Wildfire By IcemanGal   Note: This scene contains adult material and is explicit in nature, If this is not to your taste or you are under age, back out now! :)   Faith Roscoe knew that there were people who found country inns and B&B's 'perfectly charming'. She thought they were probably the same people who did decoupage and baked from scratch. Faith hated nature, hated peace and quiet, hated anything rural or rustic. Ok, the hitter she needed for a particular job insisted on meeting in Mayberry R-Fucking-D, but if her car hadn't thrown a belt, she'd be back in Port Charles by now, not sitting someone's overkitsched dining room trying to decide between the cranberry-glazed pork tenderloin medallions with whipped sweet potatoes and the fresh sage-stuffed turkey breast. Were they in a time warp? Had someone called for an early Thanksgiving? She looked up from the menu, conscious that someone was watching her. He was frank about it, more open than a hitter would be, or someone sent to spy on her. She returned his gaze, as open about it as he was. He was big. Dark. Coolly appraising eyes and a sardonic twist to his mouth. His posture - broad shoulders leaning casually against the joined wall, one arm resting carelessly on the arm of his chair, the other holding a wineglass - said to her that he was a man, all man, and that he knew it. His eyes asked her if she was woman enough to be up for something. She decided that she might be. She was certainly bored enough for almost anything. He had a look about him that told her he might be trouble, but that wasn't anything she hadn't had before. Her eyes met his. She moved her head slightly - almost barely a nod. He smiled. He had a lot of white, even teeth and the smile turned his eyes to something warmer, but no less dangerous. It seemed like only moments later that the waitress brought her not a glass of wine, but a whole bottle. Without waiting for an invitation, the man in the corner rose - he was not as tall as she'd thought, but quite tall enough - and started towards her. That was when she saw his walking stick. Great. A gimp. Well, that might be interesting. Different. And if it wasn't… she could blow him off. He didn't scare her, no man did, though she could tell that attracting her and scaring her were both options he was entertaining, maybe both at once. "May I?" He motioned to the chair next to, not opposite, hers. "You bought it," she said, motioning to the wine. "You did buy this, right?" "Indeed. St. Emilion Cabernet '67." He sat down. "A surprisingly good cellar here, but unfortunately no one competent to serve it properly." He seemed more than competent as he opened the wine and poured out two glasses. "Mm… full-bodied, but not without delicacy or charm." She looked at him. "It's wine." He chuckled. "Indeed it is." He was pleased with himself, that was obvious, to the point where maybe she wasn't necessary. She could have a couple of glasses of wine with him, eat her dinner, and go down the street and hope to hell her car was ready. The waitress came over. "I will be joining this lady," her suitor told the girl, who reminded Faith of the simp Ric Lansing had married. "She will have the tenderloin." "Wait a minute," Faith said. "No one orders for me." "My apologies." His tone was anything but apologetic. "I'll have the pasta Bolognese," she said, going for the least chi-chi thing on the menu. When the waitress left, she turned to him and asked, "Who are you, anyway?" "No names," he said with a smile. "I would only have to make one up." "What is this, a Marlon Brando movie?" "Please," he said in mock offense. "I am much better looking." She laughed, as she figured he meant her to. His vanity was kind of cute, or at least he presented it in a way that didn't make her want to hurl. "No names," he continued. "No chit chat about what we do for a living or where you spent your last vacation…" "No wine talk, no crap about the food presentation," she countered. "Exactly. You are an attractive woman dining alone." "Not any more." "I am… who I am." "But we're not going to talk about that." He shook his head. "But it is enough." "Is it?" "It will be." Their food arrived and the conversation, such as it was, paused for them to attend to it. He had ordered the pork and made fast work of it. Her pasta was fine, nothing special, but the bread was good, hot and crusty, and she used the heel to mop up the last of her sauce. That was when Faith noticed his hand on her thigh. She gave a moment's consideration to cutting the hand off with the bread knife, but her skin - her very nerves - were sending a different message as an intensifying warmth started under his touch and spread through her thigh and upwards. "Upstairs," he said in a low tone. "Okay," she said, and did a good job of keeping the tremor out of her voice. His room was probably typical of the place. Maple furniture, including a four-poster bed with a floral bedspread that matched the curtains. "Nice," she said sarcastically. "It is dreadful," he said cheerfully. "But it is also quite temporary." He put aside the walking stick. "It has a private bathroom if you wish." "Oh, please," she said, and began to take off her clothes. He was watching appreciatively, and she said, "Um… I'm not Gypsy Rose Lee. This isn't a striptease, friend." He laughed and took off his shirt, then his pants. The walking stick was either an affectation or a habit because… well, there was nothing wrong with him. Nothing at all. Abs of steel, shoulders that could balance the world, totally dangerous thighs. There were a few scars here and there, but all in all, he was, on a scale of one to ten, a definite not bad. She sat on the bed in a red satin and lace bra and panties set and held out her arms to him. "Come to Mama." He rolled his eyes. "Don't ever, ever say that again. Not if you expect me to function." "Sorry." So, he had mother issues. What guy didn't? He was still hot. She leaned against the pillows and waited as he crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. She wrapped herself around him, enjoying the feel of his powerful body. He kissed her roughly, urgently, his beard creating an interesting friction against her face as he pressed his tongue between her lips. God, she loved the feel of a hard, strapping man pressing himself against her. She especially loved taking on a big, tough guy who thought he could master her and then giving back as good as she got. Her mouth received his, her tongue twisted around his, slowing down its progress. He pressed forward, and his hands clutched at her shoulders, pushing her down into the mattress. Everything about him was a forward thrust, and he hadn't even entered her yet. Not that she was ready for him. She wasn't about to let him use her as a way station, leaving her dry and unfulfilled. "Not so fast," she said, breaking the kiss to pull away and looking up at him. "There's two of us here, remember? Otherwise, you might as well be whacking off. Which," she added, as the pressure of his hands on her shoulders increased slightly, "can still be arranged." He laughed then, which pleased her, and lowered his head, nuzzling her neck and down her throat. He opened her front-loading bra with his teeth and took each erect nipple into his mouth, in turn, in a style that was anything but suckling. She moaned with pleasure. "It has been a long time," he said, "longer than I like to reflect upon, or than you would be likely to believe, but I still know what to do with a woman who pleases me…" "Then show me," she challenged him. "Show me what you can do." His laugh flowed out of him, a dark, rich sound that filled the room. He lowered his head again; his mouth explored her flat belly, then his tongue began to tease and tickle her inner thighs, that soft, tender flesh that led him inside her. His tongue - God, why did men bother with the rest of the equipment! - was working her into an absolute frenzy, one creamy-electric wave of passion rolling over her after another, when suddenly he pulled back. "Now wait a minute, friend," she said. "My turn," he said huskily, and started to turn her onto her stomach. Well, she knew where that led, and it wasn't her game. Faith resisted him, wriggling under his grasp. Was she stronger than he'd expected? It had happened before. Men did underestimate her strength. Or maybe her moves were different than he'd anticipated. Either way, they were wrestling hard, and he seemed to be enjoying it. Suddenly, there was a cracking sound, something hard hitting the floor. It wrecked the rhythm and they both paused to look over the side of the bed. Faith was closer to the object, a large wooden picture frame that must have been on the bedtable. She turned it over, expecting to see some stupid dried flower arrangement. Instead, it was a photo of a young man, dark and intense, squinting into the camera. Nikolas Cassadine. Her anonymous lover was connected to the Cassadines, hell, based on the resemblance she could now see with the boy in the photo, he probably was a Cassadine. And then she remembered in a flash, remembered tabloid headlines - and photos - from two years earlier, some crazy story about a Cassadine twenty years dead who had come back from the grave to terrorize his family and had killed some fashion bimbo who was related to the Quartermaines. Faith had laughed over the stories, they were such cheap sci-fi, but the picture… the man had been dark, bearded, compelling even in tabloid ink. Stavros Cassadine… Here in bed with her. Back from the dead and in fine fettle. And at the moment she could feel his eyes burning through her even though her back was to him. Wondering, no doubt, what she was thinking. What she knew, What she remembered. He had broken that girl's neck. She remembered that much. And Faith liked her neck exactly the way it was. Come on, she told herself. This guy's got a walking stick, he's not all that, and hell, you can grab the stick if you need a weapon, it's right over against the wall… you've dealt with tougher guys on a daily basis and made mincemeat of them. Show no fear, that was the key. If they smelled fear on you, that was a whole different ballgame. She turned back towards him and looked him right in the eye. His eyes had darkened, grown colder, more distant, and she knew he was evaluating her, trying to figure out what she did or did not know, and what she might do. Silently, she wondered if the weirder aspects of the story were true. If so, she was in bed with a kind of zombie. Given what they were in the middle of doing, she couldn't help but laugh at the thought. He cocked his head slightly at that sound, so unexpected, and then he laughed, too, and their laughs joined together and suddenly he pounced on her, still laughing, and she was laughing even harder because it was all just too damn ridiculous, and she wrapped herself around him and kissed him hard, as if to prove that she could, in fact, wake the dead, and her hands moved down his chest, feeling the muscles contracting and expanding… she seized on his cock and began rubbing it with a firm, rhythmic stroke. Now he was moaning, and she liked that, it showed that she was in control. She went down on him then, which wasn't as easy as it sounded because he really was huge and she had, well, a normal jaw, but she treated it like an ice cream cone and he seemed to like the swirling licks she used. Finally, he pushed up and against her and he was on top again and he plunged into her. She hadn't been ready and as he entered her she let out a yelp, which elicited another laugh from him. That irritated her, somehow. "You want to fuck around?" she said, and drew his face down to hers. As they kissed, she bit his upper lip, actually drawing blood. He pulled back, surprised, and then slapped her across the face. "You bastard - " "No," he said coolly, ironically. "That is one charge that could never be proven." His hands pressed down on her shoulders again. She'd have bruises, that was sure… He bent to kiss her again, almost defiantly, and she enjoyed the taste of his blood mixed with the wine they'd shared earlier. He continued to thrust against her, through her, they were on fire, who gave a fuck what his name was, how dead he had been before, when one thing was clear, they were both alive now, totally, vividly alive in this room… He came in a rush, in a roar, and started to withdraw, but she clung to him like plastic wrap, sweaty and insistent. She would have her pleasure, and he could be damned. Finally, his steady, rocking movements paid off for her and she felt the explosive release of orgasm. Afterwards, spent, she released him and turned on her side, curling up into herself. In a minute, she would be herself again, she would get her clothes, put herself together, and leave. "Well…" His voice came out like the purr of one of the big cats. "It is as if it were yesterday." She turned to face him. "You didn't have anyone like me yesterday, admit it." He laughed and propped himself up on one elbow. "Agreed. I may have to rethink a few things." "Like?" "I saw us as one of those brief conflagrations that gathers its spark from its transitory nature. And now… it seems to be a fire that could be nourished enough to burn another day." "I wouldn't count on that." Nice as it was to look at him like that, all sculptured and smiling, she wasn't about to get cozy. She got up and started to put on her clothes. "And why not?" "Well, for one thing, we agreed no names, no details. Like you said, that was half the spice of it. And… you said this was temporary quarters for you. So I figure you're moving on. We all move on, right?" "But perhaps we move in synchronization." "Or maybe we don't. Look, it was a hell of a fuck, but I'm not really looking for anything complicated right now and getting tangled up with you… don't take this the wrong way, but complicated would be the least of it." "Complications are not without their compensations. And our… entanglement would be free of strings. Just as tonight was." He got up, still naked, a panther making his way around the bed and towards her. "We could be good together. Very good, my little firebird." "Or we could blow up in each other's face." "It could be interesting either way." He put his arms around her. "You have ignited something in me. Something long left to smoulder." She let him hold her like that for a minute. Truth was, she liked it. Maybe she liked it a little too much. This would be trouble. He was a dead guy, from a family of psycho aristocrats. Not good for business. Not good for staying alive, even. But when he held her like that, when he looked at her with that mixture of cockiness and laughter, she liked it. And how many women could take a guy fresh out of the grave and give him the best fuck of either life? "We could be quite good together. I could make your dreams come true." "You don't even know what they are." "That is true." He smiled into her eyes. "You are not planning to take over the world, are you?" "Just hold onto my corner of it." He nodded. "Then that should be quite manageable." "Why would you want to help me?" She challenged him with her look. "Why not? I have met few enough people who wished to give me real pleasure. Why not reward them as I see fit? Especially if it is amusing?" "You think?" "I am sure of it." "You don't even know where I live." He shrugged. "Geography is so boring. Our lives are now linked, and I believe it is to a purpose." "Oh, don't get all philosophical on me. I can do without that." She pulled away and went to pick up her purse. Suddenly he was on her, pulling her to face him and holding her again, this time roughly, in his naked arms. "I will find you if and when I wish. Do not doubt it." She slapped him. Hard. "And don't doubt this. I'm not your toy. Never will be." He clutched her to him, his grip practically squeezing the life out of her as she stood there. Their eyes locked together and something he saw in hers - the lack of fear? - made him let go. "I can be a great friend to you or your worst enemy. It is for you to choose which one." "Yeah. That's right. I get to choose." As she walked out of the room she could hear his laugh, starting out a low chuckle, then tumbling out and growing in both volume and a kind of expansion of what she knew to be his very heart, if that was what you wanted to call it. Was it meant to chill her? If so, it succeeded, but that very chill warmed her, because she recognized it, knew it as something she held within herself. Sometimes blood calls out to someone not of that blood. Sometimes, even knowing the danger, you answer. Because sometimes you know that admitting you have no choice is the only way to really have one at all.