justprompts: What is your favorite way to spend a day off?

[hecalledmeivy]

At times, Ivy could really be a sweet girl. She was well-behaved, most of the time, and nice, most of the time, and conscientious, most of the time.

Then there were times when she wasn't Ivy at all, when she was the Archive, and then she wasn't sweet at all. She was five thousand years old, and the age of the body didn't matter at all.

And then there were times when the age of the body did matter.

That had become clear when she had been abducted at eleven. It had shone through a few more times during the years, and could well be summed up as... 'difficult adolescence'.

For no matter how powerful the spirit within was, there were hormonal tides that just would not comply to that control. There were unexpected tear storms at thirteen, and even a couple of vague occasions that, if they weren't aborted in a timely fashion, could almost be regarded as trying to run away from home, a few weeks after her fifteenth birthday. It was - slightly, probably, for some people - better than attempted suicide, but she'd drunk that cup in the previous generation, and she knew she owed herself a heiress, so she didn't go that far.

But sixteen... sixteen marked a different approach to puberty.

Sixteen marked the time when she finally realized just how much she wanted Kincaid.

Of course, certain memories from maternal predecessors may have had a part in that realization. As well as the fact that he'd been there for her when she'd been emotionally so broken down that she didn't know what to do next, and that hadn't happened to her in millennia.

But in the end, it may have been just because Kincaid was, well, one very good-looking man, and he was there, all the time.

When she didn't have particular duties, she sometimes loved spending entire days soaking knowledge from around the world... while watching him, lazily, go about his daily routines.
Working out, for example.

And one day, it was too much.

It was a warm day, and she was herself sweating under the thin linen robe, but watching him do his exercises, muscles rippling under the slightly tanned skin, the golden hair going slick with perspiration, the load of the body registering minorly, but for her, very noticeably on his face... the way his breath came out in small grunts at times... Well, it all made it feel a whole lot more hot.

When he vanished to shower, she almost wanted to follow him there, but for some reason that seemed too much like trapping him. And really trapping Jared Kincaid was not a good idea, and she knew that well enough by now.

Instead, she was waiting for him, in his room, as he stepped out of the bathroom.

Very wet. Towel negligently - and lowly - wrapped around his hips, so the water dripping from his hair and chin slid along his skin, collected in little pathways, and found its way, inevitably, towards the midrift that she couldn't keep her eyes off from, now and again.

While a part of her claimed, emphatically, that what she was doing wasn't exactly a good idea, she quite well knew it was what she wanted. Desired.
And her smile was sweet.

Even if her eyes were intent, playing between his eyes, his lips, and further down.

She inhaled slowly, and her voice was easy. Well, not quite.

"Smells good."

Comments

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

Uh. Crap.

Kincaid wasn't exactly body shy. He had nothing to be ashamed of, and where Ivy was concerned, nothing to hide for the sake of hiding something. It wasn't as though she didn't know what guys looked like, after all.

It wasn't as though she didn't know what he looked like. Not Ivy, herself, but the Archive. The memories of two women, one brief, one slightly longer.

In Kincaid's mind those women were dead. He had mourned them, he sometimes faintly missed them, but that was past. Ivy was the present, and the future. And their relationship had always been one of caretaker and child, guardian and guarded. Bodyguard and client.

Until now, apparently. The way she was looking at him, only an idiot would have missed that she clearly was interested in something that did not fall into the description of their current relationship. And while Kincaid had known her adolescence was going to be trouble, he'd somehow managed to conveniently forget the part when girls found out what boys were for and became insanely curious.

"Ivy," he said, with as much authority as he could manage dripping wet and only in a towel. "Shouldn't you be..."

He couldn't think of what she was supposed to be doing. But she wasn't supposed to be here, was the main point.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

"Hmmm?" Ivy stepped closer, the smile losing some of its sweetness but none of its brightness. "Oh! You're right...

"I ... do believe I'm somewhat overdressed right now." She shrugged off the shoulder straps of the linen dress, then wiggled slightly until the loose garment dropped around her feet. She did strike a pose - but it wasn't forced, it was just the position of her body that the memories of thousands of women in her mind prompted her would attract his attention best. Any man's attention. Especially with a body like hers.

Bra? What bra? She wasn't wearing that, either because the day was too hot and she hadn't bothered, or because, well, she'd had the time he took to shower to get ready for this...

She stepped out of the circle of the robe and even closer to him. Close enough to be able to hear his breathing... well. Close enough for touch at a very small movement.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

Oh. Crap!

Uh. Wow.

Um. There were objections. He'd had objections, reasons, all kinds of well-founded arguments against what his body, his instincts wanted to do.

And the sad thing was, being male, it had to be obvious. Not too obvious yet, although with time or the slightest bit of movement on her part that could change. But his breathing was just a little quicker a little shallower. His eyes were certainly wide; as wide as dinner plates. He blinked.

"Uh..." he managed. Took a breath. Put his hands on her shoulders both to halfway brace himself and to nudge her a step or two back. In a second. "No... no, I think..."

... and then the pitfall hit him. Shit. He couldn't say that, she would take it as a... he wasn't sure what she would take it as but it wouldn't end well. And he really didn't want to go chasing after a naked teenage girl, with himself wearing only a towel, right now.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

She didn't let him talk more. Thinking didn't really factor much right now, and a part of her was really, really adamant that was the wrong way to approach any situation.

But that part of her didn't have the control over her headlights erect nipples, or her body, slightly flushing in anticipation, nor her arms slipping up around his neck.

Nor her face rising up to his, lips meeting lips as her body pressed to his in a half-step, nor her mouth, hungry, asking, inviting, invading, against his.

And while she really wasn't listening to the wisdom of those who came before her, she was certainly drawing on their experience. Of five thousand of years' worth of mothers. Who'd kissed, and kissed, and kissed, and knew every nuance of how that went.

And on the experience of the two who knew what each tiny shift in his kissing meant.

Oh yes, it was a kiss molded to him. Because, after all, Kincaid was absolutely unique in her life. She could do no less than appreciate him. Please him. Completely.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

After two lovers from her bloodline and taking care of a handful of adolescent girls from the same, you'd think he'd be used this this. But, boy, he'd never anticipated this.

The first few reactions were involuntary. Almost animalistic. The tightening of his fingers on her shoulders, the press of his body to hers. The way his mouth responded to the kiss, eagerly, for the first two seconds or so. The way his body responded to hers whether he wanted it to or not.

Oh yes, he wanted her. Badly. Achingly. And nothing but a towel separated them right now.

Less than nothing separated the brush of her brests against his body, and of all things it was the sensation of her lust-taut nipples that did it, so incongruous with everything else they had shared and done. It was just... years of calling her 'Midget' and packing her lunch boxes. Hell, he'd gone with her to buy her first training bras, even if he'd stayed the hell out of the women's lingerie area.

(The shop lady had been amused at that one. Said it was cute of him to take his daughter out like this. If only she knew.)

The point was, this couldn't happen. And so his fingers flexed and tightened again on her shoulders, this time to hold her there while he stepped back and put a few more inches between them.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

Softly, without tensing, she just didn't move even a thousandth of an inch further than he held her. Her eyes fluttered open and focused on his, reading every nuance, the dilated pupils... the look he was giving her, and her lips stretched into a smile again as she detected the determination mixed with... lust. Oh it was there all right.

My flesh was all too willing, my spirit guide was weak...

Her hand slipped down from around his neck in the space he'd left between them, fingers trailing, sloooowly, down his chest, the muscled abdomen, then sliding around the edge of the towel, tracing it over his skin. She didn't even need to look down, even though he'd stepped away.

She licked her lips and glanced briefly down to his, then into his eyes again. "That felt good." It wasn't a question, really. She knew it had for him too.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

"I bet it did." He didn't deny that it had. It would have been pointless anyway; it was pretty well impossible for a guy to say that something hadn't felt good when his towel was starting to show a good impression of a tent pole.

And now she was touching.

Right, no. He reached down and grabbed her hand, curling her fingers into a little ball and his fingers around hers. And then he took another small step back.

"But this is where it stops." Firmly. And gently, pushing her hand back to her side.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

Ivy blinked in confusion. He... what?

The smile was replaced by an honest, disappointed pout surprisingly quickly, and her eyes went all round and blue. Her other hand's fingers curled involuntarily where they were, around his neck, her thumb brushing over his earlobe, but she didn't move to break her hand from his.

Her voice was tight though. "But... why?"

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

He didn't push her any further away, as much to keep an eye and one hand on her in case she decided to bolt as anything. Also because he did feel pretty bad about crushing her... well, her crush this way.

"I can't do this, Ivy," he told her quietly. Which was roughly the equivalent of It's not you, it's me. "I'm your bodyguard, for one thing. Not your boyfriend." He shouldn't even be her friend, but they'd crossed that line long ago and never looked back.

"For another... you're sixteen. You don't know what you want yet." Reason might help. "Not in the long term. I'm here, and I'm convenient. But I'm not what you need. You need..."

Hell if he knew. Someone her own age, but how did you define that to someone who was both sixteen and, for all he knew, sixteen thousand at the same time? Someone who didn't have all his... issues.

"Someone you can experiment with. Someone you can be free to be with. Not me."

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

Referring to the quite-obvious, she replied softly, emphasizing the end of the sentence with another, brief and over before he could pull away, kiss. "It seems to me that you, well, can. And as you know," her voice did acquire a slight edge - but one of more hormones, not experience talking, "I know exactly what I want. I always know what I want, or haven't you noticed?"

She moved her head so her lips were almost brushing against his ear, and spoke very quietly, but very closely. "I am not talking about the long run. I am talking about here, and now. About not thinking, but doing. Feeling. And I feel - strongly. For you."

It wasn't about experimenting. She had thousands upon thousands of experimenting girls in her memories.

The back of her fingers brushed against his heart. "I am free from anyone else." Truth.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

He closed his eyes for a moment and managed, mostly, to swallow the small groan. Partly a groan of sheer lust because, yes, she was attractive. And close. Very close.

Partly because he really didn't want to hurt her and he didn't know how to get out of this without doing so.

"I'm not," he muttered, thinking of something. "Murphy will try to arrest me if she thinks I slept with a sixteen year old."

Not that he was actually involved with Murphy in any kind of solid relationship way. But he kind of liked her. And he really didn't want to get arrested. Cops didn't like it when you broke out of prison.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

"Then we don't need to let her know, do we?" Ivy suckled gently at his earlobe, then trailed kisses down his chin, then up till her lips brushed his again. "You haven't even called her in ages." Of course, 'ages' was from the perspective of the 16-year-old, a dry voice in her head noted.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

Definitely a groan there. It hadn't seemed like that long to him since he'd talked to Murphy. Then again, it also hadn't seemed like that long since he'd had sex, and Ivy was sure changing his mind about that in a hurry.

He closed his eyes, hated himself a little for it, and kissed her. Softly. Chastely.

Of course he didn't hate himself for it nearly as much as he would have if he hadn't been using it as a distraction to get her hands pinned behind her back. At least, that was the plan.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

He must have known... or maybe in all his centuries of experience, he'd not deemed appropriate to deny such advances before. But he should have guessed that kissing back, even this softly, was going to be seen as an encouragement. Even if the dry voice did remind her that it wasn't a proper Kincaid kiss.

He also must have known that pinning her hands behind her back would make her chest pop forward and press closer into his.

Between the two, dry voices in her head or registering any of his objections totally blanked out, as she couldn't help a small moan. Her leg moved forward, stepping between his feet, and she pressed the inside of her thigh against the inside of his.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

Aw, fuck. It wasn't so much the awkward angle of her torso as suddenly he had to lock himself in place to keep from... encouraging her. And if by some miracle she hadn't noticed how much she'd... encouraged him before, she damn well could feel it now.

As he could feel her. And it just made the wanting that much more. Goddamn, he was so frustrated right about now.

Which ocassioned the small growl as he tightened his grip on her wrists, took a breath, and spun her around. Which meant his voice was low and harsh, not with anger, with something entirely different.

"All right, move." He pushed her forward, shifting her two tiny wrists into a one-hand grip and putting his other hand in the small of her back. Nudging her in the direction of her room and, more importantly, out of his.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

The turning around surprised her and made her open her eyes widely, breaking the moment, but oh yes, she could feel him. It seemed like her entire skin was overly sensitive, feeling his body against hers. Warmth that was different. Better.

Feeling his hand where it was sent a pleasant feeling in the area, and his words and nudging took a moment to penetrate into her thoughts, making her step forward somewhat slower than he did. Meaning she more or less remained stationary while he tried to move forward. Onto her.

She liked that.

But she'd also spent years depending on him for security, and 'move' did mean 'move'. So she did. Even if slowly, not pulling too much ahead from him. No more than she could help.

Of course, her room was also a bedroom...

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

Urk. Um. Yeah.

He was probably going to lose that towel at some point; it wasn't that tightly wrapped. And the way he'd almost tripped up and bumped against her was enough to just about seal the deal. Fuck.

Or, well, no. No fucking, no shagging, no humping, no love-making, no sex whatsoever. He really needed new curse words.

She was moving slowly, but at least she was moving. Out of his bedroom, and he turned her as gently as he could manage and still be firm and unyielding (stop that) and marched her down the hall. Another turn, and into her bedroom.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

Right, her room. Which he probably had often inspected for potential threats - at least every time they came home from an absence, and such.

But right now currently-favored musky scent might have an effect on both of them that he probably didn't plan on when he navigated her here. She redecorated her room regularly to be appropriate for her age, and now... it was very much a young woman's room. Well, a rather neat teen-young woman's. There wasn't much that was unnecessary in it - but there was a bed. Soft one.

She looked up at him, sideways through her hair, her eyes lidded, and her tongue ran over her lips as she twisted her wrist to give his fingers a squeeze. Or a tickle. Or a caress. Or all three.

Her body couldn't quite press against his, what with the arms of both of them between them, but maybe he could feel the toes of one her feet caressing his ankle, and then slowly sliding up along the inside of his calf...

"Yeah, I guess it's nicer here?" Oh. She hadn't meant her own voice to be quite this... husky.
Although it seemed appropriate right then.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

He had this little mantra running through his head by now. This is not going to happen. This is not going to happen. No matter how much she looked at him like that, or touched him, or, well. At least she couldn't do much from that angle.

He didn't comment or answer her. Wasn't entirely sure about the adviseability of this, all things considered.

But he couldn't think of anything else to do right now. Partly because he hadn't had that much experience with teenage girls, previous experience with the Archive aside. Also because she had had an effect on him and there was more than just pure physical lust leading him to the bed. There were a few fantasies flickering through his mind, and she might be surprised by some of them.

Maybe not. And either way, this was not going to happen.

He turned her around once they reached the bed and released her hands, half-pushing her down, sitting her on the edge of the bed with his hands on her shoulders again.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

Now he was placing her very suggestively, wasn't he? She caught herself at the edge of the bed with one hand, while the other...

The other found his knee and caressed the inside of that while she tilted her head up to look at him, eyes wide (and pupils dilated), mouth half-open (and lips a bit pink), cheeks flushed.

It was all the warning of a slight lift of her eyebrows, and then her fingers were opening the knot of the towel - which more or less fell apart at her touch - which he didn't seem to need anymore. In her opinion at least.

Not that the sight it was going to reveal was exactly new for her. But there was him, in her bedroom, like this, and anything could happen.

So why hurry? She held the edges of the towel, and instead of dropping it, she moved to open it.

Oh wait, was there something about trapping the Hellhound earlier? That didn't apply when he was providing the rope to hold him in with.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

Well. He supposed it could have been worse. And his mind was supplying him with detailed thoughts of how much worse, or better, it could have been.

This is not going to happen. This is not going to happen.

"This is not going to happen," he told himself as well as her, taking her hand and moving it away, attempting to make her let go of the towel so he could back up.

The fact that he was now entirely nude didn't really bother him. It was more what she so blatantly intended to do with his nudity.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

Wh- "What?" That had been meant to be a surprised, even if a little sharp question.

Only she got distracted. Some part of her awareness kicked in to the fact that he meant not going to happen.

Another part of her mind decided she had no idea why he thought not anyway. Nobody would get hurt. And he obviously didn't find the idea unattractive. At all. Honestly. Her lips found the tip of the now-revealed 'tent' pole and she did let go of the towel. After a long moment when they lingered there, she finished asking - repeating? - her question. "Why?"

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

For all his willpower he couldn't stop the low moan that slipped out when she touched him like that. For a moment all he could think of was her mouth, on him, and all the ways that could feel so damn good.

He'd had a lot more arguments before she'd started this. Now he could barely come up with an answer to her 'why.'

"Because it's a bad idea," he managed, hoarsely. She'd let go at least. He could take a step back. Which he did, although it was far from steady.

"It's just... a bad idea."

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

Getting away? She was up on her feet again in an instant, her arms around his shoulders and her mouth by his ear again and she spoke softly, enticingly, "is it? This isn't exactly a spur-of-the-moment decision, you know."

One of her hands trailed down his spine, then up along the muscled back as she kept on talking. "No... you aren't my boyfriend, I know that. I don't have one. You're so much more. And you know you can be even more, right here, right now, if you'd just..."

Ivy froze. Not just stopped moving and talking; she just went frigid, muscles tensed all of a sudden, and her eyes very, very wide. After a heartbeat, she tried to step back and actually tripped over the edge of the bed, sitting back onto it, her hands flying to cover her mouth as blood drained from her face.

She was having flashes. Of voices whispering in her ear enticingly. How much more she could be, how all the pain would stop, if she would just...

If she would just pick up that little coin.

No... no... no... no... for moments, she didn't even see her room, nor felt the heat of the day that had bothered her earlier - it was an island in Lake Michigan, it was a cruel winter and she was naked and...

She was doing what they had done. Wasn't she.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

Shit.

He didn't know, specifically, what caused her sudden retreat, what caused her to go from sixteen year old vamp to scared little girl in seconds. But this, at least, he was far more prepared to handle.

State of undress forgotten or at least pushed to the side for the moment, he dropped to one knee and put his hands on her shoulders, pulling her forward a little so he could hold her. "Ivy." The name Dresden had given her, the name she had taken for her own; they both liked it, she kept it, and it gave her a point to anchor herself to, not the Archive. Herself, the growing girl.

He'd always liked Dresden a little for that, and he sometimes wondered if the wizard had figured that out.

"Ivy..." Soft. Steady. "Hey, there..." Come on, talk to me.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

What have I done?

The blue eyes, wide open still, brimmed with tears, but they didn't spill. She didn't deserve crying for, not for...

Through interlaced fingers, she started whispering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Jared, I didn't mean to, I'm just like them, I'm sorry..."

It wasn't often that she used his first name, really. But she wasn't talking to the figure that was there. She was trying to apologize to the person inside... the inner person that she had tried to violate in a way that - she should know better than most - hurt and hurt for years and years...
Even if the name was not the one he had been given all those years back, at the very beginning. It was the most direct way she could think of to try and reach him, to get him to feel that she meant it.

He'd tried to stop her. But it had seemed so... right.

It wasn't.

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

"Oh, sweetie..." He sighed. It wasn't as though he had to think too hard to figure out what she meant. Who she meant.

Damn. He hadn't meant for this to happen either, although he hadn't exactly caused it, either. Just one of those things.

"It's okay," he murmured, stroking her hair. Turning her loose long enough to grab the quilt folded at the end of her bed and bundle her up in it. "Shh... it's okay, sweetheart. It's all right."

He sat next to her on the bed this time, tugging her into his arms. No qualms about doing so when it was like this, when it was them, for comfort and for company.

[hecalledmeivy.livejournal.com]

Oh no, he hadn't caused it. She had, all on her own.

She leaned her forehead on his shoulder, then shuddered and threw her arms around him, clinging. "I'm sorry, I am. I wanted to, but ..." She swallowed and added, absolutely honestly now. "...not if you don't."

Oh wait, she wasn't supposed to cry for herself, right? Why was she then?

[houndforhire.livejournal.com]

He smiled a little, combing his fingers through her hair, still holding her and saying nothing at first. He wasn't sure whether or not it was a good idea to say what he was thinking.

"It's too soon," he said, finally. "Give it some time, okay? Let things settle down for you and..." with a slightly rueful smile. "Give me some time to get used to the idea of you as a grown-up. And then... we'll see."

If she grew up, or at least, got out of the rampant teenage hormones phase, and still wanted him... he'd figure out what to do then.