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They had flung themselves into the cupboard with only a glimpse of its contents before Cabal found (thank heaven) an internal knob and pulled the door closed, the sound covered by the boots of a dozen patrolling mercenaries.
It was dark, and very small. It was so dark that each might have thought him or herself alone, if he or she hadn’t been pushed against the other by the shelving (filled, thank goodness, with heavy cloth packages instead of anything likely to be rattled or swept down by their furious entrance). Both made an awkward attempt to stand shoulder to shoulder instead, but it wasn’t much of a walk-in - just a niche to provide access to the deep shelves. They settled for leaning back fractionally, the inches between them suddenly warm.
Cabal looked steadfastly into the darkness above Miss Barrow’s right shoulder. Well, left shoulder from his perspective. However that went. He applied himself to reviewing the guards’ schedule while he waited for his respiration to return to normal; they would patrol to the tower door where half of them would post guard. The other half would ascend the narrow staircase, check the facilities, and return back down. The patrol would then reform and continue to the south wing. Was that her hair on his cheek. Yes, it seemed likely it was. They would… they… he and Miss Barrow, precisely, would then have forty-five clear minutes in which to enter the tower, and….
Leonie lifted her hair from the back of her neck. It was infernally warm in this cupboard, she thought. Her cheeks must be aflame with the running, and the… well, the running. Not the close quarters. Although. Although a sane woman wouldn’t be thinking of the row of buttons piercing the immaculate shirtfront that was very likely in front of her face. A sane woman certainly wouldn’t be thinking about biting one of them. A breath puffed out in an almost-laugh at the thought. Cabal the inscrutable would be horrified down to his frillies if he knew about that little idea. She thought about that horrified look, which she had, deliciously, provoked once or twice. She thought she felt his breath in her hair.
Cabal noticed that his breathing and pulse had not returned to normal. He was also experiencing a desire to turn his lips into the rich cloud of Leonie’s hair. After that thought was noted, his quick brain suggested a list of possible further steps, not one of which was directly related to gaining access to the tower. He did not need to check to realize that his baser urges, normally carefully confined to a windowless box in the deeper corners of his psyche, had staged a prison break and were making a fair bid to take over the building, i.e. him. This was… not quite unprecedented. He was human, technically. But this was, he told himself sternly, not the time. Never was the time. He would reschedule this for never. His baser urges (looking quite a bit like him but tousled and with a sparkle he was sure had never been permitted into his own eye), suggested that the next period of time was, in any case, unoccupied, and that Johannes was a dried-up stick of a Calvinist.
Leonie was very warm and very close. He knew how small a movement it would take to press her against him from leg to breast. He was a little taller; he would have to bend slightly to move his lips to her ear. And then she would very likely punch him in the head. Yes. And. Whatever the whispers of his endocrine system, whatever temporary madness wanted to hear her gasp in the darkness, Frau Liese Cabal had brought up two sons to be European gentlemen of the old school.
While Cabal had shed much of that training, this much was unchanged and unchangeable; he would stand here and suffocate before making such advances to a lady without clear encouragement, not because of the swift and painful retaliation she would no doubt inflict, but because it was verboten. Additionally, he reminded himself savagely, this, regardless of persons involved and circumstance, was something he did not do. No. With his mother in mind, Cabal attempted to think about her, specifically the day she left England. Vaguely, he prompted himself to remember her disgust, her weariness, the tears she wouldn’t shed. It was just disconnected patches of light and shade which meant nothing to him while he could hear a whisper of Leonie’s breathing. Her perfume and the darkness which made open or closed eyes the same.
She should probably be nervous about the guards, she thought. Or bored. Instead, she was thinking about the dark. What if she reached out, just to be sure he was still there? She knew he was still there. What if she slipped a hand between the frock coat and the white shirt, somewhere around his waistcoat? What if she pulled his head down and gently licked the spot in front of his ear where his short, clipped sideburn ended?
And then, what if he didn’t flinch from her as if she were the Whore of Babylon? She kept her breathing slow, but her heart pounded in her chest as a sense of unreality seized her. She needed a distraction. She fiddled with a loose thread on her cuff. She had meant to deal with that when she dressed this morning, but what with the fire and the vampire she hadn’t really had a chance. She'd nothing to cut it with, now.
Cabal’s flick knife. Could she get it away from him without his noticing? Probably not. But (and she pursued the idea in an attempt to keep her mind off him and the increasingly freighted silence and the darkness) the frock coat didn’t fit so closely that he should feel it against his skin (her mind snagged itself on that idea for a moment, Cabal’s muscle and skin under the soft broadcloth, linen, cotton), and if she managed it carefully he might not feel the movement of the fabric. Call it an experiment. She would enjoy handing it back to him later.
She brought up her left hand - if she could hear his breathing, and if he hadn’t shifted much since they stepped away from each other, he would be a little to the right - until its fingertips grazed fabric. She halted, but no reaction came. She ran them delicately up the coat, holding her arm out from her body so her movement would be soundless and keeping her fingernails away in case they set up a vibration on the weave. Her fingertips met the seam of the pocket. There was no way of telling how the fabric lay; she would just chance it gently and see what happened. They had no sooner slipped into the satin-lined pocket than her wrist was gripped tightly and her arm pulled sharply away and forward until she fetched up against Cabal.
He had been standing very still when a whisper of a touch at his knife pocket yanked him out of an increasingly demented reverie involving the instant they had pressed together a minute before. Pickpocketing of his knife, however, he had a reflex for; pull attacker’s hand away from knife, extend that hand from body in case it had been successful, and shield his body with the attacker himself. Or herself. It was a millisecond before he realized he had Leonie’s wrist in his hand, and that she was off balance, pulled tight against his chest and side. It might have been recoverable with an apology, even then, but she shifted herself against him and he drew in a shaking breath Leonie felt in the pit of her stomach, and he could feel her face turn towards his, and not even he could misunderstand.
Cabal kissed like a fiend, utter focus and a knife’s edge of desperation that sent a pang through her stomach and down. After… some time? She lost track - his lips left hers and followed his hand through her hair, down to her earlobe and her neck and shoulder. His other hand was still on her wrist, but it was being held against his back by her own grasp as she pressed them closer together. She pulled out of his absent-minded grip and finally did what she had carefully not been thinking about: pushed his frock coat aside and pressed kisses to his shoulder through the fabric, moving up his neck to the spot in front of his ear. That made him catch his breath again in what seemed like surprise as much as lust, sending heat through her as she scratched the coat over his shoulders. She ran her nails up through his hair where it curled over his collar a little and over his scalp as he shivered and locked his arms around her, pressing every inch of them together.
By unspoken consent, between kisses they shoved the packages back until Leonie could sit on the shelf. Very convenient, she thought, a little madly. We’re normally in some sort of disaster area. Maybe that’s why this didn’t happen before. His fingers slipped up the back of her stockinged calf, traced the back of her knee (wonderful area, she thought dimly, and why hadn’t she realized it before), and found her bare leg above her stocking. His other hand was on the back of her head until she pushed him back a little. He took a half-moment to comply, but once he had he went suddenly still as if something had occurred to him, frozen and breathing hard in the dark.
She reached up and pulled his cravat towards her a little, and something in him relaxed. He had thought she had changed her mind. Inasmuch as minds were functioning just now. No, she had only made a plan, and, barring complaints, she was going to execute it. She found his vest and unbuttoned it, one tiny button at a time, then pushed it and the frock coat off his shoulders. Cabal caught them and flung them a very short distance away. She enjoyed running her hands over the newly accessible shirtsleeves, dipping a finger under his waistband, and then succumbing to her earlier impulse to draw him close and nip at a button.
Cabal was fairly sure he had gone mad. This passionate succubus was Leonie Barrow? Is this what she was really like? Was everyone really like this? Was he? Who was he right now? Was he that finger-ruffled Johannes from his earlier thoughts? He felt her hands on his buttons, undoing him, and disregarded the matter as unimportant.
He found her breasts as she undid his shirt, grazing and pinching lightly through her blouse and inspiring her to get a leg around one of his and draw him close again. Bah, undershirt, she thought. The whole thing would have to go, she decided, and in a tangle of limbs, got it off him. There he was; soft skin, ribs, ticklish flanks, a lower back made for scratching at, and a flat stomach which disappeared behind his trouser buttons, all established by the braille method. She brushed a little curly hair, probably white-blond like his eyebrows, and she gasped as he knelt and warm lips met her breasts. Apparently she had mostly lost her blouse at some point in the proceedings. He bit at her nipple gently, and she turned a cry into a harsh little breath and clutched at his shoulders. She shrugged off her blouse and finished the work Cabal had started of getting her out of her chemise. Encouraged, he grazed with his teeth and nipped until she was bruising his arm with her grip and almost whimpering in the darkness.
He sent one hand up her skirt and slip, past her stockings again, until he found her knickers. Her legs were open wide around him, and he stroked a finger down the seam to find that Miss Barrow was not wearing closed drawers; they had an open seam down the centre, and he found her hot, slick flesh immediately; she almost cried out and, he thought, banged her head against the shelving. Apparently people did this in beds for a reason.
He was going to kiss her again; he felt it coming on like an illness. Her wrist first, then her throat, and then her lips, and after that he would do his best to make her give away their hiding place. It didn’t matter. No-one should be around: just him, her, and a tower full of mercenaries. If they were drawn here by Leonie screaming, he could probably sort something out.
Leonie wanted to devour him. He smelled like chemicals and magic and cordite, and when she trailed her nails down the front of his trousers, he almost fell over and she grinned against his lips. She thought he might have smiled too, for a moment in the dark, and wondered what it looked like. She ran light touches over him and scratched gently until he turned the tables on her with an echo of his habitual autocracy, pushing her hands aside and running his thumbs lightly up the inside of her thighs, and she stopped laughing entirely. His lips on her throat, his fingers on her breast and inside her, his thumb pressing a spot that made her clutch at his neck and shoulder, pressing kisses on his brow and hair.
Between the two of them, they somehow got him out of his trousers and drawers. He entered her slowly, fighting for a little of the habitual control that had deserted him so suddenly and wholly. Leonie saw stars as that transcendent feeling of being slowly stretched sparkled out through her blood like fireworks. She reached down between them and did something that was, possibly, against the laws of god and man. He had one hand in her mane, cradling her head against his now, and he whispered Gott, Leonie and she clutched at his shoulders and clawed his back as he thrust slowly into her and a long-fingered hand between her legs drove her mad. She wished she could see him, hair stuck to his sweating brow, face intent and unguarded with lust. But light would break the fragile globe of absurdity and deniability and passion that made this possible.
Please, Johannes, she begged in a desperate whisper, and he sped up, thank god and all the angels, and it was fast and merciless, pressed between him and the fabric at her back and so exactly what she needed. His hand had fisted in her hair, and he said in a half-sane voice “mein Löwenmädchen." and she wanted to stay precisely there for as long as she could, but she finally broke apart around him, pulling him over with her, and oh my that was deep, but it was perfect. Don't stop. She could feel herself contracting around him as his head dropped on her shoulder and his entire body focussed on pressing them close and closer as he came, piercing her as his hands locked cruelly tight on her body, and she loved it and shuddered. Somehow, she and Johannes Cabal were experiencing the perfect shag, but she would cope with that thought in a minute, not now, whilst she was still fairly certain her blood had been replaced by endorphins and champagne and deniability.
A few harsh breaths, still locked together, and Leonie almost laughed. This was the strangest possible thing, but it had been... lovely. He had been lovely. "Was that... experience, or natural talent?" Leonie gasped.
"It was... unusual" replied Cabal over two or three breaths. "You. You have definitely done that before."
"I didn't show you the half of it.” A pause stretched out as he wondered what the other half could possibly consist of, and she felt compelled to admit, “but rarely with such results.”
Both knew that their next motion would end whatever perfect structure of madness that had allowed this to happen. Neither of them moved for a moment. Then the moment ended, and they disentangled themselves carefully.
They dressed separately, giving each other as much space as the closet allowed. When they were done Cabal cracked the door a fraction to allow a ray of light in; he was checking his pocket watch, which had somehow survived their activities. By it, Leonie could see him again - a little tousled (and that was definitely her fault), but composed. He tucked the watch away, and glanced at her; what he saw caught his attention.
He left the door open to admit a ray of light and turned to her. With careful hands he straightened her disarranged clothes, pulling seams into line and smoothing little asymmetries and wrinkles. Then, still not looking at her face, he very carefully fixed the part in her hair and smoothed back a few curls. When he finally met her eyes she saw confusion in the blue-grey gaze, but not the panic or anger she had half-expected. He allowed the look, straightened the lapels of her jacket awkwardly, nodded, and turned to the door. She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, but only smoothed a hand over his hair then motioned to the door. They had a tower to storm.