this is how she makes me feel...

[everymonstrousthing]

It's a pattern that they've fallen into, since that night she'd slipped into his lap, touched his shoulders so gently. In Ketterdam, they'd got used to existing in each other's space, in and out of each other's rooms, eating together, talking mostly to each other. This is a natural continuance of that, Kaz supposes, only now feelings are out in the open, vulnerable to the air. Now they both know exactly what they're doing.

So it's different, incredibly so, but it feels familiar all the same.

Without really discussing it, it's Inej's apartment that they spend all of their time together in. Kaz has started stripping off his gloves as soon as he comes through the door. He deliberately leaves his tailoring in his own apartment, coming to her in softer layers, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, until they go to bed and he pulls his sleeves down over his hands so that he can drape an arm over her in lieu of actually being able to pull her close. It's small, but it's progress. They cook together, eat together, are learning to watch television together - Kaz finds that he enjoys films, dislikes programmes because they're short and, often, seem pointless. They sit relatively close together on the couch and, every so often, Inej touches him. Usually, those touches are over clothes - a brush of fingers against his bicep, his thigh, his chest. She touches the backs of her fingers lightly against his cheek. On her way to the kitchen, she ruffles his fingers through his hair. She keeps the touches light, casual, but Kaz knows what she's doing and he keeps a mental record of those casual touches. He catalogues every one.

He comes back from the kitchen chill from sitting perched on the window to smoke a cigarette, a pair of beers in hand. He offers her one before he slides back onto the middle seat of the sofa, as close to her as he can be without touching her.

"What are we watching, Wraith?" he asks, a light note of teasing in his rough voice.

Comments

[everymonstrousthing]

She ought to know better that that - Kaz Brekker, the bastard of the Barrel, Dirtyhands - he doesn't beg because he doesn't have to. Because he's last the point of needing to do every monstrous thing. He knows that Inej knows that, that she knows exactly what he's capable of.

But he also knows that she knows that, maybe, she'd be the only one he would beg. M

But not for this.

"Fuck it," he says, grinning despite himself. "C'mon and have a go if you think you're hard enough, Wraith."

[the_wraith]

"It's not about hard, Kaz." But he's smiling at her, and with a breath her heart is floating, light and free in her chest. There's a bewildering, stunning moment when she can see them from outside themselves, that they're here, in this moment. But she lets it pass and dives for him.

It's not as if Inej is unfamiliar with taking down men twice her size. She doesn't even need a knife. She fires herself right at his chest, planning on pushing him back and straddling him before the tickling even begins.

[everymonstrousthing]

He could fend her off; his reflexes are quick enough and, besides, he knows her as well as he knows himself, more than well enough to anticipate what move she might make. He finds himself unwilling though and, soon enough, he's on his back on the sofa with her straddling him. He holds up his hands in surrender, almost reaching to wrap his hands around her wrists but restraining himself. Every fibre of his body is aware of her weight on top of him. It's intensely distracting. He looks up at her and his breath catches. There's no way that he can hide that from her.

[the_wraith]

Nina said once, what feels like forever ago, that Kaz's breath caught every time he saw Inej. Inej hadn't believed her at the time, didn't want to give herself the hope of believing. But now she hears it, she practically feels it, the sharp pull of muscles in his chest contracting as he breathes in. She chooses to ignore it now, not because she doesn't want to believe, to know it's there, but because it's too much in the moment to acknowledge. She wants the simplicity of the moment.

Grinning, she dives a hand down to find the sensitive spot on the inside of his elbow, wiggling her fingers across his skin.

[everymonstrousthing]

Squirming, laughing, he does his best to fend her off with the heels of his hands, as much as he can do without wrapping his hands around her wrists and holding her. There's more that one reason why he would never do a thing like that to Inej (not, says a treacherous voice in the back of his head, one that makes immediate colour rise i his cheeks, unless she asks you to).

"Inej, stop," he says, doing his best to defend his elbows, which only leaves his ribs open to attack.

[the_wraith]

Unsatisfied with this, Inej continues on mercilessly, her laughter escaping her as no more than breathy exhales. She pushes aside his elbows with her own and wiggles closer to his core, sure of the protection of layers of cloth. The hem of his shirt is caught under one of her knees, pulling the fabric tight over his stomach, but keeping it in place. She tries his ribs, squeezing at one spot above his hip that always makes her cry out.

"Not good enough, Kaz!"

[everymonstrousthing]

"Inej please," he says, squirming though, crucially, not enough to actually dislodge her. He tugs his sleeves down over his hands and wraps his arms around her, trying to keep her in one place, stop her hands. His own laughter comes hysterically, bubbling out of him, higher than his speaking voice. She's got sharp, clever fingers, though, and he can't stay away from her. "Please."

[the_wraith]

She lets out a little cry, something laughing and only playing at anger and disappointment, when he pulls her in tighter. She's been in tighter spots, slipped through smaller squeezes, but those she wanted to escape. For him, she stops. She stills her questing fingers and lays her hand, warm and flat, against his side, atop the shirt.

She laughs and grins down at him. Her braid falls from over her shoulder onto his.

"Only because you asked nicely."

[everymonstrousthing]

Between nights in the same bed, sharing the sofa, existing in the same space, he's getting used to this - this closeness, these touches. Her weight on top of him is still distracting, though. He swallows, looking up at her, and then he smiles. His arms overlap across her back, one hand against her ribs, the other against her hip. She fits perfectly into his arms.

"I didn't know that was something you liked," he teases.

[the_wraith]

"Everyone likes politeness, Kaz," she teases right back.

She's trapped, but she doesn't feel like it. She feels warm and safe, the rapid beat of Kaz's heart a thing she can feel where their chests meet. It doesn't seem to be slowing down.

"A girl likes her man to ask nicely." She's his and he's hers, it's been that way for a little while now. (A long while, in truth.) But the words still catch in her throat on their way out.

[everymonstrousthing]

They haven't done this. They've been getting closer and closer and what they are, they both know, but they haven't done this, not exactly, not pressed chest to chest, his arms wrapped around her, so close that he can feel the warmth of her breath against his cheek. That's what he focuses on - how warm she is. He focuses on that. He focuses on her.

"What else does a girl like?" he asks her, dark eyes fixed on her face.

[the_wraith]

She doesn't know what she's doing. She doesn't know Kaz's true boundaries yet, doesn't know when pushing into his comfort zone is too much pushing. But it's more than that. She's never done this before, been with someone before. Someone who sees her and knows her and respects her. Who wants her for more than a night and for more than the color of her skin.

"For her man to kiss her," she breathes, feeling scared. Somehow. She shouldn't. It's Kaz. The worst that could happen, if he kisses her, has already happened. But if feels like, maybe, perhaps, too much to ask, for her and for him.

[everymonstrousthing]

He decided, a few weeks ago, that Valentine's day didn't count. That kiss? It wasn't a mark on any ledger that counted. Because, God, he wanted to kiss her. He spent idle moments imagining kissing her. He ached for her it. Her face is only a couple of inches above his. He hesitates, for a moment, his eyes darting over her face, from her eyes to her mouth and back. He swallows and then he leans up, closing the space between them and grazes his mouth against hers.

It's barely a kiss, wouldn't count for anyone else, but Inej knows him well enough to recognise it for the start that it is.

[the_wraith]

She doesn't lean in. It would be too easy, if she were to allow herself, to lean in and press the kiss, ask for more and unknowingly take too much. She's light, a tiny thing compared to him, but she's still the one on top. But she does shut her eyes and return the kiss, soft and slow, her lips moving gently against his.

"Alright?" she breathes the second they part. She doesn't want to be too wary, too careful, but it's hard not to be.

[everymonstrousthing]

He nods, tongue touching his lip for a moment, his heart pounding, his fingers gripping at her shirt. He forces himself to relax, a little. Swallowing. All the touching she does, the casual touching, it seems to be helping.

"So far so good," he says, corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. "It's...easier..." It's the wrong word, but she'll know what he means, "If I focus on how warm you are."

[the_wraith]

It is the wrong word and it's still there, that irrational annoyance that some part of him finds her disgusting. That his mind would make him think of her like a dead body. But she knows it's not something he has control over, she reminds herself of that, and of the fact that he's trying. For her.

"I am warm," she agrees with a half laugh, squirming a little in his arms, pressing her very warm body against him to make the point. "And I think I smell nice."

[everymonstrousthing]

"You smell incredible," he says. It's not something that he'd ever thought about, back in Ketterdam, but now he's so used to it that he'd be bereft about it. He leans in, takes a breath, inhaling the scent of her and then, on impulse, he grazes his mouth against the skin of her throat, right against her pulse.

[the_wraith]

This time, her breath catches. Even though it's Kaz, even though she knows better, no part of her expects a gentle touch. Not like that. Her heart skips into action and she swears he's going to feel it against his lips.

"I like that too," she breathes.

[everymonstrousthing]

"Good."

He likes this, too, he finds. He trails kisses against the soft skin of her throat, none of them lasting long, all of them light, but it's more than he's ever managed before. His arms stay tight around her. His breathing speeds up a little, but he forces to keep concentrating on how warm she is, how good she smells, the solid reality of her in his arms.

[the_wraith]

His lips are softer than she ever would have imagined and his breath tickles just a little against her skin. But it's the nicest kind of feeling, not one that makes her want to squirm away but squirm closer. She tilts her head to the side, baring more of her neck, even though she knows he'll stop soon. He has to. She sighs his name with a little smile, letting her hands drift up the sides of his torso.

[everymonstrousthing]

"I dream about this."

He breathes the words out against her skin, pressing them there with more kisses, his thumb stroking against her side through her shirt. His breath shivers a little. "Fuck, Inej."

[the_wraith]

"You do?" She doesn't know why she's surprised, except maybe that it's Dirtyhands. A part of her thinks he doesn't dream at all, just schemes in his sleep, and she's not stopped recently to question it. But there's something else in his saying so that startles her. "About me?"

[everymonstrousthing]

"All the time," he says, pulling back enough that he can look at her. He blushes, his hand stroking against her side. "You're...all I think about." His eyebrows draw together. "You have to know that."

[the_wraith]

"I just.."

She never has a problem telling Kaz that he's wrong, ever. But there's something about this moment, held in his arms with him trying desperately to open up for her, that makes the words stick in her throat.

"I'm not all you think about," she says, pushing a teasing note into her voice.

[everymonstrousthing]

"Not all," he concedes, and he grazes another kiss against her skin, this one overlapping the corner of her mouth. "Not always. But more time than I ever thought was possible." He flushes. "Is that bad?"

Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, the baddest boy in Ketterdam, is not accustomed to feeling uncertain.