Bad Taste in Clothes

Enver Gortash had the worst taste in clothes, as far as Lyra was concerned. Her nose scrunched up in disgust as she looked over the garment that he had sent along with her messenger. The color was fine – deep red that matched the grooves of blood flowing through the floor of her room – but the fabric? An extravagantly heavy cloth woven with glittering beads and adorned with gold embellishments. And the cut - she could feel the laced back squeeze into her ribcage just from looking at the thing. The dress was restrictive in every sense except for the neckline: long, tight sleeves running up to a sharp square front which would push her breasts forward, no doubt. She assumed this was meant to provide the perfect canvas for the ridiculously large ruby necklace that had accompanied the dress.

Certainly very Banite.

He was throwing a party, he had told her one evening when they lay in his bed, exhausted from another of their increasingly frequent liaisons. He had asked if she would attend, and despite his best efforts, Lyra had heard the lilt of hope in his voice. Eager to choke the sentimentality down, Lyra had laughed, proclaiming that she couldn’t possibly attend such a lavish event as she did not have anything to wear that would be worthy of the grand occasion. She ran her fingers over a cut she had left earlier on his chest, hoping the matter had been deflected. She was unprepared when he had put his hand over her own, a triumphant smile spreading across his face as he insisted he would see to her needs.

She had tentatively agreed in the moment, but his choice revealed itself to be an atrocity. She threw the dress atop her bed and crossed the room to her desk, pulling out parchment and ink.

“Lord Gortash,” The letter began, Lyra scratching across the page. She had come to only use his title when she was angry or wanted something, or perhaps both.

Lord Gortash,

I received your gift. I can safely say it is the most hideous thing I have ever laid eyes on. Does your god demand such gaudiness from all his followers?

I will not be wearing this dress, and I will not be attending your party. In fact, it is truly such a horror that I am reconsidering our association. I will let you know my verdict, pray that it is favorable.

-L

Annoyingly, she had not received any response to her letter. She had expected their usual dance – her sharp words eliciting a snarky retort from him, volleying until one of them won. The silence had been unnervingly deafening, and when the night of the party arrived without a letter from the tyrant, Lyra decided to take matters into her own hands.

She slipped into the dress, finding the fit snug but not as much of an imprisonment as she had expected. She wrapped a cloak around herself and left the temple, hastily making her way to her associate’s manor in the Upper City. It had been hours since the party had officially begun, but Lyra could still hear the revelry well underway as she approached.

It was, as always, too easy to slip past his guards and climb her way up to the balcony of his private chambers. What do you pay them for? She had once snapped, displeased with the quality of their services after she herself had found a would-be assailant lurking in his garden. He had waved her concerns off, coolly replying that his guards were perfectly adequate, she was just faster.

Though, she never did see the guards that had been on duty that day again.

She found the balcony door unlocked, undoubtedly a result of his exasperation with her constant lockpicking. She stashed her cloak behind a potted plant on the balcony and stepped into his sitting room. His chambers were not necessarily large, but just like everything else about Lord Enver Gortash, they were certainly lavish – all elegant rugs, fine silks, and expensive paintings. His domain consisted of four rooms: to the left of the sitting room was his study and to the right was his bedchamber, off of which resided the most indulgent washroom she had ever seen. At its center was an enormous bath, which the infuriating genius had somehow managed to supply with running water even this deep into the city. She had spent many nights in that bath, watching the water darken as blood ran off of her skin, sometimes even allowing strong hands to glide soft cloth over her body.

Lyra chided herself for enjoying the comfort, ripping herself from the memory. The Child of Bhaal did not need such things, she would be satisfied with bathing in the blood itself. And yet…

Footsteps, and then – a woman’s laughter? Lyra moved to conceal herself from a place in the study where she could keep watch as the doors to the sitting room swung open. A patriar, or so Lyra guessed from the woman’s extravagant dress, glided into the room and laughed again as she spun around to face the doorway. A moment later, Gortash entered and swiftly closed the doors behind him, turning to the patriar with a hungry look. It was one Lyra herself knew quite well – he was stalking his prey.

She watched as Gortash grabbed the hips of the patriar, maneuvering the woman up against the door in an instant. His mouth fiercely claimed that of his guest’s, burying the woman’s surprised gasp of ‘Lord Gortash!’ with his tongue. A sinking feeling hit Lyra in her stomach, but she was quick to smother it down. This was all fine, of course. Whatever existed between Gortash and herself, they had made it explicit that they indulged in other lovers. She knew it was a particularly useful tool for the tyrant in his negotiations.

Yet, as Lyra watched them grind into each other, she could not deny the sickening fire that churned inside her.

The blood rushing through her ears drowned out Gortash’s words to his companion as he stepped back and gestured for the woman to take a seat. He turned towards the study, and Lyra sank deeper into the shadows of the room. She eyed him as he crossed the threshold and headed for his wine cabinet, as Lyra expected he would – ever the gracious host.

She took the soft clink of his gauntlet around a bottle as her cue. In an instant, her knife was at his throat, her body pressed against his back, drinking in the way he tensed.

“Well what do we have here?” She whispered, lips fluttering over his ear, “a whore at work?”

She watched the smirk spread across the side of his race in recognition. His body notably relaxed, which elicited a small snarl from Lyra. He should not be relieved it was her, he should be terrified. She tightened her grip on the knife as she pressed it further into his neck. He tensed again, which brought a smile back to Lyra’s face.

“I didn’t think—” he began in an attempt to ease her displeasure.

“You often don’t.”

He gave a restrained laugh and Lyra watched his throat bob against her knife, “We both know that’s not true.”

Brilliant bastard. She hated him, hated how his words and his voice could be so disarming. She slid her free hand down his front, running her hand over his cock. She gripped it tightly, relishing the surprised huff that escaped his throat.

“Already hard for her? Are you really that easy, Lord Gortash?”

“Lyra,” he growled in warning.

“Get rid of her,” she pressed her knife in further to his throat, enough to cut this time, “Or I will.”

She released him, immediately stepping back into the shadows. He turned to look at her, but her superior stealth left him without purchase. Bottle in hand, he returned to the expectant patriar.

“Darling,” Lyra heard him begin, tone laced with false apology, “I’m afraid I forgot about an early meeting in the morning. We’ll have to continue this another time.”

“My lord-” the woman began in protest, but a gauntleted hand against her cheek and an easy smile assured her all would be well.

“I will make it up to you, I swear,” Gortash gently took the woman’s hand in his own, supplying her with the wine bottle he had selected, “please, enjoy this for me this evening.”

The patriar looked at him for a moment before pushing the bottle back to him, her fingers lingering on his chest. Lyra wondered what it would be like to slice those fingers off one by one, how pretty they would look.

“We’ll enjoy it together when you make it up to me,” the woman leaned forward to place a kiss to his lips, comparatively chaste to the one they shared against the door. Gortash smiled and gave a warm laugh in response. Lyra hated that laugh. It was his fake laugh, one he fabricated into a weapon to match his charm. His real laugh was something callous and echoing and beautiful.

“As you wish,” Gortash guided the woman to the door with a hand against the small of her back. He bade her a goodnight and shut the door in her wake. Still concealed, Lyra moved from the study back into the sitting room, watching as Gortash listened to the patriar’s footsteps recede. After a moment, he turned and spoke to the air.

“Are you going to come out now?” He ran a hand through his hair as he made his way into the center of the sitting room, setting the wine bottle upon a nearby table. When she did not immediately respond, he gave a huff of annoyance, “I’m hardly in the mood for games this evening.”

“Shame,” Lyra took the moment to pounce, stepping from the shadows to kick him square in the chest, sending the lord tumbling backwards into a high-backed chair, “I have so much fun playing with you.”

Pain and genuine anger flickered across his face before he looked up at her, able to see her for the first time that evening. His face immediately smoothed into something much closer to hunger.

“You’re wearing the dress I sent,” a pleased hum escaped his throat as he leaned forward in the chair, moving to stand.

“Stay,” Lyra halted him with a glare. A silent battle took place between the two, as it so often did, both parties overly proud and wielding near-indomitable will. Finally, Gortash relinquished out of curiosity, sinking further into the chair.

“Good boy,” Lyra taunted, and Gortash’s glare was sharp in response. He hated being played with, or so he claimed. Lyra knew how hard his cock became when she riled him up, and she intended to have him particularly aggravated this evening.

She turned her back to him and began cutting the laces on the back of her dress one by one with the knife she had held to his throat earlier. When they had all been sliced open, she set the knife on the nearby table next to the discarded wine bottle. She swayed her hips, encouraging the dress to languidly slide off of her body, slowly revealing the expanse of her back and her ass covered only in her smallclothes, before finally cascading down her legs to pool at her feet.

She stepped back to move out of the dress, bending over to pick up the fabric. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught Gortash’s eyes glued to her ass, his mouth open slightly in heavy, quick breaths. She smirked as she tossed the dress behind her to land on him before turning her head back forward, laughing as she heard his growl and the flutter of fabric as he threw it once again to the floor. Any annoyance he may have had melted when she immediately slipped her fingers inside the band of her smallclothes, pulling them over her hips ever so slightly but not fully revealing herself. Not yet.

“Touch yourself,” she commanded, still playing with the fabric at her hips. She felt the air electrify, immediately filling with tension as her audience fought between seeking release and obeying the command of another. She sweetened the deal, bending over once again to remove her smallclothes and fully reveal her ass to him. She swayed her hips for a moment, bending even further forward to flash her cunt, which was already beginning to glisten.

“Lyra-“ he delivered his best attempt at a warning, though it was heavily marred by the strain in his voice.

“Touch. Yourself.” She commanded again, straightening up and looking back over her shoulder. This time, he obeyed, slipping a hand under his waistband. She watched just long enough to see his cock come free before turning forward again, satisfied. Her hands came up to tangle in her hair, slowly undoing the bun atop her head before it gave way to a beautiful waterfall.

Finally, she turned to face him.

Gortash was a man destroyed. He had sunk even further into the chair, hair a wreck from sliding against the back. His eyes were dark, and his mouth still hung open in heavy pants that matched the rapid rise and fall of his hair-dusted chest, even more exposed now from the loosened laces of his shirt. One hand fiercely gripped the arm of the chair, while his other gauntleted hand wrapped tightly around his heavy, thick cock. He stroked himself slowly, with as much restraint as possible, but his glistening tip betrayed his urgent need.

Lyra wanted to sink to her knees before him, to take him in her mouth and swirl her tongue over every last drop of that need. She wanted to let him fill her and fuck her throat raw, wanted to be buried against the trail of hair on his stomach while she gagged around his cock, her nails digging crescents into his hips as her vision darkened. She wanted to suck at his heavy sack and service every inch of him – to run her tongue along his shaft, kiss up his stomach, splay her fingers across that wonderful chest. Beautiful. He was absolutely beautiful, and she wanted to be completely lost in those deep, black eyes.

His eyes. She snapped out of her fantasy when she realized she had been staring – completely lost in his gaze. It was crushingly intimate, holding his stare while he worked himself, her body laid completely bare to him, both of them imagining what was to come. Too intimate, and her fantasies of submission and admiration had Lyra scrambling for a moment. She sought escape, breaking their eye contact to turn her head to the table next to her, where her knife still rested next to the wine bottle.

Seeking to distract herself, and perhaps ease her nerves, she swiftly opened the wine bottle with her knife and brought the rim to her lips, drinking deeply. Her eyes flashed back to Gortash, who still watched her, entranced. She smirked, a delicious thought swimming into her mind as she allowed some wine to spill from her mouth, staining her neck as the liquid ran towards her breasts. Enjoying the sensation, she tilted the bottle further, spilling more down her body. A lewd moan escaped the lord’s lips as her eyes fluttered shut.

The wine was warm and sticky, and it was easy to imagine that it was his blood. She reveled in the image of her skin streaking red with him. She wanted to be stained by him, to empty his veins and douse herself in his life. She released the bottle without thinking and it fell to the floor with a shatter. Unphased, she began running her hands all over her body, one smoothly relishing the liquid while the other dragged the tip of her knife over her skin. She would cut him and bleed him and hold him close, allowing him to empty himself onto her. She would plunge her knife into her own body, opening it wide so that he may spill inside. They would be closer than any mortals could ever be, drinking from each other to forever become one before the darkness consumed them eternally.

She gasped as her knife cut into her skin just below her collarbone, the sensation bringing her back to reality. A bolt of panic momentarily shot through her as she snapped her eyes open in search of the lord, fearful that her dreaded daydream may have been all too real. She met his stare, but instead of relief, she was filled with surprise. His face was soft, brows lightly furrowed, eyes wide and excruciatingly sincere. He gazed at her in absolute reverence.

And then, he did something truly wretched and unforgivable.

“Lyra,” he called her name like a prayer.

She was on him in an instant. She straddled him, grinding her cunt against the length of his cock as their mouths met in a desperately furious kiss, hoping the violence of it could drown their worship of each other. His hands came to rest on her thighs, holding her in place as if he was scared she would run away. He had no idea how completely she belonged to him in that moment, and for once, she did not care if she was answering his prayer with her own or if she was smothering his cry, the gods could reprimand her another day.

She sank her knife into the back of the chair just above his head, the sound of slicing fabric grabbing his attention and momentarily halting their kiss. Her hands floated down to gently cup his face as she whispered softly against his lips.

“Make it hurt.”

And he did. His gauntlets immediately dug into her as his mouth crashed back onto hers, forcing his way inside and claiming her with his tongue. He bit at her lip as she felt the tips of his talons break her skin, the delicious sensation running down her thighs in his wake. She frowned as the pressure of one hand disappeared, only to moan against him when she felt him line himself up with her entrance.

He wasted no time plunging his cock inside her, both of them already wet with need. He set a brutal pace, using his grip on her thighs to bounce her atop him, taking all of him again and again. She gasped each time he bottomed out, indulging in the delicious drag of his head against her walls.

His mouth dipped to latch onto her neck, sucking the tender skin underneath her jaw until it was sore. The rivers of wine that still streaked down her body led him lower, his tongue hungrily following their path until he stopped at her collarbone where she had cut herself. Here, he flattened his tongue further and lapped at the cut savagely, drinking in the heady mix of blood and wine. She moaned at the sensation and felt a satisfied growl leave him in response.

“You sound like a whore,” his low, rumbling voice sent vibrations across her collarbone. She breathed in sharply to collect herself, opening her mouth to quip back at him.

Her words died in her throat, replaced by a choked cry as one of his hands came harshly down on her ass. His other hand grasped the back of her neck, forcefully holding her in place as he brought them back face-to-face. His mouth hovered just in front of her own.

“You sound like a whore,” he repeated as he slapped her ass again, the sound echoing in the room, “so I’ll fuck you like one.”

She whimpered and strained against his grasp in an attempt to kiss him again, which only earned her another stinging strike. Another cry left her mouth, and she noticed his parted lips eager to drink in her sounds, collecting them after their journey across the small gap between their bodies.

She gasped into his mouth as another slap fell across her ass, and she could feel welts rising. She brought her hands to rest atop his chest for balance against the force of his strikes, which he allowed. Her fingers snaked through the loose laces of his shirt, brushing against the hair on his solid chest. She wanted his shirt off, wanted to drag her nails across his chest and feel him arch into her touch.

She whined to communicate her need, but he swiftly turned it into another cry with one last slap against her ass. She felt his fingers curl into her raw skin as he fucked up into her with renewed vigor. Her own hands fisted into balls, grasping at his shirt. He chuckled breathlessly as the hand on the back of her neck came to roughly grab her jaw.

“Does my whore need something?” he taunted as he continued his thrusts. She whimpered as she further tightened her firsts around the fabric of his shirt.

“Have you been struck dumb? Use your words,” he cruelly commanded with a shake of her jaw, but his own pace betrayed him, hips beginning to stutter. A smirk spread across Lyra’s face faster than he could react.

“I didn’t think you’d finish so quickly, my lord,” she whispered dangerously. A thrill sparked within her when his hand left her jaw to slap her across her face, eliciting exactly the response she wanted.

In an instant, he lifted her off his cock and shoved her to the ground, her head hitting the floor with a blissful crack that turned her vision dark for a moment.

“Ungrateful beast,” his voice was harsh, but when her eyes flickered back to him, he was hastily removing his clothes until all that remained was his gauntlet. He was quick to lean over her, that same gauntleted hand wrapping around her throat and squeezing.

“You scorn my invitation and then disrupt my evening,” he sneered, “You came here tonight like a pathetic bitch in heat, desperately crawling for my cock. So, you will take what I give you, and you will be thankful. Do you understand?”

She smiled smugly, and he squeezed harder. Instinctively, both of her hands came to wrap around his wrist.

“Continue this, go right ahead,” he learned in to speak against her ear, “I’ll keep squeezing until you go limp. You’ll be much more pleasant then.”

The idea of letting Enver Gortash drain the life from her set her ablaze. He so rarely indulged his wrath nowadays, preferring to scheme and trap and lead his enemies to their untimely demise. More befitting of a lord, he had explained once. But his hands were far from clean - strong and rough from a lifetime that had been at odds with his current station, decorated with scars from his inventions. Lyra had known him long enough to have the privilege of witnessing a few rare, cherished moments where he had snapped, someone having elicited enough of his ire to make him dirty his own hands with pleasure.

She wished he would now. He was the only person in the world she trusted to destroy her. In truth, Lyra was exhausted from a lifetime of being wielded as her father’s weapon, and her twisted heart found solace in the fantasy of release. She yearned for the lord to end her before she had to end him.

But today was not that day.

She rolled her hips up into him in a sign of compliance, unable to speak due to the pressure on her neck. He smirked.

“There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he slid his hand from her neck to trail down her body. Both hands came to her legs, slowly spreading her apart to allow him to drink in the sight of her cunt.

He let out a shaky breath as his cock twitched. He glided himself through her folds once, twice, before finally sinking back into her, leaning over to reclaim her lips with his own. Their tongues danced with each other, matching the roll of his hips as their joining became increasingly more frantic.

“Hells,” he broke their kiss with a snarl, burying his face in her neck as he picked up his pace. She raked her nails down his back and hiked her legs up higher, allowing him to sink even deeper and ripping an appreciative groan from his throat.

“That’s my woman,” he growled, biting and sucking at her pulse. The intimate, possessive praise made her shudder, her mind threatening to go white. One of her hands ran down to grab his ass as he pounded into her, silently begging him to go harder, to claim her.

The new angle was heavenly, repeatedly making him hit the sweet spot inside her, his balls slapping against her ass. She was smothered under his weight as he drilled into her, his hand coming back up to shove two fingers into her mouth. She sucked on them happily, salivating at the thought of biting them off and drawing sweet screams from his lips.

No – no. She did not want him to scream. In truth, she did not want to hurt him at all, and wasn’t that just the beginning and end of everything? Her Urge was lulled by the rock of his body, and her eyes closed as she allowed herself sanctuary in the only place she could ever forget herself.

Here, she was not a weapon. Here, underneath him, she was free to indulge in the pleasures of life, not death. The way his breath quickened, the aching throb of her heightened pulse, the rough drag of his chest against her own. His hot breath on her neck, the stretch of her cunt around his cock, his soft sounds of pleasure against her skin as he sought his release.

Gods be damned, she was his.

He must have sensed her tightening coil, pulling his fingers from her mouth and bringing them to rub firm circles against her clit. She gasped, body arching into his as her hand left his ass to tangle in his hair. He hissed as she tightened her grasp, clinging to him for purchase as her body tightened in ecstasy.

She trembled, and she distantly heard him curse as he fucked her through her climax. She felt him raise himself up on his arms just enough to look at her as his hips began to falter. Her eyes fluttered open to meet his, raw and desperate. Perhaps foolishly, she allowed herself to give him a moment of softness, sliding her hand down from his hair to caress his cheek.

“Enver.”

His forehead met her own as he came with a gasp, spilling into her cunt. He shuddered over her, powerful aftershocks rocking them both. In his own betrayal of intimacy, he pressed a kiss to her forehead before catching himself, moving to capture her lips in a sloppy kiss. He collapsed on top of her, spent, and moved to bury his face into her neck again as their breathing slowly regulated.

Lyra stared at the ceiling as she traced circles against his back, a new pang settling deep within her. She wanted to guide his hands as he cracked her chest open and let him tear out her heart. It was already his, and it would destroy her.

She was torn from her thoughts by the tickle of words against her skin, pulling a surprised laugh from her.

“What?” she angled her head down to speak to the menace at her throat. She could feel his smug smile before she saw it as he lifted himself back up on his arms, pausing to first brush a strand of hair from her face.

“I said, I knew you’d look good in that dress.”