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The green tattoos crawling up the back of her neck must be vines. They’re distinctive. An identifying feature if Caitlyn ever saw one.
Caitlyn fists her free hand in dark hair and tugs it out of frame, ignoring the low moan that flutters out of the woman pinned underneath her thighs.
The camera whirrs as it charges the flash, and Corina winces when it goes off. In the twilight of the room, lit up only by the skylight above them, it stings Caitlyn’s eyes too, but she doesn’t want to look away.
There’s no concrete evidence that botanist Corina Veraza had anything to do with Silco, with shimmer, with the missile, with the brand new mausoleums and fresh graves back topside. But every potential lead must be investigated. That’s truer now than it ever was, now in the shockingly dull aftermath of the attack, as Piltover and the would-be Nation of Zaun drag it out into the months of negotiations, skirmishes cropping up and flaming out like matchsticks, overlapping, behind-the-scenes manhunts.
But the gut feeling inside of Caitlyn twists so hard every time she sees this woman, or thinks about her, or hears her name, that it must mean something.
Besides, Caitlyn knows well enough to know that crime was the only path to wealth under Silco’s regime. Based on this mansion, all finely-crafted iron and glass, Corina must be guilty of something, even if the criminal record labeled VERAZA, C. back in the station is completely empty, devoid of even a mug shot.
That’s why Caitlyn brought her camera, although she suspects she’ll resurface in Piltover with hands empty of evidence, again, and that nothing she captures today will make a suitable contribution to the file.
As it finishes developing, the photo slides out of the camera slot, but Caitlyn no longer has a free hand to grab it, so she holds the camera off the side of the bed and shakes, letting the photo flutter to the floor like one of the leaves inked into Corina’s neck.
The vines drip down to Corina’s shoulder blades and morph into a dainty mosaic of lotuses. Caitlyn has the tattoo nearly memorized by now, can see it if she closes her eyes, but that doesn’t help her file. To photograph it, Caitlyn unhands Corina’s hair and grabs her shoulder instead, the one half-pulled off the bed as Corina glowers at her over it, and presses it down into the mattress, guiding her flat on her stomach.
Corina rolls her hazel eyes as she’s forced to turn her head to accommodate the new position. She likes things like that—making token shows of obstinacy, likes to hurl innuendos and accusations, and dangle not-quite-evidence of whatever criminal activity she’s actually involved in. But ultimately, she’s exceedingly cooperative every time Caitlyn comes to investigate her. With Caitlyn straddling her lower back, Corina is more than subdued, but her hands are unbound, free to lash out or resist, yet she keeps them folded demurely under her cheek.
The flash goes off again, and even in that split-second, the bright light reassures Caitlyn that the smattering of hickeys between petals and vines are exactly where she left them. Too hungry for the touch, too sentimental for her own good, as always, Caitlyn abandons the camera, letting the new photo fall to the floor with the other, and glides both hands over the expanse of warm brown skin, ink, and faded bruises in front of her.
She could already feel Corina’s body heat through her pants, but skin-to-skin, it’s searing, even though the room is cool. Corina must feel it too; between her shoulder blades crops up a light dew of sweat that Caitlyn swipes down her spine with one finger, just to make her shiver.
But there’s more evidence to collect. Caitlyn hoists herself off Corina’s lumbar, and at the relieved sigh, massages the tender area before reaching for her camera again.
Possibly the only thing in Zaun more luscious than Corina’s skin is her ass, Caitlyn thinks. The burgundy lace of her panties looks so pretty stretched taut over the curvy bottom. Caitlyn slides a hand under the fabric just to see how it looks strained over her knuckles, too, and to grope the plush cheek for herself. She leans back as far as she can without unhanding the smaller woman to peer through the viewfinder and carefully selects her shot.
Aside from labored breathing and the rustle of bedclothes, the expectant silence surrounding the two women is only broken by the shutter, the whirr of the battery, the gaseous pop of the flash. Although Corina’s bedroom is spartan in terms of furniture, containing only this expansive bed, it’s crowded with her beloved plants lining all four walls, their vines crawling toward the glass ceiling. The plants have an unnerving presence, like they’re too alive; to Caitlyn, they feel like voyeuristic pets instead of vegetation, leaning in to watch and listen to their master’s tryst.
“Some of them are toxic,” Corina warned the first time Caitlyn reached out to caress a petal.
The iron and glass lattice of the skylight above them sheds an attractive blue glow on Corina’s skin. It’s similar to the skylight Caitlyn has in her own bedroom, in her own mansion, overlooking her own obsessions, and she actually finds that more disturbing than the creepy plants. Caitlyn watches the shadow of her camera play over Corina’s back and pushes it aside—the paranoia, the threat, that she and Corina may have been born into different worlds, but perhaps they aren’t so different, after all.
“I bet,” Caitlyn replied, and touched them anyway.
The memory gives Caitlyn a bit of déjà vu as she reaches for the edge of Corina’s panties and draws them down her shapely legs.
“Did you need to conduct a cavity search today, officer?”
Gleefully razor-sharp, meticulously planned, laser-pointed like any of Corina’s barbs, the crude taunt shatters the tense quiet. Corina’s voice is richer than chocolate and sweetened further by her velvety accent, but Caitlyn’s mouth tastes bitter.
Officer.
Corina had no rebuttal to Caitlyn’s brisk command to remove her dress before laying down on the bed, but she chastised Caitlyn for reaching for the buttons of her uniform. “Shouldn’t you at least look the part, Officer Kiramman?”
Heat prickles in Caitlyn’s skin underneath the heavy fabric. Long gone are the cravat and frilly skirt of her ceremonial peacetime uniform. These days, the tactical uniform shirt and pants feel like a strait-jacket and Caitlyn can’t wait to tear them off as soon as she steps over her threshold, or Corina’s.
She suspects Corina knows that. It probably adds to the allure.
Irritated, Caitlyn grabs Corina by the hip and rolls her onto her back, rougher than she intended. But, exceedingly cooperative, Corina follows gamely, swinging her leg over Caitlyn’s head as she goes, allowing Caitlyn to settle, kneeling, between her parted thighs.
Haves and have-nots in the undercity can be differentiated at a glance, Caitlyn has observed. Corina is unmistakably a have. Even in the semi-darkness, her skin and hair practically glow with good health and fastidious caretaking, so bright and smooth and soft that it all could only belong to someone with unfettered access to nutritious food, clean air and water, and quality products. If it weren’t for the tattoos—topsiders decorate their bodies with anything but uncouth ink—, Corina’s nude form wouldn’t look out of place in even the most exclusive bathhouse in Piltover. Caitlyn wonders if Corina has ever lived the life she knows most fissurefolk live, if she’s ever lived the life that she sometimes overhears Vi and Ekko discussing, if she cares about anyone but herself, if she’s able to.
And Corina does, most definitely, care about herself.
She preens under Caitlyn’s scrutiny, stretching out and arching her back to emphasize her full breasts, narrow waist, and broad hips. She drags her dainty hands up her stomach, over the soft skin crisscrossed with pressure lines from the rumpled bedspread, and cups and squeezes both tits, pinches both her nipples and moans. She writhes at the hips and draws her legs up, flashing Caitlyn’s attentive eyes an open view of her cunt. Her arousal is obscene, apparent, her slick folds glistening under the skylight.
Corina is an exceptional specimen from head to toe, just as perfect and poisonous as her precious flowers, and what’s worse is that she knows it. That’s more than evident in her shit-eating grin, in the flash of her prominent Zaunite canine teeth as Caitlyn’s eyes rake her over and over and the flimsy pretense for the encounter evaporates.
They should stop. Caitlyn should stop it, should leave with her two semi-legitimate photographs and never return.
Instead, she tucks Corina’s panties in her breast pocket like a handkerchief and raises her camera.
Caitlyn hardly knows where to start, her fingering hovering over the shutter button. Her insides and their nagging intuition twist as she watches Corina’s beautiful face through it, but she can’t help herself as Corina meets her eyes through the lens. The flash again makes them both flinch, too bright for the dark room, let alone for the shadowy affair.
The mug shot she came for. The last shred of Caitlyn’s restraint shatters.
Her greedy camera focuses on Corina’s hands cupping her breasts, first, then Corina moves them to her hair and Caitlyn takes several shots of Corina’s breasts perched artfully as she arches her back, her ribs just barely visible under her healthfully-plush skin. As soon as the camera is ready, Caitlyn moves on to the next shot without looking at the growing pile of photos on the floor, but she hopes the images capture the rosy flush that blooms up from the underside of Corina’s breasts to her throat; the faded hickeys following the same path; the delicate dips where muscle and bone meet under the surface; the peach fuzz under her navel.
It almost seems like too much to point the camera lower, even as Caitlyn leers around the viewfinder. She hesitates, and Corina swiftly punishes her with a wicked, superior chuckle.
“What’s wrong, officer?” Corina teases. “By now, I should think you’d know it doesn’t bite.”
The absurd jeer slices straight through Caitlyn’s stoic veneer. A compulsive, incredulous laugh leaps out of her throat and with it escapes the dread in her stomach, the feeling that’s been nagging her the entire time to just fucking leave before she finally trips into the trap she assumes Corina must have laid out for her.
But Corina has never, as far as Caitlyn can tell, actually laid anything out for her except her lush body and needy, demanding cunt.
Without further delay, Caitlyn readies her camera and reaches out to spread damp curls and blushing outer lips for a better view of Corina’ swollen clit, her dewy entrance. She sets the shutter and flash off one last time and dumps the entire apparatus off the side of the bed like a piece of trash.
Corina’s eyes look black, their pupils so wide-blown. Caitlyn can see herself reflected in them, can see too much of herself reflected in them but she doesn’t look away, just watches herself settle between Corina’s legs. Hard enameled nails scrape Caitlyn’s scalp as Corina snatches her by the back of the head as soon as she leans in close enough, reeling her the rest of the way in.
Caitlyn ordinarily despises floral euphemisms, but they’re simply too apt when literal tons of fronds, vines, and flowers leer at her while she chases their master’s nectar straight to the source and drags it from soaked petals all the way up to her sensitive pink bud.
According to her research, toxic oleander tastes very bitter and smells like apricot, but Corina’s cunt just tastes and smells like cunt: tangy, womanly.
Addictive.
If is a trap, after all, Corina has her thoroughly ensnared.