Work Text:
She leads him toward the bed, gently, like she's coaxing a wounded animal into her care. And maybe she is—his nerves feel open, raw, his skin hot with fire. If he didn't know better, he'd think he was the one doing this for the first time, not her. She's kissing him with such ease, her fingers confident as they work on the buckles of his armor; what happened to the fumbling girl of just a few months ago, the whose cheeks were rarely without their embarrassed blush?
She's not embarrassed now. She steps away from him, outlined from behind with Catha's silver glow, and shirks off her own tunic. His fingers twitch to help, to relieve her of any obligation, but her smile, still soft, keeps him in place. Her shoes and leggings are next, and then she is naked, skin prickling in the cold of the Alabaster Sierras. She's starting to flush, red creeping down from her hairline like dye in a bath, as he stares at her openly. She is beautiful, naturally so, in the way that the Sun Tree in full bloom leaves him awed and breathless. The curves of her draw his eyes in circles, desperate to see everything at once. There are scars, burn marks, physical evidence of the bravery he fell in love with, and his lips yearn to taste each one, his tongue mapping the topography of her deeds.
"So. Um." She's twisting a finger in her hair nervously, her whole body now humming red.
He snaps his eyes to hers. "Gods, sorry." He simultaneously takes a step forward and tries to shimmy his trousers down, which results in him tripping directly into her and nearly sending them both sprawling onto the stone floor.
Nearly, because she catches him, hands gripping his pauldrons with a laugh. "Whoa, easy." Her smile turns bright, playful. "We have all night."
And he intends to use it. He will take these dark hours, this time set aside for grief, and show her everything he has been too cowardly to say. He will learn from his sister's mistake; he will not let her leave this room in any way unsure of how he feels about her.
He brings both hands to the back of her head, weaving his fingers through her hair. When he kisses her, he does slowly, reverently, with the intention of committing the taste of her to memory. Salt and sage and jasmine tea—until his dying breath, this will be the flavor of loving her. He lets her tug his arms away, keeps his limbs loose and pliable as she works Deathwalker's Ward off of him, but he cannot bear to stop kissing her. Before he knows it, he is bare before her, and he has never before felt more sure in his own skin.
She pulls away from him, gasping for air, her lips swollen and red. He doesn't let her go far; he tips his forehead against hers, his arms snaking around her shoulders to keep her close. "I...I haven't..." She swallows thickly. "I've never done this before."
He knew that, of course, but he'll be damned if she feels bad about it. "I just want you to feel comfortable. If...If it's too much—"
She puts her hand over his mouth, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to lick the palm of her hand. "I'm naked in front of someone I love in a town that was ravaged by baby dragons and my friend is dead. I can't remember the last time I was comfortable. But...I'm tired of pretending I don't want you. I won't. Not when..." She moves her hand to the side of his face. "Not when tomorrow isn't guaranteed."
He presses his cheek into her palm. "Let me show you?"
She nods.
It's an easy shuffle onto the bed. He sits and pulls her into his lap. She is warm, and he can't help himself: he buries his face between her breasts and breathes in the earthy scent of her. She giggles, combing her fingers through his hair. "What're you...?"
He kisses her chest and tilts his head up to look at her. She is glowing, his own personal sun. "There are no parts of you I don't want to worship."
She wrinkles her nose at that. "I'm...not a god."
"You are to me." He falls back, pulling her down with him so she's lying on top of him, her knees on either side of his waist. Her hair, which smells of the fancy Whitestone soap, curtains around them like the hanging leaves of a willow tree, and in this moment, it feels as if they could be the only two people left in Exandria. "I would kneel at your altar every day, devote my body to your service." He trails the tips of his fingers along the S of her spine. Her pupils widen and her breath hitches. "I would dedicate my tongue to your praise." He lifts up and swirls his tongue in the hollow of her throat.
Her nails dig into the tops of his shoulders. "You..." He bites back a grin as she has to blink a few times to collect her thoughts. "You...don't usually...talk like this."
He shrugs, tucks her hair behind one ear. "I guess I'm tired of pretending, too. I'm done trying to convince myself that you aren't the best thing in my life these days. The one shining star in an endless night sky."
With that, he runs his hand over the curve of her ass, dipping just into where she is already hot and slick. Her eyelids flutter closed and her nails dig deeper into his shoulders. He works his fingers carefully, watching every muscle of her face for any sign of discomfort. He finds none; she is panting short, shallow breaths, and her hips have begun making tight circles right above where he is throbbing with want for her.
Her forehead crashes down onto his with a comical thud. "Vax." Her breath is hot on his face. "I'm...I feel..."
"Do you trust me?"
Her eyes open, unfocused. "What?"
There are three fingers in her now. They have little trouble moving, so slick and pliant is she. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," she gasps, pressing down onto his hand. "Always."
He cranes his neck up to whisper in her ear. "Then let go."
A few seconds more, and she does, her walls contracting violently as her whole body shudders with an animal shriek. Her back arches away from him, and then she collapses down, a pile of liquid limbs on top of him. She's struggling to catch her breath, so he just strokes her hair, litters her dewy face with kisses. "I love you," he whispers. "You're so beautiful."
She smiles weakly. "I don't feel beautiful. I feel...sticky."
"Well, let me clean you up." And okay, maybe he's showing off a little, the way he deftly rolls them over, so now he's hovering over her. She's holding on his biceps, and oh, is that a glint of admiration he sees? He makes sure she's watching as he slowly, deliberately brings his fingers to his mouth, savors the taste of her. Her pupils blow wide, and her jaw drops. "V-Vax, you..."
He grins. "Just giving myself a preview."
"A preview? A preview of wh—AH!"
He takes her by the hips and slides her away from him up the bed so her head is just at the other side. He has all the room he needs now to get to work. He straightens up, tall on his knees over her. He doesn't miss the way her eyes rake up and down his body, the tight furl of her fingers into the bedspread. He looks around her room. "Do you have a...ah, there." He stretches across her to snag a scrap of leather cord from her nightstand. When he rights himself again, her body briefly chases his up, and he laughs. "Patience, love." He ties his hair in a low ponytail with the cord, shifting himself so that he is now between her legs instead of on the other side.
"Oh." She pouts. "But...I like your hair."
"I'm glad. But I need my hair out of the way."
"Why?"
Instead of answering, he bends down, slips an arm beneath her ass, and lifts her hips to put his mouth on her. Her whole body jerks and she yelps with surprise. As his tongue works into her, he reaches up with his free hand, fumbling around until he knocks into hers. She laces their fingers together and squeezes painfully, but it doesn't distract him from his duty. He puts his lips to work, tasting her, feeling her twitching around his tongue.
The fingers that aren't threatening to break his still find a way to weave into his hair. "Vax!" She grips hard, and the pain makes him grin against her. "Gods, oh gods, this is—oh gods..."
Emboldened, Vax redoubles his efforts, licking and sucking and teasing, flicking his tongue against her clit with expert precision. She's moaning, low, primal sounds that sent all of the blood rushing to his groin. He can't help it; he grinds against the blanket, just enough to offer a moment of relief as he eats her out. Her hips start to buck into him, and he guesses she's close. He wraps his lips around her clit and hums—a kind of prayer—and his face is soaked. Her thighs, deceptively powerful, clamp around either side of his head, holding his face against her fluttering opening as she rides it out, keening somewhere above him. Oxygen is becoming an issue, but he'd rather suffocate here between her legs, a place he's longed to be for months, than do anything that might ruin this experience for her.
This one lasts longer, and Vax waits, his thumb brushing over her knuckles soothingly. Eventually, the muscles in her legs relax, and he's able to pick his head up after pressing one last kiss to her entrance. He crawls up her body, littering her stomach and breasts and throat with even more kisses, until he captures her lips with his own. He knows his face in covered in her slick, but he doesn't care; let her taste herself, that exquisite taste he'll be chasing for the rest of his life. She doesn't seem to mind, or maybe even notice, because the way she's kissing him back is loose, lethargic.
"Are you alright?" he murmurs against her lips.
"Mhm," she sighs. "'m...'m good."
He laughs at that. "Good. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself."
"Yeah." She reaches up to toy with the end of his ponytail. "I didn't...I didn't know I could feel like that."
"Like what?"
She smiles softly. "Like someone was taking care of me."
In an instant, he wants to give it all up: the adventurer's life, the hero's journey, the calling of a goddess. Let the dragons have Tal'dorei—all he wants is her, a little life shared, day after day spent achieving his life's true purpose of making her happy. He kisses her forehead. "I'll always take care of you, Kiki. I love you."
"I love you, too." Her eyes trail down to where he is hard and leaking onto her stomach. "What about you? Do you..." She pauses, thinks, then asserts, "I want to take care of you, too."
His cock twitches eagerly, but he ignores it, along with the pounding in his ears. "We've...done a lot tonight, Kiki. I'd understand if you were tired, or-or sore—"
"Vax." He shuts up. "I would like you to fuck me, please."
She says it without an ounce of doubt or self-consciousness, although the way the tips of her ears go pink betrays her embarrassment a bit. He sucks one of them into his mouth, enjoying the squeak it earns him. "Your wish is my command," he whispers in her ear, satisfied with the gooseflesh that rises across her chest. He pushes himself up, sits on his haunches to assess the situation. They're currently lying sideways across her bed, where her head is inches from falling off. "How do you...should we move to the pillows, or...?"
"Yes, right, good idea." He leans down to help her just as she pushes herself up, and their heads clunk together. They both laugh, and they awkwardly shuffle so they're both lying on the bed properly, faces side by side on her pillow.
He rests a hand on the flat of her stomach, finger tapping over the myriad freckles that extend even to there. "How do you...do you want...I could..."
She saves him from his own fumbling. "If you think that after that I have the energy to be on top, you are sorely mistaken."
"Right." Fair enough; he has put her through the ringer already. "Are you...do you want to take a break?"
Humming thoughtfully, she stretches, testing out the sensations in her body. As inexperienced as she is, he doesn't know anyone more attuned to their own body, their bones and blood and sinew—he supposes she has to be, to be able to morph into a menagerie of animals at a moment's notice. Whatever she's doing, she seems satisfied by it. "No, I'm okay. I mean, I'm ready. Are...are you?"
He's pretty sure that he's going to explode the second she touches him. He kisses the tip of her nose. "For you? Always."
He keeps movements slow, deliberate. There is to be no confusion about what he's doing, and he wants her to have every opportunity to tell him to stop. He hovers over her, their shared body heat sweltering even in this freezing castle. She looks nervous, unsure of what to do with her hands, so he brings one of them up to his face. "Kiss me?"
Relieved for some instruction, she obliges, taking his face in both of her hands and kissing him. She tastes of herself, a fact so erotic he nearly loses controls as he carefully pushes inside of her. She gasps against him mouth, and he freezes, waiting. One breath in, one breath out, and a quiet, "Wow."
His heart stops beating. "Is that...a good 'wow,' or...?"
"Yes. I think?" She opens her eyes, brilliant green and shining. "You can...I need more. Please."
Something about her saying please while he's inside of her makes him want to laugh, but he'd rather be struck dead right here than have her think he's laughing at her, so he silently pushes in farther. His eyes never leave hers, though they don't miss the way her mouth gapes open as he moves in her. He stops his hips when he cannot push in anymore, and though every fiber of his being yearns to begin canting his hips forward and back, he waits, brushing the hair back from her face. After a few moments of silence, he opens his mouth to ask her how she's feeling, and that's when he sees it: a single tear slipping along the side of her nose.
Ice water floods his veins. "Kiki? Are you—is something—did I—?"
She shakes her head emphatically. "I'm okay." She brushes away the tear with a little laugh. "I'm sorry, it's just...this has been a wild day."
He laughs too, bringing his nose to rest alongside hers. "It really has. I couldn't have gotten through it without you. I wouldn't want to."
She puts her hand on his neck and kisses him again, and the fire he feels in that kiss is all the encouragement he needs to begin moving again. She feels so good around him, warm and soft, like coming home. His every nerve is sparking—this is what it means to be alive: to touch her, to taste her, to feel the swell of her body as she begins to move with him. Everything he's ever done, all the good, all the bad, the thieving and the heroics and the loss, all of it was worth it if it brought him here, curled over her, her nails digging tracks down his back and his name slipping like a well-practiced prayer off her tongue.
He's beginning to lose control, his steady rhythm faltering as he feels the heat in his belly grow hotter and hotter. Her head is tipped back, eyes closed, as she is lost in the motion of it, but he's always been stubborn, and he's determined to finish last. He laves her exposed neck, creating a bruise they're going to have explain tomorrow, and snakes a hand down between their sweat-slicked bodies to begin rubbing at her clit. Her eyes fly open with a gasp. "Vax!"
"I'm right here." Her hands are in his hair again, pulling so hard at the roots that his eyes start to prick with tears. "I've got you."
"Yes—YES!" Her walls flutter around him erratically, and it nearly breaks him. He focuses harder than he ever has in his life on rocking in and out of her while maintaining tight, even circles on her clit.
He feels a breeze pick up around them, and at first he think it's wind coming in through the open window. Then he realizes that it's her. Her hair is levitating off her pillow, and his, which fell out of its leather cord a while ago, is twisting chaotically around them. As her panting gets louder and louder, so too does the wind, a dull roar in their ears as they both chase her pleasure. Her hips are wild, bucking, and she nearly throws him off of her as she writhes in ecstasy. She is whining, keening, and all it takes his pulling the point of her ear into his mouth for her to shatter, her entire body seizing with the force of it. As if possessed by some primal urge, she sinks her teeth into the meat of his shoulder, a feral screech muffled as it escapes the back of her throat, but he can't feel any pain, not when he is consumed by the sensation of her walls clenching around him. This is what brings him over the edge; his vision goes white as he shudders, spilling inside of her with a force that takes his breath away.
It takes a bit for him to claw his way back to his senses, but when he does, he's fully draped on top of her. He quickly rolls off, sliding out of her with a deeply unsexy squelch, and asks, "Are you alright?"
She turns her head to look at him, and what he sees he will remember for the rest of his life. Her hair, sex-mussed and tangled, aglow in the light of the few flickering candles, a wildfire burning bright. Her lips, deep red and swollen and shining, like the most delicious pomegranate he could ever taste. Her skin, flawless yet splotchy with the racing of her blood only just beginning to cool. Her eyes, the only treasure he has ever coveted, reflecting the moon's silvery light back at him, clear and wild and happy.
"Yes," she whispers. She picks up his hand and brings it to her lips, kisses each knuckle. "I'm more than alright."
Relief courses through him. "Good. I...I wanted it to be...good for you."
"What about you? Was it—I mean, you've done it before, so I guess it was probably no big—"
He kisses her, slow, languid, smiling against her lips. "I've never done that before, Kiki."
Her brow furrows. "What do you mean?"
"Loved someone."
She buries her face in his chest, and he wraps his arms around her to keep her close. He should clean them both up, get them something to eat and drink, some clothes—but he can't move. Not now, not here, where finally, finally, he is holding the woman he loves. Here, in this quiet piece of the night, when the world outside is dark and the future is unknowable, he thinks that perhaps for the first time in his life, he has found peace.