Eye of the Storm [Jesse]

[Clover]

EYE OF THE STORM
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OOC: Backdated to February 18th

<Jesse Fforde> He grabbed one of the chairs from the dining room and carried it to the front door. He sat just inside, in the dark, the lights off. His sword rested over his lap, his one eyes closed – a restful repose, while he waited.

It wasn’t as if Jesse didn’t know that he was being confusing. For Valentine’s he had given Clover a knife. A sharp one. He had basically given her all the permission she needed to stab him whenever she wanted. And yet he got angry at her, sometimes. He wasn’t sure how to make her understand that there was a time and a place. To gouge out an eye, to Jesse, wasn’t particularly sexy. For practicality’s sake, he needed both eyes in order to be able to see properly. It would heal. But he supposed he’d have to explain that though she liked to hurt him, he only liked to hurt in particular ways. If she’d sidled up to him and slowly sunk the blade into his heart? It might have been a different story. The eye? It was unexpected.

It wasn’t often that Clover was the one to walk away, but Jesse let her go. He needed time to cool down, and though it was tempting to summon her straight back again, like she so often liked to do to him, he wasn’t in the mood. After leaving bloodied handprints all over her apartment and making a mess in the bathroom, Jesse eventually calmed. He understood why Clover had walked away. He understood he’d been sending mixed messages. Once he’d realised that he should try to calmly talk her around, he decided to wait.


<Clover> By leaving, she’d meant to show him what it was like to be on the receiving end, but she’d also meant to show him how awful she felt about upsetting him. Her mind always went to the worst places. What if they were too violent? What if they were simply too fucked up to be together? Jersey had seemed shocked to hear about some of the acts. Clover had to wonder. It was impossible to go through night after night without considering the possibilities. What if they were in an abusive relationship? Clo always took things further, expanding on the abuse, and Jesse seemed entirely against the assaults.

When she left, Clover had meant to go to Serpentine, but she’d ended up in the Handle Bar. Of all the places in the city, she’d ended up in that **** hole. And she’d seen Victor. Yes, she’d seen Victor. Clo had said a quick hello and thrown herself back into the crowd, as if she’d never seen him at all. She’d texted him, as if they were on better terms, and she’d received no response. The fact that she’d received no response didn’t surprise her at all.

After exhausting her time at the bar, Clover finally followed the line of people trickling out of the club. As soon as she had a free moment, when eyes weren’t on her movements, she tomed home. She’d gone over her words and her apologies, each one sincere, but they disappeared as soon as she twisted the doorknob on the door to her apartment. There was only one way to start. She knew. “Jesse? I’m sorry.”


<Jesse Fforde> The darkness of a dim apartment was different to the darkness of the shadow realm. Although there were no windows in this basement floor of Third Circle, there was still light bleeding into the room; there were appliances that, though not on, had standby lights. Tiny little lights that somehow illuminated a room, once one’s eyes had had time to adjust. Those tiny little lights could be annoying, if a person ever wanted pitch darkness.

But Jesse couldn’t see them. One eye was gone and the other was shut. But the darkness still felt different. It wasn’t a silent darkness. Outside, he could hear people moving around; his ears were primed, waiting for footsteps to approach this particular apartment door. There was the gentle of electricity. Even this silence was alive. It wasn’t dead. He decided that he preferred this kind of silence. Ever since he’d come back from the Shadow Realm – both times – he’d had no urge to go back. He didn’t need to.

When he heard Clover’s hand on the handle of the door, his grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. As the door opened, he silently stood. Clover called out to him – he swiftly turned on the light just as he swung the blade; a wild swing but one that hit its mark. It sliced across Clover’s face – effectively, he imagined, blinding her in one eye.


<Clover> She couldn’t move fast enough. Her arms went up to try and shield her face, almost as if she knew the strike were meant from one of her more vulnerable spots, but she’d failed. She’d failed to protect herself. Thinking it was an enemy, she lashed out by kicking, but it was too late, as well. The blade bit into her face as if her skin were nothing more than paper, and she fell back into a familiar memory, one attached to Raven’s turning. She felt the familiar burn, the hot heat associated with betrayal, even if she wasn’t aware of her attacker. Clover was too far out of it to take the time to rely on her senses. The sound that had left her throat was a mixture of surprise and pain, a gasp and a groan, a scream and a cry. Every noise mixed into one. And then she smelled him.

The blood poured for the slash across her eye, but most of it came from her eye. He’d blinded her, just as she’d blinded him. Her hands covered her face, but the blood seeped between her fingers. Why wasn’t it stopping? She couldn’t see clearly, but she lashed out all the same. One hand felt blindly to slap at him, while the other applied pressure to his wound. “You ******* asshole. You lie in wait now? You saw me coming! **** you,” she cried, her hand balled into a fist so that she could try to land one good hit.


<Jesse Fforde> Now, now Jesse laughed. The sound rasped from his throat even as it turned into a groan. The sword clattered to the ground though he didn’t move away from Clover; she lashed out at him but he let her, her hand searching for his wound and finding its mark. This time, she was the one half blinded; she’d know how disorienting it felt. How so completely un-arousing. At least, that was the goal. To try to get her to understand why he wasn’t completely into being blinded. Half blinded.

He caught Clover’s hand as she tried to thrust a punch at him. He clutched at her hip and dipped low to attempt to lick the blood from her face as it poured from the open wound. Although he knew that Clover liked her fair share of pain, too, he didn’t particularly enjoy slashing her face. He liked her face. He liked looking at it, not disfiguring it. In a moment of stubborn irritability, however, he had marred her features.

“That’s all you’ve got? You’re angry because I didn’t warn you?” he asked. He stood close; he held her close. If she was trapped against him, he could at least try to minimise any damage she might do by lashing out. Safety in proximity. Though he had a feeling they weren’t done – that she wasn’t done.


<Clover> “What the hell did you expect? That’s my first reaction. Do you want to know my second or my third? Fine!” Clover still felt the blood, even as it left her skin. No longer pouring, thick and black, like shadows slowly outlining her skin. She wanted him to relax, to allow her to lash out at him all over again. They had nothing but time, and he should have known that she showed the most patience when it came to revenge. She’d waited days to shoot him, after he’d died.

“You don’t scar. You know that. You don’t scar. My face, Jesse. My ******* face. Take anything but my face. I’m hurting you for this. Maybe not right now, maybe not tomorrow, but you’ll pay for this.” Her voice was low, as if they were sharing a secret only the two of them were meant to hear. After a long pause, she huffed, a quick exhale that was meant to clear the air and resolve all of the hostility she felt toward him. “Next time, don’t aim for my face.”

And she wanted a next time. That had been made clear. She always got over the shock of her injuries. She had to get over the shock, if she meant for him to play the game, to reciprocate. With him so close, she had so few options. Clo leaned up and nipped at his jaw, taking care not only to hit the mark but not to apply too much pressure. The gesture was meant to reassure him that she did want more, but that she didn’t want him injuring her face. If she was lucky, the scar would be light, the scar tissue would fade to the point where someone would have to look closely. “Asshole,” she muttered.


<Jesse Fforde> Of course she was. Jesse expected no less from Clover; though he had forgotten about her scars. It wasn’t something that he should have forgotten about, granted, and he wasn’t going to tell her. That wouldn’t go down well. He reached up to cup Clover’s face, to peer at the wound with his one good eye. They could cover it. They could stitch it. They could stick the butterfly band-aids across the slice so that the skin was as close to even as possible. It was a neat slice. It wasn’t jagged. His blade was sharp. It wouldn’t be too bad, would it?

The anger dissipated when she nipped at his jaw. After she’d explained; after she made her request. It was hard to be angry when he had her in his arms. It was hard to be angry when there was the promise of a reward. He laughed and nodded. Yes, he was an asshole.

“*****,” he retorted. Hardly a prize-winner, as a comeback, but his lips lingered near her ear, so close to her throat. Oh, how much he wanted to sink his teeth into her flesh. The scent of their blood mingled, inciting his lust. His teeth were sharp as they grazed the area over the vein. “What about the neck?” he asked. He knew he should be doing something about Clover’s face… it was only then that the thought struck him. Before she could answer, he’d pulled back to peer at her face again.

“Your leg. It grew back. Quicker than it should have. You can heal this. Will it still scar if you heal it?” he asked, his thumb grazing the outer edge of the cut.


<Clover> It was a different kind of laughter, and she loved that laughter much more than the previous laughter. He’d been upset. He’d been sarcastic. He hadn’t enjoyed any of the fun that she’d enjoyed. Even though she wanted to break his ribs again, to show him her anger in the most physical way imaginable, he’d made her happy.

“I’m your *****,” she countered, a grin on her face. She must have looked a mess. Her brown eye could have faded, the center of it destroyed from where his blade had bitten right through the tissue, but she had no way of knowing. Only Jesse knew, right then, and he might have lied to her, for both of their sakes. Clo shook her head from side to side, the motion slow. He had a way with saying and doing things that immediately disarmed her, most of them sexual references or sensual promises.

The shake of her head had been at the former question, not the latter. Her healing abilities came with no extra advantages. The healing left her exhausted, and she still ended up with a scar, sometimes lighter and sometimes darker. Clo hadn’t mastered control of the ability, but with as many times as she used, she expected to reach mastery soon enough.

“It’ll scar. I don’t know how badly. I never know until it’s done healing.” Carefully, Clover reached up to poke at the fresh wound. She immediately flinched and dropped her hand to her side. “Usually, I don’t bother healing my wounds. I like them. This one? I might keep it for a little while. I have two eyes. I can stand to lose one.”


<Jesse Fforde> Sometimes, Jesse had a way of peering at Clover as if he didn’t know her at all. He’d done it that night in the slums when she’d chosen to slaughter a family over a den of drug pedlars. And he was doing it now, trying to imagine why she want to keep her wounds. But didn’t he already know the answer? He only had to ask himself why he liked to keep his – though Clover’s reasons could be entirely different. He pressed his lips together, the line of them indicative of his deep thoughts. Sometimes he wondered how Clover could handle him; the way his emotions swung back and forth like a heavy, dangerous pendulum.

“I can heal too. Not the same way you can, but I can heal so the wound become purely aesthetic. It doesn’t hinder me at all. Sometimes I don’t, though. I keep them. Like when you broke my ribs. It’s like a… a gift that you gave me. And if I healed them, it’d be like throwing that gift in the trash,” he said. He’d thought about this before. He shook his head. “I’d never throw anything you gave me in the trash,” he said. The bear she’d given him for Valentine’s day was still in the bedroom downstairs. Even if she’d tried to take it away, he wouldn’t have allowed her.

Although the thin line of his lips turned upward into an easy smile as he imagined calling her his ***** often, from now on – he still had to ask. “Why do you like to keep yours?”


<Clover> Clover didn’t understand what it meant to have a wound that didn’t hinder her, but she nodded. She nodded, as if she actually understood the words, as if she, herself, had the ability. His question came with a few answers, each one the truth, so she took time to go over each possibility, deciding on whether or not to share them all. In the end, she decided to tell him everything. Full disclosure. Clo had nothing to hide.

“It’s exhausting to heal them, so it’s more convenient to keep the wound. I’d rather deal with the issues related to the wound than the issues related to healing the wound. When I heal myself, sometimes I’m too weak to replenish blood, and I need to,” Clover mumbled, combining two of her reasons into one response. “Otherwise, I like the wound. I like the pain associated with the wound. I like the pull and the tug. I like the shadowy holes. I like the missing parts of myself. It’s poetic.”

Her fingers missed him, but she tried once more. Clo pulled him toward him, closing any distance between them. “You know I like to collect wounds like I’m collecting something precious. I’m proud of the injuries. I want more and more. Even right now. I’m stopping myself from asking you to try again. Is that weird?” Clover had to ask the question, since his opinion mattered to her.


<Jesse Fforde> A grumbled growl rumbled in Jesse’s throat as Clover tugged him closer; he couldn’t say that he understood, but he could try. His own reasons for liking the pain were completely different to Clover’s. Once upon a time they’d been because he thought he needed to be punished; he was no good, and if he was damaged for his shortcomings, it made him feel better. Now? Now, it was just habit. It was arousal. It was a strange fetish. But it ran so much deeper for Clover.

The confession should have bothered Jesse. The idea that any one person liked to collect wounds to suffer the pain? Every doctor would say that person needed help. There was something wrong with them, psychologically. They would scream depression and throw a whole lot of drugs at the case. But they were no longer human and the wounds were not fatal. They were not the same, right? He knew that Clover had her problems. He knew there was depression, etched into the heart of her. But who was to say that the pain hindered, rather than helped?

Jesse glanced down at the sword that had fallen at their feet. Clover had been able to cut Jesse at her leisure, but it wasn’t something he’d done in return too often. He nodded, regarding Clover curiously. “I can try again. I won’t take any limbs. I won’t touch your face. You tell me what you like, and where you like it…” he said, lifting his chin in that proud way he had. He liked to please Clover. He was confident in his ability to please Clover. And this would be no exception.


<Clover> It seemed strange. He was before her, offering her exactly what she wanted, and yet she had no immediate response. Clover took her time. She went through the body parts as if she'd lost herself in the anatomy of the human body. Arms. Legs. Hands. Feet. And did she want him to be gentle with her? Was that what she wanted?

[Jesse Fforde]

<Clover> Her eye throbbed, a sharp, white-hot reminder that he'd claimed one part of her. He'd blinded her in one eye, crippling her for the second time in their relationship. And yet, why not a third? Clo bit down on the inside of her lower lip. Her expression would have been more thoughtful, but she took great care not to narrow her eyes, not to jar the injury.

"You're serious?" Clo tried to see something in the way he held himself, but she saw nothing, nothing that revealed a hidden agenda or a joke at her expense. "I want you to stab me then," she spoke, still incredibly unsure if he meant to follow through. To show him where, she guided his hand. She took one of his hands in hers and settled it right over her stomach. "Here," she said, placing his hand flat on her stomach, "or here." With her last words, she'd guided his hand to the right, settling it over where her liver would be.


<Jesse Fforde> Uncertainty wasn’t something that Jesse was accustomed to. When Clover questioned his seriousness, he wanted to question hers. He wanted to ask if she was sure, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment. When he asked to be cut, when Clover took the knife to his skin, he never complained. It was what he wanted. He never thought less of her because of it; he never had any regrets. He didn’t think it was abuse if it was something that he asked for, if it was something that he allowed.

So he nodded. Instead of reaching down for his sword - it was far too large to stab someone in an intimate way - he went to the kitchen. For less than a minute they were bereft of each other’s touch; in one of the drawers he found a knife. It wasn’t really a kitchen knife. It was just where he knew one of the numerous weapons he kept was stored. His boots scuffed the apartment floor as he came back to Clover, the knife turning, over and over, in his grasp.

He paused, just for a second, to consider his doubts. Just because this was what Clover wanted, didn’t mean it was good for her. They were too much alike, however. He couldn’t deny Clover what she wanted. To deny her would do more damage than to submit. Wouldn’t it? He supposed he would find out. As the tip of the knife pressed against the skin over Clover’s liver, he tucked stray strands of hair behind her ear. As his hips gently bumped against hers, pressure was applied. When the knife sliced through material and flesh, sinking toward the liver, Jesse’s lips lingered over Clover’s. There was no kiss, yet - just intimate proximity.


<Clover> There was something very different about the bite of a knife; bullets just couldn't compare. She'd watched him, and yet she still felt surprise as he moved toward her, as he reclaimed his spot. Clover felt the urge to fight, but she suppressed it, and she wondered if Jesse had to suppress the urge whenever she decided to hurt him. Did he always feel as if the first move was the move?

She wasn't afraid. If she had to describe the feeling, she would have described it as excitement. Her palms felt as if they were slick with sweat, and her lips felt too dry. It was as if they were atop a high mountain, and she was looking down at the drop. Clover had never been in such a position before. She'd subjected herself to bullets. She'd forced the hands of strangers. Even before the knife touched her, she wondered if she'd done something inappropriate in asking him.

Even though it hurt to close her eyes, she did. One pulse of pain came from her face, and another exploded on her side. Shirt torn. Skin torn. Nerves warning her that something was wrong, something was so very wrong! Clo exhaled a breath she didn't remember taking, and she held onto the feeling. If she concentrated, she could have pinpointed variations in pressure. She was trying so hard not to scream. She didn't want him to pull away.


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse didn’t know what to expect. Whenever Clover wielded the knife against him, he didn’t hide whatever it was that he felt. There were those who’d try to tell him that the pain of getting a tattoo was soothing; that it didn’t feel like pain at all. Jesse never believed them. He himself had so many tattoos because he revelled in the pain. He enjoyed it because it was pain. The way it used to make him sweat, the adrenaline rush that it inspired. It was the same with Clover and the knife; he never restrained from hissing, from shouting, from buckling. That was part of the intimacy. He never had to hide himself from Clover.

As Clover closed her eye, Jesse’s remained open. He was waiting for her to pull back; he was waiting for her to lash out. He was waiting for her to shout, or to swoon. He was waiting for her to clutch at him. He was waiting for her to cry. He was waiting for something, anything to tell him whether he was right or wrong in giving in to her whims. He pressed a kiss to the corner of Clover’s lips. The blood that spilled from the wound he had created was not red, but black. It made it seem so much … less. But he had to remember that she would hurt, just the same as he would. Just the same as anyone else.

The knife had disappeared right down to the hilt. Jesse didn’t twist it. Instead, slowly, he started to remove it. The blood spilled like magic from the wound, black smoke still managed to fill the air with the scent of blood. With the scent of Clover. He swallowed that scent, gaze shifting from his own movements and back to Clover’s face; waiting for her to open her eye, waiting for something. Anything. Had he done right by her?


<Clover> Her pain was a private moment, one that took place inside of herself. There were whispered conversations in her mind, her thoughts going back and forth with varying degrees of pain and pleasure. She’d never had someone pay so much attention to her reaction. She’d been the one watching. It was odd being on the other end of the knife. With the pinch and pull of her skin, and the way her shirt had dipped in around the blade, Clo felt as if he were slowly ripping her open. She didn’t know the exact moment when she finally opened her eyes, when she realized, once again, that she only had the one eye, the one burst of color, but his kiss had already passed. It seemed as if they’d been in the same position for hours on end, but she felt the slow movement as he began to remove the blade, pulling her away from her thoughts and away from the pain that shot like sparks.

He pulled the knife away, but she moved toward it. She hissed, a pained sigh mixed with all the words she had yet to share. The knife belonged there, buried deep in her body. Had she ever felt whole without it? Her eye felt better. All of her problems had disappeared. "****!" She finally swore, the word too loud and emphasized at the beginning. "Just a little longer." It came out quickly, as if she had to bunch all of her words together or she'd never let them out.

Her blood. She'd felt the way her blood had left the open wound. She could have imagined the way it looked as it escaped, as it burst forth from the cut. Black. But there was nothing beyond that vague image. Her hands trailed down the arm that held the knife, her fingertips applying pressure. She didn't know then whether she wanted him to pull the blade free, but she needed him to, or they'd spend the rest of their time dissecting her liver. She inched away from him, but she cried out.


<Jesse Fforde> No time was lost for Jesse. He was aware of every passing second, and how those seconds climbed into minutes. The ache in his own eye may as well have not been there, for all that it bothered him. He was far too preoccupied with Clover, and the way the pain overtook her. He wanted to know where she went, when her eyes were closed. He wanted to go with her, but how could he? While she dwelled so firmly in her pain, Jesse himself was not bereft of feeling. It coiled around his metaphorical, unbeating heart. He didn’t know whether he liked what he saw, or whether her pain was his pain - because he was the one causing it.

At first, she didn’t let him pull the knife free. She dictated his movements, counteracted them with her own. His own mouth opened and closed as she swore; as she finally reacted to the metal blade lodged within her organs. He released a shuddered breath, his hair fallen over his good eye. He pressed a kiss to Clover’s cheek, to her temple, his stubbled jaw nestled against Clover’s skin. He felt her body so firmly against his, a physical presence that he could not deny. There were so many things that he had been trying to deny, but for what?

When he closed his eyes he saw Clover’s marred face; he saw it as it was now, and as it was before. As it has always been, from the very beginning. He saw it twisted in rage and fallen in disappointment. He saw it softened; he saw the horror, the surprise, the shock when she told him she loved him. Jesse didn’t understand love anymore. But he knew, in that moment, with Clover so close to him in both mind and body, that a lack of understanding didn’t necessarily mean a lack of feeling.

The blade stayed where it was as his head bowed. “I do,” he said, and swallowed the scent of Clover’s blood. “...love you,” he said. So quiet, but discernable. Only then, only after he’d made his confession, did he start to remove the blade.


<Clover> The chill brought on by the sharpened edge of the blade, its perfect point the beginning and end of her release, dissipated. There had been an on-going battle that came to a screeching halt. Whether or not she preferred the barrage of bullets to the sting of the blade made absolutely no difference. She wanted to know. She wanted him to hurt her, to regain some inner peace, or perhaps just to give and get a taste of something so familiar and something so foreign. He'd said something. She wasn't deaf. He'd taken her eye, not her ear. He'd taken part of her sight, not part of her hearing. But in that moment, she wished he'd taken half of her hearing.

Clover didn't know what to say. She didn't know whether he meant for her to hear him or not, whether he wanted her to respond or not. Even in her messy state, two wounds so fresh on her body, the knife still stuck in her side, he'd chosen to say the words. And she didn't know what to say in return. Clo didn't know whether to thank him, to acknowledge that she'd heard him, or to return the words. Hadn't they gone over his hesitation? Had she forced him to say them?

The blade was leaving her, and it left her with an absence of clarity. She had less blood, less tissue, and less understanding. Her hand left hand went to her side to stop the black blood from escaping, to prevent it from leaving her with even less. It didn't take long for the substance to collect or to vanish, to abandon her.

"Oh," she managed, her voice breaking. Her side hurt. Her eye hurt. She was in ******* pain. And he thought it was a good time to throw the words at her. They'd both picked terrible times, terribly perfect times. "Am I going to scare you, if I say it back?" Was she going to scare herself, if she said the words back to him? What advice would she have given? Clo didn’t give him time to answer the question. She blurted things out. That was her style. “I love you too.”


<Jesse Fforde> The words hadn’t been uttered in order to lure a response. Jesse hadn’t thought about it. As soon as the realisation had come to him, like a tidal wave obliterating everything in its wake, he had to say them. It’s what she had been waiting for, and if he kept them to himself, if he waited, he’d never know when to tell her. There was never going to be a perfect moment. What was the perfect moment, anyway? Some contrived date with roses and candlelight? What was more perfect than saying what he meant, when he meant it? The voice was a precious thing, and Jesse wasn’t known to waste it.

He still held the knife in his hand, even as his fingers joined Clover’s against the bleeding wound. Only a momentary glance was spared in the direction of their twined fingers before his face lifted; he nodded at Clover, a vehement action ushered to try to get her to stop talking. A nod to tell her that he knew. He knew that she loved him. She didn’t have to say it. It hadn’t scared him away before, so why should it now?

“Shut up, Clover,” he muttered, his fingers still hooked behind her neck as he kissed her. Not at the corner of the lips, not on the cheek or the temple, but fully. As his tongue swiped at her lower pout, he thought that he could taste blood. Maybe it was leftover from the gash across her face. Maybe he was only imagining it, tasting it because he could smell it. It was the best and easiest way to keep her from talking. They didn’t have to talk about this. They didn’t have to dissect the moment, the how or the why or the when. It had happened. He had said it. He didn’t want to take it back. And that’s what really mattered.


<Clover> He'd shushed her in more ways than one, and she followed along. Happily. Willingly. Even as he kissed her, she groped for the knife. She felt for the sharpened blade. The edge dug into the palm of her hand, biting at her flesh and signaling that she'd found it. She grabbed it from him and tossed it away, unconcerned with where it landed or didn't land. Clo curled her arms around his waist and moved against him. The blood from her wounds meant nothing, nothing more than the temporary darkness that blossomed between their bodies, the bodies she so desperately needed close, closer than they were and closer than they could ever hope to be.

As pathetic as it sounded, she wanted more out of him. His lips weren't enough. His tongue on her lower lip triggered a response. She wanted to taste him in the way that he tasted her. Yes, she'd wanted him to say that he loved her, but she'd already known, hadn't she? Yes. She'd been stubborn and so very uncooperative, but she'd known.

"Let's," she spoke, moving her kisses to his jaw, "go to bed." And her lips met his neck, met his throat, met his collarbone. "Now." Despite the fact that she hadn't asked him a question, her words left room for him to decline. She doubted he'd opt for such a thing, not when she so obviously wanted him. Clover wanted to be as close as possible to him, and she chose to act, or rather to demand. He'd shushed her, which had only fueled the flames. Sometimes, though not all of the time, she enjoyed him showing some control. Despite the fact that he had the opportunity to to tease her, she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and tugged, trying to lure him toward the bedroom.


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse could feel Clover groping for the knife. His grip tightened, reluctant to give it up. What did she plan to do with it? Was she going to turn it on him? Was he going to have a matching wound in his liver, if he gave it up? Or would she aim the point of it at some other part of her torso? Force their proximity to sink the blade into some other non-vital organ? But he wanted to wrap his arms around her. He wanted to hold her close. In order to do so, he had to release the knife.

He felt nothing about the loss of the object. He heard it fall somewhere nearby but he didn’t lunge after it. He didn’t miss it. It meant nothing to him. It was entirely within his personality to tease and to withhold, but not now. Not tonight. Sometimes, even he didn’t have the patience for his own games. Clover tugged at his shirt, which was stained with his own blood - the blood that had dripped from his own gouged eye. He’d cleaned the wound, to an an extent - he had covered it with a bandage, but he hadn’t cleaned himself up.

Without hesitation, Jesse followed. Normally he’d take control by grabbing Clover, but carrying her, manhandling her to the bedroom. Now? He just followed. He did as he was told. He hummed, a husked, lusting need. He was infected with the same heat as Clover. The one eye that was open and watching was burning with it. Bed, yes. To bed. He didn’t stop to ask why she’d thrown the knife away. Why she didn’t want it with them. They didn’t need the knife. They only needed each other.