Wow, I had about three times more reviews than I usually do, for the last chapter! Wonder why that is...
Yes, I deserve to be punished for leaving such a cruel cliffhanger. All the same, please R & R and many thanks to the lovely people who have already done so ; )
Evey reached out blindly with searching hands, expecting to find a face of flesh in front of her. But her fingers bumped against the ridged mask instead, tracing the contours of the patronising smile.
The darkness around them was complete. A smothering black blanket had folded itself over their figures, and the silence of the shadow gallery helped enshroud them. The only sense she was aware of was touch, and the sound of two peoples' ragged breathing in this artificial night.
'V?'
'Ssh. Be quiet, my love.'
Her hands travelled down the high collar, past his broad shoulders, rested over his pulsing heart, smoothed themselves over the wide expanse of his chest; flitting over every muscle and every quick breath she felt him take. She wanted to feel every inch of him.
He reached up and took her hands in his own. She gently pulled them away again which made him draw back momentarily, but then he relaxed as soon as he realised what her intention was. Evey eased the leather gloves off, pulling at each individual soft finger until his hands were bare…only this time she couldn't see the matrix of criss-crossed white scars, luxuriating in the feel of the slight roughness of his palms and the uneven texture of his skin instead. She let the gloves drop, and they hit the cold stone floor with a slap.
She felt, or rather heard V's head look up from where he'd been peering sightlessly down at the removal of his first barrier. The wig swished in the dark, and Guy Fawkes leaned down for a stolen kiss.
She wrapped her arms around his neck like she had that first time they'd had contact, but this felt so different. He was touching parts of her that couldn't be reached physically, entering her mind and consuming all of her rational senses until she was left with nothing but raw longing.
However, she stopped short of the painted smile and sensed him tilting his head to the side in confusion.
'Not like this,' she whispered.
A warm finger pressed itself to her lips and she inhaled a trembling breath. This was V, he was real and he was made of flesh and blood after all…the feel of his hand on her lips told her that, as she presented it with a soft kiss.
He sighed, took a step back. Evey didn't protest this time though. She knew he'd switched that light off for a reason.
And he stood there quietly, trying to see her in the dark, his altered vision somewhat adjusting ever so slightly. But she was still invisible to him…a stunning silhouette standing there. Waiting, breathing, wanting.
Two scarred hands reached up to the wig and slipped beneath the soft hair.
Evey had been readying herself for this moment for as long as she could remember, but when the harsh 'click' of the mask's fastenings resounded around them, the words she'd wanted to say stuck in her throat and all she could do was stare into the abyss before her, hoping it would stare back.
And then he moved a little to her right, and there was a soft 'clunk'. He had set something down on the jukebox, and with that one sound all her senses were set off. Screaming at her. But it was all the same words, over and over again.
He's right there in front of you.
He walked back to her and she instantly reached up, but he'd sensed she would in advance and caught her hands. He held them tantalisingly close to his face, so that he was breathing gently on to her skin. This time, there was no mask to muffle his voice or disguise his emotions. He was tearing himself open right in front of her. The temptation to touch him was overwhelming, and Evey found herself shaking with anticipation.
'Why are you doing this? Why now? She heard herself say, her voice sounding different somehow. Strangled, in a way. Like she had to force the words past her own lips.
'Because I want you too,' he breathed.
And with that, she felt his hands let go but she didn't reach up, because his hands were running up her sides, stroking the nape of her neck, cupping her face…and when it finally came, she didn't expect it.
He was suddenly close, close enough to make her head grow faint. She felt his head dip to hover in front of hers, torturing her. She couldn't move toward him because his hands kept her still, but she could sense him inching closer. Uncertain, like a lover's first kiss.
'V,' she whispered into the darkness, her hands coming up to rest on his shoulders but restraining herself from touching his face just yet, because she wanted the first contact to be that which he was taunting her with, their lips barely inches apart. Invisible heat was growing between them, like a spark of electricity crackling between metal.
'I love you. So much.' He said it in a rumbling undertone. It was simple, but it was right. And he gave her no chance to answer.
She felt strong fingers tip her chin up a little, his other hand gently caressing her jaw. Breath against her mouth. Evey inhaled sharply as warm lips pressed against hers, capturing her bottom lip between his. A wave of heat crashed over her head and she felt like she melted right there in V's arms, drowning in him in the pitch black.
V himself now realised why people sometimes believed they'd experienced spiritual enlightenment, because one kiss had thrown him into an unexpected state of ecstasy. He found his body acting of its own accord and didn't try to stop his hands searching through the dark…far from it. He pushed lightly against her. Evey's lips parted an infinitesimal amount in a gasp, and the feel of her making that sound against his lips made him light headed.
V, the man who had been shot by ten fingermen and survived – almost brought to his knees by a kiss in the dark?
He felt something moist against his mouth. His heart hammered against his ribcage. He moved his lips ever so slightly and Evey slipped her tongue through the tiny gap, tenderly eliciting the same reaction he'd so ruthlessly drawn out of her. His fingers drifted across her flat stomach and then circled her waist, gripping her hips to bring her up against him. She drew back for a second, struggling to find words that would express what she was feeling.
'V…you're beautiful…'
And with that, her hands started the journey he'd known would come. At first she seemed reluctant to touch his face because she didn't want to spoil what they had gained. In other ways, she wanted to satisfy her curiosity as quickly as possible since every aching part of her was insisting against her pulling away.
Her right hand hesitantly touched his cheek, feeling the skin. He closed his eyes. Knowing that if he didn't he would imagine her facial expression himself…and that would be fatal.
Her fingers warmed to the patchy texture and she pressed her hand fully against one side of his face. There was no stubble to speak of, since that skin had been burnt away like the rest of his body. There was nothing unpleasant at all about the surface of his face. In fact, it felt quite sensually smooth beneath the pads of her fingers.
They stood there locked in each other's tight embrace, breathing heavily…exploring one another. Evey's hands moved slowly over his brow, feeling no eyebrows but forming a vague facial shape in her mind, in the same way an artist would contemplate a masterpiece planned inside their head. From what she could tell, his bone structure was more or less intact save for the slightly deformed ridge of his nose. Instead of peaking upwards as she would expect, it sloped down like how she imagined melted candle wax would. She stood on the balls of her feet and lowered her lips slowly, to place a tender kiss between his eyes. She felt them flutter open and smiled at his invisible face. She'd run out of words, but it didn't matter. They didn't need them.
V stroked her face with the back of his hand and then let it drift down her body. They looked sightlessly at each other, eyes burning, both realising there were still borders to be crossed. Evey took his hand from its position on her hip, and to his shock started to pull at the hem of her top.
'Evey, are you sure..' he murmured, although it came out as a growl. A lot huskier than it usually was.
In reply, she struggled free of the last confines of the black top and flung it to the side. He instantly forgot any inhibitions as her scent filled his nostrils, and once again she felt herself being enveloped by a world of silk cloth, dark musk and lust that was V.
She groaned as red hot lips trailed down her collarbone, subconsciously raising a leg high to hook around his waist. He hummed against her flushed skin briefly, basking in the sensation of her slim leg pulling him closer into that heat. His very thoughts were on fire in this blaze, catching alight at the strike of a match. He sensed that very soon he would be burning in an inferno powerful enough to rival that of Larkhill, but this time scars didn't matter. At all.
'V…' her voice was laced with untainted yearning, but she didn't care. She wanted him to hear it. 'Took my advice…'
His lips rested on the sharp line of her jaw, and he raised his head to face her. 'What advice?' He panted, a hand snaking down to the leg that was still keeping her standing firmly on the floor. He already had an impression of what she was about to say, and his real lips curled into a smile against hers. He still couldn't quite believe how blissful this forbidden contact felt.
'…not to be a gentleman.'
He grinned, wide enough to rival even Guy Fawkes' smile. His suspicions had been correct.
He shifted to the side a little, letting his free hand hold her other thigh in a possessive grip. She breathed in expectantly as he slowly eased her up a small amount, grasping her legs. Lips locked in a passionate kiss. He pinned her securely to the wall, both her legs clinging around his waist, hands moving steadily across the underside of heated thighs until he found a particularly gratifying spot through the soft cotton of her trousers. He ran a hand down her inner thigh and felt the shift in her weight as she titled backward, emitting a sound that was more beautiful than Beethoven's orchestra to his ears.
'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...'(1) he purred, fingers dancing around the waistband of her trousers. She closed her eyes, feeling a scalding heat run through her most guarded areas at his every touch.
'I love thee to the depth and breadth and height,' she said, a hurried whisper which ended in a faint 'O' as rough hands swept along her thighs. '…My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight…' She drew in a breath, the words trailing from her lips like smoke.
'Hmm, cannot finish the verse, my dear?' He teased, and she squeezed his waist with her legs in response. This power he held over her…it wasn't fair.
She leaned forward, swiping the wig off his head with one hand and using the other to hold his face still as she murmured in his ear, 'I think it's my turn.' He stiffened, his defences quickly raised and then lowered once more as his last barrier disappeared. His head had the same texture as his face, although in some patches there was short stubble where she assumed hair must have grown. But Evey couldn't care less…he was here and he wanted her. That was enough. That was all she would ever need.
She pushed herself away form the wall with shaking hands, so that he released his grip on her and she slid down the silk of his body. They stood facing each other for a second, marvelling at how the heat seemed to blister between them even when they were a few centimetres apart. It seemed like a non existent God was willing them to give into the animal instincts humans had been so generously gifted with, but few truly discovered.
She took his scarred hand and pulled him in a random direction, hot hands scraping over cold stone wall until she found the corridor leading to her bedroom. An exchanged invisible smile in the dark, and then she was leading him down the unknowing passage. Leather gloves, mask, wig and black top left crumpled in a deserted corner of the gallery.
She scrabbled with the door handle, desperate not to delay and potentially ruin everything. But despite her fears, she knew deep down that he wasn't going anywhere. His hands slid down her bare back as she forced the door open with a squeak of the hinges, breath tickling the back of her neck.
Yes, he's definitely still interested, she thought, as she brushed past his hips and had to cling to the door frame for a second before being able to turn to him.
She faced him in the doorway, looking up into a face she couldn't see. Sure hands reached around her to pull her to a muscular chest, and she closed her eyes against his tunic, wanting nothing more than to feel his warm skin beneath hers. She rested her cheek there for a second while a hand hesitantly made its way across his broad back, smoothing over the muscles and halting occasionally as it dawned on her just how strong he was. This man had no fat on him at all…everything her hand touched was hard and furrowed, like a carving in stone. Except this chiselled stone was hot and alive underneath her hand.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, Evey felt the nerves in the back of her neck and the base of her spine tingle once more. That delicious heat was spreading through her limbs again, threatening to overtake. The physical aspect of V was more appealing to her than any other part of him in that moment, and although she questioned this for a moment, she realised it didn't matter. There was a difference between love and lust, and she wasn't about to deny herself the latter just because it was new to her. She still loved him, but to feel is to love, in a way…and she could think of nothing else as a glaze descended over her sightless eyes.
She stepped back and he detected a change in her approach instantly. A small hand folded into his and he felt himself being pulled…no, dragged, to her bed. She turned to him, arms already wrapping around his chest to get as close to that pressure as she possibly could, breathing fast as she pressed her small frame against him.
He choked, the darkness in front of him swimming a little as her hips ground against his with no inhibitions. This Evey he didn't know, but certainly approved of. She was turning into the inferno he'd imagined by every second.
She felt herself being lifted effortlessly, and was on her back before she'd had a chance to grab on to anything. She reached out blindly and her hands touched him instantly, fingers brushing against that chest she so admired. He seemed to hover above her, thighs on either side of her body. Preparing himself. She lay on the already tangled sheets, trying to catch her breath. But she didn't have much chance, for when he bent down he took her breath away once more. Hot lips met, and meshed together slowly with a tenderness she had never experienced before. Something similar to a sob crept past her lips as this scarred man kissed her in the pitch black. He deepened the kiss as her lips parted, the heat between them growing further from this one point of contact.
Her hands skimmed over the front of his shirt, trying to find a row of buttons or zip. He pulled back momentarily, lips poised over hers. And then he was making hurried jerking movements above her, pulling the silk garment over his head.
He was instantly reminded of every time he had to undress himself at night, repulsed at his own body. But this was different…it was like being naked was something necessary, something that had to be done in order to love her. And he would give her every kind of love he could, for she was his Evey. Whatever she wanted, she could have.
Evey groaned lightly as he lowered his lips back to hers, for this time he was shirtless. Lips captured hers in a wet kiss and she responded fervently, losing herself in her own passion. Her hands pressed firmly down his back, over his barrelled chest, gliding over the smooth skin of his stomach…until she could control the direction of her exploration no more. The muscles in his back flexed and his body arched as she seized his waist and pulled him down gently between her thighs. He hissed against her lips, feeling her heat even through two layers of cotton.
'Evey…' he growled, losing himself in the sensation before he'd been able to finish. She moved her hips the tiniest amount, causing him to gasp and grip on to her shoulders almost painfully.
His lips traced a scalding path over her jaw and then trailed down her neck. He lingered there for an instant, every ounce of his being shuddering in anticipation of what he was about taste. Her hands reached beneath her back and unclipped the clasp of her bra, and he pulled it out from under her with an impatient haste. He stared down at the body he couldn't see, and she bared herself to him anxiously.
And then she felt those lips on her once more, but a lot lower than they'd previously been. They both cried out softly as he kissed the pathway between her breasts, tasting her sweat and heat in its purest form. His hand circled the soft mound, amazed at how delicate she could feel beneath his fingers. His fingers brushed the area curiously and then closed over one small breast, feeling the extent of her arousal. She grinned as she felt hot lips gasp against her collarbone, and he thrust against her instinctively.
This time it was her turn to gasp, as she felt his stiffness grind against her pelvis. Uncontrollable tendrils of passion clawed through her body. It was heaven, this friction…that one movement cast her into ecstasy and crated sparks in her most guarded regions.
He ran his lips across her bruises and murmured sweet nothings, apologies for hurting her, tongue soothing away her pain. But there was no pain, just a sharp tingle running through her skin as she held his head against her stomach and sighed into the night. She breathed his name and he pulled himself up across her body, his chest brushing against hers, mouths connecting before the 'V' had even managed to fully creep past her lips. He pushed once more, experimentally, and her body arched off the bed against him with a quiet groan.
Something caught in his throat. He had never imagined he could please her so effortlessly…the effect she was having on him was something he'd expected given her physical beauty, but to have his name panted in reply? That was more than he'd ever hoped for.
"Most fantastic are the magic circles drawn round the thing called life…'(2) he mused aloud, aware that his rational thoughts were soon going to desert him entirely. He was to say goodbye to his mind before the darkness of lust fully engulfed him. '…til we have learned to prize it less, we ne'er shall learn to prize…' he pressed Evey into the tangled sheets completely, all the breath escaping from her as the sweat on their bodies mingled and limbs slid against one another.
'…the things worth living for.'
She felt a hand run over her shaven head, his body press against her breasts, desperate lips taking hers once more. She responded with tears in her eyes, fingernails digging into his hips as she drove herself against his hardness, crying out every time they were crushed together against that insatiable wave of heat. The tide was drawing in.
She was no longer aware of what her hands were doing, or where he was caressing, or what he was reciting over and over again against her lips. All she could feel were two pairs of hands tearing at the confines of their clothes, her hand running over his biceps as he pulled at her flimsy trousers, nudging them down her legs with one arm while the other held her face to his. She did the same, wrestling with the fastenings she'd found on his waistband and letting him kick them off. He straightened up for a second and she heard a thud on the floor as leather boots slid from his feet, and then he was back between her legs before she'd fully realised he'd gone.
But this time it was different. She could feel everything, everything she'd ever dreamed of. Before he'd had the chance to pull her against him, she sat up and pressed her lips against his chest, his thighs placed on either side of her legs. He breathed in sharply as she did this, head tilted back a little in delight. She kissed a path over the firm muscles of his chest to his stomach, smiling against his rock hard flesh. Before she'd been able to stop herself, her hands inched down to the band of silken briefs and slid over the rigidness inside, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from V…or was it her? She couldn't tell.
Hands pinned her down to the mattress, legs tangling as he draped himself across her, holding her to him like she would fall away if he let go. She could feel their bodies growing hotter and slick with sweat, and she hooked her legs up over his backside to bring her up against him harder than she ever had before. This time he let out a shocked sound and clutched the sheets next to her head.
'Please,' she heard herself pleading, 'I need you.'
He paused, chest heaving against hers. He didn't reply with words. She felt gentle hands caressing her face and then closed her eyes as he kissed her softly, letting his tongue sensually glide over hers. Evey hummed gently against his lips, as a blinding whiteness started to creep in at the back of her vision.
She was so distracted by the intensity he kissed her with that she hardly seemed to register his hands working around her hips, easily snapping through the lace panties she wore. Even less so, when his silk briefs were disposed of.
He broke away for a second, hovering above her. She lay there looking up into the blackness, into the space where she knew his face must be. She could feel him pulsing against her and her eyelids fluttered closed, the heat burning through her with more ferocity than it had before. She felt herself being gathered into strong arms, felt his biceps flex as he steadied himself against her body. Scalding flames started at her thighs and started to scorch somewhere along the pit of her stomach. Like a match to torchwood.
And then his breath was catching, and her lips were parting in a silent groan. She tilted her hips and pushed against him with all her strength, a whimper rising up her throat as she felt him fill her, pushing all her sanity into the corners of her mind until she was left with nothing but unadulterated lust. He gritted his teeth and then pulled back, liquid desire slipping under his skin and through every pore of his body. He could drown in her, if she wanted him to. But instead she was burning him, flames devouring his mind and his body.
She locked her legs around his waist and he cried out softly, thrusting back into her with strength he didn't know he possessed. He heard her do the same. Fingernails scraped his back, lips seized his and she tensed around him, already poised on the brink of ecstasy.
She sensed every muscle in his body flexing, intent on reaching that one spark of bright white light that was dancing closer in her sightless eyes. She ran her hands up his back as he moved inside her, against her, within her. It didn't matter anymore what he was doing. Her face was wet against his as he pinned her to the sheets with his lips alone, and she realised with a jolt that the salty tears she could taste were not only hers. She kissed his face, his closed eyes, choking down the emotion that threatened to overcome her.
But this wasn't an emotion. It was a crescendo bearing down on her with rapidly gathering speed. Her lips parted against his as he pushed into her, inching open in a silent cry. He ran hungry lips across her neck instead of her lips as he felt her stiffen beneath him, trying to fight off the wave of passion that was bearing down on him too. Hands clung on to his shoulders with a ferocious strength, trembling a little as the white light engulfed her and the waves broke over her body. He bit the soft skin near her ear and she cried his name with breathless energy. The sensation of her tightening around him squeezed a groan through his own lips and he drew back, before driving himself into her one last time. He shuddered as the full experience of ecstasy scored through his veins, driving him wild, relinquishing any judicious thoughts he may have had. It lasted for all of a few seconds but he lay suspended in that thrill for what seemed like a lifetime, while somewhere a world away lips captured his and whispered silent words into the sweltering heat that was overriding his senses.
She sensed him relax eventually, wrapping his arms around her neck. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the feeling. He nuzzled his head into the side of Evey's neck and let her scent wash over him in the receding flood, lying tangled in the black sheets of night.
Breathing her in, tasting her, loving her.
(1) 'How Do I Love Thee?' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
(2) 'Argument for Suicide' by W. Wordsworth.