Just Enough Rope, Chapter 9

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The vote was fairly evenly split, so consider this part one. Meanwhile, I’ll be over in the corner, blushing furiously and clutching my pearls, once again feeling like a 13 year-old hiding under blankets with a flashlight to write dirty stories I didn’t want my mom to find.

Fanfiction.net link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6910203/9/Just_Enough_Rope

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER NINE

When Jenna came to, her senses were under assault. Sirens, car alarms, shouted orders, and the roar of fire all battered at her ears. The flickering of flame and the strobe effect of red and blue dancing lights speared into her eyes as she opened them, though she seemed to be some distance away. The acrid smell of smoke, with an under-note of gasoline, filled her nose and made her cough as she took a deep breath to try and clear it. Her body sent up plaintive cries from a scrape here, a bruise there; the ghosts of deeper injuries made their presence known, misty and fading, but somehow no less real for their snuffed out existence.

On her tongue, she tasted blood.

Struggling to an upright position, she realized she was sitting in grass, a little away from the parking lot. Three fire trucks had converged on the scene, and several police cars were circled around the outside of them, keeping onlookers away from an area now teeming with crew that struggled to bring down the flames that danced where Elijah's car had been.

Elijah!

Jenna looked around sharply, hissing in a breath when the sudden movement sent a jolt of pain shooting up the side of her neck to her temple. There, behind her. Elijah was on his hands and knees, blood staining the side of his face that she could see. It was hard to tell in that lighting, but the back of his clothes looked burnt to the point of disintegration. Far more alarming, though, was the large, jagged piece of metal protruding from his back.

"Elijah! Oh my God!" Jenna half crawled, half scrambled over to him, wincing as scraped knees slid across the grass.

He turned his head toward her. "You're awake. Good." His voice sounded oddly breathless. A thin string of blood dripped out of his mouth as he spoke.

Jenna started to put a hand on his back, then pulled it back, afraid to hurt him worse. "Okay. This is bad. Elijah, there's a big piece of metal sticking out of your back."

"Yes, Jenna, I'm aware of that," he said, which started him on a long, racking cough that ended with him turning his head away from her and spitting a torrent of blood onto the ground. "You need to pull it out," he wheezed, when he could speak again.

"I... oh God... wait… just don't move. I'm gonna get someone."

Elijah's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist before she could go. "No!" The one word sent him into another long spasm of coughing. "They can't see this," he finished weakly.

Jenna gulped in a breath. "Elijah, I don't think I can do this. I... I don't want to hurt you," she finished inanely.

"Jenna. Just. Pull. It. Out."

Jenna climbed to her feet, taking another deep breath as she gauged just how big the shrapnel was. Shaking her hands in front of her, she took yet another deep breath, then another – then realized when the sudden dizziness hit that she was going to hyperventilate if she didn't stop. "Oh God, okay. I'm gonna do it now." She found a grip on either side of the piece, feeling for spots that weren't too sharp and, grasping it tightly, she pulled upward.

It barely budged.

Elijah coughed and spat some more blood. Jenna let go and tried not to go into full-blown panic. "Fuck! It's too deep. It won't slide out!"

"It's caught on a rib," he whispered. "Push your foot against my back. Leverage."

“Won’t that break your rib?!”

“Likely,” he agreed.

Jenna took a step back. I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this. This was not in my contract! But, she realized, looking around, she had to. He was right; they couldn't risk someone else discovering his resilience. She took a few seconds to psych herself up some more, then re-gripped the metal, this time putting her foot against his back too. She gave it a hard jerk and heard a horrific, muffled snapping noise.

Elijah grunted in pain and jerked like someone had run a livewire through him, coughing more blood onto the ground. Jenna tried to breathe around sudden nausea as that terrible sound played over and over in her head. Her hands and arms tingled from being jarred when the metal had hit bone. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered, fighting down hysteria.

“S’kay,” Elijah slurred. “…keepgoing...”

Jenna blinked back tears and sniffed. It was ridiculous, her crying while he was the one with the big piece of metal making mincemeat of his insides. She swallowed and grabbed it once more, giving it a tug. This time it slid out a few inches. She took a breath, then tugged again. Another couple of inches slid out. The third time, she kept the pressure steady, feeling his body starting to loosen its hold on the shrapnel. It slid slowly out of him, freeing itself the last little bit with a quick pop that had her tumbling backward onto her ass.

As the metal came free of his body, Elijah collapsed onto his stomach, coughing and retching more blood. Jenna tossed the object away from her and scrambled over to him; when he stilled, she helped him turn over and placed his head in her lap. Tearing off a piece of her ruined coat, she wiped his face, cleaning off the worst of the blood. "What the hell happened?" she asked at last.

“Car bomb.”

“Okay… um,” Jenna processed that for a moment. “Where were we when it exploded?”

“A few steps away. That’s as far as I got before it went off.”

“Wait. We were in it?”

Elijah sighed and sat up. As he did so, his jacket more or less disintegrated off of him. The shirt underneath didn't look too far away from following suit. "Initially.”

"How did we get out?”

"I..." Elijah shook his head. "There was something off, something that warned me. I pushed your door out and pulled you with me out of the car."

"Holy shit." Jenna looked down at herself. "I guess I got lucky with just a few scrapes.”

Elijah got to his feet, holding a hand down to her to help her stand. "I tried to take the brunt of it. You were injured, though. Broken ribs, probably internal bleeding. I fed you my blood to heal the worst of it."

Jenna stared up at him in the dim light. "You mean you got us all the way over here with that thing through you, AND stopped to heal me?"

“I thought it would be prudent not to be too close when the rescue crews arrived. And you needed healing.”

Belatedly taking his hand, Jenna dusted her backside off as she stood, though considering the state of her dress, she didn't know why she bothered. "I'm not a vampire or anything now, am I?"

"No. Not unless you die this evening, while my blood is still in your system."

"You know, normally I wouldn’t walk around like I was an extra in a Final Destination movie, thinking I'm about to kick the bucket, but right now..." Jenna wrapped her arms around his waist, fighting off the impending freak-out.

Elijah pulled her to him, resting his chin on her head as he looked over toward the parking lot, where the flames were dying under the onslaught of the fire hoses. He let out an irritated sigh. "Three."

"Three what?"

"Cars. In the past month."

Jenna watched the firemen. "Maybe you should think about a Hummer," she said, giggling until she recognized the edge of hysteria in it.

“We should leave, before someone discovers us and starts asking questions. Did your phone survive?”

Jenna fished into the pocket of her coat and pulled her phone out. “I think so. Won’t you have to talk to the police, though?”

“Later. Right now I want to get you home. I can deal with this – and whoever is responsible for it – tomorrow.”

~~~~~

Jenna’s mini Cooper gamely climbed the long driveway up to Elijah’s Aerie, as she privately called the hilltop house that stood sentry high up over the lake. She had spent the better part of a week in that house, held there by two of Elijah’s vampire cohorts “for her own protection.” She sincerely hoped she wasn’t walking into a similar situation this time, in light of the evening’s events.

That’s if she talked herself into getting out of the car at all. She had surreptitiously asked Elena to bring her an overnight bag along with her car, “just in case.” It had seemed like a terribly good idea at the time; nothing like surviving (yet another) murder attempt to make someone want to celebrate being alive in the most primal way possible.

Now that they were here, though, she was suddenly shy. Should she just get out of the car with him, on the assumption that she was welcome? Make a tacit suggestion? Hint for an invitation? Considering he was pretty much the definition of ‘old-fashioned,’ she somehow doubted fuck me – here, now, hard! was the way to go about it.

“Are you coming in?” he asked, thereby rendering the problem moot.

Jenna sent up a silent prayer of thanks. “Yeah, sure. I had Elena throw a change of clothes in the car for me,” she told him, reaching into the miniscule back seat for the bag. She thought she saw a little smirk before Elijah turned and got out of the car. Okay, buddy. We’ll see who’s smirking later.

The house was exactly as she remembered it, and was immaculate. She wondered idly if he had someone come in to clean, which seemed unlikely, or whether pathological neatness was a vampire thing; Damon was always fussing at something.

Elijah flipped the door down on a keypad identical to the one he had had installed in her house and disarmed the system, dropping his keys into a little dish on the occasional table by the door. “I’m going to clean up,” he told her, heading toward the bedroom.

Jenna debated heading to the guest bath down the hall and doing the same; she was sure as hell not in any state to even sit on the furniture, let alone have naked sexytime. While she was mulling it over, she heard Elijah’s shower turn on. She remembered that shower: hugely oversized, with amazing water pressure, a big overhead rain fixture, plus multiple jets set at various heights. She had spent so much time in there her first morning that Sofia had come in to make sure she hadn’t tried to shimmy out the bathroom window. Not that she hadn’t considered it, but the sheer drop down the rock face was enough of a deterrent, even if the shower hadn’t been so incredible.

What the hell. No guts, no glory.

Heading into the master bedroom, Jenna slipped out of her ruined dress and pulled the hairpins out, freeing what hair hadn’t already escaped. She winced as her fingers fetched on a tangle of dried blood in her hair. A shower was definitely in order. She took a deep breath to quiet the butterflies in her stomach and walked into the bathroom.

The glass around the shower was frosted with steam from the hot water, offering only an indistinct outline of Elijah’s body. She wondered suddenly if she should say anything before she stepped into it with him. Jenna somehow doubted that sneaking up on a vampire was a very good idea. Then again, she hadn’t exactly tiptoed into the room or been super quiet undressing; chances were he had heard her anyway. Here goes nothing.

Jenna opened the glass door and waited a moment so she was sure Elijah knew she was there and, squaring her shoulders, stepped into the glass enclosure.

And stared.

Elijah stood with his back to her, but had turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. Broad shoulders and muscled back tapered to a narrow waist, under which was a truly fine specimen of a male ass. The rivulets of water running down his body only served to highlight his form. She’d known from her fingers’ limited explorations that he would be fit and trim, but she hadn’t imagined he was hiding all that under his expensive, tailored suits. “I,” she began, and cleared her throat when he voice came out all husky, “I thought we could save some water.”

Elijah chuckled, low in his throat. “Did you, now?”

Jenna closed her eyes and backed under one of the jets of water, wetting her hair and running her fingers through it as best she could to rinse the blood and dirt out of it. She sensed, rather than heard Elijah move, and then he was running his hands over her head as well. She smelled the faint scent of lavender as he massaged her scalp, working shampoo through her hair. She kept her eyes close, letting her head fall back with a sigh.

Elijah’s lips on her neck sent a bolt of lightning ripping through her body. She gasped, half-expecting to feel the sharp bite of teeth on her throat, but he only trailed light kisses there, working up to her earlobe, which he sucked into his mouth. Reaching forward to steady herself, she lay her fingers along his sides, feeling the muscles shift underneath them as he worked his hands over her hair, rinsing it.

He pulled away from her momentarily, and returned to rub conditioner through the tangles. I should have figured he conditions, with that hair of his. Jenna chanced opening her eyes; the rearview of him should have prepared her, but it hadn’t, not adequately. His chest was as hard and sculpted as his back, with scars like ghosts from old, old injuries. Of the injuries from the explosion, there was no trace. Muscles rippled under the flesh as he rinsed the conditioner out of her hair, bringing goosebumps to her flesh and shooting another jolt that arrowed straight to her groin. Her gaze drew inexorably downward, where she discovered that the front view was indeed every bit as nice as the back. She felt a guilty flush spread over her skin. His eyes are up there, Jenna. Eyes. Up. There.

The knowing look in those eyes when she glanced back up only deepened her blush. Jenna noted a bottle of body wash out of her peripheral vision and pulled away to get it. She poured a generous amount into her palm and rubbed her hands together, stepping around him to glide them over his back, working it into a lather. Elijah tried to turn around, but she slapped a hand to his shoulder. “Uh-uh.” She took her time on his shoulders, his back, gradually working downward over his buttocks, out of which she was seriously considering taking a bite.

“Jenna…” Elijah said, his tone low, with a hint of warning.

“Shh.” Pressing herself against his back, she eased her slippery hands around the front of him, over his chest, deep down his stomach, along the fronts of his thighs, gliding within a hair’s breadth of there but without ever actually touching. As the water from the rain head sluiced down over them, rinsing his back, she feathered kisses over it, occasionally licking a droplet of water from here or there. Elijah blew out a breath as she traced just her fingertips over his thighs – then inhaled sharply when she wrapped her fingers firmly around him and bit his shoulder blade.

Jenna suddenly found herself pressed up against the warm tiles by the full length of him, his erection digging into her stomach and his tongue inside her mouth. She met him fully, putting her arms around his neck and kneading the back of it with her fingers as her tongue danced along with his, fanning the flames for both of them. Elijah pulled his lips from hers to pay homage to her neck again, this time sprinkling little nips in with the kisses. Aroused almost beyond bearing, she wasn’t aware of any conscious thought process behind it when she told him, “Go ahead.”

He didn’t seem to hear her at first, but at last her words sank in, and he pulled his face back to look into her eyes, questioning. Jenna nodded, pushing his hair back from his face. “It’s okay.”

She caught a quick glimpse of the veins around his eyes as they started to fill and go dark, and he pulled her hard against him, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other coming up around her throat. The bite itself didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would; a sharp pinch, then a little pressure as he pressed his thumb to her neck and drank from her. Jenna dug her fingers into the back of his scalp, a little gasp escaping her as the twin sensations of him suckling at her neck and the hard length of him pressed against her set up some sort of strange biofeedback loop. Every pull at her throat drew an answering pull from her groin, and she used the wall at her back and her arms around Elijah’s shoulders as leverage to draw her legs up around his waist, bring her That. Much. Closer.

Elijah pulled his mouth away and tore his thumb open on a fang, rubbing his blood over the bite wound until it closed. Jenna pulled his mouth back to hers, not caring that she tasted her own blood on his lips as she kissed him deeply, moving her hips against him in an attempt to try and line things up. Elijah though, it appeared, had other ideas.

With seemingly no effort at all (which, she supposed for him it wasn’t), Elijah grasped her around the waist and lifted her up. Jenna squeaked at the sudden elevation, flailing a hand out and grabbing the neck of one of the showerheads for balance as he settled her legs on his shoulders and, with her back against the tiles, tasted her.

“Oh God,” she breathed as all of her senses went on red alert. Elijah’s hands on her ribcage held her steady as he used his tongue and lips to torment her relentlessly, his thumbs teasing her nipples until they were so rock-hard it was almost painful. Some small part of her mind tried to form coherent thoughts with regard to the height and the slipperiness of wet tile; then he demonstrated just exactly what Andie had been talking about, and suddenly there was no thought whatsoever anymore, just wave after wave of sensation that swamped and threatened to drown her.

Her breath coming in gasping pants, Jenna hooked her ankles together behind Elijah’s back as all of her muscles quivered and tensed, seeking release on the crest of that last devastating wave. Her hips moved seemingly of their own volition, rocking her against his mouth as the first tickling, tingling sensation started at her core and spread outward. As though he could tell just exactly when the time was right, he gripped her hips hard to hold her still and pressed his tongue hard against her, fluttering it at a speed no human could have matched.

Jenna’s world went white, then shattered into a billion brightly-colored pieces, blinding her to everything but waves of ecstasy that crashed over her again and again and again. When they started to ebb, and she could see the possibility of perhaps one day being able to think once more, Elijah restarted that relentless rhythm, making everything clench once more in anticipation of the next shattering climax.

When it came, she proved Elijah right: she was most definitely not quiet.