GODWINPORN part the third, and other things that are finished.
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Wrote the Pyg overture reduction today. It is done and I am happy.
.
Also, this, which is DECIDEDLY NOT WORKSAFE:
What’s Another Minute or So?
a brief foray into Genso Suikoden V
and a continuation of Then, Tell Me What You'll Do To Me and You Know Where This is Going
by Mithrigil Galtirglin
Fate’s sense of humor is dependent entirely on timing.
Senate is in session, belaboring the recent addenda to Gladiatorial rights; Her Majesty Arshtat is actually in labor. Gizel is unsure which has caused more of a stir among his father’s entourage, and equally unsure as to which event affects him more. On the one hand, the Gladiators are integral to the culture of Stormfist, to tradition, to country and caste and all things Godwin.
On the other, Sialeeds.
So Gizel is in the rooms assigned to him, in the Palace of Sol-Falena, and the sun in question has decided to angle itself into his window as it sets, and heat the back of his neck. Sialeeds. It has been “a matter of hours” for a night and a day. It is improper for him to go to her. It is imprudent for him to go to Senate (as Father is also decidedly tenterhooked today). It is impossible for him to study under these conditions.
But, Fate, and her timing.
A knock.
“Yes?”
“Her Highness Sialeeds,” says the guard.
“Permit her,” Gizel answers, marking his book, shutting the pages over the pen, standing all too quickly but then, the door is opening.
Sialeeds. She nods at the guard, and the guard shuts her in, and Galleon isn’t over her shoulder so she must have- She’s awkward. She’s lovely. She’s still very close to the door.
“They named her Lymsleia,” she says. Her chest is rising, quickly, in pulses. Did she run here? “Her. I mean. Arshtat had a girl. I’m not the heir anymore. I.”
Gizel’s hand flattens on the book’s cover. “Yes.”
“Yes,” she repeats. Her hair’s an utter mess. She’s not looking him in the eyes. And then she is. And then she’s running at him. And then she’s grabbed him by the cravat and their bodies are aligned and oh.
Not like this. Not on her terms. Closer than this. He’s planned this. He’s wanted this. He promised her this. He takes her by the shoulders and turns her, pins her to the nearest thing, the desk, and he’s taller than her now, he realizes, smiling, sliding his hands up to her cheeks. Her hair. Her eyelashes.
Her knuckles press against his neck. He’s shaking there, or she is, he can’t tell who and that’s what makes this-“What happened to wanting to kiss me?” she says, pouting, and she’s so close that he could and now he can.
But. “We’ve waited months,” he answers, grinning, stroking his fingertips up her cheek, her ear. “What’s another minute or so?”
“You bastard.” She arches her chest up into his, and she’s warm, and her dress is thin enough to know there’s sweat underneath it. “You really are in it for the words.”
“Perhaps,” he says, and wonders where he gets this. His thumb is near her lip, and he remembers, touches it, feels more than just breath on his skin and almost can’t say this. “I’ve grown accustomed to frustration in our time together. It seems an inevitable element of anything we do.”
“Of all the times to be a traditionalist.”
“Recall that tradition is the source of this conundrum.”
She does the most wonderful thing with her legs around his, slides up the desk, pulls him closer by his neck and almost scowls. “If you really just want to hear the sound of your own voice-”
Now.
It’s everything. It’s darkness and heat and sound and the brush of her tongue, the flats of her nails on his neck and her thigh between his. She’s never kissed before and he knows it, knows by the way she’s trying to drink him down and make him hers with her mouth but damned if he’ll let that happen. He holds her face hard, curls his fingers in her hair and keeps her, almost where he’s wanted her since before he knew how to get her here. Almost, because she certainly knows she should never give him everything.
She’s the first to gasp, to try and pull away for air and shock and admonition. “Gizel-you-I-”
“Not what you expected?” He says it stably enough but that actually did hurt, a bit.
She glares. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he thinks she says before she yanks him down again. She pulls his hair, digs her nails into him, wraps her legs around his hips and Gizel can hear things fall to the floor, perhaps, there are more important things right now than whether his page is still marked. Like this. Like her. Like making this his forever. Her kiss is searing and her hands, painful, and he knew it would be like this from so long pretending and perhaps, perhaps it’s not what he expected either but it’s Sialeeds, and that’s what matters.
He’s the one to run out of breath this time, to let go of her hair to grab her thighs and pull her closer. The edge of the desk is cold but not as sharp as her nails, just enough to remind him that there’s cloth there, another barrier. But that can wait. He could kiss her like this until sunset. He may. He wants to.
She pulls away and he bites her lower lip, just a little, listens to his teeth snap closed when she’s gone. Without her the air seems cold and insufficient. Like this, on the desk, she’s taller than him, and when he cracks his eyes open her throat is bared. He kisses her there instead, slowly, feels everything under her skin racing, her breath, her blood. Her shoulders are bare and he takes them again, remembers how to undo her dress. Not yet.
“Gizel.”
“Anything,” he whispers, almost truly.
Her throat shakes under his lips. “I thought I wouldn’t have to tell you what I want to do anymore.”
He stops. Grips her shoulders. Pulls back enough to look at her, at the ruination of her hair, at how fast her eyelashes flutter, at how red he’s left her mouth.
“I,” she says, panting. “You-Let me off the desk.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’ll have a lot of trouble getting me out of my clothes.”
She-I-
“Not to mention yours.” There’s rasp in her voice, and he knows what gets her that way, he’d have to.
Yes. “This is true,” he says. He pushes his hips against hers once more before he does, maybe as a reminder, maybe because of something he isn’t in control of. She parts her legs and he steps back from them, lets go of her, feels the sting of her nails leaving his scalp and his neck and-and she looks debauched, ruined, wanting and base and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, it’s her, it’s what he wants. “You-for everything I say, all the words and-”
“I know.” Her voice is all breath. “Just forget the words. Do things.” She slides off the desk, close to him again, reaching for his cravat not to use it but to undo it. “Don’t think you’re the only one all this waiting was torturing.”
“I wouldn’t dare think so.” He remembers the knots, how to get past them, how awkward it was for her to do it alone.
“Now you’re going to get out of your clothes,” she says, and her voice, it’s cracking like his-like his hasn’t been, like it isn’t, “and you’re going to help me out of mine. And then you’re going to shut up and let me touch you.” His cravat hits the floor, right next to his book. “Got it?”
He can’t help but smirk. Well, if she wants his words, she can have them. He grabs the knots and kisses her instead, hard, maybe clumsily but he won’t be embarrassed by something like this.
“I mean it,” she says, pulling away, enough that one of those knots comes undone on its own. “If we’re going to do this, I’m going to get what I want out of it too.”
If we’re going to do this.
He has to stare at her again. His arms fall at his sides, lead-heavy.
“You don’t want to-”
“Permit me to speak?”
“Gizel-”
“Do you have any idea how much I want to? I-”
“Don’t explain.” She grits her teeth. “Don’t describe.”
He glares. “How much more can I show you?”
She reaches behind her back and starts going at the rest of those knots, her chest thrust out almost to his. She doesn’t answer that.
Nodding, he looks for something-the desk chair, when did that topple?-and props his foot up on it to get at his boots. It hurts to double over like that, hurts in one of the best possible places and ways. Something about the scent of the room has changed, the position of the sun, the span of his hands. Getting free of his shoes has never felt this good or this important-
There are flares going off, outside, and horns, and glittering bursts of color and fire and banners. That’s right. The Queen has had her heir.
Gizel kicks off his boot on the way to the window and yanks the curtain shut.
When he turns around, undoing his vest, Sialeeds is smiling again. She’s putting the comb from her hair down on the desk, and without the sun it doesn’t glitter, the gems solid and dark. He’ll give her one of his mother’s, he decides, or have one made for her, all her own. This time he goes to her, gets into her space, splays his fingers in her hair and cards both hands through, slowly, savoring how the tangles catch on his skin. “You’re right, the strands are thicker,” he says, and does it again, kisses her, and again and again-
“Walk the walk, Gizel,” she says, pulling away. “Still too much talking.”
He can balance words with actions, then. There are still a few more knots on her dress that he should undo for her. For them both. “I thought you’d had your fill of rules,” he says, tangling his hands in the cloth. His knuckles press into her back, where the outer-dress bares it, and he thinks about the differences in her skin, how well he knows them even without having lain a hand on them before.
“Maybe I’ve gotten used to them too,” she snaps, tearing his vest off his shoulders, getting them trapped in his elbows. She grapples for the buttons to his shirt next, not that her arms have much room to work, what with her breasts and how close they are to him. “At least I’m not dependent on them like you.”
“Do I mistake that for a challenge, Your Hi-Your Grace,” he corrects, grinning, she’s no longer the heir, and there’s another knot down, another naked swathe of skin on her back for him to touch.
“Not by a long shot,” she-gasps, when he does that.
“Good.” He digs his nails in, makes her arch her body into his. “So we’re dispensing with all of them?”
She starts to answer. He doesn’t wait.
Her dress comes off easily enough with one knot still mostly done. The cloth gathers around her knees, where they’re vying with his. She glares when he grabs her, captures her, digs his fingertips into her backside. When did he get this much taller than her? When did they start to fit this way?
Like this, he kisses her. With her hands pinned and protesting between them. With her hair batting his cheeks as she writhes. With his own clothing binding him, a reminder that neither of them has gotten what they want yet.
But there’s-there’s real power in this.
And he almost drops her because that hits so hard, between his eyes and between his legs.
The bed. Which direction is the bed in. Does it matter.
No.
The carpet isn’t soft by any stretch of his imagination. All the more reason to stay on top of Sialeeds instead. He lets off her back only because he has to, crashes his hands into hers-she’s still-she’s still trying to get him out of his shirt, but he’d rather touch her, and on some level both of them are right but no, there’s no time for understanding now. He’s spent too many months looking and not enough having, and if there’s any time to have it’s now. He doesn’t even know where his mouth is on her now, on her chin, neck, shoulder, lower-not that she’s just letting him, but her hands are-can he say her hands are in the way when he’s kissing them as well, when they rap against his cheek because his shirt’s too far away? He can. He can because he’s lost his patience and his dignity and he still cares, but-
A challenge, she said.
He looks up, along the curve of her stomach, between her breasts and the spike of her collarbones. Her eyes are glazed over, lost but not vulnerable, lashes shivering, and her mouth red and wet and bruised.
“Don’t talk.” Her voice cracks.
-Hadn’t planned on it. He bows his head to her breasts, kisses between them, along the underside-her sweat tastes just how he’d imagined it to, how she smells, and her skin-softer, he remembers, and yes, the way she shivers against his tongue and pulls on his shirt, higher and painful by comparison-he breathes, just to make her remember, but goes through on his threat and takes her nipple into his mouth, traces around it with his tongue and teeth and she’s-she’s swearing at him, pushing up at his chest with her hips and the confusion of cloth that’s still between them-
He can’t say it aloud, but he understands it now.
I am going to show you just how much I suffered.
He bares his teeth, brings his hand up to her other side and gathers her skin, feels it under and between his fingers and yes, what he wanted, what she did for him so many times-she moans, and his name is on it, and he’d do almost anything to feel that again, to feel her chest surge under his mouth and hear the sound breaking, to have her knee rubbing against his cock-he-damn it all he wants to deny her, the way she denied him, the way the rules denied him.
Still not allowed to speak, he remembers, he’ll save that, but he looks up and lifts himself over her and when his shirt came undone, he doesn’t know. He turns aside to get rid of it, feels her thigh tensing between his legs-remembers. They talked about what should happen here, how implicitly equal, how much better she feels sitting straight than lying down, how he’d defer to her and keep his control.
The rules can go to Hell.
She gasps and writhes as if she’s drowning, when he settles his hand between her thighs. She even flinches away, and Gizel can hear her underclothes snap onto her skin, muffled and wet-like his fingers are now, that’s-she wants him- “Gizel-”
He smirks.
“I-” She’s up on her elbows, her breasts heaving and the carpet scraping under her, under the cloth. Her knee leaves him and he wants to follow it. “Not so fast,” she says, and he’d believe her if she didn’t still sound like-like- “You too. Yours too.”
“No,” he says.
“What do you mean n-” And that cuts off into a shudder when he does it again, pressing his fingers into her through the cloth of her underclothes, she’s wet even there- “Gizel-”
However much he’d like her to say his name like that again and again, he kisses her instead, pins her to the floor with nearly all of his weight. She told him how this works, there’s a-there’s a place inside her that’s different than the rest, harder and tighter, he’s watched her move her hand there, didn’t know the angle was this awkward but-she bucks under him, shouts something into his mouth but tightens around him, closes her arms on his back and-ah, her nails, no wonder she-that-that-
“You like that,” she says around his tongue, and his back is burning, enough that his hand goes still and he grinds against the back of it.
No. Her first. He stops long enough to grab one of those hands and slam it into the carpet, off to the side, weighs down on his hips so that his hand slides deeper in, it’s so slick, so easy. He watches her hiss, her eyes roll back and the breath shudder out of her like it wants to stay down. “And you like this.”
This time she kisses him, if it can be called that, bites his lips and spears into his back with the hand he can’t hold. He finds-he finds something, isn’t certain it feels the way she described but she claws at him and then her nails are gone, her legs pull tense and her tongue shudders against his. Gizel rubs his knuckles together, tests, spreads his fingers and finds that again, with the back of his nails-he remembers, ha, he doesn’t need to remember that hers are long, she wouldn’t have touched herself that way-and he holds still once he knows, lets her strive with her hips and her legs, lets her move around him. And she does. She-she’s-the word for it is crude and provincial but she’s doing that to his hand.
She rolls his lower lip in her teeth and that, well, the blood’s swelling there and the pain’s enough to remind him of where else. Where else. Where he’s pushing against the back of his own hand and the insides of her thighs. Where that could be, where his hand is, where she’s warm and “Don’t stop that, Gizel, don’t-just that-I might-”
You will, he thinks and nearly says-but the words go wherever they please.
“Not yet,” he tells the corner of her mouth, and edges his fingers just a little deeper.
He has to hold her wrist down, hold all of her down, nearly fails to. “What do you mean not yet-”
“I’ve been-patient,” he manages to say, even now forcing his hips down into hers, hoping she can feel just that. “I’ve been patient, and it’s been” hard “difficult, more than you know. But you-you don’t want me to tell you how much.” He thumbs at her wrist, kisses her quickly. His lip is going to bruise. “And yet I still want you to know.” He withdraws his fingers, hoping he’ll-yes, he got her there, just a little. “So I won’t-tell you.”
“You-you asshole!”
No one has ever dared call him that. It’s almost flattering. “Didn’t you say you wanted me to get out of my clothing as well?” He’s a little out of breath, but the sentiment holds.
She scrambles out from under him, along the carpet, her dress slipping further down her and her thighs so soft on the sides of his fingers. When he gets to his feet, unbuttons his pants, his fingers slip and smear and that, that’s maddening. She kicks the inside of his ankle, not enough to hurt, just enough to make him stagger and want and she’s standing too, pushing her clothes and underclothes down her hips. She’s holding her legs so firm together, nocking her knees like there’s something to keep in place, once she steps out of everything. He’s seen her naked before, but never after touching her, and there’s a difference, the flush of her skin and the throbbing of her lips.
Gizel looks her in the eyes, knows that he’s smiling and hopes it’s not young-looking. “Well, didn’t you?”
Instead of saying something, she just glares, hotly, her shoulders shaking from the weight of her breath. Gizel’s seen her naked before, yes, but never so transparent, never so easily read.
“We are doing this,” he says, still holding his pants open at his hips.
She shakes her head. “Not if it’s a game to you.”
“Sialeeds-”
“I want it,” she says. “It’s stupid for me to deny that. You could feel that, couldn’t you?”
He does try to answer-
“But if you’re going to make it some kind of contest,” and she says that as if it’s a filthier word than what she just called him, “I’m not interested. That’s not what I’m here for.”
His eyebrow can’t help but raise at that. “And what are you here for?”
Perhaps she isn’t transparent, because Gizel has no idea what she means by scoffing and bending back over to gather her dress.
No. The answer to that gesture is simply no. He doesn’t tell her so, just lets go of the waist of his pants and stops her, steps near to her and bows and plants his hands on her shoulders. No.
If that shiver that runs through her and up his arms is any indication, she realized the same thing he is, just a second before. That last was not a carnal touch. Not an hour ago and something that natural would have meant his death, if they considered the rules.
She swats him away but looks up at him, along him. His pants are around his ankles and this is thoroughly undignified but it’s Sialeeds. She doesn’t want him to be dignified. “Gizel-”
“We’re going to be married,” he says. The words go wherever they please and this time it’s straight to his cock. “No one is going to take that from me, least of all you.”
Her skin chills. It’s enough to make him realize how much his hands are sweating, how much of that wet is him and how little is her anymore.
“You’re going to help me back into my dress,” she says, more to the floor than to him. “You remember which knots are hard for me to tie.”
“Sialeeds-”
She’s out from under his hands, back straight and eyes narrow, imperious, and right on his. “No.” It’s a whisper that burns. “It’ll happen. You tend to get what you actually want.” She sighs, and her breasts shake. “But not now. I don’t want to right now.”
“You-” are mine.
“Just help me get my clothes on, Gizel.” Every word seems like a sigh of its own, cold and heavy. “We’ve done it a dozen times. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Gizel has nothing to say to that.
---
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Wrote the Pyg overture reduction today. It is done and I am happy.
.
Also, this, which is DECIDEDLY NOT WORKSAFE:
What’s Another Minute or So?
a brief foray into Genso Suikoden V
and a continuation of Then, Tell Me What You'll Do To Me and You Know Where This is Going
by Mithrigil Galtirglin
Fate’s sense of humor is dependent entirely on timing.
Senate is in session, belaboring the recent addenda to Gladiatorial rights; Her Majesty Arshtat is actually in labor. Gizel is unsure which has caused more of a stir among his father’s entourage, and equally unsure as to which event affects him more. On the one hand, the Gladiators are integral to the culture of Stormfist, to tradition, to country and caste and all things Godwin.
On the other, Sialeeds.
So Gizel is in the rooms assigned to him, in the Palace of Sol-Falena, and the sun in question has decided to angle itself into his window as it sets, and heat the back of his neck. Sialeeds. It has been “a matter of hours” for a night and a day. It is improper for him to go to her. It is imprudent for him to go to Senate (as Father is also decidedly tenterhooked today). It is impossible for him to study under these conditions.
But, Fate, and her timing.
A knock.
“Yes?”
“Her Highness Sialeeds,” says the guard.
“Permit her,” Gizel answers, marking his book, shutting the pages over the pen, standing all too quickly but then, the door is opening.
Sialeeds. She nods at the guard, and the guard shuts her in, and Galleon isn’t over her shoulder so she must have- She’s awkward. She’s lovely. She’s still very close to the door.
“They named her Lymsleia,” she says. Her chest is rising, quickly, in pulses. Did she run here? “Her. I mean. Arshtat had a girl. I’m not the heir anymore. I.”
Gizel’s hand flattens on the book’s cover. “Yes.”
“Yes,” she repeats. Her hair’s an utter mess. She’s not looking him in the eyes. And then she is. And then she’s running at him. And then she’s grabbed him by the cravat and their bodies are aligned and oh.
Not like this. Not on her terms. Closer than this. He’s planned this. He’s wanted this. He promised her this. He takes her by the shoulders and turns her, pins her to the nearest thing, the desk, and he’s taller than her now, he realizes, smiling, sliding his hands up to her cheeks. Her hair. Her eyelashes.
Her knuckles press against his neck. He’s shaking there, or she is, he can’t tell who and that’s what makes this-“What happened to wanting to kiss me?” she says, pouting, and she’s so close that he could and now he can.
But. “We’ve waited months,” he answers, grinning, stroking his fingertips up her cheek, her ear. “What’s another minute or so?”
“You bastard.” She arches her chest up into his, and she’s warm, and her dress is thin enough to know there’s sweat underneath it. “You really are in it for the words.”
“Perhaps,” he says, and wonders where he gets this. His thumb is near her lip, and he remembers, touches it, feels more than just breath on his skin and almost can’t say this. “I’ve grown accustomed to frustration in our time together. It seems an inevitable element of anything we do.”
“Of all the times to be a traditionalist.”
“Recall that tradition is the source of this conundrum.”
She does the most wonderful thing with her legs around his, slides up the desk, pulls him closer by his neck and almost scowls. “If you really just want to hear the sound of your own voice-”
Now.
It’s everything. It’s darkness and heat and sound and the brush of her tongue, the flats of her nails on his neck and her thigh between his. She’s never kissed before and he knows it, knows by the way she’s trying to drink him down and make him hers with her mouth but damned if he’ll let that happen. He holds her face hard, curls his fingers in her hair and keeps her, almost where he’s wanted her since before he knew how to get her here. Almost, because she certainly knows she should never give him everything.
She’s the first to gasp, to try and pull away for air and shock and admonition. “Gizel-you-I-”
“Not what you expected?” He says it stably enough but that actually did hurt, a bit.
She glares. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he thinks she says before she yanks him down again. She pulls his hair, digs her nails into him, wraps her legs around his hips and Gizel can hear things fall to the floor, perhaps, there are more important things right now than whether his page is still marked. Like this. Like her. Like making this his forever. Her kiss is searing and her hands, painful, and he knew it would be like this from so long pretending and perhaps, perhaps it’s not what he expected either but it’s Sialeeds, and that’s what matters.
He’s the one to run out of breath this time, to let go of her hair to grab her thighs and pull her closer. The edge of the desk is cold but not as sharp as her nails, just enough to remind him that there’s cloth there, another barrier. But that can wait. He could kiss her like this until sunset. He may. He wants to.
She pulls away and he bites her lower lip, just a little, listens to his teeth snap closed when she’s gone. Without her the air seems cold and insufficient. Like this, on the desk, she’s taller than him, and when he cracks his eyes open her throat is bared. He kisses her there instead, slowly, feels everything under her skin racing, her breath, her blood. Her shoulders are bare and he takes them again, remembers how to undo her dress. Not yet.
“Gizel.”
“Anything,” he whispers, almost truly.
Her throat shakes under his lips. “I thought I wouldn’t have to tell you what I want to do anymore.”
He stops. Grips her shoulders. Pulls back enough to look at her, at the ruination of her hair, at how fast her eyelashes flutter, at how red he’s left her mouth.
“I,” she says, panting. “You-Let me off the desk.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’ll have a lot of trouble getting me out of my clothes.”
She-I-
“Not to mention yours.” There’s rasp in her voice, and he knows what gets her that way, he’d have to.
Yes. “This is true,” he says. He pushes his hips against hers once more before he does, maybe as a reminder, maybe because of something he isn’t in control of. She parts her legs and he steps back from them, lets go of her, feels the sting of her nails leaving his scalp and his neck and-and she looks debauched, ruined, wanting and base and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, it’s her, it’s what he wants. “You-for everything I say, all the words and-”
“I know.” Her voice is all breath. “Just forget the words. Do things.” She slides off the desk, close to him again, reaching for his cravat not to use it but to undo it. “Don’t think you’re the only one all this waiting was torturing.”
“I wouldn’t dare think so.” He remembers the knots, how to get past them, how awkward it was for her to do it alone.
“Now you’re going to get out of your clothes,” she says, and her voice, it’s cracking like his-like his hasn’t been, like it isn’t, “and you’re going to help me out of mine. And then you’re going to shut up and let me touch you.” His cravat hits the floor, right next to his book. “Got it?”
He can’t help but smirk. Well, if she wants his words, she can have them. He grabs the knots and kisses her instead, hard, maybe clumsily but he won’t be embarrassed by something like this.
“I mean it,” she says, pulling away, enough that one of those knots comes undone on its own. “If we’re going to do this, I’m going to get what I want out of it too.”
If we’re going to do this.
He has to stare at her again. His arms fall at his sides, lead-heavy.
“You don’t want to-”
“Permit me to speak?”
“Gizel-”
“Do you have any idea how much I want to? I-”
“Don’t explain.” She grits her teeth. “Don’t describe.”
He glares. “How much more can I show you?”
She reaches behind her back and starts going at the rest of those knots, her chest thrust out almost to his. She doesn’t answer that.
Nodding, he looks for something-the desk chair, when did that topple?-and props his foot up on it to get at his boots. It hurts to double over like that, hurts in one of the best possible places and ways. Something about the scent of the room has changed, the position of the sun, the span of his hands. Getting free of his shoes has never felt this good or this important-
There are flares going off, outside, and horns, and glittering bursts of color and fire and banners. That’s right. The Queen has had her heir.
Gizel kicks off his boot on the way to the window and yanks the curtain shut.
When he turns around, undoing his vest, Sialeeds is smiling again. She’s putting the comb from her hair down on the desk, and without the sun it doesn’t glitter, the gems solid and dark. He’ll give her one of his mother’s, he decides, or have one made for her, all her own. This time he goes to her, gets into her space, splays his fingers in her hair and cards both hands through, slowly, savoring how the tangles catch on his skin. “You’re right, the strands are thicker,” he says, and does it again, kisses her, and again and again-
“Walk the walk, Gizel,” she says, pulling away. “Still too much talking.”
He can balance words with actions, then. There are still a few more knots on her dress that he should undo for her. For them both. “I thought you’d had your fill of rules,” he says, tangling his hands in the cloth. His knuckles press into her back, where the outer-dress bares it, and he thinks about the differences in her skin, how well he knows them even without having lain a hand on them before.
“Maybe I’ve gotten used to them too,” she snaps, tearing his vest off his shoulders, getting them trapped in his elbows. She grapples for the buttons to his shirt next, not that her arms have much room to work, what with her breasts and how close they are to him. “At least I’m not dependent on them like you.”
“Do I mistake that for a challenge, Your Hi-Your Grace,” he corrects, grinning, she’s no longer the heir, and there’s another knot down, another naked swathe of skin on her back for him to touch.
“Not by a long shot,” she-gasps, when he does that.
“Good.” He digs his nails in, makes her arch her body into his. “So we’re dispensing with all of them?”
She starts to answer. He doesn’t wait.
Her dress comes off easily enough with one knot still mostly done. The cloth gathers around her knees, where they’re vying with his. She glares when he grabs her, captures her, digs his fingertips into her backside. When did he get this much taller than her? When did they start to fit this way?
Like this, he kisses her. With her hands pinned and protesting between them. With her hair batting his cheeks as she writhes. With his own clothing binding him, a reminder that neither of them has gotten what they want yet.
But there’s-there’s real power in this.
And he almost drops her because that hits so hard, between his eyes and between his legs.
The bed. Which direction is the bed in. Does it matter.
No.
The carpet isn’t soft by any stretch of his imagination. All the more reason to stay on top of Sialeeds instead. He lets off her back only because he has to, crashes his hands into hers-she’s still-she’s still trying to get him out of his shirt, but he’d rather touch her, and on some level both of them are right but no, there’s no time for understanding now. He’s spent too many months looking and not enough having, and if there’s any time to have it’s now. He doesn’t even know where his mouth is on her now, on her chin, neck, shoulder, lower-not that she’s just letting him, but her hands are-can he say her hands are in the way when he’s kissing them as well, when they rap against his cheek because his shirt’s too far away? He can. He can because he’s lost his patience and his dignity and he still cares, but-
A challenge, she said.
He looks up, along the curve of her stomach, between her breasts and the spike of her collarbones. Her eyes are glazed over, lost but not vulnerable, lashes shivering, and her mouth red and wet and bruised.
“Don’t talk.” Her voice cracks.
-Hadn’t planned on it. He bows his head to her breasts, kisses between them, along the underside-her sweat tastes just how he’d imagined it to, how she smells, and her skin-softer, he remembers, and yes, the way she shivers against his tongue and pulls on his shirt, higher and painful by comparison-he breathes, just to make her remember, but goes through on his threat and takes her nipple into his mouth, traces around it with his tongue and teeth and she’s-she’s swearing at him, pushing up at his chest with her hips and the confusion of cloth that’s still between them-
He can’t say it aloud, but he understands it now.
I am going to show you just how much I suffered.
He bares his teeth, brings his hand up to her other side and gathers her skin, feels it under and between his fingers and yes, what he wanted, what she did for him so many times-she moans, and his name is on it, and he’d do almost anything to feel that again, to feel her chest surge under his mouth and hear the sound breaking, to have her knee rubbing against his cock-he-damn it all he wants to deny her, the way she denied him, the way the rules denied him.
Still not allowed to speak, he remembers, he’ll save that, but he looks up and lifts himself over her and when his shirt came undone, he doesn’t know. He turns aside to get rid of it, feels her thigh tensing between his legs-remembers. They talked about what should happen here, how implicitly equal, how much better she feels sitting straight than lying down, how he’d defer to her and keep his control.
The rules can go to Hell.
She gasps and writhes as if she’s drowning, when he settles his hand between her thighs. She even flinches away, and Gizel can hear her underclothes snap onto her skin, muffled and wet-like his fingers are now, that’s-she wants him- “Gizel-”
He smirks.
“I-” She’s up on her elbows, her breasts heaving and the carpet scraping under her, under the cloth. Her knee leaves him and he wants to follow it. “Not so fast,” she says, and he’d believe her if she didn’t still sound like-like- “You too. Yours too.”
“No,” he says.
“What do you mean n-” And that cuts off into a shudder when he does it again, pressing his fingers into her through the cloth of her underclothes, she’s wet even there- “Gizel-”
However much he’d like her to say his name like that again and again, he kisses her instead, pins her to the floor with nearly all of his weight. She told him how this works, there’s a-there’s a place inside her that’s different than the rest, harder and tighter, he’s watched her move her hand there, didn’t know the angle was this awkward but-she bucks under him, shouts something into his mouth but tightens around him, closes her arms on his back and-ah, her nails, no wonder she-that-that-
“You like that,” she says around his tongue, and his back is burning, enough that his hand goes still and he grinds against the back of it.
No. Her first. He stops long enough to grab one of those hands and slam it into the carpet, off to the side, weighs down on his hips so that his hand slides deeper in, it’s so slick, so easy. He watches her hiss, her eyes roll back and the breath shudder out of her like it wants to stay down. “And you like this.”
This time she kisses him, if it can be called that, bites his lips and spears into his back with the hand he can’t hold. He finds-he finds something, isn’t certain it feels the way she described but she claws at him and then her nails are gone, her legs pull tense and her tongue shudders against his. Gizel rubs his knuckles together, tests, spreads his fingers and finds that again, with the back of his nails-he remembers, ha, he doesn’t need to remember that hers are long, she wouldn’t have touched herself that way-and he holds still once he knows, lets her strive with her hips and her legs, lets her move around him. And she does. She-she’s-the word for it is crude and provincial but she’s doing that to his hand.
She rolls his lower lip in her teeth and that, well, the blood’s swelling there and the pain’s enough to remind him of where else. Where else. Where he’s pushing against the back of his own hand and the insides of her thighs. Where that could be, where his hand is, where she’s warm and “Don’t stop that, Gizel, don’t-just that-I might-”
You will, he thinks and nearly says-but the words go wherever they please.
“Not yet,” he tells the corner of her mouth, and edges his fingers just a little deeper.
He has to hold her wrist down, hold all of her down, nearly fails to. “What do you mean not yet-”
“I’ve been-patient,” he manages to say, even now forcing his hips down into hers, hoping she can feel just that. “I’ve been patient, and it’s been” hard “difficult, more than you know. But you-you don’t want me to tell you how much.” He thumbs at her wrist, kisses her quickly. His lip is going to bruise. “And yet I still want you to know.” He withdraws his fingers, hoping he’ll-yes, he got her there, just a little. “So I won’t-tell you.”
“You-you asshole!”
No one has ever dared call him that. It’s almost flattering. “Didn’t you say you wanted me to get out of my clothing as well?” He’s a little out of breath, but the sentiment holds.
She scrambles out from under him, along the carpet, her dress slipping further down her and her thighs so soft on the sides of his fingers. When he gets to his feet, unbuttons his pants, his fingers slip and smear and that, that’s maddening. She kicks the inside of his ankle, not enough to hurt, just enough to make him stagger and want and she’s standing too, pushing her clothes and underclothes down her hips. She’s holding her legs so firm together, nocking her knees like there’s something to keep in place, once she steps out of everything. He’s seen her naked before, but never after touching her, and there’s a difference, the flush of her skin and the throbbing of her lips.
Gizel looks her in the eyes, knows that he’s smiling and hopes it’s not young-looking. “Well, didn’t you?”
Instead of saying something, she just glares, hotly, her shoulders shaking from the weight of her breath. Gizel’s seen her naked before, yes, but never so transparent, never so easily read.
“We are doing this,” he says, still holding his pants open at his hips.
She shakes her head. “Not if it’s a game to you.”
“Sialeeds-”
“I want it,” she says. “It’s stupid for me to deny that. You could feel that, couldn’t you?”
He does try to answer-
“But if you’re going to make it some kind of contest,” and she says that as if it’s a filthier word than what she just called him, “I’m not interested. That’s not what I’m here for.”
His eyebrow can’t help but raise at that. “And what are you here for?”
Perhaps she isn’t transparent, because Gizel has no idea what she means by scoffing and bending back over to gather her dress.
No. The answer to that gesture is simply no. He doesn’t tell her so, just lets go of the waist of his pants and stops her, steps near to her and bows and plants his hands on her shoulders. No.
If that shiver that runs through her and up his arms is any indication, she realized the same thing he is, just a second before. That last was not a carnal touch. Not an hour ago and something that natural would have meant his death, if they considered the rules.
She swats him away but looks up at him, along him. His pants are around his ankles and this is thoroughly undignified but it’s Sialeeds. She doesn’t want him to be dignified. “Gizel-”
“We’re going to be married,” he says. The words go wherever they please and this time it’s straight to his cock. “No one is going to take that from me, least of all you.”
Her skin chills. It’s enough to make him realize how much his hands are sweating, how much of that wet is him and how little is her anymore.
“You’re going to help me back into my dress,” she says, more to the floor than to him. “You remember which knots are hard for me to tie.”
“Sialeeds-”
She’s out from under his hands, back straight and eyes narrow, imperious, and right on his. “No.” It’s a whisper that burns. “It’ll happen. You tend to get what you actually want.” She sighs, and her breasts shake. “But not now. I don’t want to right now.”
“You-” are mine.
“Just help me get my clothes on, Gizel.” Every word seems like a sigh of its own, cold and heavy. “We’ve done it a dozen times. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Gizel has nothing to say to that.
---
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