you're too young & eager to love

This is long! And okay, I guess. I started with a distinct plan and then wrote porn and then tried to connect the porn with the plot. So, pay attention to the end when the link gets pretty thin.

Cut for length.

That's what she said.

Inspired, somewhat, by Roman's expression in this photo - https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/32/59/42/3259426bc9de1f24e3508aa6093af53b.jpg




He can almost taste the salt of her blood – thick, primordial, heavy on his tongue.

The sound of her heat beating is an ocean in his ears, thunderous, akin to the ancient lure of sirens to sailors and their ships.

Roman’s large hand is curled over the arm of his chair, an exquisite piece of oak that is nearly as old as him; his fingers threaten to splinter the wood. He takes a deep unneeded breath, catching the scent of her perfume, a mix of sweat and sandalwood and desert heat. He can smell the exact points where she must have rubbed the scented oil into her skin – behind her knees, on the insides of her delicate wrists, behind her ears. Watching her, the razor cut of her linen dress, the gossamer fabric slashing abruptly across her thighs like a knife, the sprinkle of jewels clustered around her neck as sharp and cold as icicles, he thinks she is the stuff nightmares are made of. A deceiving, disarming package of bruisable skin and breakable bones, all hiding a terrible, formless spirit – the type of ambition that always lurks behind figures of great evil.

He wants to split her neck and drink from the very fount of her. He wants to taste the marrow of her bones, to swallow her heartbeat, to be laid waste by the pull of her life and all of her endless desires.

Lene, her carefully constructed expression of placidity shattering for a second, shoots a questioning glance at him from her spot by Arletta’s side. He can feel her gaze, the preternatural thrum of her body, and he wonders what she sensed. If she has sipped enough of his powerful blood that she too, on a smaller scale, can feel him as he feels her.

He does not return her look.

Across the table, Augusta Reinhardt gives no sign of her awareness of his eyes on her except for a sliver of a smirk at the corner of her mouth. Her upper lip is thin while her bottom lip is full, like a child’s, but he cannot detect even a shred of innocence about her. He thinks, with sudden clarity, that this woman was probably never a child, not truly. She has the most peculiar eyes too – amber and hazel and almost red – so that Roman is nearly unnerved when she, suddenly, fixes him with a solid stare. This is a man’s stare, the uncompromising, unyielding gaze of a soldier. There is no softness around her eyes, no intent to beguile. She drums her fingers against the table, hard, her clear, blunt nails resonating like the hammering of steel.

Roman smiles, an expression that is all teeth and charm.

Harrow says something distinctly venomous from the front of the room, slamming his fist on the table, and Roman is surprised when Augusta responds with a laugh. Shaken from his reverie, he remembers that there are others present, that this is a meeting of sorts, both a welcoming and a reckoning, and that he’s been staring so intently at Harrow’s older sister, thinking about the hot, coppery taste of her blood and how she might feel crushed beneath him that he’s missed practically all of the agenda.

Augusta has a thick, impossibly long fall of dark hair that she pushes away from her face imperiously when she laughs, a bright sound that does not match her solid gaze.

Harrow is seething, frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog. He’s been especially temperamental ever since his swan eloped with that feral jackal four nights ago. As a result, the others, Roman excluded, have handled their interactions with him with caution, gingerly avoiding the wasteland that is Harrow’s current personal life. As though a presentation of her master’s displeasure, Kim has been on overtime, flaying the skin of any unfortunate victim – a role that Harrow has been assigning far too frequently as of late. So, Roman’s rather pleased to see someone else directly assaulting the compound’s president, even if the two are quickly turning the conference room into a battlefield of sibling rivalry.

“You should not be here, Augusta! This is a - ”
“Complete breach of protocol! Maximus is livid. You let your personal feelings interfere with your professional - ”
“Do not speak for my father. You are lucky that your husband’s death was so untimely, otherwise you would still be - ”
“Fucking my way to the top?”
“And here I thought you had already done that.”
“I suppose I should fuck you then next, shouldn’t I? Shift power. It’s about time Albtraum comes under new management. You’re a disgrace, and you are failing.”

The silence that settles is thick, palpable. Augusta has not risen from her seat, but she had leaned forward, her fingertips of both hands pressing into the tabletop as she spat words at Harrow. The fingers of Harrow’s left hand curl back and forth toward the center of his palm, and Roman knows how badly he wants to throw his knuckles into her face. How he might split and break her pretty mouth for her impertinence.

Arletta looks visibly shaken, her perfectly contoured face a mask of cosmetic disapproval. She keeps flicking her gaze back and forth between Harrow and his sister. If gazes could hurt, hers would have struck Augusta like a brick. The men, nameless officials and administrators of the compound, wear their discomfort like they wear their suits; they keep their mouths shut tight and their eyes anywhere but on the two bickering relatives.

Roman, ever the diplomat, clears his throat, pointedly, and scrapes his chair back. “Well, I think that will be all for right now. Mrs. Reinhardt?” He sweeps his open hand towards the door, standing. “Allow me to escort you to the guest quarters.”

When she stands, pushing her hair away from her face with the same haughty gesture as before, he watches the lean grace of her body. She reminds him of a shark, a creature constructed perfectly to fulfill one primal goal. He places his hand on the small of her back when she passes, unsurprised when the heat of her skin is more of a burning coldness than a blistering warmth.

It makes him hungry all the same.




“I need … to go. I’ve been … away too long.” Lene is laughing, low and hushed, but with a genuineness that always seems shocking here. It’s so warm that it fills Roman’s Spartan quarters to the brim.

Breathy, forceful grunts interrupt her words, and a dresser splinters, groaning its protest, when her back slams into it. She winces, lets the brief, dull pain settle into her bones and her laugh gets tangled in her throat when Roman’s hand closes around her neck. She has to look up at him, eyes flashing with heat and daring, as she cranes her neck back and catches his free hand with hers. He is much taller than she is, stronger too, but she’s wily and as slippery as an eel. She shoves a hand into his chest, near the spot where his heart no longer beats, and digs her nails into his skin. It’s like trying to claw rock or stone.

Roman’s hair brushes her cheek when he leans in; he’s growling, low and bestial, his thumb digging into the underside of her jaw as he forces her neck to the side. At the same time, he twists her arm back beneath her, pinning her with the formidable weight of his body, and drops his hand so that he can ruck up the flimsy material of her dress. It’s another one of Arletta’s lace choices, as though she were wrapping Lene up and delivering her to Roman like a present.

He finds her wet between the thighs and aching; her hips give an unconscious jerk as his fingers explore her, teasing and soft, and she wants to groan and whimper and bite the satisfied, smug expression from his face all at the same time.

“Do you still need to go?” He breathes his words onto her skin, lets his fangs detract so that he can graze over the thick, pulsing vein in her neck.

Lene can feel him pressing into her, his body shadowing hers against the dresser, her heart hammering in her chest with the thrill and surge of her arousal. She finds it funny that feeding him used to disgust her; now, she equates it with fucking, and the sharp, pleasurable pierce of his teeth is almost as satisfying as his cock. There’s some subtle shift in her that Roman senses, and the rest becomes synchronized clockwork. He lets go of her neck, one arm sliding around her waist so that he can hoist her up, her hands tangling with the front of his jeans, the leather of his belt and the cold metal of the zipper until she has freed the hard, full length of him.

He sinks his teeth into his neck at the same time he thrusts into her, her legs coiling around his severe, defined hips. The force of it slams her back into the dresser again, and she’s making those breathy, urgent moans, the ones that sound too much like whimpers. But she’s so hot, and he is a smooth, cold hardness that threatens to split her, that fills her as he devours her. She tangles her fingers into his hair, wrapping her arms around his neck as he supports her weight easily, making her feel light and yet somehow grounded. The dresser digs into her spine. The sleeve of her dress tears at the shoulder when she twists, exposing more of the long column of her neck.

Roman drinks only a little. The force of her blood, in any measurement, is always enough to make him groan with hunger and want. She tastes like life and strength. All her secrets pour out of her, those glimpses of her private memories, of her inner self, onto his tongue and down his throat. He thinks she cannot hide from him, not now, but there is always something elusive about drinking from her. Something he cannot find but only taste.

He pulls back with reluctance, licking the wound on her neck like a wolf, and she catches a murmur of German from his bloody mouth. Lene thinks it sounds like a curse.

His hips are slicing into her. He drops his heavy hands, gripping the backs of her thighs, spreading her wider till the pressure and pain of him is exquisite when it should be all types of wrong. There are electric stars on the backs of her eyes, and she drags her nails across his shoulders, bunching his shirt in his fists.

He doesn’t let her come until she asks for it, a pleading, clenching groan of his name. She hates that about him, his domineering, controlling need to make her beg. To remind him of this, she pushes her palm into his face, gasps when he nips at her fingers and bites the tender webbing of skin between her thumb and forefinger. His own release follows swiftly, a violent type of shudder shaking his resolve, his hands gripping her legs tightly.

They tumble to the floor, sweat-slicked and their clothing rumpled, Lene’s blonde hair spread across his chest and his fingers tracing delicate circles against her spine.

As always, she finds herself twisted inside afterwards. A type of fuzzy contentment mixed with uncertainty. She wishes she could hear his heart, feel warmth on his skin, and she thinks, fleetingly, of her own family. A bond bred from blood but so entirely different from this. There’s a nagging guilt somewhere inside of her, murmuring like water from a brook, speaking of wrongness and death.

She’s in love with a corpse.

The thought makes her laugh, soft and low, a rumbling of noise against his collarbone.

Roman pats her hip dismissively, as though he were reading her thoughts, and she crawls lazily over him, straddling his waist and placing her palms on his chest. He watches her, still with the keen look of a predator, but smiles when she brushes aside his hair. He strokes her arm slowly, waiting, sensing the question she is trying to ask.

“Do you always fuck like that when you want to eat dark-haired, pretty women?”

He rolls his eyes, smirking. “Perhaps.”

“You can’t, you know.”

“Can’t what? Eat her? Or fuck her?” There’s a challenge in his voice suddenly, a hint of anger that makes his words sound more like a growl, and Lene sighs with exasperation, pointedly pressing her hands down so that she is pinning him.

“I’m serious. She’s dangerous. I don’t have to smell her blood to know that. I don’t trust her.”

“No shit, Lene.” Roman’s tone is dismissive, and he sits up suddenly, throwing off their balance so that she has to grab one of his shoulders. Her legs slip around him, and he curls his arms around her waist.

If it were anyone else, she would think he was being protective. This type of hold from him, however, always suggests a type of cage.

She presses her forehead to his, finds herself nuzzling into his neck despite herself.

“Are you jealous of Harrow’s sister? A bag of boiling blood and a cunt full of razor teeth?”

The question comes with a taunt. Everything from him, it seems, comes with a taunt.

She wonders what jealousy is. If it somehow relates to the twist of emotions in her stomach. She finds herself, not for the first time, wondering how much of his trust and caring comes purely from the blood she gives him. All of his nihilism and cynicism and selfish motivation for survival seem to dissipate when they are together, when he has his teeth in her like a skilled hunter and she can feel the panicked fight of her heart, but it appears again so swiftly afterwards that sometimes she feels foolish. There is Roman and then there is the construction of him, the facsimile of the man she knows.

She thinks of Anders and what he would say, what he would think.

Roman makes a sound, a hum, from the back of his throat. He smooths his hands over her back, ghosting a kiss across her temple. “Come now, little lamb. Show me your jealousy.”

Lene bites his ear, annoyed. “Lambs are for sheep.”

He calls her a kid and she rolls her eyes at the pun, but the good-naturedness between them is fading quickly. She untangles herself from him, straightens her dress, fingering the tear in her sleeve. She’ll have to think of an excuse.

Roman rises slowly, perpetually languid, like a giant cat. His belt is still open around his hips, his shirt wrinkled. “Right, you should be going then.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure I’m back in time for breakfast.” Lene tosses the flippant remark over her shoulder, already out the door.
Her hair is too mussed and, although there are no bruises on her, she still feels a little weak. A side effect, she surmises, from his little nip. By the time she reaches the end of the corridor, she has found her usual militaristic gait, her face stoic and eyes dull.

When Augusta brushes past her, a stack of folders neatly tucked beneath her arm and a security badge attached to the collar of her dress, Lene bristles. She feels something inside her kick, an instinct that tells her to run.

Later, at dinner, she sees how Augusta speaks to Roman – low, confidential, her fingers touching the inside of his elbow. Harrow glowers nearby, threatened by his sister’s presence, annoyed by how his second in command smiles and laughs when Augusta makes a quip about universal equality amongst species. She hates her, suddenly and fiercely. Hates the smell of her, the dark fall of her hair, the sloe-eyed pull of her eyes and how she has crafted the allure of her lithe body into a weapon, a tool. She hates what she stands for and the family she represents.

Roman must sense it, some disturbance in her emotions, and he catches her eye with a grin. While Lene watches, he leans in and murmurs something in Augusta’s ear, something that has the brunette smirking and touching Roman’s knee in response.

Everything with him is a taunt.