#perspicacious
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theyuniversity · 8 months ago
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👩🏻‍🎓🧠 Looking for “smart” words?
💁🏻 Try these:
acute
discerning
erudite
sagacious
perspicacious
perceptive
astute
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Website | Twitter |  Instagram | Medium | Pinterest | Ko-fi | eBook
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xvocabthiamm · 2 years ago
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Perspicacious
Definition: having a good insight into things
Sentence: Eli is very PERSPICACIOUS because he takes a lot of different perspectives into account
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These glasses are a pretty good representation because it symbolizes clear vision, which perspicacious people have
Synonym: Perceptive
Antonym: Disregarding
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p-e-r-s-p-i-c-a-c-i-o-u-s · 2 years ago
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The chosen one
©® MAZARINE
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lacolonia · 7 months ago
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Joe, think.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy
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rainybearstudio · 1 month ago
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It was awful, being at war with you.
I missed you too, daft prince.
The Leviathan Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld
rainybearstudio.com
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louisegluckpdf · 1 year ago
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lady-a-stuff · 2 years ago
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I read this and couldn't help but think that looked like something Heleen said to Inej about she bringing punishment for herself
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Then I went to search and was VAN ECK was the one who lead Inej to remember what Heleen used to say like OF COURSE
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He's just like Heleen, trying to justify his violence
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wistfulwisp · 7 months ago
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12. what’s some good advice you want to share?
You have time. You always have time. To pause, to reflect, to think before you act. To choose a path, to choose your weapon or to put your weapons down
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theyuniversity · 2 years ago
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👩🏻‍🎓🧠 Looking for “smart” words?
💁🏻 Try these:
acute
discerning
erudite
sagacious
perspicacious
perceptive
astute
Tumblr media
Website | Twitter |  Instagram | Medium | Pinterest | Ko-fi | eBook
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secondhanddragon · 11 months ago
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Re: Rauru
Okay, I suddenly have a question. It's not too terribly important, but ya know, I have a problem with questions unanswered.
You know Rauru, Tears of the Kingdom version, right?
Do you think that handsome motherfucker qualifies as a dragon, or is he too much of other things to count? He looks like a dragon to me, but also... a goat. And a rabbit. But he's regal and carries himself with this majesty air, which is like a dragon.
Is he a dragon in your perspicacious, learned opinion?
That's actually a good question, I'm of the opinion that anything can be considered a dragon by technicality if you try hard enough about it. like, no he's not a classic traditional dragon of any sort, but if one were to call him a dragon it wouldn't be inaccurate in my opinion.
I think though, he doesn't count as a dragon because he already is his own species (zonai) though he could be a dragon in metaphor or heart
the way one looks isn't a determination of if one is a dragon. the traits you've mentioned, think of chinese dragons, that are composed of many animal traits just the way Rauru is as well (head of a camel, horns of a deer, eyes of a demon, ears of a bull, neck of a snake, belly of a clam, scales of a carp, claws of an eagle, and paws of a tiger)
There's also the topic of secret stones being specifically a zonai thing,
and the draconification process, while it can happen to anyone who eats a secret stone (e.g. zelda), the stones are generally used exclusively by zonai, and thus, such a process is inherently a zonai thing. which ends up tying them quite closely to dragons.
Seeing as all of them can turn into dragons via this process, I'd conclude that a draconic energy resides not only in Rauru and the other zonai, but in all hylians as well, which is unlocked via the consumption of a secret stone
tldr: everyone in hyrule is actually secretly a dragon >:)
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thisismyanimus · 2 years ago
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it seemed that searching three words allows you to find all posts containing those three words
with two words, it seemed that both words have to be in tags, or else it doesn't work. maybe unless the post is popular
but what if i write a really long tag? the maximum limit is 139 characters per tag
i did this experiment in this post
i concluded that if your search contains common words, for example "what write really", it only retrieves certain posts where those words are in the text
for uncommon/nonexisting words in the text of your post such as "brasput yabet mituarb", you can find your post by searching just 1 word
for two words in any of the tags, it retrieves the post, even if the words are common. for example "eat above"
#Sesquipedalian floccinaucinihilipilification antidisestablishmentarianism circumlocution prevarication obsequious perspicacious fastidious#aberration aberrant abscond accoutrements adumbrate affectation agglutination alacrity alluvion amelioration amorphous antediluvian#antepenultimate apotheosis apposite approbation apropos arrant assiduous augury auriferous auspicious baleful bellicose beleaguer bellicosi#bilious benighted bevy bipolar bivouac boisterous bombastic braggadocio cacophony calligraphy capricious carafe cataclysm caustic chicanery#churlish circumlocution colloquy commensurate complaisant concomitant concupiscence confabulation connivance contumacious convivial copious#coterie craven cull decorous demagogue demarcation denouement depravity desuetude diaphanous diffident dirge discomfit discomposure#disconcert disingenuous disinter disinclination dissemble dissimulation dissonance dithering dolorous dross ebullience effrontery emollient#empyrean enervate enfranchisement engender ennui ensconce entrench equanimity equivocate erudite ethereal evanescent execrate exigent#exiguous exoneration expatiate expurgate extemporaneous extirpate fatuous feckless fecund felicitous fester filigree florid flout foible#forbearance forswear fount frippery fulminate garrulous germane glabrous glib glower gnarled gossamer grandiloquent gratuitous gregarious#guile gumption gush halcyon harangue harried hedonist hegemony heresay heterodox histrionic hoary homily hubris hyperbolic hypocrisy#incipient inculcate indigent ineffable ingrate ingratiate inimical inimitable invective inveterate inveteracy irascible irresolute jejune#jettison jocund jubilant judicious ken knell labyrinthine lachrymose laggard lamentation largess levity libation lissome lithe loathe#lugubrious macabre maladroit malcontent malediction malfeasance malleable mawkish meander mendacity métier milieu minatory mire misanthrope#mitigate mnemonic modicum mollify morass mote mundane myopia nadir nascent neologism neophyte nexus#story saw far sea draw left late run don't while press close night real life few north open seem together next white children begin got#walk example ease paper group always music those both mark often letter until mile river car feet care second book carry took science#eat room friend began idea fish mountain stop once base hear horse cut sure watch color face wood main enough plain girl usual young#ready above ever red list though feel talk bird soon body dog family direct pose leave song measure door product black short numeral#class wind question happen complete ship area half rock order fire south problem piece told knew pass since top whole king space heard#best hour better true during hundred five remember step early hold west ground interest reach fast verb sing listen six table travel
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dogheadmulecollab · 6 months ago
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animeweeb115 · 1 year ago
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pin-k-ink · 7 months ago
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rapture // illumi zoldyck
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tw ⇢ enemies to lovers, assassin!reader, possessive!illumi, love confessions, sexual tension, teasing, grinding, dry humping, mentions of violence and injuries, overstimulation, making out, public sex, unprotected sex, squirting, begging, dirty talk, pet names, mild breeding kink, biting, manhandling, anal sex, mentions of marriage and pregnancy
wc ⇢ 16.1k
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The ritzy hotel loomed ahead, all glass and gleaming opulence. You triple checked the dossier's details as you approached, though you hardly needed to. The shady businessman's daily routines, rotation of private security, all of it was committed to memory. This was meant to be a quick, seamless job - tail the mark to his swanky penthouse suite, neutralize him while he was alone, then disappear like a whisper back into the night.
At least, that was the plan before you noticed the other set of footprints in the bathroom's plush carpeting.
You froze, senses accelerating as your fingertips grazed the slender blade tucked against your forearm. Someone else was here, possibly another hired gun with the same grisly orders. But those prints were too perfect, too controlled to be some amateur's clumsy work.
No...you knew that purposeful, predatory tread all too well.
The bathroom door's lock clicked open and you whirled, weapon drawn, as a tall figure slipped inside. Even in the dimness, those reflective dark eyes and long raven hair were achingly familiar...and dangerous.
"You..." you hissed lowly.
Illumi regarded you coolly, utterly unfazed by having a knife leveled inches from his chest. Of course he wouldn't flinch - you'd never seen this man throw an assassin so much as blink, let alone show fear.
"We seem to have been hired for the same contract," he said flatly, not a hint of inflection.
Your jaw clenched as the two of you stared each other down. Of all the elite assassins spanning the globe, you had to cross paths with Illumi Zoldyck on this job. The one killer whose skills, whose ruthless reputation, could potentially rival your own.
And the one man who, despite yourself, you could feel an electric, unsettling charge sizzling between...
Illumi's obsidian eyes remained carefully impassive as they raked over you. You couldn't tell if he sensed that same crackling tension or if he simply viewed you as another obstacle to circumvent on this assignment. Knowing Illumi's icy detachment, it was likely the latter.
"I don't share contracts," you stated firmly, keeping your blade leveled. "Especially not with you."
"How unfortunate," Illumi murmured in that maddeningly even tone. "Because I've no intention of walking away from this job. Or you."
A tremor ran through you at those last two words, quiet but weighted with Something you couldn't let yourself dwell on. You were the best at what you did, same as Illumi, and neither of you became so lethally elite by allowing distractions.
And yet...you couldn't ignore the way your breath grew shallower, how the air seemed to thicken and churn with that inscrutable energy passing between your bodies. This wasn't going to be as straightforward as you'd planned.
Desperate to regain your composure, you aimed for nonchalance - the only way to get under Illumi's perspicacious stare. Deliberately, you dragged your gaze over his lean frame in an appreciative once-over.
"My, my..." You tsked, allowing a teasing lilt to enter your tone. "No wonder you're so sought after in our line of work. That lithe form seems perfectly suited for stealth...among other intriguing applications."
You watched with no small amount of satisfaction as Illumi's jaw tightened near-imperceptibly at your suggestive words. Score one for actually getting a reaction.
"You're incorrigible," he stated flatly. "And severely lacking in professionalism on the job."
"Oh lighten up, you know how to have a little fun, don't you?" You took a deliberate step closer, watching Illumi tense ever-so-slightly as you invaded his personal space. "Unless cold...unfeeling...killer is simply your natural state?"
Your heated words seemed to spark something deep behind those unfathomable dark eyes. A fleeting glimmer of emotion - irritation, attraction, you couldn't tell. But it was there, buried under icy layers of ruthless control.
"Fun..." Illumi echoed the word like it tasted foreign on his tongue. His piercing stare remained locked on you. "I'm beginning to think your definition of that differs greatly from mine."
"Is that so?" You clicked your tongue in faux disappointment. "Well then, maybe you'll have to show me your version instead. Could be...enlightening."
The heated undercurrent between you was becoming unmistakable now, no matter how steadfastly Illumi tried to remain impassive. He was an impregnable fortress, to be sure. But you were an expert at cracking even the most stubborn defenses.
And you had a feeling once you wormed your way inside Illumi's walls, you'd find something exquisitely, savagely intriguing lying in wait.
Illumi's gaze remained inscrutable as it raked over you appraisingly. "Your attempts at seduction are transparently amateur at best. I expected more from someone of your...reputation."
You barked out a laugh at his cutting remark. "Is that a challenge I detect, Mr. Zoldyck? Because you're playing a very dangerous game, trying to provoke me like that."
"I don't do games," Illumi stated coolly. "I deal in absolutes, in realities. And the reality is that only one of us will be completing this contract tonight."
He closed the distance between you in a few measured strides, his imposing frame now looming mere inches away. From this proximity, you could make out the faintest ethereal scent of sandalwood and steel clinging to him. It was utterly intoxicating.
"So I'll ask you once more," Illumi's words were lethally soft. "Will you walk away willingly? Or am I forced to make you..."
The unspoken threat hung heavy in the charged air. You knew Illumi was utterly capable of neutralizing you here and now if he deemed it necessary. The fact that he seemed to be offering you an out, however slim, was...curious.
Unable to resist pushing further, you tilted your head in a studiously nonchalant manner. "You know...if you wanted me on my back, you could have simply asked nicely."
A heartbeat of loaded silence passed. Then another. Illumi's expression remained that maddening blank slate, not rising to your deliberately crass implication even as the tension thickened palpably.
Just when you were about to goad him again, the faintest of smirks played across those soft lips.
"There's that lack of professionalism again," he murmured. "Though I can't decide if it's merely incessant or...intriguing."
Your breath hitched slightly at the undercurrent beneath those words. Was the infamous Illumi Zoldyck, cold-blooded killer extraordinaire, actually flirting with you?
Recovering quickly, you leaned in until your lips were a hairsbreadth from his. Close enough to feel his exhales ghosting across your skin in tantalizing puffs.
"Why don't you get a little closer and find out?"
Illumi didn't so much as flinch at your brazen advance. His dark, fathomless gaze remained locked with yours as one corner of his mouth curved upwards in a maddening half-smirk. "Tempting...but I'll have to decline. At least for now."
Before you could process his words, he moved with blurring speed. One moment he was mere inches away, the next his muscular frame was pressed flush against yours, backing you up until your spine met the wall with a soft thump.
Illumi braced one hand beside your head, effectively caging you in with his body as he leaned down. Those slightly parted lips brushed a scorching path maddeningly close to your own before veering aside at the last moment. Instead, you felt the barest whisper of breath fanning along the heated skin of your neck.
"I do hope you'll make this interesting for me," he all but purred, voice dipped in something sinfully dark. "I'd hate to be...underwhelmed by your skills so early in our...partnership."
A tremor ran through you at the implication in that last word. Despite his impassive facade, there was no mistaking the molten undercurrent flickering behind Illumi's eyes now. You'd sparked something primal awake in the infamous assassin, something he clearly didn't experience often.
And a reckless part of you couldn't wait to stoke those smoldering embers into an inferno.
Regaining your composure, you arched a challenging brow. "Oh, don't you worry about me keeping things interesting," you practically purred. "In fact, I promise to take your breath away before the night is over."
Illumi regarded you with an inscrutable look for a heavy beat, as if weighing your brazen promise. Then, in one sinuous motion, he stepped back and put a calculated sliver of space between your bodies once more.
"We'll see about that," he stated evenly, though you didn't miss the faint huskiness edging his inflection now. "For the moment, I suggest we return our focus to the task at hand."
You fought not to visibly react as Illumi gestured towards the door leading to the mark's penthouse suite. As if either of you could so easily disengage from the potent tension still crackling between you like a livewire.
Nodding once, you forced yourself to slip back into professional mindset, sheathing your blade with a practiced flick of your wrist. "Lead the way then. I'll be right behind you."
The words carried a deliberate double meaning that wasn't lost on Illumi if his momentary side-eye was any indication. Still, he turned on his heel and started down the hallway without another word.
As you fell into step behind the assassin, you allowed your gaze to linger appreciatively on the powerful shoulders beneath his fitted suit, the lithely coiled muscles in his arms and back that you knew all too well could snap a man's neck with grotesque ease. There was an undeniable, unsettling allure to Illumi's lethal grace.
You couldn't quite put your finger on what had changed between the two of you in these past heated moments. The razor-edged chemistry had been lurking for months, years even, every time your jobs brought you into the other's orbit. but tonight that simmering tension had suddenly been stoked into roaring life, quickly spiraling out of control.
And despite the small, rational voice warning this was a reckless game to play with as elite a killer as Illumi Zoldyck...you couldn't shake the feeling that you were both helplessly, inexorably, caught up in the thrilling inferno.
Reaching the mark's private entrance, Illumi paused and slanted you a weighted look over one shoulder. A silent challenge glimmered in those midnight depths.
Game on then.
Lifting your chin boldly, you brushed past him and took the lead, making sure your body grazed his with deliberate suggestion as you did so. You heard his soft intake of breath behind you and hid a smile.
Let the games begin.
With Illumi trailing slightly behind, you took point and stealthily picked the lock to the penthouse entrance. Normally a task like this would require your full, focused concentration. But with your senses tantalizingly attuned to the silent predator shadowing your every move, you found your mind wandering.
What game was Illumi playing at? This wasn't his usual cold, detached modus operandi when handling contracted hits. No, there was an undeniable spark flickering behind that unreadable facade now. A banked sort of heat smoldering in those obsidian eyes whenever they raked over you with pointed intent.
You risked a glance over your shoulder. Sure enough, Illumi's piercing gaze was trained squarely on the curve of your backside as you bent over the lock mechanism. Not even attempting subtlety anymore, was he?
Unable to resist prodding that newfound fire, you made a show of slowly rising back to your full height and stretching your arms overhead with an exaggerated breath. Your shirt riding up just enough to expose a taunting strip of toned midriff.
The loaded moment stretched between you before Illumi finally spoke, voice raspier than usual. "If you're quite finished delaying..."
You turned with an innocent look. "Why, whatever do you mean? I'm simply preparing myself for the challenge ahead."
Holding his stare, you traced a deliberate fingertip down the valley between your breasts, letting it trail down your abdomen slowly before dropping your hand. "Gotta stay...limber."
Illumi's jaw tensed infinitesimally but he remained otherwise impassive as always. "Your attempts at distraction are obvious. And fruitless. I don't lose focus so easily."
"Is that so?" You arched one brow teasingly before spinning back towards the door and finall finishing your work on the lock tumblers. "We'll see about that."
The pneumatic hiss of the door unsealing echoed like a sly promise. Slipping inside the darkened penthouse, you felt the frisson of Illumi's tall frame entering behind you with predatory grace.
The game was most definitely afoot now. You couldn't wait to see who would be declared the winner once all the players' simmering desires were finally, deliciously sated.
The penthouse suite was cloaked in inky shadows, though both you and Illumi could navigate the darkness with preternatural ease. Silently, you swept through the grandiose living area, senses attuned to any potential security triggers or signs of the mark's whereabouts.
A slight shift of air current against your back alerted you to Illumi's stealthy approach from behind. You tensed instinctively as his presence materialized at your side, so close you could feel the subtle body heat rolling off him in waves.
"He's not here," Illumi murmured, low enough that his warm breath fanned along the sensitive skin of your neck. "The bedroom."
You refused to allow his intentional proximity to rattle you, squaring your shoulders. "After you then."
Illumi's lips quirked in a near-imperceptible smirk before he brushed past you purposefully. You had to resist the urge to shiver as the movement brought your bodies into fleeting alignment, front to back. Just for a moment, you could have sworn you felt the barest graze of his fingertips trailing along your hip.
Get a grip, you chided yourself. He's just trying to throw you off your game again.
Although...if that was indeed Illumi's aim, you had to grudgingly admit it was working. Being this close to the enigmatic assassin's raw, coiled power set your nerves pleasantly buzzing with a strange sort of static charge. Like you were a live wire just waiting to surge into blinding arc of current given the right spark.
Shaking off the tingling distraction, you followed Illumi down the hall towards the bedroom. You both moved with the same unhurried yet purposeful hunter's stride, bodies gliding in a strange tandem sync. Like two cosmic bodies pulled into an ever-tightening orbit, unable to resist the other's inescapable pull.
The smoldering tension thrummed steadily between you with each measured footfall. More heated and palpable by the second as your blood sang in rising anticipation.
Whatever happened once you reached your destination tonight, one thing was becoming undeniably clear - neither of your lives would be the same after.
To your surprise, the bedroom door was left slightly ajar and a thin slice of amber lamplight spilled out from within. Illumi slowed imperceptibly before easing up beside it, flattening himself to the wall as he angled his body to peer cautiously through the opening.
When his gaze cut sharply back in your direction a beat later, the fire glimmering there caused a shiver of awareness to lick straight down your spine.
Beckoning you over with one subtle hand gesture, Illumi then tilted his chin towards the bedroom in a silent directive for you to take a look as well.
You swallowed hard before moving to slip in behind his formidable frame. Despite yourself, your pulse kicked up several notches as you leaned past Illumi, basking in his masculine scent - a dizzying combination of adrenaline and some smoky spice that ignited liquid heat low in your belly...
Forcing your mind to focus, you peered through the gap and felt your breath catch in your throat at the scene within.
The mark was indeed present. And he most definitely was not alone.
The bedroom was awash in flickering amber light from the fireplace, casting the two figures tangled amidst the rumpled sheets in a sultry warm glow. The businessman you'd both been hired to eliminate was very much alive and obliviously preoccupied...thoroughly engaged in intimate activities with a scantily clad woman.
You felt Illumi shift minutely behind you as he too registered the unexpectedly compromising scene. The heat of his firm chest pressed fractionally closer along the line of your back until you could almost feel the measured cadence of his breaths ghosting the nape of your neck. The intimate proximity made your pulse spike deliciously.
"Well..." you murmured, keeping your voice a hushed whisper meant only for Illumi's ears. "This certainly complicates matters."
"Does it?" came his silken response, his mouth now so tantalizingly close that his lips very nearly grazed the sensitive shell of your ear with each syllable. "I was under the impression you...preferred things deliciously complicated, my dear."
A shiver traced your spine at the velvety endearment, at the way his inflection caressed those last two words. You risked a glance over your shoulder to find Illumi's gaze locked on you with banked intensity, those dark obsidian depths flickering like the flames in the other room.
Unable to resist a little prodding, you arched one brow at him teasingly. "Why Illumi...are you suggesting we take notes on their...technique?"
A loaded pause. Then finally, the barest ghost of a smirk curved those soft lips as Illumi leaned in fractionally closer until the two of you were sharing the same heated breath between parted mouths.
"Only if you think you can keep up," he murmured, rich voice dipping into a low, gravelly register that flooded your veins with liquid fire. "After all, I'd hate to...overwhelm you before we've even really gotten started."
Despite the bravado, his dark gaze remained trained intently on your face, watching, searching for any flicker of reaction to his boldly suggestive words. Seeking out that first fissure where he could apply calculated pressure and finally shatter your meticulously maintained control.
Well...two could most definitely play at that game.
With slow, exaggerated intent, you brushed back the silken lock of hair that had slipped over Illumi's forehead until your fingertips were cradling the strong angle of his jaw. Feeling his muscles twitch ever so slightly beneath your touch as his gaze morphed into smoky embers.
"I thought you'd never ask," you practically purred, allowing your lips to graze the barest whisper along the stubbled hinge of that chiseled jaw as you spoke. Close enough to taste the heated tang of his skin on your tongue. "Lead the way then, Mr. Zoldyck. And do try to keep up with me."
For one electric moment caught in crystal suspension, Illumi looked very much like he was considering simply slamming you back against the nearest surface and finally slaking the ravenous want blazing between you.
Then, like the steady click of a reloaded round sliding into chamber, his impenetrable mask of control descended once more. Not quite banked...but stoked into a raging, unholy inferno blazing behind those unfathomable dark eyes.
"Perhaps another time," he rasped in a tone that could have scored steel. "We have a job to complete."
With immense force of will, you managed to tear your eyes away from the molten promise simmering in Illumi's gaze. Turning your attention back towards the bedroom, you attempted to refocus on the mission at hand despite the thundering of your pulse.
The mark was still entangled with his female companion, utterly oblivious to the two elite assassins lurking just outside. Their breathless cries and the rhythmic creaking of the bedframe provided a perversely intimate soundtrack that only stoked the banked embers flickering between you and Illumi.
You were vividly aware of the assassin's powerful frame pressed along the line of your backside as you both watched the couple's wanton movements through the cracked doorway. So close, in fact, that you could feel the scorching path of his eyes boring into your body as he drank in every minute reaction.
Despite the fire simmering low in your belly, you couldn't resist one last heated provocation.
Keeping your voice a hushed whisper, you murmured just loudly enough for Illumi's ears alone, "You know...they don't seem to be lacking inspiration at the moment."
You felt the subtle hitch of his breath against your nape at the words, savoring your small victory with no small amount of satisfaction. The upper hand was yours again...for now at least.
"However," you continued, deliberately allowing your hips to cant back fractionally until they brushed against Illumi in suggestion. "If you feel you need more...hands-on education before we proceed, I'm certainly amenable to providing it."
This time there was no mistaking the rasping exhale that spilled from between Illumi's lips, hot and harsh against your sensitized skin. You fought not to shiver at the banked lust given voice in those airless syllables.
"Keep pushing me," he all but growled, the low timbre seeming to vibrate straight through your bones. "And you may get more of an...education than you bargained for, little assassin."
The heated endearment twisted like a brand straight to your core. Your back arched instinctively, pressing your body flush against Illumi's powerful frame before you regained control. But it was too late - the damage had already been wrought.
Illumi dipped his head until his mouth hovered a hairsbreadth from the juncture of your neck and shoulder, his warm breaths fanning torrid patterns of promise along your heated skin. When he spoke again, the words seemed to sear you to your very marrow.
"The real question is...are you finally ready to stop playing games and give in to this?" One calloused finger traced a scorching path down your bodice until it reached the lush swell of your breasts. " Because I promise you, once that line is crossed, there'll be no going back."
In that breathless moment of shared hunger, the rest of the world seemed to fall away until there was nothing else but the two of you. Adversaries, allies, would-be lovers hovering on the exquisite precipice of the inevitable. A yawning chasm of uncharted rapture beckoned just beyond that razor's thin line.
All it would take was one of you finally gathering the courage to let go and leap into the howling abyss. To see where these shuddering tremors of desire ultimately led when allowed to detonate their full, cataclysmic force.
Who would be the one to finally summon the will to take that first step over the edge?
The heated tension thrummed like a livewire between your bodies as you stared one another down through the cracked bedroom door. Illumi's piercing gaze seemed to burn straight through you, sparking liquid fire in your veins and stoking the deepening ache low in your belly.
This had gone far enough. If you didn't act soon, there was no telling how much further this delirious game of provocations could escalate before one of you inevitably combusted.
Squaring your shoulders, you forced your expression into one of taunting nonchalance despite your rabbiting pulse. "Well? Are we going to keep wasting time out here gawking? Or are you finally ready to make your move, assassin?"
A muscle ticked in Illumi's taut jaw as his stare remained unwaveringly intense. You could have sworn his pupils blew wider at your heated challenge. Then, so fast you barely registered the movement, he was on you.
One moment he was a hairsbreadth away, the next your back collided with the wall in a harsh thump. Illumi's powerful frame caged you in as he braced one forearm beside your head, effectively pinning you in place with the hard lines of his body.
"My move?" His voice was little more than a low, gravel-laced rasp against the heated hollow below your ear. "I'm waiting for you to stop playing coy and take what you really want..."
The taunt hung heavy between you, igniting sparks of liquid fire wherever Illumi's body brushed against yours with his slowly decreasing restraint. You could feel the restrained power thrumming through those coiled muscles, the barely leashed predator straining against the final tatters of its restraint.
This was it then. The tipping point where one of you would finally have to take that first, irrevocable plunge and allow the tenuous threads binding you to unravel.
Part of you thrilled at the inevitability of it, at the forbidden knowledge of how utterly incandescent that long-banked inferno would blaze once stoked into full, blinding life. While another part still whispered urgent warnings about the reckless road you were careening towards.
With Illumi pinning you in place and those dark eyes burning molten promise, it would be all too easy to let your resistance finally shatter. To reach out with both hands and pull that lithe, powerful frame against yours while giving in to the howling demands of your body.
To simply let go and allowed yourself to be consumed by the all-encompassing maelstrom.
But you were no helpless victim to your urges - you were a master of discipline, just like Illumi. Which meant you still had one final game to play.
Summoning every last vestrige of your rapidly deteriorating control, you slid your palms up the lacquered plane of Illumi's chest until they came to rest at the juncture of his throat. Letting your fingers brush torrid patterns along the thundering pulse you found there as you tilted your chin up in blatant defiance.
"What I want..." you breathed, allowing your lips to graze Illumi's with slow, searing intent. "Is for you to move out of my way so I can finish this job and collect my payment. All this delicious tension between us is doing nothing except distracting us both."
The barest fractional widening of Illumi's eyes indicated you'd scored a direct hit. Sensing your window of opportunity, you dropped one hand and allowed your fingertips to trace a scorching path down the taut ridges of his abdomen.
"Unless..." You punctuated the hushed whisper by pressing your palm firmly against the rapidly hardening bulge straining against Illumi's tailored slacks. "You'd like me to take care of this distraction for you first?"
For an electric seconds-lasted-eternity heartbeat, Illumi seemed to simply stop breathing altogether. His entire frame went terribly, utterly still apart from the subtle tic working his clenched jaw.
Then finally, after what felt like a small eternity had elapsed between you, he exhaled a single rough syllable. "...Vixen."
The word seemed to reverberate through you both with the distant promise of repercussions.
Your palm pressed firmly against the bulge in Illumi's slacks, allowing your fingers to brush tantalizingly as you murmured your heated challenge. For a suspended heartbeat, muscle ticked in the assassin's chiseled jaw as his obsidian gaze burned into you with molten intensity.
Then, so fast your lashes barely had time to part, Illumi's head dipped and his mouth crashed against yours in a searing, possessive kiss.
You gasped at the white-hot contact, allowing Illumi to deepen the liplock as one calloused hand fisted in your hair to angle your head. His other palm splayed scorchingly against the small of your back, pulling your bodies into rapturous alignment from chest to hip.
The world seemed to burn away until there was nothing but the exquisite friction of his firm planes melding with your softer curves. The dual infernos of your desire stoked higher and hotter with each harsh pants of shared breath and duel of roving tongues.
This was the precipice you'd been hovering over since first laying eyes on the enigmatic Illumi Zoldyck. The point of no return where control finally shredded and allowed your most vibrant urges to detonate into blinding supernova.
Except...you weren't quite ready to plunge over that edge into the abyss. Not yet.
Reaching deep for your last tattered remnants of focus, you allowed one hand to slink down Illumi's powerful backside. Your fingers brushed over the unmistakable shape of his concealed blade, causing the muscles there to twitch in anticipation.
Then, before he could process your gambit, you seized the hilt and wrenched the curved karambit free in one deft motion. Reversing your grip, you shoved hard against Illumi's chest and broke the heated clash of your bodies before whipping the blade up in alusty arc towards the bedroom.
His dark eyes blown wide in a mixture of disbelief and fiery approval as the weapon left a blurring contrail...straight towards the obliviously intertwined figures within.
There was a meaty thunk of impact followed by a truncated scream. But your focus had already shifted to the wide-eyed gape frozen on Illumi's patrician features, savoring every last micro-expression of his disarmed shock.
"Looks like I'll be the one collecting payment tonight after all," you murmured softly before turning on your heel and disappearing into the night.
After all, a girl had to keep her skills...polished for whatever came next.
In the weeks and months following your boldly audacious move against Illumi that night, your paths continued criss-crossing at an uncanny rate. Whether by design or some cruel twist of fate, it seemed the two of you were forever being hired to eliminate the same high-profile targets across the shadowy criminal underworld.
At first, your motivations for one-upping the other revolved solely around claiming the biggest payouts and cinching another notch on your respective body counts. The lucrative assassination contracts became an intense competition - a lethal game of one-upmanship between two masters vying for the same coveted prizes.
Your encounters started taking on an increasingly heated edge as the rivalry escalated. Cat-and-mouse games of sabotage, calculated attempts to undermine each other's efforts or eliminate the other from the playing field entirely. All bets were off when it came to claiming victory over your newfound nemesis.
And yet...you couldn't ignore the persistent, erotic tension that continued simmering like a banked fire no matter how viciously you clashed. The memory of Illumi's powerful frame pinning yours, the lingering phantom burn of his mouth branding your skin indelibly, remained burned into your psyche. Stoking the very embers that should have cooled after that first encounter.
Because despite the underhanded tactics, despite the barbed taunts and bristling antagonism, there was no mistaking the fire that flickered to lurid life in Illumi's lethal gaze whenever you were in proximity. You recognized the look, the molten promise that stormed behind those darkly impenetrable eyes.
This was more than just an intense competition between two elite assassins constantly trying to outmaneuver the other. No, this was a gauntlet thrown - a searing challenge issued between two all-too-willing players itching to dive back into the deliciously torrid inferno ignited that first explosive night.
A breathtaking game of carnal provocation and simmering want layered atop the dangerous, high-stakes duels to see who could claim the biggest prize. Who would ultimately emerge the victor didn't matter nearly as much as getting to sate the scorching need both of you were becoming hopelessly addicted to.
So the chase continued with escalating fervor, leading to increasingly bold displays of sabotage. Like the gala you infiltrated to take out a marks, only to have Illumi materialize like a specter in your periphery. One minute you were setting the kill stage, the next he was looming over you from behind, long fingers snaring your wrist to stay the killing blow as his lips brushed the brimming pulse at your throat.
"Going somewhere...little assassin?" came the dark purr laced with equal parts promise and provocation.
And just like that, the game was afoot once more. The renewed sparks of your heated rivalry fanned into a roaring blaze as you twisted in his steely grasp and lashed out in a vicious return strike. Driving Illumi back in a flurry of grappling limbs and hastily drawn blades as the sounds of the opulent party raged on in mocking ignorance just beyond the curtained alcove.
"I could ask you the same thing," you managed to grit out as the two of you traded blows. Each parry and riposte igniting fresh embers until it was impossible to tell whether your rapidly spiking pulses stemmed from the violence of battle...or something infinitely more primal drawing you both in like cosmic bodies caught in the other's irresistible orbit.
It was only a matter of time before one of your cataclysmic collisions saw that banked fire finally detonating into a conflagration that would consume you both utterly.
The real question was - would either of you have the strength of will to walk away from those searing ashes once the smoke finally cleared?
The intense game of one-upmanship and provocation continued escalating between you and Illumi over the next string of overlapping contracts. Cat-and-mouse games of sabotage and thwarting each other's efforts descended into something far more perilous - a high-stakes, high-adrenaline gauntlet fueled by simmering desire.
You couldn't deny the molten promise that flared white-hot in Illumi's obsidian stare every time your bodies moved through that dangerous danse macabre. The controlled violence of your clashing forms seeming to exist on some higher, erotically-charged plane with rules all its own.
One job saw the two of you grappling viciously in the shadows of an opulent wine cellar, blades whirring in feinting arcs. Heated breaths mingled as you strained against Illumi's powerful frame for dominance, chests heaving in exquisite exertion.
"Getting sloppy, little assassin?" he rasped against the sweat-slicked curve of your neck as one calloused palm pinned your wrist with bruising force. "How terribly...undisciplined."
You snarled wordlessly and managed to wrench partially free, whipping your knee up towards his abdomen. Illumi twisted fluidly at the last second, avoiding the blow but leaving himself fractionally overextended in your personal space.
Seizing your fleeting window, you hooked one leg around his thigh and heaved with all your strength. The world spun in a blur as you reversed positions, slamming Illumi's shoulder blades against the cellar's stone floor with enough force to stun even his preternatural reflexes momentarily.
"You were saying?" you couldn't resist taunting as you used your weight to pin his hips immobile beneath yours. Your palms bracketing Illumi's chiseled features and your faces now only scant inches apart.
His gaze flickered with something utterly incendiary at your bold move. One corner of those soft lips quirked in the barest ghost of a smirk before he arched his lower body with dizzying strength.
The powerful undulation sent shockwaves of forbidden friction lancing through you both. Your breath left in a harsh gasp at the illicit heat now searing your limbs and core from such fleeting contact. Illumi's eyes glittered twin points of unholy promise at breaking through your control.
"My, my...such forthrightness," he practically purred, somehow managing to infuse those innocuous words with carnal sin. "Although if my memory serves, weren't you the one always pressing me to stop toying around and give in fully to our...indulgences?"
Your entire body went taut as tressed steel cords at the blatant callback to that first explosive encounter. The memory of Illumi's searing lips and merciless hands branding your pliant flesh with rapturous possession seared through your mind like a lightning strike. Igniting phantom brushfires in all the secret places his touch had roamed so devastatingly.
You opened your mouth, desperate to hurl back a cutting retort and snuff those banked embers before they could conflagrate completely out of control. But then Illumi shifted minutely, rolling his hips in one subtle, sinuous motion that dragged the jacquard ridge of his slacks against your molten core in the most obscene caress.
The throaty whimper that spilled from your lips would have embarrassed you if not for the exultant gleam that lit Illumi's gaze at the sound. You'd pressed too far and now, finally, the beast was roused to wakefulness. Ready to pursue its ravenous hunger to the only conclusion possible when denied for too ling.
"Well?" His voice had roughened to gravel, dark and dangerous with Alpha promise. "What's it to be, little assassin? Fight..." He punctuated the heated murmur by undulating his hips again in devastatingly perfect alignment. "Or flight?"
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Despite the heated altercation in the wine cellar, where you and Illumi had teetered on the very precipice of allowing your combative passions to detonate into something cataclysmic, neither of you actually crossed that line. Not yet.
There were still too many unspoken boundaries, too much history and distrust bred into your very bones as elite assassins to simply let go so recklessly. You were both masters of restraint and discipline, after all. No matter how scorching the embers flickered between you, some part of your formidable natures wouldn't allow that inferno to fully immolate.
Not without a fight, at least.
So the game continued with renewed, blistering fervor. A gauntlet of sabotage, undermining, and all-out attempts to eliminate one another from the face of the earth whenever your latest target's trails intertwined. And yet, underneath the professional violence and searing glares...the undercurrent of bone-deep, electrifying want only intensified.
You became hyper-attuned to even Illumi's slightest movements, the way his lithe form uncoiled with leonine grace whenever you crossed paths. The anticipation built with every measured look exchanged, every blistering brush of heated bodies through the chaos of battle.
It was as if you were both engaging in some intricate occult ritual - dancing ever closer to the brink of total immolation through escalating circles of seduction and provocation. Stoking those banked embers hotter and brighter until they threatened to detonate into a conflagration that would raze your very souls.
The next job saw the two of you prowling the dimly-lit lesser echelons of Yorknew's underground aurodium exchange. Bitter professional rivals once more in pursuit of taking out a wealthy nerodist and claiming their bounty. And yet, the moment you registered Illumi's presence slinking through the rafters high above, a delicious frisson lanced straight to your very core.
With the ease of long practice, you slipped into the calculated motions of your craft. Felling guards with surgical efficiency while angling your assault towards the prime vantage that would allow you to spotting and eliminating the mark.
Only this time, as you moved into final position with your weapon prepped and sights aligned...you tracked the steady grip of Illumi's drawn blade from your periphery. Following the clean lines of those flexing forearms and upwards to find the other assassin's flinty gaze locked on you from across the cavernous space.
A lightning-struck heartbeat of bristling eye contact passed between you and you knew, with absolute certainty, that he'd marked you as his real target for the evening. Not your intended victim, but something far more primal and insatiable.
The tiniest fractional tilt of those sculpted lips curved into the ghost of his maddening half-smirk. An unspoken challenge blazed in the turbulent depths watching you with utterly unbroken intensity. A molten invitation to tear the world asunder and finally give in to the searing waltz you'd been breathlessly pursuing for months...years...
With him, there would be no holding back this time. No final shreds of control leashing the wildfire about to detonate if you surrendered to the ultimate provocation. This was the gauntlet centuries in the making - the ultimate collision between two unstoppable forces of nature who refused to be denied their cataclysmic release.
All it would take was a single shot, a hairsbreadth turn of your wrist adjusting your aim towards...
The weighted look you shared with Illumi across the cavernous underground exchange stretched into an infinitely charged moment. For a suspended heartbeat, the world seemed to go utterly still apart from the twin points of banked fire flickering in the other assassin's gaze.
A unspoken ultimatum simmered between you, laced with the dark promise that whatever this delirious game between you had been escalating towards all along...the tipping point was finally, inexorably here.
One subtle twitch of your gun's muzzle was all it would take to reject the insistent pull towards complete ruination. To turn your sights back towards the original mark, reignite the familiar dance of brinksmanship between professional adversaries, and walk away from the inferno altogether.
Or...
You could finally indulge the scorching, increasingly inescapable urge that seemed to howl through your every atom whenever Illumi's electrifying presence manifested nearby. Embrace the irresistible gravity drawing your bodies into nearer and nearer orbits with each smoldering exchange until the inevitable cosmic collision.
There would be no returning from that eternal plunge into rapturous oblivion should you choose to allow these tensions to finally detonate. No scrap of restraint or control remaining once you surrendered utterly to this deliciously untenable heat steadily reducing you both to cinders.
Illumi seemed to read the warring impulses battering you in that loaded moment. His chin dipped near-infinitesimally in a minute nod of understanding...and challenge. The next calculated inhalation saw his broad chest expanding subtly, rolling those taut pectoral ridges forward in a deliberate display of the coiled power thrumming beneath his tailored clothing.
It was a patently blatant gesture of provocation, one final taunt issued by a supremely Alpha predator impatient to rouse their prey into taking flight or standing their heated ground.
Your fingers tightened fractionally on your weapon's grip as that undeniable spark of adrenaline - of primal, churning want - ignited low in your abdomen. With each subsequent measured breath you were acutely aware of Illumi's piercing stare watching your every microreaction, hungrily searching for the instant your carefully cultivated control finally reached its terminal breaking point.
When the simmering lava flow of need you had both been so desperately attempting to dam finally found its inevitable lahar vent.
The molten promise flickered in your blood like a wildfire about to conflagrate into raging inferno. But you refused to be goaded quite so easily this time. Not when so much...so much uncharted potential for absolute rapture hung trembling in the balance.
No, if Illumi was finally ready to truly start this ancient dance anew, you were going to make the insufferable bastard work for his catharsis. Every... torturously...delicious...inch of the way.
Drawing your lips into a small, taunting smirk of your own, you allowed your gun's aim to drift lazily away from the foolish target cowering across the hall. Let the momentary confusion play out in Illumi's eyes even as the twin flames of anticipation and heated approval kindled brighter in those endlessly deep pools.
Then, with exaggerated indolence, you blew out a soft breath and adjusted your stance into an exquisite stretch that saw every lush curve of your body pulling taut against your form-fitting garments. Your tongue peeked out to lave a slow, deliberate pass across your lower lip as you drank in the thunderstruck look now suffusing Illumi's chiseled features.
If this was to be the opening overture to your ultimate freefall from the heavens...you were going to make certain every soul-searing note rang clearly.
The air itself seemed to thicken and churn with a palpable static charge as you boldly held Illumi's molten stare from across the sprawling exchange floor. This was it - the pivotal moment when one of you would finally have to be the first to recklessly leap over the yawning abyss separating professionalism from total rapturous ruination.
You could practically taste the scorching inevitability gathering like stormheads as Illumi's eyes raked over every subtle undulation of your provocative stretch. Hungrily drinking in the blatant offering presented by your arched spine and the tantalizing swell of your figure pulled taut against restrictive fabrics.
Deciding to further stoke those banked embers into an inferno, you allowed your free hand to slowly, exaggeratedly trail up the contours of your body. Fingertips tracing patterns of liquid fire from the dip of your navel, over the generous curves of your breasts, until finally coming to rest with pointed emphasis at the hollow of your throat.
You heard - or perhaps imagined, given the heated maelstrom battering your senses - Illumi's sharp inhalation from across the space separating your bodies. Like a wolf sent into hyperfocus by the first tantalizing notes of a howl carried through the underbrush.
Throwing your head back with deliberate indolence, you exposed the long pale column of your neck in unspoken invitation. A primal offering encoded into the most ancient submissive posturing...and a blatant challenge to the virile apex predator watching your every move with undisguised, ravenous intent.
Illumi's blade still hung at his side, utterly disregarded and forgotten in the wake of your escalating provocations. His stare had turned utterly unblinking, shoulders rising and falling in an irregular cadence as he seemed to commit every detail of your taunting display to smoldering memory.
This was quickly becoming untenable for you both. You could feel that final fraying thread of restraint thinning to a mere filament despite all your training, all your carefully cultivated icy control. Soon...so very soon one of you was bound to be the first to snap and finally give in to the howling needs baying for release.
A part of you thrilled with dark, lurid delight at the thought of utter surrender. To give in fully to this feverish, churning rapture and be unmade then remade anew in the searing, primal crucible promised by becoming intimately entwined with Illumi Zoldyck at long last.
But another part, that iron kernel of stubbornness and pride hardwired into your every atom, refused to simply give quarter so easily after coming this far. Let the pretentious assassin be the first to lose his way...to expose the chinks in his oh-so-indomitable armor of control.
A game of chicken, then. Pushing your taunts and provocations until that final spool of resistance began to splinter and fray completely. Daring the other to finally reach out and wrench apart the remaining tatters keeping your mutual inferno tightly banked.
You quirked one shapely brow in heated challenge as your palm continued its torturously languid trail up your sternum. Rolling your shoulders back to accentuate the profound swell of your breasts rising and falling with each increasingly ragged breath. Taking your time to adjust your stance and position just enough to ensure Illumi's darkly turbulent gaze drifted helplessly to the riot of movement.
Then, punctuating the silence that had gone utterly static in the air between you, your fingertips grazed maddeningly light patterns over the achingly sensitized skin above the neckline of your top.
"So, handsome...." you all but purred, giving voice to the sinful endearment that seemed to resonate like a thunderclap in the tiny cosmos contained within this electrified moment. "Ready to ante up? Or should I stop...wasting your time?"
The loaded silence that fell between you and Illumi seemed to stretch into a small eternity as the unspoken challenge hung white-hot in the thickened air. You could practically see the twin firestorms raging behind those depthless obsidian pools as he drank in your taunting words and provocative display.
For one faltering heartbeat, his harsh features appeared to fracture ever-so-slightly - that impenetrable façade of control cracking under the impossible strain you were ruthlessly exerting. Calloused fingers visibly flexed against the hilt of his forgotten blade as if contemplating simply hurling the weapon aside entirely.
Then, just as you began to savor the first fissures in his meticulously cultivated restraint...Illumi inhaled one measured breath through flared nostrils. Committing what seemed like every atom of his formidable willpower into steadying that hairline fracture from shattering wide open.
When his gaze finally returned to yours, it burned with searing intensity - but also something altogether more potent and inexorable. A primordial acknowledgment of the seismic shift that had just occurred in this delirious match of provocation between you.
Lines had been indelibly drawn, boundaries obliterated in the wake of your combined rising tide of lust and dogged oneupmanship. There could be no more feints or strategic maneuvers, no further illusion of maintaining a last veneered pretense of professionalism.
This had irrevocably, irretrievably become the main Event - capital E - you had both been hurtling towards across uncounted nights of fleeting, charged intersections. A terminal collision rapidly approaching that would see one of your formidable natures bent past its tensile limit and finally shattered by the sheer cataclysmic force involved.
The only remaining variables were who would provide that final devastating overture...and what unholy havoc would be wrought in its smoldering, cinder-strewn aftermath.
Illumi shifted almost imperceptibly, squaring his shoulders as if bracing himself to withstand the oncoming onslaught. You watched the subtle flexing of his throat as he swallowed once, seeming to steel his resolve before replying in that maddeningly mild timbre that somehow made every syllable resonate like stroking hands over bared nerves.
"Why don't you come over here..." he murmured with quiet, lethally-coiled intensity, "...And find out for yourself whether either of us will be wasting each other's time tonight?"
The blatant heat laden into those softly issued words triggered an involuntary shiver from the base of your spine to the nape of your neck. For a single suspended breath, the very world itself seemed to teeter upon the precipice, awaiting your ultimate response.
Would you finally gather every last scrap of your mettle and call Illumi's brazenly provocative dare? Yielding fully to the siren call awaiting in that precipitous, looming abyss that had steadily been unraveling your tightly-bound controls for months now?
Or would some fragment of your rationale, of your assassin's creed to never allow distractions or entanglements, manage to sheath itself in composure one final time? Withdrawing from this rapidly deteriorating conflict before you both rent the very fabric of existence to burning threads?
The heady choice was suddenly, perilously, yours alone to make...
A dozen different impulses battled for control as you weighed Illumi's bold, heated challenge. Part of you thrilled at the dark, smoldering promise carried in those murmured words - an unspoken vow that should you dare meet his provocation, he would finally unleash the full, merciless force of his long-restrained desire upon you.
The thought sparked molten tendrils of liquid fire lancing straight to your core. You couldn't deny the feverish allure of being one of the rare few to pierce the Zoldyck assassin's impenetrable walls and expose the primal, savagely rapacious need lying in wake beneath.
To clasp the tiger's jaws and feel its searing exhalations scorch your very essence...it was undeniably, perversely intriguing in a way that stoked your own deepest, most untoward cravings.
And yet, another part of you - that kernel of flint-stubborn pride and discipline bred into your elite bone and marrow - balked at the thought of simply surrendering so easily. Of allowing Illumi the satisfaction of rattling you into compliance first, no matter how deliriously tempting the rewards promised on the other side.
No...if this scorching waltz was to reach its exquisite, world-rendering crescendo, you refused to acquiesce to being the first player to blink.
Dragging your heavy-lidded gaze up to meet Illumi's in a blatant display of haughty dismissal, you carved one side of your mouth into a slashing smirk. The expression didn't come close to reaching your eyes, which had turned to glittering metallic flints of challenge.
"Well well, Mr. Zoldyck..." You traced the very tip of your tongue along your lower lip with exaggerated indolence. "I have to admit, you've piqued my interest with that...spicy little invitation."
You punctuated the husked words by allowing your palms to glide sinuously down the lush terrain of your body. Over the generous flare of your hips, the taut feminine curves accentuated by your form-fitting garments, all the way until your fingertips tucked purposefully into your waistband.
Illumi's own fingertips audibly tightened against the hilt of his discarded blade as his stare raptly tracked your display. The smoldering promise in those endlessly deep pools had shifted into something rawer...more wantonly naked the longer you drew out toying with his composure.
Leaning forward slightly to emphasis the profound swell of your cleavage straining against your top's plunging neckline, you clicked your tongue in exaggerated disappointment.
"Unfortunately...I don't have time to waste entertaining your particular brand of gratuitous urges tonight."
Illumi's features seemed to fracture almost imperceptibly at your dismissive words. That molten veneer of restraint now paper-thin as those hooded, predatory eyes bored into yours with searing intensity. Silently demanding elaboration as to whether you were truly intending to withdraw from the brink after so relentlessly stoking the inferno between you both.
Unable to resist one final goad, you faked a theatrically disingenuous pout before slowly, sinuously hitching your hips in a subtle roll of exquisite provocation. "But don't worry, handsome...I'm sure we'll have the chance to pick this back up another time. When you've had the chance to...cool that notoriously intense ardor of yours."
The twitch that rippled across Illumi's chiseled jawline indicated your taunt scored a direct hit. You could practically see the sheer force of that pent-up ardor battering against the remaining brittle shards of his restraint like a maelstrom hurling itself against a rapidly crumbling dam's gatehouse.
"Until then..." You held his heated stare unflinchingly as you turned on one heel in a swirl of skirts. Already anticipating the seething inferno of denied hunger and frustrated need that would surely be etched across Illumi's expression over your shoulder.
"Try not to burn yourself up from the inside, Zoldyck."
Not giving the danger dance between you both so much as a parting glance, you slipped away into the abyss as silent and ethereal as death's whisper itself.
Leaving the other half of your exquisite struggle to contend with the roiling, savagely thunderous tempest clawing at his admittedly formidable composure in your swirling wake.
-
The dimly lit lounge pulsed with the sort of charged, illicit energy that draws hunters and their prey alike into its neon-hazed aura. Perfect for your current mission of luring the despicable mark into a strategic seduction before neutralizing him.
You'd coiled yourself sinuously onto one of the banquettes ringing the central bar, making sure to catch the sleazebag's rapt attention from across the room. A few carefully timed hair-tosses and coquettish glances over the rim of your cocktail glass were all it took before he began making his way over.
Straightening your spine, you allowed one sculpted leg to arc provocatively as you prepared to reel your next victim in completely. This was the part you truly excelled at - donning whatever irresistible lure was required to ensnare your targets before coldly reaping them for your employer's highest bid.
Except this time, your eyes barely had a chance to flutter open with feigned demureness before a presence materialized beside your banquette like a wraith coalescing from the lounge's smoky shadows.
"There you are, my dearest wife. You really shouldn't wander off from me like that in places like this."
The flat, eerily toneless baritone sliced through the throbbing bassline and caused you to stiffen in stunned recognition. Because of course the insufferable Illumi Zoldyck would materialize to undermine you again right when you were working.
As if the netherworld's cruelest cosmic joke, the assassin slid into the booth beside you uninvited and shifted until his tailored form was plastered uncaringly against your side. One long arm snaked around your waist to draw you in tighter against his body in a shockingly intimate embrace.
"I-Illumi, what the hell do you think you're—" you tried to spit out through gritted teeth, but he cut you off.
"Darling, is that any way to greet your beloved husband after being separated for so long?" His tone remained that same mild, laconic drawl even as one corner of those soft lips curved slightly in a mockery of a fond smile.
The effect was undeniably unsettling...and also indescribably simmering in the most unfurly way your rational mind refused to dwell on right now.
You opened your mouth to angrily protest his absurd charade further, but Illumi made a clicking tutting sound before leaning in close enough for his fiery exhales to ghost your cheek.
"Play along nicely," he murmured in a tone that somehow made the innocuous endearment sound purgatorially hot against your skin. "Unless you'd like me to blow your cover over there and ruin all your hard work seducing that pathetic mark?"
The subtle tip of his chin indicated where your actual intended target had frozen halfway across the lounge floor. One beefy hand still outstretched from where he'd been rudely interrupted while on his prowl by this insane scene.
Jaw clenched in seething frustration, you nevertheless recognized the fact that Illumi had effortlessly gained the upper hand here as per usual. If you tried to slip away now, he'd no doubt make good on derailing your entire operation out of pure petty vindictiveness.
Which meant you had no choice except to allow the other assassin his little heterosexual homelife play, at least for the moment. Whatever deranged game of wits Illumi thought he was playing at, you'd find a way to subtly regain control sooner than later.
Favoring him with your sweetest, most vapid smile, you leaned in until your cheeks brushed provocatively together under the guise of issuing a fond greeting kiss between "lovers."
"There's my wonderfully overbearing darling," you practically purred with dripping saccharine against Illumi's jaw. "And here I was beginning to worry you'd never show up after keeping me waiting all this time..."
One elegant brow arched a hairsbreadth as Illumi allowed his palm to slip south and settle overtly possessive against your hip. The heat singeing the patterns his merciless fingertips traced there made it impossible to suppress a subtle shiver.
"Now now, pet..." The molten whisper vibrated straight through your sternum and pooled heavy in your abdomen. "We both know I'd never abandon such a deliciously...obedient wife for long."
He punctuated the provocative words by slanting you a weighted look rife with dark, unspoken promise. In that heated moment, it was impossible to tell if you were playing the part of wanton newlyweds or something...else entirely more intimate and primal.
One thing was certain - your night had irrevocably been knocked off its already unsteady axis courtesy of your most infuriatingly persistent rival.
And you had a sinking suspicion this was Illumi's idea of well-earned payback for all the delicious torment you'd put him through as of late.
Illumi's grip tightened infinitesimally against your hip as his gaze remained locked in that same simmering, unblinking stare. The two of you were rapidly spiraling into hazy, uncharted territory where realities seemed to blur and distort like a mirage's shimmering heatwaves.
Was this truly just some absurd, inexplicable attempt at sabotaging your mission objectives? Or had the circuitous game of provocations and heated oneupmanship between you progressed to the point of this being Illumi's next daring gambit to unravel you completely?
You found yourself momentarily adrift, unsure whether you should be playing along with the farce of his imposed "loving spouse" charade...or abandoning the pretense altogether in favor of something far more visceral. After all, didn't a situation like this technically represent yet another incendiary gauntlet offered between two willing combatants spoiling for their next pyric clash?
Just as you were weighing how to finally shatter the tension electrifying the air between your bodies, Illumi took the decision out of your hands. In one lithe, unsettlingly sensuous motion, he turned and swung one leg over your lap until he was straddling you brazenly.
"You have no idea how long I've been dreaming about getting you all to myself like this," he murmured in that same lethally mild cadence that somehow made every syllable drip with sinful intent. "Since our last...indulgence, the thought of tasting that pretty, defiant little mouth of yours again has been an agonizing craving, my dear, wicked wife."
The seemingly innocuous terms of endearment landed like smoldering brands against your already feverish skin. This was beyond even his usual provocations, beyond the taunting flirtations and increasingly blurred lines you'd been toying with together for months now.
No, this felt deeper...more primal. Like Illumi was showing his teeth at last in a truly unrestrained display of the blistering, unholy need both of you had been stoking to roaring life.
Still, you refused to surrender the upper hand - or what shredded composure remained - quite so easily. Arching one challenging brow, you shifted deliberately against his weight settled over your thighs and feigned an indolent stretch.
"Oh my, you certainly have a way with pretty words, don't you handsome?" you lilted with exaggerated nonchalance. "But we both know you'd never have the patience to indulge in all this unnecessary foreplay first."
Punctuating your veiled dare, you allowed one hand to drift upwards and cup the taut swell of Illumi's pectoral beneath the sleek tailoring of his suit. Tracing scorchingly deliberate lines along the defined ridges and valleys there in an utterly unambiguous caress.
"Why don't you get around to showing this supposedly wicked wife of yours just how thorough your...appetites truly are instead of wasting both of our time?"
The resounding crash of glass shattering against the far side of the lounge barely even registered over the sudden, leaden weight of tension surging like a riptide between you at your provocative words. Every atom of the known universe seemed to grind to a screeching halt, awaiting Illumi's reaction with bated finality.
Then, like ignition finding an oxyacetylene mix, every last thread of that fabled Zoldyck restraint appeared to unspool in one fell immolation behind those blazing dark eyes. His entire frame stilled to such dead raptorial focus that you nearly missed the hairline fractures of composed control now webbing across his chiseled features.
When he spoke at last, the words emerged in a rough, gravel-laced rasp so devastatingly virile your core clenched in reflexive response.
"Game...bloody...on, then."
And with that softly intoned vow laced with portent, Illumi's hips rolled forward in one lethally precise undulation tailored to grind his hardening cock against your molten center. Stoking the smoldering embers now blazing between you anew as you surrendered to this latest, most brutal round of chicken.
A harsh gasp punched from your lungs before you could strangle it at the shockwaves of searing friction radiating from Illumi's calculated grind against your sensitized flesh. He felt it too - the infinitesimal tremor racing through your joined bodies - if the way his piercing stare sharpened into dark, unholy approval was any indication.
"I-Illumi..." you managed to rasp out in what was meant as an admonition. But the breathy quaver twisting your tone transformed the utterance into something far more akin to pleading persuasion.
Damn him for always managing to unravel you so utterly with even the subtlest of calculated provocations. This entire scenario was quickly spiraling beyond the boundaries of playful oneupmanship and into territories unexplored...and highly dangerous for ones of your ilk to tread.
Summoning the tattered remnants of your restraint, you settled both palms firmly against the assassin's powerful chest with the intent of forcibly creating space. Of regaining whatever tenuous grasp on rational control one of you still possessed before--
The scorching words that spilled like sin from Illumi's lips shattered that feeble line of defense before you could even draw your next strained inhalation.
"Yes..." he husked, each consonant seeming to etch itself into your very marrow. "Say my name like that again, wife. Let me hear that honeyed desperation dripping from your lips just once more."
Punctuating the dark command, he shifted subtly, rearranging his weight so that those merciless hips ground down in another searing, lushly undulating roll that dragged deliciously against your scorched center.
A strangled, mewling sound you didn't recognize as your own punched from your core at the rapturous assault. Every atom of your existence suddenly seemed to white out into pure electrified nerves pulsing in exquisite, delirious rapture at Illumi's continued calculated onslaught.
Some distant, fraying part of your consciousness registered that you were rapidly losing whatever strategic foothold remained in regaining control of this rapidly devolving situation. Illumi was a grand master at subjugation through the sheer merciless application of exquisitely unleashed desire.
And with your restraints being whittled to shreds beneath that implacable storm of his relentlessly stoked passions, it was only a matter of agonizing moments before you succumbed to the lancing siren call and surrendered everything to its searing raptures...
Clawing for one final, flimsy lifeline of composure, you rasped out a desperate deflection laced with as much hauteur as you could desperately muster through the fractures in your mask.
"Y-You arrogant...ingrate," you managed to grit out with a defiant curl of your lips. "Did you really think this pathetic attempt at mind games would be enough to make me buckle to your vile appetites?"
As if dealing the deathblow to any delusion you wielded the upper hand, Illumi arched one eloquent brow and delivered a punishingly precise hip roll that sent galaxies of white-hot exquisite rapture blazing through your shuddering form.
"We'll just have to see about that now, won't we...pet?"
And with one last salacious grind of his weight settled fully over your now trembling thighs, Illumi suddenly disengaged. His formidable frame rising from your tangled forms in one effortlessly sinuous motion, leaving you utterly disoriented and bereft in the smoldering wake of his denial.
"Wait--" The pleading syllable wrenched itself free before you could mercifully strangle it. But by then Illumi was already turning on his heel to melt back into the dizzying lounge's shadows with that same inscrutable half-smile ghosting the firm line of his mouth.
When your lust-addled brain finally reconnected with reality, the jacquard evidence of your unwound state remained prominently displayed in your lap as a dark, taunting promise. One Illumi clearly had no compunctions leaving you to wrestle with as the ultimate testament to your loss of control in this latest round.
The silken flogger's tails slipped through your uncoordinated fingers as you attempted to rise unsteadily to your feet, every fiber of your being strung taut and vibrating like a live wire brought to the searing edge of rapturous obliteration without release.
When next you and your incessantly provoking rival crossed paths, this latest slight would not go unanswered.
One way...or literally another.
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The dingy back-alley reeked of stale city grit and burnt adrenaline as you slipped through the shadows towards your target's ramshackle hideout. This was meant to be a clean, straightforward operation - tail the mark, neutralize him while he was unaware, collect payment, ghost away into the night once more.
At least, that's what should have transpired if the universe hadn't seen fit to thoroughly upend your best-laid calculations yet again.
You sensed his disquieting presence a split-second before the shadows themselves seemed to coalesce that lithe, unsettlingly familiar form beside you. Of course the insufferable Illumi Zoldyck would materialize to undermine your objective, just like every other infuriating time your paths intersected.
"You again..." you hissed lowly, muscles instinctively coiling as your free hand strayed towards the concealed blade at your hip. "What are you doing here, Zoldyck?"
One dark brow arched fractionally as Illumi regarded you with that same unshakable, vaguely reptilian calm he always exuded on the job. As if you weren't even worth the trouble of being rattled, let alone engaged with directly.
"Isn't it obvious?" came his flat response after a loaded pause. "We've been hired for the same mark again. Although at this rate, I have to start questioning whether you're simply stalking me on purpose."
You scoffed harshly at the barb, fighting to ignore the familiar flutter of that delicious, precarious tension now crackling between your bodies with the ease of long practice. As if the sight of this particular rival alone wasn't enough to set your pulse thundering precipitously these days.
"You're delusional as always if you think I have any interest in your company beyond putting a dagger in your back," you growled, squaring off into an unmistakably confrontational stance. "Either get out of my way, or--"
"Or what?" Illumi cut you off smoothly, somehow managing to loom over you despite the scant inches separating your heights. "You'll attempt to make a show of seducing me as usual? We've been down this fruitless road before, pet. Many times now."
His piercing stare somehow seemed to undress you down to your thrumming marrow despite every stitch of clothing firmly in place. Daring you with those banked embers searing behind hooded lids to finally be the first to ignite the maelstrom openly raging between you beyond the point of control.
You opened your mouth to hurl back a cutting retort...and in that infinitesimal window of distraction, a harsh clatter sounded from the abandoned building.
Both your heads whipped around in unison as the mark burst through the rear egress with a startled cry, clearly spooked by your presences lurking nearby. He didn't so much as register your outstretched forms before wheeling and bolting towards the narrow alley's mouth with startling swiftness.
"You imbecile!" Illumi snarled in a rare show of true anger as he exploded into pursuit. "Don't let him—"
But you were already moving, fury propelling your strides into a flat sprint as you flung yourself into the chase with wild abandon. This contract was yours, damn his interference, and you'd carved out your grisly reputation bathed in the sorts of stunts that would see lesser assassins martyred without quarter.
The world compressed into a howling vortex of thundering adrenaline as you rapidly closed the scant distance separating you and the panicking mark. Some distant, rational part of you registered Illumi's pounding strides tight on your heels like a mercilessly inexorable shadow about to swallow the both of you whole.
You were almost close enough to reach out and seize your quarry's flailing coattails...when he veered sharply towards a narrow side street and hurled a discarded plank of scrap lumber directly into your hurtling path.
The unexpected projectile caught you squarely in the midsection with crushing force, punching the air from your lungs in a devastated rush.
You doubled over, gasping for escaped breath as Illumi predictably shouldered past you without a shred of hesitation or concern for your well-being. Even as you flailed, temporarily winded on the verge of blacking out, his tenacious footfalls rapidly faded up the side alley as he relentlessly pursued the mark alone.
That insufferable, ruthless, single-minded--
The blistering haze of fury galvanized your senses back into razor-sharp clarity just in time to steady your strides. Honing every atom of your being into a fine, piercing point of lethal focus as you rounded the corner after them with scarcely a moment's delay.
The sight that awaited you, however, was one you could never have anticipated in a thousand lifetimes of assassination.
The narrow side street was utterly deserted apart from Illumi standing frozen in the center, body taut as a bowstring yet somehow radiating palpable waves of disbelief and restrained fury.
You felt your own volcanic anger briefly stunted as you took in the bizarre scene, gaze hastily tracking for any sign of the mark. There was nothing - no cowering form stuffed in a nook, no telltale scuffs indicating his path of escape. It was as if the wretched target had simply...vanished into thin air.
"What the hell happened?" you bit out once close enough for Illumi to inevitably sense your presence beside him. "Don't tell me that after all your bravado, the sniveling coward actually managed to evade the great Illumi Zoldyck too."
His jaw tightened infinitesimally at your barbed taunt, shoulders squaring like a panther preparing to leap as he finally pivoted to face you head-on. Up close, you could make out the scorching embers flickering to lurid life behind those onyx depths.
"On the contrary," he gritted out in that terribly mild tone that somehow laced every syllable with simmering menace. "Your blundering ineptitude is what allowed this failure to transpire."
You scoffed harshly at the accusation, rigor returning to your muscles as you matched Illumi's defensive stance in an instinctive mirror. "That's rich coming from a self-aggrandizing fool who couldn't neutralize a sedated invalid without making an operatic spectacle of it!"
"I had the situation well in hand," he fired back without missing a beat, somehow managing to loom inches from your face despite the negligible difference separating your statures. So close, in fact, that you were forced to tip your chin upwards as his heated breaths fanned scorching patterns across your cheekbones. "It was your delayed involvement that provided our mark with the opening to flee in the first place."
Some distant part of your consciousness recognized the perilous territory you were both veering towards - the razor-thin tightrope separating this heated confrontation and the sort of unfettered conflagration destined to consume you if either slipped. Every muscle quivered with rigorous discipline as you fought against the molten urge to simply surge forward and unleash the full tempest howling between your strained bodies.
But Illumi's uncanny gaze glittered with something darker, more primal than usual professional antagonism. Like he recognized the churning cusp you stood balanced upon just as acutely...and was silently daring you to make the first calamitous leap over the edge into oblivion.
"Just admit you're in over your inferior skull and stand down before you truly become a liability," he murmured in a soft, smoke-laced rasp that somehow brooked no compromise. "This assignment requires a defter hand than your usual heavy-handed antics can provide."
The patronizing undercurrent sliced straight through whatever tattered self-restraint you'd been clinging to like a man overboard clutching driftwood. Something inside you finally snapped with an almost audible reverberation as every ounce of pent-up tension detonated in searing release.
The next thing you registered was your fist impacting Illumi's chiseled jaw with a resounding thunk of impact, snapping his head aside with enough force to splinter bone on a lesser assassin. A bloom of crimson erupted from his nostril, trailing garnet rivulets down towards those merciless lips.
You staggered backwards, chest heaving rapid breaths that didn't come close to slaking the bonfire ignited in your veins. Illumi simply remained rooted where he stood, expression inscrutable as he slowly turned that penetrating obsidian stare back towards you.
Measuring every scintilla of your disheveled, furiously wound state with those hooded lids brimming embers of primal promise...and incendiary approval at what he found blazing there.
In that infinite breath, the entire universe ground to a standstill around you - awaiting one minuscule push to send it all spiraling gloriously, unstoppably, into rapturous cataclysm.
"Well then..." Illumi husked at last as his lips curved into an unholy grin of salacious satisfaction. "I suppose we're finally going to see which of us breaks first after all these heated dalliances, little assassin..."
A heartbeat of leaden suspension stretched between you, trembling on that ultimate precipice as the decision hovered suspended on a wisp of fate.
Then, as if tasting release on the arid desert wind for the first time, the flood walls fractured and the deluge came raging through.
Your second haymaker slammed into Illumi's jaw with enough brutal force to make even his preternatural reflexes falter. He absorbed the bone-rattling impact with an animalistic grunt, dark eyes blazing like newly stoked coals in the instant before he retaliated.
One calloused palm whipped up to snare your wrist mid-swing before you could unleash a third wild strike. With almost negligent ease, he wrenched your arm back across your body until your back collided with the alley's grungy brickwork. The breath punched from your lungs in a harsh wheeze as Illumi pinned you there, bodies aligned in searing alignment from crown to toe.
For one suspended eternity, you remained frozen in that tableau - potential combatants sizing each other up before mutually deciding to discard the final tottering remnants of restraint instead. The maelstrom neither of you had possessed the discipline to resist any longer.
Then, as if some cosmic switch had been thrown, you simultaneously surged forward to crash together like superheated bodies in an unstoppable fusion reaction.
Illumi's hands were everywhere, mercilessly possessive as they clamped around your waist and hips to haul your weight flush against his powerful frame. Your own fingers fisted into the starched lapels of his jacket with bruising intensity, relishing the harsh judder of muscle and bone you felt beneath fine linen.
His lips slanted over yours in a calculated brand of pure possession, tongue spearing past your parted defenses to stake its dominance with each scorching duel. You gasped shudderingly into the onslaught, giving as ravenously as you received while surrendering to the searing tidal wave of need crashing through your veins.
Somewhere distantly, the night sky above shuddered with the banshee wail of sirens and the cacophonous thunder of the city's lifeblood roiling all around you. But the rest of the world may as well have ceased revolving entirely for how little you registered outside this infinitesimal maelstrom of sensation and primal, unholy rapture.
You were the sole wellspring and terminus, the stratonic forces converging in an explosive lambda implosion that would render everything beyond to smoldering ash within its transfigurative wake.
Illumi broke the liplock only to trail his merciless ministrations along the vulnerable curve of your neck, teeth and tongue staking out lush patterns of possession as he went. Each harsh scrape and searing exhalation sent fresh shockwaves of electrified need straight to your thrumming core. You arched shamelessly into his frame, silently pleading for more of his exquisite ruination through the spiral of rapidly deteriorating control.
Any last vestige of proprietary fled as your wandering hands sought out the hard, flexing ridges of Illumi's body sheathed beneath perfectly tailored fabric. Stroking, teasing, peeling layers back to uncover more and more of his predatory brutality clawing vindictively to the surface now. You were utterly intoxicated on it - the raw, uninhibited power radiating from Illumi's very essence as all the tangled threads of restraint frayed into oblivion between your devouring bodies.
This was the long-overdue precipice you'd been balancing upon since that very first, fateful clash between professional talents. An inevitability distilled and condensed down to its purest molecular essence until only one irrefutable terminus remained - searing raptures and utter, irrevocable ruination for whatever dared linger on after.
The sharp snap of fabric being rent from its seam jolted your senses back to the moment just as Illumi's hands slipped beneath the hem of your top. He tore his mouth from the bruised hollow of your throat with a harsh gasp, chest heaving with the same ragged respirations racking your own form.
His pupils were blown wide, black as the void behind the glittering, unfettered flames licking across their surface. As if the sight of you, already thoroughly undone beneath his hands, was the most beautiful, rapturous vision he'd ever witnessed in his lifetime.
You barely had a chance to catch your breath before his hands were at your waist, lifting you with preternatural ease until your thighs locked instinctively around his hips and your back hit the unforgiving brickwork. His palms slid up to settle beneath the supple curves of your ass, gripping so fiercely you suspected the prints would be tattooed there for weeks to come.
Illumi rolled his pelvis in a slow, languorous undulation that made your head drop back with a desperate mewl. The rigid heat straining against his slacks dragged tortuously across the soaked front of your leggings, the friction sending molten shivers ricocheting through every atom of your body.
He repeated the motion with that same agonizing rhythm, savoring every strangled cry and breathless plea that spilled from your lips at his leisurely torment. Until the only words remaining in your vocabulary were a garbled litany of his name and a fevered begging for more.
You'd never felt such unbridled, visceral need before, a tempestuous vortex of pure fire and electricity threatening to devour you from the inside out if he didn't satiate it right here and now.
Illumi's teeth were suddenly at your neck again, dragging along the delicate pulse fluttering beneath your jaw with a growl that seemed to originate from the very pits of hell. "So impatient," he chastised against the delicate shell of your ear, the gravel-laced baritone dripping with pure sin. "My impatient, wanton little wife."
Before you could protest, his hips snapped forward with a force that stole the air from your lungs and rattled your very bones. Every nerve ignited, the white-hot pleasure-pain so exquisite it nearly sent you spiraling over the edge right then and there.
You clung to his broad shoulders for dear life, the seams of your leggings stretching thin as Illumi's relentless pistoning threatened to shred the fabric altogether. Each ruthless thrust of his hips drove his cock against the molten seam of your center, grinding his thick, straining ridge over your clit with unerring precision.
Your climax was rapidly coiling to the bursting point, every atom of your being strung to fever pitch as you careened towards the inevitable, obliterating oblivion. Illumi's mouth had resumed its merciless assault on the sensitive hollow of your neck, sucking and biting with punishing intent until you were certain there'd be no mistaking the marks left behind.
As if every inch of your body wasn't already branded indelibly by his touch, the thought of being left with tangible, lingering proof of his claiming stoked the inferno inside you to a roaring frenzy.
The seams of your leggings finally gave way just as Illumi tugged his own pants down, the fabric tearing beneath the relentless friction of Illumi's assault. You felt the unmistakable drag of bare flesh against slick flesh and moaned shamelessly. The thought of him rutting you bare and open, fully exposed and vulnerable to his whims, should have been a blistering red flag. Instead, it was all that was needed to catapult you over the edge into the abyss.
Illumi's fingers tightened punishingly on your ass as your body shattered around him, the ecstasy so intense it sent every atom of your consciousness whiting out. His own ragged groan against your throat was the only warning before the scalding heat of his release pulsed across your skin, the liquid heat seeping down the back of your thighs in searing rivulets.
Without warning, your entire reality tilted and shifted. In the next instant, you registered the rough stone of a different wall digging into your spine as Illumi slammed you bodily into the adjacent building. His weight pressed you there, pinning your writhing form into place while he continued rutting against your slick, aching folds with a newfound frenzy.
The overstimulation was so overwhelming, the sensation verging on the edge of pain, yet you couldn't summon the willpower to make him stop. Instead, you clung to his powerful shoulders and rode out the delirious storm as another, even more brutal climax crested like a tsunami over the horizon.
The next thing you registered was Illumi's scorching mouth sealed over yours, devouring your strangled cry as a second wave of mind-numbing rapture detonated through your form. Some distant corner of your consciousness registered him pulsing another hot, scalding flood of cum against the small of your back before his weight slumped bonelessly into your heaving body.
Illumi didn’t bother breaking the kiss, the languid slide of his tongue and lips against yours so unhurried and thorough it seemed like he was attempting to brand himself onto every last molecule of your being. You responded in kind, relishing the salty musk and iron tang still clinging to his lips and the rough scrape of stubble along his jawline.
Your fingers had drifted into his silken locks, combing through the soft tresses that spilled freely down his shoulders and tickled your collarbone. Illumi hummed approvingly against your mouth, his own hands sliding up the planes of your sides until they cupped the weight of your breasts.
The dexterous pads of his fingers traced teasing, spiraling patterns around the peaks of your nipples until they tightened and throbbed beneath the attention. Then he pinched them between his thumb and forefingers, rolling and tugging the engorged tips in time with his plundering tongue until you were writhing anew beneath him.
Illumi had somehow managed to hitch your thighs higher, hooking your knees over his elbows and spreading you wider, allowing the new position to press his half-hardened length even more deeply against your molten core.
The sudden friction had your head falling back against the stone with a thunk and a moan, the overstimulation too much yet somehow not nearly enough all at once.
He didn’t seem to be in any hurry, taking his time to trace the delicate line of your collarbones with his lips before sinking his teeth into the juncture of your neck and shoulder. A guttural sound wrenched itself free from the depths of your chest, your fingernails raking punishing lines down his shoulder blades as his mouth sucked a livid bruise into your skin.
You couldn’t take it anymore, the unrelenting onslaught of his sensual attack too much for your overwrought nerves to endure. Twining your fingers into his hair, you dragged Illumi up until your lips were hovering scant inches apart.
Your voice emerged a rough, rasping wreck when you finally managed to force the words out. "Illumi...fuck, please, I need--"
His fingers tightened fractionally around your throat, the pressure just light enough to stifle the flow of air without restricting it entirely. "You will learn to beg properly for my affections, wife," he husked in that devastatingly lethal tenor that sent another wave of molten heat spiraling through your core.
"Please," you breathed, no longer caring about the shameful, desperate edge threading your voice. "Illumi, I need you. Need you inside me. Now."
Something in his impossibly dark eyes seemed to shift at that, the banked embers smoldering behind his hooded gaze suddenly flickering to raging conflagrations. With a low snarl, he claimed your mouth in a bruising, devouring kiss as he finally, mercifully lined his now-aching cock up with your weeping entrance.
The first searing, aching stretch was almost enough to make you come apart again right then and there. The delicious burn of his girth and the delicious friction as he slowly bottomed out had you reeling, nails digging furrows into the flesh of his shoulders as you arched up against him.
Illumi's pace was relentless, hips snapping with brutal, punishing thrusts that rocked you deeper into the brickwork with each punishing stroke. Your world narrowed to nothing but the overwhelming heat and fullness, the unhinged pleasure-pain that threatened to consume you whole.
Your third release slammed into you with all the force of a tidal wave, the sheer intensity so overwhelming that you couldn't even muster a cry as the rapture consumed your senses. Illumi followed shortly after, burying his face into the crook of your neck and groaning a curse that would have made a sailor blush as his cock pulsed a scorching flood into your spasming core.
He didn't move to disengage right away, continuing to pin you against the wall with his weight and nuzzling soft kisses along your collarbone while you both caught your breaths. The tender ministrations were at such odds with the wild, uninhibited fucking you'd just been subjected to that you found yourself wondering if this was the real Illumi Zoldyck. The assassin stripped down to the most human, vulnerable part of his psyche...the part that had been hidden from the rest of the world for so long.
The thought made your heart do something dangerous and complicated that you chose to ignore for the moment. Instead, you let him continue lavishing affection on your skin, the featherlight kisses gradually growing less languid and more insistent.
When his hips rolled forward with a newfound urgency, you let him guide one leg to curl around his waist and moaned as his cock sank even more deeply into you. He was already fully hard again, his thrusts gradually gaining momentum as the familiar, electric tension coiled and built between your joined bodies once more.
Just as you felt yourself careening towards the edge of oblivion, Illumi suddenly pulled out. The loss was so shocking and abrupt that a ragged gasp punched from your throat as you reflexively reached out for his broad shoulders. But Illumi was already moving, turning you so that your palms hit the cool stone and your hips jutted back at a sharp angle.
He guided your legs further apart and nudged his cock against the puffy, dripping seam of your center once more. When you bucked backwards and keened with desperation, he finally granted mercy and buried himself to the hilt with a single, powerful thrust.
Illumi's palm settled at the base of your neck, pressing just enough to tilt your head backwards as he leaned down to rasp hotly against the shell of your ear. "You'll come undone with me this time, little wife. So be a good girl and take it."
And then, without warning, his other hand snaked down to circle the aching, throbbing bundle of nerves above where you were stretched impossibly wide around him. Illumi's thrusts grew more punishing, fingers dancing an infuriating, featherlight pattern over your clit in counterpoint.
Within moments, the dual assault had you shuddering and moaning his name shamelessly, pleading for the sweet release that was just out of reach. You were so close - almost, almost, almost--
Then Illumi pinched your clit between his forefinger and thumb and you fell apart with a ragged scream, vision whiting out into pure, unending oblivion as he continued fucking you through the climax. He only allowed you a few precious moments to recover before he was pulling out once more, turning you roughly in his arms until he could hoist you up and pin your back against the wall.
Illumi didn't even bother waiting for your legs to hook around his hips, simply hitching you up by the thighs until your dripping slit was level with his cock and slid back inside with one smooth motion. The new angle had him hitting even deeper than before, every thrust of his hips slamming home until the breath was driven from your lungs and you could do nothing but cling to his powerful shoulders and surrender to his unrelenting domination.
Your fifth release left you a limp, shaking mess in his arms, the only thing holding you aloft being the strength of his powerful arms and the unyielding hardness buried to the hilt inside you. As if sensing the limits of your endurance, Illumi's pace quickened, his thrusts growing more frantic and erratic.
The moment his lips crashed into yours and he began to pulse hot, wet streaks against your fluttering walls, a sixth climax exploded through you out of nowhere. You were well aware of the embarrassingly intense gush of juices spraying between your bodies, the lewd sound so wet and obscene you felt yourself blush furiously.
But Illumi simply growled his approval into your mouth, the sound rumbling all the way through your joined bodies as he kept fucking you through the climax. He was still rock-hard, the friction so delicious and the sensation of his cock stroking along every swollen, hypersensitive inch of you so overwhelming that it was almost enough to bring tears to your eyes.
Then his fingers were on your clit again, circling with a newfound precision that had the breath punched from your lungs and a sob ripped from your lips. Illumi didn't relent, continuing his ministrations while simultaneously slamming his cock against your abused, tender cervix until the overstimulation had you reeling and writhing desperately.
"One more, little wife," he commanded, voice hoarse and raw. "I know you have one more in you. Give it to me."
The sheer authority in his tone sent you crashing over the edge for the seventh time, the force of your orgasm so intense that you blacked out for a split-second. The only thing keeping you tethered to reality was Illumi's bruising grip and the relentless pounding of his cock into your spasming channel.
When his hips stuttered and his breath hissed out through his teeth, you braced yourself for the scalding flood that would follow. But he pulled out at the last instant, his thick release spraying across your bare breasts and stomach instead.
He pumped his cock vigorously, milking every last drop of the hot, pearly liquid until you were streaked with it from collarbone to navel. Then Illumi leaned forward and sealed his mouth over yours, his tongue sliding languidly through your parted lips as he pressed his still-rigid length against the slick, puffy seam of your center.
"One more, love," he murmured into your mouth, the tenderness in his tone so unexpected it sent a sharp pang echoing through your chest. "Don’t worry. I’ll give your pussy a break. I promise."
The sudden emptiness as Illumi's cock slipped from between your folds was almost unbearable. You whimpered softly, hips rocking instinctively as he shifted his grip on your thighs. Then the broad head of his shaft was nudging against a different opening, the blunt pressure so sudden and overwhelming that your breath locked in your lungs.
"Relax," Illumi coached gently, hands sliding soothingly up and down the backs of your thighs as he slowly, steadily inched his way inside. "Have you done this before?"
"No," you admitted in a shaky whisper, fingers flexing where they were still latched around his neck.
He paused in his gentle exploration, his obsidian gaze boring into yours with such intensity it seemed to strip every last ounce of restraint away. "Good," he rasped, his voice so gravelly and low you could practically feel the vibration of it against your very bones. "That's exactly how I want you, little wife. Just for me. My little, innocent, perfect little wife..."
Illumi's words were an erotic litany, a brand against your skin with every syllable and thrust. He was so deep inside you, deeper than he'd ever been, filling every inch and crevice so perfectly.
The ache was almost too much, the stretch bordering on painful yet so exquisite you could scarcely stand it. You couldn't think, couldn't speak, couldn't even form a coherent thought beyond the single, primal urge to hold onto him and never let go.
So that's exactly what you did.
"I love you."
The confession came from so far out of left field, it took you a moment to realize that you were the one who'd spoken the words. They were true, though - so true it was like the entire universe had suddenly crystallized around the simple, undeniable truth.
It was terrifying and liberating all at once, the sort of revelation that would change everything.
"Illumi, I--"
But he silenced you with a kiss that was almost chaste, a sweet, gentle brush of his lips that somehow carried more emotion than a thousand filthy promises could convey.
"I love you, too."
And when he began moving inside you again, the achingly tender strokes were so at odds with his earlier carnal savagery that the sensation was almost enough to shatter you into a million pieces all over again.
He held you throughout, whispering the softest, most tender confessions into your skin as the pleasure slowly built and crested. You came with a sob, a fresh rush of wetness soaking the place where you were joined as his name spilled from your lips over and over.
Illumi followed shortly after, his cock twitching and pulsing in time with each searing flood until you were completely, utterly spent. His seed leaked out in sticky rivulets as he pulled out at last, a combination of both your juices now trickling down the insides of your thighs.
For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Illumi simply continued to hold you, his forehead pressed against yours as his warm breath fanned across your cheekbones. You basked in the closeness, letting the silence cocoon around the both of you as the rest of the world ceased to exist beyond the circle of his arms.
At last, he spoke, his words so soft and low they nearly got lost in the night air. "My family is very traditional. There are...certain expectations they have for a first-born son."
A leaden weight settled in the pit of your stomach, dread coalescing into a cold, hard knot that threatened to steal the breath from your lungs. You already had a sneaking suspicion you knew where this was going, but you couldn't bring yourself to voice the question.
Illumi, however, seemed to understand your silent plea regardless. "You would make a lovely wife for me, little assassin," he whispered, his voice somehow managing to carry every ounce of warmth and reassurance you needed to hear. His hand drifted downward to stroke your belly, the lightest of pressures yet enough to convey the unspoken implication behind his words.
"And I’m pretty sure I just fucked a baby into you, so-"
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enviedear · 1 month ago
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JASON TODD and the way it’s so easy, almost too easy, for him to listen to you. your voice reminds him of all the best melodies—soothing—as though a lulling tune. he thinks that, beyond your eyes, bright and vibrant as they, you hold all the notable knowledge in the world. you’re perspicacious in a way he yearns for.
he longs to know all of you, inside and out. he pines after the idea of knowing you better than you know yourself. jason wants to listen to you forever and work out every detail he can possibly gather. take them all and delicately weave them together. a permanent in his mind.
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theambitiouswoman · 1 year ago
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100 Words You Can Incorporate Into Your Speech To Sound More Elegant ✨
(Common word - Alternate variation)
Beautiful - Exquisite
Happy - Ecstatic
Smart - Intelligent
Big - Enormous
Small - Petite
Good - Excellent
Bad - Deplorable
Nice - Gracious
Tired - Fatigued
Old - Ancient
Rich - Affluent
Poor - Impoverished
Happy - Joyful
Sad - Melancholic
Hot - Sweltering
Cold - Frigid
Busy - Prolific
Loud - Vociferous
Easy - Effortless
Difficult - Arduous
Fast - Swift
Slow - Languid
Brave - Valiant
Funny - Witty
Rich - Opulent
Poor - Indigent
Old - Vintage
New - Novel
Strong - Robust
Weak - Feeble
Pretty - Alluring
Ugly - Unattractive
Clean - Immaculate
Dirty - Sullied
Happy - Jubilant
Sad - Despondent
Young - Youthful
Old - Antiquated
Big - Colossal
Small - Minuscule
Fast - Rapid
Slow - Sluggish
Brave - Fearless
Funny - Hilarious
Clean - Pristine
Dirty - Filthy
Strong - Stalwart
Weak - Debilitated
Happy - Content
Sad - Poignant
Confusing - Perplexing
Typical - Quintessential
Many - Myriad
Everywhere - Ubiquitous
Contradictory - Paradoxical
Showy - Ostentatious
Insightful - Perspicacious
Arrogant - Supercilious
Obscure - Esoteric
Flatterer - Sycophant
Favorable - Auspicious
Joking - Facetious
Indescribable - Ineffable
Wordy - Verbose
Respected - Venerable
Worsen - Exacerbate
Short lived - Ephemeral
Help - Facilitate
Sneaky - Insidious
Confuse - Obfuscate
Begin - Commence
End - Terminate
Start - Inaugurate
Get - Obtain
Give - Bestow
Make - Fabricate
Break - Shatter
Fix - Rectify
Use - Utilize
Look - Gaze
Find - Discover
Tell - Narrate
Ask - Inquire
Leave - Depart
Buy - Procure
Show - Exhibit
Think - Contemplate
Put - Position
Need - Require
Stop - Halt
Talk - Communicate
Like - Adore
Help - Assist
Call - Summon
See - Perceive
Tell - Enunciate
Go - Traverse
Tell - Express
Have - Possess
Feel - Experience
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