FIC: How Was I Supposed To Know, Chapter 8/ ? (Crowley/OFC)
FIC: How Was I Supposed To Know, Chapter 8 / ? (Crowley/OFC)
AUTHOR: anneelliot201
GENRE: Romance/Drama
PAIRING: Crowley/OFC
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Season 8, references to Season 9
SUMMARY: Hazel is an ordinary woman--a blackjack dealer at a casino in the middle of the New Mexican desert--but her world gets turned upside down when a man in a black suit decides to take an interest in her. PLEASE NOTE THIS FIC WAS WRITTEN WHILE WATCHING SEASON 9 AND THEREFORE DOES NOT COMPLY WITH CURRENT CANON. I TOOK THINGS IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION FOR STORYTELLING PURPOSES.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I haven't written anything in a year and I've NEVER written Supernatural, so be kind. :-) This fic will probably be about 13 chapters and about 50,000 words. I have eleven chapters drafted and need to do my re-writes and finish the rest. Promise I won't leave you hanging if you start this ride with me.
CHAPTER 8
She delayed all day. She told herself she would face him after breakfast. And then she told her self she would see him that afternoon. And then after she did research on the laptop. And then after dinner. Each time she put it off. Not because she didn’t want to see him, but because she was embarrassed over what she’d admitted to him the previous night--that she didn’t enjoy sex like he said he did and that she’d slept for four different guys. Not that the number was too big or too little, just that it was private and she really didn’t need to be telling some random demon about her sex life.
But he wasn’t just some random demon. He was HER demon. She rolled her eyes at herself as she brushed her hair and donned her pajamas--the same grey shorts and T-shirt as the previous night. With her limited wardrobe, it was all she really had.
At eight o’clock, she rustled up a cushion from an extra chair in the kitchen and a glass of water. In her bare feet, she walked down the hallway and into the storage room. She shoved the cushion under her arm and sat the glass of water on a nearby shelf until she could get the doors to the dungeon open. She could see his faint outline in the dark until she flipped on the light and let it cast its yellowish illumination over the room.
He looked up at her with his dark eyes and smiled. “Do you feel like we have a Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf vibe going on with us, love?”
His joke cut the tension and allowed her to laugh as she retrieved the glass of ice water from the shelf. “Yes, that seems about right,” she agreed, walking into the room.
“What have we here?”
“Water and a cushion. That chair looks uncomfortable.”
“You could always let me go.”
“Worth a try,” she told him, “but no can do. Do you want the water and the cushion?”
“Who am I to turn down your kindness?” he replied.
Gingerly, she stepped across the trap’s barrier and pushed the cushion across the table to him. He slowly lifted his shackled hands and picked it up, giving it a squish while she sat the glass of water down.
Keeping her eyes on him, she backed out of the circle and pulled up her chair. “So, we’re not going to discuss my sex life,” she told him in what she hoped was a matter of fact voice.
“Or lack thereof,” he added.
She nodded her head once to agree. “Or lack thereof.”
“And we aren’t going to discuss my feelings of regret and guilt,” he shot back before shoving the cushion onto the seat of his chair and settling back into it.
“Fine,” she agreed. “Comfy?”
“Quite, darling. Quite. But what shall we talk about if your naughty bits and my lack of a heart are off the table?”
“You said you liked Dante. What else do you like?”
He chuckled and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head again. He looked relaxed and comfortable and pleased with her company. It was more than any other man had given in her quite some time. “I was just being a pretentious twat when I said that. I like Stephen King.”
She grinned. “Which is your favorite of his?”
“The Stand. You ask that like I have a choice, love. You should know better.”
Hazel laughed softly. “I should. The Stand is his best. I read it for the first time when I was twelve. Changed my life. All that death and sex and end-of-the-world stuff. Do you fancy yourself a Randall Flagg kind of demon? King said in an interview that Flagg appealed to him because he was a villain who was always on the outside looking in.”
“Hazel, darling,” Crowley said. “I said no talking about my mental state.”
She pushed her bottom lip out in a pout. He was playful this evening. Conversation with him still felt like a battle, but this battle tonight was just for fun. “Fine. Who else?”
“Authors?” Crowley looked up at the ceiling and then settled his gaze on her again. “Does Frank Herbert get you hot?”
“Hey, no talking about my sex life.”
“Yes, yes. Or your naughty bits.”
“Frank Herbert is magnificent, though,” she said. “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.” It was probably the most famous quote from Herbert’s most popular novel--Dune.
“Ah, yes. The people who can destroy a thing, they control it,” he said, offering another bit of wisdom from Dune.
“It’s fitting you like Dune, you know,” she told him. “It’s a very politically complicated novel that involves machinations and plots within plots to obtain and keep power. Right up your alley, probably.”
“Love, you know me too well. Don’t go on or you’ll make me blush.”
“Maybe you’ve got a bad rap, Crowley,” she teased him. “If you like Frank Herbert, you can’t be all that horrible.”
“I’m a ruthless dictator.”
“No, you’re not. You’re too much of a realist. Isn’t there a Herbert quote on that? About giving orders.”
Crowley was smiling at her. It looked warm and genuine. “Mmm, let’s see... Give as few orders as possible. Once you’ve given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.”
“Yes, that’s the one. I bet that’s you. You just let people hang themselves before telling them that they screwed up.”
He laughed at that. “Such an observant little thing, you are.”
“That’s why you like me,” she said, smiling at him. He looked like he was having fun and she felt so comfortable with him at that moment.
“One of the many reasons.”
“And because I bring you cushions to soften that metal chair. I really don’t see how you stand sitting here. I’m sorry I’ll have to take the cushion back before Dean and Sam return.”
“I’m a demon, love. My physical comfort is not as difficult to obtain as yours.”
“Still... Is there anything else I can get you other than the keys to the shackles.” She added, “I don’t know where they are,” when he lifted his brow at her.
“Alas, unless you want to hire a masseuse to work these kinks out of my neck, then only the keys to the shackles and a crack in the trap will do.”
Hazel chewed on her lower lip. She wanted to tell him that she’d taken a few classes at the community college back before she took the job as a dealer at the casino. She’d thought maybe doing that part time would help pay the bills. But then the casino had hired her and the money was too good to pass up. She’d dropped the massage therapy classes and focused on dealing.
“Please tell me you have a way to break this Devil’s Trap, darling,” he said when he saw her indecision.
“I don’t,” she told him.
“What aren’t you telling me? You’re terribly transparent.”
Hazel sighed and shook her head. “I, uh, took massage therapy classes a couple years ago.”
Crowley raised his brows. “Is that so, love? My very own masseuse?”
“I’m not good at it.”
“You’re all I have, so I’ll take it. Why don’t you just work this tightness out of my muscle right here?” He pointed at the right side of her neck.
“Crowley,” she warned him.
“Come now, Hazel darling. I won’t bite.”
“Yes, you will.”
“I won’t bite much. And never to hurt you.” He grinned and it weakened her resolve.
"I shouldn't. Dean and Sam said I shouldn't even talk to you."
"We don't have to talk," he replied, the grin getting bigger.
Hazel rolled her eyes. He was incorrigible. "You know what I mean."
"Don't we get to have any fun when Moose and Squirrel are away? They've got us locked up in here."
"I'm not locked up," Hazel told him. But she WAS locked up just as well as he was. The reality of a painful death at the hands of demons was a very real possibility, if not a certainty, if she stepped outside those warded doors. "Well, I mean, I'm here because I want to be--have to be--here right now. Thanks to you and your key."
"Think of it as community service. You're saving my life."
He was almost impossible to hate. The bravado and the jokes and the winks were over the top and such a wonderful distraction from real life. When she was down here with him she forgot that there was a price on her head and her world had been turned upside down. She was just talking to an interesting man who found her almost as interesting. Or did he, really? Beggars couldn't be choosers and he didn't have any choice but her company.
Hazel frowned at the thought.
"Why the long face, love?" He was so very perceptive, never missing a damn thing.
"Nothing," she told him. But she couldn't shake the thought that he put up with her because she was the only person who would talk to him. It made her sad and that made her just a bit reckless. "You have to slide your jacket down if you want me to massage your neck."
Crowley's eyebrows lifted. She could tell that she'd surprised him. She stood up and watched him as he grabbed onto the lapels of his suit jacket and pushed them down to reveal the black shirt covering his shoulders. The shackles prevented him from actually taking the jacket off, but he was able to push it down enough to reveal his neck and shoulders.
Hazel carefully walked the perimeter of the Devil's Trap until she was directly behind him. Taking a deep breath, she stepped over the barrier. He was seated directly in front of her, but he didn't look over his shoulder. He stayed very still, unmoving, probably to avoid scaring her. She was breaking rules--certainly the Winchester's rules but also her own. She'd told herself that physical contact with Crowley was a no-no. The verbal flirtation was fine, but no more touching. No more kissing.
"The anticipation is killing me, darling," he said softly.
She slowly lifted her hands and placed them on his shoulders lightly. His muscles were firm and warm. She was expecting a cold body, but she wasn't quite sure why. Gingerly, she pressed her thumbs into the top of his shoulder blades. Crowley grunted and adjusted his position in the chair.
"Is the pressure too much?" she asked as she pressed her thumbs into him again.
He chuckled darkly. "I like it rough."
She took that as permission to press harder before running her hands up to the sides of his neck to work the muscles there. She liked to start at the base of the skull and move her way down the neck to the spot where it met the shoulders. "Let me know if it doesn't feel good."
"Oh, it feels fantastic," he replied, leaning into her touch.
Hazel wished that she could pull his shirt down and touch his skin. She'd been fantasizing about him for so long that her current position seemed so surreal. His muscles were very tight, knotted up and uncomfortable. After about five minutes of working his neck, she pressed her elbow into his shoulder right up next to his neck. Applying a little pressure, she slide it down to the point of his shoulder.
When she pulled back to repeat the movement on his left side, he tilted his head back. His eyes were dark and lazy, content. What he'd look like after sex, she thought. Not that she'd ever find out. He was off limits and she shouldn't even be touching him right now.
"Okay?" she asked, squeezing the muscles on the side of his neck as he looked up at her.
"Better than ever. "
"Stop looking at me. You're making me nervous."
He laughed softly and lifted his head back up to stare through the open door. "What would Moose and Squirrel say if they found you like this?"
"That I'm crazy and you're dangerous."
"Mmm, maybe we are."
She laughed and pressed her elbow into the knot in the curve of his neck and shoulder. "Maybe we are," she agreed. After a moment of silence, she added, "Are you using me to get out of here? You can tell me the truth."
Instead of denying it, he said, "Do you know where the key to the shackles are?"
"No."
"Do you know how to break the Devil's Trap in the floor?"
"No."
"Do you want to let me go?"
She considered that for a moment. "No." Hazel didn't add that mostly the answer was no because she didn't want him to leave her.
"Then no. You aren't capable of helping me in that way."
"So you're just hoping I'll give you a syringe of my blood for your... addiction."
"Perhaps."
Disappointment. It was heavier than she'd expected it to be. "Oh."
"Or perhaps I enjoy your company, love. Didn't I keep coming back to the casino? That was before I wanted the blood or needed to escape."
"You wanted sex." She squeezed his shoulder.
"True," he admitted. "But you didn't agree and I still came back."
"To put the key in me."
"I didn't do that until later."
Hazel sighed. "So what do you want from me?"
He was silent. "What do you think I want from you?" he finally asked.
She ran her fingertips down his neck and then pressed her thumbs deep into his shoulder blades. "A diversion from your situation."
"I flirted with you before I was here."
"Sex," she said, trying again.
"But you told me no."
"Then I don't know."
"Neither do I," he admitted, tilting his head back again. "Come here."
Hazel removed her hands from him. "Why?"
"I'm being a good boy. You have my word. Come here so I can see you."
Hesitantly, she walked around to stand beside him. Crowley pushed the chair back away from the table, the legs scrapping against the stone floor. "What?" she asked, her body tense.
He reached forward and patted the table. "Sit," he commanded.
All those dirty thoughts he'd put in her head of sex on the table flashed through her mind. "Why?"
"Don't you trust me?" he asked with a grin.
Hazel smiled back. "No."
"Darling, you wound me. Sit." He paused and then said, "Please."
She carefully slid between his legs and the table and let her ass rest on the edge of it. Her hands were clamped on the table, her fingers curling into the bottom of it like she was doing the scariest thing she'd ever done. Maybe she was.
"See, I don't bite," he told her.
She looked down at him and watched as he slowly, carefully, reached down and cupped one of his hands around the back of her ankle and pulled her bare foot up to rest on his thigh. "What are you doing?" she whispered.
"Paying you back." He pressed his thumb into the arch of her foot and swept it up to the ball just before her big toe. The pressure was perfect and was better than anything she'd felt in year.
"Oh, that... That feels good."
"Mmm, I know," he replied before taking her foot in both his hands and applying a gentle, firm pressure. Slowly, carefully, he massaged her foot from her heel all the way to the tips of her toes. Hazel closed her eyes and let her head fall back.
He placed her foot on her thigh while he bent over to pick up the other and give it the same treatment. She wanted to say something, ask him why he was doing this, but she was afraid she’d kill the moment. This quiet time in the dark with his capable hands caressing her feet. He made it seem so sensual.
She gasped and looked down at him when he sat both her feet on his thighs and moved his hands up to her calves. “Stop,” she said. The word cut through the stillness of the room.
“I’ll behave myself, love,” he murmured before kneading her tight calf muscles.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Doing what?” he asked, playing coy.
“Everything.”
He was silent for a long moment, his fingertips sliding down the backs of her legs. “Because I enjoy your company,” he finally said. He didn’t look at her when he said it. He was staring at her feet in his lap. He let his hands linger on her ankles.
His answer was shockingly perfect. What other man had ever said that he just wanted to be in a room with her, that being in a room with her was enough to get him to expend some effort. None. Not a single damn one. Except for this demon who claimed to be King of Hell and was locked up in a room in the back of a bunker. How did they get here? Was this fate?
His almost sweet answer softened her even more. She slipped her feet out of his hands and stood up. He looked up at her just as she stepped forward to stand between his knees. “If you’re trying to manipulate me, then you get an A plus,” she told him.
Crowley smiled. “Likewise.”
Hazel gave him a quizzical look at the cryptic response and then leaned down to press a kiss to the center of his forehead. And then a brush of her lips on the tip of his nose. He tilted his head back further, his eyes focused on her lips. She desperately wanted to kiss him, but that was just a bad situation. She was in too deep and there was no way that a demon and a human were going to maintain any sort of relationship, even if they were locked up in a bunker together.
“I like you too much,” Hazel whispered to him.
“Good,” he whispered back, that playful grin pulling up the corners of his mouth.
“Goodnight, Crowley.” She stepped away from him and exited the circle that held him. She wished he could come lay in bed with her so they could talk in comfort, but she didn’t know how to deactivate the trap.
“Goodnight, love,” he called to her as she shut the door. Her heart felt heavy.
AUTHOR: anneelliot201
GENRE: Romance/Drama
PAIRING: Crowley/OFC
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Season 8, references to Season 9
SUMMARY: Hazel is an ordinary woman--a blackjack dealer at a casino in the middle of the New Mexican desert--but her world gets turned upside down when a man in a black suit decides to take an interest in her. PLEASE NOTE THIS FIC WAS WRITTEN WHILE WATCHING SEASON 9 AND THEREFORE DOES NOT COMPLY WITH CURRENT CANON. I TOOK THINGS IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION FOR STORYTELLING PURPOSES.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I haven't written anything in a year and I've NEVER written Supernatural, so be kind. :-) This fic will probably be about 13 chapters and about 50,000 words. I have eleven chapters drafted and need to do my re-writes and finish the rest. Promise I won't leave you hanging if you start this ride with me.
CHAPTER 8
She delayed all day. She told herself she would face him after breakfast. And then she told her self she would see him that afternoon. And then after she did research on the laptop. And then after dinner. Each time she put it off. Not because she didn’t want to see him, but because she was embarrassed over what she’d admitted to him the previous night--that she didn’t enjoy sex like he said he did and that she’d slept for four different guys. Not that the number was too big or too little, just that it was private and she really didn’t need to be telling some random demon about her sex life.
But he wasn’t just some random demon. He was HER demon. She rolled her eyes at herself as she brushed her hair and donned her pajamas--the same grey shorts and T-shirt as the previous night. With her limited wardrobe, it was all she really had.
At eight o’clock, she rustled up a cushion from an extra chair in the kitchen and a glass of water. In her bare feet, she walked down the hallway and into the storage room. She shoved the cushion under her arm and sat the glass of water on a nearby shelf until she could get the doors to the dungeon open. She could see his faint outline in the dark until she flipped on the light and let it cast its yellowish illumination over the room.
He looked up at her with his dark eyes and smiled. “Do you feel like we have a Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf vibe going on with us, love?”
His joke cut the tension and allowed her to laugh as she retrieved the glass of ice water from the shelf. “Yes, that seems about right,” she agreed, walking into the room.
“What have we here?”
“Water and a cushion. That chair looks uncomfortable.”
“You could always let me go.”
“Worth a try,” she told him, “but no can do. Do you want the water and the cushion?”
“Who am I to turn down your kindness?” he replied.
Gingerly, she stepped across the trap’s barrier and pushed the cushion across the table to him. He slowly lifted his shackled hands and picked it up, giving it a squish while she sat the glass of water down.
Keeping her eyes on him, she backed out of the circle and pulled up her chair. “So, we’re not going to discuss my sex life,” she told him in what she hoped was a matter of fact voice.
“Or lack thereof,” he added.
She nodded her head once to agree. “Or lack thereof.”
“And we aren’t going to discuss my feelings of regret and guilt,” he shot back before shoving the cushion onto the seat of his chair and settling back into it.
“Fine,” she agreed. “Comfy?”
“Quite, darling. Quite. But what shall we talk about if your naughty bits and my lack of a heart are off the table?”
“You said you liked Dante. What else do you like?”
He chuckled and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head again. He looked relaxed and comfortable and pleased with her company. It was more than any other man had given in her quite some time. “I was just being a pretentious twat when I said that. I like Stephen King.”
She grinned. “Which is your favorite of his?”
“The Stand. You ask that like I have a choice, love. You should know better.”
Hazel laughed softly. “I should. The Stand is his best. I read it for the first time when I was twelve. Changed my life. All that death and sex and end-of-the-world stuff. Do you fancy yourself a Randall Flagg kind of demon? King said in an interview that Flagg appealed to him because he was a villain who was always on the outside looking in.”
“Hazel, darling,” Crowley said. “I said no talking about my mental state.”
She pushed her bottom lip out in a pout. He was playful this evening. Conversation with him still felt like a battle, but this battle tonight was just for fun. “Fine. Who else?”
“Authors?” Crowley looked up at the ceiling and then settled his gaze on her again. “Does Frank Herbert get you hot?”
“Hey, no talking about my sex life.”
“Yes, yes. Or your naughty bits.”
“Frank Herbert is magnificent, though,” she said. “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.” It was probably the most famous quote from Herbert’s most popular novel--Dune.
“Ah, yes. The people who can destroy a thing, they control it,” he said, offering another bit of wisdom from Dune.
“It’s fitting you like Dune, you know,” she told him. “It’s a very politically complicated novel that involves machinations and plots within plots to obtain and keep power. Right up your alley, probably.”
“Love, you know me too well. Don’t go on or you’ll make me blush.”
“Maybe you’ve got a bad rap, Crowley,” she teased him. “If you like Frank Herbert, you can’t be all that horrible.”
“I’m a ruthless dictator.”
“No, you’re not. You’re too much of a realist. Isn’t there a Herbert quote on that? About giving orders.”
Crowley was smiling at her. It looked warm and genuine. “Mmm, let’s see... Give as few orders as possible. Once you’ve given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.”
“Yes, that’s the one. I bet that’s you. You just let people hang themselves before telling them that they screwed up.”
He laughed at that. “Such an observant little thing, you are.”
“That’s why you like me,” she said, smiling at him. He looked like he was having fun and she felt so comfortable with him at that moment.
“One of the many reasons.”
“And because I bring you cushions to soften that metal chair. I really don’t see how you stand sitting here. I’m sorry I’ll have to take the cushion back before Dean and Sam return.”
“I’m a demon, love. My physical comfort is not as difficult to obtain as yours.”
“Still... Is there anything else I can get you other than the keys to the shackles.” She added, “I don’t know where they are,” when he lifted his brow at her.
“Alas, unless you want to hire a masseuse to work these kinks out of my neck, then only the keys to the shackles and a crack in the trap will do.”
Hazel chewed on her lower lip. She wanted to tell him that she’d taken a few classes at the community college back before she took the job as a dealer at the casino. She’d thought maybe doing that part time would help pay the bills. But then the casino had hired her and the money was too good to pass up. She’d dropped the massage therapy classes and focused on dealing.
“Please tell me you have a way to break this Devil’s Trap, darling,” he said when he saw her indecision.
“I don’t,” she told him.
“What aren’t you telling me? You’re terribly transparent.”
Hazel sighed and shook her head. “I, uh, took massage therapy classes a couple years ago.”
Crowley raised his brows. “Is that so, love? My very own masseuse?”
“I’m not good at it.”
“You’re all I have, so I’ll take it. Why don’t you just work this tightness out of my muscle right here?” He pointed at the right side of her neck.
“Crowley,” she warned him.
“Come now, Hazel darling. I won’t bite.”
“Yes, you will.”
“I won’t bite much. And never to hurt you.” He grinned and it weakened her resolve.
"I shouldn't. Dean and Sam said I shouldn't even talk to you."
"We don't have to talk," he replied, the grin getting bigger.
Hazel rolled her eyes. He was incorrigible. "You know what I mean."
"Don't we get to have any fun when Moose and Squirrel are away? They've got us locked up in here."
"I'm not locked up," Hazel told him. But she WAS locked up just as well as he was. The reality of a painful death at the hands of demons was a very real possibility, if not a certainty, if she stepped outside those warded doors. "Well, I mean, I'm here because I want to be--have to be--here right now. Thanks to you and your key."
"Think of it as community service. You're saving my life."
He was almost impossible to hate. The bravado and the jokes and the winks were over the top and such a wonderful distraction from real life. When she was down here with him she forgot that there was a price on her head and her world had been turned upside down. She was just talking to an interesting man who found her almost as interesting. Or did he, really? Beggars couldn't be choosers and he didn't have any choice but her company.
Hazel frowned at the thought.
"Why the long face, love?" He was so very perceptive, never missing a damn thing.
"Nothing," she told him. But she couldn't shake the thought that he put up with her because she was the only person who would talk to him. It made her sad and that made her just a bit reckless. "You have to slide your jacket down if you want me to massage your neck."
Crowley's eyebrows lifted. She could tell that she'd surprised him. She stood up and watched him as he grabbed onto the lapels of his suit jacket and pushed them down to reveal the black shirt covering his shoulders. The shackles prevented him from actually taking the jacket off, but he was able to push it down enough to reveal his neck and shoulders.
Hazel carefully walked the perimeter of the Devil's Trap until she was directly behind him. Taking a deep breath, she stepped over the barrier. He was seated directly in front of her, but he didn't look over his shoulder. He stayed very still, unmoving, probably to avoid scaring her. She was breaking rules--certainly the Winchester's rules but also her own. She'd told herself that physical contact with Crowley was a no-no. The verbal flirtation was fine, but no more touching. No more kissing.
"The anticipation is killing me, darling," he said softly.
She slowly lifted her hands and placed them on his shoulders lightly. His muscles were firm and warm. She was expecting a cold body, but she wasn't quite sure why. Gingerly, she pressed her thumbs into the top of his shoulder blades. Crowley grunted and adjusted his position in the chair.
"Is the pressure too much?" she asked as she pressed her thumbs into him again.
He chuckled darkly. "I like it rough."
She took that as permission to press harder before running her hands up to the sides of his neck to work the muscles there. She liked to start at the base of the skull and move her way down the neck to the spot where it met the shoulders. "Let me know if it doesn't feel good."
"Oh, it feels fantastic," he replied, leaning into her touch.
Hazel wished that she could pull his shirt down and touch his skin. She'd been fantasizing about him for so long that her current position seemed so surreal. His muscles were very tight, knotted up and uncomfortable. After about five minutes of working his neck, she pressed her elbow into his shoulder right up next to his neck. Applying a little pressure, she slide it down to the point of his shoulder.
When she pulled back to repeat the movement on his left side, he tilted his head back. His eyes were dark and lazy, content. What he'd look like after sex, she thought. Not that she'd ever find out. He was off limits and she shouldn't even be touching him right now.
"Okay?" she asked, squeezing the muscles on the side of his neck as he looked up at her.
"Better than ever. "
"Stop looking at me. You're making me nervous."
He laughed softly and lifted his head back up to stare through the open door. "What would Moose and Squirrel say if they found you like this?"
"That I'm crazy and you're dangerous."
"Mmm, maybe we are."
She laughed and pressed her elbow into the knot in the curve of his neck and shoulder. "Maybe we are," she agreed. After a moment of silence, she added, "Are you using me to get out of here? You can tell me the truth."
Instead of denying it, he said, "Do you know where the key to the shackles are?"
"No."
"Do you know how to break the Devil's Trap in the floor?"
"No."
"Do you want to let me go?"
She considered that for a moment. "No." Hazel didn't add that mostly the answer was no because she didn't want him to leave her.
"Then no. You aren't capable of helping me in that way."
"So you're just hoping I'll give you a syringe of my blood for your... addiction."
"Perhaps."
Disappointment. It was heavier than she'd expected it to be. "Oh."
"Or perhaps I enjoy your company, love. Didn't I keep coming back to the casino? That was before I wanted the blood or needed to escape."
"You wanted sex." She squeezed his shoulder.
"True," he admitted. "But you didn't agree and I still came back."
"To put the key in me."
"I didn't do that until later."
Hazel sighed. "So what do you want from me?"
He was silent. "What do you think I want from you?" he finally asked.
She ran her fingertips down his neck and then pressed her thumbs deep into his shoulder blades. "A diversion from your situation."
"I flirted with you before I was here."
"Sex," she said, trying again.
"But you told me no."
"Then I don't know."
"Neither do I," he admitted, tilting his head back again. "Come here."
Hazel removed her hands from him. "Why?"
"I'm being a good boy. You have my word. Come here so I can see you."
Hesitantly, she walked around to stand beside him. Crowley pushed the chair back away from the table, the legs scrapping against the stone floor. "What?" she asked, her body tense.
He reached forward and patted the table. "Sit," he commanded.
All those dirty thoughts he'd put in her head of sex on the table flashed through her mind. "Why?"
"Don't you trust me?" he asked with a grin.
Hazel smiled back. "No."
"Darling, you wound me. Sit." He paused and then said, "Please."
She carefully slid between his legs and the table and let her ass rest on the edge of it. Her hands were clamped on the table, her fingers curling into the bottom of it like she was doing the scariest thing she'd ever done. Maybe she was.
"See, I don't bite," he told her.
She looked down at him and watched as he slowly, carefully, reached down and cupped one of his hands around the back of her ankle and pulled her bare foot up to rest on his thigh. "What are you doing?" she whispered.
"Paying you back." He pressed his thumb into the arch of her foot and swept it up to the ball just before her big toe. The pressure was perfect and was better than anything she'd felt in year.
"Oh, that... That feels good."
"Mmm, I know," he replied before taking her foot in both his hands and applying a gentle, firm pressure. Slowly, carefully, he massaged her foot from her heel all the way to the tips of her toes. Hazel closed her eyes and let her head fall back.
He placed her foot on her thigh while he bent over to pick up the other and give it the same treatment. She wanted to say something, ask him why he was doing this, but she was afraid she’d kill the moment. This quiet time in the dark with his capable hands caressing her feet. He made it seem so sensual.
She gasped and looked down at him when he sat both her feet on his thighs and moved his hands up to her calves. “Stop,” she said. The word cut through the stillness of the room.
“I’ll behave myself, love,” he murmured before kneading her tight calf muscles.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Doing what?” he asked, playing coy.
“Everything.”
He was silent for a long moment, his fingertips sliding down the backs of her legs. “Because I enjoy your company,” he finally said. He didn’t look at her when he said it. He was staring at her feet in his lap. He let his hands linger on her ankles.
His answer was shockingly perfect. What other man had ever said that he just wanted to be in a room with her, that being in a room with her was enough to get him to expend some effort. None. Not a single damn one. Except for this demon who claimed to be King of Hell and was locked up in a room in the back of a bunker. How did they get here? Was this fate?
His almost sweet answer softened her even more. She slipped her feet out of his hands and stood up. He looked up at her just as she stepped forward to stand between his knees. “If you’re trying to manipulate me, then you get an A plus,” she told him.
Crowley smiled. “Likewise.”
Hazel gave him a quizzical look at the cryptic response and then leaned down to press a kiss to the center of his forehead. And then a brush of her lips on the tip of his nose. He tilted his head back further, his eyes focused on her lips. She desperately wanted to kiss him, but that was just a bad situation. She was in too deep and there was no way that a demon and a human were going to maintain any sort of relationship, even if they were locked up in a bunker together.
“I like you too much,” Hazel whispered to him.
“Good,” he whispered back, that playful grin pulling up the corners of his mouth.
“Goodnight, Crowley.” She stepped away from him and exited the circle that held him. She wished he could come lay in bed with her so they could talk in comfort, but she didn’t know how to deactivate the trap.
“Goodnight, love,” he called to her as she shut the door. Her heart felt heavy.