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sierra6x · 2 years ago

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------HE TOOK PERSONAL satisfaction that the time between her question and his answer did little to deter her. almost like a proud authoritative figure, minus the responsibility and relationship there. it did little to wipe the smug, tired smirk from his lips while her own moment of silence passed over the room. this was their back-and-forth, always ... even at the killer queen, where it was less tense by the nature of more people being present and it being a public space. it was easy to cut that sort of tension where work was involved, too.

six did not mix business with pleasure. ever.

so, what was this?

he pushed away the need to identify this particular brand of ache, the way is pounded against his ribs with every beat of his heart. he was good at ignoring it, pushing beyond it to continue their witty banter or easier when he flipped the switch to work and could drown out everything else that existed. the problem was ... she'd started to creep into those moments, too. only when he visited - the fact that he'd stopped by on his way back from one job to check in on claire just to make sure she was alright (and happy he did it, else she wouldn't have asked him to handle such delicate things for her.)

it was hard to deny those things, those feelings and thoughts when she presented them directly in his face. and six was not the kind of man who turned and ran, not from anything. training forbade it. stubborn nature forbade it. he couldn't live with himself if he ever became that person. so he faced it head on. and right now, in the dark where only the outline of his lips lost against freshly-kept facial hair and the tone of his voice could give away what he was feeling in that exact moment.

rare for him. people always had to guess. not now.

" i've been told that before. " less polite variations of it, though arguably her own was on par. her laughter was contagious and his own shoulders subtly shifted with silent chuckles in her chorus. the only tell there was the staccato rise and fall of his chest, the way his hand bobbed up and down in time with it from where it rest on his stomach - the drumming ceased almost immediately after he'd started it.

when she shifted and began unfurling, insisting her form onto the couch he was pliable ---leg dumping over the side of the couch and only not making a sound for how he'd tensed his thigh to catch it, instead letting his bare foot touch the carpeting and rest flat there. he wasn't foolish enough to think she'd only settle for a little space between him and the back of the sofa, and while he didn't outright move to make as much space as he could he did conform to where she'd begun draping herself over him. in lieu of a blanket there was melissa and, if they moved just right, the edge of his now mostly-dry towel hanging off of the back of the couch.

the new temperature brought by a whole other person was welcome and very different, though not a totally unfamiliar sensation. body heat fought with the cool feel of her damp hair when the air of her movement washed over him. it'd been a very long time since six was this close with someone who wasn't actively trying to kill him. the smile didn't die but faded with the shift in tone - where it didn't totally become serious but this round of their little game had taken a turn where the power shifted into melissa's hand entirely. he'd dared her.

she hadn't disappointed. and she wasn't done yet.

god, she was warm. soft, too. rough fingers, calloused hand almost that nearly swallowed her own significantly smaller and more lithe one lingered for just a moment in her touch before she directed it somewhere with different purpose. he hadn't blinked, not for a long moment with how steadily he watched the expression on her now very visible face (dark or not.) a study in the shape of her lips as she spoke, the way each word looked and lingered, the flavor of them on her tongue (as if it were a tangible, visible thing) and the way her own dark eyes somehow collected whatever light filtered through the room behind them. she smelled like the same soap he'd used, the same shampoo and conditioner, but it was somehow decidedly more feminine and appealing.

oh, he heard the shift in her breathing, felt the racing of her heart both through the steady drum of it and where blood coursed through her flesh. sure, she'd placed his hand in such a daring place, but his palm had greedily met the delicate flesh there all its own, fingers splaying against the heat and drinking it in. the contrast was dizzying (never mind the undertones) between how soft and flawless it felt versus the roughness of his hand.

he'd never have guessed the night would have lingered anywhere near this place when the sun fell below the horizon line, when she knocked on his door. not when, in less than a scarily minimal amount of hours, they'd be stirring through the safe-house and cleaning up after themselves so they could collect her things from her own home and catch an impromptu plane down south. in less than 24 hours edgar drysdell would be dead.

but that didn't matter right now.

when six exhaled it was a harsher sound than intended, maybe a little ragged as if he'd held his breath for too long and it needed to burn its way out of lungs. fingers trailed, shifted against the inside hem of her underwear, thumb drew a lazy little back-and-forth pattern - something like easing the tension from her without actively thinking to, while he chewed his thoughts. he even worked his jaw in slight, muscle tensing in the way it tended to when men were either angry or just grit their teeth too hard. he wasn't angry.

" i could. " his voice still had a sleepy rasp to it, though it wouldn't take this close proximity to tell how alert he was in the moment - very awake, even if he'd been literally catnapping not ten minutes ago. " but i'd rather you tell me. " he shifted, just his arm, just his hand as it ceased tracing that line with his thumb as he pulled away from the warmth of her thigh where his index and middle fingers grazed against the fabric of her underwear, where the gusset was sewn in, pointedly.

the hand trailed up to her hip, fingers found purchase at the round where it met her waist, and settled there. his grip was maybe a bit harder than necessary, purposeful in what it meant ---a wordless stay here, do what i want where he didn't quite direct it. she fit quite perfectly over his own hips - and finally the other raised from where it was lingering over the edge of the couch, where it had been grazing carpet and ready to snatch the pistol beneath them should anyone unwanted come in. it traveled up to brush strands of damp, heavy hair from between them ---to gather the mass of it behind her and neatly leave it at the center of her back.

which had him so close to her that he could taste the lingering flavor of the wrigley's he'd given her closer to an hour ago, though it was surely faded now. if she spoke he'd feel her lips move against his, and when he did speak he felt the scratch of his goatee prickle at the skin of her cheek and the corner of her tiers. " you should tell me, melissa. i want to hear it. "

The time taken by Six to reply did nothing to Melissa - she stood there, as motionless as a statue, waiting for his reaction. In a way, she was used to his peculiar conversation techniques (although the darkness put her to a disadvantage when eyesight was compromised; learning to read the man through other senses still required some training). But the grin in his first sentence had been unmissable, and it felt like it lingered when he finally allowed his voice to echo in the room again.

The fucking bastard.

But where the former government asset was more of a silent type, Melissa didn't resort to it as much - his words and newer taunts had her outright laughing, throwing her head back for a second and letting the amusement shake her figure freely. That cheeky man - the barmaid had half a mind to strangle him for his incessant need to poke the proverbial bear with the shortest stick available, almost as if he hoped to see her going off the rails. As if the enjoyed placing himself on the receiving end of whatever Melissa wished to give him - punishment or not.

"You're a fucking piece of work, Six," Melissa uttered back, but there was a playful ring to her words, a leftover from the laughter. The words were harsh, but the sentiment wasn't (hadn't it always been like that?). The brunette moved then, eyes significantly used to the room to see enough, her own feet placed at the edge of the couch and next to one of the man's legs. Melissa stretched herself, the right foot moving to make room for her, forcing that folded limb of his over the edge of the furniture so there was decent space for her to slid there instead, landing on both knees and keeping a head over the backrest for balance.

Once the barmaid was successful - she crawled over, moving over him. Given the limited light sources, it was more like a large shadow covering him, made worse by the way the loose fabric of the borrowed shirt and her long, damp hair (seemingly longer than usual) fell over the sides of her face and body. Melissa's left hand was over the back of the couch, the right one finding free patches around the man's taller and sturdier figure was located.

Had she lost sleep over him before? More times than she could count, in fact; Melissa had wondered about the safety of particular assignments solely based on the info he had requested, or whatever trouble he had been dragged into going by the whispers of third parties. The woman had tried not to pry whenever a new scar appeared on skin that was visible to her, or when he look so tired that it surprised Melissa he didn't pass out at her counter (Six was one of the few patrons she had who actually liked the coffee they served).

And when it was finally the tipster that needed someone for a personal reason, there had been no doubt in Melissa's mind that Six was the only one for it - the single person she could trust; not the police or the authorities or the press. That acknowledgement - the exposure of her own proverbial ugly scars, the reflection in his - brought them closer, but at the same time it felt like the man was trying to place her at some secure distance.

As if the barmaid was about to be disgusted by some finding, or scared to see shit going down. And honestly - that bothered Melissa more than the notion that she had, in fact, been kept awake before while her brain dwelled on whatever Six was doing and, worse of it all, how he was feeling.

"Why don't you find it out yourself?" the woman countered, words carrying a daring edge that was completely unnecessary given her overall position - no one crawled over another unless they were trying to make a point or to threaten them (Six was free to choose which was which). In all honesty, when she had left the bedroom, Melissa had not planned to to whatever she was doing - perhaps her partner did get too easily in her head, a privilege afforded to very few.

(Just the favorite one, really.)

But her emotions were all mixing into a single complex, turbulent thing and the brunette didn't care much to break them apart now and label each and every one carefully. Her right hand found one of his - dragging it from where it rested over his stomach and placing it against the inside of her opposite leg, coarse digits splayed over warm skin.

"You're the professional here - try and read me. Make an educated guess as to the reason I may have stared at the ceiling before," she dared him now, not outright admitting to anything but the way her voice lowered and how her breathing quickened were big tells; her heart seemed to be wild, the tension channeled to a single organ that now was in charge of pumping blood furiously through her veins as if something drastic was about to happen.

A fight or an escape - adrenaline working in her body in a way it did in most animals, purely driven by instinct... But Melissa had a preference and Six probably knew which one of the routes she was more likely to take.

#vi. interactions #verse. main #stingslikeabee #stingslikeabee 3 #sweating emoji #wiping sweat emoji #ffs six

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