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Ellana hated the mid-night watch.
She wasn’t thrilled to take any watch, all told, but that one was the worst.
The evening one was never so bad. When they camped in the wilderness the night was alive with song; the sound of creatures yet to settle, and those preparing for a hunt. Near the cities, there was bustle in the streets until sunrise: talking, arguing, drunkards singing off-key as they stumbled home. Even when their travels took them to the very edge of civilization there was at least someone in the party awake an hour or two to keep her company.
Dawn’s watch was tolerable for similar reasons, though usually reserved for Solas when they travelled together. He preferred it to the others. As a naturally early-riser he seemed to genuinely enjoy being up at first light, and spent the hours in quiet contemplation; sketching, reading, and planning for the day ahead.
The mid-night watch had no such redeeming qualities. It was just terrible.
The quiet, worst of all.
Among the Dalish, it was a warning. A sign to be on high alert; waiting, listening, ready for a fight. Watch duty was taken in pairs, never alone, and a Clan didn’t fall silent unless there was danger afoot. Communities didn’t sleep. Whether from those finishing chores, parents tending to children, or young lovers sneaking off for a tryst, a gentle hum of activity was ever-present; even in the darkest hours. She’d yet to acclimate to these nights on the road without it. It made her restless. Anxious. But lonely, more than anything.
It was worse when Solas travelled with her. All she wanted to do was fill the empty space with his voice (she could listen to him talk all night). Worser still since they’d become lovers. Now those quiet hours felt less like a lonesome inconvenience and more like an opportunity wasted. The distance between them, a mere stone’s throw, stretched to miles before the lure of temptation.
This night, though far from quiet, had proved among the most challenging.
Torrential wind and rain harried the party of four as they made their way along The Storm Coast, forcing them deeper into the woods to escape the risk of surge and landslides. The detour cost them half a day, but worse, had taken them far from seaside caves where shelter was guaranteed. By nightfall, still hours away from any Inquisition camp and more than a day’s travel to a larger settlement, their only option was to pitch their tents in a copse of leaning trees and pray.
Fortunately, they were spared that fate by nothing short of a miracle: not long after dark a flash of lightning lit the hill above them, where Varric’s keen eye spied the remains of an old cabin. By that point – soaked to the bone, exhausted, and hoarse from shouting over rain – they couldn’t care less about its condition. If it had four walls and enough of an eave to build a fire beneath, it would do.
There were other problems clear upon reaching it, of course. The roof was partially caved in, creating a small pond by the missing front door. The walls groaned and shuddered, threatening collapse. The floor was rotted through in multiple places and debris piled up in corners where the wind blew in through the cracks... But there were also locked doors to arouse their curiosity, and a hearth in good shape. Most importantly, there were no signs of trespass. That alone made it safer than sleeping in the open.
With a set of picks shared between them, Varric and Ellana handled the doors while Blackwall and Solas went to work building a fire. There was no treasure worth taking – just a few bottles of spirits and a handful of preserves – but those side rooms were in better shape than the main one. So in pairs, they laid claim to the driest corners they could find and set their bedrolls. After, they all stripped down to underthings to enjoy a meal and a roaring fire while their clothes dried out on sticks.
That state of shared undress was the first complication.
Typically, Ellana cared very little about such things. She prided herself as being above the prudishness so common among humans. Bare skin never bothered her one way or the other, and she’d never felt embarrassed by her own. They’d all seen each other in various states of undress a hundred times, anyway.
But the sheen of firelight on dewy skin, a flush of exertion, and the warmth of proximity all felt a little different when mired in days of unspent sexual tension.
She and Solas had only been intimate a short time. The days still had that gauzy, punch-drunk, feel that inspired fantasy in every glance. Made every touch a tease. There was promise in the most innocent exchange; just a brush of fingertips could plant the seeds of desire. Hardly an hour passed in his company where she did not find her thoughts drifting toward indulgence ( just a moment pressed too close). They spent each night together, when they could, and those few they couldn’t felt darker for the lack. Even a night as miserable as this one proved a poor deterrent.
While Varric entertained with tall tales about his many adventures with Hawke, Ellana tried in vain to bring a wandering eye to heel. Yet no matter the effort she put into pointing it elsewhere – the fire, the food, the speaker, anywhere that wasn’t Solas – somehow it always managed to find its way back to him.
If it wasn’t the freckles on his shoulders that bewitched her it was the line of his throat, pale and bare. The curl of his fingers around a dish. A fading mark on his breast in the shape of her teeth ( how strange he’d not healed it). Mostly, she tried not to stare at the tie on his undergarments hanging over one thigh.
Just the smallest tug would undo it.
When he’d finished his meal, somewhere around the time Varric was recounting his attempted seduction by Desire demon, Solas used a crust of dry bread to scrape the last dregs of broth from his bowl. When not a drop was left he sucked the remnants off his fingers, one by one , and Ellana felt her pulse quicken at the sight.
Only then did he notice her attention. Pausing, mid-bite, when their eyes met across the fire.
He did not smirk or tease, but acknowledged the tension between them with a very slow – very deliberate – suck of his thumb. Dragging it from parted lips so their pout was emphasised; his bottom lip pulled in such a way that made her teeth ache.
One side of his mouth curled, just a little, and like the single brow he’d crooked the smile dared her to act on desire too easily read. To up the ante. This was a game they’d played before.
She smiled. Shyly, with her lip caught between her teeth, and quickly turned her attention back to the story-teller. Playing with her hair to cover the pink in her cheeks. But the fluster didn't last, and soon turned to devilry once she realised his eyes had lingered on her far longer than he knew to risk.
So, she stretched.
First with hands clasped high above her head, letting slip a sigh of pleasure, then by pulling each arm across her chest in a way that accentuated the curve of her breasts. Pushing them up until her nipples nearly peaked above the fabric.
Once assured she had his undivided attention she leaned an elbow on her knee, chin in hand, and with the other toyed, idly, with the tie on her smallclothes. Winding it round and round her fingers as though she might accidentally undo it. After a moment she moved on to the lace on her bandeau, and from there skimmed her fingers up over her collarbone, to catch a weft of hair. Making sure to touch the place on her neck he so loved to press his mouth to when she lay beneath him.
When she risked a glance she caught him staring, but he was quicker to recover than she’d been. Gaze safely averted before there was a chance to give him playful admonishment for it. Still, she counted the move a winning one on account of his sudden need to rearrange his legs.
Though she did not press him following the exchange, there’d been no chance to find a private moment before bed, she thought of little else since. They shared one of the side rooms, but Solas was up at dawn and so retired before her. By the time she crawled into her bedroll he’d been asleep for hours. Sparing (denying) her the temptation of any further indiscretion…
…Up until she was roused for that lonely, quiet, endless , mid-night watch.
The few hours of rest she’d managed before then were not untroubled. Flirtation coloured her dreams, and she was awakened from one of lips on her neck and a frantic, clawing, rhythm.
It was not a meeting in the Fade, such things were far too dangerous, merely an invention of her desire. Flashes of sensation without substance; fleeting, but vivid, and enough to pull her body to the brink.
There’d been an arm braced at her side. Another wrapped around her back, grasping at her shoulder. She felt it trembling. Gripping. She felt his weight upon her, and the depth of each thrust when his pace quickened. There was breath on her neck and a call of her name. He succumbed, and her stomach swooped as she rushed to join him.
Then, suddenly, she was awake.
In her shock, she gasped. One hand went flying out to catch what had her by the shoulder – not cradling, not trembling – and her fingers closed around an unexpectedly furry wrist. In the soft light of the hooded lantern he carried, Blackwall’s face swam into focus. Brow knit with concern and bare chest entirely too close to her face.
They were all still in their smallclothes. It would be hours before the garments dried out completely.
She was immediately, uncomfortably, aware of the searing heat between her legs and let out a cry of alarm as she leapt backward. Blackwall tried to stop her, but too late, and could only wince in sympathy as she collided with the wall behind her. Knocking her head against it hard enough to bring down a shower of dust.
Once she’d found her bearings he extended a hand. She took the offer gratefully. “Sorry,” he whispered as he pulled her to her feet. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Rough night tonight – I’d be surprised if anyone managed pleasant dreams. How’s your head?”
“I’m fine.” She was more embarrassed than wounded. She turned her head to the side to shake the dust out of her hair. “Anything I should know about?”
“Still wet. Still miserable. Might’ve heard some deepstalkers prowling around about an hour back but I think a bear scared them off.”
“Maybe next time put some armour on when you go outside.”
He frowned, “When I–?” then the look shifted into something more like wry amusement. She grinned back at him. “Oh, aren’t you funny? Bet you’ll be wishing for a fur coat next time you’re out in Sahrnia freezing your tits off.” He beckoned for her to follow him out, chuckling softly. “Come on then, you’re up. Grab your bow and let me hibernate for a few more hours.”
There wasn’t much space to manoeuvre through the little room. A pantry in a previous life, now all it stored was an array of broken shelves and barrels she and Solas had pushed against the walls to make room for bedrolls, supplies, and weapons. So tightly packed that Blackwall had to tiptoe around the detritus so as not to wake him, too. Fortunately ( unfortunately ) he slept through the changeover, the steady rise and fall of his chest barely visible in the flicker of firelight streaming in through the door.
Ellana stole a last glance at him as she slipped away. She thought of the dream, its effects still yet to fade, and bit her lip.
It was not long after that she decided not only did she hate the mid-night watch, but that this one in particular was the worst of them. Never had she felt so restless. So full of nervous, buzzing, energy. So terribly wanting. The storm, the loneliness, the water leaking from the roof, the long hours without a word spoken, all complicated by her total and complete inability to stop staring at the door Solas slept behind…
For the first hour she fidgeted. Tried – and failed – to patch the holes in her pants. Picked moss out of the floorboards. Counted seconds between lightning and thunder. Bounced her leg and tapped her fingernails against her teeth. All while trying not to squeeze her thighs together, lest she make an intolerable situation even worse.
There was nothing about the setting that lent itself to passion, and yet it took only a glimpse of naked skin to arouse it. Her fire burned hotter than the one she was tasked to watch, and proved far more difficult to control after all the hours spent feeding it.
She should be patient. Abide by her commitment to duty and the rules of discretion and spend this time tending the hearth with an ear on the woods. Like any responsible person would. When her watch was over, she’d wake Solas with a promise of an hour of time later. They’d have the chance tomorrow, when they arrived at an Inquisition base. Holdings that size always had at least one forgotten room well-suited for a rendezvous. All they needed was a lockable door and a suitable surface – table, chair, even the floor in a pinch.
She should be patient… but in the end she was forced to conclude that having to wait another day without even the smallest reprieve was completely intolerable. Unprofessional, even. If she’d been hungry, a ration would bridge the gap until the next meal. Thirsty, and she’d drain a skin of water. In pain, and she’d treat the injury. Distraction was a liability. It would be irresponsible to tend to any task without those basic needs met; no one could be expected to go toe-to-toe against a Pride demon while half-starved.
There was no reason to do away with caution entirely, of course; to act rashly was to take needless risk. A middle ground existed between ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and she found it in a compromise: there’s no real harm in waking him early, she told herself, not if it’s just for the company. Not if it’s just to talk.
A few, chaste, moments would only improve her focus.
Carefully, she put down her bow, tucking it against her pack where it would stay in reach of the door, and quietly crept from the fire.
It was with the utmost confidence that she assured herself she could control her hands better than her eyes. She was a grown woman. Varric and Blackwall slept in the opposite room, not even thirty paces away; if either got up to visit the latrine and found the fire unattended they’d immediately start looking for her. The walls were thin, she could hear every shift and snore in the pauses between gusts. The threat of discovery was far too great; that would temper any adolescent impulse. Only Dorian knew of their affair – and there was very good reason to keep it that way. It would not go beyond conversation.
Yet no sooner had she slipped into the room and shut the door behind her did she realise she had no choice but to get under the blanket with him. It was draughty. The warmth of the hearth didn’t reach these side rooms. Conversation would be impossible if she was shivering.
That would only be a momentary indulgence, of course. Just long enough to get comfortable. And surely, if she took the opportunity to steal a quick kiss, that would be fine. It wasn’t as though they couldn’t help themselves.
So, just a moment, she promised herself as she crawled into his bedroll.
Just a kiss , as she dragged a hand up his chest. Over his neck and throat, to his face, jaw cradled in her palm, to turn it toward her when his eyes fluttered open. Assuring that the first thing he knew on waking was the warmth of her mouth on his.
We will stop before it goes too far, she reasoned as he pulled her close. One arm stretched across the expanse of her back, grasping her shoulder, as he had in the dream. He deepened the kiss with a fervour that made her stomach twist.
There was heat pooling between her thighs once again.
Nothing can happen.
She could feel him growing hard against her.
It can’t.
He stiffened when she shifted, a leg rubbing against him, and his breath caught in his throat.
This is no place for it.
The laces on his smallclothes, already uncomfortably strained, came loose with a quick tug. She slipped a hand inside before she even had the thought to do it, and the feel of him that hot – that hard – in her grasp had her yearning. The barest touch, and he whimpered – breathing the sound across her parted lips – and suddenly she was squeezing her thighs together, trying to find a way to weasel out of her own deal.
Perhaps just… five minutes.
Ten, at the most.
Absolutely no more than fifteen.
It was just a bit of play. A momentary dalliance, to scratch the itch for friction. Easing some tension would make the night go smoother. It didn’t have to culminate in anything.
But the moment she accepted the bargain she knew it was a trick.
Already he’d pulled down her bandeau and was kissing her breasts. Then — oh! — caught a nipple in his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. A shock of arousal shot straight to her core, causing a pleasured noise to bubble up from her throat and though she tried her best to tamp it down she failed just as surely. And once that high, breathy, little moan escaped into his ears there was no hope of resisting the draw.
Now they were clawing at each other’s clothes (what little they still wore). Not quite convinced to take them off they instead found ways to work around them and claim every inch of skin beneath. Skirting the rules rather than breaking them entirely.
She kept one hand wrapped around him. Squeezing – not stroking – she revelled in the way he writhed and shuddered. Trying to keep himself from using her grip; from enjoying it too much. In turn he touched his fingers to the apex of her thighs, guided by the warmth that blossomed there. She was wet through the linen, and when he felt it, he groaned.
It was his first noise, and it excited her enough to give a single, firm, stroke over his entire length. Slowly, to draw the sensation out as long as possible. The kiss broke for a gasp, and another whimper as he rocked his hips. With his eyes screwed shut and his mouth open he made a perfect picture of man, undone.
There was a tremble in his voice as, “We can’t,” he whispered. The words nearly lost beneath a roar of wind.
“I know,” she replied, yet did not let him go. And neither did he move his hand away. She twisted her legs tighter, trapping his fingers there so he’d have no choice but to touch her.
He caught her mouth, and obliged.
Two fingers moved in fast, tight, little circles over the thin fabric. Working her into a frenzy far too quickly . She felt it building in her stomach, and could not help but move against him, cursing under her breath. Between the drag of his teeth on her jaw, the sound of ragged breath at her ear, and the rhythm of his touch, she was on fire . By the time he managed to pull her smalls down her hips and slide a finger just barely into the heat of her she knew beyond a doubt that she could no longer be sated by only a tease.
Now she needed.
Still, “We can’t,” she groaned – mewled – words catching on a gasp once he added a second finger. When her hips moved, he curled them until they were pressed to that part of her that always took her breath away. He waited for the sigh before slowly dragging them back out. Threatening to stop entirely.
Then his mouth was on her neck. A kiss, a bite, and, “I know,” he cooed.
With a growl she grabbed his hip to hold him still and gave a tortuous drag of her thigh against his erection. It coaxed a rumble from deep in his chest, face buried in her neck, and she grinned triumphantly. It was a sound he only made when stifling something much louder. She so loved to hear the strain in his voice.
She did it thrice more before, “We can’t,” he breathed. Painful now, like a plea for mercy.
There was a quiver in his stomach and tension in his arms. His breath coming harder and faster. This climb had already begun. Resistance was hopeless. Surrender, inevitable.
It would be cruel to stop now.
She dragged her lips to his ear, “Let me touch you.”
The request was unexpected – she’d never posed it before – and that gave him the briefest pause. Just long enough for her to seize a chance to take him by surprise. She rolled. Knocking her hip against his, she unbalanced him, and he was flipped squarely onto his back. The landing paired with a firm stroke of his cock.
Startled, he let out a loud grunt, then snapped his mouth shut so fast he bit his lip. “Fenedhis,” he swore, and winced. Another stroke, and the hiss of pain bled into a choked, broken , little moan. Another still, and he was bucking into her grip.
She paused there to let him catch his breath, holding steady on the edge of movement. A tease – a threat . Eventually he cracked an eye open, and she smiled at him, face alight with mischief. “ Or,” she purred, “I could stop and let you go back to sleep?”
For the briefest second she thought he might actually try to refuse. He was a generous lover, and never took before he gave. This was a uniquely intimate act, somehow more so than sex; to grant permission for her to focus solely on his pleasure. Sex was too risky. This was risky, but less so. Perhaps just enough to convince themselves it was an acceptable alternative.
He took a deep, tremulous, breath. Swallowed hard. And, “Yes,” he rasped. With an urgency not fit for refusal. She raised a brow. But before she could ask he quickly corrected, “I– no. I meant…” He licked his lips. “Please” . Pushing the word through clenched teeth like water springs from a cracked dam, shattering beneath the weight of a swollen river.
Oh , how lovely it was to hear him beg.
His wounded lip left a ruby smear upon her mouth when she descended on him. A copper kiss to steal his breath; she’d rendered him helpless. A wreck before the promise of relief.
Many times, many nights, she’d brought him to his end. In both their beds, in tents, old ruins, on her desk, and once even in a kitchen larder. Each time she’d wrapped her hands around him. Touched and teased him… but never made him come that way. Not how he’d done for her. The promise excited her.
There was such focus in his face as she worked him – eyes screwed shut beneath a knitted brow, lips parted for breath, beads of sweat forming on his forehead – she drew back to see him better. Enraptured by the beauty. The vulnerability of it. She kissed his face, soft and delicately. Cheeks, jaw, eyes and temple. He was mesmerising.
There was a quiet sigh loosed on every other stroke. Asynchronous, like his hips trying to find the rhythm. She could feel the tension in his belly. The twitching in his thighs.
And just a hint of frustration. As if grasping for a ledge just barely out of reach.
It occurred to her then that she had no idea how best to please him this way. It had been many years since she’d laid with men, and she’d been a much younger and capricious woman then. She rushed her lovers. Stumbling into intimacy without care or grace, she barely knew her own pleasure well enough to guide another. Solas’ breath was quick and shallow, and while clear he enjoyed the touch she wanted to give him more than just an eventual end… she wanted to know what he wanted . What was irresistible. The way she knew to circle her hips when she sat atop him. Or bite his ear when he was close.
She slowed her hand to a lazy tempo and leaned close, brushing the words against his cheek: “Tell me what you like,” she whispered, “the way you do it.”
He startled. Wide eyes found hers, and held that gaze for long enough that she feared she’d overstepped. Crossed a line he wasn’t ready for. It was not a subject he’d ever broached himself. Those few times she’d touched upon it were in regard to her own pleasure; and he’d been careful only to listen, never press, when she whispered in his ear.
Once, when she’d been left particularly wanting and believed a a tryst impossible, she went early to her tent to slip a hand into her smalls and bury her face in the straw pillow… only to be caught in the throes when Solas found a way to sneak in after all. She’d not noticed his entrance, and so when he slid in behind her and there was suddenly a hand on her hip and his erection pressed into the cleft of her rear she very nearly screamed in fright. It was the most embarrassed she’d ever been, but he begged her to continue, and she was in no state to refuse. He cradled her all the while, riding the thrust of her hips when she made herself come. By the end he was so worked up he could hardly speak, and the memory of the passion that followed was one she revisited often; it kept her warm through several long, lonely, nights.
Yet, even following it, few things made his cheeks colour quite like the vaguest implication he find time to enjoy himself the same way.
For a moment he looked utterly paralyzed by the request.
She was ready to take it back, try to smooth things over with a clever segue into her own pleasure or pretend it was a hook for something else... when one hand reached down and covered hers. Lightly; to guide, instead of discourage
He hemmed and hesitated another moment before finally, “Higher,” he whispered. “And slower. Shorter strokes, at first.”
Kindly, she pretended not to notice how his flush had deepened, and instead obeyed. Moving in shorter, slower, strokes, she cradled him in the seat of a calloused palm.
“Like this?” she asked, though there was no need. The effect was clear and immediate: his hips jerked upward, gasp catching in his throat. One hand grasped the bedroll beneath him, twisting the fabric in his fingers until it began to tear.
With a nod, “Yes,” he breathed. And closed his eyes to better enjoy the sensation.
It was a stunning sight, her lover‘s bliss, and she was enraptured. The red rising on his chest, the flutter in his stomach, hips bucking, sucking on his bitten lip to stifle his cries and his hand resting lightly on her wrist as she worked him.
Soon his breath began to colour with higher sounds. “A little… a little faster now,” he amended, and again she obeyed.
How arousing it was to imagine his hand there, instead of hers. How he might succumb to his own touch on the nights he missed her most. Just this way: high, and slow, building speed as the tension rose. She was so enamoured by the vision that she almost missed it when his hand flew off and gestured frantically to the side of the room.
“Shirt,” he was saying. “There is– there is a shirt. Over there.”
A stained, filthy chemise that could not be worn again without laundering. One corner hung from an open pocket of his pack, not quite tucked in. Ellana bent to retrieve it, and he took it from her hand the instant he was able. Clutching it tight in a fist held to his stomach.
He was close. She could hear it in his breath and see it in his face, the desperation of lifted brows and parted lips, but before she could take him to his end then and there she was struck by a wicked thought... and stopped. Allowing him a moment to catch his breath.
Once she could see his peak was not so near she ran a curled knuckle along the underside of his cock. Up and down – a few times, for good measure, but no more than that – patiently waiting for his attention.
When his eyes blinked open she asked him, “Can I use my mouth on you?”
He did not answer immediately, but as before, he did not need to: she felt the throb of excitement. It startled a thin, somewhat timid, laugh from him even as her smile widened. “That is not necessary,” he hedged, but in this state the façade did not hold up to scrutiny.
“I’m asking because I want to ,” she assured him. Gently, kindly , but sure underline the point with a swipe of her thumb across the head of his cock. He all but convulsed with the effort of fighting back a groan.
She did not need to ask twice.
He nodded, managing a raspy, “Yes.” Then, on second thought, corrected to a more neutral, “Alright,” so not to sound too eager. But that shuddering, excited , little breath he let out when her smile turned devious left no room for ambiguity.
There was another when she got on hands and knees.
A third, when he lifted his head off the bedroll to get a better view of her, pupils blown in the dim lantern light. The hunger in his face, so raw and undisguised, was intoxicating. She had to fight for the strength to move slowly; to draw it out, build the tension before that first touch of her lips, lest she lose herself in the thrill of his submission and rush through this.
To start, she left a delicate kiss upon his chest. Near the bruise that lingered from their last encounter. “You didn’t heal this,” she said, and touched a finger there. Drawing around the curved border. “I saw it earlier. When we were all sitting by the fire.”
“Merely a bruise.” His voice was strained. “I must have overlooked it.”
It was a lie . But a clumsy one, with just a touch of cheek. No effort was made to hide the tell: the way one corner of his mouth twitched into a smile.
She played along. “Did you?” Two fingers walked a path of freckles from bruise to hardened nipple, then drew a wide circle around it, not quite touching. “I’ve never known you to be so careless. What if someone saw?”
“We do not typically spend our evenings in this state of dress,” he replied. With a little more confidence than was entirely earned. “There was no reason to think anyone would.”
Misdirection came easily to him. She had no intention of allowing it a foothold.
“Then you could’ve healed it when that changed,” she hummed. “I think you left it on purpose.”
He began to smile, began to answer, “ And why –” before she pinched. Delicately rolling the bud between thumb and finger. To his credit, he stifled the moan, but still loosed a soft grunt and inhaled sharply through his nose . The apple of his throat bobbed with a swallow. “W-why would I do that?”
“I’ve seen you leave marks before.” She laid a kiss over the skip of his heart. “Here.” Another, at the bottom of his ribs. “And here.” On hands and knees she crawled backward down the bedroll leaving a trail of kisses down his stomach, following the line of hair; low, to where the hem of his smallclothes rested loosely across his hips. A quick tug brought them to his thighs, exposing him entirely. “I didn’t say anything, but I noticed. Is that something you enjoy? Walking around with a mark under your shirt?”
He looked dazed. Watching, rapt, as she took him in hand again, and with the utmost care (and agonising slowness) brushed her lips and tongue against the head of his cock – not quite a kiss, but a taste – just enough to make his hips flex.
She gazed up at him beneath a veil of lowered lashes. “Do you like knowing it's there?”
No strength of will could withstand this; a caress of breath on velvet skin. He’d lost the game before they ever began.
One more flick of her tongue assured it. “Yes ,” he gasped. “Yes, I like it!”
She’d not expected him to surrender so easily. If weakness was a testament to need, then he was beyond hope. A reward was due. Patience had thinned to pleading; she would not torment him any longer.
It was without so much as a word of warning that she descended. The flat of her tongue pressed against the head of his cock, she sucked once, then consumed him in one slow, wet, slide.
It took him off guard, the suddenness – the intensity of sensation – and that surprise rendered him completely unable to stifle the resulting groan. One hand flew to cover his mouth, dropping the shirt at his side, but a second too late: he’d already loosed a second before it clapped down. The other curled around the edge of his bedroll, squeezing so hard his arm was trembling from the strain.
Another long slide of her mouth had him gasping. “ That –” he choked between the gaps of his fingers, “That is–” But whatever it was he meant to say was hopelessly lost in a series of barely-muffled cries and rising breaths.
It took less than half a dozen strokes of lips and tongue to shatter him. She felt the throb, the jerk of his hips, and the rush of heat. So she swallowed him down, taking him as deep as he could go, and once he hit the back of her throat he only barely managed to grind out a single word of a too-late warning, “I–!” before he was frantically scrabbling for the shirt.
But with only half a second to spare he had no chance to find it, and rather than cry his pleasure into the fabric he ended up biting down on his own palm instead. Pressing into it a long, guttural, groan as her mouth filled with the salty taste of him.
Never had she made him come so fast, or so suddenly, that he’d neglected to warn her first. She languished in smug satisfaction, relishing every wave – every pulse – of what was clearly among the most intense climaxes she’d ever seen him have.
When his body finally uncurled, and the gasping eased, she released him with a hum of approval. It was impossible not to gloat a little, so, “Shall I presume that meant you enjoyed it?” she purred, giving his softening cock a final kiss before rising to her knees.
She wanted to indulge her vanity. To gaze upon him and see the sweat, the heaving breath, the way he shone in the aftermath of ecstasy she’d granted. Instead she found him not glowing, not smiling, but rather curiously with a hand held over his eyes. Lips pressed into a hard line.
And his cheeks a shade redder than passion alone would cause.
“Solas?” she tested. He twisted his lips and made a noise resembling a choked laugh. The blush deepened. It was without a shred of tact that she blurted out an utterly delighted, “Are you embarrassed?!”
“I am not embarrassed .”
It was such a terrible attempt at denial that she couldn’t help but burst into giggles. She crawled up next to him, near enough to kiss his shoulder, neck, then reddened cheek. It was hot under her lips. “Don’t be. I take it as a compliment. You’ve always been such a gentleman.”
“Ellana. ”
“Just tell me one thing…” The flush had spread into his neck and ears now. She could barely contain herself. “Was it any better than when you–?”
The move was quick, and sudden, and it caught her by surprise. One instant she was leaning over him and the next both his arms were wrapped around her back, there was a knock of hips, and suddenly he was on top of her, kissing her hard. And deeply.
When they parted, he was grinning. She narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to shut me up?”
“Yes,” he replied earnestly. “But also–” A far more gentle kiss was left on her neck, nose against her jaw to urge her head to tilt back. She obliged, and felt his hand slide down her body, to her smallclothes. A firm tug pulled them down over her hips. Taking the hint, she shimmied out of them and kicked them aside. He continued, “–I enjoyed it very much,” and kissed her stomach, hip, and thigh, as he crawled lower. “And I would like to return the favour.”
And he lifted her legs up over his shoulders.