emptynight | Can't be too careful with your company

She'd seen Thomas coming back, which was good, since it gave her the chance to say goodbye and she could call Edward the next day and she'd just be gone. She hadn't seen this, but how could she have when the second he kissed her she couldn't see anything? It was like getting sucked into quicksand and finding fire underneath.

"I can't, Thomas I have to go, I have to go now-" She really wanted to pull away. That was completely her plan. Get into the car and go. "I have to." She didn't seem to be moving.

"I still owe you that pass, Alice." Thomas' voice was low and warm, silk against skin, honey on the tongue, and his arms wrapped around her.

"We'll go somewhere for the rest of the day. You can leave from there in the morning." He bent his head and touched his lips to the curve of Alice's neck, tasting soft skin. Every soft kiss was a promise: desire, pleasure, silence.

"But I can't tell-" There hadn't been anything specific, just a need to go now, the kind of vision that she hadn't had in decades and had trouble relying on now, but it was strong. Strong enough that she'd almost gone back to that mall to find Edward and kidnap him with her, but that wouldn't do any good and Thomas was making it so hard to remember any kind of urgency that wasn't all about him.

It was so much better than being blocked; it was being wiped clean. Maybe razed and salted if she stayed long enough. God, she hoped so.

Her hand tightened around the back of his neck. "All right. Let's go."

A guttural purr escaped Thomas' lips when she agreed, her hand tightening at the back of his neck. "Follow me," he said, nodding at the motorcycle. "Just in case."

Alice's car kept up remarkably, once or twice even passing the bike, until the road led them downtown, past the historic district, past the chic lofts until they got to a cluster of nice hotels, the type businessmen stayed in for conventions and dalliances. The sort of place where no one batted an eye when the two of them pulled up, tires screaming.

It didn't take long to get a room, Thomas never letting his arm leave Alice's. The room was on the twenty second floor, and Thomas pulled Alice to him again once the doors to the elevator closed and it began to rise. He had no words for her, simply devouring kisses and heated touch. The less said the better.

She'd thought of a thousand questions to ask him, stuff that really had to be asked on the drive over. There were also the questions she should be asking herself, like why she kept following him instead of peeling off in another direction and finding somewhere to breathe. There was no inescapable pull at that distance. She just couldn't, it wasn't any worse than leaving altogether and that's what she was doing. That's what she kept telling herself.

Except she knew what that pull meant, how he was deep ending again and the fact that she didn't know why and didn't care was probably going to be about regret the next day, which, fine. So be it. You needed things sometimes.

By the time they were in the elevator, she'd already stopped herself from stuttering her questions a hundred times, because she was on the arm and under the lips of the most delicious vortex she'd ever experienced. It was perfect and it was quiet. And if her mind hadn't always fought for the control it had she wouldn't have been able to withstand it for even a second, but as it was she couldn't stop herself, just once.

"Thomas-" Her voice was weak and wanting, not like Alice at all, but she was begging for several things at once in one name. "What happened, just tell me please, what happened?" Don't, though, just shut up and pull me harder and deeper.

The elevator was climbing steadily and Thomas nearly purred at the sound of his name, soft and needy, falling from Alice's lips, swallowed up by his own. She asked a question, the same question Alice always asked, and he could feel that she was torn, both wanting the answer and wanting what he was offering even as he demanded.

Fine. He could multitask. He turned, catching her between himself and the wall of the elevator, keeping her shadowed from whatever surveillance cameras were in there. Likely as not, the cameras had seen worse. He wanted to feel her legs wrapped around him, but instead kissed her again, muttering against her lips even as his hands sought every square inch of bare skin he could find, sought to draw gasping, needy breaths from her.

"Needed to leave. Get away. Get you out of here."

She already knew that, and it wasn't the answer, and she didn't have the strength or the will or whatever it was that would have seen her through to the real end of that conversation. Even though this time she wasn't just pulling at strings to get someone to tell her what she already knew. She could have pointed out she was already leaving and you know, he could have picked anyone for whatever was going to go down in the room they'd gotten, but she was well past the end of endurance.

After everything, there was this offer to stop caring and seeing and listening and she was going to take it even if it made her weak. She nearly climbed him, kiss desperate and needy, met by whatever his demon was doing now at every step. Not just distracted. Heated until she was molten, drained. It was perfect except for where it needed to be more perfect, and then it was, and then again...

She still clung to him when the elevator doors opened and he backed them out, and she was panting and pawing against him when he opened the door to their room. There was nothing but pull me harder and deeper now, except whatever resistance she'd offered before was gone, whimpers and moans and twisting against him left in its wake, her legs sliding over his back.

There didn't need to be anything but silence in her mind for her to live if it could be that way. She didn't need for there to be an Alice at all if she could be consumed in this kind of fire.

There was hunger in Thomas' kisses, and there was Hunger in his fingertips. He spun longing out of near nothing as he ran his hands over Alice's skin until the elevator nearly hummed with lust. The ding as the elevator arrived on the twenty second floor managed to pierce the fog, but Thomas didn't stop or pull away, instead wrapping his arms around her as tightly as her legs were wrapped around him, and guiding them both to the room.

Lust was the song he wanted, its devouring touch, its all-consuming focus, and he could feel Alice melting against him, sinking into that blissful delicious silence. Pinning her against the wall outside their door, Thomas kissed her deeply, all soft lips and warm velvety skin, as he fumbled with the key in the lock. The door opened, and they were inside, and that was when the Hunger started playing.

It delved deep and began adding more to its song. A note for abandon, of leaving behind responsibility, sang harmony. Indulgence. Escape. A current of impermanence, that this would end as swiftly as it had come, twined through out. And last, a shining note of fear, that he would withdraw, sweetened the melody.

And through it all, Thomas' hands and lips never stopped. One arm kept her pressed tight against him. One hand roamed under her dress, pulling it up as the door shut behind them, pulling it over Alice's head to be left in a pool next to the television. His lips trailed fire from her ear to her mouth, to her throat and back again. His fingers skimmed bare skin again, finding their way past the last of her clothes, one dexterous digit sliding straight into Alice's very core as he continued kissing her.

"Scream for me, Alice." The words were purred in a voice dark with lust, flowing like honey and soft as silk.

It hadn't been like this the other times, when she'd happily jumped into whatever it was Thomas had on tap and laughed at the relief it brought. She'd been running when he'd found her, and she was still running, throwing herself instead of jumping. There was still relief, but it was shouted out by everything more urgent. Wanting. Desperation. And when did terror become so sweet?

He didn't have to ask, not out loud anyway. Alice was already screaming, arching out and trying to press into him at the same time, writhing on his fingers. She tore at his shirt until it was gone, silently begging for more skin and heat as much as she was for more song and silence. And when she stopped screaming, she felt it again, Thomas' hand twisting impossible pleasure against and inside her, his demon emptying her of everything except completely perfect, searing need. And she screamed again.

The Hunger drank in her screams, her keening, shuddering pleasure, like the finest wine, savoring it. He laughed with obvious pleasure, the sound dark and sweet with a hidden edge, and took Alice's lips again, every touch, every scrap of teeth against skin, sending an echo of pleasure shuddering through her.

Thomas stopped at the edge of the bed and laid Alice down upon it, untangling her legs from around his waist, and shrugged out of the remnants of his shirt. His eyes were dark as he looked at her, bare-limbed and gasping against the sheets, and it was the look of the stalking tiger, the circling, starving wolf. He bent down and caught the edge of her underwear in his teeth, dragging it off her with deliberate slowness, allowing his tongue to trace its path. Her bra joined it quickly in the same fashion, and Thomas' smile, which had been predatory before, was now all wolfish hunger and white teeth.

One denim clad knee slid between Alice's legs as he kissed her, parting lips and tongue delving deep, sweeping through her mouth, tasting deeply of Alice. The Hunger sang encouragement, a chorus that whispered against her skin.

More, more, more. Give me more and I will give you everything you desire.

She was being hollowed. Burnt from the inside to the edges of her skin until there was nothing, but then longing and fear would somehow sprout and grow as quickly as they had been spent, and all she wanted was more. More fire, more emptiness, more Thomas winding through her mind and over her body, always more intense than a second before. When he was slow it wasn't just like pain, but it was delicious all the same.

Alice' s kisses were frantic like she had to breathe in between, her hips moving in desperate little circles against his leg. She didn't know how this could end, let alone worry about it happening anymore.

She tore at his jeans and clawed at his back, barely noticing the trails of blood she left behind, her considerable strength pulling him closer until she had pressed him as closely as she could, still writhing, still begging, which was all there was, take everything and leave me scorched only don't stop.

Her nails at his back, raking lines of fire and blood on pale skin, earned a soft, approving sigh of pleasure. "Pretty Alice, delectable Alice," he purred against her skin, feeling her writhe with need against him. Her strength held him against her, but the Hunger played on her, easing desperation for a brief moment, urging her to let go for a moment. He slipped out of her grip long enough to lose the remnants of his pants and boxers in a puddle on the floor, before joining her again, twisting against her, feeling heat and skin and frenzied want and desire.

Thomas kissed his way from her lips to her breasts, down the plane of her stomach until he pressed his mouth against her center, the source of heat that radiated throughout her body. Lust he held at its screaming, wanting apex, but the Hunger played against Alice again as his tongue delved into her, feather light touches alternating with demanding thrusts. He played the same song for her that he had in the coffeehouse bathroom, evoking the memory even as he drove her higher.

Except this time was different. He pulled away suddenly, desire screaming against his skin. Thomas pulled away with the certain knowledge that her release was only one light touch, one tender stroke, away, and began touching Alice everywhere else, every bit of skin except where she most wanted.

Alice had been more animal than person plenty of times, but not this much in years, decades, since before she was Alice. All her wailing and panting need driven impossibly higher whenever Thomas touched her, and to an inconceivable pitch when his mouth pressed against slick flesh and rocking hips. She screamed again, the fire pulsing through her becoming almost too much to bear, and then he pulled away and it was worse, so much infinitely, wonderfully worse.

There was only one thing she could take from Thomas without begging in this kind of frenzy, and the strength she used to pull him towards her now was uncaring. What she might miss was too far away and this was too close. Hands tangled in his hair, skin flaring with need everywhere it met his, all it took was one practiced slice at his throat and there was some satisfaction, flowing over her tongue like thick, honeyed ecstasy, filling what it could. The tiny part of her not still pleading for Thomas to devour her whole.

When Alice sliced at his throat, her lips against the cut drinking deep, Thomas growled and sank himself into her flesh, feeding from her desire as surely as she fed from his blood. She held him to her, and he could feel her desire, the impossibly sweet music played by the Hunger. She wanted to be devoured as surely as she was draining life from him now, and a smile played on Thomas' lips as he felt the wound in his neck heal clean, quicker than it should have, if he had not been drinking so deeply himself.

Thomas rocked his hips against Alice's, setting a driving, relentless rhythm, demanding and taking with every movement, the promise of release ever present, drawing closer with ever motion.

She hadn't taken much - not nearly enough - when the wound closed under her lips, but the steady pulse of blood pouring into her mouth was replaced by the relentless driving of Thomas' hips slamming him into her, and the maybe-imagined beat of his demon pushing her to greater and greater heights and draining her of them at the same time.

There was nothing left of her but need, stretched and wailing, and when she lifted her hips to meet his one last time, she was utterly quiet, taut and tight around him. No whimper or sigh, no memory, thought or vision, just one long, quivering note of release, streaming out of her and into him as sure as his blood had flowed when she fed.

And though she couldn't speak, if she could have, she would have pleaded weakly for more.

Thomas laughed softly in pleased appreciation as Alice went quiet, wrapped tight around him as release took her. It was honeyed wine to his senses, ambrosia on his lips, and he buried himself inside her once more, deeply, as that same shuddering release took him as well. Pressed against her, skin against skin, Thomas felt the echoes of desire still within her and reached to quiet them, to lay a hand against the trembling strings.

He pulled away with reluctance and kissed her slowly, lazily, with nothing but pleasure in his touch.

Alice luxuriated in that kiss, probably the first thing she hadn't scrambled after since he'd pulled up in front of the house. She could still feel him twining his way through her feelings, soothing this and that, like he was a warm bath.

It should all come rushing back now, the visions she'd missed and would have threaded into place anyway, the pressure at being blocked forwards and back, but it didn't. Fragments maybe, things she'd been struggling to remember without noticing, but all she really felt return with any strength was fear. Not so sweet now.

"I have to get out," she managed, but she still didn't move. Didn't think she could, and moreover didn't want to know. "I have to go." Shouldn't have come. Made it worse. Kiss me again and make it go away.

"Wait until sunrise," he said, kissing her again. That wasn't long to wait. Sunrise when Drusilla couldn't leave but they could.

He could feel Alice's fear on her skin, against his, and the Hunger moved to soothe it for the moment. As he was, fear did not touch Thomas, and for this moment, sated, his thoughts organized themselves. He wanted to go with her, to make sure Alice made it away, then leave himself, but this wasn't the time, not with a vengeful goddess behind them. He had to return, at least for a while. Distraction.

"Stay with me for a few more hours," he repeated. The shadow of a wicked smile played on his lips. "We'll order room service."

Sunrise made sense. Sunrise meant staying, just awhile longer, and maybe getting rid of some of the more insistent questions already being answered in her head for awhile.

"I'd ask you to come with me, but you still won't." She bit her lip, fear flaring up briefly before she pressed herself against him again, which made it easier for some reason. "You need to know something. She- I mean She- I saw Her." She couldn't talk about most of it, for all Alice talked and talked. "She told me Dru's sight is just as screwed as mine and to tell her, but Dru won't believe me and Edward probably-" She stopped again. "Just someone needs to know, you know. If you're going back."

A kiss to Alice's forehead. No desire this time, just simple, unadulterated affection. "I have a few things to take care of before I go," he said needlessly. She knew it, he knew it, but it still needed to be said. He knew that even in the cool, calm quiet of his mind. "They won't believe me, but I'll keep it in mind."

"Bring Jasper to Chicago when this is all over and we'll have fun. I won't bring Harry."

Alice's laugh was manic. "Chicago, Jasper. Right." When this is all over, he would have to say that, which was questions and answers and fear redoubled, and she had to close her eyes and breathe for a second just to keep from panicking and dress, shoes, keys, leaving.

"Edward will believe you, I don't know why and probably not at first but he will eventually if you're there for that long, 'cause he's not going anywhere and I can't make him." She curled against him. "Please don't be there for that long."

His arm tightened around Alice as she curled up against him, her words echoing in his mind. They would stay with him, he knew. A warning in the very back of his mind. His body molding against his, Thomas pressed his lips to Alice's hair.

"We'll see."

Can't be too careful with your company

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