Chapter 371: Two Weeks Later

Two weeks.

Fourteen days of Ashford Ground in the morning and the evening and sometimes the middle of the afternoon when Wrath decided the middle of the afternoon was also a training opportunity.

Fourteen days of Flash Step until the entry and exit of it had started to feel less like a decision and more like a reflex.

Fourteen days of the punch Wrath had been building in him, practiced against the tree and against the bags Wrath had brought out on the third day, the ones designed for exactly this kind of work.

His ribs had been fine from the first morning. He had not mentioned this to Elena.

Elena had watched him train every day and had drawn her own conclusions about his recovery, crediting the work itself rather than anything else. Which suited him fine.

Fourteen days of looking at the closed cage before beginning each session.

Sometimes he stood in front of it for a few minutes, just looking at the dark metal and the narrow light strips at the top and thinking about what was inside it and what the distance between what he currently was and what he needed to be actually looked like.

Real. That was what it looked like. Real and specific and not flattering.

But he was closing it.

On the fourteenth morning Wrath watched him complete a sequence, Flash Step into the trained punch with no gap between them, entry and strike running together into a single committed motion, and Wrath stood with his hands behind his back and watched it happen twice and said nothing for a moment.

"Again," he said.

Liam did it again.

"Again," Wrath said.

Again.

Wrath looked at him across the grounds with the expression he wore when something had earned a response and the response was going to be measured.

"Better," he said.

From Wrath that meant something specific and Liam filed it accordingly.

He was on the ground cooling down, breathing hard in the way of a body that had expanded past its previous limits rather than simply reached them, when Elena came out through the back doors and walked across Ashford Ground toward him.

Grey fitted trousers. White blouse with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. Silver white hair done. She had been at her desk since early that morning and it sat on her that way, the composed quality of someone who had been running things and had decided to take a moment away from running things.

Wrath looked at her coming and looked at Liam and said, "That is enough for today," and walked back toward the house with the timing of someone who had read the room accurately and was removing himself from it.

Elena stopped in front of him.

He was sitting on the ground with his knees up, sweat on his forearms and his neck, his breathing still finding its way back to even.

She crouched down to his level.

"Come inside," she said.

---

Warm afternoon light was sitting in the room at the end of the east corridor when they came into it, having come through the long day of that window all day long. Low lamp on the nightstand. Wide window looking out over the grounds.

She sat him on the edge of the bed.

She stood in front of him and looked at him properly, at his hands and forearms, at the specific quality of exhaustion that two weeks of serious work produced and which was different from the ordinary kind.

"You worked hard," she said.

"You watched," he said.

"Every day," she said. Simply. Not embarrassed about it.

She pressed two fingers against the side of his neck, feeling his pulse, and then ran her hand slowly down his arm, checking the muscle the way she checked everything, wanting accurate information rather than reassurance.

He sat still and let her.

She took her hand back and looked at him.

"I missed you," she said. Quietly. Not performing it.

He looked at her.

"Two weeks of watching from a distance," she said. "You came every day and left every day and it was necessary and I knew it was necessary." She held his eyes. "I still missed you."

He reached up and took her hand.

She looked at their hands.

Then she moved.

She went down onto her knees in front of him on the floor and something in his expression shifted.

"Your reward," she said, looking up at him from below with the gold eyes carrying the warmth they carried when she had decided something and was already past the deciding. "For working the way you worked."

He started to say something.

She reached for his waistband.

He stopped saying something.

She worked his trousers open with the focused efficiency of someone executing a plan, and she freed him and held him in her hand and looked at him for a moment and then took him in her mouth.

Warmth arrived immediately, her lips sealing around him, her tongue pressing flat against the underside, and he exhaled through his nose and put his hand on the back of her head.

She started slow.

Slow in the specific way of someone who had been waiting and was now at the end of the waiting and had decided to take their time about it. Each stroke deliberate.

Her tongue moving differently with each upstroke and returning to the things that produced the clearest response and staying on them.

"Mm," she said, muffled and warm around him.

His hand pressed slightly at the back of her head.

She went deeper.

A sound came from her when she went deeper that was different from the previous ones, fuller and more present, and she held there for a moment and then pulled back and went again, her pace building from the careful beginning toward something with more weight behind it.

He looked at her from above. Silver white hair. Her mouth working. Her eyes finding his occasionally from below with the gold of them carrying everything they carried in this specific context.

She kept going.

Her pace fully established now, her head moving with the commitment of someone who had been thinking about this for two weeks and was not rushing the execution of it, her sounds continuous and warm.

His jaw tightened.

"Elena," he said.

She did not stop.

"I’m going to," he said.

She did not stop. Did not slow. Did not change anything. Her hand at the base working in coordination with her mouth, and he came, a low rough sound leaving him through his jaw, everything releasing in long continuous pulses while she held exactly where she was and took all of it without moving until the last pulse passed and there was nothing left.

She pulled back slowly.

She looked up at him.

He looked down at her.

She stood from the floor with the smooth motion of someone who had been there by choice and was now done being there, and she looked at him sitting on the edge of the bed and then at him still present and ready in front of her.

Something moved through her expression.

"Still," she said.

"Still," he said.

She looked at him for a moment with the anticipation of someone who had been waiting two weeks and was now at the end of it.

She reached for the buttons of her blouse.

He watched her work through them, each button releasing, the blouse parting, and she pulled it off and set it on the chair and reached behind her for the bra clasp and that came off too and she stood in the warm afternoon light with her pale skin and her freckles and her gold eyes and her silver white hair and looked at him.

He reached for her.

She came forward and he pulled her in and kissed her and she kissed back with the warmth of someone who had been patient for a significant amount of time and was finished being patient.

He moved her back toward the bed and she went back onto it and he came over her and she pulled him down and he pushed in slowly.

"Oh," she said. Her head went back into the pillow. "Oh god."

He held still for a moment.

Feeling the warmth of her around him. Feeling the two weeks in the room around them as context for this specific moment.

Then he started moving.

Long deliberate strokes, his weight over her, her hands finding his back immediately, her legs coming up around him. She received each stroke with the honesty of someone who had stopped managing anything.

"Oh," she said. "Oh Liam."

*Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta*

He drove forward and she pressed up to meet it and their rhythm built from there, her sounds arriving with each stroke, his mouth finding her neck and pressing there, her pulse under his lips.

"Oh," she said. "Oh god. Right there."

He stayed right there.

One hand stayed beside her on the mattress and the other slid under her lower back, lifting her slightly, changing the angle, and the change produced a sound from her that had nothing composed anywhere in it.

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Oh that’s."

He drove deeper from the new angle.

"Haa," she said. "Oh. Oh Liam."

Papap. Papap. Papap.

He felt her building, the specific tightening beneath him, her hands pressing harder against his back, her legs pulling him closer.

"Oh," she said. "Oh I’m going to."

He drove forward and held.

She came, her whole body pulling together, her arms pulling him down against her, a long sound leaving her into the room, her hips pressing up through every wave.

He kept moving through it.

"Oh," she said, the sensitivity of immediately after making every continuing stroke more present. "Oh god. Oh."

He pulled back and moved.

His hands found her waist and turned her and she went with it, understanding immediately, and she was on her stomach and he moved behind her and she came up onto her hands and knees and he pushed back in from behind.

"Oh," she said, the new angle arriving somewhere entirely different. "Oh god. Oh that’s different."

He drove forward.

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Oh Liam."

His hands spread across her ass, pressing in, feeling the shape of her, and he gripped and drove forward and she pressed back against each stroke, her whole body committed to the rhythm now.

*Papap. Papap. Papap*

"Oh," she said. "Oh god. Oh right there. Oh."

He reached forward and covered her hand on the mattress with his, their fingers pressing into the sheets together, and drove forward harder.

"Haa," she said. "Oh. Oh I’m going to again. Oh god."

He kept going, her sounds climbing with the pace, afternoon light sitting on her pale skin and the freckles across her lower back.

She came again, harder than the first, her hand gripping his under hers, a long broken sound leaving her, her hips pressing back and holding through every wave of it.

He held her through it.

Then he moved again.

He turned her back over and she went onto her back and looked up at him with the gold eyes soft and present, her chest rising and falling, silver white hair spread across the pillow.

He pushed back in.

She made a sound that was just his name.

Slower this time. Less urgency. Something different in it, something that carried the two weeks inside it, the distance of them and the watching from across the grounds and the missed you said on the floor in front of the bed.

She put her hand on the side of his face.

He looked at her.

She looked back at him.

Both of them looking at each other while he moved. Her hand warm against his jaw. Something in the room settling around them.

"Oh," she said softly. "Oh Liam."

He drove forward and her eyes closed and her hand pressed slightly against his jaw.

Pace building back up through the stages, her sounds returning with it, his hand finding her chest, her boob warm and full in his palm, her back arching slightly.

*Papap. Papap. Papap*

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Oh god."

He drove forward and came, everything releasing, a rough sound leaving him, his hand pressing her hip down into the mattress through every pulse until the last one passed.

Both of them breathing.

Warm room. Still air.

After a long while she exhaled slowly and turned her head toward the window, looking at afternoon light sitting on Ashford Ground.

He lay beside her.

She found his hand on the mattress and held it.

Neither of them said anything.

Her hand in his was warm and present and entirely still.