Re: Venetian penthouse: Sam & Cris
Cris didn't think he was a complicated guy. He liked things the way he liked them. And he sure wasn't shy. His stances on things weren't kept secret, whether that was some bloated sense of entitlement or not, it was just how he was, always had been. He thought he was usually right, and he didn't do much second-guessing of his gut. But all that confidence, nature and nurture, it came hand-in-hand with his possessiveness, insecurity leading to jealousy—or whatever it was. He would never think of it that way. Maybe it seeded different even, rooted to some other cause and effect. But it was there. Backwards, traditional, whatever other people thought of it, it was there. He knew you couldn't own another person, but he was the kinda guy who believed in devotion, or his own version of it (probably talk for another day). And being the type who went in deep and went in fast, it never occurred to him to get acclimated. He went straight for boiling water, ocean vent seething, cooking from the inside out, and he got that as love.—He believed you should know the person, yeah, of course. But he didn't think it had to be whole. You got to know people over time, and you could love the parts of them you knew then.
But he knew Sam saw it different, and he knew about her history with Neil. And he wasn't gonna add to that bruise. He let the moment mellow, the girl's legs shifting between his, her knee to his thigh, and he sprawled there beneath her, taking up space like he deserved nothing less.—She brushed her cheek against his chest and Cris let his fingers rake through her hair again. He didn't think about the temporariness of the location. He traced her cheeks and she looked up at him, blue eyes blown black banishment, some votive candle lit to some saint remiss. She scoffed.
Cris grinned, watching Sam push herself up.
"No es mentira, cariño." He reached up where her hair hung down loose and twisted his fingers in the ends. His skin itched beneath the still-bloody dress pants, and he sat up too, scooping his arms under Sam to pull his legs out from beside her. Two fingers beneath her chin in a smart tap and he slid to this feet, urging malaise from marrow. "I got a good gut."
His panic had ebbed enough for him to circle that big bed. He dragged his shirt and vest inside the bedroom and closed the door on the disapproving face of the nurse. Cris undid his belt, he kicked off his shoes, and he went into the gaudy gilt bathroom to turn on water in the deep tub that took up a good quarter of the large space. The desperation, the devastation, sadness, the fear, the horror of it all and the seep of blood, it was all still there, on his skin, in his bones, muscles and joints, tethering his body together—but with Sam's weight still heavy on him as he moved, he felt... if he was cracked, him splitting apart was no longer a threat.
He didn't care that the bath was Neil's. Cris came back into the bedroom, and without much warning, scooped Sam up into his arms like she was nothing, tucked there against white shirt and chest. And in the bathroom, on tiles that reflected orbs of light, he held her as the water rose in the tub. If she didn't get free first, he bent close and all but dropped her into the warm water, scrubs and all, the water deep enough, suds rainbowing bright, that she wouldn't smack her head on polished marble.
If he was going to scrub Micah's blood off of his skin, the sweat and dirt too, well, she might as well join him. He wasn't grasping now, but he wanted her close.