Imperius Ch. 09

He held her tightly, her chest and stomach flush against his, sweat mingling. His thrusts turned ruthless. He fucked her like a toy, with her wanton cries of pleasure ringing in his ears. They were nearly screams, but for the breathlessness of her voice. He could just make out her eyes, sparkling slits of blue underneath heavy lids and black lashes.

She came, back arching, and he swallowed her cries of pleasure just as hungrily as he had treated himself to her sex, and his cock jerked within the tight, wet depths of that sex as he came as well, falling back to the bed as he found himself spent.

Magnus drew Lilah to his chest, actually cuddling her in his arms, and she didn't have time to consider resisting before she found herself pressed to him close, his face buried in her hair.

~ < > ~

They laid there for a time, flushed and dewy with exertion--And Magnus sensed Lilah fall from the height of sexual pleasure back into the aching dullness of grief. She turned quiet, stony, and he could see falling into a bleak sunken place inside of herself. He lifted himself up, his eyes scouring the inexpression of her face.

Then he lifted himself off of her, and sat up, an alien, sickly feeling settling in his chest.

"I hadn't intended to...go that far," he said finally, after she had quieted. He ran a hand through her hair to comfort himself.

There was a sound from her, and he drew himself back, searching her face.

She was laughing at him. A soft, slightly panicked giggle through her tears that was sweeter and more transparently hesitant than he had ever seen her. She always always always tried to veil her feelings from him before that point--provoking him toward the cold ruthless determination to see what lay underneath, as deep and efficiently as he could probe.

He watched her, as though studying a magician's trick. His brow was faintly furrowed.

She touched her knuckles to her lips and stifled her own laughter, seeming nervous, suddenly, as though unnerved by his expression but not sure whether to be afraid of it.

"I'm sorry--I am sorry," she said. "It's just...you sounded so shocked with yourself. At the very idea that you could ever do anything that you didn't intend to do."

There was something almost despairingly fond in her eyes, something that he had never seen there before, not for him. Magnus was hypnotized by the sight of it.

"I'm beginning to think I might just be some god's vengeance against you. All important, damnable you. Oh--," she said, and addressed the ceiling, as though willing her words into the ear of a sentient sky, or to invisible persons looming far above, amusing themselves by picking up and planting her in one horrible situation after another, laughing as she scrambled to endure.

"No, forget that, you're not the problem--the god is the problem. Any god who puts both you and me into the same world--," she shook her head, and sighed. "I don't even believe in gods. I'm sorry. Somehow I'm tired, worn out from doing nothing for days, I suppose."

There had been some kind of...shift between them, and he didn't know what to do in the wake of it.

"For better or for worse, Magnus Valerianus," she said, "You do attract me, and terrify me...but I believe you now--that you intend to protect me, to keep me alive. So here is what you ought to do."

She touched a hand to his stomach, her fingers playing along the muscles.

"Teach me. If you want me to survive among the snakes, then teach me how."