secondchances | return to paradisa

He lifts his head up from her cleavage, but just enough to meet her eyes. He adopts a mischievous grin.

"Just say the word," Ezio says. "I will spirit you to mine in a heartbeat."

And because he can't resist, he kisses her chest again.

"Or yours."

"I'm just looking out for your back," she warns with a grin of her own, pushing him against the stairs just a little.

That, and maybe being out in the open would be less distracting if she knew what exactly was going on with the castle. A room feels safer as long as there's not a skeleton in it.

"You'll change your mind if we look for my room now," she says, teasing. Mostly. She has no idea where that is. "Yours makes more sense."

"I would never," he says.

He gives a low little chuckle at being pushed, and then he retaliates by sweeping her up by the waist, clearly intending to just carry her there. He won't dispute his room -- he had thought maybe she'd consider it a little too, ah, public use -- but he supposes he might have to earn hers.

If they even stay in the castle, that is.

Him picking her up always tickled her, but now she can have all the fun she wants, right? And in her books, that means managing a kiss just to see how hard it is to distract him. They're both limber, quick people. A tumble down the stairs wouldn't be that bad.

She knows him a close, dear friend. Figuring him out as--well, she's not sure what she'll be calling him--this is exciting. She knows what makes him laugh and what manages to get beneath his skin, but she doesn't know really how he likes to be kissed to teased.

He grins into that kiss, and he ends up tucking her against his hip so he has the other hand free to stoop and pick up her shirt. No easy feat, mind, but he's always been an upper-body kind of guy, with all that climbing around. She can do her worst. Plus, with only one arm around her, she'll probably be more inclined to hang on -- he knows all the tricks.

"Away we go, then!"

Stephanie makes a sound like she's worried they'll topple over, but then they don't, so she can laugh. Laugh, and then help distribute her weight by wrapping her legs around him. All that running around has made her a lower-body kind of gal, so he can enjoy those thighs.

"And you were just going to change the topic and go to the kitchen."

He shrugs casually, fully appreciative of those powerful legs of hers, and he heads down the stairs.

"I wanted to give you a chance to say no," he remarks. "Just in case you did not find me to be a very charming and handsome lover who was prepared to seduce you at a moment's notice, of course."

"That's all? You weren't nervous?"

She smiles sweetly at him.

"Never," he replies, boosting her a little higher. He drapes her shirt over his other shoulder so he has a hand free to adjust his pants because, ah, reasons. "I have never known nervousness in my life."

"I could have been appalled. Rejected you," she urges, unconvinced.

"The best relationship you've ever had could have gone kaboom."

“Why? We’ve had plenty of disagreements before. Why should my loving you be any different?”

That slips a little serious, but he presses a kiss to her neck, too.

"Maaaaybe, just maybe, rejection from me could have irrevocably hurt your feelings."

She's only teasing. She doesn't know what it would be like to actually reject him or tell him off, because clearly that's not what happened.

"I can only be wounded so many times, dolcezza," he says, and he bumps her with his nose. "How can you imagine such cruelty!"

His room is here, and he turns the handle and brings her in. See, you get carried over the threshold and everything. Real romantic.

Steph lowers her legs, wanting to stand on her own two feet now that her very hot, very Italian taxi has gotten her to her destination.

"So. You're in love with me," she grins, less shocked now after some kissing and more giddy. "And you only told Molotov? She didn't try to beat it out of you?"

Ezio lets her down, but he slides her down the length of his body in the process, and he holds her there even after that –– he's not about to let her get away from him.

"I am in love with you," he says, and he'll say it as many times as she wants to hear it. He palms her ass. "And yes, she did try to beat it out of me, but she could not break me."

Oh, that makes her heart flutter, now. Any blushing that's faded is renewed, but even so when his hand cups her ass her eyes widen.

She can grab his ass now. Wasting no time, she wraps her arms around him and uses both hands, putting a curiosity to rest with one squeeze.

"Yep. Thought so."

About the beating and also the ass being nice.

Cheeky! She's more than welcome to, though.

"Thought so what?" he demands, laughing.

The butt's nice, but it's oddly nicer to just lean into him and not have to think about fifteen hundred other things, such as boyfriends and girlfriends.

"Not a lot of people were happy for us to be close friends, let alone throw the L word in there."

... even so, she hopes those people aren't skeletal remains around here somewhere.

"Who didn't want us to be friends?" he hums, partially to be difficult. Since when did those peoples' opinions matter? He starts easing her in a walk towards the bed, dancing around the more serious topics he know she'd like to avoid for at least a moment... but it floats around his mind, too.

"Oh, just most people from Gotham that strolled in." Especially once they figured out Ezio's profession. As she moves with him, hands still resting on his ass, she thinks back. "I know it doesn't matter--like, it really doesn't matter now--but it mattered to me when a lot of them were here. Just 'cause, you know."

The whole struggle for acceptance thing. It made her a little sensitive.

Ezio nods, and the backs of his calves his the bed frame. He doesn't pull her over with him, though. Not quite yet.

"It was unfair of them to judge you for your friendship with me because of my politics," he says. "That was never about you, dolcezza. They just wanted to believe what they wanted."

Old habits die hard. Stephanie opens her mouth, about to tell him it wasn't that simple, but her brain catches up to her mouth and she shuts it. She shakes her head with a smile.

"Yeah. You're right."

Because it's not like that's the here and now anymore.

"It's just hard to shake when it feels just like yesterday." Kinda.

He eases out of her grip so he can sit down on the edge of the bed, and his hands slide down just under her ass. That little tug on her thighs guides her to straddle his thigh. You know you want to, it's fun. He doesn't break his gaze on her eyes for even a moment.

"They will understand you someday," he promises. And then, a little wryly: "I'll make them if they refuse."

She'll straddle his thigh, but now it's her turn to do some subtle adjusting because her panties are clinging uncomfortably. He'll be flattered, surely.

Steph lightly bumps their foreheads together.

"You don't even understand me. But that's okay. We seem to get along okay enough, I think. What about you?"

Subtle! Not with his eagle eyes. Ezio scoots her right up close. He could joke that there's not a single man on earth who understands women, but he understands enough to know that kind of teasing has a time and place.

"We do," he agrees. "What about me?"

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