Chapter 11 Fool Me Once...
To say dragging a passed out drunk kid to my hotel was uneventful could not have been farther from the truth. She threw up on herself, in the car, then on me as I had to lift her to bed. I let her have the bed to herself; the chair was my refuge for the rest of the evening. Nothing but crap on TV. The only interesting event to even speak of? I found out Marie talks in her sleep. Full conversations, with whoever happened to be in her head. I knew I had to be one of them. I tried not to listen; my own guilt will not help her. She needs to figure out some of it on her own, to stop being angry -- at me, at her friends, at herself. She needs to accept her reality, figure out what makes her happy, and I am going to be the one to push her to it.
The sun warms the curtains. I pull them back to see if it will stir her. It is morning. I want to get on the road. The groan tells me she is regretting being alive. If she can hold down water, she can do a lot more, like clean herself up. I grab a glass from the bathroom, force it into her hand, but her balance still hadn't returned.
"Drink."
I detect embarrassment, disappointment and something I can't put into words flowing off of her, underneath the putrid stench of vomit and alcohol still running through her system. She is a goddamn mess, something even the fighter in her would recognize if she'd just look in the mirror.
"'M I still alive?"
"Apparently."
She is sitting upright, like a heap, squinting from a berating sun. "I thought I told you to leave me alone."
No thanks, no apology for the last time, but let's argue. Just looking at her was bringing out the animal. It was lurking and harder to control;, it wanted her, no matter how screwed up she was.
"What?" Her reaction was laced with sarcasm, like she was in any condition to actually verbally weasel her way out of this.
"You're a mess, and you stink..."
"Well...you have vomit on your shirt!"
"It's yours," I snap. This isn't going to turn into a shouting match. I DON"T NEED THIS, I what to scream so fucking loud, she would go deaf. I was getting to the point where I couldn't stand smelling her, the remnants of last night making a slaughter house seem like a spring breeze. She doesn't look any better, just closer to losing it again, so I force another glass of water in her hand.
She concentrates on it like it's supposed to dance. I want to slap her across the face and tell her to get it together, but that would knock her out again. An unconscious girl in my room would raise all kinds of red flags with the cleaning staff.
"Here, take this and go clean up." I dropped a shirt in her lap. My last clean shirt for the trip, so she better appreciate it. "Your excuse for a top is filthy."
She didn't do any better walking than she'd done the night before. The klutz walked right into the closet, still looking confused. I let her think about it for the moment; she was still looking for answers after all.
"Closet, kid. Bathroom's that way." The slam of the door probably compounded that headache of hers far worse than the embarrassment. After an hour, I was getting sick of the sound of the shower running, but the one thing I had in my favor was that there was no bathroom window. Her only escape was through me if she got it into her head to try it.
"You comin' out any time today?" I'm not waiting all day.
After a few more minutes, she finally leaves the bathroom, her scent in all the steam precedes her. Everything I have been fighting within myself starts to break loose as she walks past me in just my shirt. The animal and morals do not fit within the same mind, and the animal was beginning to win. She curls herself up in a chair, I focus harder on the TV. She cannot undo me.
"Logan? You bring me to your lair, and now you're just going to ignore me?"
Yep, and for your own good. "I've nothin' to say to you kid." She tries to open her mouth and start spewing all the bullshit that she tried to pull on me before. "Leave it. I don't wanna know."
"But-"
"Leave it." It wasn't what she was expecting, and I hadn't really thought about it either, but she had to want to come back, or she would just run off again.
"So that's it? I can go?"
"I'm not your keeper. Do what you want." I had to leave the room, I had to get away from her scent, from the idea of ripping her shirt off and marking her as mine, claiming her against her will. I use it as an excuse to go into the bathroom to grab her clothes form the night before.
"You're not gonna try and convince me to go back to the Mansion again?" .
She brought it up, not me, "Would it make any difference if I did?"
"No"
"Then there would be no point, would there?" I shove the pile into her hands. This is actually pissing her off, that I'm not pining over her, begging her to come back.
"So what's this? Take your clothes, get out and have a nice life?"
"Your choice, kid." Not the answer she was hunting for, she gets all huffy and storms back into the bathroom. I can tell she is trying to figure out how she's going to get out of there in just my shirt. Last night's disaster of an outfit is covered in vomit and she's hesitant to put them back on.
"Can I borrow a belt or something?" She tried getting my attention away from the TV, acting through panic and desperation.
"I can't go out like...Not unless I want to be arrested anyway."
She wasn't really getting the message, "Not my problem."
"Please..." I was setting her off for a fight she knew she was going to lose.
"Like I said, not my problem."
"Oh come on, these are a mess!"
Take her current situation out of the equation, get rid of her argument. I grab the mess out of her hands, throw them in the trash can and light them. I will be the first to say that alcohol burns faster when it's straight out of the bottle, but in this case, puked back up works just as well.
"Hey, What did you do that for? They could've been washed!"
"So what? I'm supposed to care? You're out here fuckin' up your life and I'm supposed to give a damn about what you wear?"
"Well it would be a start!"
"What the HELL do you think I'm here for, huh? Vacation?"
"How about obligation, huh? Guilt? Boredom? I don't know. They're the usual reasons. Pick one. I don't care!"
She doesn't think I cared. I don't know how to respond to that. If she only knew what I did for her. The adrenalin running off of her, her body so visible under my shirt. I had to step away. I couldn't even tell what she wanted, besides being left alone.
The air was heightened and the silence was bothering her, the fidgeting, acting like she didn't know what to do with herself.
"Y'know, I am sorry for the other day. I didn't plan on hurting you." She was waiting for me to react, maybe melt a little, start to give in. "You just... you surprised me."
Like any other street hustler, trying to help an old lady cross the street, while robbing her blind, I could see through everything she was trying to do.
"And I'm sorry for last night."
"Thought you were leavin', not making conversation."
"I'm still here because I'm still half naked!"
She needs to work on her desperate face, cause she's doing too much expecting at this point. "You're covering up more than you did last night." Right back at' ya, kid!
"How nice of you to notice."
I really don't want to notice. I don't want to see how much she has changed, her cut abs, the angle of her waist to her hips, her nipples holding the shirt out from her. I watch her intently go from desperate to fucked, losing control, going through drawers, ripping through anything that could be of use to her. I slipped on gloves, without her noticing. This time, I was going to be prepared.
"What?" She's glaring at me, sweat was beading under her eyes, as she starts to head to my bag. I flick her hand away before she can get to it, swift and hard.
"What do you want?" I ask, as if that had an easy answer, or maybe I'm just hoping to get her to understand that I really want to know.
"All I want from you is this." Her hand quickly goes to my waist, hovering right over my belt buckle. I'm faster, pinning her hand against the wall, her body slammed hard as well.
I let the anger grind into my voice, "Don't test me kid. You have no idea."
She was so shocked when I actually thrust against her, she put her other bare hand against my chest as leverage, to maybe keep me at bay. My face was too close for her to grab, so I let out a claw to remind her I was the one in control, I could still be faster. "What game are you tryin' to play here?"
Sweat dripping from her forehead, and fear pumping my adrenalin through her veins, she knew she had to be really careful. I am also fighting the animal. For now, I have control, but I could have slipped and done so much more. Every breath is more of her. I can feel the tips of her fingers brushing across my chest.
"If you have any spare clothes that aren't huge, that could solve all this." Seductive, her eyes fell off mine and dropped to where her hands could go, the heat flowing off my body, sweat dripping down my back. Her neck is so close, the steadiness of her pulse threw more of her at me than I knew what to do with. It was everything the animal wanted, but it was also every nightmare I ever had in the bargain.
"Do you have anything, other than your shirt, that would fit me?" Marie's hands at the top of the buckle, she could have undone it herself, but now she's playing games.
"No,"
The sides of her lips curl up so slightly. She's playing me for all she's worth, while I'm caging the animal on the inside. It wants to feel everything, taste her sweat, feel her wetness, make her scream.
She's pulled the buckle off and is trying for more. My hand holding hers to the wall is ready to take her by the neck, to throw her against the bed. My mouth is full of spit to tongue her breasts.
"Marie. I said no." If she had done anything more I would have lost control, and the only way to get her to stop is to give her what she is after. I'll lose her again. She brought me to this point, something I had shielded her from, and I have to let her go to protect her from the feral side. I have no choice.
Forcing her hand off the buckle, and dropping the other, I pull the belt off in one pull, throwing it in her hands, not breaking eye contact for a second. "Take it. And get out."
She turns and leaves, running without hesitation. I am left with the scent of her surrounding everything, and more frustrated than I have ever been.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Dialogue in reflected from the original "More Than a Rogue" written by Septemeber, permisison obtained by author.
Thanks for waiting, more to come soon...
Thanks for waiting, more to come soon...