Fair warning of a little. . . spice.

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VIII. HELL HATH

—aka, the tricks up a woman's sleeves can be nasty,

INT— A HOTEL ROOM.

VENICE, ITALY — MIDNIGHT.

CONT. SCENE IV.

HE WAS DARKNESS consumed, the shadows covering his upper torso. I could only see his pants and the arm holding the glass of liquefied amber, white hem already pulled taunt at his elbows to show smooth skin and nice fingers.

"Are you cursing me?" he asked softly, so soft I could barely hear it over the small ripples and waves a soulful body of water could make. My messy hair blew with a gust of wind, whipping the loose strands all around me. I shivered.

"It wouldn't be a curse to fall in love."

"I never pegged you for a romanticist, Antonina."

I closed my eyes and smiled as he said my name. Well. A name.

"I'm not. But who doesn't want to be swept off their feet as an attempt?"

"If anyone attempted to sweep me off my feet, I'd knock their teeth in."

I heard movement. He sounded closer. I kept my eyes shut but a short laughed escaped me.

"I don't envy the woman who falls in love with you."

"You shouldn't." He was definitely closer. Uncomfortably closer. "That woman has been damned by god."

"How archaic." I tilted my head and opened my eyes, and there he was. Dark eyes and incomprehensibly smooth expression.

I raised my hand, slow and cautious, just so he knows I'm not about to smack him, and traced across the planes of his face where lines could be pulled and drawn to make an expression, but he was stoic, just like a statue, except he was warm. The only reminder of his humanity.

"What is?" he asked, voice low but not soft.

"Sacrilege," I whispered back. I touched the space between his eyebrows, the urge overwhelming me completely, and traced down to the corner of his eyes, down his cheekbones and to the corners of his lips. All the little areas where emotion took place, and where intentions were revealed. Usually. But he was all smooth planes and marbled masks.

Is this really your face, Kristoff Park? My thoughts hummed. Did someone create this mask for you or did you make it yourself?

I swiped a finger across his bottom lip. They were slick from the alcohol.

It was too unfair how pretty he was.

"Two men," he said, mouth moving underneath my finger.

I smiled, because of course he caught what I saw the minute I stepped out. "Yeah. In a parked gondola. I think one of them has binoculars. The other absolutely has a camera in hand."

His eyes flickered back to the spot where I first saw them. "KC doesn't recognise them if he hasn't gotten rid of them." A crease formed between his forehead, small enough to showcase a frown. I traced it with a thumb.

"Mh. Your sister must've hired new people. Or they're from someone else entirely." My fingers traced down his chin, cupped it, and forced him to look away, back at me. His eyes smouldered. "If you keep narrowing your eyes at them, they'll start narrowing their eyes back at you. If it is your sister. . . why don't we give them a show, hm?"

I was teasing him just a little, but his eyes bore into my own as if reading my own desires against me, and I skittered under that gaze. It was so. . . disarming. Imploring. Demanding. But his lips were on my own not a second later, his hands, warm, so, so warm and nice against the whipping winds, moved to my waist, my back, and pushed me deeper into him. It was hard not to respond in kind, moving my fingers through his neck, his hair, and pull on the ones I find in my grasp, just a little meanly.

He growled in return, setting my pulse into a dance.

This kiss felt like a mirror of that night, if not. . . a little hungrier. A little more wanting, knowing what could be achieved this time. The first time was a little softer in retrospect, as there had been exploration. This one, both of us knew what we could get from it. And we both wanted.

This had nothing on our little playacting; we didn't act like ravenous fools— one, we were in broad daylight and he was such a gentleman about PDA that the most I got out of him required too many coaching to keep trying, and two, it felt like there was a line neither of us were crossing. And we both knew there was a line, we could feel it. On my end, it was because he was a beast threatening to hang my head. On his, I assumed it was because he saw me nothing more as an opportunity.

But that didn't mean I didn't want another taste.

And neither did he, from my current observation.

My body was set alight, and I wanted more. He was so. Aggressive. Like he was trying to unearth me, trying to find something— a truth? A lie? My thoughts were fading, blurring fast, and all I could do was feel. His tongue exploring mine, his mouth sucking my bottom lip, and his small little rumbles, deep from his chest, echoing to his mouth, set fireworks all over my body.

His fingers dug into my sides, holding and pulling until I was flushed against his chest and he went for my hair, running through it before fisting a handful and I moaned against his mouth.

The sound did something to him because he stopped and I opened my eyes. His eyes the colour of tar; of dark waters in the middle of the night. I could just picture my own face; an artful mess of his doing with my pupils blown wide. Both of us were panting, and his parted lips— oh, they were so swollen and red. The little victory that I did it, wasn't amiss.

He still looked like he was searching for something, trying to see something, and my heart thudded in my chest. There are a few moments honesty could be discerned.

The seconds after a damn very good kiss was one of them.

I peeled my hands away from him and gave us both some space. I turned to the men I saw at that gondola and found nothing but a row of empty boats, a little more soothed.

"Guess they're gone," I said quietly.

"I don't like guesses," he said roughly, the tone the same as always, if not a little more breathy, a little more gravelly.

I breathed out a laugh, still pretty breathless. Maybe a little disappointed. "Of course you don't."

I tried to fix my hair before I noticed the glass of whiskey he was drinking was put on the ledge for safekeeping. I snorted before I weighed it in my hand, and took a sip. "Mh. That's some nice malt."

I finally turned to him, tapping his face with my free hand in a light touch as I passed. "G'night, Kristoff."

"Good night, Nina."

I paused and turned with just my chin, enough to see the floor. I didn't want to see his expression, neither did I want him to see mine. "Don't call me that. If I wanted to be called Nina, I'd use it."

There really was no burn in my voice, but he still sounded utterly sincere when he replied, "I'm sorry. Good night, Antonina."

"Sweet dreams, Kristoff," was my final parting before I went to my room and locked the door shut.

This suite was designed as if the people who were staying in it were a 17th century aristocratic couple who needed space when they slept— just in case they wanted to cheat or his snore predicted the Industrial Revolution — so it had a living room and two separate bedrooms as entire quarters. I was told to keep my curtains closed at all times, just in case someone wanted to use some high tech gear to take better pictures of what lies beneath.

As I held the glass in my hand, I touched my still very swollen lips, closed my eyes again, so unbelievably exhausted, and sighed.

Either the sip I cautiously took was too little, or the sleeping pills I slipped in before we left dissolved perfectly because the whiskey still tasted the fucking same.

Mh. Two down, one to go.

I swirled it a little, hoping it's still pretty potent. I don't think I can crush new ones since I know KC still monitors me. And I could've only done it then, minutes before we left for the party, because I overheard Mr. I've-Got-Stick-Up-My-Ass say that KC was still finishing up with the perimeter check of the party's location, minutes before we left. They wanted this conversation private of course, so they kept it in Kristoff's room. But his room's balcony was open and so was the living room's. Adjacent and if you focus enough, you can attempt to hear everything.

It was the perfect time to hum loudly, pull out some sleeping pills I keep under a trolley of makeup, and started pulverising them for Kristoff's favourite decanter. The one he owns and brings everywhere with him. He's a glass of whiskey every night kind of guy. I watched him pour, swirl, and sip from the same glass in the last fortnight I'd been with him.

Patterns weaken a person.

And to think the beast had a pattern. Bit him a bit in the arse, didn't it?

Which is why I'm always so wonderfully unpredictable.

Hm, are you shock?

At this point, you can't be. You shouldn't. Maybe a little angry at being played the fool, again, that's understandable.

But see, so am I.

As someone who likes playing people against the wall, I am very, very sensitive to people's gazes. I never look like it, unless I need to, but every gaze on my body, I am aware if it was there.

Oh, look, my hatred rhymed.

The adoration, the hatred, the yearn, and the lust. I don't even have to recognise what fucking emotion it is at all. I always feel a gaze.

And I knew I was still being watched.

KC was the main culprit. Which I could understand. He was just doing his job— watch the pretty lady we're using and make sure she isn't so stupid as to do anything. . . stupid.

The imitation of Archie Noh's goddamn voice was thick in my head, the absolute ferret.

But I could even understand it from his perspective— he's supposed to protect Kristoff from all sides he might not be able to cover, busy being a monster. Being rich, being an ass, making out with me.

'Doing anything stupid' could literally be anything.

And if I do slip, if I forget to use my pretty little head for a moment— what happens next? Will I just be another dead body with a bullet hole they have to clean? 'Kristoff Park's mystery woman, gone into the night as row causes breakup'? Is that the headline they're going to show for my death when I'm found, floating in the canals of Venice while he's back to wherever the fuck he came from? Is that all I will amount to, after all of this? After choosing his side?

He promised a winning side. Not my safety.

And what does happen to pawns?

Well, fuck that.

In retrospect, what I am doing might be the very 'stupid' that might lop my head clean off my shoulders.

But it's so much better to go down fighting than to go down neat and quiet, meek as a mouse and just as dumb.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and all.

So I placed the glass I swiped gently on the dresser in my room, and quickly took pains to strip myself, rub the rest of the melted makeup off my face— still very pretty in my natural state, and fix my hair from the rat's nest that it had become. From the party, to the cold, windy night, to Kristoff's man hands yanking through— my poor hair had gone through a lot.

Bastard was also going to pay for that.

No matter how much it made me keel over.

As soon as the brush softened my poor locks up, I promised nice treatment to them with a kiss, before I dove through my suitcase and took out a really nice silky pyjama set. It was blush pink, my favourite colour, and no more than thin slips of a silk top and shorts.

I put it on, took the glass, took a deep breath, and fixed my expression before setting out of the heavy curtains with a hard shove, unlocking the balcony door soon after.

I already knew I wouldn't be seen here through the living room's balcony, or Kristoff's, as the hotel's wonderful architecture brought a massive wall to save my ass from them. A little woman's privacy.

Whichever god got a kick from revenge fantasies must truly like me.

And I won't let you down, whoever you are.

Not soon later, with my mouth making small presses on the glass' rim to imitate the occasional sip, a soft shuffle. An even softer thud. Then a quiet, masculine voice.

"You shouldn't be out here, Nina doll."

TERMS,

" playing people against a/the wall " = conning someone in a real life setting.

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Ooh.

Now that did you expect?

I do wonder how you think this is going to play out.

We got steamy a little there. You can blame (thank) nearly 3 days of fluctuating internet connection. I had nothing else to do but make it hot.