we would clip the children's wings

fatedheir slay me

    Slowly, a hand crept along her hip. He seemed content to allow fingers to graze smooth skin, and he did that for only a moment before he shifted to lay on his back in order to retrieve the glasses he’d set down on the night stand. Settling them over the bridge of his nose, Mason eventually laid back down onto his side to face her, a huff of laughter slipping free while the hand on her hip had instead moving so that he could wind that arm around her, drawing her closer.

        "Mmm—I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”

    There was something surprisingly tender, lazy about the way he spoke. He’s gotten exactly what he wanted—gotten her in her entirety—and yet, he still didn’t feel the need to drive her away. Perhaps it was because he realized her company could provide him with more entertainment.

        "I could have a worker bring you breakfast in bed.”

    Dorothy turned onto her side to face the man whose bed she was sharing as he pulled her closer to him, keeping one hand tight on the sheets to hold them up. Not a particularly necessary endeavor, considering he'd seen everything already, but she did not feel the need deny herself her instinctual behaviors anymore. Getting up and dressed was something she intended to get to as soon as possible, but Mr. Verger—or maybe it was appropriate to call him Mason now, since she'd somehow crossed the "acquaintance" line quite literally overnight—didn't seem to want to oblige her in that.

        "You want me to stay," she said quietly, as if the realization had only just hit her. It was an unfamiliar concept, making connections, one she usually distanced herself from both by choice and by necessity. She neither wanted often nor often found herself wanted back, and here she was. In bed with someone who put his arm around her and did not want her to leave, and that made her feel something.

    Perhaps she made the connection slower than she should have, thinking back on his prior actions; thinking about the camera, more specifically. The thing she would never have told him she desperately needed, the thing that would have cost her almost five months' rent to get for herself. Courtship, maybe. In a classic sense. And more surprisingly than it being courtship at all was the fact that it worked. She blinked, repeating her words from before once more. "You want me to stay."

    She did not want often. She had wanted him the night before and allowed herself to be wanted. With a slow deliberateness, she pressed her forehead against his for a moment before kissing him almost experimentally. And it felt good. She liked it. She still liked it, now that all the touching and grabbing and fucking was over with. And maybe she was starting to love it.

    “I’m saying you’d be nice company for dinner. I only have high-class chefs.”