2020-08-09 - The Other Man

Sometimes Lilith sleeps like a rock against Byron, fatigue and comfort working together for comfortable mass effect. Sometimes she's too full of something she's thinking or feeling, even while she's sleeping. Byron knows those ones because she flops and rolls into all manner of positions, even when she's still clutched to his hand, it's like frustrated sleep energy. When she's having dreams or nightmares or has just given up on sleep entirely, he knows when it happens if he's conscious enough in passing. She tries to play asleep so still and quietly next to him, her breathing becomes too unrhythmic because she's probably counting it and holding it in spells of silence when she feels him move, On top of that, she'll sometimes turn with her back and butt pressed against him to nestle face in the pillow and do whatever she does while laying there not sleeping.

Tonight, Lilith started off sleeping soundly because she was quite tired given everything going on and she couldn't do much in the meantime, so sleep is great. But then she has dreams that bother her, not nightmares precisely, definitely not Dreams with a capital-D, but they're so vivid, the disturbances on her mind stick and branch out into other thoughts when she's gasped awake to do the butt-and-pillow-hug-nuzzle-thing.

She doesn't want to wake Byron. But is he awake? Sometimes he is. Maybe she should peek. Wait, no. Her eyes are leaking tears, no peeking.

Byron was up long after Lilith had already fallen asleep for the night, going through all of his mental notes and figuring out what step he's missing. He does this between bouts of trying to fall asleep at the start, but eventually his weariness gets the better of him and he is able to drift off into a comfortable slumber. Anyone living with the trauma that Gray Harbor serves to them on a platter is sometimes afflicted by dark dreams. Byron as well. He has a past that continues to haunt him, but tonight is not one of those nights. Not for him.

The very first sign of stirring drags him wearily from his slumber and she might feel his arm repositioning slightly, a hand clutched sleepily around her to try and pull her back against him before returning to the comfort of darkness. It's more of an unconscious movement, perhaps he was never really awake at all. But with Byron's paranoia, despite feeling the heaviness of sleep weighing down upon him, his eyes slowly open to check the time. He could feel Lilith still in his arms, even if she seems to have changed positions, leaning more forward with her lower half pushing up against him.

It's not something super strange, because she sometimes tosses and turns while in a dream. She might feel him leaning in close after a time, burying his face into her hair. Maybe he was awake? But for how much longer? Awake enough to press his lips against her neck, his bristled chin scraping against her skin.

It's 4:12 am when Byron looks at the clock through sleep-hazed eyes and the way Lilith goes bunny-rabbit still and holds her breath when he moves is a tattletale kind of reflex moment. Again, she thinks about how she doesn't want to wake him, she remembers he was awake still at whatever point she drifted off. She doesn't know he's roused enough to check the clock and when he pulls, she nudges her ass more securely against him as if to unconsciously tell his body she's still in bed with him.

But then he's moving with closer stir, Lilith feels the breath in her hair, the more encompassing return warmth of Byron's body. It feels so warm and good and right. She has to wipe her face with a quick bury against the pillow because her eyes have started unwittingly rolling tears again for some reason that's even foggy to her. Is he really awake? The lips at her neck say yes, he's awake enough. The feel of his bristled face on her slender curve of neck makes her sigh with dreamy semblance of pleasure and her body automatically starts to re-align so he can curl and press around her from behind.

With tilt of her head and neck to give Byron's lips more invitation and access, she broaches the silence between the soft stir and rustle of sheets and sleepy breaths with a whisper.

"Hi." There's a pause, then, "Are you asleep?"

It seems like a dumb question now that she knows he's awake, but she plays this way too. Mostly, Byron probably realizes from her movement of resettling and tone with the question is that Lilith is giving the man the option to go BACK to sleep now that they're resettled, even though she's clearly awake for some reason. It's rather nice of her. But sometimes, Byron also knows that if she doesn't get something out while it's kicking around on the surfaces of her mind, whatever that thing is has a 50/50 chance to be tucked into the places where she lets things grow and fester by morning, dismissed as 'dreams' or 'overtired' or 'just stuff'.

Also sometimes, she just wants sex, so he basically has three options-- take the opening and sleep, take the opening and talk, take the opening and sex. Hmm.

Byron didn't mean to wake Lilith either and with sleep still in his eyes, he's not completely certain whether she was awake or not. However, it's her voice that tells him as much. She doesn't sound as if she'd just woken up like him. There's no yawning, no mumbled near incoherent words in response to his own stirring. No. This was a greeting and an inquiry to go with the returned kiss.

Smiling at her in that lazy way in the darkness, she can feel his arms around her again, his grip tightening around her. In fact, it's he who has to yawn, his own eyes wet with weary tears rather than emotional ones, "Not anymore it seems." Still sleeping mostly on his side, head tilted slightly, he asks, "You? How long were you up for?" At this point, his eyes start to adjust to just having woken up, catching sight of the glistening wetness at her cheeks or what's left of her tears.

"Mmmm.." He murmurs, shifting slightly, so that he's resting full on his side proper, those far too dark eyes of his now seem completely focused on Lilith as if trying to read her features, somewhat concerned now, "What's on your mind, hon?"

Lilith presses her lips into a mashed line as Byron takes a shift from lazy and hugging nuzzling sleep mode into... well laze on his side. But she knows what that means, he's looking at her, which means even in the dark with the dim lighting from clock glow and windows out over the lights of the harbor and town, he might be able to see what she's trying to conceal by not turning. In fact, she's pretty sure he does know once he's made that shift to inquire with creeping concern.

And how to even explain what she's not wittingly doing? For just a moment, she damns being a woman, but she's also not dumb enough to think it's just hormones fluctuating. In fact, this isn't even one of those impulsive moments where she's been too brash or too quick to feel or act, it's just her body reacting to the things she's thinking about, maybe, or the build of stress or... or... no.

When Lilith shifts, she rolls over onto her side to face Byron so he can see her sleep tousled hair, slightly streaked and dampened cheeks, and those wide awake eyes he suspected, "An hour, maybe. I don't know. Maybe it just feels that way. Sleep got too full." That's her way of saying 'regular dreams' because sometimes the word 'dream' means other things and she likes to ensure differentiation. Then after a beat of pause, she whispers confession that's a little bit of explanation for the tears, at least, "I'm not sad."

Okay. But those are still tears, so why... ugh, women. Lilith especially, right now. She either hits you over the head with everything inside at once or treats it like pulling teeth one by one.

Quietly, as if she can't manage how to explain much with words for the moment, she gradually pushes up to put her mouth in against Byron's, slowly kissing before speaking there with back and forth brush at his lips, "I'm happy. Sometimes, it's more terrifying than being alone, wounded, and afraid." It makes sense, even though the things she says are feelings that should be at odds. When you're happy with something and have lives like theirs, the mind will inevitably leap to some of the worst fears and possibilities because... there's so much to lose.

"Make love to me." Lilith whispers after those words are ended with another slow kiss. She doesn't touch him otherwise, beyond their mouths, and her breath is trembling with the turn for intensity she's taking while so, so soft of voice, "I don't want to shut everything out. I want to feel everything."

More Lilithesque words that someone other than Byron might have trouble understanding the meaning of. But again, he might well know what she means. A lot of the time, they fall into each other and shut out the very world. Sometimes, they make love in a lazy or traditional sense, but oftentimes through the obsessive love... there's also near-blinding lust and need and mindless desires they crave and sate for so many reasons. Right now, Lilith isn't trying to bury what she's feeling and while their bodies are nude and lust is part of this, she's not consumed by it.

The woman's breath is trembling because love. Love. Love. It scares her and something about her dreams or thoughts seems to have prompted that. But instead of pushing Byron away with those fears like she did so long ago, she invites him in. Maybe she needs to feel it before she can talk about any of it. Maybe he should make her talk first so she can't disregard it later, but... love. She wants him so badly, so differently right now, it's... softening her so much from her natural bedroom and passion tendencies. The allure has changed, it's not fire and ferocity, it's dizzying, opium-aroma flower petals and silk, but it's still her.

And right now, he can downright feel the tremors in her as she lifts a hand to put alongside his bristled cheek.

While he might not be completely awake and ready to go about his day (though if he had to, he would be able to function enough for such a task), Byron is attentively in the here and now. The heaviness at his lids lighten and he's alert enough to notice that something must be keeping Lilith up. The longer she keeps her back to him, the more concerned he gets. So when she finally turns to allow him an unobstructed view of her face, his eyes study her features, taking in what he thought he saw, her tear stained cheeks.

She'll notice how his gaze meets with hers, then lowers to study every aspect of her face, before lifting to look her in the eyes once more. The concern is clear in the way how his brow creases in the darkness. There's even more confusion when she comes out and tells him that these tears are not tears of sadness. Then what are they? This is something that he silently ponders and as to not upset her, he tries his best to not overreact to any of it. In fact, one of the hands at her hips raises to brush the back of his fingertips over one of the glistening streaks. Then she tries to explain and he /think/ he understands where she's coming from, though he'll never be sure. There's this great temptation to read her emotions now and make certain that she wasn't upset by anything, in fact, there's this moment of pause, their gaze still locked, where he's thinking of just going ahead with this plan because he just has to know.

"As long as you're happy." His voice whispers in the dark room even if he's still filled with uncertainty. Her request for him to make love to her, however, is a pleasant surprise. He knows how their love making often goes and it is wild and desperate often times. Quick and hard. That doesn't mean that they don't make love in a more romantic manner and he was more than ready to oblige to her request. There's no asking her whether she's sure or not, though he never loses sight of her gaze. Not until her lips press against his and he eases his mouth to hers, chin lifting, eyes slowly closing.

His parted lips drag lazily over hers, nibbling down gently all while he explores her hot mouth not in an intense invasive way, it's more like taking a slow drink. The man's hands begin to roam, he rocks gently against her, leaning into the kiss, then melts away in a slow, uneven rhythm. All that he wanted to do was to make her happy and by doing so, he receives the greatest of pleasures. Taking things slowly, the prickling of his chin and his needy mouth lower to savor the taste of her bared flesh, traveling down her slender throat, lavishing kisses at her clavicle before pressing his face against the soft, feminine swell of chest.

True love can be consuming in all forms, it can be lustful and obsessive, it can be tumultuous and solid at the same time. It comes with so many life-altering possibilities to uproot what you think you know about yourself and the very meaning of life. Sometimes it completes you, sometimes it breeds fear to have it because you can't imagine losing it, because sometimes love is stolen. There's so many ways to love someone, they can all come together into an emotion that supersedes expression, no place for simple words and sentiments. And it's so vulnerable when you're in the thick of it, sometimes, you can't help but feel laid bare to the other party.

Lilith is laid bare, skin and hair and swaddling bedding as mere barrier to her physical nudity in full. She's laid bare twice over right now, she can feel it, it's why her fingers tremble when they come to touch along Byron's neatly-kept bearding at a cheek with dust to jawline. She's not often like this with physical intimacy, it almost comes off like a soft shyness, but that's not what it is. The man may have been tempted to exert and know her emotions and mind to ensure she's not truly driven by distress in any form or measure, but once he feels that touch and the shivering breath into meshed mouths to match, he knows she's wide open with no defenses, physically, mentally, or emotionally.

It might be in a way to tempt Byron more than potential stressors did, to delve in with her so open in so many ways. It's also entirely possible that the moment and her body takes any empowering and immersing urge. Does he truly need to? No, not with her like this, he can feel she'd give him anything in this moment, even things she might rally against any other time. But does he want to feel that in her, to revel in it, to drink her in so many different ways, starting at the lips? It'd be so easy...

With Lilith slowed down like this, she notices small things that escape her notice any other time. Granted, Byron's lips are still paramount as he kisses her and when those lips and his body moves against her own, it's so much blissful anticipation and sensation. But for a change, it's not the only thing her senses are taking in, she's not hiding in right now, she's seizing and feeding on other details too, existing wholly. She can hear what the sheets and blankets sound like while they stir and move, while hands roam and Byron's hot breath and mouth drops to skim and taste her skin. It sounds like music without notes, mingling with noises of soft unwitting moan and gasps for breath as percussion, a soundtrack.

Lilith flips the bedding and sheets away from herself and rolls from her side to her back with clinging hold onto the man, a hand slipping to grip and twist and stroke through his sleek strands of sleep-tousled dark hair. It's so soft compared to the stinging scrape from the hair growth on his face that drags over her collarbone with wandering, savoring kisses, and she can't help but feel the pretty arch of her back in stretching flex and pose and encouragement when he buries into her chest. She knows the glow from the clock feels like stagelights for their story, how many times have they made love or slept or talked in this same light in the middle of the night?

Her hands can't hold still while Byron meshes their bodies with motion and melding and the warmth of his kisses. The nails drag his scalp where she pets and holds his hair, the other hand roams on his lean, solid athleticism. He feels flatted drags of palm, curling nicks of fingertips in skimming, feathering caresses and tight grasps of hold in turns over his back, his ribs, his hip, detouring onto his flat stomach with slide between them.

If this were any other night, Byron would go for all of her hot spots, stimulating her body to no end. But this wasn't one of those evenings. He works his mouth and his hands slowly against her skin, skimming and skipping over the more sensitive and erogenous places on her body. Instead, he drinks it in as a whole, his lips dragging further along, down the center of midsection, before making his way back up.

When she shifts, his own body follows suit with her laying prone beneath him, his head of hair pressing against her hand, head turned as he murmurs softly against the softness of her skin, the feel of her femininity.

Many mentalists probably played with the idea of reading a person’s emotions during the throes of passion, to enhance their own pleasure. It's something that he'd been tempted to do in the past and refrained, even though there was an interest in learning more about Lilith's carnal lusts. Even as he's slowly loving her now, the way in which she was awake for around an hour and those tears… she told him that it wasn't a Dream making her sad, he wants to believe her.

He doesn’t need to look at her to probe her with his powers, yet with his own roaming hands and that hunger within him, doing anything that used focus was a difficult task. He tries anyway, one of his hands gliding down her side to her hip, then pressing against the top of one thigh.

Lilith is all absorbed intensity and escalating slow-burn lust at the moment. That said, she can't help but pull her stomach briefly concave when Byron's mouth and bearded face tickle with brushing pass over the flesh there on the low end of lips' relishing travel. A soft sigh of pleasure turns into an airy huff of partial, ticklish reflex laugh that turns into a low 'mm' in her throat to follow.

Byron can feel the strong fast pulse of the woman's heart while coming back up to nuzzle flesh with his soft lips and scrape of bearded face. Lilith turns into a radiator while aroused, blood rushes hot to the surface of her skin. She starts flushing her in those secret places women bodily blush-- he can see the faint hue of it stirred at and above decolletage, he can feel in her mind and body motion where else blood is rushing to flush nether heat and stir throbbing in her stomach.

And all the while Byron's hands and mouth are on her body, Lilith is moving it with ebb and flow, sinuous and sensual undulation that pulls her with small arcs of back from the bed, melts her back down with digging grind of hips at the mattress. One arm keeps lazing to relish the constant feel of his own skin, the masculinity of him, flesh and muscle and bone, the finer dark hairs on his forearms, the bow of his back as he leans over her. Then it's between them again, feeling low on his flat abdomen, sliding to hip bone, fingertips curling to tickle her nails there.

The other hand stays solidly at dote and grasp through the man's hair and if she senses him exerting, she probably isn't in a way to notice or... care.

There's a shift in the air when Byron uses his abilities, and the smell of ozone is often prevalent. It’s a tell-tale sign of a mentalist using their powers, along with the way that their own aura radiates more brightly. The latter is far more noticeable, but perhaps it will be lost on Lilith while she’s taken with her own desires and wants. Doing any kind of read was a risky thing — more often than not, the emotions felt are also felt by the reader. He tries not to falter in his actions and for a moment, the rush of emotion syncs him with his lover's needs, he’s feeling them as his own.

Briefly, one of the man’s hands grips at her flesh to brace himself, feeling a bout of disorientation from experiencing Lilith's emotions. He's quick to recover but his desires matched hers, he knows enough of what he needed to know.

Byron’s flesh burns against Lilith’s own hot skin. His strong hands move with heated fervor, body shifting in position as he presses down upon her. Hungry lips continue to relish kisses on every inch of her bared flesh, wandering, working slow burn passion.

But soon they’re together, joined entirely, wound with limbs and intense, feeling slow motion.

From there, it's writhe, it's dance, so much touch and breath and smell and taste and sound.

Their sex is love, their love is sex, there's no distinction right now.

Byron knows what Lilith wants. It’s beautiful and sensual and pleasurable in multiple ways, their music of lovemaking interspersed with soft sentiments.

"I love you so much." Heated whispers warm Lilith’s ear lobe, she feels teeth press down on the soft flesh.

Time passes, but neither of them could begin to say how much.

Byron's hot mouth is at the brunette’s ear, the words he speaks with the bite down on the lobe of her ear serve as punctuation. It bids last carnal reflex inside Lilith. With wisps of exhale, she speaks with her tone pitched to near strain with pleasure and sentiment, "I love you... completely. So many ways. I love you, Byron... Mmm, Byron..." His name becomes a whispered litany before it’s through.

Byron tightens his grasp and holds the woman’s body as it’s ripped from all that slow lovemaking into sheer bliss of release and reaction. And he’s not far behind…

Hearing his name at her lips, whispered amidst the sounds of pleasure that she makes, it’s all music to Byron's ears and the powerful rush of passion takes him completely too.

His arms won’t let her go once it's over, his face rests within her thick damp hair, just above her shoulders. For a time he remains perfectly still, once more relishing in the way their bodies feel against each other. He’s listening to her every breath, feeling her heart beating. "That was..." there’s a hard swallow, "That was beautiful." Eventually, he stirs, relieving some weight off of her, but he has yet to release her from his grasp. Strong arms pull her up against his body as he rests laying on his side, the way he was positioned at the very beginning.

It was everything Lilith wanted. She needed him to know in a way that words can't express how monumentally taken she is with Byron Thorne, flaws and all, just like he wants her with her own complications. Hauled up tight against the man's body with impossible closeness, Lilith continues to cling and tremble with residual shivers of pleasure and emotion. She still feels the brushing burn on her skin even though Byron is rolling back onto his side there at some point after their languishing rest and press of bodies on comedown. Lilith's lips are hot and feel swollen with pleasant tingle from kissing and kissing and kissing.

Once the couple is cozy on their sides to cling to each other and look at one another's eyes in full, dark as it is, Byron sees that dazed and dreamy kind of expression on the woman, still floating on the high and... the sheer sensuality and expressiveness of it all. With some delay behind the man's breathy declaration, she whispers her own agreement now that they're looking at each other again, "It was exactly what I wanted."

Lilith should be nervous, normally this wouldn't be something she allows, what comes out of her next. But oddly, as she speaks, she's not anxious, she stays in that same calm blissful state, raising her voice just above whisper to speak more solidly and audibly, "I want something else, too." There's pause, one of her hands lifting and turning to graze a bent outer knuckle along the bristled, strong line of his jaw from neck to chin. When it's finished pathing caress, the hand drops to his chest and collarbone in splay of rest near the heart, continuing her words.

"I want you to help me work a deal and pay my debt. It's not right for me to marry you while my pride keeps me chained to another man."

Asking for an exorbitant amount of money after sex might be problematic with other women. The context here is completely different, though. She'd barely let him broach the very idea of it, multiple times when he'd offer, even when he made the offer sound rational and decent. In fact, it's even sent her into temper fit a time or two with mention because she hates it, she's a pawn, it's not just her job to pawn. Now she has so much more to lose. And how stupid would it be to survive all that Gray Harbor and Dark Beings throw at them, only to get brought down by mere law crimes in the working natural world? But there's even more than that.

"I want out, completely. I want our life without ghost anchors. I don't want the shop and loft anymore." Another pause for breath, " I understand now, what it means to you to be able to give me this. You're my knight."

It was exactly what I wanted.

Lilith speaks the words that Byron was hoping to hear, the smile on his lips doing little to hide this fact. Snuggling up against her even more so now, he leans forward to place a kiss against her damp bangs, pressing it into her forehead. A hand lifts to drift fingertips down the side of her hair, brushing aside some of her dark locks away from her face, all the while keeping his gaze locked with hers. He's about to lean back and pull her to rest her head against his chest and perhaps relish in this sweet aftermath and she can feel the slight shift in his body, before she starts to speak.

She wanted something else. Something other than the magic they'd created. It brings him back to his read on her emotions. There was something bothering her, yet she was able to put that behind her, so he can only assume that whatever she wants will be related to all of that. Still smiling, the grin growing a touch as his chin lifts at her touch, "Ask me for anything." Feeling somewhat relaxed, or at least wanting to give off that impression, he follows through with his initial plan, but rather than having her rest her head against his chest, his grip is loose enough that she can keep herself propped up, while she lay partially against him.

Then, she comes out and says it, informing him that she wants to break ties with Monaghan by paying off her debt. And that she wanted his help. Something which he'd offered to do several times before. While this may surprise him, he tries not to show it. "Of course, I'll help. I didn't want you having anything to do with... any of that." In fact, this was another reason why he was angry at Hank's ghost. As she continues to speak, he quietly studies her features in the darkness, his gaze watching her lips move as she speaks, before meeting with those expressive eyes. He always thought they were breathtaking.

A knight. She called him a knight. Her knight, in fact. He's able to keep to this faint smile for a time, but he can't help himself, that smile tugging into a crinkle-eyed grin. "I'll be more than your knight soon. I'll be your husband as well."

There's other things to discuss about what Lilith asks of Byron. There's details and plans, and they both know that talking to Monaghan any time soon while he's dodging hitmen as a main concern would... probably not work in their favor. Hell, maybe he'll get shot soon and she'll luck out or just owe the next guy that takes over. It means including the shop as part of the bargain or finding a buyer, the loft goes too and it finalizes the living arrangement situation in a way that leaves no real fallbacks -- this is also a big step for Lilith because Byron is the first significant other she's lived with, she's fully giving up that piece of 'her space' in favor of 'our space'.

Such another big step, the willingness to remove the old family business and all the complications, ghosts, and problems that go with it from her life entirely. It's the only thing 'family' she really has left. And to let Byron pay for her personal problems and possibly put himself in Felix's sights trying to go to bat for her...? These may be things that don't seem to carry tons of weight on their own, but collectively, and because it's Lilith, it's a rather huge deal. It's almost like she's re-affirming or solidifying her answer to his proposal, not just answering it.

But details. Details. They'll work those out later, they'll make plans, they have other concerns first. Besides, she now has another request...

"Yeah?" Lilith breathes out to Byron needlessly while looking at him in the lazy sprawled lean for talking against his body. Her own lips can't help but tug and pull with smile, despite the fact she's being quietly playful bossy and trying to deadpan it, "Say it again. Who're you going to be?" She wants to hear him say it again, it makes her have butterflies.

Your husband.