Dear Tempting

Shadow Box

"Reid," Xavier shook her lightly. She stirred for a moment under the hotel covers, her eyes fluttering open to meet his. All he got was a tight-lipped stare.

This was the first night in a week that she had actually slept in a bed. She knew she had been sleeping more than usual, way more than what was necessary. However, with her existing condition she supposed, it wasn't all that unusual.

But as much as she slept, Xavier had barely slept at all. He still barely slept. Must be a vampire thing.

He had ravaged her last night, bit and tore and shredded every part of her. She hated to admit it but she had needed it - like he had needed it, needed a release from all of the crazy that was happening. But that's all it was, a need. There was no feeling between them, no emotion besides a primal need to use each other as an outlet.

She had fallen asleep after the many assaults on her body. He didn't lay next to her.

She slept better than she had in a while, completely spent with her endless torment.

Xavier left in the middle of the night and when he came back he smelt of fresh blood. Reid knew he would need to hunt after she had drained him last night in both their display to Capri and what had happened afterward. She should have offered him some back...

"We are going to that church?" he said quietly, face blank. He just stood there looking down at her, that red hair all over the pillow like spilled blood.

She nodded sitting up in bed. Xavier felt her guts twist as she moved. She was sore... he grinned inwardly.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, pulling the gun from his waistband and checking it for rounds. For him, it was as easy as tying a shoe, easier than breathing...

"Where did you learn to do that?" Reid asked as he flipped the gun around his finger and swiftly placed it back into the waistband of his jeans.

He just stood there watching her for a long while. "I don't know," he said. His answer was robotic, face still that same blank expression. Calm. Distant.

She tried another angle. "Why did you learn to do that?"

Xavier blinked at her. He has been fully prepared to answer her with his usual answer.

I don't know.

But something had snapped open in the back of his head. As if someone had pulled open a door to a small shadow box into his past. A memory of the time when he had learned how to do that. How to clean and check a gun with such swift precision and speed so that you knew it was always ready. 

The sound of breaking fingers echoed in his ears.

"To be prepared," he said. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. Pain in his eyes...

"For what?" she asked scooting closer to the edge of the bed. She was so quiet he barely noticed her.

And just like that. Another memory opened like someone had tipped over a jar full of snakes. It played behind his eyes like a movie screen, like the one Rebekah spent most of her time in front of.

"Am-ambush," he said quietly, blinking as his mouth moved. "Killing." He shook his head of the distant sound of gunfire.

Xavier thought he felt his fingers breaking again.

Why now had these memories come back to him? He had been trying for so many decades to remember anything beyond that day in the lab... anything at all. 

"Why?" She asked so quietly it almost hurt to hear.

He grunted. He knew the answer to that. It was the earliest memory he had. He wasn't sure why he told her the truth. Not even his family knew of where he came from.

He was suddenly angry.

"I was made for that," he said flatly. "I was designed this way." His lip curled at her in a snarl.

Red decided not to ask any more questions today.

They stared at each other for a long moment before he turned away.

"How are you feeling," he asked again not looking at her. He already knew the answer.

"Good."

"Liar," he said swiftly, turning to face her.

"Not now," she said. She closed her eyes. Xavier moved closer to her, that bond moving his limbs. She laid her head on his stomach as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Something was weighing her down. Something was always weighing him down.

More silence between them. Comfortable silence.

"Hungry?" He asked, looking down at her cheek against his stomach.

"I am capable of hunting for myself." 

"I know," he said. "Do you have time to hunt before this jury or whatever?"

She looked up to meet his gaze and something purely animal surged in her.

She tilted her head to the side watching him raise his wrist to her. She stood and shoved him into the chair at the end of the bed. His eyes widened with shock as the chair slid back on the tiled floor with the force. It rocked into the wall.

He caught her eye, caught that animal desire on her face and snarled low. His blood sang with the challenge, buzzed with the promise on that mouth of hers.

She straddled him. His fingers gripped her fine hipbones as she trailed a finger from his navel up to his throat. Then she shoved his head back and started to place sucking open-mouthed kisses on his jaw. They trailed down his jaw, along his neck until she got to the raised scar she had created all those nights ago. Xavier was snarling, his fingers gripping her hips so hard bruises were already beginning to form.

She shredded into his neck so fast he hardly had time to register what was happening. The rumble in his chest shook her, bones shuddering, blood thrumming. The blood pooled in her mouth and she moaned into his neck.

The familiar and intoxicating flavor exploded along her tongue and lit a fire in her belly. She squirmed in his lap, feeling him pushing up against her center, hard. She ground against him.

Then she was under him, back pressed into the bed as he hovered above her, neck still in her teeth.

Reluctantly, she pulled herself from him. He was shaking with restraint. Shaking so violently she thought he might not be able to control it, the urge to bend her over the end of the bed and take her so hard she saw stars.

"We are going to be late," he growled.

"I know," she said licking his throat clean, trying to melt that resolve. "Later then," she promised. She ran a canine along his throat, teasing him.

She could tell he was losing it. He was barely hanging on to any control and she wanted so desperately for that to happen. She raised her hips to meet his and she rolled her core over his already hard length.

He was off of her in a second and against the opposite wall, his dark gaze was roaming all over her flushed skin.

"You are bad," he said snarling at her.

She stood and turned away from him, pulling that shirt over her head, letting the red waves tumble to the small of her back. The only thing covering her now was a very small pair of black dainty underthings. He growled again.

She intertwined her fingers and pulled those down her legs. She was still facing away from him and bent over all the way to remove them.

She heard the door slam as he bolted from the room.

She grinned.