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elfnerdherder · 7 years ago

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The Unquiet Grave: Ch. 1

Summary: There are 3 types of empaths in the world: Seers, who can look into the eyes of another and see their secrets; Dreamers, who can see the space between the world and fall into the past, present, and future; and Feelers, whose skin touches the memories and feelings of things left behind.

Then there is Will Graham, a potent combination of all three.

Agent Will Graham works with the FBI in the Empath Behavioral Analysis Unit, a profiler that hunts Rogue Empath Agents that fall astray from reality due to the horror of what they face while working for the Bureau. With gloved hands and averted eyes he views the world, well aware that his cup is most certainly half empty. He tires of looking into the eyes of another and seeing their secrets, of touching palms to their skin and knowing their thoughts. The world is an open book, and it is one that Will Graham is tired of reading.

How shocking for him, then, to one day look into the eyes of Dr. Hannibal Lecter and find that instead of the normal, invasive whispers, there is absolutely nothing at all.

In truth, he's never been happier.

Romance, angst, thriller, mystery, slow burn, and a wholeheartedly disenchanted, grumpy Will Graham.

You can read Chapter 1 on Ao3 Here

Gifted to @hanfangrahamk for being such a stellar, lovely person :)

Chapter 1: With Quiet Hands We Touch

Will Graham waits alone by the SUV until he’s told that it’s alright for him to enter the crime scene.

Jack Crawford’s job is to make sure it’s a ‘safe space’ for Will to enter, and no matter how many times Will explains that that makes no fucking sense, the rules remain. Empaths on the scene of a fresh crime have a tendency to vomit, to collapse from the sensations, and no one is going to take a risk with him, no matter how resilient he is. While a normal Seer-empath boasts an ability to see the realities that occur around them, a Feeler can touch and gain impressions from tactile feel, and a Thinker can recreate, Will Graham is a special blend of all three, the shining star of the Empath-Behavioral-Analysis-Unit. A rare, somewhat mentally stable E-3. They don’t want him tarnished, not when he’s so damn good at what he does.

If he wasn’t so strung out, he’d have felt almost cherished at the thought they gave him, to cradle him like a fragile little teacup meant only for the best of after dinner sit-downs over lady fingers and a cup of French press.

He rubs his palms together, stares down at his familiar, worn pair of standard, FBI-edition leather gloves. They block the sensations of touch, keep the worst of the world at bay. They’ve been his constant companions for the last five years, helped him through the thick of things. There is a fray on one of the seams, and he notes that it’ll need fixed soon. It wouldn’t do for a seam to come undone and accidentally expose him to anything.

When he hears footsteps, he glances to them, then to the hands clenched into fists swaying beside a stiff spine and a taut stance. It’s not a pretty crime scene, and Will can see it before he’s even been inside.

“How many?” he asks.

“Just the wife, but it’s bad. RA and daughter are missing.”

RA and daughter are missing. Will lets those words roll around in his mind, lets them settle. He can imagine the fear, the terror on her face as she’s hauled about, nothing more than the weight of her skin and her bones as she cries. He’s panicked, Will thinks, but he’s not stupid. He’s desperate, but he’ll still have fight in him.

He stands up, adjusts his glasses and heads into the house.

It is bad, just like Jack Crawford promised. Blood trails from the entryway towards the kitchen, and as he walks in he’s given wide, respectful berth. His regular team waits in the entry to the kitchen, and he notes Beverly’s grim smile of encouragement as he steps in and looks around, inhaling the tangy aftertaste of mortal terror and betrayal.

The mother’s there, just like Jack promised. She lies in a pool of blood, throat cut open to expose everything within, and Will stares down at her for a time, studying her. Impressions of her life do not lay in her corpse, but the final moments of her death does. He hunches down, head tilted as he removes his glasses and studies her in sweeping, smooth motions. His gaze pauses on her throat, on her shoulder. He tastes pain, fear, fury, and a longing that claws so deep he wants to cry out with it.

He steadfastly refuses.

Instead, he meticulously removes his gloves and tucks them into his coat pocket, reaching down in order to grasp her shoulder and her neck, the spaces that seem to light up moreso than the rest of her, begging him to just touch.

It is all at once, a rushing, choking, cloying pain, the sensations rippling like the water right before a tidal wave. They twist, curl, red hot and furious, and blood pools around like rivers of hatred, of disdain.

Will ignores the sensations, the feeling of her death. It is a difficult thing to ignore, but he focuses instead on the feelings that surround her, that led to her final moments, the light ethereal that held death with such tender malevolence.

You are nothing, but you will give me time. You will give me time, you will give me an escape, and the many years I’ve endured you, endured your cutting glances, your knowing stares will finally come to an end.

It is time for you to come to an end. You’ve served your purpose. This is my design.

Will jerks back with a hiss of breath, and he stares down at her, pulling hands away quickly. The aftermath of her emotions, of his emotions rings through each pulse of his heart, and he gulps in air as he looks around, trying to ground himself. The sink is a good place, and he stares at it until his breath can come without burning, until he can calm his steady heart.

It doesn’t want to calm, though. Not when it’s found a trail.

He sees it, glowing imprints of the one that no longer remains. Just as the Shrike placed hands upon his wife’s shoulder before he took her life, so too can Will see the glowing imprints of a hand to the edge of the sink, dragging along the counter before making its way to the doorway just across from them, leading outside.

Will knows where to go.

He follows the trail, stumbling over a fallen rain boot before catching himself, hands fumbling with the doorknob until he’s outside, gulping in the fresh afternoon air of fall, cold and rejuvenating in his lungs. He inhales the trail, looks around and spies that same glow, that same light that moves first left than right. He bends down, touches his palm to the footprint, and like a jolt from touching a live wire, he senses purpose, determination. Alongside it, stumbling and whimpering, he senses mortal terror. The daughter is alive.

The daughter is alive.

He isn’t aware that he’s running until he slips down a small incline on fallen leaves and has to catch himself, fingers pressing to the earth. He senses the startled jump of a doe not an hour before, the slither of a snake through underbrush ten minutes ago, and his hands are up again, pumping as he stares at the golden trail, ignoring a shout in the distance, ignoring the sense that something terrible is going to happen.

It’s two miles out before he finds what he’s looking for, and when he does relief is only the mildest of balms. The cabin has the same sense, the same aura, and he opens the door to it, pleased with the way the hinges do not squeak, do not betray him. He steps in, the air within just as fresh as the outside, and he knows this is no place that sits abandoned for too long. He sees the man’s essence on every surface, in every nook and cranny. He is here often, this place he’s made into a fortress.

A creak upstairs distracts him, and he looks up to the sound of scuffling feet. There is a quiet, despairing sob, and he’s up the stairs, feet carrying him fast, breath puffing with a burning need before he rounds the corner and comes face-to-face with the man he’s tracked, the man he so easily found because of course he’d find him when they were one in the same.

“P-please,” the girl whimpers, and Will’s hands find their way to his gun, drawing it up to level at the man before him. His head is bowed, his mouth is moving, and when a hand shifts near her neck, Will does not hesitate.

First one, then two more. The Shrike does not fall back, merely wrenches his arm to the side, and blood spurts from her neck, an arc of color catching in the light from the window with a dazzling array. At the action, another two shots, then five more as he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s been shot, that people that have been shot should fall down and die. At the tenth round hitting his flesh, he finally manages to fall, body hitting the sturdy oak floor with the sound only a dead body can make.

Will rushes to the girl, drops to his knees beside her. Blood gushes from her neck, pooling in a sickening design about her, and without thought he puts his hands to her neck, gripping tightly to try and staunch the flow.

It is the wrong thing to do.

He isn’t aware that he is screaming until the screams stop and his ears burn with the aftermath. Her skin is raw, and his skin is peeling back, blood gushing down his neck as each heartbeat takes them closer and closer to the end, to the place where time is nothing because they’re ultimately nothing. He can’t see, he can’t see, and it isn’t until he’s wrenched away from her body that he realizes anyone else is even in the room.

“Will, Will,” someone urges, and hands pat at his jacket, withdraw his gloves from his pocket. He isn’t aware of the actions though, merely the sensation of what it is to die and die afraid, terrified of the one you love most in the entire world. His breaths choke, are wrenched from him, and it isn’t until gloves are slid onto his shaking hands that he’s able to gain some semblance of control over himself.

He curls into a ball on the floor where he shot Garrett Jacob Hobbs, and he presses his hands to his eyes as he sobs.

He’s not allowed inside of Abigail Hobbs’ hospital room, so he sits outside. Beside him, Dr. Alana Bloom waits with him, as patient as a tulip bulb in winter, waiting for her chance to break the cold earth around her.

“You’re not in trouble,” she assures him, not for the first time.

Will says nothing. His throat is hoarse from the screaming.

“Your quick actions saved her life, and no one is going to ignore that. No matter what happens, you saved her life.”

“I felt him die,” Will manages after a prolonged sort of quiet that rubs against his skin wrong. He rubs his neck, studies an ugly black scuff mark on the tiled floor. “I can feel everyone dying inside of this hospital.”

“Do you need your medicine?”

He shakes his head, slumps further in his chair. The medicine quiets things, but it makes him lethargic, too numb to function right. Each blink of his eyelids is a gunshot, each breath a jerk of shoulders as Garrett Jacob Hobbs takes a hit.

“He was a RA, and you did your job,” she says, and Will has to cling to those words. You did your job.

“I did my job,” he says, and there is a bleak, sinister sneer to his lips.

“I know being an empath isn’t easy –I’ll never know what you’re going through,” Alana says kindly. “Just know that you’re supported by everyone on your team, and we’re going to help you through this.”

He wants to snort, to bite back with something snarky, but he can’t bring himself to. No matter what anyone says, from the Seer-empath he shared a room with for all thirteen years of his education to the Feeler-empath he trained with at the academy, Will Graham is utterly and painfully aware of just how not easy it is to be someone like him. Dr. Bloom says it to comfort herself just as much as she’s trying to comfort him. There’s no one in the world like Will Graham, and Will Graham fucking knows it.

Long after Alana leaves, he stands up, shrugs his coat on and heads for the exit, gloves tugged taut over fingertips that still recall the feeling of Abigail Hobbs’ blood.

He’s found a week later at his home in Wolf Trap, blinds closed and dogs roaming restlessly in the front room. He lays sprawled alongside a boat motor, gloves on, and tinkers with it, fumbling over the feeling of a faulty fan and a piss poor belt.

“I finished the paperwork on the case,” Jack says, sitting down at Will’s desk. He doesn’t ask, and Will doesn’t offer.

“Good.”

“Despite you not following empath protocol, you’re still in active duty. The director was more than willing to be understanding about an E-3 losing themselves to the sensations and following those rather than the rules. She’s given an informal warning.”

He grunts, puts his shoulder into the turning of a screw, pleased when it loosens and drops into his waiting palm.

“I guess the question is whether or not you want to be back in active duty, Will,” Jack continues when he gets no reply. “No call, no e-mail; you’d might as well have dropped off of the face of the earth. How are you doing out here?”

“Better question is how you’re doing without me,” Will replies, and he won’t look at Jack. He can already sense it in the air, a feeling of need, of words unsaid but wanting to be shared. He doesn’t want to go down that road. It’s been nice to only feel the base, pure needs of the dogs around him that want nothing more than his love. It’s been better therapy than whatever doctor is waiting for him at the bureau to evaluate his psyche, a walnut cracked under pressure.

“Make no mistake, we need you. I’ve already got another case with your name on it, but that’s nothing if your head’s not in the game.”

Will holds back a smile that’s more of a gritting of teeth. His head’s never been in the game, too lost as it was in the thoughts of another, the ideals of someone just across the room. Jesus, he can’t even look at a person without seeing their heart’s desires, their thoughts laid bare, and Jack thinks he’s at some point been in the saddle, let alone faced the right direction?

“You ever read what it does to a feeler to kill someone, Jack?” he asks.

“I’ve read about it,” Jack says evenly. “I had to pass several courses before I was even considered for my position at the EBAU.”

“They’re both the killer and the killed. It’s in their skin, their cells, their brain; a feeler once dropped dead, heart stopped after they killed someone in self-defense. A thinker has the sensation that they’re the ones being killed, and they can go into a coma. A seer has been said to have visions of their own death in the face of taking another’s life. With me-”

“You got a mix of all three,” Jack finishes for him. “Dr. Bloom said you’re not coping well.”

“I’m not fucking coping at all,” Will retorts. He sounds angry so that he doesn’t sound so god damn afraid. “I’m not…I’m not coping.”

He’s not coping. In his dreams, he’s standing behind Abigail Hobbs, slitting her throat with a devilish hunger and a sadistic smile. When he wakes, he thinks that maybe he should just finish the job after all. He thinks of how his own neck felt, splitting open as hers did, and it quells the thought nicely. Sometimes he wakes and feels as though he’s dead, as though he never were.

“She referred me to a doctor that has worked with empaths and comes highly recommended, Will,” Jack says. “I spoke with him, and he’s willing to talk to you, maybe help with some of the thoughts in your head.”

“No therapists,” Will snaps.

“If you just-”

“Since I was five-years-old I’ve had doctors climbing in and out of my head, Jack,” Will warns him, and he pokes his head out from around the motor to scowl at his pant leg. “No therapists. I’ll come in on Monday.”

Jack wants to argue, and Will glances to his shoulder, noting the tense set of it. This isn’t an easy conversation for Jack any more than it is for Will. Neither one of them share emotions well, let alone conveyed in a way others can wholly understand.

“Thanks for coming,” he adds, to sound congenial. It’s also a dismissal.

“If you’re not in by Monday, I’m sending the doctor to you,” Jack warns.

It’s a fair warning, and Will’s silence shows his compliance. Jack sees himself out, and Will sets his tools down, laying sprawled out beside the motor, chest heaving with the thought of having to go out and look at people after a week of blissful solitude. Buster crawls onto his chest, lays there, and he absentmindedly pets him, still gloved because if there’s one thing he’s learned in this world, it’s that even the pure emotions of a dog against his bare skin is enough to rend his mind in two.

He shows up on Monday because he knows Jack’s threat is real. He’d scrounged through his closet, found his least wrinkled plaid, belt cinched tight because a week of bad eating habits –rather, of no eating habits –has dropped a few pounds off of him. In Jack’s office he accepts a file after he’s signed a form saying that he in no way blames EBAU for what happened, that he takes full responsibility for his actions.

Then he sits in a room with other empaths somewhat like him and listens to them talk.

A Feeler’s gloves ripped at a crime scene and he thought he’d been stabbed, leading to an anxiety attack that took him out of work for a week. Will listens to his bumbling mouth form words, taking them back to that moment, and in their own way everyone in the room is there with him, being stabbed as well. The Seers avoid looking at him, Dreamers try and hear the words and those alone, compartmentalizing their thoughts before they can become nightmares, and Will gnaws on his bottom lip, focusing on the tactile feel of his new gloves, issued to him after he showed Jack the ripped thread. No sense in having what happened to the guy three seats down happen to him. Not after he’d already had his own special blend of breakdowns.

“Agent Graham, you recently returned after something similar,” the director prompts. “Would you like to share?”

Although he doesn’t have to see a doctor, there is a Director of Empath Agents that has full rein of the empath program in the FBI, and he does have to report to her. After a stint like his, there’s a slew of group meetings, sharing, and comforting one another with a special, potent vibe of an organization much like Alcoholics Anonymous, minus the coffee bar in the back. It’s better than a psychoanalysis, though. At least with these, he normally has to just show up and do his time. Most people, other empaths included, give him a wide berth and leave him well enough alone, the way he wants.

Will glances to Director Hansen’s shoes, jaw working furiously. “…I empathize with his struggles,” he says dryly.

Everyone in the group laughs, except for the director.

“This is an exercise meant to make you more comfortable with returning to work. It’s a support system so that you know you’re not alone,” Director Hansen says. She’s not impressed with his joke, and he can feel her displeasure on his skin like muggy Florida humidity. “It’s also a requirement that you participate so that I can sign off and support you back into the field.”

“I’m not feeling well,” he decides, and he stands up, walking out of the room. He’ll get a sign off from someone else later, from someone that isn’t a director of empath agents, someone that’s not in charge of babysitting the lot of them so that some higher-paid neurotypical can keep them all in line.

He pauses by the small vending machine, kicks it idly and feeds it a crumpled dollar. He snatches up the bag of trail mix from the bottom, as well as a candy bar long forgotten by someone else, and he paces along a wall displaying the photos of empaths fallen in the line of duty.

Half of them fell due to a potent blend of self-destructive habits and suicide, but they don’t share that part in the FBI tours. He recognizes some of them as the Rogue Agents he aided the FBI in tracking down.

“Lost in your thoughts?” someone asks. Will refuses to look over at them, taking a huge, unsightly bite of the candy bar, a little disappointed that someone abandoned a 100 Grand rather than a 3 Musketeers. Maybe that’s why it was abandoned. No one really enjoyed a 100 Grand candy bar, they simply made due because that’s all that was there.

“Yes.”

“I imagine that happens often, given the way a Dreamer thinks.”

Will doesn’t bother to correct him –he’s not a Dreamer, he’s an E-3, something far worse, far less stable than a Dreamer.

“Thoughts lending to a less tasty side of the world, no matter where you point your gaze.”

“I build forts,” he says. The person draws close but leaves a respectable distance, the way everyone does. There are no laws saying you can’t impose on an empath’s personal space, but there’s an unwritten, tacit rule that you just don’t get too close unless you want them knowing your deepest, darkest secrets like it was common knowledge.

“Nightmares rise quickly in your line of work, I’d imagine.”

“So do forts.”

“Forts are not so effective when you incidentally lock the monsters inside, though,” the man says, and Will lets out an unattractive, ugly snort before looking over at him, gaze pinned to his pocket square in a loud shade of yellow. He doesn’t dare look at his face. He doesn’t want to see.

“Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?” he demands, glaring at the offensive color. “Did Director Hansen send you after me? Agent Crawford?”

“Do you feel psychoanalyzed?” the man asks. Out of Will’s peripheral, he sees neatly combed hair in enough shades of blonde to be confusing, a strong jaw and cheekbones sharp enough to cut. His expression is placid, calm in the face of Will’s annoyance.

He takes another bite of the 100 Grand, talks around it in his mouth. “You can ask anyone else here, no one likes to see me psychoanalyzed.”

“You’re speaking as though I should know who you are,” the man says. “I’m merely making conversation.”

“Bull shit,” Will retorts. “Lies are about as easy to see as acne. You know who I am.”

“Can you see my lies?” the man wonders. His clipped, smooth accent dips and lowers as his cadence slows. “If you looked at me now, would you see my lies as a Seer would?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

The taunt is just needling enough that Will glances to his eyes, an easy enough feat when they’re the same height. Eyes reveal all, and Will Graham has seen enough eyes to learn to hate them, resent them for the secrets they hold that he’s never wanted to know. The place the iris meets to the pupil is the ugliest of all because he always feels like he’s falling into them, going to a place where the labyrinth of the mind falls away, leaving him with hands black with tar and a stomach churning from the dark. He always sees a person’s darkness first before he can see the good, and it’s always bad enough, always bleak enough that no matter how much good offsets the evil, he can’t find his way out. He’s trapped, and he can only see the monsters.

How surprising for him, then, when looking into eyes the color of aged blood, he sees nothing at all.

He thinks to look away, eyes watering, but he can’t bring himself to. He’s stunned at the absolute nothing that he sees, the emptiness of a void like there is no person beneath. The man stares back at him, meeting his unsteady, wavering stance with an assurance of someone that knows the thoughts racing through his mind, having probably heard it for a long, long time from many others.

I can’t see him, Will thinks to himself, dazedly. I can’t hear him. It’s like there’s nothing there at all.

“…What are you?” Will says out loud. If the man is offended by the question, he doesn’t show it. He isn’t breaking Will’s dumbfounded, open stare either, staring right back with equal frankness.

“I am Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” he says lightly, extending his hand. “I’d like to have a conversation with you, if at all possible. I think I may be of some help.”

And Will, unable to help himself, spellbound by a face that doesn’t crowd his mind and make the demons crawl inside, reaches out and shakes his hand. He coughs to dispel a pressure building in his chest, something threatening to burst, and he nods dumbly.

“…Alright. Let’s talk.”

#LiaS scribbles #The Unquiet Grave #hannibal #hannibal fanfic #hannibal fanfiction #hannigram #hannibal x will graham #hannibal au #someone help will graham

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anavoliselenu · 8 years ago

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Grounded chapter 14

No one followed me as I opened his door tentatively.

Justin was there, sitting at his desk, staring blankly at his computer, his hand unmoving on his mouse.

I stepped inside and shut the door softly behind me. I walked to him, but he didn’t look at me.

Still, I saw something wounded and vulnerable move behind those tarnished eyes of his as I approached.

“Justin,” I said softly.

“I’m sorry,” he said brokenly, his voice no more than a whisper. “I only seem to disappoint you. If it makes you feel better, I’m beginning to hate the man I was before I met you.”

I stroked a hand over his hair. “Of course that doesn’t make me feel better. As far as I can tell, you’ve always been wonderful, even during your slutty days.”

“I feel like life was easy before I met you, because it didn’t matter,” he said in a rough voice, leaning into my hand. “Nothing mattered before I knew you. I was a pretender, playing at life with monopoly money. I didn’t feel anything. Nothing ever really changed because I just I didn’t care. And now that it does matter—now that everything matters, it’s so much harder, because things have weight now, and my life has substance. You can hurt a thing with substance. I’ve become vulnerable, where nothing could have hurt me before. My mistakes, even my past ones, will have consequences now.”

I moved into him, pulling his head into my chest. He nuzzled there, making me sway with the force of his affection. I kissed the top of his head comfortingly. “I understand completely, Justin. I fought my feelings for you for so long for just that reason. Letting you in meant opening myself up to a pain I thought I was immune to, because I had become frozen to all of it. I was unfair to you, and even to some of my friends. You were right when you told me that I have room in my heart for more than Stephan. You read me so well without me ever having to say the words. It astounds me. Perhaps we were made for each other. You’re making me a believer, my love.”

He wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry you had to see that video, Selena. I tried so hard to keep it from getting out.”

I rubbed my cheek against that silky hair. “You didn’t make me watch it. I take responsibility for that. And I learned something important from it. It did hurt to watch you with her, but I think it was worth it, in a way.”

He pulled away far enough to give me a genuinely baffled look. “Why?! How?”

I gave him a small smile and some very solid eye contact. “Because I learned that you may have f**ked a lot of women, Justin, but I’m your first lover.”

“Yes,” he rasped, kissing me like he owned me. I loved that kiss, and yes, that ownership.

“You’re so different with me,” I told him as he pulled away long enough to pull me on top of him. I straddled him in his chair. “You always were, from the very beginning.”

“Yes,” he murmured, undoing his slacks to pull out that delicious cock. It was hard as a poker and ready to go, as ever. “I’ve told you this. It’s unfortunate that you had to see me at my worst to believe it.” He ripped off my panties as he spoke, making the words come out harsh and raw.

He impaled me on his arousal forcefully, not checking if I was ready—not letting me respond. It didn’t matter. I shuddered with the pleasure, and the pain, of his possession.

He didn’t move once he’d seated me to the hilt, but held me there, looking up at me with his heart in his eyes. I loved those eyes so much.

I cupped his cheek. “You’re so different with me,” I repeated. “You never made me look down; you never let me look away from you. You never walked away from me.”

He shook his head. “Never.”

“I loved your eyes first,” I told him, repeating his words from a few weeks ago back to him, because it was true, and because we were two halves of a whole—we had been all along, and he’d been so clever to know it right away. I used to think it was insanity, but now I was beginning to think that it was pure brilliance. “I see it, too, Justin. I see the other half of my soul in you.”

He jerked against me suddenly, grinding me against him. He never broke eye contact as he came inside of me.

He pulled my forehead to his, giving me a self-deprecating grin. “Well, that was embarrassing. I feel like a teenager. I’ll have to make it up to you.”

I smiled back, far from upset about it. I loved affecting him so powerfully that he lost control like that.

“I have no doubt that you will,” I said, meaning it. If we were keeping score on orgasms, I was in the lead by four to one, at least. The man always could play my body like a drum.

He slid a hand between our bodies, moving his thumb in soft circles over my clit, circling his h*ps to move his thick length inside of me in an intoxicating grind.

“Touch me,” he said roughly. I relished the chance. It seemed like more often than not only he did the touching.

I ran my hands over his chest and up to his shoulders. I cupped his face in my hands before running my hungry fingers to the buttons of his shirt. I loosened it clumsily, popping a few unfortunate buttons as I went. I moaned when I got his chest bared enough to stroke that perfect golden skin.

He brought me like that, with those little circles of his h*ps and that clever thumb, his skin under my hands. It was a gentle wave of sensations.

He grabbed my h*ps firmly and thrust harder as I still quivered around him. Big hard thrusts turned into rough bucks. He bucked me nearly off his length before yanking me back onto him. What had started gentle turned into a deliciously rough ride as I was still recovering from the first orgasm.

His eyes turned from tender between one hard thrust and the next, taking on a possessive gleam. He didn’t even have to say the words. I knew what he wanted. “I’m yours, Justin. Yours.”

Those tarnished depths glittered at me as he made me fall over that fine edge again. He didn’t let up, pounding me until I knew I’d be deliciously sore, topping me from the bottom, controlling my body’s movements without having to utter a word. I loved that the most, that I could put myself into his control and, at least here, like this, he always knew just what I needed.

He brought me again and watched my eyes as I fell apart before he let himself pour into me with that rough little moan that I loved best.

He was pulling himself out of me when he froze. His eyes shot to mine, his concerned. “You’re bleeding,” he told me.

I grimaced. “Ich. I’m starting my period. Sorry. I think maybe we jumpstarted it.”

He laughed, looking relieved. “As long as I didn’t do it. And don’t be sorry. I don’t mind.”

He pushed my h*ps back against the edge of his desk, pushing my dress up high. I tried to bat his hands away.

He laughed again. “This is where you draw the line? I’ll never understand why some things are more taboo than others.”

“And that’s what makes you so kinky, the fact that you don’t see the difference.”

He just shrugged. He was at peace with the kinky part. “Lift up your leg. Let me look at you.”

I batted his hands away again, cringing when I saw the blood on his suit. “I don’t even want to know the price of the suit we just destroyed.”

He looked down at himself and shrugged. “I don’t give a f**k about the suit. I do give a f**k about that scandalized look on your face. You have to realize that’s just like blood in the water for me.”

“Literally,” I muttered, still batting his hands away.

“Get your ass on the desk,” he said with a grin. “I want to go down on you while you blush like that.”

I glared at him, painfully embarrassed. Just the thought had me frozen to the spot in mortification.

“I’m going down on you,” he told me in a stern voice, though the smile still playing around his mouth kind of ruined it. “On the desk or in the shower. I’ll let you pick that much.”

“Shower,” I said quickly. It seemed far preferable. At least there wouldn’t be a mess in the shower.

He pulled me into the bathroom, stripping us both and leaving our clothes in messy heaps on the floor.

He didn’t draw it out, pushing me against the tiled wall and going to his knees in the steamy spray. He buried his face against my core, throwing my thigh over his shoulder. I gripped his hair, letting him take most of my weight as he worked his clever tongue against me. And if his tongue was clever, his fingers were brilliant. Both worked me, playing on different nerves, drawing moans out of me, and pushing me over that fine edge in swift moments. I lost all recollection of my own embarrassment under his perfect touch.

He stood, driving hard into me even as he straightened. I whimpered, waves of pleasure still rocking through me deliciously. I was a little sore, but conditioned as I was, that sore only added to the pleasure.

He kissed me hard, driving his tongue into my mouth as he drove his rampant c*ck into my core. I tasted myself on him—and him, all mixed with the taste of copper. It was different, but not unpleasant.

“See,” he said, driving into me, pounding me into the wall, my thigh slung over his arm and pushed high. “You can still come when you’re bleeding. It doesn’t magically turn off your orgasm button.”

I tried to give him an exasperated look, but it was hard to manage when he was f**king the sense right out of me. “I-I didn’t…mmm…think…that’s…”

“Your body belongs to me, Selena, no matter the f**king time of the month,” he growled against me. Only he could find a way to use my period as a way to show his possession. It was my last thought before he pounded them all right out of me, and I came again, gasping into his mouth. He kept thrusting, finally arching up high, pushing me up with the motion as he bottomed out hard. He grunted and shuddered against me, his hand sliding up into my hair as he let me see what his pleasure did to him through those turquoise depths. I loved every second of it.

We were dried off and getting dressed before he spoke again, his back to me.

“I guess I earned my red wings.” There was a smile in his voice.

I blushed down to my toes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mr. Domesticated

The issue of the sex tape still ran rampant through the headlines, but as far as Justin and I were concerned, it was old news. We had moved on. I took that as an encouraging sign. We were good together. We hashed things out and they were settled, instead of coming up again and again, like they seemed to in so many toxic relationships that I’d observed.

That Friday marked our last New York layover. The crew wanted to go out, of course, but Justin wanted to have a late lunch with his friends Parker and Sophia. I didn’t see why we couldn’t do both.

Sophia met us at the door to their luxury apartment, a wriggling child in her arms. I thought it was a boy, though his hair was kind of long, and his face was so pretty that it was hard to tell at a glance.

Justin swung the child from her arms and up onto his shoulders without a word. “This is Elliot,” he told me with his most charming smile. “Elliot, this is Selena. Say nice to meet you, Selena.”

I smiled up at the pretty boy. He had raven black hair like his father, but with his mother’s adorable curls, and slate gray eyes that studied me intently. “Nishe to meet you, Banca,” he said with a nod. He hugged the top of Justin’s head, rubbing his cheek against that dark golden hair. “I mish’d you, Jamesh.”

Justin reached up and tickled the little boy’s knee. Elliot curled tighter against him, dissolving into helpless giggles.

Parker cooked for us all, which I found charming. I knew he was important in the business world, the heir to his family’s lucrative business empire, but you wouldn’t know it by the way he cooked for and served us all.

He and Sophia were clearly madly in love. It was something you could tell just from the way that they looked at each other. They acted like newlyweds, though they’d been married for years.

We stayed for hours, talking and playing with Elliot. Justin was wonderful with him, rolling around with him on the carpet like he was a child himself.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like kids. I thought little Elliot was to die for cute. I just didn’t think that I was suited to have them myself. I had too many dark thoughts and fears about life that I didn’t think normal people dealt with, and I didn’t want to pass my own twisted baggage onto another generation.

I really liked Parker and Sophia. They seemed genuinely nice, and they really seemed to care about Justin. I also found it particularly encouraging that the decent people in his life were now outnumbering the crazy bitches.

I was troubled as we left, though. Seeing Justin interact with Elliot had only made it clearer that he wanted his own children.

“Justin, I’m not sure that being a mother is something I’m suited fo—“

He pulled me against him, covering my mouth with his hand. He softened the gesture by kissing the top of my head. He murmured into my ear just before the elevator door opened. “It doesn’t matter, Love. We have all the time in the world to decide, and I’ll let the decision be yours alone. I can’t live without you. That’s all there is to say about it.”

I wished it was so simple, but he obviously wanted children. The thought of being the only thing that kept him from being a father filled me with guilt. I didn’t know if I could be that selfish.

The crazy celebration at Red later that night was just what I needed to snap me out of that kind of thinking. Everyone was in good spirits. Our crew, sans Melissa, was there to see Stephan and I off, since we were the only ones taking the furlough right away, and they all toasted us and wished us well, and made us feel good in general, but sad to be leaving such a fun group of people. Still, none of it gave me second thoughts. I knew that what I was doing just made the most sense for me, all things considered.

The end of my career as a flight attendant was strangely anti-climactic. I worked my last turn on Sunday, and then on Monday, I went from being a full-time flight attendant to being a full-time aspiring painter. It was daunting, but exhilarating.

Stephan and Javier ended up taking the furlough as well, thanks to the rare opportunity they were getting to open their own bar in one of the strip’s hottest casinos. They had plenty of work ahead of them, but not many people got the funding they did, no questions asked. We were all grateful to Justin for doing something so life-changing for them.

We went to L.A. the night before the gallery showing, staying at the Cavendish Resort property there, which was conveniently located next door to the Cavendish Gallery.

I got a preview of the gallery that night, and I was floored by the wonders Danika had worked. My paintings were shown at their best, the frames exquisite, the lighting in every room just perfect, the paintings grouped together by color, displayed to complement each other in the best way possible.

Danika gave us a tour of the gallery, every room displaying my paintings. I felt the need to hug the woman when we finished, grateful and in awe of what she’d done with my work.

I felt nervous anxiety course through me at even the thought of the event, but it turned out to be a pleasant evening. I had already determined that I wouldn’t read any of the negative reviews about my work. No one was more critical of my work than I was, and I knew it would just wreak havoc on my creativity to obsess about the negative, so I enjoyed the event for what it was; an evening of meeting new people, and a chance to see some friendly faces.

I wore a dark gray halter dress that I felt flattered my figure, and Justin wore a matching tux with a light blue tie.

Justin stayed on my arm for the entire evening, the perfect, attentive escort. And of course, the most expensive arm candy on the face of the earth.

I even sold some paintings, which I’d thought was highly unlikely when I saw how they’d been priced. Some of the larger ones had gone for over fifty thousand dollars. It surprised me so much that I was a little in shock when Danika gave me the news. She catalogued every single painting sold for me, telling me who had purchased what and for how much.

She hugged me, beaming. She had become the biggest cheerleader for my work, and I was so grateful for that. She was a steady kind of woman, and so obviously one of substance, with clout in the art world. Having someone like that back my work with such sincerity was a confidence booster that I needed in a very fundamental way at this stage in my career. Justin and Stephan were fans of my work, but having a professional supporting my work, someone who wasn’t my best friend or my boyfriend, was a boon that I wouldn’t soon forget.

Some of the much smaller paintings sold for around the ten thousand dollar mark. Danika informed us of this with a disclaimer, “This is only because this is your first show. At the next one your work will earn bigger price tags; I guarantee it. You’ll see numbers at least double or triple what we’re seeing tonight.” This floored me. I had thought that the prices were over the top for this one…

Frankie was there. She had Tristan, and her girlfriend, Estella, in tow, as threatened. I recalled Tristan’s description of Estella as a little Latin fireball, and I knew within moments of meeting Estella that it was apt. She had thick, wavy black hair that fell nearly to her waist, an hourglass body that wouldn’t quit, and a sassy attitude that was fun, flirtatious, and over the top. She and Frankie had visible chemistry, sharing telling looks and comments that could have made even Justin blush.

Tristan, Frankie, and Estella hit it off with Stephan and Javier, and the five of them spent a lot of the evening talking and laughing, making the entire event more fun.

We observed one of those volatile moments when Danika and Tristan shared the same air, just in passing, and it was as intense as the first time we’d seen it. Justin and I shared a look when Danika took her stiff, polite leave of him. As much as Danika may have wanted it to be different, there were still strong feelings between those two. But baggage could be a powerful thing, and feelings weren’t always enough.

I had invited my half-brother, Sven and his girlfriend, Adele, and I was flattered and pleased that they were able to make it.

Adele looked like a model, with the right height and build, but not the over the top beautiful kind. She was no Lana. She had the sort of nondescript good looks that probably got her a lot of work, since it made her more versatile. Her hair was light brown, hanging straight to her shoulders, her eyes a nice, soft brown.

She had a sweet smile, and she was very present, like she was happy to be just where she was. I liked her. When Sven had said he was dating a model, I had pictured the vacant-eyed, narcissistic type, and Adele far exceeded my expectations, unfair as they may have been.

Blake and company weren’t shadowing my every step, since the guest list was very exclusive, and they were guarding the entrances and exits doggedly. I thought it was nice to be able to go to the bathroom without having a shadow, although Justin did close to the same thing, walking me down the hallway to the gallery’s restroom, and waiting for me diligently in the nearest showing room.

I was finishing when the bathroom door opened and closed, then opened again.

“Now you’re following me?” an agitated female voice asked.

I recognized it instantly as Danika.

“If that’s the only way you’ll talk to me, then yes,” a man answered.

I recognized that deep, gravelly voice, as well. It was Tristan.

“We have nothing to talk abo—“ Danika began.

“I still think about you every single day,” Tristan interrupted harshly. “Let’s talk about that.”

I held perfectly still, now officially eavesdropping from inside of a bathroom stall.

“Oh, please. Take your guilt and get the f**k away from me, Tristan. I want nothing to do with it.”

“The guilt isn’t what I was talking about,” he said, his voice low and raw. “It’s you I think about. Always you.”

She snorted inelegantly. It was very un-Danika-like. “Please! You stopped trying to call me years ago. I haven’t heard a word from you since right after rehab, when you went on your repentance tour.”

“I didn’t trust myself, Danika. I needed my sobriety. I’m nothing without it, and you were a lovely trigger for me. That look in your eyes, after all that I’d done… The way you looked at me like I was scum, and knowing that I deserved all of your antipathy. I knew that if you looked at me like that again, I’d hit rock bottom, and this time I wouldn’t come back from it.”

“I’m with someone, Tristan,” she said brusquely.

“And if you weren’t? Would you be willing to talk to me—to spend time with me, if you weren’t with someone?”

“No! Bad things happen when we get together, Tristan. You and I are nothing but trouble. Time hasn’t changed that. Please, just stay away from me.”

I heard movement and then Tristan’s agonized whisper, “Danika, I’m so sorry. I’ll never stop missing you. You were my best friend. Can you ever forgive me for what I did?”

Danika’s answer was quick, sure and final. “I forgave you a long time ago, Tristan, but I will never forget. Please keep your distance.”

The door opened and closed. Twice. I waited a few more minutes before coming out, feeling guilty for being so nosy. I should have said something the second I heard them talking, but instead, to spare us all an awkward moment, and yes, because I was curious, I’d overheard that painful and personal exchange.

I compounded my sins by immediately telling Justin what I’d heard. I wanted to hear his take on it.

His brow furrowed and he shook his head. “I really don’t know what happened between them. Frankie is close friends with both of them, but even she won’t talk about it. I assume they used to date, because Tristan is so obviously in love with her, but even that is speculation on my part. And I know that he had something to do with the injury that gave her that limp, but that’s all. I don’t know what caused that injury, or what his part was in it. He just mentioned to me once that Danika used to be an amazing dancer, and that he’d ruined it for her.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes. There’s a lot of bad baggage there, but what he said to you at lunch the other day was actually the most I’ve heard him talk about it in one sitting. Neither of them are forthcoming about it. We’ll probably never know all of the ugly details.”

I knew that he was probably right.

“Do you mind if I go and check to see if he’s okay?” Justin asked.

“Not at all,” I reassured him, thinking that he was the sweetest, most thoughtful man in the world.

Danika approached me, looking more serious than she had for most of the night. Every time she had sought me out before, she had been beaming, ecstatic to give me the news of another sale.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that little exchange in the bathroom,” she said, meeting my eyes steadily.

I thought I must have blushed down to my toes. “I am so sorry about that.”

She waved me off. “It was hardly your fault. You were just using the restroom. But I saw your shoes under the stall, and I wanted to explain myself. I probably sounded like a cold bitch.”

I stopped her, holding my hand up. “You didn’t. I understand completely. Sometimes protecting your heart is the only way to keep your sanity.”

She nodded, her mouth firm. “Yes, exactly. I won’t get mixed up with him again, and I refuse to lead him on. When I was younger, and stupid, I thought that he was the most wonderful and exciting thing in the world. I fell crazy, stupid, jump off a cliff in love with him. It was like being in love with a tornado. And when he was done with me, I felt like I’d been in a tornado. It took me years to pick up all of the pieces he’d left me in, but I did it, and I won’t go back. These days I want stability in my life. I need it.”

I nodded. I could well understand that. When you’d been through hell, stability was heaven.

She seemed to see that she’d made her point. She patted me on the shoulder and walked away.

Blake had come to hover near me when Justin had gone to find Tristan. As on top of things as ever, she was able to direct me to him, as well.

He was outside, speaking to Frankie and Tristan in a private patio area. Justin had his back to the door, his hands in his pockets.

I approached the three of them tentatively, not wanting to intrude.

Tristan was sucking on a cigarette like his life depended on it, his eyes wide on Frankie as she threw her arms in the air and spoke to him in a low voice, obviously giving him a piece of her mind. He’d taken off his tuxedo jacket and loosened his tie. The crisp white sleeves of his tux were rolled up to reveal tatted up forearms. He’d played well at being clean cut for a few hours, but his bad boy had obviously broken back out.

Tristan saw me first. He exhaled. “Selena, help me! Frankie is a little termagant. Please tell her that one cigarette is not going to kill me.”

Justin turned to look at me, his eyes warm as they ran over me. He snagged my arm as I came into reach, pulling my back to his front and kissing the top of my head.

One of Frankie’s tiny fingers poked into Tristan’s massive chest. “This is not about one cigarette. This is about having one short conversation with her, and picking up a habit you quit five years ago. You need to call your sponsor right this second!”

Tristan rolled his eyes, taking another long drag of the cigarette. “You know, nagging can be a trigger.”

“This isn’t a joke,” she fumed, sounding as much worried as mad. “I’m worried about you. You’re acting strange, and the first thing you tried to do was slip away by yourself. The last thing you need to do is be alone right now.”

“I’m not on suicide watch, Frankie. I’m smoking one f**king cigarette and then I’ll go back in, k? If you’re that worried about me, maybe you and your girl should sleep with me tonight. I shouldn’t be alone in my big, huge, lonely bed.”

She threw her hands in the air. “Like you have any trouble finding bodies to warm that bed.”

“You said it yourself. I’m in a vulnerable place right now, and I should be surrounded by people I love. So come sleep with me, Frankie.”

She smacked him hard on the arm. “When is the ‘trying to get the lesbian to sleep with me’ bit going to get old? I would really love to know.”

He grinned, flashing deep dimples at her. He was putting on a good tough guy show, but he still looked like he was hurting. “You aren’t ’the lesbian’, you’re my favorite lesbian. And I was only talking about cuddling. Your dirty mind did the rest.”

She sighed, looking defeated. “Fine. I’ll come cuddle with you tonight if it means you won’t be alone. No hitting on my girlfriend, though.”

They made a funny pair. The top of her head barely reached his chest, and she was clearly unimpressed that he towered over her and weighed at least twice as much as she did.

Tristan finished his cigarette like it was the last one on earth, enjoying it to the last drag. He and Frankie headed back inside together, but Justin held me back from following them.

He cupped my face, smiling down at me. “Since I have you alone, I wanted to tell you something; I’m really proud of you. You already know that I’m your biggest fan, but I just wanted you to know that tonight was a huge accomplishment. I know you have yourself convinced that I did all of this for you, but it’s just not true. I set up the meeting. That was all. The second Danika saw your work she was smitten, and you would have had this showing with or without a connection to me. Those paintings sold because people wanted them, and found value in them. You have a talent that brings me to my knees. Thank you for sharing it with the world.”

“Thank you,” I told him simply, feeling my eyes get just a touch moist. The damned man made me so emotional. And he had a way with words that got me every time. “I love you to distraction, Justin.”

His eyes smiled into mine. “Yes. I love you like that. The world went from black and white and into color when I laid eyes on you, my love. There’ll be no going back.”

It was such a perfect moment that I had to beat back those evil doubts in my mind that told me something this perfect just had to come to a short, bad end. Life can just be good, I told myself. This bad feeling is not a premonition. Nothing bad will happen to us. I’d had to tell this to myself a lot lately.

Towards the end of the evening, Tristan bought my largest landscape and a smaller still-life. Frankie bought a painting as well. It was a watercolor of the fat cat from my yard. She said she was going to put it up in her tattoo shop for the world to see. She even harassed Justin that he should give her the portrait of me that had inspired the tattoo on his back. He took it well, which told me he’d forgiven her for the tattoo on my back.

Sven bought one of my small acrylic paintings of a desert flower.

I insisted repeatedly that he didn’t have to buy anything.

“I want to,” he told me firmly. “It would mean a lot to me to have something that you made hanging in my home, and I love this picture.”

“I’ll paint you something for free! You shouldn’t have to pay thirteen grand just for a reminder. It’s not too late to change your mind.”

He shook his head. “No. This is perfect. Though, if you ever want to paint me something, I certainly won’t dissuade you!”

It warmed me and embarrassed me a little that everyone was being so supportive.

As the night grew to a close, I felt giddy with the realization that I’d actually enjoyed myself. The evening had far exceeded my expectations. My nerves hadn’t allowed me to look forward to the launch of my new career, but I loved that I could look back on my debut with relief and pleasure. It was over, and it had actually been a success.

There was a small blemish on the evening, as we took our leave of the gallery.

The gallery was a large three-story building, set up in a trendy area and situated adjacent to the Cavendish L.A. hotel and sharing a back parking lot with that property. We exited out of the front, where we had entered. A small red carpet had been set up outside for photo ops prior to the event. A fairly polite crowd of photographers had snapped shots of us going in. A larger crowd had gathered by the time we left, very late into the evening. I was surprised they’d waited so long. And even stranger to me was the crowd of bystanders gathered behind them, just watching for our departure.

Justin maneuvered himself closer to the crowd, though there was a barricade that separated them. He threw an arm around my shoulders, his opposite hand moving to the diamond hoop attached to my choker.

We had made it maybe six steps when there was a collective gasp from the crowd, and I turned just in time to see Blake jump a few inches into the air and catch a large plastic cup in her hand mid-air. The lid of the thing flew off, and dark soda and ice went flying in every direction, but it was still an impressive catch. It had been aimed at either Justin, myself, or both, but not even a drop of it reached us. Blake was drenched. She looked unperturbed about her own wet shirt and face. She threw the cup on the ground and scanned the crowd, a very hostile look on her face.

It was as though the drink throwing had opened a floodgate. People began to shout lewd comments in our direction. I couldn’t make them all out, but the loudest comments seemed to be coming from women, and aimed at Justin.

“You are so f**king hot!” a woman shrieked.

“With a dick that huge, you can spank me anytime!” another one shouted.

It was all so silly that a giggle escaped me as Clark ushered us into the limo. Blake followed us in.

“Good catch, Blake,” Justin said. “I’m giving you a raise for not letting a drop of that reach Selena.”

She nodded solemnly. “Just doing my job, sir.”

Her response sobered me up a little, because I began to think about just what her job was. If it had been a bullet instead of a drink, she probably would have done the same thing. I hated that. I didn’t want to get hurt, but the thought of someone being harmed in my place seemed even worse to me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Mr. Matchmaker

I barely took a breath after my last flight before it was time for our trip to Japan. I was more excited than I’d ever been about a trip as we got ready. I’d traveled a lot for work, but always for short trips with short layovers, more work than play, and something as frivolous as two solid weeks of being a tourist was such a treat. Justin would have to work a little, he’d told me, since we were visiting his Tokyo property, but even he would be off work for the majority of the trip.

I knew it was a very long flight—we could be on the plane for up to fourteen hours, and that those hours would feel like days, but my mind was already in Tokyo as we boarded the jet.

Justin was doing his usual control freak buckling me in thing when he informed me of a minor detour. “We’re going to go have lunch in Maui first,” he said, his tone idle.

My brow furrowed. It seemed a little out of the way… “Maui?” I asked him.

He shrugged and gave me his most charming smile. “I want you to guess why.”

There was only one thing that made me think of Maui. “Something to do with Lana?” I guessed.

He shrugged again. “I can’t help myself. It’s the first time she’s opened up about it. I set up a lunch with this Akira guy. I know I’m meddling, but somebody needs to do it.”

I studied him, and felt myself fall a little deeper. He had such a romantic soul. Just knowing him had made me more romantic. It was a contagious state of mind. “What do you plan to say to him?”

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