A/N: so this is my entry for the 'Gajevy Love Fest' bonus day on tumblr - it was meant to be an nsfw fic based on the prompt 'striptease', but somehow it turned into this. ah, well. enjoy!

10.

"Where were you on the night of the Fifth?"

He did not like to repeat himself. It was demeaning - beneath him, even. It made him apprehensive, suspicious that she would not give him the time of day, but she would, oh yes, and she would play coy if only to exacerbate his discomfort.

He observed the slender form behind the tall metal bars. She lay comfortably on the sorry excuse of a bed they had provided her, stretching her legs over the thin steel frame as she feigned indifference to his inquiry. Ah, how she loved to toy with him. He held her freedom in his hands, yet never had he felt more powerless.

"I won't ask you again," he warned her.

Ten minutes.

He had been given ten minutes, a precious six hundred seconds to determine whether or not this woman was responsible for the serial of killings of five prestigious members of their society, the murders which had wreaked havoc upon the hearts of the citizens of Magnolia.

If the citizens had known the true natures of these elites, if they had even a notion of the horrifying secrets which came to light after the victims' deaths, would they have continued to mourn these figures? Whatever the case, whatever sickening compulsions they had given in to when they had been alive, none of that mattered to him. He had found their killer. All he wanted was her confession.

9.

"Do you remember when you took me out to get sushi?" Levy asked him. "We went to that tiny restaurant near your place, the one with the bright orange tables." Staring at the ceiling of her cage, she kicked her bare legs up into the air, one, two, three times, and her loose crimson nightdress hitched up her thigh, revealing the creamy flesh underneath, and the beginnings of black lace. "The food was really good. I liked the chef, too. He had a kind smile."

Averting his eyes, Gajeel looked down at the notepad he grasps in his hands, yet he couldn't make sense of the scrawlings on the page. Blank ink dripped from the corners of each letter, her legs were cycling, cycling, cycling through the air, and there was a hint of black lace in the scribbles beneath his fingertips.

"What was your acquaintance to the mage 'Minerva'? Why was your name pencilled into multiple dates in her agenda?"

Her feet swung over the edge of her mattress, and delicate pink toes brushed over the cold stone floor. She'd painted them a deep hue of purple, he noticed. The last time he had seen them, they were spotless, carefully swabbed clean of any sort of polish. Effortlessly, she glided across the uneven ground and wrapped her fingers around the bars of her jail. Her nails were an identical shade of purple. There were scars upon his back, eight deep lacerations which had only just healed, and he wondered if they glow the same colour.

8.

"You didn't call me back," she said, pouting her rose pink lips. "Last week. We had been together for over two months, then, and suddenly you weren't returning my phone calls. I was having such a good time. I thought you were too. And then you didn't call."

"I didn't know what you were -" he started to hiss, but he caught himself midway.

There was a bright gleam in her eye, an impish glitter which he had once adored. She was doing this on purpose, he knew. She was trying to distract him; she wanted to aggravate him, to make him botch the interrogation. It wouldn't work. He wouldn't let it.

But he was a detective, for god's sake. How had he not known?

"You were in a sexual relationship with her," he recited, finally deciphering the notes of his case. "Just like with all your other victims. On the night of the Fifth, you slashed her throat with this dagger."

From the pocket of his coat he retrieved a plastic bag marked with the word 'EVIDENCE' in bold, black lettering, and placed it in front of her cell. Within lay a bloodstained dagger topped with a bronze, engraved handle. He hadn't been there when they had retrieved it.

7.

"Can you account for your whereabouts that night?"

"I'd rather think about other nights," she purred through the bars. The chiffon fabric of her nightdress fluttered with every one of her small motions, and one of the fine straps slid down her shoulder. She made no effort to return it to its former place. There were bruises lining the path along her collarbone, and he wasn't sure whether he was the one who had made them, or if they were the remains of someone else's kisses.

He was disgusted.

He was jealous.

A coquettish smile played upon her features. "You haven't forgotten them already, have you? They weren't so long ago." Her fingers slithered down from the bars until they reached the hem of her dress. She bunched the fabric tightly in her hands. "You held my clothes, just like this, and you took off all the pieces one by one."

His eyes were glued to her as she lifted the crimson fabric up, revealing the dark embroidery of her lingerie, the thin, gauzy material which barely covered anything except the small triangle of skin between her legs. Unconsciously, almost automatically, he took a step closer to the barrier which separated them. Higher and higher she went, and he was greeted with the familiar curves and dips of her body; her small, oval navel; the light trace of muscle on a firm, flat stomach. The sheer cloth hovered tauntingly over her chest, teasing him with a glimpse of the curve of her breasts.

6.

"Stop!" he rasped, his throat dry. For the first time that evening she listened to him, and allowed the gauzy material to drift back into place around her body. "Just stop," he said, lower, almost pleading.

Breathing deeply, he twirled his pen around in between his fingers, over and over again. The object moved accordingly, but his muscles rejected the motion - they did not want to feel the cold, hard plastic which encased the stationary; they yearned for the soft flesh which lingered only inches away from him.

In his hands he clutched his notebook tightly.

In his hands he holds her.

Her lips press against his, and she mumbles something against his mouth as they greedily devour one another, but he cannot hear her over the blood pumping in his ears. Her clothes are flimsy, and they tear away from her figure easily, as though they had been designed for him to remove. She entwines her fingers into the long, black tresses which fall down his back, and he presses her against the wall as the space between their bodies become non-existent. She moans sweet, ragged words into his ear, fragments of sentences as he works his way down her neck, down to the spot he knows she likes best. Her breathing hitches as he nibbles upon her collarbone, and a small giggle escapes from her lips.

"Who told you to stop?" she asks breathlessly. He has paused in the middle of his work, and he leans his forehead against hers. A drop of sweat runs down the side of his face, and she frees a hand from his tangled hair to wipe it away.

"Sorry," he says. "I just…I'm…well, I'm happy. That's all."

The edges of her mouth curl into a smile, and she nuzzles her head against his.

"So am I."

5.

He remembered where he was.

This was not his bedroom. There were no coloured lights streaming through the window, emanating from the nightclub which resided across the road. She was not in his arms. He was not kissing her. He was interrogating her.

His cheeks were flushed, and he turned his face way, desperately grasping at the remains of his self-control.

"They found you in your apartment," he said hoarsely, "in the shower, washing the last traces of blood from your skin. They found the knife on the edge of the sink. You hadn't been able to clean it yet."

"There was red everywhere," she murmured, and something in her voice drew his gaze back to her. She was sliding the other strap of her nightdress down her shoulder. "Here," she touched her cheek as the fabric fell away, revealing her smooth, lean back, "and here," she stroked the hollow of her neck, but he was fixated on the outline of his fingers around her waist, "and even here," she added, hiding her breasts away under hands, but he had already seen them, and he knew what they felt like beneath her palms. Her hair bounced daintily upon her nude shoulders, rebellious locks curling before her ears.

4.

He would not look any longer.

"Put it back on," he said, turning his back on her. The rustle of fabric reached his ears, but he did not trust her. He couldn't. Not anymore.

"You never made that request before," he heard her remark coldly. A space of silence ensued, neither of them willing to speak. "…You left me."

All traces of provocation had left her voice, and all her seductive mannerisms had ceased to be.

"…I had no choice," he replied to the wall.

"You got a call while we were having dinner. I'd made curry. It upset you, and you barely touched your plate after that. Then, while I was asleep, you snuck away during the night. How could you do that to me?"

He wanted to see her expression, but he did not trust himself. He would lose his voice again, and he couldn't risk that. He needed it.

"Where were you the night of the Fifth?"

3.

"You know where I was."

She was right. He knew.

"Where were you?"

He disliked repetition. But he had to hear her say it.

Her voice was strained. "I was with Minerva. She was telling me about her latest catch. A young foreign man who spoke with an accent. I could hear him screaming all the way from her bedroom."

Something within him broke at her confession. It opened a crevice deep in his heart, and there was no way to prevent the cracks from spreading. He'd thought the truth would make him feel better, and instead it had only made things harder for him to bear. There it was. He'd gotten what he had wanted.

"How could you leave me, Gajeel?" she asked, her voice small. He couldn't stop himself now. He glanced at her cell once again; she was clothed, and her forehead was pressed against the cool metal, her eyes downcast. "When I met you, I gave up that life. I let it all go. You were a cop - well, a detective - and you were dedicated to the law; you wouldn't be able to love me if you found out what I had done. And then you left me, and I didn't know what the point was anymore. My whole world was slipping away - I had to find a way of holding onto it. And then I found Minerva."

2.

"Are you blaming me for her death?" he asked, deciding rage was easier to accept than sorrow.

"No!" She was indignant, and he was taken aback by this response. "I was hurt, Gajeel! How could you do that to me?"

"How could I?" he exclaimed. "How could you think I would stay with you once I found out what you did to those people? There had been so many signs, so many pieces of evidence left unexplained - 'There's no way it was her,' I kept telling myself, but I was an idiot."

"People?" she grimaces. "They weren't people. They weren't human. They were murderers. You know that better than anyone."

"So are you."

1.

Tears filled her eyes, but her expression remained stormy. "So you waited for me to do it again, just so you could catch me in the act." Their eyes met, and he expected her to yell at him, to denounce him for setting her up like that, for abandoning her, for ever allowing her to believe that he trusted her. "I was happy with you, Gajeel," she cried out, surprising him. "And for just one second, I thought you were happy with me, too."

He didn't respond. He couldn't. The lump in his throat prevented all manner of speech. She rubbed her wet lashes with the back of her hand, and exhaled softly. With a manufactured calm, she said, "Do you want to hear my confession? That's what you came here for, right?"

He waited, but she wouldn't speak just yet. She beckoned him closer, and this time, he did not refuse. He sidled up to the bars as close as he could, well aware that this was the last time he would ever get to be so close to her; the last time he would feel her breath against his cheek; the last time he would be able to leave an interrogation without hating himself afterward.

He leaned his ear into the space between the bars and awaited her admission.

0.

"I was in love with you."

A silent roar of pain ripped through his chest, and he had never felt so great an ache.

The happy jangle of keys reached the former lovers, and he leapt back from the bars as the jailer re-entered the room.

"Time's up."