they'll bring their war right to us. [ian]

Kiara
Wednesday evening had settled in warm over Morrison.

Aside from her response to Ian's video message on Tuesday, there hadn't been a great many sightings of the Verbena known as Kiara Woolfe, not since a certain hacker come drug dealer had required her to heal him and subsequently been delivered into the capable hands of one Grace Evans. All said, it wasn't exactly the first time Ian and Kiara had gone days, even a month or so without seeing the other around the city limits. The brunette was, above all else, a capricious and independent soul.

Still, her response had been, in her way, an invitation for him to come and find her.

She's in the meditation pool, as it turns out.

Hardly hiding but there is something to the sight of her that arrests attention. Not simply the fact she's soaking in the water with her head resting back against the side of the pool; arms stretched out to lightly anchor herself in place and her dark hair tied into a messy knot to keep it dry, nor the fact she was wearing a white bikini top that laced around behind her neck but - she was glowing.

It was subtle at best but the illumination was easier to see in the gathering dusk. Kiara's skin had an illumination to it that, coupled with the way her energy felt; offered the oddest sensation that her pattern was visually breathing in tandem with her.

There's a glass of untouched wine resting on one of the stones beside her arm but other than the occasional ripple as her legs moved beneath the surface, the pagan was otherwise entirely motionless; her eyes closed; expression peaceful; attuned. There were insects singing in the grass and somewhere; a lone bird saluted the last hints of daylight as it faded and stars appeared; twinkling into substance above.

The picture of rejuvenation at work, perhaps.

Ian[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

IanEarlier in the evening, Annie, Sasha and Leah took the SUV and headed into the city. Perhaps Kiara saw them go. If she did, she might note the change in the youngest of the two Verbena - the blond hair and the new face she'd crafted with her magick. Leah never explained why she needed a different face (a different name) to go into the city. Likely there was a story there. Many of them had such stories.

Kiara had the place to herself for a time, before the distant sound of an engine drew near along the winding driveway.

Ian's footsteps are quiet as he approaches over the freshly mowed grass. The heels of his boots leave little indentations in the green. By the time he reaches the pool, he's already thinking he'd rather be barefoot, but he hesitates when he notices the change in Kiara's skin - the way it gives off that gentle glow in the moonlight. Crouching down at her side, he reaches out to trace the backs of his knuckles over the slope of her shoulder. The gesture is slightly tentative and wholly curious.

"What happened?"

Kiara[Awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

KiaraAisling had been talented with it. The crafting of disguises, of glamours to change aspects of herself to suit her endeavors. She'd explained the necessity only once to her before she'd headed into the city to visit the same hospital she'd encountered Kiara and Sadie at; had spoken of the dangers of being known to the wrong people; of the ways her work put her on the front line for detection.

It had always been worth it, to Aisling Callahan. Save one, keep one less from the ministrations of the Technocracy.

She was in the kitchen when the others departed, uncorking a bottle of wine and pouring out a generous glass. If she notes Leah's disguise (she does) she's careful not to comment on it with more than a brief, tugging smile. Recognition of her skills, perhaps. She feels Ian when he approaches, opens her eyes when the insects quieten. He's crouching down beside her, lightly stroking her skin which feels the same as ever, if slightly cooler for the time she's spent in the water.

The glow that suffices it, whatever it is, doesn't seem contagious; his knuckles don't come away with a residue of it; it simply - is - beneath Kiara's skin. Her dark eyes observe his curiosity for a beat and then she shifts; the water lapping at the side of the pool as she turns to face him. Ian, adept as he is at the way the human body worked; at the indications of muscular tension, can likely see the way she does so with care.

"I crossed over. To the other side. To the Umbra." She settles her arms on the side of the pool; her eyelashes are spiked with water; droplets sliding along the slope of her shoulders, she's smiling as she offers this news, though it's tinged with a sort of weary awareness of the cost. "I'd been trying to for so long and suddenly I just - " She rubs her cheek against her arm. "- I saw what it was like and when I came back," she lets her eyes drop to her body.

"This happened." Her eyes tick back to his face, a thin shoulder lifts slightly. "I wasn't careful enough."

IanThere will always be things that Ian cannot control. Dangers he's unable to protect people from. Life is dangerous. Especially for them. It is possible, however, that as much as he fully understands this fact, he will never stop feeling that now-familiar knot of anxiety wind around his sternum whenever he's reminded of it.

The way he sits there, crouched on the lip of the stones with coiled muscles and sharply focused eyes... he looks like a wild animal. Like he might at any moment spring into action.

He doesn't, though.

"Sometimes it doesn't matter how careful we are."

(Another legacy of the Technocracy.)

He lets his eyes fall away from her face to tug at the zippers on the sides of his boots. It's a natural impulse, being near the node (wanting to feel less encumbered.) He sits down, pulling his feet free. His shirt comes off next. Fall weather is creeping in, but the air tonight is warm enough yet to feel comfortable on his skin. He doesn't try to join her just yet. Instead he rolls the edges of his jeans midway up his calves and slides forward to dip his feet into the water.

It isn't as enjoyable as it should be. There's too much on his mind. But the resonance in the air makes his muscles uncoil a little.

"It's been... an interesting week for both of us, I think. Are you alright?"

KiaraShe's been meditating near the stone steps that lead down into the pool so its no great task for Kiara to set her feet down on the base of the Node to free her arms in order to attend to her as of yet ignored glass of wine. She takes a careful sip of it, watching as Ian sheds some of the layers he'd arrived in.

Swallowing as he asks if she's alright, Kiara's brows draw together as she sets the glass back down; drifts a little closer until she's situated in the cradle his body forms, his feet in the water.

"Physically, I've felt better but it's nothing. In the scheme of things, it's - " She floats out a little into the water, her expression thoughtful, momentarily somber. " - I don't regret that I did it. What I saw, it was beautiful but also - " Kiara's lips twist, her expression becoming some complicated reaction to her experiences. Sorrow and uncertainty, exhilaration and some suggestion of unease. "The Avatar Storm. I felt it. I passed right through it and it was like standing in the middle of a battlefield. All that rage and directionless anger just existing there." The combination of the water's reflection and Kiara's temporary aura casts the Verbena with a strange, ethereal glow and she appears as otherworldly in the moment as the place she describes.

She shifts closer to him, then. Sets her hands lightly on his knees just above where his jeans have been pushed up, out of the way of the water. "I've never felt anything like that. Like it would tear me apart." She searches his expression, reads the tension there, feels the hint of it in his voice.

"Are you alright? What have I missed?"

IanIt is now the third time in only so many days that Ian has been given reason to think about the Umbra. One might call that a sign, if one were to believe in such things. It's a place that he himself has only ever glimpsed the surface of. For a long time, it seemed likely he might never be able to do even that on his own. (And what had Sabine said to him? You are closer to all the mystery and wonder and power of spirits than they are. If that was true, then he'd been a very poor student.)

It is not, though, that it held no meaning for him. Perhaps more that he did not wish to see it.

His eyes shift a little when he looks down  at Kiara in the pool. Something shadowed with exhaustion and cracked in these tiny, broken edges. He's been holding a lot of tension in his chest. Perhaps she'll notice that too, with the way his torso does not quite relax the way it should.

"Someone told me recently that the Storm is dying down. That people are starting to cross over more. I wish I could have gone with you." He goes quiet, watching the way the water shimmers against the ethereal glow of her skin. She puts her hand on his knee and he leans forward, tracing fingertips through her damp hair. "First of all, you missed me acting like an idiot in a karaoke bar. But I think I sent you evidence of that."

He knows he did (he wasn't that drunk.)

"I found out some things about the attack in Reynold's Park. The one you and Alexander were looking into. But that's... less immediate, I think." His hand drops back to his side as he glances away, focusing on the stand of quaking aspen at the edge of the woods. Their slender trunks creak and sway gently in the breeze. "I also met someone I didn't think I'd see again. This kid named Atreyu. He's the one who told me about the Storm."

Ian exhales slowly, bringing his eyes back to meet Kiara's. "He said that the Technocrats have re-established contact with their old leadership, whatever that means. I think he called it Control. He thinks we could be in for another war. Maybe worse, this time. If the old powers get what they want."

Kiara"Next time," she asserts with a little wry bent to her mouth, her eyes steady on his face, the smile growing as he traces fingers through her hair where tendrils have grown damp from leaning against the side of the pool and cling to the nape of her neck; her temples. She voices agreement about the evidence of his evening at the karaoke bar ("I did that once with Elijah, took pity on the poor guy when his parents were in town, I wasn't nearly drunk enough for some of the vocal slaughter I endured that night") and then stills, her dark eyes growing focused, even as they narrow on the rippling water surrounding her.

A frown appears.

A schism of tension gathering between Kiara's shoulder blades; spilling over into the fine quality of those eyes as they cut back to his face, he can see the fear warring with anger in them. "So they can finish destroying what little they didn't last time, I guess." She clenches her jaw and draws back to cross her arms over her chest; the stance is defensive. Though the anger seems wholly focused on the subject, more than the messenger.

"Did he say anything about them here. Numbers, or - " She breathes in sharply, drops her hands to her sides; they cause tiny ripples to roll over the surface of the water. "How long we have until - " She doesn't finish the thought but there's no need, really. It's written all over the Verbena's face.

IanIan has never lost anyone he truly cared about to the Technocracy. Not the way that Kiara has. But he knows what it feels like to have a memory rip through his body the way it probably does for her whenever she hears someone mention the Union. And it hurts him to see it now, to know that he's the one who opened the door.

He also knows there is likely to come a day when he can no longer say that the Technocracy hasn't taken something that mattered from him. The immediacy of that possibility is all the more real now.

"He said there's a lab in the city, but it's mostly scientists. He also seems to think they aren't interested in starting a fight with us. Given we haven't ever run into them... that could be true." His voice drops. "I'm not sure how long. I don't think he is either. He was talking about all these politics within the Union. Dissidents versus extremists. He seems to think there's a chance the new leadership won't want to go back to the way things used to be. That there might be some kind of internal war. He and his cabal are trying to make sure the right side wins." There's this faintly bitter laugh, at that. "As if there's really a fucking right side, with them."

But if what Atreyu says is true, then they have to look at it that way, don't they? The lesser of two evils.

Ian watches Kiara in the pool - the anger and the tension in her frame, the way she holds herself like she might lash out at the next person to cross into her path. There's an instinct. It doesn't really form in his mind so much as unspool through his body - this sudden, almost visceral need to be closer to her. He's still got his jeans on, but he doesn't stop to think about it. He just shifts forward and drops into the water. His breath comes a little quickly when he feels the Node's embrace wash over him, but mostly his attention is on Kiara. His hands come out to touch her arms, to pull her close if she'll let him. There's a hum of tension in his muscles... this deep, subtle vibration that seems to want to explode into something but doesn't quite manifest.

He might be putting himself into the orbit of her rage, but whatever she's feeling, he isn't afraid of it. And maybe that's part of what he's offering in that moment - an anchor or an outlet. Maybe he needs that too.

"What I said that day after the show... I'll do whatever I have to do to keep this place safe. To keep you safe."

KiaraSome part of Kiara must process that she has no room for clear, unbiased opinion on this subject. Indeed, in another mood, at another time she might have responded differently. May still find within her the germ of sympathy for those caught up in the war. The scientists and doctors who had no true idea who (or what) they so tirelessly toiled for. There was, somewhere, laced up and tangled inside the mechanisms of war and ambition, real victims.

As real and perhaps more undeserving than her former coven had been. Than her mentor, who knowingly engaged, had to have been. Not many members of the human race understood the full extent to which they were cogs in a larger, merciless machine.

"Is that the company line they're going with, now?" She asks, her voice quietly furious. There's a sting of bitterness to it, a hot spark of anger prevalent in her eyes, even as Ian hops down into the water half clothed and moves toward her. She doesn't stop him, but equally so she doesn't reach out for him, either. Her chin lifts; spots of bright color darkening in her cheeks. "We're not so bad, we just want to control the world in a nicer way. Stay out of our way and we won't slaughter you all like the cowards we are."

Thrown against the ebb and stutter-glow of that aura to her skin tonight, the Verbena looks every inch the creature of nature she claims allegiance and kinship, too, especially with the way her voice vibrates with carefully nuanced fury.

She doesn't fight it when he pulls her close but her agitation has her slower to respond, to let go of the tension in her frame. He can feel it as she tries to; the slow breath she takes; the gradual give to her body; the way she allows herself to sink against him; just a little. Her lips close enough to his shoulder he can feel it when she offers quietly: "There's no keeping safe from them."

She draws back enough to skate fingers along his jaw. "They'll bring their war right to us." Kiara's mouth gives at a brief, sharp little smile. "Part of me hopes they do. If only so I can tell them where they can put their ideas of enlightenment."

IanThere's no keeping safe from them.

It's a fact they both know all too well. A fact that any of the Awakened understand. One cannot live in the world that they do without being constantly aware of the threat that the Technocracy poses. Even if one is lucky enough not to encounter them, there are stories everywhere. Faceless, looming threats lurking just out of sight.

Standing in that house with Kalen and Grace, listening to Atreyu talk about helping the Technocrats like it was a fucking tactical decision (like they could all just forget what the Union was and what it had done,) Ian had wanted to scream.

Kiara doesn't need to explain why she's so angry. She can see the mirror of it in Ian's eyes when he looks at her. But there are other things, too. It's why he said what he did.

"I know."

His arms fold around her, and he can feel the live-wire tension in her body. The weight of his arms is light enough not to make her feel trapped, but when his hands find her back they grip into the muscle there, and there is this tiny shudder in his chest.

"Don't hope that. People will die."

His voice catches a little, and if she looks at his eyes she'll see the brimming swell of emotion there. The chasm of anger and hurt and fear that's threatening to break through. She doesn't even know the rest of the story - the things Atreyu reminded him of (that horrible fucking place where they met) and the secrets Sabine gave him. She doesn't know that he might be about to lose the only connection he has left to his father.

(But he's not thinking about that, see?)

"I can't..."

(lose you too.)

He doesn't finish it though. His voice gets all knotted up in his throat and he knows if he keeps talking he's going to start to cry. So he just stops and pulls her against him tightly (forgetting for a moment that he was trying to be careful) and presses his head against hers.

 Kiara
She doesn't know what it was like to stand there with two people you considered friends and participate in a discussion about the War and the Technocracy and helping the Union as if it was even on the table for some of them. As if they could put to one side grudges and loss and (in some cases) centuries of tutored mistrust and betrayal and work side by side with such people. She doesn't know what it was like where Ian had been, where he, Kalen and Sid had met Atreyu the first time.

She doesn't know a great many pieces of the puzzle but what she does know, what she can feel is anger.

What she does understand is the way it felt to stand in a clearing with dirt tricking through her fingers and Annie Pierce's despair washing over her. To see what remained of the Union's last attempts at control of what wasn't theirs. She remembers Serafine's expression when she said there was a gap in Time. That what had been ripped out and bleached clean wasn't just life. Nothingness. It was what always remained in the wake of them, that was what Kiara knew.

People will die.

Her eyes are overbright and the gleaming smile around her generous mouth dulls and fades; she becomes somber. "I know they will." And when he pulls her closer, she makes a quiet noise that could as much be a tiny reaction to the fact she's still oddly tender; her limbs heavier not simply for the fact they're standing in the middle of a pool but that she'd been dosed with Paradox a day earlier as much as the way Ian's voice catches; Kiara's arms come around him and press against his back; her fingers gripping at his shoulders in a sudden, spasmodic way.

If he looks, pressed this close, he can see the way the illumination under the Verbena's skin reflects against his own.

"I couldn't do that. Work with them. If that's what's on the table. If that's what - " She draws back enough to pull in a ragged breath; to search through the complicated mix of emotions in his eyes, her own full of dark threads of anger and pain and, no shortage of concern. That, coupled with the way she strokes her hands over him, shoulder to neck and down his back in an absent gesture of comfort. Touch had always been their easiest conduit for things that couldn't easily be articulated.

"It's not in me."

She sounds almost regretful, the brunette, for the fact it isn't. "Not after what they did in New York. God, not after what they did here." Her expression turns suddenly fierce and she slides her arms around his neck, buoyed by the water its simple enough to press their bodies together and she curls herself around him; presses her face into his neck to murmur: "They've taken enough people from me."

(They can't have you, too).

IanWhen Kiara makes that noise, Ian lets his grip relax almost instantly. There's an answering sound in his chest that feels worried; apologetic. Probably more than he needs to be, but he so rarely forgets to be careful and just then his emotions are more exposed than either of them are used to. He doesn't let her go, but he stops pressing - lets his grasp ease back to what it was. Kiara's hands are on his shoulders and she's gripping him too. Her skin against his is luminous and oddly beautiful. Like she brought some of the Spirit Wilds back with her.

She tells him that she could never work with the Technocrats, and Ian doesn't offer any resistance to this claim. Doesn't try to convince her why she should. He'd known - of course he'd known - that she wasn't a creature built for that kind of compromise. That the Union had taken too much from her. That asking her to set that aside was cruel at best, impossible at worst.

It's not in me.

They've taken enough people from me.

"I know," he says again. "I won't ask you to." There's a long beat as he looks down into her eyes, then he kisses her on the forehead, the temple, and finally her lips. It is... soft... slow. The core of his body is still shivering a little, despite the warmth of the spring and the summer air. Like his body can't quite hold what it's feeling.

There's something else he hasn't told her, and it would be so easy not to. Almost, he doesn't. There's evident reluctance in his voice when he says it, like he's a little scared of what she might do with the information. But he does tell her, because he owes it to her to give her all the pieces. And because he doesn't want to lie to her. Ever.

"The Hermetics want to fight them. Here. They sent someone to scope things out. But even if they win, it won't matter. The Union will just show up again with a bigger army, and where the fuck does that even end?"

KiaraShe can feel it when he presses his lips to her brow, her temple, feels the hesitation drawing in as he kisses her completely and she pushes into the embrace; slides a hand around his rib-cage; down over a shoulder and for a beat; ignores the subtle ache it sends lancing through her muscles to keep him against her for a moment.

But - the way he shivers and the sense that there's more. More to know, more he feels he needs to tell her tempers her enough to loosen her hold and allow him to voice it - reluctantly. The Hermetics wanted to fight. They sent someone to scope things out.

If they win -

There's a sharp breath of laughter from the Verbena. It's disbelieving, dubious. Her eyebrows rising in tandem as he goes on. When he finishes, Kiara is shaking her head, her hands having fallen away from him; they slide through the water at her sides, the tension returning to her shoulders, the set of her jaw. For all that she was a healer, that she had the capacity for great empathy and consideration there was the other side to the Verbena, too. There had to be, in some respects - how could a creature so tied to the earth not have darker aspects - nature was, after all, so utterly mutable.

He'd tasted a little of that side of her when they'd met - that corrosive, devouring edge. The sensation of it had fled from Kiara but, that capacity for it, lingered in the flashing warning in her eyes at moments; the harder twist to her mouth; her narrowing expression. "The Hermetics want to start a war. Of course they do and never mind, I'm guessing, what the rest of us think."

Kiara's anger wanes a little as if it sustaining it were exhausting her (and perhaps, to a degree, it is, given everything). She lifts her fingers to her face; brushes aside strands of wet hair and leaves a smattering of droplets on her cheek; they slide down; gathering along her jaw; the dip of her collarbones.

"Where does Kalen stand on this?" A beat, she searches his expression. "Will he side with them?" The tone she uses seems to question whether he'll be given a choice.

IanHer anger is, in its way, reassuring. She lets her arms go and so does he, though perhaps with more reluctance. His hands slide to her shoulders; down the length of her arms, until his palms spread out along the surface of the water.

"Kalen's going to try to convince them to stand down. Atreyu's helping him. They have a sound argument, but... I don't know." He sighs, and the gust of his breath shakes a little. "Hermetics and their fucking pride." There's a beat before he adds, "Kalen might lose his position over this."

Might lose more than that. But Ian may never fully understand the draw the Order held for Kalen. The hopes and dreams he'll be giving up if he leaves it. The family.

"I'll tell you when I know more. We're trying to keep this off of Ginger. Just... to be safe."

If Kiara is exhausted, so is he. Emotionally, at least. She can see it when he exhales, the way he tries to let some of it go. Let the warm, rejuvenating caress of the water and of Kiara's presence sink a little deeper into his skin. He's still not really thinking about the fact that, in a moment, he'll have to get out and dry his jeans off. Mostly he just looks... tired, worn.

"Do you think Annie and Sasha will care if I sleep here tonight?"

KiaraIt occurs to Kiara, not for the first time, that this is the Tradition Elijah has ambitions to join - has joined, for all she knows and there's a sliver of ice that situates itself in her chest at the idea of that. At the idea of what so much ambition and pride would do to a person like Elijah - for all his striving, hopeful desire to learn and better himself - there was a coldness to the Order that Kiara had never quite been able to shake off.

(But then, how many opinions had she allowed herself to form based on her mentor's re-tellings? She's not immune to the fact she carries a bias when it comes to some, she'd barely withheld her dismay the first time Lavinia mentioned the Chorus).

"I don't envy them." Still - "But I do trust Kalen to try." She draws her lower lip between her teeth, then. Looks away, up into the reaches of the darkened sky above them. It wasn't a night free of cloud cover but the stars could be glimpsed; winking in and out of sight; a subtle breeze picked through the trees and where it brushed the Verbena's skin; it left the tiny hairs on end. Sent tiny ripples across the surface of the water.

"Mabon is coming soon." She speaks without looking at him, but can feel him listening, feel his attention. "The Equinox. The day and night are equal and the Sun God dies and returns to the arms of the Goddess." There's a little smile the bends the edge of the Verbena's mouth, a slim shoulder lifts. "Sadie and I used to collect all the leaves that fell from the trees around New York."

Do you think Annie and Sasha will care if I sleep here tonight?

She moves toward him, looks down at where the water ripples and distorts their bodies below the surface (her own still faintly illumined, more evident now in the gathering dark) and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. Lifts her face and, leaning in to press her mouth to his once; almost chastely for her, squeezes his fingers.

"They went into the city earlier, but - I don't think so." She tugs him toward the steps, moving backwards with care. "I might keep you awake, though." She casts him a fleeting, brief smile, her eyes dropping to where their fingers are entwined and the flicker-glow beneath her skin. "Unintentionally."

IanThe kiss is simple. This moment of connection as their hands intertwine and their bodies touch beneath the water. Ian leans into it just a little.

"Mm, it is almost that time of year, isn't it?" He lifts their conjoined hands and loosens them a little; slides his fingers between her own, feeling the shape of her knuckles, the length of the bones in her hand. "I like Fall."

He hopes, but does not say, that they actually be able to enjoy some of it this year.

There is that fleeting smile, and for the first time in a good few minutes, Ian answers it. "Unintentionally, she says. And dashes all of my hopes." His tone is gently teasing and only slightly disappointed. There is still too much evidence of tension and frayed nerves for the statement to carry any weight. He nuzzles against her cheek briefly, makes this sound in his throat that feels a little tight and almost-pained, but it's gone a moment later. Then she's leading him back to the steps, and he follows her out onto the grass, dripping.

It's then that he glances down and notes the discomforting way his jeans plaster themselves to his legs with a little curl of annoyance. Even that is fleeting and half-hearted. "Hope they don't mind me using their dryer, too."

(They won't.)

"Hey." When he looks up, his eyes are soft and searching. "I'm sorry for all of this. I'm sorry I can't..."

What, make the world a different place? He lets it go, exhaling through his nose.

"I haven't really done this with anyone in a long time."

KiaraThere's a towel folded on the edge of the pool near Kiara's wine glass; she uses it to wipe some of the moisture from her body and, canting a little smile of bemusement his way as his jeans drip onto the grass, gently lobs it in his direction so he can exchange his sodden clothing for it (not so much for his modesty but Kiara has no idea how welcome a half-naked man would be to the others).

Hey, she's reaching to collect her glass and straightens as he looks across at her. In the moonlight, she's a picture of something a little ethereal, her skin with its strange, unearthly gleam and her dark eyes and hair; the latter she's unbound from the knot she'd kept it in so it tumbles, in a half wild mass down her bare shoulders. She's a slender woman, the Verbena, but there's strength enough in her; a sort of resilient endurance; the mark of her Tradition, some might say.

The earth witches had outlasted many attempts to eradicate their like from the Earth, after all.

I'm sorry for all of this.

"There's not exactly a rulebook for this, you know." She counters gently, coming to stand by him. She reaches out with the hand that isn't holding the glass to touch his chest; ghosting her fingers over his skin until they find the reassuring rhythm of his heart beneath. "Any of it. We're all just trying to survive. Don't be sorry." Kiara's mouth softens, opens up into an expression that flashes white teeth and a gleam of that competitive, confident nature of hers as she lets her fingers slide down his arm.

"Just be here. That's enough."

She starts past him; trailing her fingers down his skin. "Come on, let's sneak you into my room."