/three/

It was the taste of madness, delicious in its takeover, wonderful in the overthrow of body and mind. The tremble that ran through her skin, under her skin – unlike any other tremble. Rapturous in the way it stung inside of her, in the way it took over.

Shaky breaths that tickled her skin, steady hands that kept her firmly in place, lips that soothed even when he bit into the skin on her neck; it was threatening to engulf her. Crushed into the wall by his body, crushed when she tightened her legs around him and insisted he come closer. Insisted he left nothing between them but the static of skin against skin, cloth against cloth.

An inferno enforced upon her, scorching and sweltering, burning away images of near-death. She could sink into this world, she thought; descend into the sensation of only his warm, large hands, his pelvis grinded into hers and his lips consistently on hers. Connection in a primal, uncomplicated rhythm. A pulse of touch, his fingers unfalteringly pressed into her skin and his heavy breaths holding her together. If not for this connection she would fall apart at the seams, collapse and break into too many pieces. This kept her together, cohesive in its superiority. It overtook her, pulled her into another state of awareness where there was nothing to do but surrender to the flow, follow the current and letting yourself go.

She wanted to burn him back, wanted to slip her touch underneath his skin and fascia, into his muscles and attach herself to him in a fixed bond. She wanted to dig her fingers into skin until they broke through the barrier of dermis, she wanted to bite into the point where his neck became shoulder, let her teeth break into flesh till he growled in her ear and pushed back harder in reciprocation.

Why had they never gone in this direction before? It was a glorious connection and it baffled her that it was but a first. What had held her back, what hindrance had her mind concocted to make sure they stayed on separate lines and never strayed too far into this borderland? Rules and conduct, they were but imaginary in this moment, puzzling to think it was such arbitrary convictions that had insisted on a fence between them.

It was like assembly of a puzzle, putting back squares that fit together, trying to figure out the larger picture. It was no wonder maybe, after a bit of contemplation, that she had refrained from being impulsive when it came to him. He was after all a rogue entity, a stray planetary rock on collision course with her the moment he came too close. It was a law of conservation; you shielded yourself against the outside things you knew would end up hurting you in the end. She had, on some level, recognized a snip of his ability to hurt her, to tumble her world.

Her mind flickered and fluttered, images of the man holding the gun in between a brief kiss shared months ago. Flickered between fragments of bile in her mouth and a thrill in her stomach, a sour taste and a tingle, mixing and interweaving till she thought she would surely succumb to some form of insanity. Certain that she would soon combust into a pile of ash, burst into flame and become engulfed completely. However much this was a major leap, a tangent gone off track from a beaten path, it was with a bit of reflection maybe merely the natural progression. It had been going in this direction, however slowly. At one point they would have reached this crossroad, eventually. Today had only accelerated events.

He grunted into her hair, breath warm and slick, his clothed chest feeling almost too humid against her, the cool tiles behind her absorbing heat. He grunted again, rocking into her and she answered with her own hum.

Again, his touch instilled a jolt in her, pushed her to consider only the contact between them as he grounded into her, to rely on only this and sweep away everything else that was of no consequence in this moment. His lips engaging hers, wild and impatient, pliant and yet she felt overcome. God, she just needed to let go, to leap – to disappear altogether in that moment when it crashed completely and utterly into you. Hard impact – that was what she needed. She kissed him back, eager to hurry this along, eager to compress herself into him.

He was overwhelming and forceful, a wonderful rhythm that kept her on an upsurge – lips calm against her neck, tracing along her jaw, tender in their kisses – whispering little incoherent words of comfort in her ear. She wondered if he was aware of the implication of it all, the soft noises albeit disjointed told her all she needed, more telling than actual words.

It was a contradiction; soft and gentle – hard and rough. Compact structure that moved against her, slid into her with just the right amount of pressure she sought. Held together by invisible threads; she wondered if it was thin and fragile behind the force of it. Would it disintegrate and vaporize the moment they stopped? Was it only a feeble solution, one that would break the moment they fully crashed?

He bit into the skin behind her ear and she forgot everything; forgot to breathe when he slid into her again, another angle and a different rhythm.

She sighed, whimpered, moaned but otherwise kept quiet, words would only hinder. Noises however – small little vibrations of different tones, dissolved in their meaning – evaporated into her skin with a certainty she sought.

He was warm and sweaty; a furnace that kept her against the cold wall behind her – a wonderful contradictive feeling that kept her free of any thoughts but the feeling of nearing climax within her. The roaring feeling that accumulated till you thought you could not endure another upwards surge, the surprise when it continued its steep climb.

It was too painful, almost devastating in its excruciating flavor.

It was comforting in among the pain. It was a throb she found herself surrendering to, without much thought or hesitation. The natural progression of the entanglement of bodies. Even now she was uncertain as to whether he understood it, would he be able to comprehend the nature of it? Would he believe her if she told him the truth? If she let slip a little whispered confession.

His embrace felt so achingly familiar to her. Why else would she seek it if not for the familiar warmth? Why, if not for comfort? Why, if not for the strange howl inside of her that insisted she loved him in some fashion.

It would hurt even more, she was sure, if she chose to let words slide past her lips. Instead she mouthed kisses of endearment along the corners of his mouth, tried to hang onto the animate look in the depths of his eye, tried to push aside panic within her. Vehemently tried to stay in the moment.

She felt him grunt into her mouth when he came, just seconds behind her own climax.

In a short breath he stopped, she stopped. The world seemed to stop spinning, her heart came to a likewise abrupt stop; it all stopped and left only behind an absence that was loud in its silence.

In a short breath everything fell apart in the fragment of a second, cracked and splintered. It evaporated into invisible air, rapidly eluded her grasp and left her fumbling in the dark, fumbling for the inexplicable feeling she had been under. The beguile of touch, the riveting trance she had been under, was gone.

Abrupt and sudden, her legs firmly situated on the floor again, his eyes obscure and two dark objects that left nothing for her to differentiate between. A grimace on his face, pain vivid. The sticky feel of fluid on her inner thighs, heat quickly fading from her flushed skin. The feeling of incompletion, of being fractured.

An aftermath that left her with the same elements that had horrified her in the beginning, an almost similar dreadful feeling. Her chest felt tight. It was a rush again but without any comfort in it.

A big gaping wound, bleeding out and leaving room for fear to well up in her again.

/

"I'm sorry," he breathed, teeth clenched as he tried to concentrate, tried to assemble a form of reason within him instead of the feeling of separation, his mind once again a gaping void, once again a separated entity from her.

Her breath was perturbed; hit him in a humid air, a slight breeze that did not seem to relay any form of understanding or connection. His hands lost on her skin in a strange grip, tight around her waist under her skirt. His eyes fixated on her face, trying to interpret her obscure eyes.

The ache in his bruised hand more pronounced now, no longer hidden by the flow of other sensations. A sharp pain, a jab that shot through him in oscillations when he breathed, when he moved his hand. Pain that ran along in the guise of tremors from his knuckles to his elbow, to his shoulder and neck, an ache behind his eyes.

Her hair had fallen in front of her face, head tilted to look down, to avoid his gaze. A little mechanical gesture when she tried to push her skirt down again, inadvertently bumping his hand into the wall.

He hissed, unable to contain the little voice of pain.

Instantly she looked up, "You alright?"

He nodded and tried to pull his hand back, she snatched it, her hands soft around his wrist as she looked at the new, almost faint bruises. They would be dark tomorrow but for now they were weak, under development as the ruptured blood cells disintegrated, leaving color behind.

Her thumb gently ran across his knuckles, feather light, her eyes trained on his hand.

It was no use to tell her how it had happened; it was rather self-explanatory in his mind. Anger and fear slipped out in exertion, slipped through body and skin, through bones and tendons till it was released in physical form. Intangible fear transformed into corporeal manifestation the moment he forced his hand into the hard concrete of a convenient wall.

"It's swollen," she commented, "you should have cooled it down with some ice. It's only going to get worse."

"I was preoccupied," he bit out.

It had been stark frenzy and raw terror that had kept him from thinking about his hand, solely concentrated on getting from the squadroom to the parking garage, to a car and to the loft where she had been held. It had yet to integrate itself into his brain that it had been a kidnapping first, turned hostage situation, turned nightmare. He did not really understand how it had escalated to this point, to this terror. It had been a normal day, like any other. A gruesome case like any other, and yet it had been irrevocably different from any other day.

Again, he was stuck with the image of the dark loft, the grey concrete floor and that gun against her face, her eyes numb when she had caught his look. Nausea overwhelmed him again, flooded him till he could taste nothing but bile. It was the vivid imagery of the gun and her bruised face, the thing that caused him to be caught in this endless trap of wanting to retch.

"Shit," he croaked, more to himself than to her, his hand still nestled between her two hands, a gentle touch.

Exhausted and dizzy, he was spent – spine aching and his legs shaking with effort even now, his jeans in a pool around his legs, only now reminding him that he was precariously close to stumbling. His own breath out of sync, short ventilation followed by deeper inhalations. Erratic and out of proportional rhythm, hers mixing with his in the same faltering, troubled cascade.

Her eyes strayed to his, her hold on his hand still tender. It was a look that bore more confusion than anything else. He felt inclined to agree with her, confusion was the more discernible feeling among the myriad of other emotions in his mind as well.

She let go when he stumbled a bit away, his hands quickly pulling up his underwear and his jeans, quickly buttoning his jeans and buckling his belt again, smoothing down his shirt even if it had a decidedly crinkled look. He could change when he got home, a warm shower and he was certain he would fall into his bed with exhaustion. He massaged his neck, hand somewhat calming against his own skin. Maybe he could massage away this excess of horror that lingered inside his skull.

She drew her skirt further back down, righting it, smoothing out the creases in it.

"It's alright," she advanced again but whereas her touch had been sure before it was hesitant now. A thumb along his cheek before she withdrew, the touch almost innocent in comparison to everything else.

There was an almost mechanical fashion about the way her joints worked, about the motion of her hands, the way her eyes met his.

It was hard to distinguish what went on beyond her gaze, what went on in her thoughts.

"Does it hurt much?" her eyes were on his hand again and yet the question felt like a broader question, one that he felt inclined to answer with a resonating 'yes'. His life hurt, his essence hurt – his mind was in uproar with pain. His bruised hand was an mere echo in comparison to the rest of him.

Instead he shrugged, "Nah."

Her eyes went to his face, narrowed before they quickly reverted.

"I feel like shit," she whispered.

He brushed away a stand of her hair, putting it behind her ear, "Don't think," his voice sounded too gruff, "Just let it go. What's done is done, okay. No need to mull over it now, it won't do any good."

Her smile was faint, "Too late."

He sighed.

Her hands came to his jaw, another brief touch before she went to the sink. He watched her splatter water on to her face, watched her grip towels out of the dispenser and clean her face. Another mechanical gesture, another façade that exuded far more detachment that he liked.

He sighed again.

Her eyes caught his in the mirror, "Are you sure you're alright?"

His eyes narrowed at her monotonous voice. "What about you?" he countered.

Her eyes flittered away, water splashing unto her neck now.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled.

He caught her gaze again, briefly, a wide-eyed look.

He took another step forward, came to stand next to her, shoulder inches apart. Looking at her through the mirror. They were inches apart from touching and yet it felt like they were miles adrift; so close and yet so distant. He caught her gaze in the mirror.

"You don't need to apologize," he told her.

She looked down in answer, turning the faucet off, throwing the towels into a trashcan, hair once again falling into a curtain in front of her, red tresses obscuring her eyes.

He wanted to call her sweetheart; he wanted to cradle her till she fell asleep; he wanted to bestow some form of love on her. It was a problem when it came to her; he wanted a multitude of things. He wanted to be welcomed into every facet of her life, every little nook and crook of her heart. He wanted so much and yet he knew it would be too much, she would shy away from him.

Instead he tried to regulate his breathing, tried to compile his thoughts into some form of coherency.

In a little while they would fall into order again. They would further right their clothes, smooth down hair and try to look presentable. Her eyes would be doused in a blank hue; he would try to imitate the same impenetrable shade. They could pretend it was a black hole, wiped out of existence. They could pretend it had been a glitch, an anomaly in their universe.

They would fall into the soothing rhythm of order and rules. It was always what compelled them in the end.

Inevitably, they would end up in this moment again. It would be in a different point in time, in a different setting – with a different concoction of emotional upheaval. It did not matter, in the long run.

In the last remnant of chaos however, he quickly slipped his lips along her cheek, let them linger for a second, trying to bestow something into the small kiss to let her know everything would be alright, in the end.

Her small hand enveloped his, and it was a novel thing he could not decipher. There was something tentative about her hold, something he had not encountered before.

It was a strange concept but in the end everything led to her small hand in his.

/

Finite.