11. Amber Hart, anew
Siveri's office at the import/export company he owns is small as such things go. Befitting the modest industry of the enterprise, it's just a rented half of a floor in a larger office building, with his personal space taking up a small portion of even that. Amber knows everyone who works in management by now, but they're all gone for the day, even by night shift standards, when she arrives at the building.
Siveri's office is the only light on that Amber can see from the outside. He has a collection of strange trinkets on a bookshelf in the office, and an irritating talent for changing the subject when someone tries to ask after their provenance. A scrap of what looks a very old tapestry, faded with time. A shard of metal, a lock of fine, strawberry-blonde hair, a silver ring with a crest on it that's been worn down to unrecognizability by constant worrying at the embossment. All kept in small glass cases, protected and preserved from further ravages of time. Siveri stands in contemplation of these little treasures when Amber arrives. He gestures for her to enter before her knuckles can touch the glass door to knock, despite facing away from the entrance.
She's chosen a business outfit for this meeting - heels, grey pencil skirt, button down blouse. Smart. Subservient. She's here in a professional capacity, but with the way her bosom strains at the top and her hips push at the skirt, that can mean whatever he wants it to mean. Attentive to his needs, whatever they may be - a framing device, one to set the tone of the meeting. Keep his mind on her, or on the deal she's bringing to his attention, rather than on anything else she might be up to with the Dona and her mortal contacts. "Good evening, sir," she opens, entering and going over to his desk to tap a handful of papers in her hand and straighten them back into perfect alignment.
Siveri's eyes flick to Amber, taking in her entire appearance in a bare instant of surveying her. Amber can never decide if it feels violating or exciting when he does that, make her feel completely naked and bared before him with a single look. "Good evening, Amber." He murmurs in response, cold blue eyes returning to the shelf of curiosities. Despite that, she can feel his attention on her like a gentle weight pressing in from all sides. "Your initiative has my attention." His voice is carefully neutral, no praise or reproach given yet. That will have to depend on what she has to say.
"I have an opportunity to purchase an apartment building near the university for significantly under market rates," she opens. No nonsense, just the facts. "The owner is fleeing the city, and looking to unload her company assets as quickly as possible. I came across it while looking into the Dominguez situation." She'd rather avoid discussing that project in too much detail just yet, since it's still in flux. "As far as I know, there are no supernatural encumbrances on the building. Primarily student housing."
"And why do you want this building?" Siveri asks. It should be obvious, shouldn't it? And yet he's asking anyway.
"I'm bringing it to your attention if you'd like to buy it." She puts a finger to her lower lip, considering. An unnecessary gesture, but a habit from mortal days she's unwilling to relinquish. She decides to put a feeler out, see if he's offering a gift or reward. Not impossible. She can't read his mood. "I wouldn't say no if offered a loan to purchase it myself. But that wasn't my intention in bringing it up."
"I'm asking you what the benefit is." Finally Siveri turns to look at her properly. "Money? Blood? A place to retreat to, unknown to others? Why do you think it should be taken?"
"Money," she answers right away. "Either hold it and find a management firm continue to rent it out, or turn it around for sale. With more time on our hands, we should be able to sell it well above what Qualified Management is willing to accept." She pauses, looking him over herself, still attempting to gauge his mood. Not the most pleasant, she judges, but is it aimed at her? "It is near my favorite hunting grounds, so I wouldn't mind having some say in its management, but money is the main reason to bother."
Guarded and slightly inhuman as he is, Amber still has had a little practice at reading Siveri. He's certainly not upset at her, and perhaps not even upset... at all? Something is going on. Siveri nods thoughtfully. "Amber, you are a practical woman." The sudden shift is a little strange - Siveri never meanders. "You present a good opportunity, and I want you to manage this little venture." In the space between heartbeats - if they had them - he's suddenly much closer, without seemingly crossing the intervening space. A thumb caresses Amber's cheek gently, the simple touch thickening the atmosphere of the room. "There is a lesson you will need to learn through the ages." The unspoken assumption that Amber will be around for 'ages' is perhaps reassuring.
"What... is that?" She looks into his eyes for a moment, before her gaze slides away to his shoulder. Of all the men in the world, he's the one she can't imagine winning against. Even Lord Wyndham or the Donna, she can imagine clashing wills with, but Siveri... she just can't. Not when he has a finger on her cheek like this.
"I have lost and gained fortunes. I have been a pauper in rags on the streets, and I have been a lord in silks in a manor. Several times for both." He doesn't say it boastfully. Instead Siveri sounds... oddly detached from the idea. "But through it all, I survived. Luck plays a role, certainly. Others who perished were smarter, faster, stronger. But in the end, all that matters, when everything else is stripped away, is the blood. Some forget that simple truth, wrapped up in gold or god." His finger trails down to Amber's lips, tracing their contour softly. She can remember vividly the sweet wine of his blood, fed to her dripping from his fingers. The memory binds them together. "Money covers many weaknesses and accounts for many sins. Blood builds strength."
She turns her head away, forcing down her desire to taste him again. She knows she'll be lost if she does. She knows he thinks she already is. "I tasted a sweet girl who lives there. Saved her from Luke, even." Double layers - is Carissa the sweet girl, or Amber? Rescued from Luke - rescued from her sire. "I've been meaning to return to her. I know she'd be willing."
She can feel his approval, this close. The little taste of his skin from how her lips brushed against his finger as she talked, the look in his icy eyes, even the still bearing of his dead form - all send the same message. That she has done well. That Siveri is impressed with her. He doesn't need to say it aloud, and the feeling of his regard is warm in a way only feeding from fresh blood is... if not quite as potent. "Have you been staying well-fed, Amber?"
"Always." She feels the rumble of the beast inside her, announcing that she could be fuller. More. Always more. She should feed tonight, shouldn't she? Stay full and satisfied. Then she can be sure not to hurt anyone - if she were hungrier, she might lose control, and that would be terrible. So she should definitely feed tonight, it whispers in her ear. "The university is so easy." She shifts one leg, adjusting her balance. Just a touch closer to him. She's just as aware of the lack of his breath on her, as much as she would be if he were blowing warm air like a human.
Siveri lets Amber shift closer. "Set your heart beating." He orders, probably close enough to hear if she does even with weak human senses, much less the fine-tuned ability of a vampire.
She bites her lower lip and looks down, blood rushing to her cheeks, through her veins, as she blushes. He wouldn't ask her for that unless they were going to be close. Blood is important. A cold hand shifts down to Amber's chest, just over her heart, feeling it flutter through the thin cloth of her shirt.
"Tell me why I'm doing this when I just told you the value of blood." He says. And it's not a question.
"I don't-" she whispers, and immediately feels that it's not good enough. She can't not know. Not in front of him. Not in front of anyone. She summons up her pride, meeting his eyes and standing up straighter. She's still shorter, by nearly half a head. "Because it's what blood is for. Feeling alive. Survival isn't enough."
There's a moment - just a sliver of a second - where Amber thinks she sees surprise in Siveri's cold eyes. But it passes so quickly she can't be sure. He presses her back against the glass door of the office with his fingertips, the light pressure a reminder that he could force her back, if she wasn't submitting to his barest command. "Do you feel alive?"
She stifles a pleased gasp at the contact, putting a hand against his chest that would be helpless to push him back even if she wanted to. "Sometimes. Now."
Siveri takes his time with the buttons of her blouse, moving slowly and listening to the pound of her heart, head cocked just slightly to one side. Each breath, once again involuntary and in a fixed cycle, is matched with another button undone, but Siveri stops just under her breasts to put a room temperature hand on Amber's chest, feeling her heart again.
While her own flesh was cool, a cool touch against it simply was, but with blood once again rushing through her veins, his fingers become a pleasant sensation, a chill contrast to her body's heat. She wonders briefly if she ought to be bothered by the dead flesh, if a proper human would be, but she isn't. It belongs to Siveri, and having him this close is exciting. Not at all like the eager passion of one of her mortals, whose touch contains nothing of danger, nothing of the electric thrill that she's not in charge here. She manages to reach around and deposit the papers on his desk before she loses track of them completely. It wouldn't do to leave them strewn across the floor. That's for her clothes.
He finishes removing her shirt and tosses it casually aside, then continues his work just as slowly and deliberately down her body. Siveri unzips her skirt and slides it down her hips, patient with the way the cloth clings to her curves and not trying to force it. Why would he? He knows she's his. There's no rush.
No rush from him perhaps, but Amber has to hold herself back. Her dignity demands that she not pant after him like some lust-crazed addict, and so she smothers the urges, returning his pace with a slow smile of her own and lidded eyes. She looks good here, and she knows it, leaning back against the door and lifting her arms over her head. Only the rapid fluttering of her heart betrays that the languid pose is a thin facade over excitement.
A cold hand grabs both of her wrists with inhuman strength, forcing Amber back against the door and holding her there tightly as her skirt hits the floor. Siveri presses against her and his kiss sets Amber's lips burning, even without any warmth offered in return for her heat. His other hand curls down her hip, just like at the Wyndham, easing down her thigh with languid surety.
She gasps into his mouth, pushing briefly against the hands to feel the strength holding her in place. She has warmth to spare, rolling off her burning skin into the cool air of the office and into the flesh of her cold lover. She shifts her legs, bringing them together as his hands move down her thighs. Amber's mouth is receptive, kiss as open and eager to receive him as her stance is not.
There's a growl against her lips and Siveri yanks open Amber's thighs effortlessly, fingers gripping her flesh with strength just short of enough to bruise a living woman. Even now, Siveri is incredibly precise, only using exactly as much force as he needs. He pulls back from the kiss, eyes running over Amber once more. Even without the imitation of living instincts to match her own, the passion in that look sets Amber's heart pounding faster. A single finger on that hand runs under the waist of her panties and with a seemingly effortless twitch, snaps them apart to flutter to the ground.
Amber shivers under his gaze. She's held in place by the hand on her wrists and by other. less tangible grips he has on her, his desire and her desire to satisfy it not least among them. She breathes shallowly, breath fluttering along with her heart as she waits for him to make his pleasure known. She wants to bring her thighs together again, squirm and rub them against each other, but that's not her privilege at the moment.
Cold lips make their way down to Amber's neck, resting there and parting ever so slightly, as though Siveri was about to feed from the life pounding through her veins - but no. He continues down Amber's neck and chest with agonizing deliberateness, the patience of the dead setting Amber to squirming harder.
It's a strange sensation to have him moving over her heatlessly, again she wonders how it feels for mortals when one of them is at her pleasure. It's different for her - she knows his state intimately, knows what it feels like to be cold but desirous. And he does desire her, all calculations aside. She's here, now, and he's not going to leave until he takes her. It's the same power Kev holds over her, or Carrissa, and the thought keeps her own desire burning as she shivers under his touch.
Siveri is forced to release Amber's hands as he kisses lower, down her stomach and over one hip. Despite the sudden reversal of his previous looming, powerful physicality, Amber doesn't feel any less pinned to the glass as Siveri traces the femoral artery down her inner thigh. The realization of where he's kissing - where the blood flows, rather than where desire takes him, or perhaps that for Siveri there's no difference - bothers her in a way she didn't entirely expect. A thought for another time though, and she crushes it ruthlessly, sinking back into the heat of the moment with a moan and a focus on the physical sensations of his touch.
Almost as soon as Amber has the thought, Siveri's lips rise upward to kiss her sex. It's eerie how he can do that. Though he's denied having the gift to read her mind, she can't help but wonder. Then his tongue sets to work, and misgivings melt away under the delightful contrast of cold and excruciating heat, each stroke over her sending another shiver of pleasure through her at the strange-yet-familiar mix of sensations.
She's not so gone that she can't remember the pleasures of living - and this is just different enough to send an electric thrill through her even still. Amber runs a hand through his hair as he eats her out, stroking and encouraging him to continue. She presses her needy crotch forward into his tongue, seeking stronger sensation and fleeing from the chill glass behind.
As Amber presses forward, Siveri shifts back and effortlessly pins her back against the door. His fingers dig into her thighs roughly and he eats her with greater fervor, putting seemingly his entire body into the force of his attentions. A gaps escapes her lips as she's pressed back again, followed by a low moan from the redoubled touch. Her climax is swift and brutal, dragged out of her so quickly by someone who knows her body entirely too well. Almost like a machine operated by controls, she thinks, the thought sending another spasm through.
Siveri stands swiftly and presses Amber against the glass with a rough kiss. And for the first time - despite the chill of his lips and tongue only alleviated by the stolen heat and taste of her sex - he feels warm and present, kissing her for no reason than because he desires to do so. The difference is obvious, and were he not still pinning her against the door, she'd sag into his arms, wrap herself around him. Instead she settles for hands on his waist, the genuine passion in her kiss mirroring his own.
The long moment eventually has to end, and Siveri pulls away slowly, their lips parting with a sense of faint reluctance. But none of it shows on his face. He looks at Amber for another stretching, stolen moment.
She stands there, suddenly cold in the evening air, naked and exposed not only to Siveri, but to the glass behind her, to the whole world. She hugs herself, wondering where the heat has gone. It's drained out of her, spent, and the sensation drains from her body, back to a corpse animated with will and stolen life. She knows the lesson he's trying to teach - but understanding isn't the same as agreement, and it's why she gave the answer she did before, rather than one that would have pleased him more completely.
There's a moment where Siveri seems about to dismiss her, but a strange look passes across his face and he twists Amber around, pulling her back against his chest. Which is... Warm. Human. A heart within a cage of bone stutters back to operation. With her eyes closed, Amber could believe he was alive. He doesn't say a word.
The gesture is a moving one, and Amber finds herself with an out of place urge, a burning in her eyes that would be tears, if she could still cry. She doesn't though, because she can't, and the sensation fades as the last of the blood stills in her veins. She puts her hands over his, feeling the shared warmth for a few moments even as her own body cools back towards the temperature of the air around them.