Chapter Text
“So,” she continued, her voice low, warm honey over lips, as she met his gaze with a look of challenge and invitation.
“How much longer are you going to wait before you kiss me, then?”
---
He opened his eyes, and the intensity in them would have taken her aback but she barely had time to register it before he’d pulled her to him. She pressed her body more fully against his; he was broad and hard with corded muscle under the fabric of his shirt, but he shifted to fit them to each other with seamless grace. She tasted mead and persimmon and him as she drew him closer, her arms around his neck. His hand slid into her hair, pulling out pins and golden thread and she laughed against his mouth as they clinked against the stone of the bench.
“No, no, let me, if you keep that up it’ll just be a huge knot I just have to shave off,” she said.
“Now’s no time for threats, Warden-Commander,” he murmured low and deep, nipping at her lip and sending a frisson of want straight to her core. “Let it down, then.”
His lips trailed up her jaw to just beneath her ear. She bit her lip at his breath feathering against that sensitive spot, his lips just there, but she let go of him to start strategically removing the pins and ribbon and silk. It was a much quicker process than one might have thought, and as soon as her curls were free, his hands were buried in them and he was kissing her mouth again. But she’d moved her hands under the hem of his shirt, sliding her hands up to feel his skin, his body, all hard planes and unrelenting muscle. He pulled back just enough to look at her, his lips still but a breath away, his eyes molten amber.
He licked his lip and looked like he wanted to devour her, and she could not think of a better fate.
“We should move to my bed,” he said, voice low and rough.
She didn’t even bother to speak, just nodded vigorously before she kissed him again. He lifted her into his lap then stood, navigating the garden expertly as he began walking toward the stairs to the parapets.
She laughed against his lips.
“Cullen, I can walk,” she told him.
“This is better,” he told her, kissing her again.
“But not faster,” she told him. He growled against her mouth.
"But better," he repeated, picking up his pace, navigating the steps to the parapets as he carried her seemingly effortlessly.
The man had a point.
--
It was absurd when he shifted her to put her over his shoulder to climb up the ladder double time, but it didn’t seem to matter -- she laughed breathlessly and bit her lip against what was perhaps a gratuitous show of physicality and strength.
Though it did make it feel as though her smalls would melt right off her body, so perhaps not so gratuitous.
Once they were in his room, though, he set her down and they wasted no time undressing each other, and she was impressed by both of their dexterity as their garments fell away.
She ran her hands over his skin as though she’d been fasting for years and tonight was the feast, and his seemed to cover every inch of her as he slid his fingers over her shoulders, her stomach. Unabashedly, she moaned as he palmed her breast and rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and she was rewarded with a half-smile and look of such heat.
"Raina," he breathed. "I want to touch you now. I want to slide my fingers into your cunt while I suck your clit over and over until you scream."
Her lips parted as he caressed her breast, watching her.
There was a beat as she looked up at him, then her eyebrows rose.
"Well," she demanded breathlessly, pressing herself closer to him, "what are you waiting for?"
He gave her that smirk again as his fingers slid into her smalls. She gasped as she ended up with her back against a stone wall, his fingers sliding over her entrance then flanking her clit. He was looking into her face, though, watching every shift of her expression, smiling slightly at every little moan, every breath caught, every bite of her lip.
--
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted so much -- and when she pushed him onto the bed and climbed atop him, she felt as though she’d won a prize. They were still in their smalls, but she liked it for now; she settled her core over the thick, heavy heat of his cock and rocked slow, every part of her against him, his hardness pushing against her clit and making her moan again.
And when he slid his hands over her thighs, pressing more fully into her still, she felt like she’d won twice.
The dissipation of their smallclothes was of little concern because it was the lift, the pressure of him at her slick, tight entrance, the gasp and heat of pushing down and him filling her so utterly -- he was so big and so thick and it was nearly too much and exactly right and not nearly enough as she shifted her hips and leaned into the stretch and said
"My fucking gods, Cullen," breathlessly on another moan, "you are bloody perfect..."
She looked down at him and was rewarded with that smirk as he pressed his fingers into her thighs and himself up, up deeper into her.
Her lips parted, her eyes closed as she gasped, rocking her hips into the surge of him, barely breathing for a moment as she adjusted to him then opened her eyes and held his unwavering gaze as shel rolled her hips into his.
And when he moaned, it was her turn to smirk.
--
She was fucking perfect.
Tight and hot and so wet; at first what he felt as she sank onto him, as he watched the look on her face shift as she felt him, accepted his cock into her beautiful, perfect cunt was so satisfying he coulldn't help but look smug.
But as she moved, all there was was her, and her nails digging into his chest as she chased their pleasure, rolling her hips into him with the rhythm of a dancer, the ferocity of a warrior queen, and unmitigated exultation. He could see it in the arch of her back, the way she tossed her hair as she rode him, and then in her smile when he couldn't hold back his own moan.
-+
After, sweat-slick and sated, she put a hand on his chest, creating a bit of distance between them as she looked at him; the breadth of his shoulders, the hard, lean muscle, the strength of him -- the scars. She traced one with a delicate touch, and she felt the heat of his gaze on her as she took him in.
“Bloody hell, Cullen, you are beautiful,” she breathed. “How are you still so handsome?”
He huffed a laugh.
“There’s no need for flattery, madam. You’ve already had your way with me.”
Bright laughter spilled from her lips, and as it faded, she looked at him, considering.
“You look well, though. Really.”
Then she traced the tip of her finger along the scar on his lip.
“I bet you say that to all the boys,” he told her, then kissed her again.
“Now that’s just rude,” she said, leaning in to kiss him again. “And disrespectful.” Another kiss. “And unchivalrous.”
“ Unchivalrous ?” he demanded; then, before she quite knew what had happened, he’d flipped her onto her back. “Madam, you have besmirched my honor.”
“Ser,” she said with a sly smile and heavy-lidded eyes, “I’ve been trying to besmirch your honor since the day we met.”
He grinned.
“The day we met you were the sweetest, most innocent creature in the Circle.”
She gasped and smacked his chest.
“I most certainly was not!” she exclaimed. “I was a little femme fatale in the making! An absolute vixen!”
He laughed again, then leaned in to kiss her. “If you were a vixen, you were the most bookish, wide-eyed vixen that ever was.”
“How dare you, sir! You simply fell for my art and artifice,” she sniffed, “because the day we met, you were the most innocent creature in the Circle!”
He laughed again, nodding, settling between her legs with a rocking motion that hit just there , and she sucked in a breath.
“Now that might have been true,” he admitted, a slow smile curving his lips at her response as he rocked his hips slowly against her again and she bit her lip. “But I’m not sure it applies anymore.”
He leaned in to kiss her and she rocked her hips into him, finding his rhythm; he shifted, she shifted, slipped hands over his skin, then sucked in a breath because there he was, there they were, and she was full again, full of him, and this time, they took their time, touching and exploring and seeming devoted to learning every pulse point, every sensitive little spot, every sound before the sun rose.
--
When he woke, it was morning. Her head was on his chest, but she was gazing out the window. He wanted to think she looked lost, but she didn’t. Rather she looked as though she had lost -- more things than he could guess, he imagined.
He wanted to stroke the downward turn from the corners of her mouth, the haunted look from her eyes, the acceptance with which she wore them.
Instead, he brushed a dark curl from her cheek; she looked up at him to smile, though there was still something wan to it.
“I can’t stay,” she whispered. Then she sucked in a breath and exhaled it audibly, the warmth rushing over his chest. Something tightened within him. He wet his lips.
He knew. Of course he knew. He’d always known. No matter that she’d come here, no matter that she’d sought him out, no matter that finally, finally, he’d been able to touch her, hold her. Finally, she’d been his.
But she hadn’t.
She could never stay.
He spoke none of it, though.
“No,” he agreed, stroking her hair.
“And you have to,” she said in an even softer whisper, her fingers tracing over a scar at his collarbone..
Looking into her eyes felt like something was being wrenched out of him, but he didn’t look away.
He’d known that, too.
“Yes,” he said quietly.
Her eyes were bright, wet, as she nodded. She pursed her lips, pressing her teeth into the inside of the corner of her mouth.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Her lashes were damp. She lowered her head to press a kiss to the scar on his collarbone.
“This is much sadder than I imagined it would be,” she said finally, her hushed words a bit raw against his skin now.
He had no answer for that. There was a boulder in his throat and on his chest. Instead, he continued stroking her hair. After a moment, she spoke again, her voice a bit raw.
“I promise not to be captured by slavers or sacrificed by maleficar,” she told him; he thought something caught in her voice. He tightened his arms around her.
“Pray don’t; I’d hate to have to go to war with Tevinter,” he replied quietly, soberly.
He pulled her up to him then, leaning in to kiss her fiercely, burying his hand in her hair. She returned his passion in kind, sliding her arms around him. He tasted salt; he wiped a tear away with his thumb as she moved over him one more time.
Just once more.