2020-01-27 - Bedtime Confessional

It's around 11:30 pm and Lilith has been in the Penthouse less than an hour. It's apparent she's had one of those days where everything irritates her. She has wine, makes Byron subject to listening to all the ways in which other people are stupid, customers, employees, consult associates, hell, even people who design the websites that she uses daily for the market and research aren't safe-- she bitches about poor site design too and a lack of searchable interface that's organized properly and blahblahblah. Then she whines with her wine because she forgot to DVR something she wanted to watch on the History channel after flipping with the remote in the middle of all that. Also, the cat apparently almost killed her on the way over by crawling all over the inside of the SUV and her while driving, which you'd maybe think wasn't an accident given the way he's perched on the back of the couch glaring at her.

(Actually, the cat's being pretty good right now, maybe she's exaggerating and has unrealistic cat expectations. Also she should have used his carrier, not a leash like a dog and expected him to stay seated, but he does it when Byron's around, so maybe she thought she could pull it off.)

She's plowed through two glasses of wine during this time before deciding to wander into the bedroom to strip down out of leggings and sweater on the way to wash the day from her face, gesturing to Byron with more normal conversation topic during migration, maybe prompted by grabbing her robe from a closet hook, "Babe? What are you going to do with that dress? Do you intend to keep it or give it back? It should be stored airtight if you keep it here any length of time, as damp as the climate is around here. Not that I can't restore things, but you know, could die horribly at any time, then the poor dress would suffer." Dark, geez. Her voice is perfectly conversational in saying it, though, tossing her clothes into the dirty hamper before wrapping a short, floral silk pink and black robe around her body to gauge him a beat.

"Like, do you feel any need or want to keep it, I guess is what I'm asking. Given... well. Why did she get it for you? Did she think you'd like to just have it? Or do you think it was really to stick it to the ma'am or whatever? Or was there more to the reading than what you said while the others were here?"

Unlike Lilith, Byron seems to have had a decent day. Decent enough that he's practically a saint listening to her gripes and whining without any complaints of his own. He was on the phone for most of the day with only one video conference call regarding an endeavor that he had interest in in L.A. Then he spent a little bit of time researching the history of Rockville, Maryland. Though he has an office, he's lucky that basically his entire apartment is his office, that he's not trapped in a single room for most of the day. Instead, he'll move his laptop from office to living room, even setting up shop in the small dining area he had set up near the French doors so that one can observe the beautiful views while they ate. It's a lovely snowy day.

If there was any point of complaint, it probably was when he was told that Lilith let Smog walk all over her and the interior of the car while she was driving. Mentioning something about a pet carrier with some concern. Now that the day had passed and his business was over, unless someone in another part of the world decides to call after hours, Byron allows himself this time to enjoy a bit of vodka, which he drinks fairly slowly.

By now, he's already hung up his suit jacket, wearing a white dress shirt and a black tie, with his sleeves folded up on both arms. The shirt is still tucked into a pair of dark work slacks and he's yet to kick off his shoes for the evening. Lingering near the bar to top off his own glass. The bar itself leads out to the short hallway and the doors to the various other rooms within the place, he asks, "The wedding dress? I'm not really sure. Aside from everything that hadn't been sold in the old house," The Thorne House, "That might be the only family heirloom, if you can call it that, in my possession currently." There's a pause when he takes a long savoring sip of vodka. "As far as I know, it wasn't on display at the Addington House, but was stored in that very box somewhere in the attic, I believe."

With his glass in hand, he wanders over to the doorway of his room, his tall frame standing in the doorway in a casual stance. "I think that Hyacinth felt that I should have it. Because it belonged to the Thorne family and I had to remind her that while it does, that dress is still a part of Addington history. But, yeah, that whole conversation had her mentioning feeling betrayed by her own family. By Margaret Addington. So, in part, she did give it to me out of spite. I told her that I might give it back to her because it came from a museum and unless I buy back my family home and turn into a historic landmark," He shrugs, "I'm not quite sure what to do with it." Quietly, he watches her from his distance, but the shadows in the darkened room veils his features somewhat. "What do you think I should do with it?"

To the question about his reading of the dress, he shakes his head slowly, "No. There was nothing more than that. Not really." Though, it's obvious that something about the read still lingered in his mind. "There was... One of the members of that party," He's trying to find the right words to say, "I think I get my looks from my great grandfather. There was a striking resemblance."

"Interesting. I imagine that was mildly spook to see if the resemblance was very strong. I'd ask you to show me, but I might start fantasizing over grandpa instead of you and what a bother that'd be." Lilith says while putting her hair up in piling on her head and standing there in the robe to look at Byron in the doorway when he's finished speaking. Then, while going into the bathroom to briefly turn on water for splashing her face and wetting a cloth to give her face and old cosmetics a scrub to pink and fresh, she shifts her weight in lean against the counter while doing so, looking out through the room, "If your relative woman looked like me, I don't want to know, especially with the mommy issues. Last thing I need in life is to find out we're distantly related. I would be levels of beyond pissed at the universe."

The water turns on to rinse the cloth and take to her face again in brief before she leans to splash more water and pat dry, finally speaking as to what to do with the dress, "I don't really know what you should do with the dress, though. If you don't particularly find value or sentiment in it, maybe it should be in the museum, and I say that with the bones of an item affectionado. But at the same time if it was just in the attic anyway? Maybe it's better off with you, stored properly and appreciating with history and time. Also, then you'd have something to throw into a ghoul box if our lives point that way again, hm?"

Coming out of the bathroom, Lilith pulls her hair down and free with tumble while carrying a hair brush, wandering in her bare feet while brushing to drop onto her side across the bed, feet and legs dangling off partially as she tosses the hair brush at Byron with a sudden rambunctiousness for absolutely no reason other than she's done with it and she's a playful brat. It really is like living with a human cat sometimes, here and there. It knocks things, she just randomly throws things.

"Anyway, listen. I like to think the reason I couldn't let go of the shop isn't because it was my father's place. I wanted to keep it because it was mine, my family's past, which didn't start with just Hank, despite him being the only one I actually knew alive. It felt like reclaiming something, somehow. It felt like mine on principle, you know? And it made me feel more connected to the people that came before me too, even though I never knew them. It kind of helps me remember who I am, I guess. You've made your own name out of Thorne, you have, and you can keep doing that. It's... okay to care about the names our fathers gave us, even though our fathers themselves were... nyeh."

Then Lilith rolls onto her elbow with prop, cheek in hand to look Byron up and down with her eyes appreciative, "If you give it back, though, I want to try it on before you do because it's a gorgeous antique. Also true talk time, who's hotter, you or your grandpa?"

Byron just has to laugh, shaking his head when Lilith even jokes about fantasizing over his great grandfather. Moving further into his room just as she disappears into the bathroom, he takes another sip from his glass. Lilith's bringing up the emotional residue and thus the memory attached to the dress brings the entire event of that particular wedding clearly into his mind even as he's idly shuffling around the space, his free hand absently working to finish undoing the knot of his tie completely to let the silk fabric just hang off of his neck.

"No." He sounds distracted at first, but there's a lightness in his tone, "You don't have to worry, she was a mirror image of you." Pausing to look over his shoulder and into the bathroom now, he adds in a bit cheekily, "And I'm sure if we were blood related in any way, we'd make it work out." There's this lift of his brow, adding in, "Some how." Before taking another drink of vodka.

"It's hard to find sentiment in something like that. It's not a part of my family that I knew much about, only living for the present. And the future, I guess you can say." One the nightstand on his side of the bed, there's a framed photograph of the both of them, himself and Lilith that was taken recently. His arms are wrapped around her from behind, both dressed in casual clothes, looking happy enough. This is what he picks up to idly look at, setting the almost emptied glass down in the process.

When Lilith steps out to join him, he's quick to take notice of the brush being thrown and it's a good thing that he set that glass of vodka down or else it might be sloshing in that glass with the potential to spill over. Speaking of the cat, Smog seems to have followed the pair to the room, though he doesn't enter it and merely seats himself just outside of the open doorway to lick at his paw. Being assaulted by a thrown brush doesn't raise his annoyance, but he has to shake his head a little knowing full well that he might not have had the time or reaction speed to stop the projectile.

He continues on with the conversation, however, "But you are right about one thing. It felt good to be in possession of a piece of Thorne family history. We were once good enough to marry into the Addingtons. Then what happened? My father worked as a struggling cop, my mother a waitress in some local diner. You wouldn't have thought that one of our own married into the Addingtons once upon a time."

Placing the photograph back down and retrieving his glass to finish off his drink, he settles down beside her on the bed, leaving the now empty glass back on the nightstand for the time being. "I had a thought to keep it, just in case." He doesn't come out and mention marriage, but that would be one of the main reasons to keep an heirloom like that around. When she jokes about this David Thorne once more, Byron mock pauses to give this some thought, a hand lifting up to chin to rub at the bristles there, "I could shave, so you can get a better idea. Grow my hair out a bit." The sides which are usually kept short, but it's been growing out slowly. "I'll just say that he was a dapper gentleman, concerned about his sister on her wedding day."

"Somehow, mhm. We could plan and put our webbed-toes-and-finger children on the swim team. Try to capitalize on little mutant imbred Olympians. Could work. I think that's what happened with Phelps." Lilith tells Byron with agreeable deadpan on the grounds of accidental inbreeding potential, though her lips twitch a tiny bit. Then she shifts out of her lay while listening and nodding a spell with understanding, "Right. It's less about sentiment for me too, in my regard, and more a matter of... well, mine. I guess I'm possessive even without a ton of personal valued possessions. It's the principle. And I'm making it something more mine, circumstances aside." The woman walks on her knees to start undoing Byron's loosened tie while leaning against him with hover from behind, looking down to kiss the top of his head.

"And no shaving. I like how the bristles feel, especially on my stomach and thighs and cheeks, looks aside. I like your hair like this too. One day, though, I'll get curious and this whole conversation will turn into me begging you to let me do it for you, just to see. And you know I'd up the ante by offering to do it naked with a straight razor, so you better prepare your will for that day." Lilith leans more to kiss at the side of Byron's bristled face and down along his neck to the collar once his tie is free, pinching in brief with nip of her teeth on the thin skin before nuzzling the place she pinched. Then her hands start in on his buttons from behind, undressing him gradually for bed with her while talking, a brief and quiet byline order of 'shoes' while she's tending to his shirt.

"Mm. Speaking of your house, though... is that something you're thinking of doing? Buying it back and turning it into a historic home with a plate and all?"

"Inbred Olympians?" Byron laughs openly at that, "Your mind went to actual Olympic athletes. Mine? Gods. Our inbred children would be like the Gods of Olympus suckling on that sweet ambrosia." While Lilith might deadpan that whole conversation, Byron's words are spoken like a true dreamer, even though he is really just putting on a good show about his interest and the seriousness of the topic.

A smile lingers on his lips, watching Lilith undo his tie completely. Though knowing that she's had quite the day, one of his own hands reaches over behind her for a moment to knead at the back of her neck and along her shoulders with a firm touch. "You didn't mind that I was unshaven and could probably have used a haircut back in the day." That smile grows. "The facial hair, that's just part of my look. It'd be odd to shave, in truth. I keep it neatly trimmed. Sometimes it gets close to being shaved, but you know, I don't know how you women do it. Keeping yourselves nice and smooth. It's a pain in the ass."

There's this quiet enjoyment that he has of the nuzzling and kisses exchanged. He even kicks those Oxfords off, letting them both fall with a thunk against the ground. "I really don't know. I mean, Olivia Marchand, from what I've seen, was doing a really good job at renovating the place. At least it hadn't fallen to pieces anyway. Reverting it back to its classic look would be ideal." Rather than it being turned into a museum, preserving the way the house was while he was still living in it. "And if I did? Once Margaret Addington catches wind that I'm in possession of this dress by seeing it displayed in the much smaller and less grand Thorne House museum? Someone's head might roll." His voice quiet a touch, "It did belong to her mother after all."

"Eh. Wait til she dies, she's old. But you know I say that, she's apt to outlive all of us, too." Lilith tells Byron with a puff of air in against his skin, taking up the kissing anew after he feels the hum and reverb of her lips in brief groan of pleasured relief when his fingers knead at her neck and shoulder. Her fingers keep work at his shirt buttons, then untuck the hem with yanking to finish before going for his belt buckle and slacks fly to undo as well with slow method of strip down. Then she backtracks, kisses going hotter and more open-mouthed with lash of tongue and suction at the skin alongside his throat, "And our children would be little gods, you're right. I don't think we give them much say on that, genetically, either way. Can you imagine what we'd turn out?"

"I guess it's not a purchase to think on right now, you have a casino to buy first." Lilith mentions with a bit of dismissal on the house, though, as she draws back to slip the loosened shirt from his body with reach down to nip free each of the cuffs with her fingertips, she goes quiet. Then there's a huge pull of air in close behind him as she leans there, making eventual space enough to remove his shirt to cast away toward the foot of the bed completely, "Byron. I know about the house being... dark. Is that the woman who kidnapped you, or another?" Her tone of voice stays the same, but it's quieter as she comes back to lean with her nose and lips pressing in rest against the top of his head to wait for answer.

"It really does make me wonder if there are any portraits or anything of my ancestors at all. And if so, where did they go?" Byron knows for a fact that the pictures that were hung on his family's walls were images of people from this current generation-- his parents and possibly grandparents, but hardly anything that went further than that. "Might be something to research. Who were the Thornes back then?" It's a rhetorical question, one that he's distracted from by Lilith's sensual kisses. She can feel his steadily quickening pulse and the movement within his throat at his Adam's apple after taking a deep swallow.

Lilith's mention of the casino brings out a heavy sigh, "Foster's been charged and, I believe, has already been sent to prison. I'll need to move quickly before the casino is put up for auction." He doesn't talk numbers and he rarely does. If Lilith knew just how much money would be going into this casino... it's definitely far more than Byron probably has, though he is pulling in a lot of favors and has taken at least one small time investor under his wing to help bolster the funds that he has to offer for this endeavor.

Then Lilith has to remind him that she already knows about what's been going on in that house, something that Byron was trying to downplay just now. He continues to massage and knead at her, but once she has his shirt undone, the cuffs unbuttoned and the hem untucked from within his loosened pants, she helps with the shirt's complete removal, letting it shed from his body.

"I don't know, Lilith. I can't say who did it. Amelia was already taken into custody at the festival, so she didn't do it, herself, but she was part of the rouse to pull everyone's attention her way." His chin lifts so that his lips meet with hers when she leans forward to place another kiss atop along his hair, one of his hands cups the side of her face. "No one said whether Marchand was there or not. So I just don't know." It also doesn't seem like he really wants to dwell on that particular conversation, returning her kisses in kind, but she can feel the heat of his passion on his vodka laced breath.

Lilith sighs into Byron's hair before he's moving his face to capture his mouth with her own with cup of hand at her face. And there's a lot of things she feels or could say at that moment, or in response to any of it. She could threaten the Marchants and bluster rage about it, she could wonder how many more investors he needs and joke about the call tactics she could help with in the future, she could ask him why he didn't tell her or what happened in detail. But mostly, she feels inclined to say and do two things because they're the predominant in the end of all those flashing things to say or feel. And he doesn't seem to want to dwell, at that, which she gets, and some things suck to push.

One of her hands moves for her robe tie, unlooping the lacing knot with pull and flick before she rolls her shoulders to set the pink and black floral silk free with pooling around where she kneels on the bed next to where Byron sits. The other hand comes to lace through some of his hair before gripping hard and sliding to do the same at the back of his neck while kissing, incessantly suddenly, without much draw for air. It shortens her breath, the contact, the possession of him physically at the moment after the subject of him being taken while she was gone and incapable of saving him, the lust sparks their bodies and lips and tongues make while close... all that has her quickly letting her air out at tiny pants there into his mouth.

Then when she's bare skin and so much kissing heat and tight grip on him to consuming levels, she swallows down thickly with the wave of irrational guilt that crashes into the possession and need for him, "I wasn't there. It might have been different if I was there. I wish I had been there." She doesn't apologize, precisely, because she knows he doesn't want to hear that, but it's apologetic in a whispered, intense rush all the same, "I love you. I won't let anyone or anything take you away."

They were both helpless to much save each other during that particular time during the Masquerade, of course. And given her disappearance and problems with Grant, he knows exactly what she means when she apologizes, irrational or not. It's the most horrible feeling she can imagine, to lose him. Especially when they're like this.

Not really wanting to dwell on the situation at his childhood home at all, Byron throws himself into this bit of intimacy. Once Lilith's robe slinks down her slender frame, his free hand clasps her at one shoulder before sliding down one long limb to make its way inward and transfer over to her waist; all the while he relishes in her kisses, his lips parted and every so often he'll nibble down onto her lip gently.

Slowly positioning her to ease her back down against the bed, never breaking the physical bond between them during the course of this shift. Eventually, he keeps himself hovering over her while on his own knees and leaning forward to be propped up by one outstretched hand beside her head. At first, he locks eyes with her, listening to this guilt that she'd developed over the incident. Then he lowers himself forward, tracing kisses at her collarbone, moving lower so that, as they'd talked about just moment earlier, the soft bristles of his beard brush against her soft flesh.

The fact that she wished she was there to protect him or the idea that he needed her to protect him is something that rattles in his mind, building up the intensity of his kisses as he suckles onto her flesh. "Things worked out." He murmured. "You had... your own problems to face down. Something that I wish I could've helped you with. Wishing that I'd reached you earlier." Drawing away slowly, so that he returns to this hovering over her, he adds in, "I'm here now and despite what you might think, I'm stronger than I look." This quick smile spreads across his lips in good humor, before he quickly presses his lips down against her own, allowing a hand to skillfully roam along her feminine curves.

Lilith spans her hand down with wander over Byron's toned arm propping him once she's laid back, head tipping to one side with her lashes dropping, a soft moan escaping her lips with the tactile sensation of his wandering kisses, the hot breath from his mouth, the tickle and scrape of his bristled face. Then sliding her hand further, she hits his stomach with curl of fingertips to suddenly gash her nails with subtle sting over the flat expanse of flesh and muscle before she soothes it immediately with a drop of hand lower to free him to her from his undone fly.

"I wish you could see what you look like when I look at you. You're the strongest man I know."

When Lilith's eyes turn back open to look at Byron, though, she's looking at him so intently and fully with a mingling of lust and adoration, it's probably guess enough. And maybe there's ways he can feel it out enough, in alternate, but her hand is dropping lower and joining them, her leg is lifting high with bend, then wrap to repeat at the other side. With Byron drawn between her legs' coiling, skin and flesh and woman and affection-fueled lustful joining, there's probably about one thing to do, and it's sheer body instruction.

Of course, her whisper afterwards with heat through all that sentiment, it helps guide matters of lust, love, and outlet for the things they're not saying right along.

"Love me. Then fuck me. Do it until I can't help but scream."