THE FADING FALLEN ● Bucky Barnes X OC ● 18+ ● ENGLISH [COMPLETE]

Chapter 23

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He did not.

For a little longer, they both just looked at each other.

Breathing deeply, Bucky turned and walked toward the glass facade. He opened the doors. When he disappeared through them, she stared after him through the window into the night..

Only the slow onset of sobriety made her aware again of where she was. And especially with whom she was here.

'Make yourself comfortable', Emilia thought to herself sarcastically and sat up.

She slipped off her pumps and dropped them carelessly next to the bed. A little longer she just sat there with her hands propped up on the mattress.

Little could be heard. Only the chirping of a cricket or the small stream from the palace park could be heard.

Over her shoulder she looked at Bucky. He was standing on the balcony with his hands leaning on the balustrade and his head hanging down.

At the sight of his broad back, Emilia's guilty conscience crept to the surface.

Despite the short time she had known him, she was aware that there were reasons why he reacted the way he did. And he did so in his own way, which one could not really blame him for after his past with Hydra and what he had been through.

There was one thing she wouldn't let him get away with, though. Although that it too had to do with the horrible events, Emilia couldn't believe that he seemed to care about her.

It had to be that way. She simply couldn't explain his behavior any other way.

However, the fact about it made her feel sick.

Indeed, Bucky should avoid her, ignore her, hate her, wish her to the moon and quarter her, and finally burn her at the stake.

After all, it was she who still reminded him of those torturous times by just her presence. At least that's what she believed, despite everything she wanted to do to him. The thought and the still omnipresent guilt were ingrained in her mind and impossible to ignore.

Emilia was unaware that Bucky actually had something else in mind. She followed him after a few minutes of silence and went out onto the balcony.

Almost silently, she walked barefoot towards him. He didn't miss the soft taps of her feet on the stone floor.

Far too much he had tried to concentrate on something else. But his awareness that just moments ago Emilia was lying almost defenseless and vulnerable on the bed in front of him, looking at him through her big doe eyes, crept into every fiber of his body.

Just then he was able to call himself to his senses so as not to kiss head over heels again those soft lips he had tasted the night before. He knew it wouldn't end there. Not after she lay there so seductively, the skirt of her dress riding up to her thighs.

On the one hand, Bucky wondered why he hadn't just let it happen. Her eyes showed him clearly - just as not even 24 hours ago her demanding fingers had in the fabric of his jacket - that she wouldn't object. Neither to the kiss, nor to what might follow.

On the other hand, something held him back.

Very vaguely, he remembered being with one woman or another in the 30s and 40s. Even if the nights were far wilder than some might believe, he didn't just fall over them back in the day.

As he was not the considerate man of those days, he wasn't someone who just took what he wanted.

After all, one would think dealing with the opposite sex was like riding a bicycle: you never unlearn it.