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If a certain past assessment is to be believed and her Gale was once a bit abjectly and incorrigibly self-delusional, then Tav could hardly blame him. He has a way of… well, getting his way.
His Gale-specific skills are highly effective at realizing the outcomes he’s after. For instance, her husband has a penchant for melodrama. Theatrics. It’s part of her Gale’s charm and he knows it and he wields it like he does the Weave: with great aplomb and focused intention. When there were still illithid tadpoles in their skulls and the mood in their party was especially bleak or tense or awkward, her not-yet husband drew from his font of thespian flair to tell engaging stories around the campfire or during their treks in unfamiliar places. He would fashion himself as an entertainer or a walking joke to make everyone laugh or cringe or distracted from the constant threats to their lives. When she was especially stressed or down on her leadership ability, he played the role of a courier, delivering her a bouquet of the most exquisite flora available, sent by a secret admirer who always knew just when she needed it. Sometimes the bouquets were little more than weeds because that’s all that was around them. It only made the bit funnier.
Whether by theatrics or his expansive knowledge or cooking or sincerity, Gale gets results. More often than not, they’re the results he wants. And right now, when she is on the receiving end of one skill in particular, Tav has to put every single ounce of energy and attention towards resisting.
Because this time, she really needs him to be unsuccessful.
“How am I supposed to spend a tenday away from you?” He husks, making her shiver with the brush of his warm breath against her jaw. “The light of my life. The air that I breathe. The mother of my child, so radiant as to challenge the necessity of sunrise.”
She is gooey under the heat radiating from Gale’s body, hazy as his scent wraps around her like ribbon. Books. Apples. Lavender. Leather. His tongue darts out for the slightest taste of her neck and her skin turns to gooseflesh. Pardon me, my star, he apologizes without a hint of remorse. She can feel the smirk on his lips as he kisses her below the ear. You also remain so delicious as to render the most decadent meal obsolete.
Fucking hells. Talk about playing dirty.
Less than an hour ago, a messenger delivered a letter from the library-fortress city of Candlekeep. More specifically, it was from the office of Candlekeep’s Keeper of Tomes. The Blackstaff secured a certain “friends of Candlekeep” status for Gale and Tav ahead of their professorial appointments at the Academy. It allows them pre-approved access to the Great Library at their leisure and without tribute, as well as (very limited) copying permissions for (some) texts. There is no expiration to the designation, not unless something catastrophic happens to their reputations.
But Tav wants Gale to go now. As in, the coming end of this tenday.
Her provided rationale was that The Library has certain tomes she wants him to study and/or get copied, texts that should help with their ongoing renovations and a few other projects she needs references for. Since arriving in Waterdeep, Gale has indulged her tinkering with gusto. He brings her uncommon materials to experiment with and buys her rare informational tomes and indulges her brainstormings of new projects. Now that they’re preparing for their baby in earnest, they’re also designing additions to the tower that will incorporate her artificing as much as Gale’s structural expertise with the Weave.
She has enjoyed collaborating with him in this way, the same as with all others. Besides getting to learn from and even teach him a few things she knows well, being so supported in even her loftiest, most tenuous ideas has only amplified the intense adoration and gratitude she has for her Gale. Because his relentless belief in her makes her believe in herself too.
Tav has found that it’s a heady thing to be as loved as you are respected, as desired as you are supported. Gale has given her the gift of that discovery, alongside so many others (including some particularly filthy ones). But to dwell on these thoughts now almost makes her succumb to the lips presently at her neck, the murmuring at her ear that is turning her insides to liquid, and the brush of his hips against her ass as she clings to the edge of the desk in front of her.
She wants to give in. Oh, she certainly does. But she can’t.
Because he can’t win.
Gale is trying to sexy wizard husband himself into victory right now. And that is because it is an understatement of massive proportions to say he is hesitant to leave her alone (alone meaning without him). When Tav first urged him to go to Candlekeep, he all but flat out refused. Of course, this still gave her the absolute tiniest opening through which to ply him. She had tucked herself into his side and softened him up with slow, sweet kisses and her rationale and logics. It was her plan to get him a bit gooey and then back off, only to come in for the kill later. But then Gale caught her from behind as she turned back around to read the letter on their desk again and now Tav is here, losing control of the situation more and more with each second.
Something has to change. And fast.
She musters up strength she didn’t know she had and turns around unexpectedly. She catches Gale by surprise, who raises his brows in attention, and uses the most underhanded available strategy:
Tav takes his hand and kisses his palm and lays it on her stomach. Will you please do it for us, she beseeches him with beseeching eyes and the energy of a sad pout (and, maybe, an actual hint of a sad pout). Gale’s own beautiful brown eyes widen momentarily before his lids lower in an enamored weakness.
Got him.
“I adore you more than anything in existence and you are a menace,” he mutters into her hair after he gives in. Tav hides her victorious grin in his chest.
-
She’s a scoundrel. She knows this. But it was necessary.
The further along Tav gets in her pregnancy, the less willing Gale is to let her out of his sight. Or let her do anything that has the potential for strenuousness. Or touch her with anything less than the utmost gentleness. Reading every pregnancy- and birth-related text he can find has done little to assuage his concerns about her getting hurt or hurting her himself. And now that she’s about five months along and truly showing, he treats her like the fragilest thing in the Realms.
She can’t even get him to manhandle her during sex anymore. A recent and very minor incident in which she was left with a back spasm after some very satisfying activities were done against the desk in their study hammered the final nail in that coffin.
He’s concerned. It’s just how Gale is. He loves her and their growing child, so he can’t help but be at least a little frantic at all times about her and the pregnancy.
She knows. She knows he means well. She does…
But he’s driving her insane.
She can’t cook or even put together a snack for herself. Gods forbid Gale ever catch her cleaning anything up. He helps dress her every morning and that is after first insisting that she lounge all day in his robe if she is at all inclined to do so (which, admittedly, she often is). She has not washed her own hair in months. She cannot so much as walk down the stairs in their tower without Gale wanting to walk in front of or behind her. She can’t remember the last time she carried anything besides the weight of her own body, nor can she recall the last time she was able to look up at Gale from her knees as she sucked his dick with sure-to-be-sore-later enthusiasm.
Tav knows this is probably the best range of problems ever had by a human, ever. But she still feels caged in and nothing has tempered Gale’s orbiting—not even Morena’s regular insistence that Gale need not fret nearly as much as he is. So yes, when the letter from Candlekeep arrives, she does all she can to convince him to go and enjoy himself and not worry about her in his absence. She promises to have Morena and Tara stay at the tower while he’s gone. She swears to use their sending stones each day. She vows to do nothing she could imagine him frowning earnestly about.
(And she fully intends to follow through on these commitments and is happy to do so. She just needs some godsdamned breathing room.)
Gale agrees to go and he isn’t grumpy about it. Because her husband is the best sport. Truly. He even seems to look forward to the trip a little once she frames it as getting her the perfect reading material ahead of her final trimester and procuring materials they need to perfect the tower for the baby.
But then the day before his departure arrives and Gale’s mood plummets.
He still isn’t grumpy. He’s just… sad.
After she wakes and notices his melancholy, which he attempts but could never succeed in hiding from her, Tav tries to give him space to feel his feelings… and then she abandons this strategy before noon. Because Gale has never been one to actively want distance from her during trying moments. Or happy moments. Or any moments, really. And seeing him so dejected pretty much makes her want to weep. It’s the hormones, sure, but it’s also him. Her precious Gale is so sad and she cannot abide, no matter how much she really needs him to do the thing that is making him sad.
Tav goes to him as he begins packing his bag of holding in their bedroom. She wastes no time in pressing herself against his side and squeezing him around the waist.
“I’m sorry.”
Tav says this, but then she realizes Gale has said it too, at the same time as her.
“Wait—why are you sorry?”
Gale sighs and pulls her closer as he answers. He knows, he says, that he’s been suffocating her. He’s sorry for not keeping his anxieties in check, for stressing her out with them when she already has the task of growing their babe. Gale says he has never felt so dearly that he has everything in the world to lose. Ever. Divine power does not touch what he must protect at this moment, in perpetuity. And he is not coping well, it seems.
Tav leans her head on the side of his chest, brushing the soft fabrics of his clothing stacked on their bed fondly.
“I should’ve told you I was feeling a bit… overtended.”
Gale chuckles. “You tried. Not in such descriptive terms, but I know you, dearest. And you owe me no apologies—you were right to urge me to take this trip. Mother has been suggesting as much for a while now and at least with this, I can return with something special for you and our babe.”
He unwraps himself from her to face Tav and takes her hands in his, peppering them with adoring kisses. His eyes glitter with emotion as he leans in to peck her nose.
“Can you forgive me? For smothering you so?”
Heat rises to Tav’s face. “O-of course.”
They are married. She is pregnant. They have done absolutely depraved things to each other and will continue to do so until they die. And Tav has never been a particularly flusterable person, but with Gale? By the gods. Even as he accepts her fully, her husband makes her feel shy and girlish in ways that are wholly new to her, that she never even felt as an adolescent.
Tav stumbles on her words and shifts from side to side. And Gale grins. Because he knows.
Tav is grateful to be known so fully.
-
As they wait for Morena and Tara to arrive, Tav runs through a mental checklist with Gale for the essentials: His union ring, which is always on his finger and enchanted with Sending. His bag of holding. A double batch of the elixir for his joint pain, because Candlekeep has far too many stairs. The letter from the Keeper of Tomes. Their list of desired texts. And, she finishes cheekily, a kiss from his beloved wife. Gale squints his eyes at her fondly, pecking her lips with infinite sweetness. When he pulls away, the savoring sound in his throat makes her tingle.
As he confirms he now has all of the essentials, Gale notices that she is not touching him. That is odd in and of itself. But Tav is also holding her hands behind her back and fidgets in a stance that is downright suspicious.
“My love?” Gale prompts. And then he raises a brow at the mischievous grin that spreads across her face.
“I have one last thing to give you… if you’d be interested in helping me test something, that is,” she says coyly.
And Gale’s eyes light up.
-
Tav is an artificer. And she is an artificer because when she was twelve, Tav left her cold family home and eventually came into the care of a gnomish widower named Lukas. Tav was a mess, Lukas was a Candlekeep handyman and groundskeeper, and they became a pair. He took her in, fed her, clothed her, and otherwise raised her as his own. And after learning of her natural sensitivity to the Weave, he made sure she had more than enough material to study magic from.
Tav never got the benefit of a formal wizard’s education, but Lukas brought her stacks of books every tenday from The Great Library—duplicates and printings deemed too damaged to be reshelved and outdated editions marked inconsequential enough to let go. These materials were her main source of learning, along with the more practical skills Lukas taught her. How to fix machinery and grow food and tend to bodies and wounds. Artificing came naturally to her because of Lukas, who fostered in Tav a love for repairing and tinkering and inventing. These skills blended well with her study of magic.
She began by enhancing Lukas’s working tools and making small useful trinkets. Eventually, she engineered more intensive projects for the cottage they lived in, to make things easier for him. Tav enchanted the stove box to produce certain temperatures. She set up a heating, self-cleaning indoor water pump system. She experimented with the old mattress he’d slept on since before his daughter and wife passed until it had a minor restorative effect to lessen his pain as he grew older and sicker.
Tav stayed with Lukas for a decade and a half, until he died in his sleep after a persisting fatigue. She buried him deep in the ground, on a cliffside overlooking the Sea of Swords, before resuming the wandering lifestyle of her youth. And a few years later, she woke up on the Nautiloid.
The first tool Tav made on their little tadpole adventure was a self-filling and -emptying bucket. Not original by any means, but she wasn’t going for innovation. It was a starter project, something practical to find her way back to her artificing skills, and the first of many.
Not long into their journey, once they were in the habit of sitting closely by the campfire and reading together, Gale told her he was in awe of her. Artificers are something of a separate genre of arcane practitioners, so there was a novelty factor working to her favor there, but Gale was also just deeply taken with her skills. By the campfire that night, he said the bucket brought her to his mind every time he used it—for cooking or dishes or freshening up. So, quite frequently. Meaning: he thought about her often.
All good things, of course, he insisted. The highest praises, actually. At this early point, they were attached at the hip already, because that happened right away, but she did not yet know about the orb. Nor did she know that Gale was already in love with her, though she dearly hoped he at least wanted to kiss her a little. So to the admission that her magic bucket had him thinking about her (often), Tav had replied that that meant he was thinking about her almost as much as she was thinking about him.
She returns to this memory often, as Gale flushed such a pretty red that it put the glow of the crackling campfire to shame. And then he’d covered the center of his chest with his hand before hurriedly leaving for his tent. Later, Gale told her that he’d been trying to conceal the glow of the orb and also not blow up by keeping his distance for the rest of the evening.
Since those days, Gale has helped her reach new heights of ingenuity in her artificing. This is in part because he always looks so godsdamned attracted to her when she shows him something new. After Tav experimented with charming the ground of the foyer to absorb dirt and precipitation, he backed her up against the front door and made her into a dripping mess. She still remembers cumming loud and hard, squirting all over his hand and the floor, and Gale was as impressed at the quickly disappeared wetness as he was desperate to fill her to the brim.
But beyond this special brand of motivation, Gale also goes out of his way to remind her that she is capable. It’s an encouragement she has often needed. Tav is proud of all she’s learned on her own. But she has some insecurity issues, especially when among other wizards and around her lack of formal training. Prior to the Nautiloid, as she wandered through towns and sought out other magic users, Tav constantly felt snubbed and amateurish and bothersome. But Gale is different.
He assists her and encourages her and takes her seriously. Always. Of course, it certainly helps that once she’s perfected something, he often gets to reap the benefits too. But even when he doesn’t, he shares her passion for her art in ways she has never known from anyone, let alone someone so brilliant.
Because of him, she is unburdened by the stifling expectations of perfection or respectability. She can be frivolous and think big and be adored regardless, even more ardently.
…Which sometimes results in the planning and/or development of objects that are not necessarily essential.
Or for everyday use.
Or even for use in view of others.
And sometimes, Tav follows an absolutely unhinged idea all the way through, from conception to planning to design to creation.
And whenever she does, Gale is all too happy to help her work out the kinks.
Oh, how she loves him.
-
The invention currently in his hands was born from an idea that first came to her on the day of their departure from Baldur’s Gate, two weeks after the defeat of the Netherbrain and a few hours after giving Mystra the Crown of Karsus. As Gale finished packing their things to take the transportation glyph in Ramazith Tower to the underground level of Waterdeep’s House of Wonder, he had chatted excitedly about what awaited them at their tower.
He had so much to show her, so much to share. Gale eventually mentioned that he’d kept the shells of artifacts Tara brought him to keep the orb stable. He’d drained them of the Weave obviously but Gale said they would likely be of use to her in her artificing projects. Many had rare, interesting materials that she could refashion in all kinds of ways. Because of her incredible talents, of course, he’d added with an enticing tone. And then Tav, because she is highly suggestible to even a hint of Gale’s desire, had the idea for the thing Gale is currently inspecting closely.
She refashioned it from a bracer that once had a strength enchantment. Tav had reworked the outer cylindrical shape to be wider and sculpted another cylinder of a lighter animal bone that she frosted in a dark blue sheen, to go inside of it, which now serves as the true main body. On top of the cylinder, there is a pearlescent white lid keeping it sealed, requiring a verbal component to open.
She gives Gale the needed syllables. He repeats them. And then, there it is.
Tav had spun residuum powder from the Underdark into a sturdier, cotton-type texture and imbued it with liquid material in a technique to create a squishy, pliant substance that could be shaped and stiffened while remaining flexible enough for her (and Gale’s) purposes. From there, she spent a lot of time holding a mirror between her legs and also getting permission with a very vague explanation to sift through certain thoughts of his while he slept beside her. She knew he would have the vivid details she needed.
Her husband really is the best. And now he holds a portable recreation of her pussy in his hands.
“My gods…” Gale inspects the familiar folds in front of him. He caresses them softly and laughs in astonishment as he explores. His fingers dip and spread and brush. His breath warms the form as he turns it this way and that, so close to his gaze.
“It looks just like the real thing…” Gale speaks. Airy and in awe. “Is this what you asked to root around in my mind for? I knew you had gotten up to something in there, but I never imagined it would be this.”
His eyes slide over to her and Tav presses her thighs together, turning redder and redder. She nods.
“I couldn’t have done it without your very thorough explorations down there,” Tav says. Gale laughs.
“Oh you brilliant minx,” he grins, petting the soft sparse of hair she’d added as a finishing touch. “I am honored to contribute to such genius…”
His thumb presses near the top of the replica slit to admire her reforged clit before swiping down to her entrance. Tav holds her breath as a brief sound of approval leaves him and warms the pit of her belly.
“This is excellent material work. The feel is incredible. And just look how wet—“ Gale turns to her with a glistening finger, only to find her flushed and struggling to control her breathing.
He connects the dots, realizing the special bit to this gift immediately. His resulting expression is heady. Intense. He looks at her now in a way he hasn’t looked at her for too long, like he’s a moment away from bending her over the nearest flat surface and fucking her stupid. Tav swallows.
And then a devilish grin graces his lips, displaying teeth that press lightly on the tip of his tongue. Without taking his eyes off of her, Gale uses two fingers to press down on either side of her replicated clit before raising the cylinder to his mouth.
A knock at their door interrupts them just as the wet point of Gale’s tongue touches the enchanted nub connected to her own. It’s Morena and Tara. Tav could cry.
Gale seals the cylinder swiftly and holds her by the chin as he presses a searing kiss to her mouth.
Expect me tonight, he says lowly.
And then he opens the door to enthusiastically greet his family.
-
For the first few hours after Gale’s departure, Tav finds real enjoyment in not being hovered over, even with her pleasure having been so thoroughly interrupted. She climbs and descends the stairs alone. She helps make lunch with Morena. She does some tidying in their study.
But then Tav goes to their library in the early evening and gets comfortable in one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace. She puts her feet up and intends to enjoy a new romance Gale picked up for her at the market. She realizes she doesn’t have her reading glasses and she gets halfway through calling to ask Gale if he can grab them before remembering that he isn’t home.
She laughs with Morena when it happens and commences her reading. But she eventually reaches a part that is so ridiculous, she calls for Gale again, fully this time, before remembering how silly it is. She tries to read further, but soon decides to do something else. Tav moves into their study and rereads a recent letter from Astarion. She ends up with an idea to address his inability to walk in the sun. She calls for Gale. She remembers, again.
Tav leaves the space entirely, going downstairs to keep Morena company. Morena makes her tea, the same tea she always has at this hour. But it doesn’t taste as good as she expects. And then Tav notices the quiet. The lack of singing and humming and seamless chatting and laughing in a voice she loves so dearly. And as she sits, no one comes to hug her from behind and sigh happily in her ear. No one comes to ask her opinion on schematics or a potion being brewed or something thoroughly esoteric or anything at all.
She enjoys dinner with Morena and Tara, but they notice that she is already missing Gale.
“Some distance should do both of you some good, Mrs. Dekarios,” Tara says. “And if it doesn’t, Mr. Dekarios will be back before you know it.”
And Tara is right. But already, this coming tenday feels like the opposite of what she was anticipating and she’s not sure how she didn’t see this coming. They haven’t been apart for even a full two days since they met! She suddenly feels absurd. And annoyed. So absurd and annoyed, in fact, that she completely forgets Gale telling her to expect him tonight.
She is in bed, a bit sulky and reading further into the new romance, when Gale Sends her through their rings.
My love, I’ve settled into my lodgings and dearly want to try your work of genius. I yearn for you with body and heart.
Oh thank Sune. Tav slaps her book closed and tosses it aside to send her response, suddenly near trembling.
Don’t hold back, love. I’m missing you terribly. Our bed is way too big right now. Also I never put underwear on after my bath…
As Tav sends her reply, she giggles maniacally and considers the most strategic time to use her own ring. She only has two charges, each with a reply. The charges restore each dawn. Forethought is warranted. But she is too eagerly anticipating Gale’s first move to think too hard about anything besides when it’s coming and what he looks like right now.
He’s probably discarded his sleep bottoms and is teasing his cock over his underwear in the dark of his inn room. She feels warm as she thinks of him hardening, thinking of her laying wet and wanting on their bed. He’s probably delaying on unsealing the cylinder until he thinks she’s waited just long enough.
Tav hikes her long, soft tunic above her thighs and gets comfortable on her side with a pillow between her knees. Her eyes flutter closed and her hands caress her thighs and her hips and her waist before sliding under her shirt to tease her nipples. She thinks of Gale as she touches herself, the way he swirls his tongue, how drunk he looks when he suckles at her breast. It makes her hips rock forward against the pillow. The soft silk of its case rubs against her and she sighs.
Tav soon feels something like exposure at the apex of her legs, the slightly cool air of a room miles away making itself known. She feels Gale’s breath, close and warm against her, and it is maddening that the present shifting of her hips will get her no closer. She is fully at his mercy. Her thighs squeeze around the pillow as she waits, as the air of Gale’s lungs mists over her.
The first touch of his fingers is tender. Reverent. A soft petting motion down the length of her, not trying to spread her open at all. A touch for the sake of touching, loving. He cannot feel all of her, but he can feel this. And thus, she is adored here.
Gods, how she loves him. She can’t wait for him to fill her like a cream puff.
She lets herself sink into the touches. He lays the whole of his warm palm over her and applies a bit of pressure before dragging it down and away slowly. What a tease. He does it again, a few times more until he lays his palm on her again and drags up this time, stopping with the heel of his hand pressing against her clit. Tav throbs and then sucks in a breath as he rubs the base of his palm on her for a few delicious moments before pulling away. She almost Sends him a pathetic plea to come back. But soon she feels the warm press of a closed mouth kiss touching her slit and instead Tav smiles, dopey and pacified. Finally. Finally.
She clutches the silk pillow and grinds as Gale’s wet tongue slips into the seam of her. He is slow as he drags it up and down, his spit mixing with the wetness that already coats the length of her. Tav has the sudden memory of him telling her how pretty she looks when she’s puffy and red and slick and she pulses on his tongue.
She can feel the brush of his facial hair and the rumble of a satisfied hum as he laps and sucks at her. And Tav thinks she also feels him whisper something against her entrance as he nuzzles her with his nose, trying to drown in her, and she can probably guess what the words are. She is about to use her ring to tell him she loves him too. So, so much. And then he uses his fingers to spread her before he sucks at her in a swiping kind of motion that makes her choke.
He starts at the folds just under her clit and goes to the cleft of her pussy, gliding over her aching pearl and then back again without lingering. Tav turns her face into the pillow underneath her head to absorb her moaning and whining. Fucking hells, she really needs to stop delaying on placing that silencing charm on their room.
His mouth goes from side to side with the wiggle of his head, slurping at her now like he wants to swallow her cunt whole. Tav sobs into her pillow, grinds into the one between her legs but it cannot replicate what is missing. The head of silky hair to pull on as he sucks at her. The perfect hands pulling her down by a handful of her ass or her thigh to keep her weight on him. Oh gods fuck—
She is already dizzy when he takes his mouth away and slides two fingers into her unexpectedly. And then she has to bite the pillow underneath her head like she’s ripping meat off the fucking bone because gods the pace he starts with drives her to madness. There is no steady rise. It’s unslow and his fingers spread as they plunge in and out of her and she clamps down on them.
There is a warm coil building to real heat in her gut and Tav whimpers as Gale stokes it with beckoning fingers. Sweat builds on the backs of her bent knees and under her stomach. She wants to rip her shirt off. Her heart pounds as Gale goes deeper, as her greedy cunt starts to twitch around him, squeezing him tight in quickening pulses. Then the wet, flat of his tongue is back and he plays with her aching clit, getting her wet and slippery there with fleeting, steady swipes of his hot tongue.
Tav finally Sends him.
Please don’t stop. That feels so good, baby. I love you I love your tongue I love the way you fuck me
His reply unspools in her mind and it turns to syrup.
Gods I never tire of your taste. Or how perfect you feel in my mouth. Give me more. Cum for me, my star.
Her thighs quiver as the pressure in her core rises and when Gale firmly pets the bumpy spot inside of her he is well acquainted with, she just barely remembers to shout and choke into her pillow. Her head stays buried there, whimpering and sobbing as Gale’s fingers fuck her until her cunt ceases its spasming. And even then, they only slip out of her so Gale can spread her open with both thumbs and let his mouth drink from her hole, lapping and sucking and savoring her.
In the absence of the lewd groans of his mouth, her mind fills in the blanks with memories. His low mewls puffing from his shiny mouth, moaning with her like he’s the one falling apart instead of the one doing the deconstructing. His growls unsettling his chest while he gluts himself on her.
Tav rubs her ring, still breathing hard and trembling.
I love you so much. Please, let me feel you. Let me bring you half as much pleasure as you give me. Please, my light.
His fingers are sweetly stroking wet, hot skin when his reply bleeds into her head.
And I love you. Though I’m afraid thinking of you writhing in the throes of your pleasure has quite finished me. Expect me tomorrow, dearest.
She can almost hear his satisfied, exhausted laughter tickling her ears and Tav finds herself giggling again as she falls asleep.
Because her husband’s going to fuck her again tomorrow.
-
If Morena and Tara heard or suspect the reason for her improved mood, they do not let on in the slightest. They have breakfast together and Tav chats excitedly about some of the edits she’s going to make to the schematics for the adjoining washroom in the nursery. Morena offers practical input on a few considerations from Gale’s own infanthood. Later, Tara takes a nap in a sunbeam slicing across her desk as she works.
Tav finds herself doing little dances at random as she makes tea or lunch with Morena or pulls a book off of one of their crowded cases or stares into space. She daydreams about things chaste (Gale’s embarrassed little smile when she compliments his sketching abilities) and filthy (the rhythmic slap of his erection against his stomach the last time she gave herself her own cock and fucked him speechless) alike.
It’s very crushy of her. They never got to linger in infatuation; fighting for your life day in and out has a way of making people skip the pleasantries. Gale has always lamented that. Sometimes, when they lay in bed on the cusp of sleep, he describes alternative scenarios in which they could have met. Eyes across a crowded room of stuffy mages. Arriving late to the same seminar at an academic conference. Shopping for peaches at the market (this one led to an especially explicit description of eating her out in an alley a few minutes later; he would’ve never dared, but goodness does she like to think on it).
None of these involve the life-death situations of their actual meeting. She likes it when Gale tells these alternative stories, but it is also his way of telling her that he wishes they could have came to this life of theirs outside of calamity. Personally, Tav doesn’t see how it would’ve been possible, in actuality. But she thinks she understands now, just a bit, what Gale means. This is like the yearning she felt for him when she first met him, only she has space to let herself luxuriate in this want because she isn’t already mostly consumed by terror.
That evening, Tav is eager for Gale’s message. She misses him. But it seems that maybe all of her pining has actually tired her out because she falls asleep while waiting. When she wakes to the familiar hum of her husband’s voice in her mind, a look at the moonlight spilling in through their windows tells her it is late.
Apologies, dearest. It took ages, but copy privileges for most of our texts are confirmed. I’ve just returned and will make due on my promise shortly.
He sounds tired. Given the time she’s spent in Candlekeep, she knows why. Neither of them are fond of bureaucracy and Candlekeep is all bureaucracy. It’s exhausting in its structure. Also, the walking up and down stairs all day has probably killed him. He needs his rest.
My Gale—are you sure? You sound exhausted. I miss you and want you, but I don’t want you to neglect yourself. My light, let yourself rest.
His response makes her heart swell.
I won’t lie, my love. It has been a trying day made only sorer by my missing you. Still, I never want to neglect you.
Gods he’s sweet. Tav replies.
With your love, I never go without. But you have to take care of yourself so we can grow way too old and die together.
After a moment of thought, she follows that up with a message of her own.
I' m yours, you know. For you, always. And my always means always . Including when you’re awake, alone...
The fondness and surrender in Gale’s voice makes her smile sleepily.
My beautiful, ingenious wife is also very wise. Your reminders are appreciated. Both of them. I miss you terribly, but I will rest.
Good boy. I love you. Sleep well, my darling Gale. And thank you for the book update!
His response floats with her as she falls back into sleep.
Dream sweetly, my love. And expect me tomorrow evening. Oh—and give our little one a gentle belly rub for me soon.
-
The next day is more tiring than she anticipates.
While she and Morena and Tara are having lunch, a courier brings a package addressed to Gale. As her husband prefers, Tav opens the package right away. It’s from Elminster.
Inside is a recognizable, eight point star made of silver with inlaid alexandrite, about as large as her palm. There is an enchantment within, easily recognizable to her and typically requiring two casters: Starflight, which allows those under its effects to fly as long as stars can be seen in the sky.
It is also a rite of initiation, used to induct new members to the Church of Mystra.
Tara and Morena sigh.
Mystra continues to be an area of difficulty for her and Gale. They are wizards. There is no way to escape her influence for as long as they practice the Art. Gale declined being her Chosen and they don’t engage in worship practices. With regard to their child and the very possible event that they have a natural, exceptional gift for harnessing the Weave, they are opting to encourage exploration of other deities and interests beyond the arcane.
As for Eliminster… he remains dedicated to his Mistress and makes efforts to keep them in the flock. After the second time broaching the topic of reconsidering Chosenhood, Gale sent Elminster from their home, so he hasn’t tried that again. But he still performs gestures like sending a Star of Mystra for, as his letter states, their expected child’s room, with an initiation spell on it.
Of course, this is also how Elminster demonstrates his care for Gale on a more personal, familiar level, but Tav really wishes they could just eat some cheese or go fishing or something instead.
Needless to say, the package’s arrival stresses her out. Morena offers to take it from the home, but Tav needs to talk to Gale about it first before they do anything with it. In the end they will likely put the ornament in a box and not look at it again or have Morena take it, but for now it will stay where it is: in the box it came in, on a lesser used desk in their study.
To decompress, Tav spends the rest of the day and evening working on plans for the nursery and her workshop and the rooftop. By the time dinner comes and goes and Tav returns to work and then finally stops to crawl into bed, it is late. And she is dead on her feet. Tav falls asleep almost immediately, slipping into warm, fuzzy dreams that heat her like the sun does earth.
The current dream is one that has become familiar in the past month. She is naked and bound and suspended in intricately tied scarlet ropes that descend from the ceiling of their study. Tav is belly-side down, with her knees bent and spread behind her. Her hands are tied against her back. Her upper arms are kept against her sides with soft rope that cuts across her full breasts. She swings slightly, just a few feet off the ground, as she writhes for Gale’s attention.
The man in question sits at his desk, spectacled and focused with ink stained fingers and a quill moving in his hand. His hair is half up. His white shirt is rolled up at the sleeves and the loose laces at the top of his chest reveal his soft chest hair and the dark mark of the orb. Gale always has the orb in her dreams.
At the weight of her wanting eyes and the sounds of her wriggling and breathing, Gale looks up from his work and raises a brow at her. Within the dream’s logic, she knows he has her tied up like this for a reason, but Tav has never felt the need to account for details.
Gale watches, imperious and inconvenienced but so, so hungry. For her. He stands slowly, neatening the cuffs of his sleeves as he rounds the desk to come to her. She smirks at his obvious annoyance at being unable to resist. But then he circles her like she’s prey and any upper hand she has slips through her captive fingers.
The heat of his gaze still makes her breath quicken as he moves out of view.
“You’re exceptional in rope, you know,” he murmurs as his fingers graze her skin, pressing lightly into the pockets of flesh that swell from the restraints.
“You soft, decadent thing.”
He moves around until he’s directly behind her. His fingers drag along, down down down her bound body, as he comes to stand at just shy of her bent knees. Gale steps into the space between her spread legs and smooths a hand over the swell of her ass before giving it a quick smack. Tav gasps and moves to arch, but the rope tethered to the ceiling steadies her waist and keeps her hips raised. She can only squirm.
Gale hums, like he’s just observed something mildly notable. And then he lays a firm, full-handed slap to her ass that makes her clit throb.
Gale slaps her on that cheek again before smacking the other one. Again. Again. Tav get lost in the sensations. The stinging. The heat. The way she jostles with each hit and how her legs ache to snap closed but only tug against the unyielding knots that hold her wide open.
Finally, Tav hears Gale undo the ties of his trousers and sigh softly with release as he frees his cock and takes himself in hand. A melting kind of ohhh leaves her as Gale traces the length of her bloodwarmed lips with the head of his cock. He sighs again at the contact and does a few barely there thrusts against the outside of her that nudge her aching clit. Tav trembles as she sways. He would already be buried inside of her if torment wasn’t just a bit more appealing to him for another minute or so.
“Goddess. Look at this sweet, soaking pussy…”
The head of him dips in and out of her slick hole just barely and drags down her folds to her clit in a quick, wet stripe.
“Fucking hells—“
Tav gasps as Gale spanks her right ass cheek and then her left again. As the sting of her fades, relief floods in and she drools a little at how delicious it feels.
“You’ve already distracted me from my research with your impatient antics and this—“ Gale lets go of himself to slap the meat of her ass again and watches it ripple with a lewd moan. “—sumptuous body. Mind your tongue.”
He grips her tender flesh and spreads her for his view. “Gods below, look at your precious little cunt, clenching around nothing…”
She chokes on air at the expression she knows is on his face. Eyes blown out, laser focused on the spasming hole she wants him to fuck more than she wants anything else. It makes her cunt twitch again and Gale hums again behind her as he takes his time to appreciate it fully.
Tav hears him conjure something and shift behind her. She pitches her head down, swinging slightly. And then she almost giggles herself out of an orgasm.
It’s a stool. He conjured—
“A proper seat, my love. You’re the one being punished, not me.”
Tav has a perfectly antagonistic response for that, which would probably earn a handful of extra spanks, but it dies in her mouth as Gale’s breath caresses the inside of her spread thighs. When he spreads her again, thumbs prying her apart to bare her hole, she stops breathing.
His tongue is wet as he swirls it around her opening before lapping at her. She cries out and tries to rock herself towards pressure, but Gale lets go of one cheek to take a firm hold of the intricate knot at the top of her ass, connecting the ropes around her forearms and wrists to the ones around her ankles. She will go nowhere unless he wills it.
He pulls his mouth away from her after a series of sucks at her clit that make her toes curl. “I would devour you if only you hadn’t been such a terror all day. But use your devilish mouth to tell me what you need—without any vulgarity—and I will satisfy, my love.”
She is dizzy and aching as she begs him, in the politest language possible, to use her. Use her like a toy for his pleasure. Please. Gale groans, low and rumbling with an undercurrent of desperation, and stands again, kicking the conjured stool away. He teases her clit with a few more slick passes of his cock before he lets himself catch on her entrance.
Gale pulls the knot of ropes at the base of her spine towards him as he splits her open on his cock, stopping only when he can pull nor fill her further. Fuck she’s so full.
Gods above, you always feel divine, he sighs. The way you make me yours, the way you hold me inside of you like you need my cock more than air.
“I do I do!”
Tav trembles as she begins to say something else—maybe I love you, maybe tear me apart, she’s not sure—and Gale uses his grip on the knot to move her off of his cock before pulling her back roughly. She swings back onto Gale’s length, taking the whole of him before being stilled again, just like that. It knocks the breath out of her, entirely, being so fucking full of his cock as he pulses from so deep inside.
He holds the knot towards him to keep her in place.
“You wanted to be my toy…” Gale repeats her request. And Tav babbles a string of yeses, panting. She stops and quiets entirely as Gale touches the reddened skin of her ass reverently with his free hand. He groans as she tightens around him in anticipation and then Gale swings her away until just the tip of his cock is hidden away inside of her. He stills and then doesn’t move, holding her there with the snug entrance to her cunt stretched around the thick head of him.
“Gale please—!”
“Toys don’t speak, Tav.”
She sobs. “I-I—“
She swallows the rest of her words. It is torture, to have so little of him inside when she knows she can have more. Her impulse is to beg or to fuck herself on to him and she can do neither. So she waits.
Too many, far too long moments pass. Tav starts to tear up. The back of Gale’s free hand rubs the reddened skin of her behind in a soothing gesture. She can’t help but clamp down on him, fast and tight, and Gale hisses.
“Relax now, my love. Don’t anticipate. Just let it happen…”
He continues, voice low and sweet and turning her insides to syrup as he draws light circles on her. And Tav succumbs to the velvet of his voice like she would to a bath at the perfect temperature, relaxing her walls and the stuttering rhythm of her breath.
“Oh you’re being so good for me. So good, dearest,” Gale praises.
And then he yanks the knot at the top of her ass and pulls her back onto his cock.
Gale’s cock is swollen and hot as he fucks her just as she’s craved. She’s wanted her beautiful, gentle husband to use her like a humping pillow, like a sleeve made for stuffing for what feels like forever and finally, finally, she is being rendered inanimate. Her head lolls with the force of being swung back onto his cock each time she’s filled to the brim
“That’s a good toy.”
—Tav’s eyes open to their darkened bedroom. She is on her side, hugging a pillow to her chest. The corner of the silk case is already wet with spit; she’s been biting down on it. There is a red, full pressure between her legs, moving her body with its rocking rhythm.
It is late. And Gale is fucking her from Candlekeep.
He is slippery and thick and Tav bites the pillow again to smother her whimper. It is an incredible, novel sensation. She is alone, but she’s being stretched open. Her folds are parted around a hard column of heat she knows well, but there is no Gale in this bed. Her lips slap against the base of Gale’s cock, her clit feels the pressure of his warm pelvis, and there is the brush of his soft pubic hair against her. But the weight of him, his wanton sounds, the mingling of their sweat, his tongue, his lips, his hands—these are all missing.
A wave of pleasure makes her drool soak the pillowcase in her mouth further and Gale’s thrusting presses even deeper as Tav quivers around him. Yes, she pleads in her mind. Use me use me use me
With how he’s bottoming out each time, Tav guesses he’s on his back, fucking the cylinder that sloshes with her wetness onto his cock. And given how late it is, maybe he’s been tossing and turning, trying to resist the call of her gifted pussy for hours. Fuck she’s so glad he gave in, that he wants her just as much as she wants him. Her lips move to her ring before she can think about it.
You feel so good, Gale. I was already dreaming of this. Don’t stop. I’ve needed you so badly.
Gale’s movement stutters, stopping halfway inside before he fills her fully again. Intentional and slow. The sodden mess between her legs makes a lewd, squishy sound that layers so well under his response, panting in her mind.
You were dewy when I unsealed you. I thought you went to sleep after touching yourself, but to dream of me… You make restraint impossible.
She feels his movements still and just when she’s about to weep—because fuck, maybe her sending has had the opposite effect—she has to take a fuller bite of the pillow in her mouth. Because Gale’s thumb vibrates on her slippery clit and he fucks in and out of her in a deep, slow churn that turns her to goo. like he’s trying to mold her cunt to the shape of him.
Gods above, I have missed you. My perfect love. Dreaming of me while I hunger for her. I dream of you too, dearest.
Her back arches and her thighs shake and Tav sobs into the pillow, unable to say anything in reply as Gale drags her up to her peak and then pushes her off.
She is in a haze, her insides still being spread and stirred by Gale’s cock as his voice filters in. There is an edge of desperation and it makes her skin tingle. If he were home, he’d be red and rambling and pressing his face into whatever crevice of her body he could manage.
The way you hold me when you climax—I need it again. Please—another, my love. Another.
His prestidigitated thumb returns, winding circles around her sensitive clit and Tav knows she responds to his sending, but it may just be a potpourri of yeses and gods yeses and don’t stops. Her body shakes and her thighs clench as a brazen heat falls over her and Gale presses down on her clit just like so to shatter her once more.
Tav muffles herself as best she can while feeling half out of her mind. Her tight grip around Gale is weaker, but the quivering and tension is unmistakable. And she still feels like she’s drowning. Tav claws at the pillow between her legs, bites down on what’s in her mouth in the absence of Gale’s body to rake her nails against and his fingers to suck on. She closes her eyes and imagines him as he hurtles towards his own peak. His open mouth, his half-lidded eyes, the blissed out slope of his brows, a debauched mess of hair.
She can imagine it easily now as his intentional thrusts bleed into a sloppier pursuit of pleasure. His thrusts press into her thrice more with jerky, convulsing movements and then she is flooded with the warmth of his cum.
Gale’s cock pulses like the heavy pounding of her heart, still slowing down. The beat of it and the feeling of being well-loved lulls her back to rest easily.
Before she drifts off again, she feels a light, warm kiss on her sensitive skin, the vibration of a murmur she cannot decipher, and the familiar sensation of Gale cleaning her folds with care.
-
For the next few days, they fall into a routine. They go about their business. Gale spends hours full of parchment and words and hushed speaking. Tav spends time with Morena and Tara and helps in the kitchen and hears family gossip and throws herself into her work.
At night, Tav lays down to sleep at a reasonable hour… only to be roused under bright moonlight by Gale filling her with his cock like he’s trying to get her double pregnant. Deep and purposeful. There’s something romantic about it. He only has his cunt in her hand. But Gale still touches her there, still thrusts with the same level of devotion he would hold her by the hand and kiss her neck. It radiates from him, that font of love. And she cannot help but feel cherished in the purest way possible when he fills her like he’s about to tell her that she reminds him of the value of life.
It’s also just so… hot. The way he has poured himself into pleasing her and himself from afar and the increasingly unabashed desire she feels in him as he’s come to enjoy a new, highly specific form of intimacy.
There is something about the toy, she thinks, and the limited communication that has given him a level of healthy distance; he can’t see her, or her stomach, so maybe he feels less fear about overdoing things in myriad ways. He hasn’t been rough with her or anything like that (aside from how his control somewhat slips away from him when he is about to climax). But Tav can tell, from his messages and his increasing comfort with serving his own pleasure, that he may be getting closer to treating her just a bit less preciously and treating himself with a bit more consideration.
Only so much can change over less than a tenday, but Tav is definitely optimistic.
And honestly? Even if Gale returns to smother her, she finds she minds much less. Because she misses him. So dearly. Tea still doesn’t taste as good. The tower is still too quiet. She is still cold without him here to wrap around her from behind. They will work through his anxieties together, but in the meantime she will cherish Gale as he is, as he worries and frets and drives himself nuts about her.
She can certainly sympathize.
-
Tav wakes up the day before Gale is scheduled to return without the thoroughly-fucked soreness she had anticipated. While she’d dreamed of being tied up again—and what a beautiful dream it was—Tav doesn’t recall being woken by the familiar stretch of her husband’s cock or his fingers working her open. Gale must have—
And then Tav realizes she is not alone in their bed.
Plastered onto her back is a familiar weight. Soft and solid. The underside of her growing belly is covered by a protective, loving palm. A warm spot on the back of her neck heats and cools with each of Gale’s breaths.
She wants to cry—from surprise and pure happiness and also sadness. She missed his return. She knows he likely got in late and didn’t want to wake her, probably didn’t have any energy for a conversation in the slightest. But still. Tav’s eyes sting with tears. Her fucking hormones.
Her nightstand has a neat pile of the parchment she slept surrounded by, having taken some work to bed with her. Her inkwell and quill weigh the paper down. The empty snack plate of cheeses and meats and toast she’d finished is gone and probably in the kitchen, clean and stored away. Gale was exhausted and still cleaned up after her.
Feeling much tearier, Tav begins the tricky process of getting out of bed without waking Gale up. The fact that she manages it is a testament to his fatigue. He only grumbles when she pulls away, indecipherable to her except for a few words about ladders.
Tav slips on Gale’s house robe and pads carefully down the stairs. Morena and Tara are already up. They tell her Gale stumbled in so late Tara was the only one still fully awake. Morena had fallen asleep on a couch in the first-level sitting room, right in the middle of crocheting the blanket she has going for Baby Dekarios, when she woke in the middle of Tara and Gale having a whispered back and forth about whether to wake her (Tara) or not (Gale).
“For the record, I wanted to wake you too, Mrs. Dekarios. But Mr. Dekarios can be quite a persuasive one,” Tara says through a long, languid stretch.
Tav looks to Morena for details. Beholder jerky is the simple answer she receives.
A short while later, Tav gives Morena as tight of a hug as she can manage in farewell. If that son of mine hasn’t calmed down with this trip, you tell me, Morena says. And I will find a nice, long distance errand for him to do.
With a scratch to Tara’s chin and a promise to be over for dinner in a few days, Tav waves goodbye as they leave into the sunny, chill morning.
As soon as the front door closes, Tav wants to wake Gale. She wants to kiss him. His beautiful, disoriented face, warm and creased from heavy sleep. His delicious body. Everywhere from the crown of his head down to the soles of his feet (and then a trip back up to his hips for some very special attention). Maybe he would let her gag herself on him if she caught him now, unaware. She hasn’t been able to in a while, with how he always seems to wake just before she does these days despite being a night owl himself.
But no—she should let him sleep! He probably went straight from The Library last night to the teleportation sigil that left him at Blackstaff and he needs his rest.
Mind made up, Tav goes to their study without disturbing his rest and commits to finishing the schematics she’s been working on. She takes a break after a while, going to the kitchen to make some tea (that still doesn’t taste as good as usual). And she makes coffee for Gale before bringing it to his nightstand on an enchanted tray that will keep the carafe and a sweet pastry at the right temperature while he sleeps. She steps away to leave and then turns back, having decided to scribble a short, sweet note on a scrap of parchment for him.
Tav almost wakes him after setting the note on his nightstand. The romantic spread of his hair on their pillows coaxes her fingers to graze his silky strands in the barest touch. A dry, short sound leaves his throat, like he knows she’s there, and then Tav pulls her hand back to scurry away. She makes her escape towards the study and tells herself, very firmly, that there will be no more touching of her scrumptious, completely defenseless husband. Not until he has rested fully. Or woken up himself. Whichever is soonest.
Tav is close to finishing the schematics for her future workshop, scribbling and double checking calculations with ink stained hands and a quill that is wet at the end because she picked up Gale’s oral fixation somehow, when she feels a set of eyes on her back. When she turns away from her desk, Tav finds him leaning against the doorway, in a loose beige tunic and blue pants for lounging in. He looks at her over the rim of his coffee mug fond, sparkling eyes framed by messy hair. Tav feels tingly at the sight of him. She’s the only person who gets just got out of bed Gale.
And it’s a good thing too—he’s irresistible like this.
“My light,” Tav smiles wide, “how did you sleep?”
Gale pads into the study fully and comes to stand in front of her before bending down in front of her.
“Your knees—“
“—Will survive one proper greeting for my wife after an eternity away.” His reply is hoarse as he kneels between her legs. Tav spreads a bit more to accommodate him and Gale makes himself at home there. He leans forward to kiss her, laying one hand on her thigh with his thumb stroking her belly through his stolen robe. The other hand rises to caress her cheek.
His lips are warm from coffee and still a bit sweet from the pastry she left for him. Tav’s lips part to the swipe of Gale’s tongue and she sighs an unburdened welcome home into his mouth.
“Mm. It’s very nice to be home. And to see you in my robe.”
Gale pulls away to dip his head, bending forward to kiss her belly. “Hello little one. I hope you haven’t given your mother too much trouble while I’ve been away.”
He thanks her for the coffee and the pastry and her note. He stays on his knees for a bit, having too nice of a time being between her legs and chatting, interspersed with kisses. He tells her of Candlekeep and the eccentric monk he met and of visiting Lukas’s gravestone. And the cottage is still standing, Gale says. Another groundskeeper lives in it now and they had him for tea just before he came back to Waterdeep.
He says he liked having the opportunity to see where she spent so many of her most formative years. Tav asks him if he thinks they would’ve liked each other as much if they’d met back then. In her teens and early twenties. Gale balks at the implication that they possibly wouldn’t have.
“In fact, I can picture it perfectly. I would’ve seen you standing there, all curls and dark clever eyes, and become very distracted from my studies…”
When Gale finally stands, it’s with a pained grunt. Tav urges him to take a nice relaxing bath before starting on lunch, if he must insist on making it in the first place, and Gale abides, eager to have a soak in their own bathroom.
“But first…”
He leans down again, bracing himself on the armrests of her chair as he stays standing. He slants his mouth to kiss her firmly as their lips meet. Tav’s head falls back into the chair as Gale nips at her bottom lip and presses his tongue to hers when she breathes in sharply. He plays with her, flicking and licking and sucking and making her back arch unconsciously and her hands grip the forearms on either side of her. A small sound of want leaves her and Tav feels Gale smile against her, even as his tongue savors her. When he pulls away, it is with a flicker of a dark, hooded expression that is soon replaced by an almost chaste look of adoration.
“I missed you, Tav,” his lips curve sweetly, “More than I even knew I would and I knew very well that it would be to a dire magnitude… I happen to be a bit prescient in that way.”
He finishes in an unserious tone, eyes sparkling with humor. Still dazed and flushed from their kiss and his shift in tone, Tav laughs lightly and rubs a thumb on his forearm.
“I missed you too, my Gale,” she tucks a curl behind her ear, “So much… By the way—do you do anything special or different to my tea when you make it for me?”
He tilts his head, amused. “Special or different how?”
She tries to find a way to explain, but can’t come up with anything clearer than plain truth. “Your mom made me tea and I made myself tea and it didn’t taste as good as when you do it. Do you use anything atypical or non-obvious?”
“Ah I see. Well, besides an abundance of love, I can think of no special additions.”
Tav squints her eyes at him suspiciously before stealing one more kiss and shooing him away to a hot bath. With all the bending he’s been doing in the past hour, his poor spine and joints will thank him for it. The sound he makes when he stands up straight proves her right, but Gale says he still regrets nothing as he leaves.
It takes several minutes after Gale leaves for Tav to refocus on finishing her workshop plans because of her girlish swooning (and over her own husband). But then she finally gets back to the task that he so wonderfully interrupted.
A short while later, just as she’s about to move on to their plans for the rooftop addition, Tav realizes a growing heat between her legs. She shifts in her seat but nothing changes. And then she jolts at the pressure of a warm, wet hand between her thighs.
Oh sweet Selûne.
Gale’s fingers drip water as they part her lips and the wet width of his tongue suddenly swipes the length of her, pressing deep into her folds. She pushes her chair out to lay her head in her arms on the desk in front of her, thighs spreading apart like it even matters.
But honestly, she doesn’t think she actually wants it to. Tav doesn’t want control. What Tav wants is for Gale to take what he wants. For Gale to take what he wants without apology. For Gale to take as much for himself as he gives to her. And, also, for Gale to not treat her like glass. Obviously. But maybe even this is a cover for really wanting him to just trust that they can take care of each other. No matter what. Through anything.
And right now, this looks like enjoying as Gale makes a meal out of her without so much as a hello. Because her always means always.
Gale’s tongue swirls around her clit before lapping at her there, the end of his tongue flicking her in a playful tease before moving back down to her entrance. The soft inside of Gale’s robe rubs against her slit as she grinds on her chair. Tav puffs warm breaths into his sleeves as she moans softly, feeling too warm all over, but too weak and too fucking in love with him to take it off.
Gale kisses her clit with chaste little presses of his pursed lips. Once, twice. And then he slaps her flushed cunt. It’s light and Tav still jolts with a gasp that catches in her throat. His hand rubs the length of her like a salve before dragging down her slit and away.
Tav tries to spread her thighs wider and the chair doesn’t let her. Godsdammit.
Gale is petting the length of her again, up and down, as she moves to the nearby couch in their study, right beside a large window she and Gale have looked at the stars through on more than one night. She stumbles as her knee hits the seat cushion when Gale kisses her clit again. But she ends up on her elbows and her knees, ass in the air, spread open for Gale like she wants to be anyway. She digs her nails into the pillow under her face and rolls her hips uselessly, searching for more of Gale’s tongue and anything else, really.
He purses his lips for another sweet peck to her clit before giving her a spit slickened lick there. Tav’s lips part with a choked sound as he takes her clit into his hot mouth with more sucking kisses. Her mouth goes dry as she breathes raggedly through Gale’s hunger, quivering under the mouth that eats her and the perfect fingers that massage her opening and spread her open for his tongue. He buries his tongue inside of her, pushing and sucking and tasting before moving back to suck on her clit.
She can sense that he only grows ravenous. Gale pulls his mouth away to slap her cunt again, making her keen, before licking her longways like an animal. He rubs his face in her gratuitously, wetting his nose and his cheeks with her slickness as he feasts on her creamy cunt. And Tav stays face down, ass up on their study couch, legs spread, drooling into a pillow as she takes every bit of it.
Her cunt clenches in waves, but Gale only just barely dips his fingers into her hole, torturing her with the ceaseless, teasing pressure of his rubbing. Each shallow entrance of his fingers and swipe of his tongue make her pussy radiate a dizzyingly tingly sensation through her hole. She is a heartbeat. She is static.
When Gale finally gives her a finger, just one for her starving cunt, he only does so to curl it and rub at the bumpy spot on the inside of her front wall as he laps at her. With urgent movements, he coaxes Tav into sobs. Heat builds inside of her, growing a knot in a pit below her navel. She succumbs to and fights against the pressure as she’s dragging to an edge she doesn’t want to get pushed off of.
Because it feels too fucking good. Because she fucking loves Gale and she loves that he’s probably fucking himself with a Mage Hand in their bathtub as he slurps at her cunt through a toy because he couldn’t wait until after his bath to have her in his mouth. Her precious, pussyhungry Gale.
Tension pulls her cunt tight around Gale’s finger as she cums and then there are enough stars bursting in her eyes to rival the Outer Planes. Their shimmering dust sprinkles across her skin in a prickling heat that rolls through her like a thunderstorm. Her thighs shake and Tav knows she’s crying openly but she can hear nothing but the pounding of blood in her ears.
Through the heat that dominates her senses, she smells something familiar. Rosewater. Crisp apples. They fill the air of their study and she sees the familiar light of a very familiar spell as it comes into being behind her. And then a touch that feels like home lays itself on her hips, rubbing circles into her through Gale’s robe.
“Goddess. Look at you…” His voice is low and soft and not quite disbelieving. He caresses her ass and her back and her hips and her thighs, touching and grabbing everything he’s been deprived of.
“Oh, my love,” Gale’s special sincerity makes her drool and clench. Because this sincerity is just for her.
“Is this what you looked like while I was gone?”
He rolls up the length of his robe, moving the fabric out of the way of her spread thighs. The only thing she’s had on underneath it this whole time is her short, billowing tunic that is rucked up out of the way without difficulty.
“Is this how you were while I fucked you awake from dreams that had your perfect little cunt quivering and soaking in your sleep?”
The air of the room on her ass makes her aware of just how much of the inside of her thighs are shiny wet. Droplets of water fall on her bared skin as Gale hums approvingly at what he sees. He didn’t even stop to dry fully before coming to her. Her head spins with desire as she maneuvers to try and catch sight of him. She can only snag the length of his tan side, a sliver of his delectable chest and his naked hip and the thick thigh of the leg still on the floor.
“Did you use d-dimension door?” Her question is weak and dry.
Gale chuckles in a rush of breath. And then the tip of his cock makes contact with her dewy cunt, dragging his length along the slippery seam of her, pressing into her folds just enough to make her squirm. And squirm she does.
And if he did, Gale teases. Will she call him frivolous again?
If she tries to speak now, she’ll croak. So Tav only shakes her head no. Vigorously.
Gale slaps the length of himself on her slit and then presses himself into her without reluctance. Oh fucking hells—
“I didn’t think so,” Gale sighs. Strained and happy and wanton and needy. “My darling wife, love of my life… You just want to be a good toy for me, don’t you? That’s why you handed over your perfect pussy to take with me, yes?”
Her heart stutters. She nods eagerly.
“Will you be okay if I give you this right now?” He asks this with no small amount of seriousness and Tav smiles weakly into her pillow. She nods again.
“Wonderful.”
He sets a quick, brutal pace. Just like she wants. He holds her firmly as his pelvis smacks into her ass in a mind-shaking rhythm, balls slapping against her clit with every snap of his hips. Her hole clings to him, wetness suctioning to his cock as if to keep him buried to the hilt. Tav arches her back further and clutches the pillow under her head as each thrust fills the study with lewd, slick sounds.
She is almost overwhelmed by the sensory input she’s getting now after just a few days of getting just his cock and his tongue and his fingers without any of the rest of it. The safe cradle of his hands. The wet slap of his front hitting her ass. The light dusting of hair on his thighs and happy trail brushing against the back of her as he moves.
And his sounds. Fuck. If Gale knew the only weapon of persuasion he could ever need against her is the sound of him as he fucks her, she would be screwed. But it’s true. He is just so vocal. So open to her. His gasps and groans and growls pluck strings of pleasure inside of her, specific to those melodies alone. He could whimper and whine in her ear unprovoked and get whatever fucking thing he wanted.
“Good toy,” he moans, “Such a good fucking toy. My perfect toy.”
His to play with, Gale grunts. His to fill. To fuck. To taste. To love and worship. That’s what she was muttering in her sleep when he got home last night, he tells her. Dreamy little murmurs about getting fucked so hard the shape of his dick gets stamped into her cunt. She told him to use her while she rubbed her empty little pussy on one of their pillows between her thighs and it took everything he had to not give her what she wanted right then.
Tav is too busy moaning with her mouth agape to really process that, too grateful for Gale fucking her like she’s just a liquid velvet hole for his cock, like he hasn’t for months out of fear of hurting her. Tav can barely breathe through how much she wants this, how much her body burns, how much pleasure bows her back. Her face and chest are hot like she’s breathing fire.
Gale’s exhale stutters, choking on the thickness in his own throat. His grip on her hips squeezes and Tav hears him say gods help me under his breath, head pitched down. He’s probably looking at himself buried between her legs, pulling out and slamming back in to see the way she leaks around him to make their connections sodden. In and out, stretching her pussy open and oh fuck oh fuck oh—
“My love, I-I don’t think I can keep this up much—oh gods!”
Tav seizes tight as she sobs loudly, sucking in ragged breaths as she cums around his throbbing cock and Gale falls into the chasm with her. His thrusts slow as he fills her with his seed, but they slap roughly against her ass as he presses deep, pulsing and feral and driven by the impulse to claim.
After a few moments of sucking in air, Gale moves quickly to get her off of her elbows and knees. Tav laughs deliriously as Gale frets about her straining herself and he tuts as he pulls her back against his chest.
Tav lays against him and closes her eyes in a loose, well-fucked calm. They breathe quietly together for a while longer and then Tav feels the thrum of the Weave from behind her.
A familiar bottle appears in front of her face.
“Drink,” Gale says, still breathless.
It’s a healing potion.
She tells him her knees hurt a bit, but she’s fine. Really. And she enjoyed herself very much.
But it’s Gale’s turn to laugh then. Because first, as he says, he loves her dearly. And second: that’s not what the potion is for.
His fingers lower to the final remnant of the knot that held his robe closed around her and undo it completely before pulling it open to expose her fully. A satisfied sound rumbles in the chest behind her back as Gale looks down at the length of her body. Her flushed chest. Her rounded stomach. Beautiful, he says. And Tav burns redder.
His fingers continue their journey down to reach her thighs. He touches the messy, slippery folds of her cunt, coated in her and him and them. Her thighs fall open on their own to his touch, minor soreness forgotten. Two of his fingers sink into her with an absolutely filthy noise. His cum drips out of her onto the very fussy upholstery of this couch and Tav pants as he spreads his fingers inside of her.
Gale’s voice is low, but clear. “I’m not nearly done playing with you yet…”
Tav uncorks the potion.
-
Later, after they are both fully spent, they take a long bath. They wash each other’s backs and hair and soak in water that doesn’t cool. Gale hums a little song as he detangles her curls with care.
He tells her he will try his best to loosen up at least some of the time so they can enjoy each other as they’d like—whatever that may look like. And so she won’t feel so smothered. He asks her if she can be patient with him and Tav replies that she would be honored.
They have a late lunch of cheese and bread and meat and fruit spread out on a large tray that they devour fully and then they settle for a nap. When they wake in the evening, Tav shows Gale the work she’s done on the schematics for their additions to the tower and he examines them excitedly. He makes tea and fetches the notes and book copies he brought back, showing her a few insights he took from texts not on their list that should be particularly helpful for the relevant Weavework.
He holds her from behind, a chin on her shoulder as she looks down at his writings while he explains. She takes a sip of her tea. It tastes as it should.
“My love?”
She has gone quiet, absorbed by thoughts of home and belonging and what it means to meet the right person in the right way and how none of this was what she thought she’d find when she first left her own home when she was twelve, but it is what she now has. Gale. Their coming child. Their friends. The family they now share.
She tries to say thank you for loving me without crying, but she doesn’t manage it.
Fucking hormones.