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He knew she was there long before she stood in the frame of his bedroom doorway.
She’d come in through the window, but the fact that she hadn’t tried to mask her entrance, along with the unique weight and grace of her feet on his worn floor boards, had put him at ease.
And it wasn’t as though he had been asleep in any case.
She stood in the doorway for a long moment, and he watched her though half closed eyes, knowing he was safely hidden in the shadows of the room. She looked stunning, even in only the moonlight. Her hair, once teased and piled neatly upon her head, had come down in places and a dark curl fell over one shoulder. The dress she wore was mod and short, not even reaching mid-thigh, the rich blue color odd in the gloom. She tilted her head and her large earrings swayed, catching a bit of light, sending it dancing along the barren walls. He feigned sleep and was soon rewarded – or perhaps punished was a far more apt term – with the sound of her bare feet making their way closer. Her form moving out of the light and into silhouette. He closed his eyes and felt her climb onto his bed, crawling and shifting until she held herself over him. She smelled of cigarettes and other smoke, her breath tinged with vodka. Beneath it was her soft perfume and the unique scent he knew to be only hers.
“Illya, are you asleep?” Her voice was a stage whisper, loud as it broke the previous silence.
There was hardly a point in pretending, she hadn’t even tried to sneak up on him, and she knew him too well to think he would sleep through all of that. He opened one eye and peered at her.
“Who can sleep though such nonsense?” he asked. “You did not even try.”
“No,” she said, softer now. “I don’t want you to shoot me.”
“Very wise.”
“Not that I couldn’t sneak up on you, if I wanted to.”
He had no desire to argue with her in the dead of night so he said. “Of course.” His tone, however betrayed him and she narrowed her eyes. Before she could issue a challenge of some sort he cut her off. “What are you doing here?”
She shrugged, adjusting herself on her hands, which were pressed into the bed at his sides. Her knees bracketed his hips and he instinctively brought his hands up to hold her, unsure which instinct was strongest - to keep her close or to keep her away. His hands curled around her ribcage. There was a cut out in the back of her dress, and his fingertips met warm, soft skin.
She looked down at him and he could just make out her face, her eyes black in the darkness and so serious. “I wanted to see you.”
He inhaled slowly through his nose, her words strumming along the strings of desires he wanted to keep silent. “You are drunk.”
She made a face. “Barely.”
“Still drunk.”
She made a sound of exasperation but when she moved, he clung to her, keeping her where she was.
“How was your night out with Solo?” he asked, forcing casual. She didn’t need to know he had lain awake thinking of her, out again with a man who thought nothing of taking a new lover every night. Thinking of the men that fell at her feet if she so much as tried to catch their attention.
She sighed. “Loud, crowded. The music was good. There was dancing.”
“You like dancing.”
“Yes, but you would have hated it.”
“That is not the point.” He took her in, her dark eyeliner was slightly smudged, her false lashes long and teasing. He was bare chested and the beads she wore had coiled cool and solid on his skin. The loose piece of her hair hung down beside him, brushing his cheek. “Did you dance?”
“There was a man,” she said. She was studying him as well, with those eyes of hers – large, dark eyes that at first, ignorant glance seemed innocent and childlike – taking him apart, piece by piece to see all his innerworkings.
“Just one?”
“This one wanted to take me home with him.”
He went still, the words striking deep, sharp and hot like shrapnel. He fought back the rising tide of jealousy and anger, the futile insistence of his heart that she was his.
“Then why are you here?” It wasn’t a demand, or a mockery, only a question but despite his best efforts, his voice had gone hoarse.
“I realized something,” she said and her face was solemn, the corners of her perfect lips turned down. Her eyes flitted over his face, resting on his lips a moment before returning to his.
“What did you realize?” Was that his voice, a whisper of sound that caught in his throat as it tried to exit.
“I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”
“Gaby.” He couldn’t do this here, now. He was too weak with her above him, her gaze earnest, her chin set in determination. His heart was pounding, blood rushing in his ears. She was a wound in him that would never heal, and it didn’t matter that he had refused to allow himself to love her… it had happened anyway. “This is a bad idea.”
“Just one kiss, Illya,” she said softly, leaning in. “that’s all I’m asking for.”
He breathed in sharply and brought his hands to her face, cupping her head. Her entire skull fit between his two palms but the damage he could do to her was nothing compared to what she could do to him. “No,” he said sharply, holding her there. “I will not play this game with you.”
“I’m not playing a game, Illya.” Her mouth was a thin line and her chin was set. “This is not a game to me.”
He steamed air through his nostrils, lost, consumed. His gaze fell to her lips and his voice was a hushed thing, a rumble in his chest, a desperate plea for mercy. “If I kiss you once, I will never stop kissing you.”
She settled back on his thighs, and brought her hands up to grip his wrists, her thumbs stroking at the backs of his hands. “Then don’t stop.”
His thumb stroked her cheek reflexively and his gaze fell momentarily to her mouth before returning to her eyes. “You should go home,” he repeated. “You are drunk.”
She huffed, her fingers tightening on his wrists. “You think I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t had a few drinks?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed, her mouth tight, but she relented after a moment. “Maybe you’re right.”
A small victory, he thought, as every cell in his being cried out in disappointment.
“But I would still be thinking about it.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I lied,” she continued. “Earlier, when I said I only wanted one kiss. I don’t want just one, Illya, I want all of them.”
His mouth opened to respond but he had no words, nothing to say in the face of this assault on his secret hopes. He frowned, looking into her eyes, trying to find the falsehood, the tease. This couldn’t be true.
“If the fact that we could never have forever is what’s holding you back,” she insisted, leaning further into his hands which still held her face. “Then don’t let it. I am not a fool, Illya. I know it will end, it will have to end, but we have right now...”
“Gaby…” He held his breath, trying to still the tremor that had started in his arm.
“We can have right now and I want that. I want you, for as long as I can have you.” She set her jaw a moment, looking over his face. Her eyes were pleading when they returned to his and it undid him completely. “Your lips on mine, your head on the pillow beside me, in my bed, across the breakfast ta—"
Before she could finish, he dragged her face down to his, closing his mouth over hers before he could change his mind, before she changed hers. A desperate sound broke in the space between their lips, and he was pretty sure it came from him when he felt her kiss him back.
Her mouth was hot and sweet and perfect ad more than any imagining he had ever conjured of her. He ran his tongue over her lower lip and she opened to him, her hands sliding from his wrists to his chest, then his shoulders and neck, her thumb stroking along his jaw as their tongues met and moved together.
They parted eventually, and he pressed his forehead to hers. “I am dreaming,” he whispered.
“You said you wouldn’t stop,” Gaby teased. “But you’ve stopped.”
A smile pulled at his mouth, happiness and disbelief mixed in the small laugh that fell from it. “Not for long,” he returned and rolled her over, pinning her beneath him. He kept his word. He didn’t stop kissing her until they’d both passed out from exhaustion. He would start again in the morning. If she would take now, take him, take what he could give… if it could be enough for her, he would somehow make it be everything.