Poker Face

Chapter 19 - Twenty Questions

That night, Aven and Negan's dreams had similar content, hot and frantic that left their chests heaving when they jolted back into consciousness and felt disappointed when they remembered they'd gone to sleep in different rooms. Negan was ready to pounce on her after over a week of not getting his way. Aven, on the other hand, knew she wasn't ready to be intimate with someone again but still kicked herself when she opened her eyes and was alone.

In the morning, she woke to loud knocking on her door and groggily rolled out of bed, her body not wanting to move from the high-quality mattress. She dragged herself to the door, rubbing sleep from her eyes, and pulled at the knob before remembering she locked the door to be sure Negan wouldn't follow her in the night before.

He'd said a lot of things she wanted to believe and she was sure now that she wanted him, but if she was going back with him to the Sanctuary she wanted to make sure he followed through with his promises and knew he wasn't in control of her.

Aven opened the door to find Negan leaned with one arm up against the frame, his signature grin wide as ever and her leather vest slung over the shoulder of his white t-shirt. He trailed his eyes down and back up her body, noting she was still wearing the lingerie under nothing but her black t-shirt

"You left this at my place before you fuckin' blueballed yourself," he sneered, handing her the vest.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she shrugged.

"You know exactly what the fuck I'm talking about," he growled, the smile on his face unwavering. "You can lie, you can say the fucking words but your body told me exactly what you were really thinking."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I blueballed myself. I took care of it. I don't need you for that." Negan raised an eyebrow, unsure if she was just trying to tease him. "Stare all you want, you're not gonna figure out whether or not that was a lie," she said with a wink before grabbing her jeans and backpack and retreating into the bathroom to change into more practical underwear.

"What the fuck happened to you?" he teased. "What happened to the quiet little bitch who looked at me like she was gonna bite my fucking dick off."

"Just because I have more to say now doesn't mean I won't bite your dick off," she called through the door. Negan shifted uncomfortably at the thought.

"Fair enough." He wandered over to the window and looked out down the main road of the town. "Doll, we gotta get going. That fuckin' herd's coming our way." He smiled to himself, satisfied with the outcome of his plan even if it didn't go quite accordingly. "We left a few trucks out back last time we were here. Can't trust that fuckin' bike to get us all the way back."

"What a shame," Aven said reemerging from the bathroom. "A man on a motorcycle is fucking hot."

"I do not fucking get you," he blurted.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been thinking that the whole fuckin' time and you still tried to act like you were gonna go waltzing off on your own in the end."

"The key word being tried," Aven noted.

"You're real fuckin' dramatic, you know that? You know exactly what you god damn want and you make getting it so fucking difficult," Negan observed with a sly smile.

"Hello pot, I'm kettle. I believe we're the same color," she shot back playfully.

"Different fuckin' shades of gray, doll."

"You can say the words," she retorted, repeating him with a knowing glint in her eye. They made their way downstairs and out into the daylight where some biters out in front of the herd had already made it to the hotel. Negan reached in front of Aven defensively and told her to stay behind him, but she nudged him out of the way and quickly stuck her knife in the head of one of the biters. She then went for another and Negan followed to take out three more with Lucille.