moodshifter | Alice Cullen | Natasha Romanova

For just a moment, when Natasha leans back, Alice wonders if she should do the same, but instead she shifts to perch more firmly on Natasha's lap, knees on the bed beside her hips now, one hand resting lightly at her waist. It's still comfortable, it's still where she wants to be, and Alice visibly relaxes when Natasha comes back to her.

This time it's Alice who turns her head to press a kiss to Natasha's palm, eyes steady on her in a way that's different, softer than Jasper's intent attention. "We'll be nervous about it together," she agrees with a smile. "And then we won't be." She reaches up to take Natasha's face in both hands and leans in to kiss her again, still careful but more certain than before.

Alice still needs to be cautious—she can't risk losing herself entirely to this, no matter how good it feels, she needs to keep herself in check and in the moment, and it takes some concentration—but as it turns out, her nervousness extends only as long as it takes Natasha to start getting her out of her clothes, after which it's drowned out by enthusiasm on both sides. She stops thinking about twelve things at once and narrows it down to only two or three, and for a few breathless minutes, only one.

Natasha was so busy trying to remember the last time that she was with someone like this that she hadn't even considered, there was no last time. Holding Alice is strange but invigorating at the same time, her cool skin a different sensation from what Natasha expects every time she reaches out, and it's the first time that she's ever been with someone - anyone - because she wants to be, with no other motivation beyond simply that.

It's different because Alice's stamina doesn't seem to end, and it's not like she can ever be out of breath, so by the time they're finished Natasha has no idea how long they've been going; just that she's exhausted, lying beside Alice in bed with a rapidly moving chest and a light sheen of sweat on her skin.

She finally rolls on her side, scooping Alice up into her arms and dragging her close, grinning a little as she tucks her head into the nook of Alice's neck. "You're so cold." She grins pleasantly. "It's perfect."

Even with the assurance that Natasha was also nervous, Alice had hoped her inexperience wouldn't be too, well, inexperienced, but it hadn't been long before she'd stopped worrying about that. She giggles softly as Natasha curls into her with relief and wraps herself around Natasha, basking in the sheer heat of her.

"You're warm," she counters, pressing her lips to Natasha's sweat-streaked temple. "You're wonderful," she adds with a little sigh of contentment. She may not need to rest, or stop at all, but she'd lost track of time more than once in the warmth and scent of Natasha, and even now she's paying more attention to the way her breath is smoothing out in her lungs, her heart is slowing, her coiled muscles relaxing. "And beautiful." She smiles against Natasha's hair and closes her eyes. "Even more beautiful in person."

The beauty of feeling wanted within that moment is something that Natasha is almost positive she's never experienced before, because she's been complimented more times than she can count and yet this time it actually seems to matter. She smiles against Alice's skin, pressing a soft kiss to her neck before leaning up on her elbow to hover over the other woman with a grin.

"You're not so bad yourself," she teases warmly, leaning down to press another kiss to Alice's forehead. "Sweet," she grins, lips trailing down the side of her face, "with an amazing smile. An adorable nose..." Natasha huffs a quiet laugh before brushing her lips against Alice's chin. "Perfect lips." Another grin, and Natasha is slowly slipping to move atop of Alice once again, mouth trailing down her body between her breasts.

"And, you exhaust me." Natasha finally returns up to Alice's face so she can press another swift kiss to her lips, and then swing her leg to climb off of her. "I need to take a shower, and then I need to pass out. Which is a good thing."

Alice ducks her head as if blushing at the light kisses dusting over her skin—Natasha is good at making her feel as though she would be blushing if she could—and giggles, wrinkling her nose with a grin. She darts forward to catch Natasha's cheek in a kiss as she bounces off the bed too and stretches her arms up over her head, thoroughly unselfconscious.

"Good," she says simply, and slips forward to hug her once more, openly affectionate, before she starts to collect her clothes from where they'd been tossed as Natasha had removed each piece. "I'm going to get a snack." Jasper will be back soon, but she's going to change that by meeting him in the woods. It's true, she can't get tired, and in fact everything Natasha's been doing to her has her a little electrified. Another reason to meet Jasper in the woods, away from the house, to avoid disturbing Natasha when she deserves a good night's sleep.

Before Alice manages to slip out of the room Natasha gives her backside a firm pat that's paired with a wink before climbing into the shower, and once she's finished she collapses on the bed with such weariness that she's asleep before her head hits the pillow.

The only thing colder than the ice that she sits upon is the wind, snow mercilessly pelting the exposed skin of her face as she shivers fiercely beneath half of the large coat she shares with the woman sitting beside her. She huddles closer to Victoria for warmth, but the thin blonde is just as cold as she is. Natasha wonders whether she can feel it, too, the ice settling in so deep that it feels as if her bones themselves have become brittle enough to crack with movement.

They share the coat, a glove on Natasha's hand while the other is on Victoria's, and the hands with exposed skin are held tightly between them with fingers twined together and tucked between their two bodies.

The supplies are scattered. They each wear one boot on the foot exposed the most to the elements, their only hat, right now, on Victoria's head. The pack of food is used to try and block the open area of the coat that they can't quite close around themselves, nearly empty of food and supplies, and within it lies their only weapon; a handgun, with one bullet remaining in it's chamber.

"Мы должны продолжать двигаться," Natasha begins, forcing the words past chattering teeth. "Мы умрем, если останемся здесь."

"Я не могу." Victoria's response comes thick and heavy, but with a resolve that sends a different chill - icy fear - through Natasha's veins. "Мы не собираемся выбраться из этого вместе, Наталья."

"Не говори так." Natasha begins fiercely, the heat in her voice giving her the energy she needs to look over at the woman she grew up beside. "Не говори так, мы почти там, мы можем это сделать-"

"Мы не можем," Victoria argues with a new fierceness. "Мы использовали почти все наши материалы. Один из нас не может достичь, конечно, не обоих." Natasha stays silent, because she's certain that Victoria is right, and perhaps that isn't the worst thing. Perhaps they'll die here together, and it isn't the worst way to go. She's heard stories of people dying of the cold, that it ends with deliriousness, that they feel so overheated they strip off all their clothes and die in the ice. Maybe the warmth will come soon.

But then Victoria continues. "Это должна быть ты, Наталья."

The fear grows stronger, and Natasha lets go of Victoria's hand only to grab her arm fiercely between them, staring at her with desperation in her young eyes. "Виктория, нет! Мы можем сделать это, или мы оба можем умереть здесь. Мы можем сделать это вместе-"

Victoria pulls her arm away abruptly, and when she looks at Natasha there are tears in her eyes that fail to hide the powerful determination behind them. "Это должна быть ты, Наталья. Ты всегда был самым сильным. Если у кого-то есть шанс выбраться, это ты. Ты один."

When the world blurs, Natasha thinks that it's the heat starting to come, but she's still so cold. Her tears feel as if they're going to freeze to her skin. "Виктория..."

But she pulls away from Natasha's hand, tearing the hat off of her head to leave it in the snow along with the glove that she wears, and then with a struggle she begins to untie her boot. "Я больше не хочу так жить." Her voice wavers with emotion but she shows no fault in the way that she moves, her decision already made. The boot is off, and she struggles to get to her feet, leaving the coat.

Natasha will never forgive herself for the way that she grabs it and wraps it around herself completely with desperation.

"Тебе нужно выйти." Victoria is shivering madly now, digging around the pack and speaking loudly over the white noise of snow and wind. When she pulls out the pistol she stands once more, taking a step back.

Natasha is much too weak, too cold, to wrestle it out of her hands.

"Уничтожь их, Наталия, сделай это для нас. За то, что они сделали с нами. Обещай мне."

Natasha's throat feels like it's closed now, and she has to use so much force to get past it that she nearly screams. "Виктория, пожалуйста-"

Victoria speaks with anger in return. "Обещай мне, Наталья!"

She's shaking her head, frozen lips pressed together in a thin line with tears streaking down her face, but she replies, voice quiet and almost lost when it's carried away by the wind.

"Обещаю."

Victoria presses the barrel of the gun beneath her chin.

Natasha doesn't realize that the shocked scream is aloud. She doesn't realize that she's in bed, covered in a cold sweat with trembling hands, and no matter how many times she looks around the room she still sees the snow, and the ice. The white that blends into the sky and makes it impossible to see the horizon. She's trembling - or is she shivering - because she's cold, but the blankets are warm, and her face is wet with tears that she doesn't remember crying.

After Alice had intercepted him on his way home, they'd lingered in the woods. It had likely been for the best they'd been far from the house, curled together on a high pine branch overlooking the whole valley, when she'd told him in a whisper everything that had happened between Alice and Natasha. That way they don't disturb her rest.

They'd been back at the house for only a few minutes, Alice dancing off to take a shower of her own, when Jasper had reached out to Natasha and frowned. Unsettled, that's the top layer—even in sleep, there are layers to her, he'd noticed that on the drive—but as he listens, there's anger, sadness, and then a growing fear that expands shockingly fast to fill every available space, pressing everything else aside, a smothering balloon of fear. A dream. A nightmare. He's moving almost before he hears the scream.

She's awake when he gets there, but the fear hasn't ebbed, and he isn't entirely sure she's seeing what's around her. He doesn't turn on a light, just blurs across the room to kneel beside the bed, with that sharp stare trained on her. Alice would feel guilty later that she hadn't seen this coming, he thinks, but a dream isn't a decision. She'd never decide on this.

"Natalia." It's quiet and steady, in that soft accent that always triggers a delicious little mix of irritation and affection, and reaches out to rest cold fingertips against the back of one hand. "It's just a dream. Возвратитесь, Natalia."

It's merging now, two worlds that she finds herself stuck in and Natasha can't find her footing, her head split. She hears the name, her own, whispered in a soft male voice that in this moment doesn't seem familiar, but it's when his cold fingers touch the back of her hand that Natasha is triggered into action before the logical part of her mind can catch up with her. She jumps, lashing out immediately and swinging at him with the closed side of a fist directly to his throat.

He moves back rapidly enough to miss her, his speed finally clicking her mind back into the now, and Natasha's eyes suddenly widen with a different sort of fear as her hand quickly moves to cover her mouth. "Jasper! I'm sorry," it comes out quickly, voice wavering through thick emotion that she barely realizes is there. "I'm so sorry, I didn't-" recognize him? Finishing the sentence sounds ridiculous in her head, she's sure it would sound even worse aloud, but she quickly reaches out to him with trembling hands to grab onto his shoulders as if afraid that he's going to get up and leave her there. She doesn't want to be alone, although Natasha certainly wouldn't admit as much aloud.

"I didn't mean to..." her eyes are moving around the room again as she trails off; Forks. She's at their home, in their bed, after she and Alice... yes. The more time passes, the more she finds herself coming back into reality. "I don't know what happened," she admits after a lingering silence, her voice small and eyes on the window. Fall. There's no snow. She's warm. For some reason, the realization that it was a dream shakes her again, and Natasha feels another swell of emotion working its way to her throat, her head too clouded to hide it from Jasper even if she tried. "I'm sorry, I'm fine. I'm alright, it - was just a bad dream, I'm fine."

It takes him by surprise when she swings, but even with her speed, he's able to move in time. He almost doesn't, but he doesn't want her hurting herself on him, and in the end that's what makes his decision for him. He's silent as she catches herself up, watches her as she grounds herself on him and in the room, and as her emotions steady themselves into something that reflects what she's seeing now, not what she'd been seeing that had pushed her so off-balance.

He takes the hands on his shoulders as an invitation to move forward, sitting off to her side and linking his fingers around her waist, as always keeping his grip loose enough that she'd slip away easily if need be. "I will never make you feel anything you are not already feeling," he says quietly. "Never. My word on that. It's always going to be your choice. But I can help with this, if you want me to." He doesn't say a word about her lie that she's fine, her attempts to wrestle down everything she's felt, everything she's feeling now. He falls silent after that, leaving it to her to take him up on the offer, or not.

In any other situation Natasha would be actively aware of herself and the way she moves beside him, because they've made so much progress and she knows just how significant that is between them, but the moment that Jasper is close enough to wrap his arms around her waist Natasha is moving into him. She clings to his shirt, fingers curling into fabric as she tries to steady her breathing, and she presses her forehead against his chest with her eyes shut tightly because it's easier that way, if she can't see anything at all. She can reset if she does that, and put herself where she's supposed to be which is here with him, and not in the frozen tundra ten years ago.

Inviting anyone, even Jasper, to manipulate her emotions willingly immediately sends up a red flag, but she's too shaken to care in the moment. He's found her at a particularly vulnerable time. "Please," she pleads with him, giving a small nod and holding onto him tighter. "Just make it easier, I hate this. I hate this." She says it again with anger hissing, directed at herself instead of at him. Her next words are nearly inaudible, whispered at the end of a breath. "I can't wait until I never have to sleep again."

If anyone had told him a few months back that the thirst catching in his throat would someday be almost an afterthought, he would never have entertained the idea. Yet here he is, pulling her close, turning his head to rest his cheek against her hair. He reaches out very carefully to cradle her violent tangle of emotions. It would be easy to just suppress them all, send her to sleep, it's what he'd done to countless newborns for decades, but Natasha deserves more than that.

"I've done this with Alice," he murmurs, motionless as he focuses on the panic and the fear and the sorrow and eases them with a sensation like a cooling ointment on an angry burn. "The things she's seen...aren't always so easy to throw off. Fended off a whole attack once by sharing one of her visions with the Volturi, but it took its toll on her. One minute she was smiling and waving goodbye to some of our visitors, the next, on the floor sobbing." His voice stays quiet and steady, his touch still light on what she's feeling. "I did this for her then. She asked me to. You won't wake on your own again."

It could be the soothing lilt of his voice or the fact that he's actively trying to calm her; maybe it's both. Either way, Natasha can feel herself ease, the pounding of her heart slowing into more acceptable territory, and breathing comes easier. Natasha doesn't realize that she's shaking her head against him until she speaks, her voice already calmer with the sooth that he manages to place over her. "You don't have to do that." Because that's not what she wants; she doesn't want to feel as if they, the people who are trying to love her, need to babysit her as she sleeps.

It takes another lingering moment before she's able to look up at him, eyes still somewhat red from the tears that she still can't remember, but she reaches up to brush his hair from his eyes with a tender touch. Not because she needs to, but because she wants the contact right now and doesn't know how to reach out for it in any other way. "This happens sometimes." She takes a deep, somewhat rattling breath to ease herself more. "It's nothing, it hasn't happened in a while, I don't- I'm not sure why it happened tonight, I'm usually under a lot more stress when I...you know."

There's no judgment on his face when she's able to look at him, not even any sorrow or pity, just acceptance that this is the way things are for the time being. If all goes well, if her meeting the family goes as well as Jasper is hoping it will, she'll be changed within a week. Most humans would balk at the idea of never sleeping again, but she'll be leaving behind her nightmares.

"I won't stop you from trying to explain yourself, but I think we both know I don't find it at all a necessity," he says mildly, soothing away the last traces of the dream-inspired emotions and leaving it at that. She's still upset, but he isn't going to do more than he needs to. She deserves as little interference as possible. "I can read as well in here as anywhere else in the house, and besides." He leans forward to press his lips to her forehead, then before he can think better of it or change his mind, dips his head enough to brush her mouth in a brief and careful kiss, and continues in a whisper. "Keeping you company may be something that I've wanted to do."

At first Natasha's lips press together into a thin line, because yes, she knows that she doesn't need to explain herself and yet she feels it necessary to do so anyway. This isn't like her; shaking with fright in the aftermath of something that isn't real in the first place. Yet there's no way for Jasper to know that, he doesn't know the reputation that she carries on her shoulders. Jasper isn't aware of just how foolish this all really is, or how none of the people in her life would believe him if he retold the story, not that she thinks he ever would. This simply isn't Natasha; or it is, and she doesn't know it. That's possible, she knows, considering the fact that she barely knows who she truly is in the first place.

She can feel the last of her fear seeping away but it's the kiss, chaste and careful, that pulls her head out of the darkness. It takes effort - almost everything she has - not to chase after him, emotionally desperate for more. Instead she manages a quiet and shaky laugh, fingers still curled into his shirt, and she looks up at him with wide eyes that that ask him to stay there with her because she knows she'll never be able to find the words to convey that it's what she needs.

"I don't think I'd be good company asleep," she points out weakly, and after a moment of hesitation Natasha leans up to press another kiss to his cool lips, still chaste but purposeful this time and lingering. It's good for her too, the amount of effort she has to put in for self control. When she parts from him, she holds his shirt to try and keep him close. "...I don't think I'm going to be getting much sleep tonight anyway."

It doesn't take any sort of heightened senses to tell how much she wants him to stay. The grip she has on his shirt, the way she's being careful not to chase him off, it's more than enough, and it's all unnecessary. He's already made up his mind to stay, for the rest of tonight, and tomorrow night, and every time she's forced by her human nature to rest and risk her nightmares taking hold again. If that isn't what she wants, that's different.

His fingers slide through her hair, a soothing back-and-forth as he presses into the kiss himself, relishing a little the living heat of her, basking in it for as long as he's allowed to have it. And then that gives him pause. Even if there's been no corresponding searing spike in arousal, is that what she wants? He's gone entirely still again, suddenly very aware of her state of undress beneath the thin sheet, likely straight into bed from the shower, and why wouldn't she? There had been no way to predict her nightmares would bring him running like this.

"Don't feel you need to keep yourself awake on my account," he says after a moment, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I think it's for me to say, isn't it? I might find you delightful company, even asleep. It is something of a novelty, after all."

There's a sense of satisfaction that comes with kissing Jasper that Natasha hadn't expected, and it's there because she knows how much she's had to work for it. Realistically speaking Natasha has never had to work for the attention of any man, and although Jasper was never really a 'target' of hers, none of this was expected. Her lips are brushing against his, tracing the outline of his mouth before she feels it; a sudden change in his demeanor.

For a moment she falls still as well, as if uncertain as to whether or not she's pushed him too far again, but it doesn't take long for her to recognize what's happened. Only then does she realize that she's bare beneath the sheets, pressed up against him warm and almost needy, and although Natasha tilts her head into his touch she makes sure to keep her sheet steady to cover herself. Not for her, ironically, but for him.

"Novelty for you, perhaps," she counters with a weak smile, her eyes moving up to his face. "I can't sleep again after that or I'll fall back in. I need to give myself time."

There's a pause, as if she's uncertain whether or not she should mention anything, but in the end Natasha has never been truly shy. "Did I push you or is it just because I'm naked?" Her free hand moves out of his shirt so that she can push her messed hair out of her face to see him clearly. "Because I can put a shirt on." She'd rather not, but the poor thing is acting like he does when he wants to eat her. Which is... probably more attractive to Natasha than it should be, she makes a mental note to figure out that part of herself at a later date. "If you really want me to. If you're staying."

Her direct way of addressing the subject is something that shouldn't surprise him at all, even in this short time, and yet it still does. The question prompts a quiet laugh, and he ducks his head with a half-smile before glancing back at her, a little speculative now. It's a risk, a huge risk to both of them, and he doesn't know if he can trust himself with her. Alice hadn't mentioned, or even hinted, that something might happen between Jasper and Natasha when she'd been with him earlier.

"Maybe a little from both sides," he says, and pointedly keeps his eyes on her face. "You pushing me is certainly nothing new. I haven't yet had any experience of you being naked. I don't feel a need to put you out by requesting you be otherwise, but I am staying. I suppose that leaves it up to you."

If Natasha didn't know any better she'd think that she's flustered him, and she studies his face when he slowly works through his response. He's trying very hard to keep his eyes on her face, and Natasha can tell because they haven't moved, with is simply unnatural for someone in normal conversation, and a part of her wants to give this to him. He's trying to be a gentleman and she should really let him, it wouldn't be remarkably hard to confine herself to the bed and keep herself beneath the sheets for the sake of his virtue.

But Natasha is trying to be a good woman. Being a reformed woman is simply asking too much.

"You should know by now that passiveness isn't going to get you what you think you want, Dzhasper." She leans forward again, pressing a chaste kiss to his chin, and as she leans back Natasha simply lets the sheet in her hand drop to reveal a naked torso that she very obviously has no shame in revealing. This time, her eyes don't move from his face. She'll see how long he lasts.

"I think this is more comfortable."

As the sheet drops, he's startled, but Natasha's never been shy about the way she feels toward him, she's rarely been shy about anything, it's one of the increasing number of things that remind him of Alice. He doesn't look down, but there's a little gleam in his eyes now as he holds hers, the mischief that comes through more and more often around the people he's truly comfortable with.

It's a sizable temptation to look, she clearly wants to see if he's going to, she's testing him and pushing at him again like she often does. Except there's still something that's going to hold him back, something beyond his own hunger, not something he'd wanted to address if he could avoid it, but the topic might be looming now.

He loves his niece, but he's simply not going to risk putting Natasha through what Bella went through.

"Do you now," he murmurs. "Somehow that doesn't come as a surprise. From what Alice told me—and she told me quite a lot—I was under the impression she'd tired you out awfully thoroughly, Natalia."

"Is that what you two do when I'm sleeping? Talk about all of the fun things without me?" Natasha raises a challenging eyebrow, and she holds his gaze just as directly as he holds hers. It's a standoff but not quite, because they both know what the other is thinking. She wants him to look. By that glint in his eye and the way his voice lowers to a murmur with a deep tone that sends a little spark of heat through her, he wants to look. Natasha's only miscalculation is that she thinks he's simply holding back because of the same reasons, the obvious reasons, that he usually does, and if she thought those would be a concern she wouldn't have dropped the sheet in the first place. There are methods that she uses to work with him, and those methods can easily be transferred to the bedroom. In fact, it might be easier in bed, considering there's much more she can do to keep his mind preoccupied.

"Is that what you think of me? Easily exhausted after one afternoon?" She makes a 'tsk' of disappointment, and he still hasn't looked, so naturally she decides that she needs to turn up the heat. Natasha is no stranger to seducing men, and the fact that she knows this one - cares about this one - is only an advantage.

Her head tilts to the side but Natasha's eyes stay steady, and she moves her legs beneath her so that she can slowly rise into a kneel, the sheet carelessly falling away from the rest of her. She moves forward slowly, but the way she reaches for him is fluid; she isn't hesitating, she's simply taking her time as she places her hands on his shoulders to steady herself and boldly straddle his lap.

When their gaze breaks it's only because she allows it to, leaning forward to run warm lips up the line of his jaw so they can come to a stop at the lobe of his ear. "You came here to comfort me." She presses herself against him, her torso now flush against his body and her arms slinking their way around his shoulders. "So comfort me."

He goes still again, but he doesn't move away as she slinks her way into his lap and melts into him like a slow-moving wave. His hands move to her back as if drawn by a magnet, fingers brushing at her shoulder blades and sliding down to rest at the small of her back. She's like liquid heat against him, and a part of him wants to throw all caution to the winds.

"I think you know I want nothing more," he whispers, closing his eyes when she finally looks away from him, "but I can't risk...while you're still human, I can't risk anything...unexpected." He tips his head to the side, baring his throat to her lips. He hadn't wanted to bring this up, especially not right now, but it isn't right to refuse her without telling her the real reason why. "Bella and Edward celebrated their honeymoon while she was still human, and carrying her daughter to term nearly killed her."

His head tilts and Natasha follows, his gestures proving to her that he may be more on the same page with her than she had originally assumed, and she lets her full lips trace slow pathways down his throat before her tongue makes a gentle flick against his cool skin. That pride is back, silly and bubbly in a way that's still foreign to her, because just a few days ago he was forcefully standing still on a balcony outside so she could touch him. Now his bare fingers are moving against her back as she settles in his lap with nothing but the fabric of his clothing between them.

Although she knows that he's going to speak his protests aloud, they're not what she thought they were. The realization stabs her a little more painfully than he'd might expect, a sadness slowly wilting in her heart, but it's a soft one. The edges of it are tinted with a sort of peace that can only come from many years of acceptance, and Natasha lifts her head to look at him directly so he can see her when she gives him a somber smile.

"That's okay." Although it's ambiguous, it's obvious that she isn't referring to his rejection because she makes no effort to move off of him. Her eyes flicker away for barely a second before moving back to him and she shrugs one bare shoulder halfheartedly. "I'm sterile. I can't have children." She'd never mentioned it because she didn't think that it was relevant, and even now that's the only relevant part he needs to know. There's a change in her disposition, and after her admission she seems to shift from seduction to something more gentle. Natasha's arms move from his shoulders so she can push his long hair from his face, running her fingers through it to comb it away from his eyes, and she looks down at him with tranquility.

"We'll go slow," she promises, that hint of affection slipping in once again. "We'll do this together just like everything else." She leans in, but this time it's to press a soft kiss to his forehead, and Natasha trails it down between his eyes until she reaches the tip of his nose. She speaks with soft words as she starts to trace his lips. "YA nikogda ne doveryal muzhchine tak, kak ya tebe doveryayu, moy Dzhasper." She comes to settle with her forehead rested against his own, her eyes closed, and her hands find their place on his chest with her fingertips brushing over the buttons of his shirt.

"Ty yedinstvennyy, komu ya kogda-libo khotel posvyatit' sebya. Mne bylo ochen' teplo, tol'ko kogda ya s toboy ... YA khochu, chtoby ty pochuvstvoval eto, prezhde chem ya ne mogu bol'she eto tebe davat'. YA nikogda ne khotel delit'sya etim s kem-to yeshche. Tol'ko ty."

He listens, he always listens, watching her steadily before his eyes darken a little in confused surprise when she mentions it so casually. There's a little shiver in her, but hardly a flicker compared to what he might expect from something like that. He's curious—how has it happened? why is it such a distanced reaction?—but she doesn't explain, and he isn't going to ask. He isn't going to do that to her.

Every word she's speaking is the truth. She isn't hiding from him, not in this moment, and his hands move up her back to press her close. "Я удостаиваюсь чести," he whispers, and wraps his arms around her waist before shifting to lie on his back, pulling her flush against him. He'd thought about this, of course he had, and the thirst is there, but the hunger for her is stronger. "Я доверяю Вам, Наталии. Я доверяю Вам больше, чем я доверяю мне, но я доверяю Вам."

There's a lot of uncertainty in whether or not he's going to allow them to at least try, and Natasha has already decided that she's not going to push if he feels like he isn't ready. She thinks he is - she knows he is - but Jasper has to know that in order for her to be comfortable. When he responds there's a spark of excitement that he sends through her, and as he shifts to pull them both down on the bed with her lying atop him she feels it again; that wave of affection that's still so foreign to her, and she lets it wash over him without any walls between them. It's about connecting to him, but Jasper isn't the only one between the two of them who has to work past a drive that comes too naturally; his is hunger. Her's is hiding.

She leans down to kiss him slowly, and this time Natasha pours everything that she'd try to hide over him for him to feel; anticipation, excitement, affection and, most dangerously, adoration. She keeps it exposed for him in defiance of herself, and as she does her his slowly rock in his lap to give him friction to focus on.

When she parts it's just enough for him to see her face clearly, her hair framing them as her fingers start to work slowly at unbuttoning his shirt. "I ya, ty. Lyudi ran'she mne doveryali, ty pervyy, kto kogda-libo zastavlyal menya khotet' dokazat', chto ya etogo zasluzhivayu." When she gets his shirt open she lets it hang loosely, kissing a trail up his chest to his jaw onto to find her home at his lips once more. She smiles against him. "But I can't do that if we don't get you out of these pants."

He doesn't even try to hide the way he basks in the waves of emotion breaking over him as she kisses him. His hands slide up her back to her shoulders, back down, curving over her hips as they shift purposefully against his. It goes against her nature in a way to be this open, and it's an honor for him to be graced with her trust.

His hands slide up her back again before he traces the edges of her face, slips his fingers into her hair. "Well," he whispers, "as you've asked so nicely." His lips brush against hers, still light and careful as he rolls them over, puts her onto her back, and slips away to stand beside the bed. He doesn't look away from her as he sheds his shirt, casually unfastens his pants, lets them fall. Like this, he has almost the same level of cavalier unselfconsciousness that Alice has, if tempered a little by that quirked half-smile that appears so often.

The bites are crowded on his arms, but there's no shortage of half-moon teeth marks on his torso, his collarbones, over his ribs, even a deep mark on his hip, but he makes no move to hide them as he moves back toward her, slinking onto his side and reaching out to run a hand over the curve of her hip. "Better?"

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