe it is.
He sighs, a deep exhale of breath and sound and turns to collapse onto the bed next to her. He sits doubled over with his head in his hands and feels her sit up next to him. He hears sheets rustle as she covers herself with them, and then she touches his shoulder tentatively. He flinches but turns and takes her face in his hands and stares at her, searching. Her fingers curl lightly over his wrists and her thumbs rub over the backs of his hands.
She whispers his name again and he closes his eyes, dips his forehead against hers and just holds them both there, breathing. He looks up after a moment, rubs over her cheeks lightly with his thumbs, feeling her skin soft and smooth under his fingers. She gives him a little smile, exhausted and heady, and he leans in hesitantly, touches his lips to hers. She kisses him back, slowly this time, not rushing but present and appreciative.
She’s docile, familiar again, and still terrifyingly different.
She leans up on her knees, the sheets tangling around her waist as she crawls into his lap and curls up with her arms looped around his shoulders as she places soft pecking kisses over his neck. He rubs her back with one hand and rests his other on her knee, and it feels comfortable, simple.
Ezra stares blankly out into the shadowed room, his hand still running continuously in wide circles over her back. He feels numb and utterly alone.
Aria tucks her head against his neck and sighs quietly.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
_
Her head is heavy on me
She's sleeping like a child
What could I do?
Should have turned around
And left before the sun came up again
But the sun came up again