[ There had been a time where she'd been convinced she was destined for a solitary walk in this world — that the power she contained would prove too dangerous for her to even so much as consider permitting herself to become close to anyone else, and yet.
And yet — she is here, perhaps in spite of her better judgment, in spite of everything that would have her operating under more sense. She does not believe she has imagined their connection, that the energies she feels passing between them are only restricted to one side, that what she feels for him is unreciprocated.
So why, then, does she hesitate? It isn't uncertainty, so perhaps it lies closer to nerves of some kind — and wouldn't that be something, as she reaches out with that same hand to take hold of his own, fingers curving for a soft grip. ]
Memory would imply we've been here before. Not crossing some threshold into the unknown.
[He's connected and disconnected with so many different energies of this world and the next, the outer realms and where the ground is warm. Dante had spent his share of time surrounded by magic, and another spent stepping onto demonic blood.
He knew, by that very same connection or design, how Vanessa empathized, knew what it felt like to have blood warring within them.
Her fingers curl - deceptively delicate, sweet ivy snuggling soft around its perch of choice - and despite the fingerless gloves that Dante seems to almost permanently wear, the warmth seeps quickly.
It's a touch that's bound to bring him some grief, some day, he believes, but...
Worth it.]
Oh, so this is an invitation to the unknown? [He sounds delighted, his fingers bringing her knuckles to his mouth, except instead of a kiss or a simile of such, he just tickles them with the soft fuzz above his upper lip. Never let it be said that Dante wasn't playful.
(No one ever said that).] Color me very intrigued.
[ She has always firmly stood with each foot situated in a different world, the power she possesses making it possible to exist both here and hold a significant presence in the other — but even her strength is limited, consigned to a certain sphere of influence. She’d needed someone stronger than herself to rid both worlds of the threat against her, and on that front he’d succeeded, as she’d almost suspected he would from the start.
But never had she anticipated what merely being in his presence would spark within her — what she is fighting not to give away so clearly as she lingers before him, as he guides her hand up with a playful gleam in his gaze and nuzzles against the ridges of her knuckles until she smiles, until some of the tension bleeds clear from her frame.
He has always had an uncanny ability to do that, to put her at ease perhaps when she needs it the most. ]
When I sat before you in this very space the first time, I couldn’t have envisioned this. [ A pause, and then she thinks she might need to state it plainly, even though his looking at her like that makes her pulse quicken. ] I couldn’t have envisioned you. And I find myself here again, with no reasonable excuse for it, conspiring a reason to return simply for the opportunity to confess that I have… lost sleep, of all things, in wanting you.
[Ah, that look suits her better. Shoulders lowered, that elegant arch of her neck stretched, the curve of her lips canted upwards. Vanessa holds many things that remind him of his mother. The way she dresses, some of the power within her. The way she carried her worries in her body and visibly so.
He tries to avoid lingering too much in those things but to see her smile made his own mouth quirk, his eyes wrinkle, and his own lungs reach for a sigh.
The air seems insufficient, upon those words. They send warning signs through his synapses and a hotcold sensation runs through his skin. For all the hot babes and the striking beings that crossed through the threshold of his shop, it had been her, out of everyone, pull a string at something within him that he couldn't really put his finger on. It's almost a joke, when he's surrounded by bared slender legs, short shorts and skin-tight leather, that he had wondered about what hid under long skirts, and how her husky voice would sound when gone breathless. Those dark eyelashes fluttering closed.
Dante is the kind of person that doesn't usually take things at face value, even when they're revealed in earnest like the confession he just heard. Time and time again have told him that there's always, always a catch.
Still, the ever playful demon hunter, he raises her hand above her head, makes her twirl in a mimicry of a dance move, and pulls it sideways to bring her closer to him.] Well, I wouldn't want to make you lose sleep over me.
[ Although her curiosity about him had been piqued from the start, she isn't so impolite as to pry into his particular circumstances, especially not in regards to his family or his history beyond a certain point. That way felt beyond the breadth of manners, and besides, she wasn't required to know everything and anything about him to know that he was going to be the exact man who could assist her with her most dire of needs.
All that is to say — whether or not she bears any striking resemblance to someone significant in his past, she does not know for certain. What she does know, almost immediately, is that being in his presence suffuses her with an exact reminder of why she'd sought him out for this — nothing that could be mistaken as a role-for-hire, nothing that he can worry about her feeling indebted to him for in terms of what he'd solved on her behalf.
But with her confession unveiled, she remains still, almost drawing in a breath and holding it within herself as she waits for his response. It would be inaccurate to call what she is experiencing now anything resembling nerves, but the quickened pace of her heartbeat is enough to indicate that she is waiting with a bated energy, uncertain about how he'll acknowledge it. ]
It may be too late for that. [ The words spill out of her on something very close to a laugh, the tension partially broken when he leads her in a spin and then draws her inward; instinctively, she brings her other hand to rest atop his shoulder in a loose imitation of a dance hold, as if swaying to a silent tune only they can hear. ] What would you prefer I do over you instead?
[Light. Her laughter teeters and the tension oozes down from her shoulders and she twirls light on her feet, same with her fingers, pale as snow on his black shirt. It's a constant dichotomy she carries, the power weaving through her and slithering across floors, thickening the air around her, wrapped around her voice, whilst her footsteps are light, the lilt to her lips resting on airy tones.
That glimmer to her eyes as she laughs, as she looks up to him, has him in shackles, and he's known this since the first time she sat across his desk as she looked him through her eyelashes, as she fiddled with the weaving of her veins on her wrists. Delicate damsels are aplenty, and the Demon Hunter is mostly indifferent to those - usually, those are the ones trying to kill him out of his own kindness, - but the way with which she carried the burden on her shoulders had him lean in, solve things, for at least a little while.
Mostly, he found himself wanting to draw a glimpse of a smile to those lips. Had wondered how that deep voice of hers laughed.
Dante couldn't help but be slightly humbled as he went under, whatever spell, whatever she has smitten him with as she did. Whatever it is, it builds a thrum that gets him to smile back with a whisper of Après moi, le déluge in his head.
He's gone to hell and back for much worse.
A gloved knuckle comes to stroke underneath the delicate curve of her chin, a coyote-wide grin to his mouth.] I can think of a number of things...
[He sighs wistfully. So many things, so little time. That hand curls around her side and easily picks her up.] Would you help me decide?
[ That conversation they'd held in this very room, on a day that seems distant and yet impossibly close to this moment now, had told her everything she needed to know — likely more than he'd prefer she did, when all was said and done. But she never would have dared to broach this particular subject as she does now, leaving her deepest confession where he's concerned laid bare and therefore offering something that she has kept withheld from many others after having it bruised so thoroughly. He has given her her life back, by removing the greatest threat to her being, and she had not anticipated that she would be drawn inextricably to him in the midst of it all — but here they are.
She is already extremely reluctant to do or say anything that might encourage him to surrender his hold on her; even the sensation of being lightly held makes her compelled to seek more, want further. She has the idle curiosity about how his hands would feel without the fabric of his gloves in the way — vividly, her mind conjures the imagined picture of his palms sliding up her naked back, underneath her unbound hair, and she has to repress a delighted shiver. ]
That sounds either somewhat vague or rather extensive, depending on perspective. [ A number of things, she thinks, could point to much more than either one of them could properly achieve — and in this office, no less — but now that she knows what it feels like to have him regard her with that broad smile, one that shrouds nothing, she wants to bask in it, tilt her face up toward that brilliance.
A soft breath escapes her when he hoists her up without difficulty, and when she finds her first instinct is to wrap her arms around his neck she doesn't deny herself, fingertips slipping through the long ends of his hair across his nape. ]
You're asking a very decisive woman. [ She inclines forward, close enough to permit her mouth to skim over his on every other syllable. ] But my list may be impressive enough to rival yours.
Coyote grin unrelenting, he gives her his teeth with a chuckle and an appreciative hum. This was one of the first things he enjoyed about her — one of the first things they engaged in — the ease of banter, the wit underneath that rod-straight spine of hers, the sober velvets and delicate play of words. That spark in her eyes as her quick tongue came back with something clever and determined got him in a chokehold, curling his legs in from their perch on the desk so he could lean his elbows instead, closer.]
Well, I do happen to have plenty of time to check all of those boxes. [He sets her on that desk, closing the pizza box neatly beside her and flicking a picture frame down (mother's eyes are the last thing he wants to spot here, just in case), but otherwise crowding over her with his hands beside her hips.] But that's up to you.
[Absently, he wonders if he actually made the bed this morning. Or if he had slept in the bed at all. Probably not. It's not like him to think much about it, anyway.]
[ It hadn't been her intention to approach him initially with anything but a singular goal — and she couldn't have afforded to let herself become distracted by his demeanor and unexpected charm even if she'd briefly considered permitting it to happen, not when there had been larger threats to her person. With those out of the picture, though, what excuse does she have left to continue denying herself certain impulses? What reason does she have not to let him swoop her up with practically the use of only one arm, carrying her around as though her weight is of little consequence or personal strain? ]
A busy man like you? I would have expected your schedule to be teeming over with appointments.
[ That's not just her attempt at being playful now; she knows his skills are in high demand, and it had been the reason she'd sought him out in the first place. Someone of his reputation doesn't simply emerge overnight, but what had been carried ahead of him by word-of-mouth had been the start of piquing her own curiosity, and the rest she'd had to verify with a direct meeting, to merely confirm the instincts she already possessed about him.
She tilts her chin up as he leans in, hovering over her in a way that doesn't necessarily crowd her; besides, she finds she already wants to know what his weight would feel like above her, against her, in spite of the difference between them in size. Her fingers seize a clutch in the front of his coat and she tightens her grasp to keep him in close proximity, and before he can muster up even the slightest response, she slants her mouth over his, finally kissing him in the manner she's been thinking of for weeks on end, a slow press that quickly adopts more heat. ]
[Delicate fingers in his coat show some remarkable strength instead, and he shouldn't really be surprised, he should know that appearances could be deceiving. Yet, in kissing him, her neck folds back like a flower bending towards a light source and he can't help but cup it as he presses back, the softness of the strands of her hair matched with an appreciative hum.
He sighs, a sense of finality worn on the way he pinches his shoulders and leans in further, nips at her full lips, curling around her further by taking the press of their mouths as permission to do so. He had only wondered about that part of humanity in her for a second or two, finding it treacherous territory, to begin with, but his curiosity was spurred by the connotation of her words, the slight tilt of her head at certain times. Cautious, controlled. Begging to be released. Yet kissing Vanessa feels like release itself, he realizes, and it feels like privilege. It feels disorderly already that he's grinning against her mouth, leaning down further to slip his hand under her skirt and stroking her leg from her ankle up.]
[ It might be seen as bold, her initiation, but when she has wanted this for so long, even longer than that if she counts those unconscious thoughts of venturing nearer to him without knowing what would come of it at the time, why should she worry about denying herself her greatest instinct so far? Those feelings might have left her more vulnerable to what preyed on her, forces somewhat beyond her comprehension, but with that threat vanquished by his hand, she has nothing else to fear, and there is freedom in her now — to pursue even the most long-held yearning.
In spite of his strength, he holds her gently, bending her back until she starts to wonder if he plans to take her right here on the desk. It's a thought that doesn't fill her with anything other than excitement, which should signal quite a lot in the way of her own interest, and when his touch drops to skim up her leg, drawing the hem of her skirt up with it, she's curious to see where it goes, if he'll venture beyond the border of her stocking and then higher to the exposure of thigh, if he'll continue even above that to the burgeoning heat between her legs, the place where she's ached for him already. She gives voice to a soft whimper against his mouth, something needy and a little desperate, and doesn't even have it in her to be embarrassed, not when she's already convinced he won't hold such a thing against her. ]
[Stockings feel glossy like silk, and the lace at the hem makes him stop to feel its texture. A thumb slips underneath, further away from the crux of where Vanessa (both of them, really) would want it to go, but delectable still. As slender as Vanessa is, all thin wrists and graceful neck, beautiful hands, a delicate collarbone, he finds the softness of her thighs yielding beautifully under the molding clench of his fingers as he splays them further on her direct skin. The kiss deepens an increment, swallowing the need in the sound she releases as though he needs to feed on it, too. While a man like Dante hides behind several "no worries" and the occasional "it's fine," head often stuck in a loop of concerns and passive wonderings, the demon-hunter finds his world(s) narrowing, his want growing.
Once something he considered a chain, he starts to think that maybe there's some liberty to the iron links of attraction.
When he pulls back, it's not without a slight bite to her lip to finalize the reddening that he busied himself with, humming appreciatively at the sight. Good color on her, he had thought before.] So, first order of business: [A rasp, and he buries his face on her neck to rub his stubble on the thin skin there because he's still an idiot even when he's aroused.] How long do you want this, ah, meeting, to last? [And a garishly contrasting soft kiss on her cheek.]
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And yet — she is here, perhaps in spite of her better judgment, in spite of everything that would have her operating under more sense. She does not believe she has imagined their connection, that the energies she feels passing between them are only restricted to one side, that what she feels for him is unreciprocated.
So why, then, does she hesitate? It isn't uncertainty, so perhaps it lies closer to nerves of some kind — and wouldn't that be something, as she reaches out with that same hand to take hold of his own, fingers curving for a soft grip. ]
Memory would imply we've been here before. Not crossing some threshold into the unknown.
no subject
He knew, by that very same connection or design, how Vanessa empathized, knew what it felt like to have blood warring within them.
Her fingers curl - deceptively delicate, sweet ivy snuggling soft around its perch of choice - and despite the fingerless gloves that Dante seems to almost permanently wear, the warmth seeps quickly.
It's a touch that's bound to bring him some grief, some day, he believes, but...
Worth it.]
Oh, so this is an invitation to the unknown? [He sounds delighted, his fingers bringing her knuckles to his mouth, except instead of a kiss or a simile of such, he just tickles them with the soft fuzz above his upper lip. Never let it be said that Dante wasn't playful.
(No one ever said that).] Color me very intrigued.
no subject
But never had she anticipated what merely being in his presence would spark within her — what she is fighting not to give away so clearly as she lingers before him, as he guides her hand up with a playful gleam in his gaze and nuzzles against the ridges of her knuckles until she smiles, until some of the tension bleeds clear from her frame.
He has always had an uncanny ability to do that, to put her at ease perhaps when she needs it the most. ]
When I sat before you in this very space the first time, I couldn’t have envisioned this. [ A pause, and then she thinks she might need to state it plainly, even though his looking at her like that makes her pulse quicken. ] I couldn’t have envisioned you. And I find myself here again, with no reasonable excuse for it, conspiring a reason to return simply for the opportunity to confess that I have… lost sleep, of all things, in wanting you.
no subject
He tries to avoid lingering too much in those things but to see her smile made his own mouth quirk, his eyes wrinkle, and his own lungs reach for a sigh.
The air seems insufficient, upon those words. They send warning signs through his synapses and a hotcold sensation runs through his skin. For all the hot babes and the striking beings that crossed through the threshold of his shop, it had been her, out of everyone, pull a string at something within him that he couldn't really put his finger on. It's almost a joke, when he's surrounded by bared slender legs, short shorts and skin-tight leather, that he had wondered about what hid under long skirts, and how her husky voice would sound when gone breathless. Those dark eyelashes fluttering closed.
Dante is the kind of person that doesn't usually take things at face value, even when they're revealed in earnest like the confession he just heard. Time and time again have told him that there's always, always a catch.
Still, the ever playful demon hunter, he raises her hand above her head, makes her twirl in a mimicry of a dance move, and pulls it sideways to bring her closer to him.] Well, I wouldn't want to make you lose sleep over me.
no subject
All that is to say — whether or not she bears any striking resemblance to someone significant in his past, she does not know for certain. What she does know, almost immediately, is that being in his presence suffuses her with an exact reminder of why she'd sought him out for this — nothing that could be mistaken as a role-for-hire, nothing that he can worry about her feeling indebted to him for in terms of what he'd solved on her behalf.
But with her confession unveiled, she remains still, almost drawing in a breath and holding it within herself as she waits for his response. It would be inaccurate to call what she is experiencing now anything resembling nerves, but the quickened pace of her heartbeat is enough to indicate that she is waiting with a bated energy, uncertain about how he'll acknowledge it. ]
It may be too late for that. [ The words spill out of her on something very close to a laugh, the tension partially broken when he leads her in a spin and then draws her inward; instinctively, she brings her other hand to rest atop his shoulder in a loose imitation of a dance hold, as if swaying to a silent tune only they can hear. ] What would you prefer I do over you instead?
no subject
That glimmer to her eyes as she laughs, as she looks up to him, has him in shackles, and he's known this since the first time she sat across his desk as she looked him through her eyelashes, as she fiddled with the weaving of her veins on her wrists. Delicate damsels are aplenty, and the Demon Hunter is mostly indifferent to those - usually, those are the ones trying to kill him out of his own kindness, - but the way with which she carried the burden on her shoulders had him lean in, solve things, for at least a little while.
Mostly, he found himself wanting to draw a glimpse of a smile to those lips. Had wondered how that deep voice of hers laughed.
Dante couldn't help but be slightly humbled as he went under, whatever spell, whatever she has smitten him with as she did. Whatever it is, it builds a thrum that gets him to smile back with a whisper of Après moi, le déluge in his head.
He's gone to hell and back for much worse.
A gloved knuckle comes to stroke underneath the delicate curve of her chin, a coyote-wide grin to his mouth.] I can think of a number of things...
[He sighs wistfully. So many things, so little time. That hand curls around her side and easily picks her up.] Would you help me decide?
no subject
She is already extremely reluctant to do or say anything that might encourage him to surrender his hold on her; even the sensation of being lightly held makes her compelled to seek more, want further. She has the idle curiosity about how his hands would feel without the fabric of his gloves in the way — vividly, her mind conjures the imagined picture of his palms sliding up her naked back, underneath her unbound hair, and she has to repress a delighted shiver. ]
That sounds either somewhat vague or rather extensive, depending on perspective. [ A number of things, she thinks, could point to much more than either one of them could properly achieve — and in this office, no less — but now that she knows what it feels like to have him regard her with that broad smile, one that shrouds nothing, she wants to bask in it, tilt her face up toward that brilliance.
A soft breath escapes her when he hoists her up without difficulty, and when she finds her first instinct is to wrap her arms around his neck she doesn't deny herself, fingertips slipping through the long ends of his hair across his nape. ]
You're asking a very decisive woman. [ She inclines forward, close enough to permit her mouth to skim over his on every other syllable. ] But my list may be impressive enough to rival yours.
no subject
Coyote grin unrelenting, he gives her his teeth with a chuckle and an appreciative hum. This was one of the first things he enjoyed about her — one of the first things they engaged in — the ease of banter, the wit underneath that rod-straight spine of hers, the sober velvets and delicate play of words. That spark in her eyes as her quick tongue came back with something clever and determined got him in a chokehold, curling his legs in from their perch on the desk so he could lean his elbows instead, closer.]
Well, I do happen to have plenty of time to check all of those boxes. [He sets her on that desk, closing the pizza box neatly beside her and flicking a picture frame down (mother's eyes are the last thing he wants to spot here, just in case), but otherwise crowding over her with his hands beside her hips.] But that's up to you.
[Absently, he wonders if he actually made the bed this morning. Or if he had slept in the bed at all. Probably not. It's not like him to think much about it, anyway.]
no subject
A busy man like you? I would have expected your schedule to be teeming over with appointments.
[ That's not just her attempt at being playful now; she knows his skills are in high demand, and it had been the reason she'd sought him out in the first place. Someone of his reputation doesn't simply emerge overnight, but what had been carried ahead of him by word-of-mouth had been the start of piquing her own curiosity, and the rest she'd had to verify with a direct meeting, to merely confirm the instincts she already possessed about him.
She tilts her chin up as he leans in, hovering over her in a way that doesn't necessarily crowd her; besides, she finds she already wants to know what his weight would feel like above her, against her, in spite of the difference between them in size. Her fingers seize a clutch in the front of his coat and she tightens her grasp to keep him in close proximity, and before he can muster up even the slightest response, she slants her mouth over his, finally kissing him in the manner she's been thinking of for weeks on end, a slow press that quickly adopts more heat. ]
no subject
He sighs, a sense of finality worn on the way he pinches his shoulders and leans in further, nips at her full lips, curling around her further by taking the press of their mouths as permission to do so. He had only wondered about that part of humanity in her for a second or two, finding it treacherous territory, to begin with, but his curiosity was spurred by the connotation of her words, the slight tilt of her head at certain times. Cautious, controlled. Begging to be released. Yet kissing Vanessa feels like release itself, he realizes, and it feels like privilege. It feels disorderly already that he's grinning against her mouth, leaning down further to slip his hand under her skirt and stroking her leg from her ankle up.]
no subject
In spite of his strength, he holds her gently, bending her back until she starts to wonder if he plans to take her right here on the desk. It's a thought that doesn't fill her with anything other than excitement, which should signal quite a lot in the way of her own interest, and when his touch drops to skim up her leg, drawing the hem of her skirt up with it, she's curious to see where it goes, if he'll venture beyond the border of her stocking and then higher to the exposure of thigh, if he'll continue even above that to the burgeoning heat between her legs, the place where she's ached for him already. She gives voice to a soft whimper against his mouth, something needy and a little desperate, and doesn't even have it in her to be embarrassed, not when she's already convinced he won't hold such a thing against her. ]
no subject
Once something he considered a chain, he starts to think that maybe there's some liberty to the iron links of attraction.
When he pulls back, it's not without a slight bite to her lip to finalize the reddening that he busied himself with, humming appreciatively at the sight. Good color on her, he had thought before.] So, first order of business: [A rasp, and he buries his face on her neck to rub his stubble on the thin skin there because he's still an idiot even when he's aroused.] How long do you want this, ah, meeting, to last? [And a garishly contrasting soft kiss on her cheek.]