(no subject)

[everymonstrousthing]

Some things don't change. She might have been and gone and come again but, when she's out on the roof, Kaz sits and waits for her. He's sitting in one of the kitchen chairs with his feet up on the sill and a cigarette between two fingers. He's reading a book, one of the paperback novels that he's so fond of. He smokes and he reads and he waits for the girl he loves, his Wraith, to come home.

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[tricktofalling]

She isn't out for very long this time. It's cold, in ways different from the winters in Ketterdam, and while it makes her feel alive, vital, she also can't feel her fingertips properly.

When she returns, she spots him from another roof. Perched like a cat. Or like the boy she came to know in Ketterdam, feeding his crows from his office window. She gets to their window and slips in deftly, cold radiating off her.

[everymonstrousthing]

She comes home and Kaz takes one last drag on his cigarette before he stubs it out in the ashtray at his elbow. He tips his head back and looks up at her, before holding out one bare hand, crooking his fingers slightly.

"You took your time."

[tricktofalling]

She slides in toward him easily, comfortably, and brushes a kiss against his forehead. He's warm, pleasant, smelling of his hair product and cigarettes and the soft cotton he wears around her.

"I took a new route."

[everymonstrousthing]

Gently, he tugs her into the cradle of his lap so that he can pull her in against him properly, tuck her close to his chest. "Did you have fun?"

[tricktofalling]

Inej lets him draw her in, settles against him and breathes him in even more. His body warms her quickly, pushing the cold away. "It wasn't really an exercise in fun. But it was good, yes. I feel...clear, when I go out like that."

[everymonstrousthing]

"Good," he says, smoothing one hand along the flat of her thigh, his touch warmly intimate for a moment. "Did you want to stay up, or..." He's got an iea of something he'd like to do with her, to her, now she's home.

[tricktofalling]

The touch sinks heat in her even more than just his nearness. It's an entirely different kind of heat, one she's becoming increasingly familiar with associating with Kaz Brekker.

She turns a bit, looking up at him with a silently cocked eyebrow. "I'm chilly, not tired."

[everymonstrousthing]

He bends his head and takes a kiss then, his bare skin grazing against hers when he shifts his arms around her.

"You could wear that lingerie I bought you. I've forgotten what it looks like." He's teasing. He could never forget how she looks.

[tricktofalling]

A part of Inej thinks to protest out of simple stubbornness, the fact that she can protest to the wants of this boy. But she doesn't really want to.

Slowly, she slips out of his arms. She stretches on her toes, and her shirt slips and slides against her belly a little bit, a thin strip of brown skin peeking out. "I'll believe you've forgotten anything, figures or my figure, the day the sun turns black."

[everymonstrousthing]

Kaz's dark eyes dark to the sliver of her smooth skin that's on display for a moment. He swallows.

"Let's pretend that I have," he says, smiling at her. "Just for now."

[tricktofalling]

Inej gives him a softly speculative look, but she smiles, and wanders back to their bedroom. She can't call it his anymore, not when she sleeps in this bed and has her clothes here.

She strips out of the comfortable things she wore on the roofs, and finds the underthings they bought when Kaz was a girl. It still seems a little strange, to indulge in such frivolous things. But she likes them, and likes how Kaz looks at her in them.

Once she's pulled it on, she grabs one of his shirts and pulls it on, buttoning only one button as she pads back out in the living room.

[everymonstrousthing]

The shirt doesn't hide much, buttoned as loosely as it is, and Kaz gives himself permission to stare at her. He shifts his position in his chair, his knees apart, all of his attention focused on her.

"Take that shirt off," he rasps, softly. "And come over here."

[tricktofalling]

She can, she knows, say no. The firmness in his voice is one she's heard a number of times. Even as her fingers drift to the button, she says, "Say please."

[everymonstrousthing]

A smile tugs the corner of his mouth and he dips his head.

"Please."

[tricktofalling]

She prefers the simplicity of the word to some of his more loquacious teasings he's done in the past couple of years they've known each other. It melts through her, warmth down her spine. Who would have thought something as simple as please and thank you from Kaz Brekker would set her so on fire.

She crosses to him, shucking the shirt and draping it over the back of the sofa, and comes to a stop in front of him.

[everymonstrousthing]

"How demanding would you let me be?" he asks her. He's been idly imagining but it's important to him to let Inej set his own boundaries for him to work within.

[tricktofalling]

Her breath catches for a second. She knows exactly what she's being asked, what it means, what it costs her to voice her limitations. Until now, she's set all the paces; to have Kaz set up to the mark is almost, strangely, refreshing.

"Fairly," she says. Then, because it was not what he asked but is what he means, she says, "Don't put me in bounds, listen if I say no."

[everymonstrousthing]

He nods, takes her words on board and then reaches out, curling her fingers around her wrist, tugging her back into his lap.

[tricktofalling]

The tug catches her enough off guard that there's a moment of token resistance. Against Kaz's strength, it's hardly anything. She sits on his lap, twists a little to be comfortable, doesn't try to shake off his hand on her wrist. As she settles, she can already feel the shape of him, clearly interested in all her skin and the lacy underthings, stirring to life between his legs.

[everymonstrousthing]

"I've been thinking," he says, leaning up and kissing up the side of her neck. "About bending you over and peeling down your panties all fucking day."

[tricktofalling]

The last time they talked about it was Valentines, and while they had sex that night, it had been as it tended to: Inej riding Kaz, enjoying the freedom of movement that being above him provided.

The idea of it still thrills her, like it did when Kaz had teased about pulling her slacks down. She flushes a little bit, but tries to keep her composure. "All day, hm?"

[everymonstrousthing]

"All day," he says. "I had to check my numbers again." She knows how rarely that happens. "You're a distraction, Wraith."

[tricktofalling]

Something tight, excited and hot, squeezes in Inej's stomach. She looks Kaz in the eye, as unsure as ever if he's bluffing or being earnest, but it doesn't matter.

"Is this a punishment, then, for being a distraction?" He knows how much that costs her, how much trust it takes to consider letting him punish her. How much trust it takes to want his authority.

[everymonstrousthing]

"It could be," he says, brushing a kiss against the point of her chin. "You surely deserve it." He knows how much this costs her. For a moment, he almost can't breath past how much she trusts him.

[tricktofalling]

Inej breathes out, reaches up a hand to curl her fingers gently against the back of his neck so that the V of her thumb and forefinger cups his ear. She soaks him in, closes her eyes, settles herself to this.

After a moment, she rolls her hips, settles herself more distinctly against the cradle of his hips.