"Waking World"
Aug. 30th, 2010 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freezingrayneBingo!
Title: Waking World
Fandom: Darker than Black
Pairing: Misaki/Hei
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 2583
For rough sex on my bingo card.
Teaser: Sure, she’s careful, but she isn’t made of willpower, and good intentions and a sense of chivalry can only go so far.
Since the fandom is made up of about four people, Misaki and Hei
When Misaki opens the door early one morning to find BK-201 standing there, the sun slanting in to paint him against the backdrop of the city, it’s like every hope and listless daydream she’s had for the last two years, caught somewhere between sleeping and waking.
“…Li?”
He nods, and the corner of his lips twitch up, almost like he’s trying for a smile . “Can I come in?”
Misaki steps back. “O-Of course.” He steps over the threshold, and she can see how he holds himself, favoring his left side, arm curled protectively around his torso. Broken ribs, then. Or at least bruised.
They stand there, looking at each other, standing in Misaki’s living room. Her jacket is slung over the chair by the door. She’s late for work.
“Are…are you alright?” she asks after a moment.
He nods again, tightly. “Yes. I just need a place to lay low. Until I can move again.”
He’s moving alright, but she knows what he means. Move the way he moves, like the laws of physics don’t quite apply, like he has muscles in places other beings don’t.
And having thoughts like that aren’t going to do her any good, especially since she’s about to run out the door.
“I have to go,” she says. “You can help yourself to…” Beer and moldy cheese. That’s all she has in the fridge right now. “Anything you want.”
“Thank you,” he says, and he sounds like he really means it. Never mind that a few weeks ago he’d been poised to kill her.
“Will you be here when I get back?”
He smiles. He really smiles, they way he used to before she knew who he really was, or at least, when she just suspected.
“Yeah, I will.”
Misaki nods, picking up her jacket and her phone. She straps her gun to its holster. “I won’t tell anyone you’re here.”
He nods.
At work she can barely focus. Time passes abysmally slowly, to the point that she must be looking at the clock every ten seconds. Around four she gives up, clocking out early and walking home, rather than taking the train. It’s sort of a hike, but it gives her time to think.
She can smell dinner cooking before she even opens the apartment door. It’s soy and miso and a couple of other things she doesn’t recognize. Misaki takes her coat off and throws it over the living room chair, sets her umbrella up against the wall. After a moment’s hesitation, she takes her gun out of its holster and puts it on the table beside her keys.
In the kitchen Li’s standing at the counter, chopping onions, a wok sizzling on the stove. The whole scene is so unassumingly domestic that for a moment Misaki is frozen in the doorway.
“Oh.” Li stiffens. “I didn’t even hear you come in.” He puts a hand to his forehead guiltily. “Sorry. I sort of commandeered your kitchen.” She tries to marry this kind, slightly awkward man with the masked contractor who had held a knife to her throat, who had tortured a woman for information, but she can’t do it. As always, they are two separate entities in her head.
She smiles. “It’s fine. This is probably more action than it’s ever seen before.” She glances behind him at the stove. “Wow…”
There’s enough food here to feed a family of six. Or possibly a small army, if they were an army that didn’t eat too much.
Li finishes chopping the onions and slides them off the cutting board and into the wok. “I remembered you ate a lot,” he says. It doesn’t sound accusatory like it does when it comes from her friends.
“You can talk.” She’s never seen anyone eat like he does. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He slides a carton of mushrooms her way.
She dreams about him that night—black on black, moving in and out of her line of vision. A masked face bears down on her, hands pinning her to the ground, a voice whispering in her ear. She feels his body, warm and hard, arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her close. She buries her hands into his hair, foreign and so familiar all at once—
She wakes sweaty and aching, alone in her room. She can almost feel the ghost of hands on her face.
A ribbon of light creeps under her bedroom door. She’d left him in the living room, stretched out on the sofa, reading something he’d picked up off the coffee table. It would be easy to go out there, find him, feel his hands in the waking world.
Misaki turns over resolutely and closes her eyes.
When it comes down to it, she’s the one who kisses him.
Sure, she’s careful, but she isn’t made of willpower, and good intentions and a sense of chivalry can only go so far. Especially considering she has to lie there listening to Li in the shower, walking into the apartment once when he’s only half dressed, beads of moisture still gleaming on his torso.
It’s a Friday, several weeks after he’d first come to stay with her, after work and after dinner (she’d picked up sushi on the way home. Li claims he likes cooking, but she feels sort of bad about him doing it every day) and Li is stacking plates beside the sink.
“Li…”
He turns around and she puts a hand to his cheek, tracing her fingers along the curve of his jaw. His eyes widen for just a moment, lips twitching up into what might have been heading towards a smile, though Misaki kisses him too fast to tell. Li doesn’t move for a moment, and Misaki worries that she’s made a severe miscalculation, but then his mouth opens against hers. He tastes like pickled ginger and rice, and when his hands come up to circle Misaki’s biceps, heat thrills through her.
----
Li rolls off of her, settling to one side. There isn’t too much room on the futon, but neither of them is very big. He stares up at the ceiling.
“Well, that was…” Misaki tries to think of an accurate word. “Nice.”
His eyes swivel in her direction. “Nice?”
“Yeah.” And it had been. Nice. But sort of not the way she had been imagining it all this time. “I just thought it would be—.”
Li doesn’t give her a chance to finish. He rolls back on top of her, straddling across her thighs. His hands grab wrists, forcing her down against the mattress.
“Rougher?” he finishes. His eyes have gone flat and lifeless.
Breath escapes Misaki in a shuddery rush. “Y-Yes.” It’s only been a minute or two, but suddenly she’s as turned on as she’d been when they started. “I didn’t—.”
Li kisses her, forcing his tongue into her mouth, biting down on her lip. Misaki struggles, but his hands may as well have been chains. He bites harder and she tastes blood, coppery and warm.
One stray thought, she knows, one tiny push of his power and he could kill her here. Li pulls back, lapping the blood from the corner of her mouth.
“Is this what you want?” he asks, angling his hips so she can feel his cock, hot and hard against her. He isn’t Li anymore—she can tell that from his eyes. BK-201 is on top of her, and she doesn’t think she’s ever felt anything as exhilarating.
Before she can answer he’s bending down for her mouth again, but she gets a knee in his stomach, catching him off guard. Twisting, she manages to throw him off, hearing a hollow thunk as he hits the wall. She springs off the futon, some inner sense telling her to run, find her gun.
She doesn’t make it two steps before he’s on her again, riding her down to the floor, much too spry for someone who’d had broken ribs just two weeks ago. Misaki wants to scream, but she forces it back down. Doesn’t want her neighbors calling the police. Li forces her arms up over her head, the carpet rasping rough against her breasts. Her hair falls into her face, blocking her vision, and for a moment real panic chokes her.
Lips descend on the small of her back, a soft and fleeting kiss. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Li says softly, so softly that she might have imagined it. Hands smooth her hair away from her eyes, and his breath is hot on the back of her neck.
Misaki forces herself to breathe. She tugs at his hands, struggling, but he doesn’t let go. He’s not hurting her, just restraining her, and it’s unbelievably hot, feeling the strength in his arms, the scent of him surrounding her.
“I…” She swallows. “I don’t mind.”
His voice is very close to her ear. “Don’t mind?”
“If…” She can hardly believe she’s saying this. “As…as long as it isn’t something I can’t walk off. I don’t mind.”
“Oh, I see.” And he bites.
“Fuck!” Misaki shudders, the bites continuing down the trail of her spine. Li has to release her hands as he reaches the curve of her ass, and she’s ready for it. She twists her body, striking with her elbow, remembering everything she’d been taught back in high school when she’d insisted on taking Judo instead of piano lessons.
Li falls back against the floor with a surprised sound, eyes widening slightly as she pins his arms over his head. “Well, BK-201,” she says. “You have the right to remain silent.” She takes a moment just to look at him—god knows there’s a lot to look at. Muscular arms, sharp, elegant collar-bones, the slight shock in his eyes, the fact that he wouldn’t look out of place in a spread in a magazine. “But I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”
Reaching back, she takes hold of his cock, stroking slowly, savoring the heat in his eyes. He makes a sound that might have been her name, but the end is broken off as she sinks down, biting her lip as he fills her up. And god, she’s still sensitive from the first time, gasping as she settles on top of him. She’s not holding him down anymore, but he’s kept his hands there, splayed out over his head. Sweaty hair sticks to his cheeks and neck.
It takes more effort than she would care to admit, but Misaki makes herself meet his eyes as she moves on top of him. Her cheeks burn, but the way he looks at her makes it all worth it.
Still, it’s not quite enough yet. “Will you—.” She grabs his arms again, urging him up into a sitting position. She groans as he goes deeper, hands scrabbling at his shoulders. “Uhhh…fuck.”
Misaki tips her head back, gasping as he bites her throat. She buries her fingers in his hair and works her hips, thighs shaking with the effort. His back is slick with sweat, muscles moving under her hands.
“Misaki…” His voice is low and hot, hypnotic, so it takes her by surprise when he stands up, holding her against him like she weighs absolutely nothing. The balance it must take to do something like that, the strength…
“How do you—.”
The ends of the words become a yell as he tosses her back onto bed, pushing her back down onto her hands and knees. Li grabs her thighs, pulling her back, pushing inside her in one quick thrust. Misaki curses, hands twisting into the sheets. His nails scratch furrows into her back, tracks stinging with sweat.
It usually takes more than this, but she doesn’t think she’s ever been this worked up before. Li touches her like he’s a stranger, like he’s something she never could have imagined, but he smells the same, like sweat and cooking spices, and just a trace of ozone, and it throws her. Nearly overwhelms her, really, when he pulls her back and she feels his breath on her neck, just before he bites down on her shoulder. She gasps, shuddering, coming in a hot, dizzy rush.
Li groans, muttering something incoherent into her shoulder. He rolls her over, and Misaki feels her back hit the sheets. Breath escapes her in a gasp, leaving her even more dazed than before.
Li’s hair hangs sweaty and lank in his eyes as she wraps her legs around him. She’s so sensitive by now that it’s almost like pain when he lines back up and pushes inside her, but that doesn’t for one second make her want to stop.
Li bites into his lip, making a broken sort of noise, before shudders wrack him and he groans, long and low. His hips stutter and he pushes a few last, clumsy thrusts, before collapsing with a grunt, right on top of her.
Misaki laughs, running a hand down his sweaty back, feeling the smooth flex of muscle just because she can. “I’m lucky you’re so small.”
Li raises his head, expression sleepy and reproachful. “That’s not very nice.”
Misaki laughs some more. “Well, it’s true.” He rolls off her again, but this time their legs stay tangled, his head on her shoulder.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks after a few seconds of catching their breath.
“No. Well, yeah.” She shifts her shoulders. The bites on her back sting and there’s a dull ache forming around her hips. Her whole body is sore, but it’s workout sore, the way she feels after hours at the gym. “But I asked for it. I wanted it.”
He raises his head to look at her and her cheeks burn slightly.
“I mean, I’ve been thinking about this since I met you. Well, technically, she amends, “Before I met you. I’d have dreams about BK-201 coming through my window and doing…well, that to me.”
“Really?” He sounds genuinely surprised.
“Yeah.” She laughs softly. “Not very responsible of me, huh?”
Li shrugs. “About as responsible as getting help from the one person with enough resources to take me down.”
“I guess we’re both stupid, then,” she says, grinning. She can’t help it.
When Misaki gets home from the precinct the next day, Li’s chopping carrots.
“You’re still here,” she says before she can help it.
“Yeah.” He smiles. “Sorry about that. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re not. I don’t mind if…” She sighs. “You’re a…really good cook.”
Li finishes chopping and slides the carrots into the pot bubbling on the stove. “Oh. Is that all?”
“All..?” It takes Misaki a second to realize he’s teasing her. Sex with BK201 is one thing. Flirting with him is another realm entirely. She grins hesitantly. “Well, you have some other talents too.”
He laughs, and Misaki wonders if she should kiss him. She can feel his presence through her entire body, like his electricity is rippling up over his skin. The memory of him over her, inside her. She can feel the bruises on her hips and back, the bites on the back of her neck. He turns away before she can decide what to do.
“Can I…can I help?”
Li scoots over toward the sink. “You can cut the onions, if you like.”
“Sure.”
He passes her the knife, fingers lingering against hers just a few seconds longer than they have to.
She grins. “Diced or quartered?”
Title: Waking World
Fandom: Darker than Black
Pairing: Misaki/Hei
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 2583
For rough sex on my bingo card.
Teaser: Sure, she’s careful, but she isn’t made of willpower, and good intentions and a sense of chivalry can only go so far.
Since the fandom is made up of about four people, Misaki and Hei
When Misaki opens the door early one morning to find BK-201 standing there, the sun slanting in to paint him against the backdrop of the city, it’s like every hope and listless daydream she’s had for the last two years, caught somewhere between sleeping and waking.
“…Li?”
He nods, and the corner of his lips twitch up, almost like he’s trying for a smile . “Can I come in?”
Misaki steps back. “O-Of course.” He steps over the threshold, and she can see how he holds himself, favoring his left side, arm curled protectively around his torso. Broken ribs, then. Or at least bruised.
They stand there, looking at each other, standing in Misaki’s living room. Her jacket is slung over the chair by the door. She’s late for work.
“Are…are you alright?” she asks after a moment.
He nods again, tightly. “Yes. I just need a place to lay low. Until I can move again.”
He’s moving alright, but she knows what he means. Move the way he moves, like the laws of physics don’t quite apply, like he has muscles in places other beings don’t.
And having thoughts like that aren’t going to do her any good, especially since she’s about to run out the door.
“I have to go,” she says. “You can help yourself to…” Beer and moldy cheese. That’s all she has in the fridge right now. “Anything you want.”
“Thank you,” he says, and he sounds like he really means it. Never mind that a few weeks ago he’d been poised to kill her.
“Will you be here when I get back?”
He smiles. He really smiles, they way he used to before she knew who he really was, or at least, when she just suspected.
“Yeah, I will.”
Misaki nods, picking up her jacket and her phone. She straps her gun to its holster. “I won’t tell anyone you’re here.”
He nods.
At work she can barely focus. Time passes abysmally slowly, to the point that she must be looking at the clock every ten seconds. Around four she gives up, clocking out early and walking home, rather than taking the train. It’s sort of a hike, but it gives her time to think.
She can smell dinner cooking before she even opens the apartment door. It’s soy and miso and a couple of other things she doesn’t recognize. Misaki takes her coat off and throws it over the living room chair, sets her umbrella up against the wall. After a moment’s hesitation, she takes her gun out of its holster and puts it on the table beside her keys.
In the kitchen Li’s standing at the counter, chopping onions, a wok sizzling on the stove. The whole scene is so unassumingly domestic that for a moment Misaki is frozen in the doorway.
“Oh.” Li stiffens. “I didn’t even hear you come in.” He puts a hand to his forehead guiltily. “Sorry. I sort of commandeered your kitchen.” She tries to marry this kind, slightly awkward man with the masked contractor who had held a knife to her throat, who had tortured a woman for information, but she can’t do it. As always, they are two separate entities in her head.
She smiles. “It’s fine. This is probably more action than it’s ever seen before.” She glances behind him at the stove. “Wow…”
There’s enough food here to feed a family of six. Or possibly a small army, if they were an army that didn’t eat too much.
Li finishes chopping the onions and slides them off the cutting board and into the wok. “I remembered you ate a lot,” he says. It doesn’t sound accusatory like it does when it comes from her friends.
“You can talk.” She’s never seen anyone eat like he does. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He slides a carton of mushrooms her way.
She dreams about him that night—black on black, moving in and out of her line of vision. A masked face bears down on her, hands pinning her to the ground, a voice whispering in her ear. She feels his body, warm and hard, arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her close. She buries her hands into his hair, foreign and so familiar all at once—
She wakes sweaty and aching, alone in her room. She can almost feel the ghost of hands on her face.
A ribbon of light creeps under her bedroom door. She’d left him in the living room, stretched out on the sofa, reading something he’d picked up off the coffee table. It would be easy to go out there, find him, feel his hands in the waking world.
Misaki turns over resolutely and closes her eyes.
When it comes down to it, she’s the one who kisses him.
Sure, she’s careful, but she isn’t made of willpower, and good intentions and a sense of chivalry can only go so far. Especially considering she has to lie there listening to Li in the shower, walking into the apartment once when he’s only half dressed, beads of moisture still gleaming on his torso.
It’s a Friday, several weeks after he’d first come to stay with her, after work and after dinner (she’d picked up sushi on the way home. Li claims he likes cooking, but she feels sort of bad about him doing it every day) and Li is stacking plates beside the sink.
“Li…”
He turns around and she puts a hand to his cheek, tracing her fingers along the curve of his jaw. His eyes widen for just a moment, lips twitching up into what might have been heading towards a smile, though Misaki kisses him too fast to tell. Li doesn’t move for a moment, and Misaki worries that she’s made a severe miscalculation, but then his mouth opens against hers. He tastes like pickled ginger and rice, and when his hands come up to circle Misaki’s biceps, heat thrills through her.
----
Li rolls off of her, settling to one side. There isn’t too much room on the futon, but neither of them is very big. He stares up at the ceiling.
“Well, that was…” Misaki tries to think of an accurate word. “Nice.”
His eyes swivel in her direction. “Nice?”
“Yeah.” And it had been. Nice. But sort of not the way she had been imagining it all this time. “I just thought it would be—.”
Li doesn’t give her a chance to finish. He rolls back on top of her, straddling across her thighs. His hands grab wrists, forcing her down against the mattress.
“Rougher?” he finishes. His eyes have gone flat and lifeless.
Breath escapes Misaki in a shuddery rush. “Y-Yes.” It’s only been a minute or two, but suddenly she’s as turned on as she’d been when they started. “I didn’t—.”
Li kisses her, forcing his tongue into her mouth, biting down on her lip. Misaki struggles, but his hands may as well have been chains. He bites harder and she tastes blood, coppery and warm.
One stray thought, she knows, one tiny push of his power and he could kill her here. Li pulls back, lapping the blood from the corner of her mouth.
“Is this what you want?” he asks, angling his hips so she can feel his cock, hot and hard against her. He isn’t Li anymore—she can tell that from his eyes. BK-201 is on top of her, and she doesn’t think she’s ever felt anything as exhilarating.
Before she can answer he’s bending down for her mouth again, but she gets a knee in his stomach, catching him off guard. Twisting, she manages to throw him off, hearing a hollow thunk as he hits the wall. She springs off the futon, some inner sense telling her to run, find her gun.
She doesn’t make it two steps before he’s on her again, riding her down to the floor, much too spry for someone who’d had broken ribs just two weeks ago. Misaki wants to scream, but she forces it back down. Doesn’t want her neighbors calling the police. Li forces her arms up over her head, the carpet rasping rough against her breasts. Her hair falls into her face, blocking her vision, and for a moment real panic chokes her.
Lips descend on the small of her back, a soft and fleeting kiss. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Li says softly, so softly that she might have imagined it. Hands smooth her hair away from her eyes, and his breath is hot on the back of her neck.
Misaki forces herself to breathe. She tugs at his hands, struggling, but he doesn’t let go. He’s not hurting her, just restraining her, and it’s unbelievably hot, feeling the strength in his arms, the scent of him surrounding her.
“I…” She swallows. “I don’t mind.”
His voice is very close to her ear. “Don’t mind?”
“If…” She can hardly believe she’s saying this. “As…as long as it isn’t something I can’t walk off. I don’t mind.”
“Oh, I see.” And he bites.
“Fuck!” Misaki shudders, the bites continuing down the trail of her spine. Li has to release her hands as he reaches the curve of her ass, and she’s ready for it. She twists her body, striking with her elbow, remembering everything she’d been taught back in high school when she’d insisted on taking Judo instead of piano lessons.
Li falls back against the floor with a surprised sound, eyes widening slightly as she pins his arms over his head. “Well, BK-201,” she says. “You have the right to remain silent.” She takes a moment just to look at him—god knows there’s a lot to look at. Muscular arms, sharp, elegant collar-bones, the slight shock in his eyes, the fact that he wouldn’t look out of place in a spread in a magazine. “But I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”
Reaching back, she takes hold of his cock, stroking slowly, savoring the heat in his eyes. He makes a sound that might have been her name, but the end is broken off as she sinks down, biting her lip as he fills her up. And god, she’s still sensitive from the first time, gasping as she settles on top of him. She’s not holding him down anymore, but he’s kept his hands there, splayed out over his head. Sweaty hair sticks to his cheeks and neck.
It takes more effort than she would care to admit, but Misaki makes herself meet his eyes as she moves on top of him. Her cheeks burn, but the way he looks at her makes it all worth it.
Still, it’s not quite enough yet. “Will you—.” She grabs his arms again, urging him up into a sitting position. She groans as he goes deeper, hands scrabbling at his shoulders. “Uhhh…fuck.”
Misaki tips her head back, gasping as he bites her throat. She buries her fingers in his hair and works her hips, thighs shaking with the effort. His back is slick with sweat, muscles moving under her hands.
“Misaki…” His voice is low and hot, hypnotic, so it takes her by surprise when he stands up, holding her against him like she weighs absolutely nothing. The balance it must take to do something like that, the strength…
“How do you—.”
The ends of the words become a yell as he tosses her back onto bed, pushing her back down onto her hands and knees. Li grabs her thighs, pulling her back, pushing inside her in one quick thrust. Misaki curses, hands twisting into the sheets. His nails scratch furrows into her back, tracks stinging with sweat.
It usually takes more than this, but she doesn’t think she’s ever been this worked up before. Li touches her like he’s a stranger, like he’s something she never could have imagined, but he smells the same, like sweat and cooking spices, and just a trace of ozone, and it throws her. Nearly overwhelms her, really, when he pulls her back and she feels his breath on her neck, just before he bites down on her shoulder. She gasps, shuddering, coming in a hot, dizzy rush.
Li groans, muttering something incoherent into her shoulder. He rolls her over, and Misaki feels her back hit the sheets. Breath escapes her in a gasp, leaving her even more dazed than before.
Li’s hair hangs sweaty and lank in his eyes as she wraps her legs around him. She’s so sensitive by now that it’s almost like pain when he lines back up and pushes inside her, but that doesn’t for one second make her want to stop.
Li bites into his lip, making a broken sort of noise, before shudders wrack him and he groans, long and low. His hips stutter and he pushes a few last, clumsy thrusts, before collapsing with a grunt, right on top of her.
Misaki laughs, running a hand down his sweaty back, feeling the smooth flex of muscle just because she can. “I’m lucky you’re so small.”
Li raises his head, expression sleepy and reproachful. “That’s not very nice.”
Misaki laughs some more. “Well, it’s true.” He rolls off her again, but this time their legs stay tangled, his head on her shoulder.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks after a few seconds of catching their breath.
“No. Well, yeah.” She shifts her shoulders. The bites on her back sting and there’s a dull ache forming around her hips. Her whole body is sore, but it’s workout sore, the way she feels after hours at the gym. “But I asked for it. I wanted it.”
He raises his head to look at her and her cheeks burn slightly.
“I mean, I’ve been thinking about this since I met you. Well, technically, she amends, “Before I met you. I’d have dreams about BK-201 coming through my window and doing…well, that to me.”
“Really?” He sounds genuinely surprised.
“Yeah.” She laughs softly. “Not very responsible of me, huh?”
Li shrugs. “About as responsible as getting help from the one person with enough resources to take me down.”
“I guess we’re both stupid, then,” she says, grinning. She can’t help it.
When Misaki gets home from the precinct the next day, Li’s chopping carrots.
“You’re still here,” she says before she can help it.
“Yeah.” He smiles. “Sorry about that. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re not. I don’t mind if…” She sighs. “You’re a…really good cook.”
Li finishes chopping and slides the carrots into the pot bubbling on the stove. “Oh. Is that all?”
“All..?” It takes Misaki a second to realize he’s teasing her. Sex with BK201 is one thing. Flirting with him is another realm entirely. She grins hesitantly. “Well, you have some other talents too.”
He laughs, and Misaki wonders if she should kiss him. She can feel his presence through her entire body, like his electricity is rippling up over his skin. The memory of him over her, inside her. She can feel the bruises on her hips and back, the bites on the back of her neck. He turns away before she can decide what to do.
“Can I…can I help?”
Li scoots over toward the sink. “You can cut the onions, if you like.”
“Sure.”
He passes her the knife, fingers lingering against hers just a few seconds longer than they have to.
She grins. “Diced or quartered?”
