2020-03-10 - Ultraviolence

While Byron is out at a meeting or otherwise, Lilith is in the Penthouse apartment. She worked all morning and day, largely in the office with mindnumbing spreadsheets interspersed with auction sales online and research on item evaluation. It's a pretty uneventful day thus far, but it's a little exciting for a couple of reasons now that it's evening and dinner time. Byron will be home soon and she has something neat to give him as a surprise. Lilith also packed up a lot of girl things to claim some actual space in the apartment beyond her typical convenience stash.

She had avoided doing too much moving in thus far because she wasn't even sure they were officially in the realm of living together. Initially, she had the idea to claim a bathroom and nightstand drawer with things and stuff and see how that went down as a sly gauge for that. But she's Lilith, and blunt won out. The woman just asked and they kind of both considered yes, they probably are. Lilith hasn't lived with a lover before, just condo/flatmates when she lived out of Gray Harbor. She's not making an invasion out of it, but girls do have stuff and she's lugged some clothes on hangers and huge handled shopping bags filled with Lilith things up to the Penthouse.

Instead of setting right to the excitement of unpacking and picking where to shift/claim space (and where to hide Byron's surprise), she starts dinner to let it cook while she does these things. The brunette hums to Lana Del Rey on her phone while methodically cutting vegetables to pack into neat foil packages with fish, chicken, garlic and herbs. They're put in a roasting pan, popped open at the top, and set to bake, then finish broil in the oven on timer. She makes an herb buttered rice and salad while it's cooking, but she at least has time to go into the bedroom and start getting some work in while the main dish slow roasts and fills the apartment with warmth and a delicious aroma.

Her side of the bed sees the nightstand mostly empty already. So instead of going to tend to the bathroom and invading with cosmetics, hair supplies, and toiletries, lotions, and perfumes, she hangs up the clothes on hangers in the large walk in, then goes to unpack a variety of random things to have on hand or stash in general right there next to Byron's bed. Lilith almost forgets to hide what she brought him and gets paranoid he'll be home before she does, she's so busy setting up that drawer to show off like an official ta-da of move-in.

The woman scampers in to get the box out of her purse, then goes into the bedroom to 'hm' with her eyes. In a hurry, she decides since she'll be showing him her nightstand, she can tell him to check his with some ruse about it being full of girl stuff too. Then he'd find the surprise instead! Except... when Lilith opens the drawer and moves some things to make the box stand out more prominently in the contents, she finds something she was not expecting.

It's a silken cord. She's confused and startled and... she pulls it out to make sure it's really the one that was hers once upon a time, letting the length dangle in part. Then, after drawing in a very sharp breath, she throws it onto the bed, leaves the box on top of the nightstand with the drawer ajar.

Her own drawer is still open too showing the Lilith things organized inside, along with a picture of them she printed off from her phone, a black and white image of them smashing noses and laugh kissing in profile, the woman biting small rambunctious tug on the man's bottom lip. There's plenty of posed shots in the apartment at this rate, but this one is particularly organic and naturally blissful in capture. It's a nice addition to the room. But the black silk is strewn and partially coiled on the bedding like a snake.

Unsure what to think or do with the weight and surprise of seeing that familiar dominatrix accessory in Byron's drawer like a keepsake, she goes out onto the terrace in the cold and the dark and closes the door behind her. She doesn't turn on the lights or anything and sits in a chair out of the way looking at the view in thick, processing silence to wait.

By the time Byron comes in, the oven timer is going off with reminder beep that's unheard.

With the acquisition of the casino, Byron's been very busy overseeing some of the production and more importantly, making sure that most, if not all, of the retail space is leased out. Before all of this, he could handle things by phone. Now, there's a lot of meet and greet and hand shaking going on. Tours of the Grand Olympic. Then to see whether a business is the right fit for both the casino and the town as a whole. He's been doing this since early morning, only taking a slight break for lunch.

He almost had to call and tell Lilith that he won't be home for dinner and would only have the time to stop by and get showered and changed before meeting with clients who he'd have to pick up at the airport who have an interest in the casino. Any other person of wealth might have hired a chauffeur and car to pick someone up at the airport, but Byron hasn't reached that point yet and still considers personal interactions to be a good professional touch when working with people.

Luckily for the both of them, the man's flight was delayed and he wouldn't get in until the next day, leaving Byron this breathing space and time to relax once his business at the casino was done for the evening.

Lilith might not hear the ring of the elevator or the door opening when Byron returns home. Off comes the heavy coat, which is promptly hung up in the coat closet and then the gloves and his keys which he places on the foyer table. The delicious of aroma of cooked food catches his attention, then to be alerted by the sound of the timer going off. "That smells incredible. Then again, I could just be that hungry, but it's making my mouth water."

It's strange that she hasn't immediately popped out from where she was hiding to turn the stove off, but he'll go ahead and do that for her. Even stirring what needs to be stirred before its ready to be served. The weather was still chilly, so he doesn't expect her to be out on the terrace. That just means she might be in the shower or doing who knows what. With that in mind, he's already shrugging out of his suit jacket on his way to the bedroom. The water doesn't seem to be on, but she could be doing her make up or whatever women do to get ready for dinner. Once the jacket is removed, he automatically tosses it onto the corner of the bed, his fingers already working on his watch. "I'm just glad Mullen cancelled tonight. Having a quiet dinner at home beats picking him up at the airport and getting him settled into a room, then going out to eat with him so we can discuss business." He thinks he's talking to Lilith, but when he's about to set his watch down onto his nightstand, for now, that's when he notices the silk tie on the bed.

He doesn't think too much of it at first, almost believing it to be just some random article of clothing from either of them, but then when he realizes what it is-- something that he hadn't needed to think about for a while since he began his relationship with Lilith, it does leave him rather surprised that she'd found it. Having almost forgotten about it. "Lil...?"

There are numerous thoughts and feelings going through Lilith right now, but mostly it's weight. However, the longer she sits outside in the dark on the cold terrace, the more two conflicting factors come into play. It's cold, she wants to go in almost as soon as she steps out, but refuses to. At first, it's due to dread of seeing him walk through the door, seeing the sight she's left-- she should have put the silk tie cord back and controlled how to approach this and when. But she didn't, she just flung it and ran. Then, when she hears his voice burr faint and deep with talk through the glass panes, the familiar tones cutting through the steady hum lull of music from inside, she stubborns up instead.

Lilith should go in guns blazing, she thinks. She's not entirely sure why, though, it might be irrational. But she's also tired of having things passively hidden to figure out later from other people or circumstances, cumulatively over time. Most of the time it really doesn't bother her much, she's used to not prying on Byron and generally knows what questions he does or doesn't want to answer, what subjects he'd rather not address. She's not typically overbearing about knowing what he's thinking, feeling, or doing like a lot of females tend to be by nature (largely due to the security he gives her). In turn, he tends to want to know what she's doing, thinking and feeling in the name of her safety, preparedness, and other reasons, but... even with that, he doesn't ask a lot of questions about certain areas of her life beyond small prods of curiosity.

They grew up with damage, they have other ways of taking care of things unsaid with each other, and generally know where not to start poking too much. But right now Lilith wants to POKE. He was supposed to burn it, wasn't he? What all had he SEEN, and given what he'd probably seen, why would he keep it? Logically, she could probably justify and fill in plenty of gaps here, but seeing that accessory so familiarly a part of her old life shook her right to the critical self-worth parts. Was it a reminder of what she was? Where she'd been, what she'd done, what she...

Goddamnit it's cold. Lilith cusses the fact she didn't bring anything out to smoke or drink to give her false warmth. She'd dressed up for work today knowing that she'd want to look nice when she got home for dinner. She's barefoot with shimmering thigh high hosiery on under a fitted cream colored skirt and purple silk blouse with v-dip neckline and loose, stylish sleeves. She'd kicked off her patent black heels in the kitchen. Other than her undergarments, that's all she's wearing in the cold night air and reluctantly, she gets up with teeth chattering to go inside about the time she realizes something else.

That's how he knew about her and Turner. Oh god. How much did he....

Shivering, she closes the door behind herself and moves quietly inside, stubborn beat out by the cold and the fact that... well, she didn't want him to think she disappeared, that's rude. It's a concern here, okay, no matter what mood she decides she actually wants to be in about all this. She crosses to the hallway and bedroom to come find Byron probably about the time he's coming out to find her.

The confusion and conflict that Lilith might be experiencing now is the same thing that Byron is going through within the warm confines of his bedroom. Lilith obviously wasn't in the bathroom. The lights weren't on. Though that's not the main thing on his mind right now. The silk cord resting next to his newly discarded jacket is what he has his eyes on. So she found it. He knew that he probably should've gotten rid of it a while ago, but for some reason he'd kept it for this long. Long enough for him to no longer need it and to have it slip completely from his mind for these past few months.

Unbuttoning his cuffs, his attention still drawn to the items on the bed, he begins to roll his sleeves up when he nearly runs into Lilith in the hall. Blinking quickly, he breathes out in relief, "There you are. I was getting worried." Worried that she may have disappeared into the Veil or a Dream, as well as what she might be thinking when she laid the cord on the bed like that. Once both of his sleeves are rolled up to just above his elbows, he reaches out to pull her closely against him within a warm embrace. "I noticed that you've done some housekeeping." Moving in. Smiling softly, he leans forward to greet her with a kiss to go with the hug.

Lilith is chilly to touch from the outside air exposure when Byron draws her into his arms there in the hall by the bedroom doorway. She's caught off guard by that and the kiss, thinking maybe he didn't actually see what was on the bed, which is either irritating or a relief, she's not sure which. In fact, it seems to throw her, and after initial pause with his reaching wrap of hold, she nudges her face up to catch the kiss when he comes down for it. "I cooked."

The words are mumbled into the kiss and are obvious, not at all what she wanted or meant to say, it just popped out as a stall so she can figure out what to do mid-liplock. Then she does it again, the off-topic announcing blurt, "There's another present..." But the lips are distracting and she falls into it all like a fever before deciding the word 'housekeeping' is a trigger and he knows, it's right there! Byron notices details like a hawk more or less, it's just how he is.

Therefore, she assumes it's due to bite him at the tail end of that kiss, suddenly. She doesn't do it with nasty vehemence, but it's definitely the chastising version of a love nip as she sets her hands at either side of his hips to look up with squint afterwards, "... but please explain why that tie-cord just popped out to gut punch me when it's supposed to be ash. Is that how you knew about me and Turner?"

It's strange how cold she is when she was just cooking, the delicious aroma filled the apartment. But since Byron didn't see her in the living room when he'd come in, he already has an idea of where she'd been. "Were you out on the terrace?" His hands rub against her arms in an attempt to warm her up some. It's more than obvious that she cooked, but he won't bring up the fact that he had to turn to stove top off when she was absent. He'll keep that to himself.

"Was dinner the first present?" He asks curiously, slowly turning to reluctantly look back into the dimly lit bedroom. He tries his best to hide this reluctance, but as he's holding her, and her hands are on him in turn, she can feel the tension in his wiry frame when he looks to face the darkness. While the room might not be well lit, the light from the hallway is bright enough for him to see cord just sitting there clear as day.

"Of course that's how I knew about you and Turner." He murmurs, still solely focused on the thing now. "That was the strongest emotion on it when I read it." To the question of why it's not burned? He doesn't have a good response to that, though his arms slip from around her to wander into the room to gather the partially coiled piece of silk up in one hand. "This was a part of who you were. Like the black heart, it was difficult for me to just get rid of." These words are spoken in truth, mostly.

"Yes, I was on the terrace. Dinner is just nice dinner. The first present was me and my official drawer." Lilith confirms to Byron's informed guess about the terrace, shivering a little in residual as his hands rub over her to friction warm. But she's watching him closely in somewhat gauging fashion before her eyes follow his toward the silk tie cord on the bed. When he withdraws and walks in to take the thing and explain in part, she slides her hands from his hips and rakes both hands through her hair to hold, then tousle it with bid for stress relief.

"I didn't understand how your abilities really worked in full, back then, I hadn't... felt or seen the things you can... I just needed you to know who I was before I--goddamnit, you saw that. How much did you see? What else did you feel from it or pick up? I imagine that thing is charged like a thunder rod. I know what I was like before, what the clients were like, how you must have..."

After drawing her hands with drop from her hair, Lilith walks over and leans to get the box off of the nightstand to play with, explaining her own part, "I was putting this in there to surprise you." A pause, "Did it all disturb you? Is it a reminder of the bad parts of me?"

As much as dinner sounded wonderful at this moment, Byron's attention is pulled elsewhere. Towering over it as he stands besides the bed, he reaches out to snatch the thing in his hand in as casual a manner as possible, even if his arm lashes out as if it were a snake itself, holding it's victim's lifeless body within it's upturned maw as the cord drapes over and across his palm. Looking down on it, he's reminded of everything that this very cord offered to show him.

"I saw enough of that to know that Turner isn't a man who plays games." The rest of the questions go unanswered, believing that his just seeing the one memory from it, the most important memory, perhaps, infused into the thing was more than enough. His gaze will linger on it for a thoughtful moment, but he eventually lowers his hand, the limp fabric still grasped tightly in his hand. She pulls out the box. Even tells him that what was inside was a surprise, but then she asks him an important question that has nothing to do with this new gift.

"What disturbed me was how Turner treated you. That's all. It was.. upsetting. And I'm sure it was far more upsetting to you at the time." Byron flatly states. "Now you know why I didn't think his brand of jealousy was something to easily brush off." The cord is then tossed back onto the bed, this time landing on his suit jacket as he makes his way to where Lilith stands with the box in hand. The first thing he does is reaches out for her, his hand resting at her shoulders, holding her in place so he can get a good look at her. "Not your bad parts. Just the bad that came with the life you were living."

Just so she doesn't dwell too much on the topic, he'll openly peer down at the box, before lifting his gaze to meet with Lilith's once more with anticipation in his eyes.

Lilith refreshed her makeup at some point after getting home from the day at work and errand of packing and moving a small (notable content) load into the Penthouse. Smoky flared shadow and liner in combination with sultry sweep of mascara adds to the intensity of the brunette's standout blue gaze while it follows the cord tie in Byron's hand, all the way to toss on the bed, suit jacket as backdrop. Once it's there, her head tilts a little, eyes sticking with distraction as she keeps her quiet. It's unclear if she's weighing what to say or just taking consideration of the man's answering words, but he can read the intensity in her even when she's still and outwardly calm. Sometimes Lilith quiet is just a little too quiet, expressive eyes aside.

Maybe she doesn't know what to say. When Byron reaches out for her shoulders while she's holding the boxed gift, her veil of lashes bat a few times fast, focus swapping from the bed, up to the man and his face and eyes. After a moment, she smiles some, rose flushed lips tilting up at one side, apparently opting to say nothing at all for the time being. Instead, she flips open the plain white box to show a decorative wooden box inside that's more square and smaller than a tie storage box, but too big for one of those nice male manicure and grooming kits with fancy cases. After putting the outer box emptied and aside on the near nightstand, she flips the wooden piece open on its hinges to show the contents.

Inside, there's half a dozen silk vintage pocket squares of variety for suit jackets and tuxedos to give designer pieces of men's clothing a stylish, Mad Men era kind of professional flair. Given how Lilith can restore things back to natural state, it's unclear if they're reproductions of minimal era vintage patterns and edge embroidery and make, or the actual thing she's set back to present as sparkling new design. The silk is fine and thicker than a lot of manufacturers now provide, though, taking some of the delicacy out of the fabric to allow for molding pulls and creases of arranging shape. Fine details make a snazzy suit and man, afterall. It's also a bit adorable how she's holding the box open like a ring proposal on what she's dubbing official move-in day.

But under his hands, her shoulders are still set, like she's battling some turbulence inside. Subtle, but there, and he knows her, the way she gets all knotted up until she releases whatever 'it' is in some kind of way.

Byron has a sense that something was still troubling Lilith about the cord, but he's not quite sure what her reasons would be. He tried his best to set her mind at ease. Not that anything he'd said had been a lie. Not exactly. Yet, he could see it in the way she looked back at the discarded fabric. The way her body language remains tense, despite the smiles and now this offering of a gift. His own dark gaze keeps observant, shifting to regard each of these points (her own eyes, her body language and the like) with thoughtful scrutiny.

So much so that it's difficult for him to pay any attention to this box, but he'll play along. Who doesn't like a good gift. When the box is open to expose the decorate wooden box within, his curiosity is piqued all the more. This certainly was fancy. And for a moment, his gaze lifts so that their eyes meet. Then the lid to this second box is lifted, allowing him to marvel at the various colors and designs of this variety of vintage pocket squares. It brings a wide smile to his face and even elicits a light laugh. "These look expensive. Where did you get them?" Reaching out to take up one of the squares in a nice gray hue with a bold checkered pattern to examine. They were definitely of good quality. Not that he'd ever question Lilith on her tastes.

"I love them, thanks." Folding the square perfectly in his well-practiced hands, he takes the box from her and carefully places it back in it's original spot, before leaning forward to thank her with a kiss. Through all of this, he still picks up signs that all is not right. He could try to ignore them as he sometimes does, but instead, once their kiss is broken, with the box still in hand, he asks, "What's wrong, Lilith?" It's not an accusing tone, but one of concern.

"Online collector estate sale. I wanted them for the collection set appeal and restored them because the silk was going fragile. Late fifties, early sixties. I was buying a broken Handel lamp to chunk profit off of after restoration and... looked at antique tie clips because I've been looking for something similar to match the cufflinks. Found these instead, it was a no-brainer and impossible to pass up." Lilith makes this explanation to Byron at length, probably not only because she's her, but also because she's stalling while holding in whatever has her agitated on the sly that he's picking up on as significant given her tells.

"I'm glad you like them. You deserve them and will wear them better than any other man I can imagine."

The kiss is a nice distraction to fall into for a moment too, and for a beat, he can feel her squeeze him hard around the midsection with loop of arm during it, the affectionate cling hold rampant for a few passing heartbeats. When he draws back to really look at her and inquire directly, though, she seems to know the question is coming and slants her lashes off to one side to put on that considering expression again. After exhaling a small huff of sighed frustration, she finally pops out, "I don't know. Actually, that's a lie, I do know, but it's hard to explain and put into words."

Head shaking, she eyes the bed a moment, brows knit down sullenly, "It reminds me of things. That's not new." Lilith pauses here and cuts her eyes with heavy weighing thought before finally telling Byron, "There were dark things I wanted, dark things that I felt, I wanted others to suffer just so I could feel them suffer. I kept hurting myself. That's what drove a lot of that situation. But..."

The woman's hands rub down against her fitted skirt, at the hips and thighs, slow motion fidget and stall before she tries to explain, "I was just surprised... seeing it again. All those memories and feelings hit me at once while I was confused. Then it spread like a contagion and I realized those things are still in me, even though I feel them so much less now." Lilith's makes another huff of noise, but it's not for the cord this time around, she knows now the actual problem is her and that was just a hidden, unsuspecting trigger. The woman's hands stop at her skirt and come up to touch at Byron's chest, fingernail flicking with curl over a button on his shirt. Her voice drops to low intensity with confessing while she watches her painted fingernail there as a focus, instead of his eyes.

"... I wanted to be mad. I wanted to be mad at you until you were mad at me, even though I wasn't rationally mad. I want to tell you why, but I don't want to upset you."

While Lilith's explanation on how she came about these vintage silk pocket squares is interesting and Byron never ceases to be fascinated by how much care Lilith takes when researching pawn-related items, this talk of how the search for antique tie clips turned into her obtaining these squares falls in second within his mind. Without even attempting to get a mental read on her, whatever it is that Lilith isn't telling him will continue to bother Byron.

Still, he'll beam brightly at the compliment, giving the box one final look before he sets it down on the nightstand.

Perhaps asking was the best thing he could do rather than use his abilities to try and collect information out of her. Some of what she says obviously makes him feel guilty that he was this careless about the cord. "Well, shit. Lil, I'm sorry that you found it. I didn't mean to trigger anything in you and from what I'd read, I didn't want to remind you of /that./" That sleazy scenario with Grant Turner. But there's obviously more that troubles her that goes beyond even Turner.

"If you wanted them to suffer, did you take no delight in their suffering?" It's a valid question because sadists tend to feel just that. Or so he'd read... "I always saw it as some twisted exchange. They wanted to feel the pain and your desires were quenched by giving that to them." It's at that moment that Byron's about to make a grab for the cord which he'd just discarded that Lilith cuts him off, feeling her hand against his chest, toying at one of his buttons. "I'll get rid of it right now, I--"

He falls silent to hear her out.

"You have every right to be mad. I should've... I should've gotten rid of this after I'd read it." There are reasons why he'd kept it. Reasons to not throw the thing into Gohl's Casket. Even though he doubted it would've counted since it wasn't his to begin with. Easing himself closer to the bed to give him a better reach of the cord without losing the physical contact between them both, Byron is conflicted about burning the silk cord to cinders. Like I said, he had his reasons but maybe those weren't necessary anymore. Which is probably why the thing was mostly forgotten until tonight.

From the cord, back to Lilith, Byron's attention refocuses. "Why would it upset me?" That may be his way of trying to coax the truth out of her.

"Wait. We'll talk about what to do with the cord. It's not the problem now." Lilith clearly feels that she is given the way she won't look up much, but she does slip her sightline in brief toward the bed again. Then after dragging her fingertip downward to catch on the next shirt button, she finally meets his eyes, making divulging a priority, "I'm not mad about the cord. I was bothered and confused, there's a notable difference. I was still able to logic in the potential answers and have realizations. Seeing it made me want the fight, though..."

Lilith pauses and catches her breath in brief before telling Byron with a hint of hesitance, "It might upset you with memories of what happened on Valentine's. It's potentially disturbing. It's an urge. I wanted to be mad and I wanted the fight because I wanted the violence. Which is fucked, considering the idea makes my heart race with fear of what could have been. It's a contradiction because... it's also lust for the rage in you, the need to feel it again, intimate and punishing, part of me liked that part of you, and I don't know if it was even really a piece of you at all."

The woman has both hands on Byron's chest now, fanning out to drop her eyes back to her fingers, the tips curling with snag and rake of nails on the fabric in slow drag with prominent pressure. Though still quiet with frustrated intensity, there's so much lustful want seeping through her touch and tones, "I wanted to slap you, startle you into slapping me back. I wanted to rage and push and have you push and kiss me at the same time because you're all wrapped up in it like me, sometimes unable to separate. I want to struggle and make demands with my words and hands while you make demands with your own. I want to be bruised by how much you want me and I want to tear into your skin when I try to crawl under it because close isn't close enough."

And if that confessing wasn't charged enough, the next one is. Lilith's eyes snap up to watch Byron with a certain fixation, breathing more shallow. It's lewd and informative, the thing she's done while he isn't home, all in the name of fantasy.

She finally stops talking, and when she does, she's clearly worked up and trying not to be worked up in favor of watching his face while he takes it in.

So now the cord was not the problem. Byron gives the thing a quick glance almost as if to ensure that it was still there, resting on top of his jacket before he is reminded where Lilith's hand was, feeling the slight tug at the front of his shirt when her finger touches upon the third button down the line. "Logic in the potential answers..." Lilith did have a way with words that was completely Lilith. In many situations, Byron may have made light of it all right here and now. Telling her that 'that was cute' when she's starts to go into details about what's on her mind. There's even a moment when he's about to make one joke or another, possibly, or to dole out some compliment about how adorable she was.

Then she brings up her desire to fight once more and that captures his full attention. Valentine's Day is also mentioned and perhaps unlike with others who had experienced what he did, it's no trigger for him. Not exactly. Instead, he continues to watch her with this concerned gaze, especially when it gets to the point that she wanted to start a fight about the cord. But from Byron can garner, she was willing to push his buttons over anything. Then he just has to blink, "The rage in me?" While it's not something that he hides completely, he's lost his temper many a times, but it's his own twisted darkness that he tries to keep under lock and key. Among other secrets. "I was forced to kill you, Lilith." He decides to remind her. Shaking his head in slight disbelief, he adds, "I really don't think you want that to happen again. Neither of us do."

Then there's further confusion on what she expected would happen. Violence /and/ lust. In the heat of the moment on Valentine's Day he very well could have given her that as long as it ended in her death and her torment and humiliation of him would finally be over. "I think you're mixing up fantasy and..." He's about to finish his statement until she brings up the fact that, yes, she had fantasized over him roughing her up. But what he'd done to her in that Dream was different than simple role play. Byron knew that she liked it rough. She was a Dominatrix after all, so the lifestyle was there, but she was always in charge. Here, she wanted to be tormented, beaten. Hurt BY him. He's not even sure if she means pretend.

Not that he's never had dark thoughts like this. Sometimes when thinking on how she'd wronged him. Other times with another bitch who'd pissed him off. But that was side of him that he'd hid well enough from everyone.

Oh, whatever light-hearted banter he may have thrown out earlier is gone. The look on his face is one of deep contemplation. She can see the serious intensity within his eyes as he processes everything that she was revealed to him. "If you want it rough, I can play rough." And he means the play part. "I have nothing against hard kinks." He should've stopped right there, but instead he says, "But I really don't think you want that kind of fury. Sometimes there's no coming back from that." He knows this well enough, being given this second chance with Lilith after he was manipulated into destroying her, fueling him with such spiteful anger and rage. It wasn't a particularly good feeling until the very end, but even that was bittersweet.

"I know, babe. I know what you were forced to do, what I would have done if the moment had been reversed. I don't want any version of that to happen again." Lilith tells Byron, her voice losing some of the breathlessness of confessional, intimate nature to speak quiet and serious. It's weighted assurance in response to the direct reminder of what happened to him, to both of them on that holiday-- one of her hands starts to move from his shirt up to caress at the side of his neck by the pulse and shirt collar edge with shift of placement. Her thumb ticks up to catch drag under his bearded jawline while her fingertips drag the skin affectionately, and she lets the rest of his words come, she watches Byron's deeply contemplative expression and the intensity of his dark eyes.

Lilith was visibly and audibly worked up by making such a dark, intimate confession, something all wrapped up with the confusion of love and lust and consequence. But the more his words sink in, her wits do too and she tries to take a moment to use that, brows knitting, "It's not rational. It's scary and dark to want something like that from you after what happened to us. I love you so much and you'd do anything for me. The idea of upsetting you by acting on those urges... it's what kept me from picking a fight and feeding what I shouldn't, I guess. I don't know. I shouldn't have even said anything. I can't possibly want genuine pain and rage from you, not realistically."

Now that she's said it all aloud, now that she's listened to him respond, now that she's getting her wits back... it sounds like a fine line They would want the couple to cross while still healing from the damages, for the pair to be in a position of triggers and twisted temptation. It makes her mad at herself for entertaining the severity of all the things she's just said, that was far more than a lust, that was a wicked longing for something that could ruin everything they've rebuilt (and them some).

Lilith drops her lashes down over her eyes to leave them closed for a re-centering spell of visible effort, hand dropping from touch as she steps toward the bed and cord and Byron. When her eyes are opened looking again, she settles them where the binding accessory is on the man's jacket and murmurs with comment that's mildly frustrated, expression schooled to relative thoughtful calm. The man probably knows better than to actually think her calm, it's in the way she's standing and the way that edge of agitation with herself creeps in, no matter how she's controlling her bother and feelings at the moment, "I don't know. I'm probably just out of sorts and craving the release and adrenaline... you know how I am."

After a pause, the brunette woman changes subjects to inquire about the cord suddenly, gaze swapping back to the man, not the object while speaking a bit slowly, "... is it useful for you to keep? I gave it to you to share where I'd been. I understand why it'd be hard to destroy, it feels so much like a part of me. When I handed it over, I trusted you with anything you wanted to know from it. There was no expiration date and that sentiment hasn't changed. It's yours."

There's another pause before she makes quiet and solid suggestion, starting to turn and look toward the hall with gesture and a deep breath, "If you could find something to use against Turner, if his own emotions might be tied to it too... I think you should put it in your safe. While you do that, I can go salvage dinner for you. You've had a long, busy day and all this is not what you were supposed to come home to tonight."

Byron didn't mean to make this moment awkward in light of Lilith's confession. He could've just acted on your desires. Play his part of the game. He knows full well that his own lustful thoughts, especially after she'd spilled her dark kink out to him, would have more than happily obliged. But he had to speak up and voice his own concerns in the hopes of getting a better understanding of what she really wanted. Did she want that side of him, the one so full of spite and willing to kill her just to teach her a lesson? Or did she really want something else, a balance between that full murderous tilt and their normal passionate love making.

If anything, when her gaze meets with his it's met with a loving fondness and a faint smile on his lips. He enjoys her touch very much and right now her hand caresses at the side of his neck, fingertips brushing along his jawline. "It's not completely irrational." He murmurs lowly. "People joke about make-up sex or just angry sex all the time." Here, he wets his lips, the subtle smile growing broader in amusement. "Even I have to agree that it all sounds incredibly hot." And works well with his own power play kink, this struggle for dominance.

She can feel his hold on her tighten, but rather than pull her fully against him, he takes steps to be the one to step in closer to her so that their bodies touch, his chin lowered so that he could better look upon her beautiful face. Then she brings up that cord, his gaze shifting towards it on the bed. He has his own confessions to bring up, "You were absolutely incredible in those memories." This hints that he's read the cord more than once. "That power, that control. That twist of pain and desire." Everything that she'd just brought up, but in what should have been a safe space for her clientele. If she doesn't resist, he'll urge her back onto the bed, bearing his weight against her. "You're right, I've had a very busy day. Right now, all that I want to do is unwind." Apparently food can wait.

Hungry for passion rather than food, he seeks out the curve of her full lips with a passionate kiss. All the while the cord remains resting there on top of his suit jacket.

Lilith pauses in her turn as she feels Byron's weight pressing against her with step in, visual attention turning back from the hallway, up to him. It makes her breath quicken again, just the solid feel of his body and the intent behind it, the intensity of the man's dark eyes as his expression shifts with the confession. When he says those things aloud, when he's so close while speaking such sentiment and attraction to her in such a way, it washes her over and through with feelings of her own. The woman's own softer, slighter frame pressed against him trembles subtly as she's taken with a few ticks of breathlessness, something he can hear as much as see after his words are through.

It's a balm of relief to hear, it's empowering in a moment she feels a little out of control and all mixed up inside, it's validating for her now to hear the attraction. Lilith was never proud of her profession, and despite the generally accepting pragmatism she has about that whole part of her life, there's shame in there too. It's one partial piece that makes her feel occasional bouts of not-good-enough with creeping insecurities. But here's Byron, lauding her professional performances, her capability, her control, her power. Something inside her unlaces, some of the tension and anxiety leaves her, though she's still a bit tense with coiling anticipation on press toward the bed.

He probably has no clue, but he's said the one thing she's probably needed to hear ever since she handed that cord over.

When she's pressed onto the bed, her face readily tips up to catch the passionate kiss, open mouthed and meshing lips and tongue. The slight tension stays in her body, evident from the way she's reaching up to cling and rake her fingers with constant drag of wander, skipping from hair, to shoulders, then back. Eventually, she murmurs into the kiss, a leg lifting up with bend to hike her skirt and show the darker band of her silken thigh-high hosiery top, lacy elastic at the thigh, "Mm, take my clothes off. I'll tell you a part of the fantasy while you do."

Unwinding with Lilith is apparently coming with demands. And though she doesn't quite say 'tear my clothes off' she kind of has that tone and punctuates with a rough pinch, bite and pull at the man's bottom lip, close gaze thick with lust and that backhanded spark of light that shows up when she's being controlling or challenging him.

If he wasn't in a mood earlier when he first got home, Byron's in this mood now. Their conversation may have taken a turn for the dark and personal, especially for the both of them over the past holiday, but listening to Lilith spill out her desires and then remembering all of those snippets of memories attached to that one cord, catching instances from all perspectives and then none at all, sometimes watching as a complete voyeur. Those visions have stirred something up within him. There is also the part of him that wants to make Lilith feel less like a freak, especially when he practically questioned the darker depths of what turns her on and the dangers that it may pose.

Hovering over her as she's laid out across the bed, his face so close, she'll catch this warm smile before theirs lips lock in this heated desire to possess the other. Feeling the shift of her leg beside him, one of his hands cups onto the back of her shapely thigh to help keep it in position with a roaming touch. He enjoys the playfully bite at his lip, feeling a gentle sting, especially when he pulls away briefly and feeling that sensual tug. Her request, however, elicits a low growl from his throat and she can already feel his clawed fingers digging at the silken hose coating her long leg. If anythings about to be torn, it's starting from there. He knows that they were both on edge for various reasons and whatever tension he was feeling, there's a tightness in his neck and shoulders. The stresses of his line of work and the juggling of a relationship with the twisted chaos of... whatever the Veil is.

She can feel the bristles of his beard drag roughly against the flesh at her throat and the wet heat of his mouth there. While one hand works at her stockings, keeping that one bent leg lifted, the other tugs roughly at her top. One side of her hosiery clings to her in tatters, both hands now working to remove her shirt.

It's not quite the violence she confessed to wanting, but.. she realizes there at some point it doesn't matter what she thinks she might want. She knows all they really need is each other. That'll always be enough.