anythingbutblue | (no subject)

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One thing Faye Valentine knows is that she's a hell of a woman. She's heard it said before, and she doesn't really care what the reasons for it have been. She is exactly who she is, and she has no apologies to make to anyone.

Every action, every word, every decision she's ever made has been for herself alone.

When she dabs on the same cinnamon scent that Gren complimented her on the day before, that's solely for herself, too.

It's not her fault she liked the attention. If it gets him to linger over her wrists or bury his nose in the hair behind her ears or seek out the base of her throat with his mouth, it's well worth it.

She could say Gren's the most indulgent lover she's ever had and it would be true, but it's not like he's got much competition in that department. Her first was as old as she was at the time -- seventeen -- and she remembers it being as much of an educational experience as anything else. They were both young and fumbling and tittered with laughter that became more breathy than nervous, and there wasn't much indulgent about it.

She was a different person then.

Witney kissed her a few times, but they only ever did anything really juicy in the occasional daydream. In her mind, he was attentive and sweet and knew exactly how to make her knees weak without ever needing to be told. He never would've lived up to the fantasy.

She was a different person then, too.

About eight months after she left Mars for the first time, about the time she started dressing like she does now, she let herself have more than just an idle thought or two. It wasn't planned, rehearsed, or expected. She wasn't all that attracted to him: his hair was dull brown and long enough to curl under his ears, his nose was a little longer than she liked, his eyebrows were too thick. He beat her at a card game before she was as difficult to beat as she is now -- he cheated, she's sure -- but before she did her famous disappearing act in the dark early hours of the next morning, she found his wallet and helped herself to what she'd lost at cards and then some.

Plus his cigarettes.

She'd just been frustrated. With everything. People complain about going a year or two without sex or relationships, but she'd slept for over fifty.

She was a different person even then, but she was closer to being who she is now.

Gren is definitely the most indulgent.

He's also the nicest to look at, and the mornings she wakes up beside him, especially the mornings she wakes up before him, her eyes tend to roam over every inch of him visible between the sheet that clings jealously and the dark hair that drapes like a curtain.

Until she feels the weight of his eyes, and then she stops as if she'd never started.

Mornings are when she feels the most like being curious, being honest, asking questions. Sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't, and she's asked a few brazen questions of him before but never what are we doing? or why do you like me so much? or how did we get here? or anything like that.

Besides, she really knows exactly what they're doing -- she likes it, too -- and she knows part of the reason he likes her and she knows -- intimately -- every step that's led them to playing poker for each other's clothes, sharing glasses of champagne, spending nights in each other's rooms.

Sometimes she thinks what she told him about it being inevitable because they're both pretty isn't at all far from the truth.

And she never thinks she minds.

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Sometimes he thinks he likes it best when she's just sitting in the chair minding her own business and he gets to kiss her right there, right on the back of her neck where her hair is at its highest like it's just waiting for his lips to hurry up and play. Sometimes he thinks he could linger there for hours like she's some instrument that can only be finely tuned after a persistent and careful amount of attention. Sometimes he thinks he's the luckiest man ever to live, especially when he catches her studying him when she thinks he isn't looking.

She's spectacular, and he's falling for her, and he doesn't mind it at all. He doesn't mind that it's caught him by surprise, and he doesn't mind that of all people to fall for, Faye tops his list of the ten least expected. The whole thing might be described as one big guilty pleasure, except he's not feeling the least bit guilty about any of it.

What he does feel is more alive than when he was alive, or at least when he was back on Callisto. Ever since prison he's felt like he was moving around half in the light and half in the shadows: living with a bounty on one's head isn't the most pleasant thing in the world, but it's something he got used to.

Compared to that way of living, this is pure heaven. He's got his saxophone, he's got a place to stay, a supply of food and drink, a lake, a piano, and...

...Faye.

She shivers ever so slightly as he leans over to kiss her just there and he hopes he never stops noticing those little things about her. Maybe she shivers because his hair tickles the rest of her neck or her shoulders, or maybe it's because it feels good: he doesn't know because he's not going to stop and ask. As a matter of fact, he's never asked.

He doesn't have to ask. He only has to keep doing whatever it is that keeps her coming back to him night after night. Whatever it is that has her waking up by his side pretending not to read him like a book.

A man could get spoiled.

When Faye files her nails, she approaches it in one of two ways. One is for when the filing is just supposed to be something to do while she's waiting for someone to show up or something to happen -- like a bounty walking into a room -- and the other is completely open to letting the filing keep her absorbed for however long it needs to. It's a precise art, and she could never be accused of not giving her nails the attention they deserve.

The minute Gren's mouth homes in on the back of her neck and his hair cascades onto her shoulders, she's distracted from her work.

And she just can't quite bring herself to mind.

"Well, hello."

If she dips her chin and exposes the back of her neck a little more, she just might get him to do it again.

If the toll he has to pay to linger here means stopping for a minute before he starts up again, then it's not so bad.

"Hi."

For someone who thought he was all done with this kind of thing years and years ago, he's certainly entirely delighted with the minutiae of what makes women women and men men. He once told Faye that he was both at once and neither one, but time has made that statement into a lie. In appearance he might look like both, but that's as far as it goes... at least with her. And he can no longer claim that women aren't his style, or at least he can't do it very convincingly. Not when he wakes up in the morning with a shockingly naked lady by his side more often than not.

He's doing his level best to destroy every last label ever applied to him, and the challenge has been nothing but fun. So when she leans forward just a little, he takes it as an unspoken invitation for more, more, more, and if they enjoy one another to excess, he's certainly not going to complain. She smells like cinnamon and tastes like peaches and feels like silk and he's always had more than a healthy appreciation for luxury.

His lips meet the delicate gold chain of that ruby necklace he gave her and he wonders if she can feel his smile. If he were any good at betting, he'd bet that she can; he's not trying to hide it in the least.

Some days, every last thing about Faye seems larger than life. She's not a magazine: she's a billboard. She's not a song: she's the whole musical. She's not a girl: she's a princess. With that in mind, how can he blame himself when his arms wrap around her?

The answer is that he can't, never could, never will, and doesn't mind in the least.

"You want to hear some new music?" She's his favorite inspiration.

His lips smile against her skin, and it instantly makes her stomach taut. The idea that the simplest little things can make him smile like that kind of does everything for her.

She slouches against him like she's practically ready to let him fan her and feed her grapes while she lounges, but her hand covers his and flattens it, fingers spreading, over her bare middle.

Listening to music is all well and good. He's a performer at heart, and he enjoys it. While she is able to appreciate his talent -- but maybe not like someone more knowledgeable and interested in music could -- it's fast becoming more of a visual experience for her than anything else.

And she unabashedly enjoys it. He closes his eyes when he plays, and the moment he does, her eyes rove recklessly over him. She gets to watch his hands move over the saxophone in a way that's almost intimate enough to make her feel like she should be jealous. And she gets to watch the way light attaches itself to his hair, makes it glint and shine.

She has no wish to grow her own hair long, but... she likes his just fine that way. When she enjoys something, she enjoys a lot of it.

"If you play, Mister Saxophone, I'll listen."

He's been teaching himself to play Charlie's Gibson, but guitar is not his instrument and that process has been painfully slow. It isn't because he's not good at picking up a new instrument; it's more that he's been a little bit preoccupied with something he's just not willing to give up.

For as long as he's remembered, he's thrived on contact: skin on skin, hand on hand, mouth on mouth. Some of life's simplest pleasures are the things that motivate him: a beautiful piece of music, a luxurious bath -- preferably with someone else -- with plenty of bubbles, silk sheets, sunshine. When he looks at things that way, it's no surprise that Callisto helped kill him slowly: he had a shitty apartment in a slummy neighborhood on a planet where the temperature almost never got above freezing... and he had no human contact. Sure, there were plenty of other people there, even plenty of good men to choose from, but he was on a self-imposed ban. On some levels that was stupid, but on others it was absolutely necessary: he'd been through a really big change and wasn't ready to let anybody get close.

That's different now, though, and when Faye takes a moment to consider his offer and finally agrees, her answer fills him with no small amount of satisfaction. He's a musician and he loves to play almost more than anything else. The saxophone rests on its stand in the corner of the room nearest the window; it only takes a moment for him to get there after reluctantly dragging his hands across Faye's body.

But when he picks up the sax, it's almost like some switch has been flipped and his lover is no longer the woman sitting there, but the instrument in his hands. It's in the way he takes in the mouthpiece; it's in the way his fingers caress the keys; it's in the way his eyes can't help but close as he plays. Also, it's in the song he plays: a slow, haunting melody that winds its way gracefully but subtly around the fringes of the whole entity. After a while, though, the note trails off a little abruptly and his eyes open and as they often do, he catches Faye reading him like the pages of a book.

That's one of the most flattering things anyone's ever done to him.

"I haven't quite figured out the ending."

The sax goes back onto the stand; he gives Faye a little half-smile.

"You want to know what the options are?" He takes a step toward her.

(The art of seduction is such a sweet delight.)

She can always feel something just a little bit evasive in her expression -- like she's a kid caught in the act and wanting to write off everything that's been seen with her best repertoire of excuses -- whenever he suddenly opens his eyes before she can stop watching him quite so intently. Staring isn't her style, but that doesn't mean she can't get an unexpected thrill out of observing him.

If it's anybody's fault that he's the best-looking guy she's ever been attracted to, it's closer to being his than hers. And now that she knows what he's capable of, well, she can't be blamed if she can't look at him in same way she used to.

But he never says anything about it when he catches her.

He never so much as mentions it.

Sometimes she's pretty sure she catches a slight curve at the corner of his mouth, though.

Lifting her chin, she crosses one leg over the other and leans back in the chair, one of her arms hooking over the back of it. "I'm all ears, don't you know that?"

"Are you." It's in no way a question; his grin gets just that much more sly as he takes another step forward, then another and another until he's right by her side, kneeling, pushing the hair back behind her ear.

Then he leans forward and whispers a suggestion so outrageous, so private, so full of innuendo that it almost makes him blush but he can't help it: Faye brings it out in him. After rocking back on his heels, he smiles again and shrugs, one eyebrow raised in suggestion, and now it's his turn to study her.

And he takes his time doing it, starting with her eyes and letting them travel down and down and down, lingering on all the right spots, then up again until he's transfixed by the perfect plum of her lips. His stomach tightens with memory and a little bit of hopeful anticipation and he has to laugh at himself for it: he spent a long time at this place before his relationship with Faye moved to this new and different level, and while they've always had a pretty torrid flirtation going, he never imagined it would turn into... this. He's not even sure how to classify what they have, but he doesn't have to label it if he doesn't want to. It's just what's happened with Faye, and it makes him very happy.

It doesn't look like it's bothering her either. From the casual way her arm drapes over the chair to the way her legs cross -- and they go on forever, her legs, until they disappear into the cuffs of those little white boots -- to the smile on her face, she's just about the image of smug satisfaction.

He happens to think she makes the perfect poster girl for it.

Often, when he contemplates this relationship of theirs, he feels like he's won some sort of contest he didn't know he'd entered. There are plenty of men at this place and a lot are more rugged, more virile, more handsome, more macho. Faye probably could have had almost any one of them just by gesturing them over with one finger, but he's the one she chooses to stay with.

Of all people, he's the one. Despite all his flaws, she's here, and he's... absolutely enchanted by the whole idea.

The way she leans into him when he whispers to her, her head tipped at an encouraging angle, her eyes heavy-lidded enough to afford her a veiled look at him through long dark lashes, is subtle enough at first glance.

Another thing she's confident of is her tendency not to blush. As much as she might like to be, it's been a long time since she's been much of a pampered princess. It's been a long time since she's been sheltered in any way. She's seen enough -- and done enough -- that blushing isn't something that comes easily to her.

But it's a fact that Gren is responsible for the last two times she did blush. One was when she first saw him naked -- she can well remember the hot, disbelieving flush she felt in her face once her eyes had traveled down his body -- and the last time was when she admitted the little kiss she'd planted on his cheek before leaving his room when she had that temporary bout of amnesia wasn't just for his benefit.

(Of course it wasn't just for his benefit. For someone so aware of exactly how pretty he is, she couldn't believe he didn't seem willing to believe she'd just wanted to do it.)

It seems his tune has changed by now.

When he leans back from her -- and she can practically feel his eyes skimming her skin -- a self-satisfied smile creeps onto her face. "I know I'd be a very appreciative audience in that case."

Well, then.

When he leans over to kiss her mouth just so, his long hair falls over her like a cape; he's been wearing it tied back less and less these days for the simple purpose of letting Faye's fingers run through it, clutch at it, tangle in it. There's something so tactile and beautiful about the whole thing, and for someone who thrives on contact of all sorts, that sort of touch -- the oblique, flirtatious, not-quite-hands-on-his-skin-but-can't-keep-them-off thing -- is such a turn-on. It speaks of hints and promises, of pleasures yet to come, of lazy hours curled up together with more and more and more touch.

Maybe it's an artist's thing or a musician's thing. All he knows for sure is that it's his thing and he loves it, drinks it up, lives for it, craves it like the addict he is. No twelve-step program can wipe the desire for this out of his system. Somewhere deep down inside he suspects it could get overwhelming with the wrong partner, but this feels good and right and there certainly haven't been any complaints from Faye.

Like she says, she's an appreciative audience, and he doesn't care if lust is supposedly a deadly sin: he's probably already dead, so why not indulge to his heart's content?

"You want to try it out?"

There's the faintest smell of her shampoo -- one of her favorites, with a citrus scent -- on his hair, and her eyes turn into mere slits of contented emerald green as she breathes it in.

For a guy who lived in a small apartment in what he claims was a slummy neighborhood on Callisto, there's always been something that seemed very luxurious about Gren, some kind of innate and restrained sensuality.

She doesn't find herself thinking things like that about very many people, but Gren never has been like anyone else. It was in the music she remembers him playing at the Rester House, the slow seductive measure of his voice, the silken hair that fell down his back, the old pictures he'd posted on his apartment walls, the warmth of the drink he served her and the way he subtly watched her lounge on the couch.

The only reason she uncrosses her legs is to let one claim a spot on either side of him.

"I'm always up for a good show."

That makes two of them, since he's always up for putting on a good show. To that end his hands trail down her arms until they meet her hands; he coaxes her gently into a standing position.

She's so tiny, but she's such a huge presence: she fills the room, every inch of it, suffuses it with this sweet fragrant light all her own. It brings a sort of balance to his life, fills this great huge void he almost didn't even know was there until she stepped in.

When she does stand, his arms go around her and he picks her up, settles her on his hips. This, he decides, is the ending he likes best for the song today, and he'll show her exactly how it goes, lead her through every intricate twist and turn, make sure she knows the melody intimately.

Even if it takes hours and hours.

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