Twisted Every Way (Ruby) - [M]

[Mario Falcone]

A yawn, blatant, bored, bold, escaped across the loud expanse of the opera house only to be eaten up by the larger voices already playing on stage. The Phantom of the Opera had come to Gotham, one of the most renown performances of it to have ever taken place, and most of the audience was rapt with attention as Christine found herself face to face with the demonic Phantom. Most, that is, except one. His dark eyes watched the scene on stage without the barest hint of recognition for their skills, with complete disinterest and a sleepy countenance. For a man so much like the Phantom himself, it seemed a dreary and mundane thing to watch the scenes playing out before him. The show might have been much shorter, in his mind, if he had simply stolen upon Christine in the night, or better yet turned his sights on the pervy choreographer. He simply didn't get it.

He lounged lazily in his private box, not even bothering to hold his glasses aloft for a better look. He rested his arms across the back of his velvet seat, his legs spread indolently before him. One hand rested slackly around the back of his date's neck, her golden curls and creamy cheek chosen specifically to fill a need inspired by a meeting earlier that day. Though the idle circles he traced on the back of her neck were non-threatening, they might as well have been choking her the way they seemed to establish a claim on her. He leaned, finally unable to stand the boredom, and whispered something into her ear, the tiny ringlets moving softly with his breath. And then she disappeared beneath the rim of the box, and he closed his eyes in satisfaction as he leaned back in his chair once more.

The deviant Mr. Falcone would not have come to the event had the purchase of an opening night box not been a requirement for the main event, a party later being hosted by someone a little more interested in the arts than himself, someone who made more of a showing of being on the up and up than did the Falcone brood. After all, with the reputation Gotham had it was nearly impossible to court people of true taste into performing here, unless you threw insanely lavish parties to suck up to the producers of such art. In attendance, he was sure, would be all the people in the city who either were or wished themselves thought to be rich, powerful, and cultured. He didn't care much whether anyone saw him as those things, but he couldn't pass up the opportunity of mixing with one woman in particular who loved to be seen as all three.

So he showed up to the little soiree afterwards, the blonde on his arm a mere accessory like the mask covering his handsome features. Spotting his quarry, despite the guises required by the evening's Masquerade theme, he quickly handed his date off to some other mob man he needed to do a favor for. If her performance earlier was anything to go by, it was quite the gift, and the indignant expression on her face would wear off after a few drinks, anyway. He stopped a passing waiter and slipped a twenty in his pocket without bashfulness. "A glass of Penfolds Grange," he explained, pointing out the woman in question. "For her. Thanks." He patted the man robustly on the shoulder, without waiting for his agreement, before ornamenting the railing of the rooftop party by leaning against it. He lit a smoke and took a drag from the half of his mouth uncovered by his whitewashed mask, and waited.

[Ruby Ryder]

Ruby Ryder had spent the last half hour chatting happily with the producer of the play. As a well-known patroness of the arts in Gotham she was attempting to coerce him into bringing more of his wonderful work to the city, and, she liked to think, making headway. He was an amusing man, if only for the fact that his hands were seemingly incapable of keeping their distance and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she wanted his creative genius for the stage she might well have let Illiam have some fun for the evening. Her fake laughter was well timed and perfectly executed on all the right cues, and in her own little way Ruby was giving the performance of a lifetime.

“Excuse me, Miss Ryder,” interrupted a waiter, ceremoniously handing her a glass of her favourite win. “This is for you, from the gentleman.” Subtly indicating a tall man suitably masked and wearing an extremely well-cut suit, the young man melted back into the wealthy crowd. Lifting her velvet eyes beneath a curtain of intricate curls which she didn’t usually wear, Ruby peered at her benefactor from behind her white silk mask. Turning then to place a restraining hand on the producer’s arm (in case he should feel the need to move in for a kiss) she smiled graciously and excused herself, taking care not to tread on the flowing skirt of her dress if it could be called that.

In the grand tradition of Masquerade parties Ruby was in disguise, though in a slightly more risqué manner than she was used to. Her simple white dress was fashioned from sheaths of shimmering pearlescent silk, embroidered at the hems with intricate gold thread. What was miraculous in itself was that the dress had plunging lines both front and back, requiring a lot of double-sided tape that still couldn’t hide the fact that she wore little else besides. Well, hell. If a girl couldn’t risk disapproval once in a while, was fun was there to be had in life?

Her gold heels were cleverly designed to look like Roman sandals, and she smiled coyly at a man she knew as she passed him, not wanting to burn her bridges for the evening. Making her way through the crowd with her drink in hand, she finally arrived at her destination and was not disappointed. The man who had looked moderately handsome through the sea of faces was even more impressive now that she stood next to him, and with self-confidence that few could imitate Ruby held her glass out to him to toast by way of introduction.
“To strangers,” she said, her lips upturned in a devilish smirk. “Though you must know more about me than I know about you," she added, referring to the drink.

[Mario Falcone]

It took every fiber of his miniscule willpower to keep his usual acrid smirk off his features, an expression that would have given him away as surely as wearing a Mario Falcone name tag. "Good taste is easy to recognize in you," he flattered nodding his head once. "You wear it like your gown, very becomingly." And barely there, he added mentally, though he had no reason in the world to criticize her taste. She had the patience to understand the nuances that made a grange or an opera enjoyable; he didn't. He hardly knew the meaning of restraint, which left acquired tastes like those, justice, and love, completely beyond his scope. Luckily for him, he had no idea what he was missing.

"I'm afraid I don't have a drink to toast you back," he told her apologetically, and then a bare hint of his real identity squeaked out. Oh his face didn't show, his smirk didn't break its bounds, but the boldness and irreverence he had become known for showed as obviously as if he had mooned the entire rooftop. He leaned forward slightly and he very lightly reached for her wine glass. "May I?" he said softly, barely above a whisper, as his fingers ghosted across hers and his dark eyes met her own cocoa pair. She was relieved of her glass before she had a chance to protest and he lifted it to his mouth, swirling it for its aroma, taking a small taste. Grange was not his favorite, partial as he was to the Old World wines crafted in Italy where he had spent so much of his childhood, but he pretended he understand the appeal. "Mmm," he stated before swallowing the sip. He met her eyes again as he placed the glass delicately back into her hand, so that it wasn't readily obvious whether he was complimenting her or her wine when he muttered a breathy, "Exceptional."

He backed up a hair, enough to signify a retreat from his rather forward move, but there was still something decidedly wolfish about the way he leaned against the railing and his eyes stayed glued to the woman before him. As much as he tried, he couldn't completely train that roguish air out of his manners. "Tell me," he asked after a moment of studying her, his eyes falling to her get up and an intimation of a grin blowing like a faint fog across his lips. "Does Venus smoke?" He lifted his own imported cigarette to his lips, enjoying the robust taste of the Tuscan tobacco, and then he was struck briefly with the urge to do as she had done to him and blow the smoke right into her pretty face. He seemed to have forgotten to breathe as he looked at her, and he overcame the urge, blowing it over his shoulder. "I can put it out," he offered, holding the offender aloft. He was curious whether she would claim she didn't smoke, when he already knew otherwise; he was always curious how people he didn't know well behaved around others, and the Masquerade offered the perfect chance for a social experiment.

[Ruby Ryder]

Blissfully unaware that she was being purposefully courted by her sworn enemy, Ruby was only happy enough to play along with the supposed stranger’s game. Such opportunities as these were sadly rare in a city where everyone knew her name, after all, and where she made it her business to know those names worth knowing in return. She watched him with interest, his long fingers brushing hers as he borrowed her drink and the slightly cheeky air that he had about him. On another night in a very different part of town she might have been inclined to blow his brains out. Tonight she’d be satisfied with blowing his mind in other, more interesting ways.

“She does,” she conceded. Despite being the exact sort of woman who fabricated a persona for herself for the public to enjoy, some vices it would not do to deny. Ruby’s dark eyes smouldered as she hid her reservations behind her mask, fixing themselves on the visible part of the mystery man’s mouth. Needless to say, she normally wasn’t the type of woman who ran around town exhibiting herself in such a manner. The amount of men she had been with since her husband’s untimely death could be counted on one hand, and all of them had been the subject of repentance in the morning.

Ignoring his offer to extinguish his smoke, she smiled into the delicate rim of her glass as she took a sip. The perfectly spiced red liquid tempted her further out of her shell. She only ever drank with people she knew, or with people she wanted to impress. Therefore, it stood to reason that the tall drink of water before her fell into one or both of these categories. She swallowed her mouthful with regret before she regained the very slight gap he had conceded to her, looking up at him with a poisonous smirk. “But only after sex.”

[Mario Falcone]

Beneath his mask Mario's eyebrows lifted regally. Were she not his sworn enemy, he would have to concede that Ruby was the kind of woman who might actually entertain him outside of the bedroom. Since such women were few and far between - in fact, nonexistent until that moment - he was caught somewhat off guard, but then it wasn't every day that he ran into someone as bold as he was. Completely unable to control it, a grin of appreciation colored his visible features like water color thrown haphazardly onto a blank canvas.

The inky paint of his smirk stained his entire body, and he inched ever closer to the yawning maw of her deceptively smooth smile, tempting a fall. "I see," he told her, his pupils wide and drinking her in, a fine wine that caused an entirely different kind of inebriation. He was in danger of becoming a spider trapped in his own web, but seemed unaware of the danger. He only knew that a task which before had been practically arbitrary, if a little bit of fun, had become infinitely more pleasurable. If he wasn't careful he risked losing his position as director of the show, to become only the rapt and unwitting audience.

"And could I offer you a smoke, Venere¹?" he asked, the Italian slipping out without his noticing. Generally he favored a bit more preamble in his game, a bit of buttering up and flattering down before posing the question which had really weighed on his mind the entire conversation. But something about her bold self-assertion courted a similar response. Rather than simpering and sniveling like a dog at the heels of his mistress, he felt he could be more the Mario he was at heart, the madman who cut through the fat of the issue to get to the heart, who proposed that the best foreplay was an early start of the main event. That's just how he rolled.

¹ Venus

[Ruby Ryder]

The darkly corrupted red of her lips made her teeth seem all the whiter when they parted, her sienna gaze dipping low to take in the promises of his exceptional-looking physique before she took her time on the return upwards journey back to meet his eyes. Being an actress of considerable skill it was a small thing to behave in such a manner, particularly if it scratched an itch she had been longing to satisfy. There was something of the old-world about her; a sense of grace that the ladies of the Depression era had clung to desperately through adversity. Ruby Ryder was a woman who knew what she wanted and would sink in her teeth like a pit bull until it gave itself to her, all the while looking like a pampered French poodle.

Her tongue darted over her lips in a flicker of anticipation, teeth grazing at her bottom lip for just a moment with an intent that let no room for fine print. Everything about her face and attitude invited him in, while her body remained – for the moment – closed for business. One hand held her wine glass close to her chest, possibly another clever way of holding his attention, while the other kept her bag in check. Her slight body weight was supported on one leg, her hips tilted in what would have been an encouraging manner if it weren’t for the fact that her shoulders were angled in precisely the same way, betraying the fire she kept carefully smothered... for the time being.

“Possibly,” she replied, the territory between their lips being claimed slowly, second by second. His breath was on her face, a scorching desert breeze compared to the chill that enveloped the rooftop party. Refraining from closing the gap, Ruby ended the first act by raising her own delicate brows by way of a challenge. “But how would I know it’d be worth it?”

[Mario Falcone]

He could feel his blood running warmer. It took less suggestion to make his mind run the gamut from first base to home plate, and her 'possibly' was as good as a 'yes, please' to his libido. It was a far cry from the chilly encounter he had earlier that night in the opera, perfunctory, completely lacking any kind of real desire or passion. It had been far more like scratching an itch than feeding a hunger. He got the impression that letting Miss Ryder play on his senses would surpass even that feeling, like a starving man being fed a seven course meal by a five star chef. So far, even the aroma had his mouth watering.

But as a man who had never in his life bothered to see anything from a female's perspective, her question left him flabbergasted, and he smiled lopsidedly as he found himself at a loss. "There's no purchase necessary, la mia dea," he corrected as lightly as he could. He let his eyes inspect her features, his expression shifting to something entirely foreign on his handsome features. It was certainly the first time he could ever remember feeling benevolent, and the look was oddly becoming on him. His smile seemed to collect mischief like a snowball the longer it went on, however, and as he flicked ashes off of his burning cigarette he added, teasingly, "You can smoke without me, if you prefer."

He lifted the same cigarette to his lips then, barely having the room to take a drag off the waning end for their closeness. But in the space between now the sweet aroma of the expensive tobacco wafted between them like the haze of their words, indistinct and taunting. At last he couldn't resist adding, his boyish smirk turning downright cheeky, "You're welcome to preview the wares first, if you like." He licked back the taste of the tobacco on the roof of his mouth, as if preparing to make way for an altogether more satisfying assault his palette.

[Ruby Ryder]

Needing no further inducement Ruby dropped her smirk for a more sultry expression and stepped in, her glass finding the ledge of the rooftop banister most convenient. Lifting her eyes to his face the small-framed woman stood on the tip-toes of her heels, her free hand now snaking up and around the stranger’s neck to provide her with balance as much as leverage as she boldly pulled him into her. Their bodies met before their lips did, in sync for a few tantalising moments that felt entirely wrong until she kissed him. It was an innocent enough action in the beginning, she supposed, and certainly no one who bothered to look their way would have thought twice about it upon first glance. But as the seconds passed the wilful Miss Ryder deepened her exploration of his mouth, her hand winding into his hair with a kind of unbridled aggression that seemed to show a preview of her true nature.

When the pair finally parted ways it was with a certain level of regret on Ruby’s part. He had proven himself a worthy partner in both wit and conversation, to say nothing of his obvious taste for the finer things in life. Now, it would seem, was the perfect time for him to show that he was a worthy partner in other arenas also. Her breath was slightly quicker, her pulse ahead of its usual sensory beat. Licking her lips and rolling them against each other in an obvious parody of someone tasting something melted and lingering on their tongue, Ruby rolled her eyes towards the stars as she pretended to consider him.

“A tad dry,” she commented as she turned her face away from him, her eyes buried in the crowd and his lips dangerously close to her neck as she tried to find her unobtrusive security detail out amongst the revellers. In that unflappable way she had about her, she let them know without letting them know she wouldn’t require their services for the rest of the evening. Her chocolate-covered gaze then turned back to her unexpected admirer, refusing to show even a hint of embarrassment at the way their physicalities – and they were evident – slipped together like God intended. “But I’m sure you can whet my appetite. Come on,” she murmured against his lips. The spell between them momentarily broken, Ruby took her soon-to-be lover by the hand and lead him through the crowd to the door that would become their escape hatch, her wine left behind and forgotten on the ledge and her clutch left behind to be scooped up by the handler who knew her well.

Gotham’s best hotel fell beneath them, a labrynth of rooms that were all too good for such an encounter as this. Ruby had tried to fool herself in the past, wasting time and money on expensive hotel suites – or worse still, taking men back to her penthouse – where she had tricked herself into believing they were worth making an effort for. Tonight, she held no such illusions and was determined to keep it real; this was a fling and nothing more. She certainly had no desire to find out the real identity of the man now tagging along behind her, and she was most definitely not planning to wake up in the morning to a note on her nightstand or a snoring snob in her bed. No, that would kill her fantasy entirely, and what other draw did a Masquerade have if not to provide a stage for one’s fantasies?

Inside the elevator she punched in a random number, waiting pointedly for the carriage to stop between floors before she hit the emergency stop button and slipped the key that allowed it to run out of its key-hole, dropping it into insignificance. With a coy smile she advanced on the man who would star in tonight’s leading role, looking very much like she knew something he didn’t. She wasn’t counting on him knowing more than that however, and she didn’t care if this was his first time in an elevator or not. Tonight, it was all about her.

[Mario Falcone]

He wasn't sure who was hunting whom here as she swept him up in a dangerous and seductive liplock. Though it wasn't his usual style he allowed her to guide the way, and was at once surprised and pleased by the raw, intense way that she drew him in. He soon found himself entirely out of his element, forced not only to follow her lead but to find himself struggling to keep up. If there wasn't something altogether dirty in the way she measured him, his pride might have protested. Rather, he found it oddly arousing.

When the kiss broke he listened with only half-attention to her judgment, distracted entirely by the line of her swan like neck as she strained to find her bodyguards. He was unaware of the action, not quick enough to go from thoughts of a carnal nature back to the practical. He was doing well to keep from indulging himself in still further debauchery right there on the rooftop, and when she finally returned her gaze to him the black pools of his eyes showed more of that entitled greed that he had trained into a more acceptable expression before. When she instructed him to follow, he did so, reigning himself in until the moment she stopped the elevator and turned towards him. At that point, he was less capable of playing the good little do-boy.

He met her in her approach, capturing her mouth in a heated kiss, his hand tucking in around the nape of her neck and assuming control. He continued to move them forward until his body pressed the exposed skin of her back against the cool steel wall of the elevator. In complete contrast, he encircled her hips with his other hand, boldly cupping the curve of her derriere as he wrapped his arm around her hips and pulled them into him. With her body now entirely within his power, he set about exploring it with the single-minded attention a great deal of anticipation would afford.

He gave up the claim his mouth had on hers as the hand at the back of her neck slipped forward, his thumb hooking under her chin to hold her in place as he explored the soft skin of her neck that had tantalized him so thoroughly earlier. As he slipped down into her decolletage that hand released her and spread his molten touch down the same skin his mouth had just accosted, and then across her delicate shoulder. His other hand followed the dangerous curve of her spine to join it's brother to make quick work of removing her dress.

It wasn't particularly necessary for her to be naked, and hardly suited the whirlwind way they had started or their impromptu location, but only total nudity on her part would satisfy him. It wasn't just that way her exposure would turn him on, but, doubly exciting to him, that she would regret the encounter that much more when he revealed his identity. He couldn't help the sadistic way his mind worked, even consumed now by the most unrelenting passion, and within this contrived torture-by-pleasure it calculated with astounding heartlessness how to engineer the most complete cruelty.

As her dress fell to the floor like useless armor against his gilded attack, he curled an arm beneath her bottom and hoisted her to his height. For a brief moment their mouths were once again a hair's breadth away, their breath intermingling, as he used the handrail on the wall as partial leverage to hold her aloft. He seemed less concerned with kisses now that his goal was closer to culmination, and he let his eyes train on her face with a sick kind of fascination as he undid his trousers and then claimed her first with his fingers. He kissed her then, as if the double intrusion of tongue and fingers would somehow heighten the sensation, though for who it was hard to tell. Glad to be compliant until he had her where he wanted her, he had now turned disconcertingly domineering, and he got a morbid kind of exhilaration out of the idea that she might be surprised or even alarmed by the sudden shift.

[Ruby Ryder]

The manner in which he had rounded on her upon the halting of the elevator reminded her of a documentary she had seen some time ago. A tame panther in a zoo had been about to be transported to another and his keeper, a young confident woman, had overestimated her own ability to control him when she had attempted to lead him into his cage. The beast, frightened or just plain defiant, had turned on the girl and savaged her. As she was in this very moment with her back pressed to the wall of the elevator, the insistent rasping of his suit against her bare breasts and the blistering possession of his tongue and his fingers, Ruby couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to be savaged herself. But, more perplexingly, was the thought that she just might relish every minute of it.

An approving moan escaped her only to be swallowed by him and his clever mouth. One of her arms braced itself against his chest, ending where her hand clutched at his strong shoulder while the other slithered between them. Her fingers glided over the hand he had inside of her, feeling for a moment the demanding rhythm that was mirrored in the movements of his shoulder and mouth. Her hand slipped around to mimic an earlier action of his, cupping his well-rounded buttock with the only difference being that Ruby dug in her perfectly manicured fingernails just enough to hurt.

Unable to resist the temptation, Ruby broke the control of his kiss and released his shoulder long enough to turn his head to the side which would offer him a better view of not only her natural assets but also of how he was examining them. She leaned further into him, one leg daring to hook behind him and press them closer still. Able to feel the presence of his ego pressed impressively against the creamy plane of her inner thigh, she smirked viciously before turning her attention to his ear. Her tongue followed the rim all the way to the lobe, hot breaths and wanton gasps accompanying her effort before she scraped her teeth across the soft skin just beneath it. “I want you to fuck me as hard as you can,” she commanded in a low voice that was more akin to the sound of a lioness growling than a zookeeper screaming.

[Mario Falcone]

It happened again, and again without his noticing. He moved a piece on the chess table that was his relationship with Miss Ryder, thinking himself irrevocably taking the upperhand, and within a few moves the board had changed entirely again in her favor.Like a true novice to the game, however, he didn't even recognize the danger he was in of being claimed by checkmate. He thought himself rebelling, testing, pushing her limits, but in the blink of time it took for her to utter one command he was right back to being the good little peon she had reduced him to on the rooftop. Thoughts of revenge, rebellion, and ruin fled, replaced with the most peculiar, single-minded determination to do exactly as she told him.

Which is exactly what he did. Her words in his ear were like the strings to a puppet, and he followed her direction with the kind of reverent devotion that would have scandalized a more pious man despite their sudden likeness. When her wishes changed he jumped to meet the new demand. Her sounds of ecstasy were as good as the Word of God brought to him personally upon her lightning breath and etched irreversibly into his all too willing flesh, and he followed them with the sanctity of Moses himself. Greed still colored his every act. He had not changed so much as that. His hands were grasping, his mouth ravenous, his desire insatiable , but his rapacious fingers grabbed after her moans, her uncontrollable trembling, as the treasures he hoarded up for himself. It was completely unlike him and opposite to every feeling he had ever courted, and yet in some sick, twisted joke in the divine comedy that was fallible humanity, it blew his fucking mind.

He found himself stretched and gasping to finish the job. He had never tried so hard in his life to fill any needs except his own and that left him untrained and unprepared, but nevertheless a ready pupil of his new trade. He had torn off his coat at some point and his pants had fallen unceremoniously around his ankles, leaving him looking more like a man caught playing with himself in a bathroom stall. She fit into his arms the way a piece of hard candy fits into a hungry mouth, deceptively sweet but more than enough to choke a man if he made a wrong move. He could have easily overpowered her physically but found himself utterly incapable of doing so, and the petite woman held him captive until such a time as she saw fit to release him. He was a prisoner to her passion and waited only to be shown the path to merciful salvation.

[Ruby Ryder]

The sweaty drag of her back against the wall of the elevator was what her conscience should have been, slow and unrelenting. Ruby had always been a creature of selfishness, the tide stemmed only by her brief marriage and even briefer pregnancy as she prepared to shift from the role of Daddy’s Little Princess into that of Wife And Mother. It was unfortunate that her career as someone potentially quite upstanding was cut short, but it had merits in the fact that she was now bitter and ready for the kind of curve-balls life had a habit of tossing her way. This little tryst was evidence aplenty of just that. He presented no challenge, really. She’d known he was interested in her when he’d sent over the wine. But he was an itch that needed scratching, which is where we come full circle back to her tendency to be more than a little bit self-centred.

His persistence was second to none, and he took to the task she had commissioned him with like a Crusader searching for the Holy Grail. Ruby found that she was pleasantly surprised; most men found her domineering attitude in the bedroom emasculating. Her senses were heightened by his devotion to her body, her own thoughts diverted from the pleasure he was tempting from her by his every move until she felt a familiar explosion at her core. Seizing him tighter like a criminal who might well abscond, her fingers wove themselves into his hair as she informed him in a low, breathless voice that he had reached her finish line.

Though Miss Ryder was far from being finished with him yet. Encouraging him with her legs encircling his waist and her heels digging in a very little beneath his buttocks it was obvious that she intended to ride this mustang until her time was truly up. While she’d never been a particularly promiscuous woman she’d certainly picked up a few tricks in her day, a couple of which she employed in that moment. The result was a distinctly constricted meeting of their bodies, her mouth finding his before his arrival so that she could feel rather than hear his anticipated moan.