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Imogen hadn’t expected a small side mission to the market in Yios to set off FCG’s dark side. Then again, it’s taken the Hells by surprise each of the times it’s happened so far. They’ve gotten better at wrangling it, at bringing him down quickly and with as little pain as possible. Imogen is still hoping they’ll find a way to reliably toggle the aeormaton back that doesn’t rely on knocking them out—the guilt of attacking a friend hasn’t gotten easier. But neither is it easy to hold back when that friend is taking your deepest worries and secrets and flinging them at you in furious, hostile barbs.
“You pretend to let them know you, but all you do is dissemble and evade. How much longer do you think they’ll stand for it?” Fresh Cut Grass spits at Chetney, and their spiritual wood chisel slams back down towards him.
A quick movement and Orym darts in front of the gnome, shield up protectively. FCG’s ire shifts and Imogen sees Orym steel himself as the words start to come, and but it’s not enough to keep him from looking shattered when they do: “Some protector you claim to be, when you couldn’t even keep your husband alive.”
“Letters, stop,” Imogen yells, flinging a Calm Emotions and feeling it break like water around him. She immediately starts to ready Tasha’s Mind Whip, hoping that her friend isn’t in there somewhere experiencing this. That doing psychic damage to whatever has possessed them will hurt them less than frying their chassis with a witch bolt.
FCG’s attention flicks to her. His eyes go dark for a minute and then light up a more violent red than ever. In a clear, carrying voice, they hiss, “And you, Imogen. It’s pathetic how much you want her when you know she’ll never want you back. She’d be disgusted if she knew.”
It hits her like a sledgehammer. She can feel all the blood drain from her face. In a panic she turns to Laudna beside her, praying she won’t have understood. Laudna is looking back at her, confused, and as their eyes meet her expression shifts to protective fury. So all of Imogen’s terror must be written on her face, then. Her panic that Laudna will see right through her and recoil from what she finds. That she’s managed to ruin the first good thing she’s ever had.
Laudna has extended her hands towards FCG and some great, dark spell is gathering again there. No, Imogen thinks with remembered dread, no. She shakes her head, but Laudna isn’t looking. She reaches out to grab Laudna’s arm and pull her back before she does something she’ll regret, but a wave of panic lashes through her at the thought of touching Laudna right now. It will reveal her. She can’t do it. She can’t—
“Laudna, don’t,” Imogen cries.
“He hurt you,” Laudna says darkly, the spell nearly woven. It is about to leave her hands, and shit, no, that can’t happen, it will hurt her so much to have done it—Imogen breaks through the panic and grabs Laudna, pulls her back and into her arms.
“Please,” Imogen says into her shoulder, and the magic dissipates from Laudna’s fingers and she blinks down at Imogen, who lets her go as though burned.
“Imogen,” Laudna says, reaching back out. She looks shaken, confused. “But what—he was—are you all right?”
Imogen swallows. “He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”
“But your face—”
“No,” she says, her head pounding. “He didn’t say anything wrong.”
“GOT HIM,” Ashton roars across the room, grappling an unconscious FCG. “I’ve got them, fuck, Fearne, please tell me you’ve got a healing spell today—”
“Oh, I think so, I think so!” Fearne says, rushing over, and the moment is past.
-
Much later that night, Imogen sits alone at the tavern bar. The others are upstairs. FCG has been restored to groggy health, and Ashton has been keeping fierce and protective watch over them for hours. The others have all drifted off to bed early after the emotional wringer of a day, but Imogen doesn’t think she can sleep. She doesn’t think she can return to Laudna in the room they share yet, can’t bear her casual kindness or, worse, its absence.
She keeps running that moment over in her mind, FCG’s casual cruelty and the cutting truth of it. Picturing Laudna’s bewildered face, imagining it melting into disgust when she puts the pieces together. If she hadn’t before, she must have done so now, or else realization will dawn soon. Imogen supposes that anyone could tell from the way that she behaves around her, and she feels like an idiot. Anyone could tell from the closeness that she craves, the way she has stitched her life to Laudna’s even while refusing to ask for what she really wants. Is that why Laudna lingered upstairs instead of coming down to the bar with her? To go to bed before Imogen can come in, so that she doesn’t have to endure a request to hold hands while they sleep? Imogen wonders if they’ve done so for the last time and it wrenches her. She might need to buy her own bed roll. It might have been the last time they’ll ever share—
It’s then that Laudna’s hand touches her shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
Imogen starts. Laudna’s hand is resting easily on Imogen’s shoulder and she feels shame burning down her spine at the touch. Shame at how absurdly, ebulliently grateful she feels to have Laudna’s hands on her. Shame at doubting Laudna’s goodness. Shame and fear and worry, always worry, that she knows. That she knows everything.
“Yeah,” she gets out. “Just a weird, hard day.”
“Understandable,” Laudna says. She pauses, then says, “Actually, Imogen, I wanted to ask you something. About what Letters said, and what it might mean.”
A strike to the stomach. Unavoidable.
In Laudna’s head, Imogen says, Do we have to talk about it here?
“Oh!” Laudna says. “No, no, come up to the room, of course.”
Fearne and Orym—
They’ve gotten another room for the night, Laudna says. I think they wanted to give us some space.
Imogen feels shot through with anxiety. She looks at Laudna’s face and finds it unreadable. It’s been challenging, pulling herself out of Laudna’s thoughts these past few weeks, denying herself that comfort. Since Yu, though, there’s been too much that she can burn herself on. Better to make herself lonely than break herself over and over on the misshapen desires of her own stupid heart. But now Laudna is standing here asking about—about this—and Laudna’s made so clear that she’s an open book for Imogen, that she’s always fine with Imogen looking—
She stands before she can succumb to temptation and follows Laudna back up the stairs.
In the room, the door closed behind them, Imogen sits on the bed and looks up at Laudna, who is shifting her weight anxiously. Laudna says, “So really I—well, you know, I wanted to check in, about how you’re doing after what Letters said earlier.”
“Yeah,” Imogen says apprehensively. “You said.”
Laudna is worrying her fingers over a lock of her hair. Imogen doesn’t know what to make of it. “I was thinking about what you told me, of course, that first time FCG snapped. About how anything they say when they’re like that is him taking all the things we say to one another in earnest and twisting them back into the ugliest versions of themselves, to hurt us.”
“I did say that.”
“And today Letters said something about—about someone not wanting you, in the way you want her.”
Laudna’s face is still impossible to read and the temptation to look into her thoughts is so strong, so strong, so strong. Imogen can’t look at her. “He did,” she manages to say through her closed-up throat.
“So I was wondering whether—” Laudna cuts herself off and starts over. “Imogen, I don’t know who he meant, but I can’t imagine a single person looking at you with disgust. I’d be astonished if there were anyone who wouldn’t look at you with anything other than the deepest admiration.”
Imogen can’t not smile even though her heart is shredding itself into pieces and pieces and rough-edged pieces. It’s just—Laudna. She doesn’t deserve her. “That’s sweet.'”
“It’s true.”
It’s not, but. Imogen wrings her hands together, scarcely aware she’s begun to do so until Laudna reaches out and steadies her, always reaching out to steady her. She separates Imogen’s hands and takes one of them into both of her own, stroking her finger over the knuckles. Imogen tries not to let herself feel it, not in this moment, not when things are skating so close to the edge. She controls her face and controls her feelings and she locks it all inside of her, all of it, doesn’t let the gentle touch of Laudna’s hands travel through her body and light her aflame. It would be wrong. It would be wrong.
And then, still looking softly down at her hand, Laudna says, “Imogen, what I wanted to ask was. It was. Who is her?”
Imogen’s lungs stop working. She is nailed to the floor. She is struck through the heart. She is going to throw up. “Does it matter?”
“I just—wondered,” Laudna says, and Imogen’s nightmares are coming true around her. Not the storm, but the other ones. Nightmares that are hard to slough off in the morning, hard to recognize and sift out from reality in the night of day. She wonders if that’s how FCG knew: if they had been looking into her dreaming mind without permission and seen Laudna cut her off, freeze her out, break her heart, over and over and over.
“Don’t,” Imogen says. She goes to pull her hand away, but Laudna won’t let her, keeps ahold of her fingertips. “It doesn’t matter. No one who would— it doesn’t matter.”
“Those were lies. It was you who told me those are lies. After all, he—he said I was never alive,” Laudna says tremulously, and despite the moment Imogen wants to reach out at those words and hold her. She wants to burn Laudna’s distress away with her embrace, as though it could purify instead of corrupt.
“Bullshit,” Imogen says firmly.
“Exactly,” Laudna says, although there’s a ghost of pain still hovering in her expression. “So anything he said—no one could find you disgusting, darling. No one. That was a lie too.”
Imogen pulls her hand out of Laudna’s grip. She turns away. Her head is pounding. “I don’t think this one was, all right?”
“Imogen,” Laudna says, “Anyone would want you.”
“You don’t mean that,” Imogen says helplessly.
“I do,” Laudna says, sounding very nervous, and Imogen feels Laudna’s hand on her shoulder. The bed dips as she sits and Imogen can’t look at her. She can’t look at her. She can’t.
“Imogen, please listen to me. Letters said, she doesn’t want you like you want her. And I don’t know if that her meant me, but if it did”—Laudna swallows audibly—”If it did. It’s not true.”
Imogen spins around. Laudna’s staring hard at the bed, her cheeks stained with a faint flush. She looks up at Imogen and there’s something there in her eyes—something that can’t be there—and Imogen is sick of denying herself this certainty, even if it isn’t what she is daring to imagine, even if it hurts.
At last, she drops her mental shields and lets the thoughts in. And it is. It is. It’s a wild, desperate hope. A wanting. A yearning.
She reaches for her bravery, her stupidity, her bravery. “It did.”
“It did?”
“Mean you,” she says. “It’s you. It’s always you.” And then before she can second-guess herself, she leans forward and kisses Laudna.
Laudna kisses back.
It can’t be happening. It can’t be happening. Imogen presses herself closer to Laudna’s face because it can’t be happening and if this is a dream, some wonderful horrible dream that she’ll wake up from later, then at least she can remember it. She inhales the leafy smell of Laudna around her, and Laudna’s cool lips move against hers, and there’s the heady, leaping thrum of Laudna’s mind. She’s wanted this so badly, so badly.
It’s so wonderful. And Imogen pulls away.
“You don’t mean this,” she says, a test she hates herself for giving. “You don’t mean this. You can’t want this.”
“I do,” Laudna says immediately. Her eyes are dark and her lips are flushed and she’s telling the truth. Imogen can hear in her mind that she is telling the truth. “Imogen, I truly, truly do. Anything you want, darling,” and Imogen’s breath becomes shaky, “I want you however you want me. I do.”
“You do,” Imogen repeats. Her heart is spiky and enormous in her chest. “I never thought—I never imagined—”
Lie. She’s imagined this so many times, but in none was the feeling of Laudna’s hands against her cheeks so overpowering, the touch of her lips quite so potent, pushing her heartbeat into a race and her stomach into a twist. She lifts a hand and brushes a gloved knuckle against Laudna’s arm. She feels the touch twice: once on her end and once again in Laudna’s thoughts as it is received. It is odd and heady, and she shivers.
“Never?” Laudna says, her voice deceptively light. Imogen can see herself in Laudna’s mind, through Laudna’s eyes, her desire written so plainly on her face. It’s embarrassing, or it would be if she couldn’t tell how lovingly Laudna is looking at her high blush, how much of an urge she has to—
“Well— I mean,” she stammers, mouth dry. “I hoped.”
“Show me, then,” Laudna says in a tone that spikes down through Imogen and settles between her legs. “Please. What you hoped for.”
She rests her hand just below Imogen’s collarbone. Her touch is spidery, light against Imogen’s skin. The feeling of it catches in Imogen’s throat and shoulders its way through her body in a shivery wave. She looks down at Lauda’s long, pale fingers there against her skin. She wants to kiss them, to kiss her way up Laudna’s arm. She wants them stroking against the hollow of her neck. She wants them drifting down, circling her shoulders, moving to her—
Before she can doubt herself, she puts her hand on Laudna’s and pushes it down onto her chest. Laudna’s thoughts flood with surprise and then, quickly, deepen into anticipation. She licks her lips and her eyes flick from Imogen’s face to the place where her fingers curve over the layers of fabric, over the swell of Imogen’s breast beneath them.
“Is this all right?” Imogen says, suddenly anxious, and the way Laudna’s mind responds, the way she looks at her—like she could swallow her alive—
“Imogen,” Laudna says, and she surges in and kisses her. Her hand shifts to cup Imogen’s breast more firmly over her shirt, and just that feeling—and seeing it reflected back in Laudna’s mind, coated in urgency and desire—
Imogen deepens the kiss, and Laudna inhales sharply. She flexes her hand and the pressure on Imogen’s breast is so good, suddenly so sensitive even through a stupid amount of fabric. She wants more of Laudna everywhere, more of Laudna’s hands where she’s imagined them a thousand times, grabbing at her as she rubs herself against a pillow, pretending that it’s Laudna’s leg she’s grinding into, Laudna’s hands pushing her dress aside, caressing—
Imogen arches her back to press herself further into Laudna’s hands, something hot and urgent surging in her. Without breaking the kiss she fumbles for the buckles on her harness, opens the buttons on her vest and shrugs it all off. She can feel Laudna smile against her lips, and her hands sweep over the place where Imogen’s nipples have pebbled under the gauzy material of her dress and thin bra. Even through the remaining fabric, the sensation is so immediate Imogen thinks it might electrocute her. She thinks her heart will combust within her chest, that it will turn her body to flame.
“Laud,” she says, pulling away just a little, mouth already kiss-swollen.
“Yes?” Laudna says, absolutely breathless, her mind entirely on the feeling of Imogen’s breasts, wondering what they would feel like without the remaining fabric, wondering if that’s something that Imogen wants, hoping that’s something that Imogen wants.
“Yes, please, yes, I—touch me,” Imogen says, and she guides Laudna’s hands under the edge of her bra.
Laudna’s eyes light. Her cool fingers brush against Imogen’s nipples, and Imogen shudders. “Oh,” Laudna says in a voice like she’s just seen a god, and she trails her fingers over Imogen more deliberately. Imogen’s breathing quickly goes shallow.
“Oh,” Laudna says again, and then, “You’re—you’re sensitive there.” Imogen can feel a blush start to rise to her cheeks when something minute shifts in Laudna’s expression. There is hunger in her voice when she speaks again. “I like it,” she says, and she lets her thumb rest on Imogen’s nipple and brings a finger to it, pinches.
It shoots right down to Imogen’s core, and she throws back her head and groans. “Laudna.”
“Yes, darling?” Laudna is rolling her nipple back and forth, the translucent fabric of Imogen’s dress shifting over her hand. Her thoughts are full of blazing heat and Imogen’s focus is fracturing—she can’t hold the thoughts still, just flashes of wanting—
“That’s—mmmh, that—“
“Yes?” Laudna says again, her eyes glittering, and she pushes back forward and kisses Imogen, and Imogen decides she doesn’t need to think anymore. She opens her mouth and kisses deep, lets her hands wander to Laudna’s hair, her shoulders, up and down her back, her thumbs tracing Laudna’s sides—
Laudna’s mouth moves to her jawline, then, and Imogen’s mind well and truly short-circuits. Laudna is kissing a wet, exhilarating path to the place where neck slopes into shoulder. Imogen gasps and grips Laudna’s sides hard, and she’s rewarded by Laudna’s kisses growing sloppier, her tongue brushing against Imogen, teeth skimming the skin. She has an image in her mind, disjointed, her own or Laudna’s?, of Laudna pushing the dress aside entirely, putting her mouth on Imogen’s chest, pulling a nipple into her mouth and laving it roughly with her tongue.
“Yes—” she manages to get out. “You can, please—”
“Can what, darling?”
“Your mouth,” Imogen says, “on me,” and Laudna laughs.
“Am I not already?”
“No,” Imogen says insistently. “On—“ She reaches down and grasps for the buttons of her dress, the top few already undone. She clumsily undoes a few more and shoves the gauzy fabric off of her shoulders and takes one of Laudna’s hands, brings it around to the fastenings of her bra. “The way you—you want to.”
A wash of desire from Laudna, and with it a directed thought. Imogen?
“Mm?” Imogen says, all her focus on the way that Laudna is fumbling with the ties of the bra.
Are you in my mind?
“Oh,” Imogen says, and she’s going to explain herself but then the bra is falling away around her and the air is cool against her breasts and Laudna’s desire fixes to a pinpoint.
Good, Laudna says. Stay. I like you here. She leans forward and kisses her just beside a nipple, and a noise something like a moan escapes Imogen. That way you can know.
“Can know?”
How much I want you. Her mouth is on Imogen’s breast, her fingers are trailing up Imogen’s arms leaving gooseflesh in their wake. Imogen shifts her hips, suddenly aware of how heavily the pressure between her legs is building. I want you to feel wanted, Imogen. I want you to know how much I need you. Laudna’s hand rises to her other breast. And I do need you.
“Oh,” Imogen says incoherently, and she lets herself settle backwards against the bed. In Laudna’s mind’s eye she sees herself, dress pooling around her, flushed and wanting. There’s a confusing rush of arousal at the image—Laudna’s, she realizes. She is seeing herself in the mirror of Laudna’s mind’s eye, and aching with need. It turns her on deliriously.
Laudna is running her tongue over Imogen’s breast now, swirling it and letting it catch, pinching Imogen’s nipple with her other hand, and the stimulation rushes right to her cunt and pools there. In Laudna’s mind she feels her own breast under Laudna’s mouth, soft and warm and shuddering with Imogen’s ragged breaths. It’s beyond imagining, this feeling of being almost one person, of scarcely knowing which thoughts are whose—she wants to share it with Laudna, she wants her own mouth on Laudna—and then the flick of Laudna’s tongue, suddenly rapid—
“Baby,” she chokes out.
Good?
“Don’t stop—”
So vocal, Laudna thinks to her, rolling Imogen’s nipple with her tongue. I’d have imagined you’d speak in my mind during this. But you’re too turned on for that kind of control, aren’t you?
Mmmhh, Imogen casts vaguely outward, and Laudna exhales a laugh.
It’s all right, darling. You're doing very well.
Imogen keens at the words, and then a knuckle brushes at the seam of her shorts and a moan escapes her. Laudna’s got her hand down trailing between Imogen’s legs now, and Imogen needs it there, needs something to grind against so badly. “Laudna—”
Yes? Laudna has kissed her way across to Imogen’s other breast, leaving a trail of goosebumps over the valley between them. The abandoned nipple is peaked and rosy and Imogen covers it with her own hand, lets it slide between two fingers and pinches it there. Laudna lets her hand drift lightly against Imogen’s center as she circles her breast with her tongue, lazy circles that flick overtop of her nipple and release another rush of wetness between her legs.
Imogen? Laudna prompts, when she doesn’t say anything.
She is drawn back to earth and blurrily remembers that she’d been going to ask Laudna a question. “Oh,” she says. “I wanted—” She cants her hips up almost unconsciously, and Laudna’s expression is hungry.
You want me to put my hands on you.
“Yes,” Imogen gasps, and she takes Laudna’s hand that is already between her legs and pushes it towards the place where they meet.
She is soaked there; she feels it in the way that her smallclothes have been clinging to her as she shifts, and she feels it now through Laudna’s mind as her fingers explore along the hot, damp seam of her shorts.
Oh, Laudna thinks, and Imogen feels a delicious, dizzy pulse of want from her. She lets her mouth come off of Imogen’s nipple and the air is cool against Imogen’s breast where her mouth had been. Imogen holds back a hiss.
“Should we take these off?” Laudna says, her fingers tooling at the buttons of Imogen’s shorts, and Imogen nods before the words are halfway out of her mouth, already reaching down to pull them open. “Eager,” Laudna says in a voice that’s meant to be teasing, but her voice is husky and there is something almost reverent in the way that she slides the fabric down Imogen’s thighs.
Look at you, Laudna thinks, and because she does, Imogen sees it too: herself spread out on the blankets, her hair a tangle, a deep flush along her chest, her breasts splayed slightly outwards and splotched pinker where Laudna’s mouth has been. Gorgeous, Laudna thinks, and she traces her finger lightly under the edge of Imogen’s underwear, sending a bone-deep shiver through her. She watches herself through Laudna’s mind as her eyes flutter shut and her chest rises and falls with rapid, shallow breaths.
It’s almost too much, this much wanting, Laudna’s and her own. She opens her eyes again and looks up at Laudna’s face, beautiful and angular, cheekbones carved high, the slight blue of her lips, hair falling out of the half-bun which is now slouched halfway down her head. Her blouse is pushed off one shoulder and her collarbone juts sharply under thin, scarred skin and Imogen wants to put her mouth there. She does her best to push this thought through the haze of her own mind into Laudna’s, to return the favor of projected desire, and Laudna’s fingers stutter where they skim at the crease of her thigh.
Darling—
“Feel how much—how much I want you,” Imogen says desperately, shifting her hips to bring Laudna’s fingers closer to her center. Laudna breathes in, sharp, and then she’s pulling Imogen’s underwear off and her fingers are against Imogen’s clit.
And oh—fuck, oh—whatever Imogen has imagined, whatever she’s thought about when rubbing quick and frantic circles to bring herself to orgasm, it wasn’t—wasn’t the slick feeling of Laudna’s fingers moving back and forth, shooting lightning through her body with each—and she wants those fingers inside of her—
Exquisite, Laudna is thinking, and the sound of it makes Imogen clutch her hands into fists even harder, nails cutting into the inside of her gloves where electricity is building under her skin, so wet, my Imogen, so beautiful, and she looks up at Imogen and their eyes catch and Laudna thinks in a way that is almost certainly an aside to herself about how unbelievably, unfathomably lucky that someone like her could want a horror as broken as—
Urgently, Imogen pulls Laudna down to kiss her, her tongue already moving slick against Laudna’s by the time their open mouths meet. Don’t, she thinks forcefully with the part of her mind that can still form rational thoughts as Laudna’s fingers press towards her opening, circling it in a way that makes her ignite with need. Don’t.
Laudna stops immediately, pulls back looking stricken.
“Oh no,” she says. “I’m sorry—Imogen—I’m so sorry—“
It takes Imogen a moment to even piece it together, her mind still wild and ragged and hot. “No,” she says, as her brain starts to catch up to Laudna’s panicked, self-flagellating thoughts, and she pushes herself up and takes Laudna’s hands into hers. “Laud, no, that’s not what I—“
“No?” Laudna says, and her alarm begins to slow a little. She looks back up at Imogen and their eyes meet, and Imogen is relieved by it.
“No,” she says, hoping to sound firm. “That was so good, Laud, all of it, I wanted you to—fuck, I want to keep going,” and Laudna’s mind settles, starts to relax again at the edges, to let the desire back in. “I heard the way you were thinkin’ about yourself, is all. And I didn’t want you to.”
Laudna licks her lips. “So I didn’t do anything wrong?”
Imogen shakes her head forcefully. “But you’re not a horror. You know that.”
Laudna hesitates and it makes Imogen want to burn the world that made her feel this way. Beautiful, earnest, open Laudna. Sweet, wonderful Laudna. Brave Laudna who has found her way to asking the question Imogen would have agonized over forever, who has seen Imogen vulnerable and wanted to stay. If she needs to be reassured now or ever, Imogen will be here to do it.
“I mean it, Laud. Do you know how impossible it would be for me not to want to be with you? How much I’ve always—gods.” She shifts their hands so that one of Laudna’s is in both of her own. Laudna’s fingers are damp with Imogen’s own slick, and Imogen trails her thumb over the wetness and feels Laudna’s eyes follow it, her slow heartbeat climb. “Just—it’s me who’s lucky, okay?”
“Okay,” Laudna says, not entirely believing but a little breathless again nonetheless.
Imogen lifts Laudna’s damp fingers to her mouth and kisses them. She can tell without looking that Laudna’s eyes have fluttered shut, can feel in Laudna’s mind the way that lust has reignited itself in the pit of her stomach.
She can smell herself on Laudna’s fingers, and it is heady in her nose. She wants them in her mouth, and she kisses them again and again before giving in to temptation. She pulls them in and Laudna’s breath catches as she sucks the digits clean, rolls her tongue across them. She does it again to hear the way Laudna stops breathing, the way her mind skips forward to other things that Imogen’s tongue could do. Imogen’s eyes close at the thought.
When Imogen lets her mouth fall back open and Laudna removes her fingers, Laudna reaches out and, reverently, takes Imogen’s.
“Can I—“ she lifts the strap of Imogen’s glove, and Imogen’s breath catches. She nods, and Laudna eases the glove off, then the other, the last of Imogen’s clothing gone. The electricity is swimming under the surface of her palms, and when Laudna takes Imogen’s hands and, careful and hungry, puts them on her own waist just under the blouse, the feeling of skin against them is overwhelming. Imogen runs them up and down there, scars against scars.
“Laud,” she breathes, and she leans the rest of the way forward and kisses her, hands still tracing up Laudna’s sides. The urgency expands like a river surging over its banks, and Laudna melts against Imogen’s mouth, her hands aflutter, brushing at Imogen’s shoulders, her back, her chest.
They fall backwards onto the mattress, Laudna above her again, and Imogen can feel how badly Laudna has wanted her hands where they are now, exposed and humming electrically against her skin, how much she wants them skimming up towards her sides where her ribs yield into soft, small breasts. Imogen slides her palms up and Laudna sighs and shudders into her mouth, traces her tongue sloppily along the edge of Imogen’s.
Muddied with their wanting, no longer certain whose is whose, Imogen sweeps her thumb against the edges of Laudna’s bra and is struck by an overpowering need for Laudna not to be wearing a shirt, to have Laudna’s skin be against hers in the same way as her mind is flush to Imogen’s, and she pushes the dark cloth upwards and Laudna leans back enough to allow it over her head.
It hasn’t been fair, Imogen thinks as the shirt falls to the floor, it’s not fair that she hasn’t seen Laudna, hasn’t gotten to show her how much she wants to trail her fingers over Laudna’s chest and down into what she imagines must be a wiry patch between her legs—her own fingers rubbing up and down Laudna’s center the way that Laudna had been doing hers—
“Beautiful,” Imogen breathes. Laudna, who had been looking momentarily self-conscious, keens as Imogen runs her hand along the edges of her bra. She wants—Laudna wants—they both want her hands on Laudna’s breasts, her mouth breathing hot, open kisses onto them. Laudna reaches back and undoes the closings of her bra and it falls away, and Imogen is overcome. Her breasts are perky and small enough that Imogen can hold them entirely in her hands, and she does, feels the cool, gentle swell of flesh under her hotly electric skin and the puckered ridge of her areolas against her palms and the softness of her nipples quickly stiffening under Imogen’s hand.
Imogen wants to put her mouth there, but first— “Skirt too,” she says, and her voice comes out rough. Laudna scrambles to shed it and her smallclothes, and when she settles back onto the bed, excited and urgent, Imogen pulls her into her lap. Laudna moans, more of a sigh really, and she shifts so that she’s straddling Imogen’s thigh.
Before she can sink down, Imogen leans up and finally catches Laudna’s breast in her mouth. A thrill runs through Laudna’s mind and into her own, and she observes as Laudna feels a trickle of wetness run down the inside of her own thigh.
“You’re dripping,” Imogen says as Laudna lowers herself onto Imogen’s thigh and rocks her hips into it, and she doesn’t know what ravenous part of her the words are coming from as they spill hotly from her mouth. “This is why you wanted me to stay in your head, isn’t it? To feel how wet you were gonna get?”
“Something like that,” Laudna breathes out, a distracted smile ghosting its way onto her face. She rolls her hips harder and the dizzy arousal it raises in her flashes right to Imogen’s core.
“And you think I’m gonna let you come all over my leg, without gettin’ my hands on you?”
Maybe? Laudna says, her eyelids fluttering over closed eyes.
“No,” Imogen says, and she pushes her hand into the spot where Laudna rocks against her thigh.
Laudna’s cunt is warmer than the rest of her body and ecstatically slick against Imogen’s fingers. She finds Laudna’s clit, skims her finger across it; pressed as her hand is between Laudna’s body and her own leg, there’s more pressure than she intended, and Laudna whimpers, nodding rapidly. Imogen slides her fingers over Laudna’s clit again, starts making the same sloppy circles she knows to draw on herself, and the answering rush of desire from Laudna begins to wind itself tight into Imogen’s mind. Laudna grinds down faster and faster, her arousal building.
Imogen— Even Laudna’s mental voice is breathless.
“You like that, don’t you?” Imogen says throatily, hardly believing her own boldness, too far gone to filter herself or care. “You wanted to get yourself off grinding against my fingers like they’re some kind of toy for you? To fuck yourself over the edge with my hand?”
“Mmmmm.” Laudna’s head has fallen forward; Imogen takes her other hand and pushes her hair back so she can see the way that Laudna’s face is screwed up with need, leaves her hand there, woven into the black and white strands.
“Then do it,” Imogen says. Laudna moans and starts to ride harder.
“Want you,” she says in a choked voice. “Always wanted you—“
A sound escapes Imogen and she lets her own hips push forward to where Laudna’s thin thigh rocks. Every time Laudna cants forward there is the brush of her skin against Imogen’s clit and she can feel it coil in her like a spring. She casts into Laudna’s mind and feels her pleasure at this, feels the slip and pull of her own hand, feels Laudna noticing her fingers threaded into Laudna’s hair. She wants Imogen to pull it.
She winds her fingers in more firmly and yanks, bringing Laudna’s head up so that she can lean in and leave a bruising kiss on Laudna’s mouth. Laudna does her best to kiss back, sloppy and charged. Then Imogen tilts Laudna’s head still further back and gets her mouth up in the space under Laudna’s jaw.
“Do you want to show me how much you want me, Laud?” Imogen says into her neck, and the words buzz against Laudna’s skin. Laudna is making frantic noises as she rocks. “Can you do that? Can you do something for me?”
“Anything—” Laudna sounds like she is almost crying and Imogen can feel how close she is, rutting helplessly into Imogen’s leg and curling fingers. She feels enormous and powerful and burning with the force of Laudna’s need. Just a little more to bring her over the edge.
“Please, Imogen, anything,” Laudna says again, and Imogen loves the sound of it, loves hearing Laudna saying her name in that voice.
“Come for me,” she says, and Laudna cries out and then her whole body is shuddering, a rush of wetness against Imogen’s hand. Imogen shakes with the effort of not coming herself, Laudna’s orgasm battering through her mind; she still wants Laudna inside of her, still wants Laudna to fuck her, and so she rides the edge as Laudna whimpers and shakes. When Imogen lets go of her hair, Laudna drops her head against Imogen’s shoulder and buries her face there, her hips still canting into Imogen to milk out some last twitches of pleasure. Then, gradually, she stills, and her whole body drops onto Imogen’s.
“Good?” Imogen murmurs. She pulls Laudna close with the arm not still sandwiched between them, cradles her sharp, paper-light body and strokes her hair.
Can’t feel my brain, Laudna thinks faintly.
“That sounds good,” Imogen says, and she kisses Laudna’s forehead.
“So good,” Laudna says, and she curls herself closer to Imogen. “Need a minute. And then I can touch you? Please?”
“I’d like that.” Imogen holds Laudna as she breathes, letting herself absorb the relaxed euphoria. She considers shifting the hand pinned lightly under Laudna to her own clit, stroking it to keep herself at the edge while Laudna rests, but when she moves, Laudna stops her.
“That’s my job, darling,” she says.
Imogen thinks she should feel embarrassed, but all that’s there is an anticipatory glow. She pulls her hand back up and sees that her fingers are coated in the same inky black as the ichor of Laudna’s Form of Dread, the same inky black that she’s breathlessly watched spill from Laudna as she transforms. It’s mesmerizing. She can’t stop looking at it.
“You’ve painted me,” she says.
Laudna presses herself upwards until she is half-sitting again and huffs out a laugh. “I’m afraid your thigh will be a bit of a mess as well.”
Imogen takes the inky smears and caresses her own breasts, leaving dark trails behind. “Good,” she says.
Laudna’s eyes follow her hand, and Imogen can feel the way her attention is roused again. She leans down to Imogen’s chest and kisses her way through the smears and down, slowly, across the soft curve of Imogen’s stomach. She lingers there until Imogen is squirming, the ichor Imogen dragged across herself becoming smeared and thin, and then she brings her face to where Imogen’s thigh meets her hip and licks a stripe there.
The shiver that wracks Imogen is full-body. “Laud—”
I’ve always wanted to do this, Laudna says thoughtfully, and then she licks into Imogen. Imogen’s mind dissolves at the feeling of her mouth, her whole body burning. She is only a body, only sensation.
Still in my head, darling? Laudna asks.
“Yeah,” Imogen manages, breathless. “Laud, do you think you could put your fingers—inside—”
Laudna pulls back for a second and Imogen can feel cool air before fingers press into her. She cries out and Laudna stills them for a second, then begins to move them back and forth. Her tongue slides over Imogen’s clit and the slip of her fingers makes Imogen feel heady, light. She lifts her hips, rolls them up with each press of Laudna’s knuckles past her entrance.
Need another?
“Yes,” Imogen says, and Laudna adds a third finger. “Gods—” The pump of Laudna’s fingers in and out and in and out and in and out; the gentle suction and slide of Laudna’s mouth at her clit; Laudna’s tongue dipping down to the top of her cunt and spreading upwards. It’s so much so much so unbelievably fucking good. Imogen closes her eyes and clutches at the blankets of the bed, and when Laudna reaches a hand up to her she grasps it so hard that there’s almost a creaking of bones.
You taste so good, darling, Laudna says. Her fingers are filling Imogen, stretching her. Imogen whimpers and squirms and presses herself into Laudna. You can see how much I mean it? How badly I wanted to have you under my tongue?
Imogen wants to answer, but what comes out is a moan. See, now that’s a lovely noise, Laudna says, and picks up her pace. I’ve imagined that sound. Is that how my thoughts sound to you? Musical?
“Laud—“ Imogen rolls her hips as fast as they will go and bites back a whimper.
Don’t, dearest. I want to hear you. Laudna’s fingers hit Imogen’s inner wall, and she lets a moan tear from her with each thrust, and then Laudna is sucking at her clit until it is one long, keening sound, spilling from Imogen in a way that she is barely conscious of. She buries her face in the crook of her arm, gasping.
“Laud—I’m gonna—I don’t think I can keep from—”
Then don’t, Laudna says, and she curls her fingers. It’s okay, sweetheart. Lose control.
The orgasm hits Imogen like a dam bursting. She whites out; her body is battered by waves that come, and come, and come. She clutches Laudna’s hand and she presses her arm into her face and a sound is ripped from her, and dimly she’s aware of Laudna talking her through it, telling her she’s done so well, that she’s so beautiful, that she’s so good.
Slowly, she comes back down to earth, and Laudna has crawled up next to her and is holding her.
“Laudna,” Imogen says fuzzily, and she puts out a hand to cradle her face, strokes it with her thumb. The world feels soft and warm.
“Do you believe me now?” Laudna asks, and Imogen laughs.
“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I do.”
“My girl,” Laudna says softly, and kisses her head.
They rest there quietly for a few minutes, and then Laudna says, “I do have a question, though.”
Imogen twists to look at her, confused. Laudna’s thoughts are still bleeding loosely into her mind and yet she isn’t sure where this is going—all that’s there is fondness and love, familiar wonderful fondness and love—and then a moment before Laudna says it, she puts the pieces together. Her heart lunges in her chest.
“The thing is,” Laudna says, “is that I think I’m in love with you. And I was wondering—I was wondering—”
“Yes,” Imogen says, full of emotion. “Yes—”
“No, wait. I want to say it out loud. My question,” Laudna says, her face hopeful and confident and vulnerable and adoring, “is whether you think you can love me back.”
“Always,” Imogen says, and the smile that breaks over Laudna’s face nests inside her, safe and secure, a promise of belonging.