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.
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.
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.
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?"
It's never been like this, Natasha realizes almost immediately. Even earlier today with Alice had been somewhat mindless in the way where Natasha didn't have to be so aware of herself and her movements, because Alice doesn't seem to have the same sense of hesitation as Jasper does.
She also didn't feel vulnerable with Alice. It's one thing to crawl into bed with someone who can see the future, but someone who can see her on levels that she's never wanted to be seen is a different animal. Sex is a weapon, it's used to lure people in and entwine them in the carefully crafted web she's spent her time weaving and nothing else. Love is for children, after all.
But she won't hide herself behind the carefully constructed walls she learned to build when she was a young girl. Although she's never been one to believe in equal footing, Jasper's put out enough of an obvious effort for her to know that she needs to meet him at least half way. It's terrifying, but she's been terrified before. This is the best kind.
It takes effort to not cling to him when he presses her on her back only to get out of bed, but she lets him go and her eyes follow him as he disrobes beside the bed. Natasha can't help but wonder what those who know her would think of him; he's not her 'type'. The world around her is filled with men who are quite easily double her size, but Jasper is lean; tall, but thin. Yet she's certain she's never been so attracted to a man the way she is to him, and she has to wonder if it has anything to do with the way he makes her feel when she simply thinks of him, let alone spends her time with him.
"Much." His curved smile is returned with one of her own, but instead of climbing atop of him immediately Natasha decides to lie beside him on her side, her eyes wandering his body as she reaches out a hand. Fingertips brush slowly down his arms to trace the scars that her eyes fell to immediately, bite marks and all of them different. He had mentioned that he was in a vampire war, and she supposes nobody gets out of something like that without a few reminders. She has a few of them herself. "I guess they don't go away after the change?" She'll admit that she was wondering, her own scars reminders of a past that she wouldn't mind leaving behind, but she's carried them for this long; she's used to them now.
Once her touch starts to circle the mark on his hip she moves it down, feathering the bone of his pelvis before her hand flattens and moves up his stomach to his chest. Her eyes follow for a moment before meeting his again, and there's curiosity there but she doesn't ask. If she asks him about his scars, she's opening the door for him to ask her about her own. Not exactly pillow talk.
Instead, Natasha lets her hand come to rest on his shoulder, and she gently leads him to lie on his back before her leg slides it's way over him and she rises again. The lack of same hasn't changed from when she first dropped the sheet she was using to cover herself, and this time she sits up straight to look down at him beneath her as she settles on his legs. This time when she meets his eye it's with a mischievous smile, and Natasha's hand moves against his thigh slowly with almost too much patience. She said that she'd take it slow and she meant it, but she doubts that Jasper knows exactly how difficult that is for her to accomplish.
At first she simply brushes against him, a run of her palm over his shaft to get a feel for his body, and once she does she bends at the hips to lean down and run a warm mouth up his full length. Despite her reputation Natasha has no intention on teasing him, her focus fully on delivering what she told him; she won't always be able to make him feel her warmth. For only a moment she lets her tongue twist around his tip in an experimental taste before her lips part and she pulls him in, taking him halfway and wrapping her lips around him tightly. She takes her time, moving over him fluidly for just enough time to get him fully erect before he leaves her mouth only to be replaced with a slowly stroking hand as she looks up his body at him through her lashes.
"You're sure?" She has to ask. Natasha's never been so concerned that she's pushing someone into something past their comfort zone; that's what she does. Maybe it's why she needs the reassurance that right now, that isn't the case.
"Oh, they do," he murmurs as she traces his scars, "as long as you get them before." Every mark he carries now has come from after the change, each one a souvenir of a newborn lucky enough to get the bite in, unlucky enough to get the bite in on him. Hundreds, maybe thousands, all of them dead by his hand. It used to flood him with guilt, but he's realized more recently that his guilt comes less from his regrets at his actions and more from the fact that these gentle people he's surrounded himself with have been burdened with the knowledge of those deaths.
Natasha isn't one of those people. He doesn't need to feel as though he's burdening her with that knowledge. So he doesn't shy away from her exploration of his scars, although he doesn't elaborate yet either. Plenty of time to tell his stories, possibly even a few he's held back from relating before, for the sake of propriety. There's something singularly fascinating about having found someone who won't shy away from anything he's done, someone he can talk to who won't brush it aside with a placating 'you never need to do that again.' Yes, it's a relief to know he won't need to be that particular flavor of monster again, but that doesn't mean it hadn't happened.
He moves easily enough when she moves him, unresisting, letting her set the pace and the position. He'd learned from his brother's mistakes, he supposes, but giving her this measure of control may have been a mistake, if she's going to use it to draw things out to this extent. His eyes never waver from her as she settles on him and smiles, and when she finally leans over to tease at him and taste, he exhales slowly and takes the risk of reaching out to slide fingers through her hair, just once before he pulls his hand back. It's a struggle not to move, but he knows he's very likely to move too quickly, with too much strength, and so he stays still, unblinking, savoring the heat from her hands and her mouth, even the warm weight on his legs as she's perched there. It's a gift, and he's going to treat it as such, but the question makes him smile and sit up just enough to be able to reach out and cup her cheek carefully.
"I am," he says simply, tracing her cheekbone with a thumb. "I'm sure, Natalia."
It's a powerful show of trust when Natasha turns her head to kiss the inside of Jasper's wrist in acceptance of his reassurance, and the fact that he can't possibly know that is one of the reasons she feels so deeply for him. Everything that he says to her can be taken at face value, Jasper feels to her as if he's come from a different world that isn't riddled with espionage and covert operations; he speaks several languages, and yet falsehoods simply doesn't seem to be one of them. He's complex, but he's simple in all the ways she needs, and when she finds it so easy to trust him Natasha feels like a normal person in those moments.
Instead of letting him lie back once more Natasha takes his hand, fingers curling around it to hold it from her face, and she gives a gentle tug to slowly drag him so he can sit up fully. Rising to her knees Natasha moves up his legs only to lower herself back down in his lap, his erection resting between them comfortably so she can roll her hips with the same languid pace as before to deliver a pleasing sense of friction. As she settles herself her eyes never leave him, every shift certain with fluidity that's rooted in confidence, and this time her gaze has nothing to do with making sure that he's alright and everything to do with the simple desire to see him. An arm wraps around his shoulders as her other hand guides his to her waist, and she only looks down for a moment to move his second to rest on her hip before her attention is directly his once more.
There's no need to ask again, her faith in him almost concerning if she cared enough to take the time to analyze it, so Natasha pushes forward by leaning down and pulling him into another unhurried kiss, and this time she savors it as the arm that isn't wrapped around him moves down between them to take a firm hold of him. When she parts it's only to rise up, and this time when she holds eye contact it's because she wants to see him now, in this moment particularly, which is ridiculous; Natasha isn't the sentimental type, or she wasn't before. Perhaps she is now, and that's simply one of the things she's learned about herself by being with him and Alice.
As she lowers herself back down Natasha guides him, her hand only moving from his base when she feels him breach her so she can, instead, grab onto his shoulder and keep herself steady. She moves with patience, her grip on his bare skin tightening only once with a paired flex of her jaw as she feels him sink deeper, and when Natasha finally feels herself flush against his groin she lets out a slow and almost pleased sigh through her nose. Her arms switch, one wrapping around him comfortably while the other returns so she can run her fingers affectionately through his hair to push it out of his eyes yet again, and for a few sweet lingering moments Natasha simply stays there, basking in the way it feels to be filled by him and wondering why, this time, it's so different.
Why does she feel as if she can stay in this moment for an eternity and be just fine with that, despite having no expectation or goal behind her motivations to be here? Why is it that being this close to him, despite her vulnerability in every way imaginable, does Natasha feel safe and at peace for the first time in her short but much too long life? The answer comes so simply in her head, and so immediately that it almost startles her because it feels as if it should be complicated and terrifying, wrapped in layers of questions and doubt. It isn't, though. Natasha realizes that she loves him, and it should frighten her how deep that goes; how thoroughly it's managed to tangle itself around her despite slipping past her guard in the first place. Yet there isn't a touch of fear to be found, and Natasha has to wonder if that's a part of the whole concept of love in the first place. She hopes so. What a wonderful idea.
Although she's far from ashamed, Natasha doesn't speak her realization aloud; it's not the time. Saying it now feels as if it might not hold as much weight, because people are usually swayed emotionally in situations like this, aren't they? She can't have Jasper believing that's the case, so instead she leans in to kiss him once more with his face still firmly in the palm of her hand, and she starts to move again, hips rolling to a steady rhythm that she sets for them to start them off.
There's a lot going on in her head, he doesn't need Edward's ability to know that much. Everything she does, he accepts, moving with her, pliant and open. There's no need to put up a front with her, there never has been, and he wouldn't insult her by trying. He doesn't look away from her face for a moment, not when she pulls him forward into a kiss, when she lifts herself up, not even when she presses deliciously down and surrounds him with her heat.
This isn't something he's ever felt, and as she settles against him he lets his eyes fall closed, basking in the emotions pouring out of her as much as the vibrant heat everywhere they touch. And when her revelation arrives, he's in a perfect position to feel it flowing out alongside everything else. She loves him. It prompts him to look at her again, head tipped a bit to the side, but he holds onto the silence between them, just carefully wrapping one arm around her waist and twining the fingers of his other hand through her hair as she kisses him again.
It's important that she stay in control for this, and when he finally shifts his hips it's to answer the pace she's setting. She's fiery and sharp-edged, he loves that about her, but the care he needs to take with her, the slow pace they need to maintain, it all makes coming together like this somehow sweeter than he'd expected. The kiss lingers as they move together, and when it finally breaks, Jasper leans up to press a careful row of kisses along Natasha's jaw, finally pausing with his lips against her pulse. It's a test, so many things are, but the dry rasp of thirst in his throat barely grows any stronger as he feels her heart beating.
He looks almost dazed when he finally lifts his head again, and that's when he starts to buck his hips into hers a little more sharply. Slow and sweet is one thing, maybe it's what they've needed, but she's pushed him more times than he can count, and he's pushed himself just now. It's her turn.
When he looks at her with that curious tilt to his head Natasha is sure that he felt exactly what she had, that strange but pleasantly warm tingle of adoration that she's far from used to, and she can't help but smile into their kiss when he does exactly what she wants and says nothing about it. Nothing really needs to be said in Natasha's opinion; she feels it, and she's allowing him to know. Despite the lack of verbiage between them there's a sense of understanding that's underlying, and with it comes the reassurance that, although everything has suddenly changed, nothing has really changed at all.
The longer Natasha falls into her comfortable pace the easier it is for her mind to slip further and further away from anything that isn't the moment she shares with him, senses heightened and sensations magnified by her hyper awareness of her own actions. His mouth travels its way down her jaw until he finds his way to her throat, and Natasha's head tilts away naturally to give him more access without concern. The careful brush of lips against skin is enough to pull a sigh from her, something dangerously close to a moan that she manages to bite back at the last second, and Natasha's eyes close as she allows herself to simply experience him while also reveling in the unconditional trust that he's somehow managed to make her feel. It's like an embrace, wrapping her up with comfort and reassurance that she knows she can find all too addicting if she isn't careful. Natasha has trusted before, but she's never trusted blindly until Jasper came into her life, and the disregard for protocol and procedure that comes with that is so liberating that she's sure she could almost get high off of it if she doesn't keep herself in check.
He lifts his head again and that's her cue to turn her head back, meeting his eye as the rhythm of her hips stays consistent, and for a moment she's not certain what that look in his eye is until he suddenly thrusts up into her with more force than before, making her fingers dig into his shoulder and her lips part in a short but surprised gasp at the same time. For a second her lashes flutter, eyes closing as she feels herself tighten around him in every way; the arm around him drags him closer, the fingers in his shoulder digging into his skin a little and her walls hugging him tighter than before until she forces herself to relax. She knows what he's doing, and she knows why as well... it takes more effort than she'd like to not lean back and drag him on top of her, but she can't. They have to take this in steps, so Natasha braces herself by leaning forward and letting her forehead rest against his, her body pressed against his own as she picks up her own pace to meet the new one that he's set for them. The hand on his shoulder slowly starts to relax, and her other twists into the hair with a nearly uncontrollable urge to tug and drag his head back, but she doesn't. Natasha concentrates on holding him instead, but her inconsistent gasps are no longer silent, a quiet moan slipping out whenever she feels him push his way into her to his hilt.
All of her concentration is taken by keeping herself in the moment that they've made instead of pushing them further out of it faster than either of them are ready, and after his name comes on a hushed breath she speaks in a way easiest for her, simply to avoid having to split her attention from exactly where it is now. "Byt' ostorozhen." She leans in for another kiss, and this time there's a smile in it. "YA ne znayu, mogu li ya byt' takim zhe sil'nym, kak ty."
Their rhythm is quicker now, but it's still careful, it needs to be and he can tell she's holding back just as much as he is. That would be almost frustrating in a way if this wasn't so good already. Once she's changed, everything will become new for both of them, all three of them, and Jasper isn't used to thinking of something as being transient, fleeting. This heat all around him, the fragile strength of her in his arms, it's all temporary, and he finds himself slowing again, savoring it as much as he can.
"Ne vsegda," he whispers, "ne dlja namnogo dol'she." It's rare that anyone like him is graced with this level of trust from a human, and especially when it's someone like Natasha, who trusts only when she's certain. He takes a slow breath, smoothing both hands down her back and up again, resting at her shoulders to keep her close as he moves faster again, rolling his hips, deliberately seeking out the little shifts that pull those soft moans from her.
It's a balancing act, it takes concentration, and at first he doesn't notice his own slow build of heat at the base of his spine, until she moves against him just right and her name escapes him in a whisper that sounds almost surprised. He leans back just enough to look up at her, open and unguarded and still dazed with all of this, but he wants to see her when she comes undone, he wants to know what that looks like and keep it.
Everything about Jasper, in that moment, surrounds her in a way that's still physical but still so much beyond just that. His voice, still somehow soothing despite how hushed it is, dances over her and electrifies her skin, and the way that he holds her with careful hands and yet not as if she's fragile has her leaning further into him, hungry for a closeness that can't possibly be reached beyond what they've already managed.
He's learning her body quickly, rocking into her with consistency and holding her stable, and soon he's pulling her soft gasps and light sounds to the surface with every roll of his hips. By the time she manages to look at him she can feel it looming, that slow build getting tighter and tighter until it's too consuming for her to hold off anymore, even though she wishes it wasn't. If Natasha had it her way she could stay there, but it's not realistic, and she can see in his eyes that he's staring at her for the same reason that she's looking at him. She wants to see him unravel beneath her first, but he's pushing her too far, and when Natasha realizes that she can no longer keep her own climax at bay her hands move to take his face between them, wanting nothing more in that moment to see him completely.
When it comes it's a struggle to keep her eyes open, and although no sound is released when her lips part Natasha's body gives him every signal he needs. Euphoria spikes, the rhythm they've found quickens just a bit as she chases the sensation that he's managed to send coursing through her, and Natasha's legs press tighter against his thighs on either side of him so she can keep herself steady throughout all of it. This time when she kisses him its deeper and to muffle the low but lingering moan she can't fight off, and once it subsides she finds herself staying on him, not yet ready to disconnect. That means that it's over, and Natasha, despite her lack of sentimentality, wants to hold on just a little bit longer. As long as he'll allow.
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moodshifter) wrote2017-02-16 01:26 pm
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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."
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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.
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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."
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"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."
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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."
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"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."
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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."
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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."
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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."
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"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."
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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."
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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."
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"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."
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"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."
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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."
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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."
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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."
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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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She also didn't feel vulnerable with Alice. It's one thing to crawl into bed with someone who can see the future, but someone who can see her on levels that she's never wanted to be seen is a different animal. Sex is a weapon, it's used to lure people in and entwine them in the carefully crafted web she's spent her time weaving and nothing else. Love is for children, after all.
But she won't hide herself behind the carefully constructed walls she learned to build when she was a young girl. Although she's never been one to believe in equal footing, Jasper's put out enough of an obvious effort for her to know that she needs to meet him at least half way. It's terrifying, but she's been terrified before. This is the best kind.
It takes effort to not cling to him when he presses her on her back only to get out of bed, but she lets him go and her eyes follow him as he disrobes beside the bed. Natasha can't help but wonder what those who know her would think of him; he's not her 'type'. The world around her is filled with men who are quite easily double her size, but Jasper is lean; tall, but thin. Yet she's certain she's never been so attracted to a man the way she is to him, and she has to wonder if it has anything to do with the way he makes her feel when she simply thinks of him, let alone spends her time with him.
"Much." His curved smile is returned with one of her own, but instead of climbing atop of him immediately Natasha decides to lie beside him on her side, her eyes wandering his body as she reaches out a hand. Fingertips brush slowly down his arms to trace the scars that her eyes fell to immediately, bite marks and all of them different. He had mentioned that he was in a vampire war, and she supposes nobody gets out of something like that without a few reminders. She has a few of them herself. "I guess they don't go away after the change?" She'll admit that she was wondering, her own scars reminders of a past that she wouldn't mind leaving behind, but she's carried them for this long; she's used to them now.
Once her touch starts to circle the mark on his hip she moves it down, feathering the bone of his pelvis before her hand flattens and moves up his stomach to his chest. Her eyes follow for a moment before meeting his again, and there's curiosity there but she doesn't ask. If she asks him about his scars, she's opening the door for him to ask her about her own. Not exactly pillow talk.
Instead, Natasha lets her hand come to rest on his shoulder, and she gently leads him to lie on his back before her leg slides it's way over him and she rises again. The lack of same hasn't changed from when she first dropped the sheet she was using to cover herself, and this time she sits up straight to look down at him beneath her as she settles on his legs. This time when she meets his eye it's with a mischievous smile, and Natasha's hand moves against his thigh slowly with almost too much patience. She said that she'd take it slow and she meant it, but she doubts that Jasper knows exactly how difficult that is for her to accomplish.
At first she simply brushes against him, a run of her palm over his shaft to get a feel for his body, and once she does she bends at the hips to lean down and run a warm mouth up his full length. Despite her reputation Natasha has no intention on teasing him, her focus fully on delivering what she told him; she won't always be able to make him feel her warmth. For only a moment she lets her tongue twist around his tip in an experimental taste before her lips part and she pulls him in, taking him halfway and wrapping her lips around him tightly. She takes her time, moving over him fluidly for just enough time to get him fully erect before he leaves her mouth only to be replaced with a slowly stroking hand as she looks up his body at him through her lashes.
"You're sure?" She has to ask. Natasha's never been so concerned that she's pushing someone into something past their comfort zone; that's what she does. Maybe it's why she needs the reassurance that right now, that isn't the case.
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Natasha isn't one of those people. He doesn't need to feel as though he's burdening her with that knowledge. So he doesn't shy away from her exploration of his scars, although he doesn't elaborate yet either. Plenty of time to tell his stories, possibly even a few he's held back from relating before, for the sake of propriety. There's something singularly fascinating about having found someone who won't shy away from anything he's done, someone he can talk to who won't brush it aside with a placating 'you never need to do that again.' Yes, it's a relief to know he won't need to be that particular flavor of monster again, but that doesn't mean it hadn't happened.
He moves easily enough when she moves him, unresisting, letting her set the pace and the position. He'd learned from his brother's mistakes, he supposes, but giving her this measure of control may have been a mistake, if she's going to use it to draw things out to this extent. His eyes never waver from her as she settles on him and smiles, and when she finally leans over to tease at him and taste, he exhales slowly and takes the risk of reaching out to slide fingers through her hair, just once before he pulls his hand back. It's a struggle not to move, but he knows he's very likely to move too quickly, with too much strength, and so he stays still, unblinking, savoring the heat from her hands and her mouth, even the warm weight on his legs as she's perched there. It's a gift, and he's going to treat it as such, but the question makes him smile and sit up just enough to be able to reach out and cup her cheek carefully.
"I am," he says simply, tracing her cheekbone with a thumb. "I'm sure, Natalia."
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Instead of letting him lie back once more Natasha takes his hand, fingers curling around it to hold it from her face, and she gives a gentle tug to slowly drag him so he can sit up fully. Rising to her knees Natasha moves up his legs only to lower herself back down in his lap, his erection resting between them comfortably so she can roll her hips with the same languid pace as before to deliver a pleasing sense of friction. As she settles herself her eyes never leave him, every shift certain with fluidity that's rooted in confidence, and this time her gaze has nothing to do with making sure that he's alright and everything to do with the simple desire to see him. An arm wraps around his shoulders as her other hand guides his to her waist, and she only looks down for a moment to move his second to rest on her hip before her attention is directly his once more.
There's no need to ask again, her faith in him almost concerning if she cared enough to take the time to analyze it, so Natasha pushes forward by leaning down and pulling him into another unhurried kiss, and this time she savors it as the arm that isn't wrapped around him moves down between them to take a firm hold of him. When she parts it's only to rise up, and this time when she holds eye contact it's because she wants to see him now, in this moment particularly, which is ridiculous; Natasha isn't the sentimental type, or she wasn't before. Perhaps she is now, and that's simply one of the things she's learned about herself by being with him and Alice.
As she lowers herself back down Natasha guides him, her hand only moving from his base when she feels him breach her so she can, instead, grab onto his shoulder and keep herself steady. She moves with patience, her grip on his bare skin tightening only once with a paired flex of her jaw as she feels him sink deeper, and when Natasha finally feels herself flush against his groin she lets out a slow and almost pleased sigh through her nose. Her arms switch, one wrapping around him comfortably while the other returns so she can run her fingers affectionately through his hair to push it out of his eyes yet again, and for a few sweet lingering moments Natasha simply stays there, basking in the way it feels to be filled by him and wondering why, this time, it's so different.
Why does she feel as if she can stay in this moment for an eternity and be just fine with that, despite having no expectation or goal behind her motivations to be here? Why is it that being this close to him, despite her vulnerability in every way imaginable, does Natasha feel safe and at peace for the first time in her short but much too long life? The answer comes so simply in her head, and so immediately that it almost startles her because it feels as if it should be complicated and terrifying, wrapped in layers of questions and doubt. It isn't, though. Natasha realizes that she loves him, and it should frighten her how deep that goes; how thoroughly it's managed to tangle itself around her despite slipping past her guard in the first place. Yet there isn't a touch of fear to be found, and Natasha has to wonder if that's a part of the whole concept of love in the first place. She hopes so. What a wonderful idea.
Although she's far from ashamed, Natasha doesn't speak her realization aloud; it's not the time. Saying it now feels as if it might not hold as much weight, because people are usually swayed emotionally in situations like this, aren't they? She can't have Jasper believing that's the case, so instead she leans in to kiss him once more with his face still firmly in the palm of her hand, and she starts to move again, hips rolling to a steady rhythm that she sets for them to start them off.
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This isn't something he's ever felt, and as she settles against him he lets his eyes fall closed, basking in the emotions pouring out of her as much as the vibrant heat everywhere they touch. And when her revelation arrives, he's in a perfect position to feel it flowing out alongside everything else. She loves him. It prompts him to look at her again, head tipped a bit to the side, but he holds onto the silence between them, just carefully wrapping one arm around her waist and twining the fingers of his other hand through her hair as she kisses him again.
It's important that she stay in control for this, and when he finally shifts his hips it's to answer the pace she's setting. She's fiery and sharp-edged, he loves that about her, but the care he needs to take with her, the slow pace they need to maintain, it all makes coming together like this somehow sweeter than he'd expected. The kiss lingers as they move together, and when it finally breaks, Jasper leans up to press a careful row of kisses along Natasha's jaw, finally pausing with his lips against her pulse. It's a test, so many things are, but the dry rasp of thirst in his throat barely grows any stronger as he feels her heart beating.
He looks almost dazed when he finally lifts his head again, and that's when he starts to buck his hips into hers a little more sharply. Slow and sweet is one thing, maybe it's what they've needed, but she's pushed him more times than he can count, and he's pushed himself just now. It's her turn.
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The longer Natasha falls into her comfortable pace the easier it is for her mind to slip further and further away from anything that isn't the moment she shares with him, senses heightened and sensations magnified by her hyper awareness of her own actions. His mouth travels its way down her jaw until he finds his way to her throat, and Natasha's head tilts away naturally to give him more access without concern. The careful brush of lips against skin is enough to pull a sigh from her, something dangerously close to a moan that she manages to bite back at the last second, and Natasha's eyes close as she allows herself to simply experience him while also reveling in the unconditional trust that he's somehow managed to make her feel. It's like an embrace, wrapping her up with comfort and reassurance that she knows she can find all too addicting if she isn't careful. Natasha has trusted before, but she's never trusted blindly until Jasper came into her life, and the disregard for protocol and procedure that comes with that is so liberating that she's sure she could almost get high off of it if she doesn't keep herself in check.
He lifts his head again and that's her cue to turn her head back, meeting his eye as the rhythm of her hips stays consistent, and for a moment she's not certain what that look in his eye is until he suddenly thrusts up into her with more force than before, making her fingers dig into his shoulder and her lips part in a short but surprised gasp at the same time. For a second her lashes flutter, eyes closing as she feels herself tighten around him in every way; the arm around him drags him closer, the fingers in his shoulder digging into his skin a little and her walls hugging him tighter than before until she forces herself to relax. She knows what he's doing, and she knows why as well... it takes more effort than she'd like to not lean back and drag him on top of her, but she can't. They have to take this in steps, so Natasha braces herself by leaning forward and letting her forehead rest against his, her body pressed against his own as she picks up her own pace to meet the new one that he's set for them. The hand on his shoulder slowly starts to relax, and her other twists into the hair with a nearly uncontrollable urge to tug and drag his head back, but she doesn't. Natasha concentrates on holding him instead, but her inconsistent gasps are no longer silent, a quiet moan slipping out whenever she feels him push his way into her to his hilt.
All of her concentration is taken by keeping herself in the moment that they've made instead of pushing them further out of it faster than either of them are ready, and after his name comes on a hushed breath she speaks in a way easiest for her, simply to avoid having to split her attention from exactly where it is now. "Byt' ostorozhen." She leans in for another kiss, and this time there's a smile in it. "YA ne znayu, mogu li ya byt' takim zhe sil'nym, kak ty."
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"Ne vsegda," he whispers, "ne dlja namnogo dol'she." It's rare that anyone like him is graced with this level of trust from a human, and especially when it's someone like Natasha, who trusts only when she's certain. He takes a slow breath, smoothing both hands down her back and up again, resting at her shoulders to keep her close as he moves faster again, rolling his hips, deliberately seeking out the little shifts that pull those soft moans from her.
It's a balancing act, it takes concentration, and at first he doesn't notice his own slow build of heat at the base of his spine, until she moves against him just right and her name escapes him in a whisper that sounds almost surprised. He leans back just enough to look up at her, open and unguarded and still dazed with all of this, but he wants to see her when she comes undone, he wants to know what that looks like and keep it.
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He's learning her body quickly, rocking into her with consistency and holding her stable, and soon he's pulling her soft gasps and light sounds to the surface with every roll of his hips. By the time she manages to look at him she can feel it looming, that slow build getting tighter and tighter until it's too consuming for her to hold off anymore, even though she wishes it wasn't. If Natasha had it her way she could stay there, but it's not realistic, and she can see in his eyes that he's staring at her for the same reason that she's looking at him. She wants to see him unravel beneath her first, but he's pushing her too far, and when Natasha realizes that she can no longer keep her own climax at bay her hands move to take his face between them, wanting nothing more in that moment to see him completely.
When it comes it's a struggle to keep her eyes open, and although no sound is released when her lips part Natasha's body gives him every signal he needs. Euphoria spikes, the rhythm they've found quickens just a bit as she chases the sensation that he's managed to send coursing through her, and Natasha's legs press tighter against his thighs on either side of him so she can keep herself steady throughout all of it. This time when she kisses him its deeper and to muffle the low but lingering moan she can't fight off, and once it subsides she finds herself staying on him, not yet ready to disconnect. That means that it's over, and Natasha, despite her lack of sentimentality, wants to hold on just a little bit longer. As long as he'll allow.
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