Chapter Text
The frigid air bit at Nicole’s throat and lungs as she heaved in deep, needful breaths. Her feet thumped on the stone, oiled boots crunching through thick layers of snow and slush. Under her armor she was sweating, soaking into her linen underclothes as the leather and wool conspired to keep her core warm while her limbs grew colder and colder.
Her cheeks and ears had long gone numb, even behind the thick knitted scarf she’d wound around her neck and head. Fereldan winters were cold, and the after-dark chill had settled in to freeze the slush and make footing more treacherous.
Nicole’s muscles ached. She’d come out here to the Tower’s terrace after an incredibly useless day of paperwork and meetings when she’d realized her weighted weapons and personal training room weren’t enough to salve the strange irritability that had consumed her. Running, though, running was a useful redirect of her restless energy. On her final laps, her frustrations had melded into the familiar refrain. Breathe, run, breathe, run. Just breathing, running, the sky, the stone, the lake, and the cold.
When Nicole ducked back into the relative warmth of the Tower’s drafty halls, stomping slush off her boots into the rush mat placed just inside the door, she was numb, tired, and her mind was blissfully, utterly quiet. Nicole began the journey back up to her quarters and the beautiful, hot bath waiting for her.
As she trekked up the stairs, Nicole found herself disliking the way she was still gasping for breath and trying to get over the wobbly sensation in her legs. Falling down the stairs would be a bad look for the Tower’s Knight-Commander.
Am I out of condition? I need to start doing this more often. The winter sickness had passed more than a week ago, but she was still somewhat slower and easier to tire. Maybe I’ll ask Waverly or Gus what they think.
Already several mages had passed her on their way in the opposite direction, edging around her with careful, sidelong glances that didn’t meet Nicole’s eyes. Nicole assumed that the sight of the Knight-Commander red-faced and sweating profusely, damp boots squeaking on the stone, was rather unusual. But soon enough, she was up onto the fourth floor, filled exclusively with templar knights, and her body stopped protesting quite so much.
I’m gonna take a bath, climb into bed, and sleep so well tonight.
Her hard-won equanimity was not long-lived.
As Nicole slowed to enter her office, she began to hear the long-familiar sounds of training soldiers: wood clacking, feet stomping, and people grunting in effort and pain alike. That was all in order, especially when the interior door from the training room was left open to vent some of the humidity. But then, over all of it, she heard a pained yell before a single voice rose above the clamor.
“Take that, cunt!” It was a male voice, angry, vicious.
Nicole forgot her exhaustion and ran for the training room. In the few steps it took her to get there, the din intensified.
The voice slurred. “Lemme go, I’mma teach this bitch a lesson.”
Nicole reached the threshold and stopped, eyeing the bizarre scene in front of her. The training room was fairly large, stretching a full sixth of the Tower’s circuit. Normally, it could sustain over a dozen training templars, though now it was packed with far more than was normal. Evidently others felt the need to sweat out the winter’s cabin fever.
In the center of the room, a training dummy was toppled to the side, a blunted practice sword abandoned next to it. To the left, two templars held a third down to the floor as he raved and struggled against them. To the right, one of Nicole’s new templars, an alpha woman with short black hair, stood tall and stiff as she pinched her nose with one hand. Blood was smeared across her lower face and neck, several big red drips staining the simple, sleeveless training tunic she wore.
But the nosebleed wasn’t what drew Nicole’s full, angry attention. No, that was reserved for the long, wicked slash along the opposite forearm, a deep, angry wound that was flowing liberally in drips and drabs down to splash the stones with red. A slender dagger lay at her feet, streaked with that same blood.
Sharp weapons were not allowed in training without full armor. The risks of templars permanently injuring each other was too high, considering how difficult it was for deep healing to take effect on lyrium-soaked bone and sinew. The fact that a templar had apparently brought a dagger into this training bout in order to ‘teach this bitch a lesson’ gave Nicole all the excuse she needed to make an example of him. And oh, she was going to make it a good one.
The room stank, so steeped with sweat, old padding, and alpha stench that Nicole’s alpha roiled inside her, wanting to overpower it all if only to shut down the olfactory assault. She let her own pheromones roll out of her pores, tempering the intensity so that it would add to her authority, not to the chaos.
“Templars!” Nicole roared in her stentorian battlefield voice.
The whole room grew deathly silent. Even the pinned templar wrenched his head over to face her, his mouth falling open in what she hoped was dismay. She snarled internally at the sight of his face. Hardy.
Nicole strode forward, ignoring the way her legs threatened to wobble from underneath her. Their endurance would come back soon enough. Her voice was cold and firm as she said, “I assume no one will tell me what happened here, so I’m not going to ask.” Nicole pointed at Ceoric, a middle-aged templar. “Bring a healer. The First Enchanter, if she’s free.”
As Ceoric scrambled out the door, Nicole felt all the irritability of the past day, all the frustrated angst she’d willed away with the cold and the rhythm of her feet on the stone, come back into her with the heat of rage behind it.
“Bring him, and arm him.” Nicole strode forward and scooped up the abandoned sword, then stalked toward the door leading out onto the cold, ice-encrusted stone terrace encircling this level of the tower. She wrenched it open and stepped outside. The low, crenelated balustrade was lit only by the lights shining through the training room windows and the starry, moonlit sky far above, the darkness below them deep and velvety until Nicole's eyes began to adjust and see the light reflecting off the choppy lake waters below. The air felt almost crystalline in its clarity and frigidity, and Nicole felt the sweat at her brow and under her armor begin to chill.
Behind her, she heard the shuffle of feet and turned, putting the starlit sky and the massive drop into Lake Calenhad at her back. Hardy was shoved forward, a practice sword in hand. Templars in various states of training gear and armor filled the doorway, blocking his retreat and spying on his punishment at once.
“Defend yourself,” Nicole said, and danced forward. She already knew the outcome of this exercise – Hardy could only be considered a good swordsman if you thought brute force equaled skill. She sent her practice sword tapping, weaving, snaking into all the chinks in Hardy's guard. As the idiot stumbled backward, Nicole hissed though her teeth at his clumsiness. What a fool.
"What is forbidden in sparring matches, Templar Hardy?"
Hardy's face was a study of fear and indecision as he locked into a defensive crouch, wooden blade held rigidly, uselessly ahead of him.
"Umm," he said.
Nicole baited him and he reacted, lunging for the intentional hole in her guard. She slammed her practice weapon into his arm, right where she predicted he'd leave an opening. His sword wobbled, his nerveless fingers unable to keep a tight grip as he backpedaled.
“It’s an easy question, Templar.” She had him trapped, he had his back now to the void beyond.
"I don't–"
Nicole set her left leg, leaned back, and slammed the sole of her right boot squarely into his sternum. The shock on his face as he staggered backward, the way it morphed to horror when the low battlement hit his calves and his foot slipped, and the fear that flashed through his eyes as his flailing arms failed to keep him on the stone all shot vindictive pleasure into Nicole's veins.
Templar Hardy toppled over the edge with a formless wail of horror.
The void beyond the torchlight lit up with a thrum of immense magical power that buzzed through Nicole's teeth. A massive web of magic, woven with interlaced colors in a dizzyingly-complex pattern that defied Nicole's understanding, shone against the night's gloom.
The screaming trailed away as Nicole walked to the edge and looked down. Some two meters below her, threads of magic bent slightly under his weight, Templar Hardy lay suspended, his limbs frozen in fear. The bright magic light washed his face even paler, if possible. Far, far below, a distorted, choppy image of the magical net reflected back at them from where the lake lapped against the base of the Tower.
Nicole pitched her voice to cut through the icy wind howling past the tower, knowing it would also carry to the templars behind her. “There is no excuse good enough to justify striking another in anger in my Tower,” Nicole snarled. "This is your last warning. If you step a single hair out of line, Hardy, I'll turn the wards off next time. Am I understood?"
A tremulous, "Yes," floated back up to her.
Nicole waited.
"Yes, Knight-Commander."
Dark satisfaction curled into a contented ball in Nicole's gut. She turned to the nearest Knight-Lieutenant. "Leave him there for a quarter bell, then reel him back in. He stays in the dungeon until I say otherwise."
"Yes, Knight-Commander."
Nicole stalked back into the training room and through the crowd of templars, all of whom were avoiding her eyes. Once through their ranks she stepped, relieved, into the hallway. Her rage at Hardy's repeated demonstration of his unsuitability for the Templar Order had barely abated, but that problem was for the Knight-Commander of tomorrow. For tonight, she could slowly release her grip on it while in the bath.
An hour or so later, Nicole floated on her back, serenely buoyant on the surface of her hot bath. The muted, echoey water sounds in her submerged ears reminded her of summers spent in the lowland lakes and rivers of her childhood, splashing around with her siblings. When her closest sister was young enough to not yet be interested in fine embroidery, she and Nicole had conspired to dunk their least-adventurous sister at any opportunity. This had occurred frequently enough that their mother had assigned them to learn to wash, dry, and repair the articles of clothing they'd drenched. Nicole had gained a healthy respect for the work of washers, and she tried to minimize her waste of clean linens now that she no longer had a shift down in the Tower's laundry with the rest of the rank and file.
But now, years and years later, she could look back on those halcyon times with a healthy respect for both their simplicity and her youthful naiveté. She’d thought at the time that those summers were endless, eternal, that they’d always be with her. When she was at Highever with the future Hero of Ferelden, she’d thought so too. But once her training started, once she was hauled off to be trained as a templar, no more was she allowed to take time to herself, to play games, to be a child. If she looked at it analytically, it was only now that she was at her most responsible that she was allowed any time to herself–
A shift in the air, some impalpable sense of difference, sent Nicole into high alert in a moment. She splashed to her feet in the deep center of the tub, throwing her sopping hair out of her eyes.
Waverly blinked at her from the bathroom door, her hand still on the latch. As they stared at each other, the water dripping down Nicole's chin plinked a soft tattoo onto the water at chest height.
Waverly was wearing a soft, thick mage's robe of light green wool, accentuated with darker embroidery on the bodice and sleeves. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders, glowing in the sparse candlelight illuminating the bathroom and backlit by the firelight in Nicole’s quarters.
"Waverly?" Nicole said. She scented the air and felt a frown grow at her temples. Waverly smelled fine, lavender predominating in her scent, but she was standing oddly. Something was different.
It had been four weeks since Waverly's heat, and while the half-bond had been sated there had been only a few visits since, except for when Nicole was sick two weeks previously. But for those other visits, Waverly had always arrived when Nicole was in her office, and at most they’d shared a meal. The last time had been just two days previously, and everything had seemed fine. Waverly had just wanted to be held for a short time, and Nicole had been more than pleased to help with that goal. They had both been content with that level of intimacy, and parted on good terms. This – Waverly barging into Nicole’s inner sanctum without invitation – this had never happened before.
"Oh, I'm sorry, this was stupid, I should have knocked," Waverly said, turning to face away from Nicole. "I shouldn't even be here."
Nicole waded to the edge of the tub and groped for her towel. "It's fine, just let me-"
"I'm inconveniencing you, aren't I?" Waverly took a step toward the bedroom, then groaned, clutching her stomach.
Nicole leapt out of the tub, nearly collapsing as her rubbery legs adapted only partly back to walking. She managed somehow and made it to Waverly's side.
"Are you all right?" Nicole asked, hands hovering without touching Waverly's arm, trying to see her face. She always waited for Waverly to initiate touch, her own private rule to keep temptation and overreach at bay. After all, she always wanted to touch Waverly.
Waverly's face was screwed up in obvious distress. "It's just a cramp."
Baffled, Nicole blinked down at Waverly, her mind supplying malady after malady. It could be bad food, or the runs you get after drinking pondwater. Both were almost unheard of in the Tower, however, and Waverly was enough of a healer to deal with both of those in moments.
Oh.
"Waverly, do you have your, um, your..."
Waverly cocked a sardonic eyebrow at Nicole and said, "You can say it."
Nicole stumbled over the words. "Your blood moon."
Waverly straightened, laughed, then pressed her hand against her stomach once again. "Yeah, yeah, you could say that. It’s the time for it, after all."
Nicole panicked. It wasn't a loud panic. She didn't run around like a beestung pup, she didn't yelp or ask Waverly what to do. But she did stand there, naked and dripping, and think furiously for far, far too long. What can I do to help?
Waverly wilted, still holding her hand to her stomach. "So I'm gonna go."
That jerked Nicole out of her alarm. "You don't have to. Do you want to take a bath?" It was frank favoritism, this allowance of Nicole’s private bath for Waverly's use, but she was hurting and Nicole found she didn't much care for propriety at this moment.
Waverly stopped, turning back, eyeing Nicole with dawning hope. "Yeah. I'd like that." Her gaze flickered down, then back up, a blush beginning to mount on her cheeks.
Nicole might have lingered at that look, might have asked if Waverly wanted her to join in on that bath, had she not just come upon an idea and begun acting on it before she’d thought it completely through. "All right, you do that. I just thought of something I had to do, I'll be back in a little while."
Before Waverly could speak, Nicole strode into her bedroom, closed the bathroom door, and started drying off, then changed into a simple tunic and trousers. She had a mission to perform.
Nicole found the First Enchanter in her private study, tidying up the space for the night.
"Help," Nicole said. "I throw myself on your mercy."
Gus blinked up at her. The mage's short, white-speckled black hair was curling more vigorously than usual, possibly reacting to the humidity of the lakebound Tower’s winter chill. "Oh dear, this sounds serious." The smile-lines around her brown eyes deepened at the words, betraying her amusement.
Nicole described the situation with Waverly as delicately as possible.
"Ah, that explains some things. I can give you an entire basket of remedies, Nicole, though the only true cure for this malady is time."
"The basket, too, please," Nicole said, trying for levity.
Gus was, indeed, already filling a basket with all sorts of sachets, cloths, and even a large, smooth stone with a big rune in the middle. "Mm. Make sure she sees the stone. Oh, and next time you need to punt that Templar off the tower, could you turn the wards off? That blade had feces smeared on it. I'm going to have to check Templar Kyra's wound daily for infection."
Nicole growled. She'd thought the Hardy problem had settled down once his lengthy shift in the toilets had ended. Evidently it had simply reached a new stage.
"I'll deal with him. For now, he's back in the cells."
"Good." Gus nodded and handed over the basket. "Have you ever dealt with menses?"
"Yes." Nicole fiddled with the woven handle, letting her blunt fingernail run along the twisted grooves between strands of reed, calluses gliding on the smooth surface. "I have sisters, and the betas I’ve known talk about it, though not in a lot of detail."
Nicole thought about Shae, about how her fellow Knight-Lieutenant had been grumpy and hungry once a month, ravenous for attention but so sensitive to touch, how she’d kick Nicole out of bed one night and seek her out the next. But she decided not to mention it. Shae was long gone and far away, and her absence no longer hurt as much as it had after the Battle of Denerim.
"Well, everyone's different, but keep in mind that it's painful and emotions can run high."
Nicole snorted.
"Oh, and sometimes being intimate helps." Gus winked at her and then made a shooing motion with her hands. "Out, Knight-Commander, this mage needs to get to bed, and you're leaving that poor girl waiting."
Nicole stumbled to her feet, grabbed the basket, and fled.
Waverly was still in the bath when Nicole got back to her quarters, carrying the basket and a flagon of wine. Calamity had returned while Nicole was out and was curled in her bed next to the fire.
"Hey, Calamity," Nicole said, kneeling down to poke the fire back to life, adding another log, and swinging the heavy tea kettle over the flame. It was already warm from before her bath. There was enough water for a pot or two full of soothing tea, though she'd let Waverly choose which one to drink. The herb packets all looked similar to her unsophisticated eye.
Calamity's heavy head landed on Nicole's knee. She'd stretched out from her bed and nosed Nicole’s hand as she rolled slightly to show Nicole where to scratch. With a chuckle, Nicole let her fingers dig into the thick winter coat, scratching a doggy groan out of Calamity's throat.
"And where were you today when I had to throw a templar off the Tower?" Nicole asked. Calamity yawned in her face. "You're right, I did have it handled. You were downstairs getting scraps in the kitchen, weren't you?"
Calamity's contented whuff blew meaty dog breath across Nicole's face. She chuckled.
At a creak of the door, she looked up. Waverly was bundled up in Nicole's robe, her damp hair cascading down over her back.
"Hey, you ran away." Waverly’s eyes swept over the tableau and she smiled.
"I came back bearing gifts!" Nicole said, patting the great bearskin she was sitting on. "Come, stay warm by the fire."
Waverly did so after a brief stop to greet Calamity, who wiggled and accepted her scratches. As she settled beside Nicole, the mild grimace on her face spoke to her discomfort. Then she reached out and touched the basket. "What is this?"
"Some things that might help."
"Hmm, you went to Gus?" Waverly sniffed one packet, then another, her delicate fingers caressing the beeswax-saturated cloth bundling each together. She selected one and unfolded it, spreading back the wrapper until the dried herbs were revealed. "That was kind, thank you. I didn’t think to bring anything. May I have your teapot?"
Nicole scooped up the vessel from her tea set next to the fire. Waverly shredded the herbs into the basin and let out a groan, curling forward.
Nicole reached for the basket, searching for the runed stone.
"Oh," Waverly said when Nicole pressed it into her hand. "This will be perfect."
As Nicole watched, the rune came alight under Waverly's fingers, each circuit of her touch brightening the glow until she stopped and reversed the path slightly. The glow dimmed, then steadied.
"What does that rune do?" Nicole asked.
"It gets just as warm as I want it to, no more," Waverly said. She unceremoniously opened the front of Nicole's robe to place the stone against her lower belly.
Nicole looked toward the fire, feeling unexpectedly awkward at the sight of Waverly's skin and the dark hair between her legs. It didn't make any sense – they'd seen each other naked many times and would continue to do so in the future. But there was something about this calm, matter-of-fact ministration toward Waverly's comfort that felt more intimate than sex.
The water boiled. Nicole came up into a crouch so that she could tip the kettle into the teapot. The smell of ginger, lemon balm, elfroot, and other scents she couldn't identify filled the air.
"I heard there was an incident upstairs," Waverly said.
Nicole turned to her, setting herself back on the rug with a groan. She was still sore from her run, despite her long soak in the bath earlier. "Not much of one."
Waverly raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her knees. "Oh? I heard some gossip that a certain Knight-Commander got so angry with a templar that she threw him off the tower into the wards." Amusement flavored Waverly's words. She sounded fond.
Nicole a hand through her short hair. It was almost dry now, and the rumpling would likely make it stand out in an unruly halo. "Gossip."
"We all felt the wards activate, Nicole. They're incredible, we couldn't not. Templars started running through the Great Hall for the stairs, and mages ran for the windows. How long did you let him dangle?"
"A quarter bell." Nicole rested her chin on one knee. When Waverly put it like this, her simple punishment turned into a stunt that would have the Tower talking for weeks. She should have handled it more privately.
"Well, Gus was grumbling when she came back, so he probably deserved it." She leaned closer to Nicole, voice held conspiratorially low. "Did you know he pissed himself? In front of everyone, too. His trousers were frozen stiff when Gretta pulled him off the wards."
Nicole let out a surprised bark of laughter. "Good!" It was surprising how easily her mood, so sour and entrenched throughout the day, could be lifted by a mere conversation with Waverly.
Waverly poured herself some tea, adding honey. Nicole drank from her flagon, savoring a mouthful of rich port as she scritched Calamity’s cheek. Waverly smelled good, their scents mixing together wondrously from the bath herbs and Nicole’s robe. Nicole held herself back from blatantly sniffing the air, but it was a near thing. They sat there in companionable silence for a time, watching the crackling fire, until Waverly spoke again.
“I’m relieved, you know. I haven’t started bleeding yet, but this feels like every other blood moon. We cut it a little close to the quick on the contraceptive during my heat.” Waverly sipped her tea.
Nicole blew out a breath. It had been a niggling fear in the back of her mind after Waverly’s heat, though there’d been no sign that the potion hadn’t worked. Still, somewhere very deep inside, Nicole’s alpha was disappointed at the news. Nicole squished the thought. There was no place in their lives or the Tower for a child (not that they’d be allowed to keep it – all children of mages belonged to the Chantry, without fail), and it would cause the Nightingale’s carefully laid plans to fail. Innumerable future omega mages were depending on them not to screw this up. Her alpha could go rut itself.
Nicole cleared her throat. "I’m relieved, too. Have you been well? It’s been a few days since we talked."
"Mm, emotional and bloated, but doing well regardless. I think I may request a transfer from working in the storage caves, though. Templar Lonnie is doing quite well and I’d like to do something with better lighting.”
“That sounds good. The quartermaster is pleased with both of you. What are you considering?”
“The garden, maybe?” Waverly sipped her tea, the firelight giving her face a warm glow. “I’ve always liked plants and growing my own herbs. I find it peaceful. And Gus can teach me more about the herbs I’m using if I know how they grow. There are certain things you can do, spells you can use, to enrich them before they’re ready to harvest.”
“I didn’t know that. It sounds like a good place to be. And there’s plenty of sunlight.”
Waverly nodded. “It’s nice, and the air smells wonderful. I like talking to the bees.”
"Do they talk back?"
Waverly laughed. "No, silly, they're bees. They just buzz."
Nicole smiled, feeling indulgent with the ridiculous conversation. "I'm just a simple templar, how was I to know that bees don't have a secret language to communicate with mages?"
"They do have a secret language! But it's not for us, it's for other bees. They dance to tell other bees where to find good flowers."
"Oh, ok, I see how it is, now you're just making fun of me. Dancing bees?"
Waverly opened her eyes wide. "It's true! I'll show you the book about it."
Nicole sat back, still scruffing Calamity's chest. "Well if it's in a book it has to be true."
"Hmph. I'll teach you, unbeliever." Waverly emptied her teacup
Nicole picked up the teapot before Waverly could, stabilizing the teacup and pouring carefully.
“Thanks.” Waverly added a substantial glob of honey and stirred it in, sipping once and then adding more.
“Would you like some tea with your honey?” Nicole asked, laughing at the blush that marched up Waverly’s neck at the teasing.
“Hey I’m getting ready to bleed, I get some sweetness!” Waverly protested.
“Let's just say that now I know why you like bees so much. And that reminds me, there’s some pastries on the way tomorrow morning, if you want to stay tonight.”
Waverly’s eyes snapped to Nicole’s face from her tea. She looked surprised.
Nicole backpedaled. “Um, not to try to bribe you, I just thought it might be nice for you to not have to go all the way back downstairs when it’s this cold.”
Waverly shook her head and, inexplicably, her eyes filled with tears.
Nicole’s dismay grew. “I, ah, oh no, what’s wrong?” What did I say?
Waverly put down her teacup and turned. She pulled herself partway onto Nicole’s lap and into an embrace, resting her cheek on Nicole’s chest. Oh. Not bad, then. Nicole awkwardly rubbed Waverly’s back, feeling the thick fabric of her dressing gown and the warmth of Waverly’s skin underneath. Waverly’s wet hair had dampened the cloth. The scent of her, rich with honey from the tea or her own omega, wafted seductively into Nicole’s senses.
“Nothing’s wrong, you’re just being very nice.” Waverly murmured into the blue linen of Nicole’s shirt. “I also cried today because one of the mabari was teaching her puppies how to play tug rope.” She sniffled. “They were very clumsy and kept falling over, making little yips and growls, and running back over to grab the rope again.”
Nicole pressed her lips to the crown of Waverly’s head. Her confusion was fading, replaced with a deep, warm fondness. “Oh. That sounds very cute.” She couldn’t help herself, inhaling deeply, feeling her eyes close with how good Waverly smelled.
“It was so cute,” Waverly said with a small, hiccupping sob. “They’re just so small and round. I couldn’t stop crying. I had to hide in a storeroom until I stopped dripping all over the flagstones.”
Nicole held back a comment about the last time she saw Waverly dripping all over anything. This clearly wasn’t an appropriate time for that sort of thing. But the thought, added to Waverly’s warm weight on her lap, still stirred her ever-eager alpha interest. Before Nicole could say anything to divert Waverly’s attention from the rising alpha pheromones, Waverly sniffed the air.
“I didn’t think you’d be attracted to me crying or talking about puppies, Nicole,” Waverly said, then leaned back with a small, goofy smile creasing her tear-stained cheeks.
“Ah,” Nicole said, ducking her head. “Sorry, not intentional.” Then she had a flash of inspiration. “Unless you want it to be, of course.”
“Want it to be?” Waverly squinted at her, tears drying, then her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh.”
“Up to you, Waverly. I know everyone’s got, um, different needs in their blood mo–”
Before Nicole could even finish her sentence, Waverly pulled her down into a kiss. She tasted like lemon, ginger, and honey with just a tinge of salt.
“Yeah,” Waverly said, breath puffing into Nicole’s nose, her omega pheromones rising into the air around them, melding into a cloying bouquet. “I want it to be intentional. I’ve been wanting you all day, but you ran out of the bathroom so fast that I was worried you wouldn’t feel the same.”
Nicole groaned and pulled Waverly back in, feeling the softness of her lips, the warm wetness of her mouth. “Sorry,” she said, pulling Waverly’s lip between her teeth to tug at it. “I wanted to help.”
“Well.” Waverly drew out the word. “I got to see you soaking wet in all your glory so, yes, you’ve helped. The bath and tea helped. And so has the stone. But something that’s really missing from tonight’s list of remedies is you helping me come.”
Nicole chuckled, confidence and interest flooding into her, making her feel strong, protective, and aroused in equal measure. “I can do that.”
Without further delay, Nicole scooped Waverly into her arms and twisted to spill her onto the deep, soft fur of the bearskin beneath them. Waverly’s surprised laugh was smothered with another kiss, her lips parting to let Nicole lick her way inside. Nicole let her eyes fall shut and concentrated on feeling, smelling, hearing, tasting Waverly underneath her. Maker, she thought, It's so good to be back here again.