Summary: And anger can be nothing more than a cover for a sea of feelings.
Tagging: @rc-catalog
-You need to learn to control that mouth of yours.
The door slammed as soon as he pulled her inside. She had no time to notice the tidiness of the room or the contrasting mess that filled his desk before his body pressed hers against the just closed white painted wood.
Riley remember a dinner many years on the past where Mrs. Fairchild had spend almost the entire evening explaining the different types of wood they had used on each floor. But for some reason, as Declan caged her head between his arms, she seemed to have forgotten everything about it.
His browns were furrowed in a way they only ever got with and because of her, a slight red tinted the apples of his face and the top of his ears, and his eyes were focused deeply on hers.
He was angry at her.
Again.
And, as usual, it didn't make any sense. It was always him that reached out, it was always him who provoked her, it was him who pulled her inside his room and pressed her against a wall. If anyone got any right to be angry, it was her.
And that only made her want to make him even angrier.
-Oh so it's my fault now?
-You need to stop saying things without thinking. What if that noise was Mrs. Fairchild or Amelia?
-That was no noise, you absolutely lost it.
-You've got to be kidding with me.
-You're so scared of your little facade to fall that you're starting to hear things.
He pulled away from her to run both his hands through his head. His fingers pulled his hair, making it messier than she has ever seen. She didn't move a single step.
He refused to look at her, and still his cheeks had only grown redder. He was tired of that subject coming over and over again.
She couldn't let this go.
-Please, shut up.
-All this to protect the little prince's pristine future! I'm tired of this.
-And don't you think is protecting your future too?
His voice was sharp like a whip although he clearly tried to control the volume of it and his eyes were sharp when he caged her between himself and the door again. She didn't try to run or pull away.
Her eyes kept focused on him, the venom ready to spill out of her mouth. His refusal to talk about it only hurt her and made her want him to feel at least half as hurt as she did. She wanted to break that self restrain he still held to. He wanted to make him scream and tear himself apart. She wanted to be the reason for it.
-No.
-You're ridiculous.
-You asked me a question, Romano. I gave you an answer. I think you only think about yourself and about what you want.
His eyes got colder and his voice got rawer. Their faces were now merely millimeters away from each other. Neither pulled apart. Because pulling away would mean being scared, because pulling away would mean being wrong. And in that room almost nothing screamed as loudly as their pride. Almost.
-You have no idea of what you're saying. I'm telling you, we have to be careful.
-Why?
Such a simple question. One that surely was only meant to make the argument grow even more. But he committed the must fatal mistake, the most venous of sins, he looked down to her lips.
Simply for one second, only for long enough for her to see it, only enough for the light on his eyes shift into something different, something she didn't know how to name, something she knew he never meant for her to see.
Their lips were on each other's on the next second.
It was impossible to determine who pulled in first, and if they were ever to talk about it one would certainly pin the initiative and the blame on the other, but Declan's hands were already both on her waist, his fingers sinking in her clothed skin in a way were it seemed like he wanted to leave marks behind and Riley's hands were already on his neck, in a weird mix of chocking and pulling him close.
All his fighting urge seemed to evaporate from his body as water boiling when a metal was dropped into it. She could feel his shoulders relaxing by the muscles on his neck, and yet his hands only gripped her waist with more force. She knew it would leave a mark behind, she wondered if that was his goal.
It was all too hard. It had too much teeth. It was too painful. But when she licked his lips, Declan parted them, sighing in a way sounded almost like drowning.
And Riley smiled against his lips. Because he had finally got quiet, because she was winning and he was losing and succumbing, because she could taste a metallic sting on the tip of her tongue and she knew it was his blood. Because she didn't know what tasted sweeter: his lips, his blood on the knowledge that she had won.
That was, until he pulled away from her, just enough to take her in his arms and carry her across the room, busing his mouth with open kisses on her neck while they didn't reach his destination, sitting her down on top of his work when they did so, and positioning himself in the middle of her legs, immediately and purposefully biting the skin just under her ear.
She should want explanations for the sudden change of scenery and the silence, but his hands freely exploring her hips and legs while his mouth keep marking her in every bit of skin he could find made it impossible to focus into anything but his touch.
He should want absolutely anything other than this. He wanted to make sure that the marks left by his teeth were high enough that nothing shorter than a turtleneck would be able to hide them. He should want anything but he wanted to tear apart her blouse and mark the skin under it. And so he did. His fingers slowly climbed up her thighs, her hips, her waist and suddenly stopping there.
For the first time ever since they started this he looked up to meet her eyes. She knew he was searching for either consent or for her to pull away. But the sudden openness she found for the first time ever since they met was too much for her. Seeing him completely devoid of the mask he had always carried was too much. It was too vulnerable, to soft. They had no space for that. She shouldn't want for them to.
So she merely crashed her lips against his, over and over again, until her need for closeness was drowned by the taste of his blood, until her nails carved their space on his back. Until someone knocked on his door to call him up for dinner and they tidied themselves without meting each other's eyes.
Until she left in silence and the only proof what had happened was their scared skins and the crumpled papers of that desk.
