A loud flash of thunder, warm lips on my skin, a sound escaping my lips as hands held me up and firm against the wooden door--hot, burning--a burning red, it was everywhere.

My eyelids fluttered open, inhaling softly and sharply at the same time, and I managed to glance over Ryder's shoulder at the dark room ahead of us--the spare room Dad showed me earlier, I realized somewhere between my muddled thoughts. So we'd made our way up here and up the stairs somehow.

"Querida," Ryder whispered against the beating pulse of my neck, fingers digging into my waist, and biting. My head thumped softly back against the door. All I remembered, I thought in a daze, was seeing that wild fiery look in his eyes downstairs, the branding kiss on my lips, and the urgent need to get him upstairs and in this room so that he'd finally--finally make good on his promises.

"What," he continued to speak, lips a torture to my skin, and voice so heavily laced with raw desire, "are you thinking."

I shook my head, fingers grasping his shoulders, trembling and cold even when I felt like warm fire from the inside.

It was probably the worst time to talk, think, speak about such things--but I had to, and it was on the tip of my tongue, so it just came tumbling out,

"I...That..." I trailed off, shuddered, and gripped his shoulders to push him back so he'd let me speak. He stopped, scowled, but didn't dive back to kiss me again, his eyes the darkest of blues as they stared at me. "The girl at the reception. She gave you her number."

He blinked, looked confused, and his grip on my waist tightened.

"At the theater?" I added weakly.

Recognition flitted in his eyes but it went away just as fast. He leaned close, almost threateningly, but the threat of it washed away when he cupped my face in both hands and pressed our foreheads together.

"You think, querida, that I will call her?" He asked, voice heavy with want.

"I don't know."

He pressed close, impossibly closer, and I gasped, tightening my legs around his waist. "I will not."

I nodded, about to tell him to forget it--this--this stupid topic because obviously none of that mattered right now, but none of those words made it past my tongue. I thumped my head back against the door and nodded again--feverish, frantic, wanting.

"I do not lie to you, do I?"

I shook my head.

"Believe me then," he murmured against the corner of my mouth, "that I have never wanted anyone--no one else but you, mi amor."

My fingers sunk into his hair, the soft strands that I gripped tighter as he tortured me with his lips and his words and the whole of him.

"And I will show you because I promised," he spoke, punctuating his words by holding me up by my hips and dragging his teeth down my throat in sweet agony. "I'll undress you first, and then I'll kiss every inch of you until you believe me. Until you know I haven't lied to you once. Until you know I have never once wanted for anything, anyone, but you."

There was the bed beneath me, a dull thud, my heart in the hands of this blue-eyed wonder that stared at me from above me, and I wondered how--why I'd gotten so lucky.

But Ryder was keen on his words, so he didn't let me ponder over my own thoughts for more than a few seconds, and then his hands were on me again, on my shirt, rucking it up and kissing his way up my stomach.

"We'll take this off, yes?"

It took me a moment but then I realized he was asking, and I breathed in fast, short breaths--panting--and nodded.

I lifted a little from the bed, eager to get it off me, but then for an abrupt moment the moonlight coming from the windows got eclipsed by the stormy clouds, and Ryder was just a shadow looming over me. He was still the same. He was still Ryder. But still, my body seized, because he was above me, and I couldn't push him off even if I tried, could I?

"Easy, querida." His soft whisper met my ears, a warm brush of air, a soft, deliberate caress of fingers on my bare stomach.

He'd be gentle, and I wouldn't be able to take it, would I? It would break me. Because my heart was cracked and he already had it in his grasp.

"You--" I inhaled sharply. "--were angry at Dad. Because I came in front of him when--"

A soft breath of air above me, an equivalent to a soft, disbelieving laugh from him, and he said, "You're trying to make me mad."

Was he smiling? I couldn't see.

I reached up and ran my fingers down his cheek, the darkness a shadow over my heart. "Is it working?" I asked in a whisper.

He turned his head and kissed the tips of my fingers where most of the years-old scars from violin plays lay. "You want me to hold you down."

I swallowed heavily, shivering when he linked our hands, fingers intertwined, and slid them above my head. His grip was loose, calculating, harmless.

"Like this?" He asked in my ear.

"Y-You're not him." You're not Michael.

He pulled back, dark wet strands hanging over his forehead as he pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it somewhere across the room.

"Of course not," he said, an edge to his voice, the tightening of his grip on my legs, my knees, pulling them apart and settling between them. "You know who I am, querida."

He tugged at my shirt, rolled it up and over my arms, and let it stay tangled near my elbows. I squirmed and he pressed down, covering me with his body, weighing me down with such consuming pressure that I whimpered.

"R-Ryder. Please...fuck--"

"Don't move."

I hadn't realized I was reaching for him until he said it, and then I fell back against the bed, breathing raggedly.

"Good," he murmured, placing open-mouthed kisses down my shoulder. "So good for me, querida."

I squirmed, back arching, fingers curling in my shirt. "Please."

His kisses trailed down my stomach, lips a warm fire, dipping his tongue into my belly button and a noise left my lips. I wanted to say, speak, beg him, but then he dragged his teeth near my hip bone, and tears stung my eyes.

"Please." I shuddered.

He pulled up and I watched him, tousled hair, dark eyes, and hands caressing my waist, two fingers dipping into the hem of my pants.

"Do you wish me to stop?" He asked, breathing heavily--reluctant to stop, but he did in that one moment.

I shook my head, frantic.

"Promise, querida?"

I nodded, lifted my hips desperately. He made a disappointed noise, hands on the hem of my jeans yet still not getting on with it.

"Yes."

"You promise." A question, an ask, a leg pressing between mine.

"Yes, God, I-I promise."

He unzipped my jeans and exhaled, yanking them down.

I promised. And everything burned--red and gold and agonizing touches--a storm that touched my skin and burrowed inside me.

I promised.

•••

Lightning crackled in the dark and a lone figure stood on the empty street behind the trashed theater--once lively with a crowd, and now broken and bloodied.

"She owes me," he said to himself--the lone figure wearing the gas mask--hidden in the shadows along with the scent of thunder.

She owes me, he thought, because she's made a mistake.

And mistakes were to be paid with consequences.

"Alice Rhodes." He said into the night, rubbed his thumb over his fingers, and started walking across the street. "You'll pay."

----
sorry guys look ive never written smut even once in my life idk how this is to be written on a piece of paper. I suck at this (no pun intended). happy new year, btw! let's begin the new year with a bottle of holy water :)