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It was late and Alistair was beyond tired, but his brain just wouldn’t shut up. So he did what he always did when his racing thoughts kept him from sleeping – he tried to work himself to exhaustion. And since it was practically the middle of the night there was no one else to spar with. But he’d taken his sword and shield with him as he stalked away from camp anyway – there were plenty of trees around big enough to withstand his blows.
‘Goldana, Alistair came here hoping to find his family.’
‘Well, he found it. And what good is that to me?’
That gold-digging harridan. He aimed another swing of his sword at the tree, pieces of bark flying back into his face, getting into his mouth and sticking to his clenched teeth. He spit the tree bits out on the ground without pausing his assault.
‘You killed mother, you did.’
He’d known that, but hearing it out loud from another of his mother’s children, one who could actually remember her… He had nothing but that amulet to remember her by, and it only actually reminded him of Eamon.
He couldn’t be reminded of his mother, he’d never met her. It wasn’t fair.
‘I guess I was expecting her to accept me without question. Isn’t that what family is supposed to do?’
He tightened the grip on his sword, feeling each blow into the unyielding wood reverberate up past his elbow. He was going to be incredibly sore tomorrow, and he did not give a single shit.
‘This is all you got to offer? I got less than no use for you.’
He shook his head, tossing sweat-soaked hair from his eyes. “Complete and utter bitch,” he muttered under his breath. He tried a few strikes of his shield against the trunk, jamming his shoulder into it as if he was trying to fell the tree with a series of blows that were hard enough to topple an alpha hurlock. He’d know – he’d done it before.
‘Let’s go, Alistair. There’s nothing for you here.’
He flung down the sword and shield in frustration, pounding his gauntleted fists against the wood in a series of hooks, rocking his full weight into the punches. He was probably going to break at least one of his hands in a minute. Good. He wanted his muscles and bones to hurt as much as the rest of him.
‘Most people are out for themselves. You need to guard your heart.’
Maybe Elissa was right. Who was he kidding, of course she was right. And yet here he was, getting worked up over a sister that he hadn’t even met before today and who had turned out to be even worse than Morrigan. At least Morrigan didn’t take his money and spit in his face for his trouble.
Why did the opinion of a complete stranger matter to him so much?
He aimed a vicious knee at the tree, cursing and breaking off another hunk of bark with the pointed bit of his greaves. His chest heaved as he sucked in breath after breath, but he refused to stop. There was still some energy left in him. Damn Warden stamina.
How in the Maker’s name was he supposed to ‘guard his heart’? Was there a special cuirass for that?
‘I don’t know why you came, either, or what you expected to find.’
He’d expected to find someone that might actually give a shit about him. Someone that would just let him be Alistair. There had only ever been two people like that in his entire life, and one of them died at Ostagar.
He sighed, finally standing still. The other person was likely in their tent, waiting up for him – worried about him. He took off his gauntlets and flexed his fists. Not broken after all. Just bruised to the Void and back. He gathered up his equipment and trudged to his bed, limbs leaden with fatigue.
Elissa didn’t speak when he entered the tent. She had been sitting up on their joined bedrolls, waiting, and she moved to his side to help him out of his armor. She was wearing one of his shirts, like she usually did to sleep, but this time it made his heart ache the bad way. He hid his face with the distraction of their task and the dark of the moonless night. She was obviously waiting for him to start talking, but for once he was having trouble finding his voice.
“Back when we left Goldanna’s, you told me I needed to look out for myself more than I do.” His voice was flat and empty. “I’m beginning to think you were right. I need to stop letting everyone else make my decisions for me. I need to take a stand and think about myself for a change, or I’m never going to be happy.”
She spoke quietly, gently, as if she was afraid of breaking something. “Don’t let me influence you, Alistair. You don’t have to do what I say.”
He spat the next words. “I don't have to do it, I want to.” The last piece of his armor was put away for the night, and he turned to face her, hands gripping the sides of her shoulders, perhaps a little too tightly. Or maybe it just felt that way because of the bruises on his knuckles. “I can’t let people walk all over me like that any more. I won’t.” He watched his hand as he trailed his fingers over her shoulder, up her neck, gently stroked his thumb over her cheek while he cradled her jaw in his too large, clumsy hand. His gaze snapped back to hers. She needed to understand how important this was. “I need to learn to speak up for my own wants and needs, or else I’ll never be whole enough to hold on to the things that matter to me.”
Her eyes were searching his as she took a tentative step closer. She placed one hand on his chest, heedless of how his shirt was soaked through and that he probably smelled like he hadn’t even seen a bar of soap in weeks. It had only been a couple of days since the last time he dunked himself in a river, but beating the shit out of the local flora in a fit of pique certainly hadn’t helped him any.
“Well, let’s start now. What do you want, Alistair? What do you need?” She brought her hands up to frame his face. “I’m listening. I’m here. Let me help you?” The last of it sounded vulnerable, even scared. Maker, what kind of a mess was he to make Elissa Cousland frightened? She climbed ogres. For fun.
He sucked in a breath, tightening his hold on her. There were several long moments where he tried to wrangle the maelstrom in his head into concrete phrases, and not just inane banter about cheese or lampposts or other nonsense. Even he knew that some things were too important to joke about. “I want to finally feel like I have some control. ” He couldn't hold her gaze – it was too raw, too real, too much. “I need to know I’m not worthless,” he whispered.
“You’ve never been worthless,” she said with a surprising amount of fervor. “I’ll always need you with me.” She stretched up on her toes for a kiss, but she didn’t close the final distance between them. “And if you want control, you can have it with me.” She waited, breathless, eyes darting between his nervously.
He’d been steadily gaining confidence with her, and he was often vocal about what he wanted, but she was offering something much more than that. The idea had never crossed his mind before, but now… Now, Maker, he wanted it.
He lifted her to meet his lips, slanting his mouth over hers in an embrace that was spilling over with longing. There was something more to this kiss – an electric zing that was brand new, a hot, demanding possessiveness coming from him that they had never shared before. Now he had to know that she felt it with him, felt it back to him. When they broke apart to gasp for breath, he realized that her toes were barely brushing the ground, and he placed her back down carefully.
“Are you sure?” he asked, voice quiet and gravelly. “I – I want…” He couldn’t find the words. He wanted too much all at once to untangle it into coherent thoughts. But he needed so desperately, and he had to know that she understood him even if he couldn’t voice it – even if he himself wasn’t sure what he actually meant yet.
She shivered, though their tent wasn’t cold at all. “You know I'd give you anything. Everything. It’s alright.” She brushed her palm over his stubble. Her hand felt so small. “I promise I’ll love every second of it, because it’s you.” Her eyes were intense, serious, and somehow also gentle. “I love you, and I want to help you – to be whatever you need right now. I know you would do the same for me.”
He held himself back for a few more seconds, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead before he took a deep breath with closed eyes. Once he opened them again, he was immediately rushing to undress, peeling his sticky shirt off of his body before grabbing her wrists and moving her hands away from where they had been reaching for the hem of her sleep shirt. “No,” he growled. “Not yet.” He gathered both of her wrists behind her in one large, sword-callused hand, his grip firm but not hard, and palmed her breast as he sucked frantic kisses into her neck. He focused in on the pulse point under her jaw, savoring every gasp and soft cry that she gave him, demanding still more with rough scrapes of his teeth on her tender skin.
She sighed when he soothed the new mark with soft licks, her arms fidgeting in his grip. He gave her wrists a brief squeeze. “Stay,” he ordered. He straightened and took a step back to look her over. She dutifully kept her arms behind her, eyes still closed and head slightly leaned back as she panted for breath. He watched carefully for any sign that she might be nervous or reluctant, but he found none. He hummed thoughtfully as he took the rest of her in, eyes drawn to her hard nipples poking at the fabric of his shirt.
He grasped her arms just above her elbows, looming over her to make her bend back and point her breasts skywards, ducking his head to suck the tight peaks through the fabric. She keened and wriggled against him, and he brazenly pressed his cock into her leg, letting her feel what she’d done to him in such a short time already. She gave him a delighted gasp, and he nipped her breast a final time before pulling her upright again. He buried both hands into her hair, crushing their lips together and licking at her teeth.
He had never been this demanding before, and it was liberating. He could feel the deep-seated guilt melting away, no room for it any more with the way his devotion and desire blazed through him. The Chantry had cast him in brittle iron, shaping the man he would become for their purposes, but Elissa had put him back in the crucible and melted him down again. Now he could recast himself, burn away the slag the Templars had left behind, and come out all the stronger for it.
He pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes sliding closed as he scratched his fingers along her scalp. “You’ll tell me if it’s too much, and I’ll stop.” It wasn’t a question. He needed to be sure that she was fully with him on this, because he’d never forgive himself if he pressed her into doing something she didn’t want wholeheartedly.
She nodded decisively. “I will.”
He couldn’t help the small smile that curled over his lips when he continued, “I will expect you to do everything I say. Alright?”
She nodded again, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, and her eyes were full of heat when he met them again.
He kissed her fiercely and she moaned into his mouth, answered by a smug chuckle from him. The control was downright intoxicating, but oddly sobering as well. He could already tell this had the potential to be incredibly enjoyable, but he’d need to be careful.
He gripped her wrists again and moved her hands to her sides. “You don’t need to keep them here, but don’t touch anything without my word. That includes yourself,” he added with a quirk of his eyebrow. He trailed his fingers up the inside of her leg – she rarely wore anything to bed under his shirt, and he had assumed that tonight was no exception. He grinned when he found that his expectation had been proven right, parting her lower lips and coating his fingertips with her slick. “I want everything you feel to be from me,” he rumbled with his mouth near her ear, leaning in to nibble and suck on the tip of it as his fingers slowly circled her pearl.
She bit her lip as her hands clenched at her sides, breath coming faster and harder. Her legs trembled when he pressed firmly over her clit, and she staggered but caught herself quickly. “You look a bit unsteady, Love.” He smirked at her, gently caressing her cheek so lovingly while his other hand slid lewdly through her slippery folds. “I don’t think you should be on your feet right now.” He removed his fingers from her and pressed on her shoulders, pushing her to kneel in front of him, letting her sit back on her heels as she looked up at him with eyes full of eager anticipation.
He slowly unlaced his trousers, and her eyes flicked down and locked on the bulge of his cock as she licked her lips in obvious desire. He pushed his pants and smalls down his legs before kicking them against the wall of the tent, wrapping his hand around his length and giving himself a few slow, teasing strokes. Her lips parted as she started to lean forward, but he held her back with a hand in her hair, wrapping her tresses around his fingers. She whimpered, fitfully rubbing her thighs together.
How had he, bumbling and sweet Alistair, brought this strong, magnificent woman very literally to her knees?
He carded his hand through her hair, enjoying the soft strands slipping through his fingers. “Unbutton your shirt and take it off. I want to see you.” His voice rumbled up from somewhere deep in his chest, sure, steady, and confident. He had no idea where this self-assured tone that had been with him tonight was coming from, but he’d take it as long as it was still on offer. Not that he was usually shy with Elissa, at least not any more, but tonight was something else entirely.
Her fingers flew over the buttons of her shirt, shrugging it off and tossing it somewhere behind her – neither of them particularly cared where. He gave her a pleased hum as he ran his fingertips over her scalp. “Now open your mouth for me.” She did as he asked, pleading eyes gazing up at him as her mouth gaped and her eager tongue covered her bottom teeth. He smiled, encouraged by her immediate yielding to his desires. “Good girl. Give me your hand.” He held her fingers in his with a little squeeze, then placed her hand on his thigh. “Smack me if you need to stop,” he said with a small smile. She nodded her assent, and he could see his smile returned in her eyes. He did want to take and own and possess and all those other words that meant she belonged to him and him alone, but only if it was her will as well – only if she was comfortable and safe, freely given.
He pulled her head forward with gentle but firm pressure at the back of her neck and placed the head of his cock on her tongue. Maker, she was always so warm and soft. “Suck,” he commanded.
She immediately leaned forward and hollowed her cheeks around him, taking all of him in as her eyes fluttered closed with a delighted sigh through her nose. His hips rocked gently, unhurried little thrusts meant to savor the sensation of her wet heat enveloping him and draw it out as long as he could. He fought to keep his eyes open, loving the wanton expressions that crossed her face. There couldn’t be anything in Thedas better than this, than the mouth of the woman he loved engulfing his rigid flesh, than her tongue sliding over him with a firm conviction. “You have such a sweet mouth,” he praised, “and you look so pretty with your lips stretched around me.”
He’d spoken a fair amount during their coupling before today, but never like this. This was… Maker, he didn’t even know where he was coming up with half of it. He’d obviously been spending too much time around Zevran. But with how enthusiastically Elissa was working her mouth on him, obviously spurred on with every word, maybe he’d have to pay more attention to the assassin’s unsolicited advice in the future…
He buried both hands in her hair, encouraging her to take him deeper and letting his head fall back with a groan. She swirled her tongue over him, making him gasp and his hips stutter as the wet muscle dragged over the head. “Keep that up and you’ll have me coming down your throat in a moment,” he growled. She hummed, and he bit his lip as he felt a warm throb that spread up his spine and his cock jerked in her mouth. “You like the sound of that?” he asked when he’d had a second to recover. She nodded, the motion working his length deeper, and her hand on his leg gripped tightly, pulling him forward. “Filthy girl,” he admonished with a low chuckle.
He was still careful not to choke her even as his gentle thrusts lengthened, giving in to the inevitable sensations building in him. “I’m so close, Sweetheart,” he warned. “You’re going to swallow down everything I give you. Every last drop.” If he’d thought about it he would never have said it in the first place, but she so very eagerly hummed in agreement that he couldn’t possibly regret it.
His lust-addled brain started to finally put the pieces together, to realize what was happening in this moment – other than the obvious. It was trust, pure and simple and life-changing. He hadn’t trusted anyone this deeply since he was sent to the Chantry, and he didn’t think anyone had ever trusted him that much before, either – certainly not the way that he and Elissa were trusting each other now. Not just now now – obviously he’d never been intimate with anyone before her – but they trusted each other with their lives and their hearts every day. He hoped she knew that even though he wanted her desperately, even though he craved everything from her, to share everything with her, he would always keep her safe and happy to the best of his ability.
He had to believe that she did, because without that understanding her decisions about him were absolute madness.
But he would have walked through the Void for her since they first went into battle together in the Wilds, so maybe he didn’t have any room to judge.
His fingers tangled in her hair and urged her forward as he moaned out his climax, finally stilling as his orgasm crested and overtook him. She swallowed as she attempted to take him even deeper, but a trickle of his spend still escaped her lips to run from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. For a moment he was enraptured by the sight, but then the heat and suction became too much and he hissed quietly, pulling on her hair gently to remove her mouth from his spent cock with a whole-body shudder.
He sank to his knees in front of her, beaming as he used his thumb to swipe the last of his come off of her face. “Beautiful,” he whispered, offering his thumb to her, and she eagerly closed her mouth around it to lick it clean. He tenderly brushed her hair back from her face, kissing her forehead, her cheek, her nose, and finally her mouth, softly teasing her lips with his teeth. He stroked her cheeks with the backs of his fingers, overcome with affection, and said, “You were so good for me, Love. So wanton and wonderful. I think you deserve something for yourself, now.”
He gently guided her back to lie down on her bedroll, stroking his hands down her sides as he bent his head to her breast. He swirled his tongue around her nipple, his mouth momentarily twitching into a grin as her skin pebbled and hardened against his tongue. Elissa sighed, bringing one hand up to play with his hair. He immediately stopped and took her wrist, tutting at her quietly and placing her hand next to her hip. “No touching, remember? That’s your only warning, Sweetheart.”
She bit her lip, asking “What happens if I do it again?”
He hadn’t quite thought that far ahead, but he was sure it would come to him – just about everything else tonight had. “We’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” He returned to her breast before she could find a reply, gentle suckling quickly evolving into scrapes of his teeth and long, hard tugs that made her gasp and writhe under him. He made sure to pay equal attention to each breast, in no hurry to move on. He wanted her begging for him before he took her, and it was going to demand a significant amount of time if he wanted to do this properly.
He nipped at her breast, nibbling rapidly on each of her pretty little peaks. She was clutching at the blankets, knuckles going white as she loosed the most sinful noises from her lips. He finally began kissing down her stomach and she whined , tensing completely. He paused where he was, grinning. “Don’t want me to go?” He slowly planted a kiss a few inches higher. “I suppose I could spend the next hour devoted only to your breasts.” He dropped his voice low, practically purring the last few words, eager to see what her reaction would be. “Mmm, sounds delectable.”
She squirmed restlessly, whimpering with soft little squeaks. “No, please, keep going, please,” she whispered.
She was so cute when she was desperate and begging. He was enjoying this newfound power so much that he almost wanted to make good on his playful threat…
But he had been only a few inches from his goal a moment ago, and the pull of desire had him in its hold as much as it did her. He pressed her knees out to the sides to make room for his broad form as he descended again. He kissed from her stomach over to her hip, giving the soft skin a sudden harsh nip, grinning as she bucked with a gasping squeak and thumped one palm down on the bedroll after snatching it back from reaching to him.
Normally she’d have her hands all over him by now, but she was being so good. He’d need to make sure her reward was at least as good, maybe even better.
He gently lapped at the bite mark in apology – though he wasn’t truly regretful of anything he’d done, not when she writhed so irresistibly under him because of it. He nipped more softly down the top of her thigh, teeth just ghosting over her, and pressed kisses back up the inside of her leg, sucking red marks onto her creamy skin.
He leaned back to survey his work, rubbing his thumb over the new love-bites with a smirk. “Gorgeous,” he whispered, eliciting another insistent whine from his love. “Oh, did you want something?” He affected an innocent expression, and she tossed her head back in frustration.
“Alistair,” she whined. “Please!”
He laid down to tuck her knees over his shoulders and leaned his face on the inside of her leg. “What do you want, Sweetheart?” He trailed his fingers up the other leg, tracing little swirls closer and closer to her slit. Maker, she smelled so good. He almost lost his resolve and dove straight into her, tongue first. Almost.
“I need your mouth, please, I need you inside of me, any part of you, please.” She was writhing more each second, so he wrapped one arm over her hips to hold her still. She must have been really worked up – normally she made a game of it just as much as he did, building their anticipation further as she ‘refused’ to answer.
“How could I possibly deny such a polite request from such a lovely lady?” He nuzzled and pressed soft kisses to the crease of her thigh, humming thoughtfully. “I wonder how many orgasms I can get from you before you beg me to stop?” He asked it almost idly, as if he’d never find the answer – but today he fully intended to do so, to lose himself to the delicious paradise that existed between her thighs until they were both wrung out and senseless. He licked a slow stroke up the length of her slit, flattening his tongue to drag over as much of her as possible. “You’re so delicious, Sweetheart,” he sighed. “I could feast on you for days…”
He kept himself to slow, deliberate movements to begin with, sighing and humming and groaning as he lavished attention on her. He savored her like a rare delicacy, delighting in every sense awakened by the experience and drawing it out for as long as possible, but he avoided the spot she wanted him most – that twitchy little button that was slowly swelling, begging for a suck. Instead, he lapped at her entrance, wriggling his tongue inside of her to tease out more of her nectar. He moaned with his mouth still pressed to her, eyes rolling back for a moment in rapture. He was already hard again, so achingly stiff that he was almost afraid he’d burst. Every sound she made, every sigh and moan and gasp, made him throb with want, sending a pulse of sympathetic pleasure radiating out from the base of his spine.
He licked up along her folds, pressing two fingers into her and getting them coated in her desire as he slowly searched out that spot inside that made her tremble. Her thighs were quaking next to his ears when he finally pressed his lips to her pearl, and she let out a long groan as she tried to grind into his mouth, but he was still holding her fast. But that sound finally broke his resolve to take it slow and he thrust firmly with his fingers, quickly intensifying the kisses to her clit, every cry from his love pushing him to bring her to her peak more quickly. He was getting desperate to see her come, wrapping his lips around her pearl to pinch and tug, tongue slipping wetly over her.
Moments later she hurtled over the precipice, surprising both of them with the suddenness of it when she yelped, breath catching in her chest as she bowed off the ground with a gasp. She writhed with fitful twitches of her legs, and Alistair kept driving his fingers into her, though he removed his mouth for a second to lick his lips. “There’s one,” he grinned before lapping around his fingers with another moan.
“You’re really going to – oh, Maker – to count?” With his fingers still working she wasn’t precisely relaxed, but apparently her need was quenched enough to be snarky at him.
“Of course. How else will we know? This is purely scientific curiosity, you understand,” he quipped back. He pressed a third finger into her, groaning quietly as he felt her walls twitch in response to the stretch. Merciful Andraste but she was so tight around his fingers that he couldn’t help imagining that feeling around his cock, making him throb somewhat painfully.
She was trying to roll her hips – still to no avail with his grip on her – and moaning when he latched onto her clit, launching her dangerously close to coming again. She thrashed, her head tossing back, then side to side, her calves squeezing along his ribs as she tried to grind into his face. He managed to keep her in place, though it was taking a considerable amount of strength now as she lost herself to the rising pleasure again. Her complete abandon when he got his mouth on her never failed to leave him in awe. It really was a shame that he had to do things like breathe and eat, or else he’d just attach himself to her delicious quim and never leave again.
This time he did not retreat from her pearl when she crested, suckling and flicking his tongue across the end of the tiny shaft as she shuddered, voice going hoarse on his name. She was babbling curses, eyes screwed shut and thighs pressed tightly to his ears as she started a high desperate wail.
Just as his ministrations were getting to be too much for her – he could tell by the way her feet tried to push at him even though her legs never loosened their grip on his head – he backed off again but continued to press his fingers inside of her. She sagged gratefully into the bedroll with a sighed, “Maker…”
“No, it’s Alistair. You must be pretty far gone if you can’t remember that.” He laughed when she rolled her eyes at him. “Two, by the way.” She had flushed a soft pink with the edges of her hair sticking to her face, and the corners of her mouth were curved up in a smile that no one else would ever see. That one was just for him, and only for times that she was too blissed out to even think. In that moment, he thought she’d never been more beautiful, and he wanted to give her everything.
He was forced to release his hold on her hips as he sat up to get a better angle, rubbing the base of his palm over the top of her sex, applying broad pressure in slow, firm circles while his fingers still stroked and wriggled. “That’s it,” he encouraged when she let out a lusty moan. “Maker, you’re so beautiful.”
She rolled her hips into the strokes of his fingers, nails digging into the fabric of the bedroll beneath her. When he saw her like this, Alistair could hardly believe his luck, that such a magnificent, strong, vivacious woman could love him and want to be with him and not only let him touch her but enjoy it so thoroughly. He kept wondering how he was going to muck it up, even after Elissa had sworn to him that as long as he was himself that would be impossible.
“I am a lucky man,” he murmured to himself with a soft smile. That smile widened as she started moving more insistently, trying to take his fingers deeper and more roughly. He, of course, obliged, watching with delight as she tensed and arched and finally came again, gripping his fingers dearly.
“Three.” He slowed his ministrations until she opened her eyes, then began again with vigor. “You can handle another one, surely?” he teased. He leaned over her, one hand holding his weight near her shoulder, dropping kisses all over her face and hair and neck. Her mouth tried to find his, but her movements were sluggish and clumsy. It didn’t take much for her to fall over the edge again, this time with a jerky shudder and high-pitched sigh that he might have missed if he hadn’t felt how her core milked his fingers.
“Four,” he breathed against her neck. “Do you need a break, Sweetheart?”
She nodded weakly, muscles in her legs and abdomen twitching fitfully. “Just a minute…”
He wasn’t sure if that really counted as ‘begging him to stop,’ but he relented and eased his fingers from her anyway. He couldn’t resist a final taste as he sucked each one clean with a nearly inaudible groan. “Maker’s Breath, now I want to devour you all over again. You’re just scrumptious.”
She huffed out a breathless giggle and bit her lip at his display, eyes locked on him. “I want to touch you,” she said, quiet and pleading.
He narrowed his eyes playfully. “Hmm, I’m not sure. I think I rather like having you at my mercy like this.” He sat back on his heels, trailing his fingers down the center of her chest and veering off to the side to grip the swell of her hip. He wrapped his other hand around his cock, stroking slowly. He wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse for himself, but it certainly did make the desire burn brighter in Elissa’s eyes.
With an impish grin, she deliberately raised her hand, placing it on his stomach and slowly sliding down, nails lightly grazing his skin.
Alistair wasn’t certain if she was doing it on purpose, but her defiant streak shifted his mindset back to where this encounter began. He had wanted to feel in control of something, and she had wanted to give that to him. While she was getting her ‘reward’ he had relaxed a bit, started to lose himself in how much he loved bringing her pleasure. Perhaps he’d indulged her a bit too much if she thought he was ready to give that control up already. But he wasn’t – not yet. He wanted to push harder.
He wanted to see how much she would really give him.
For a few long moments he let her fingers linger on his skin, then he took her by the wrist and gently pulled her hand away. “You’ve already had your one warning,” he said.
“I know,” she answered. “You said we’d find out.”
He smiled. “I did, didn’t I?” He released her arm, and his eyes darted over the interior of the tent for a moment before resting on one of their shirts just a few feet away. “I do believe you’ll need to be punished. Flip over, hands and knees.” He grabbed the shirt as she did, then knelt behind her, letting his cock rest in that enticing dip between her cheeks. Just the sight of it, his cock now steadily leaking onto her skin, nearly broke his resolve, but he hadn’t cultivated all that discipline with the Templars for nothing. “Give me your hand.” She reached back, and he tied one of the sleeves around her wrist. “Now the other one.”
“I’ll fall,” she said, looking a bit confused.
“I won’t let you.” He slowly stroked her back, meandering over to her hip and down to her ass. “Trust me?”
“Always and forever,” she answered. His cocky expression softened and became more affectionate. He couldn’t possibly deserve her, she was far too perfect for the likes of him. But while she was in his care, he’d give her his all.
He pulled her more upright with an arm just under her breasts, and she reached her other hand back to him to get tied as well. Once she had been properly restrained, he pulled her closer and pressed his body fully against her back. He almost couldn’t help the firm rock of his hips against her ass – not that he wanted to stop it in the first place. She really did have a glorious backside.
“Now you won’t be able to touch without permission. But this is supposed to be a punishment,” he said. He brought a hand up to cover her breast, pinching her nipple between the knuckles of two fingers. She sighed and arched into his hand, making him chuckle. “And this doesn’t look much like a punishment to me… yet.” He pushed her shoulder, bent her at the waist until she was horizontal, pulling back on the shirt to hold her up. “So here’s the final rule: you can’t come until I do.”
“That doesn’t seem too–” she broke off with a sharp cry when he thrust into her, fully hilting himself within her in one stroke.
He growled, almost purred in satisfaction, rocking against her ass and moving one hand to her hip to hold her against him. She bit her lip, brows drawn together in concentration and eyes closed. He slowly started to withdraw, grinning at the soft moan that escaped her. “You were saying?”
“Not fair,” she gasped, trying to push back onto him but thwarted by his grip on her flank.
“Of course it’s not fair. Wouldn’t be much of a punishment if it was.” He thrust into her again, one fast and hard stroke, and they both moaned as their skin connected with a loud slap. “Maker, you always feel so amazing,” he sighed.
He changed to short, sharp thrusts, not wanting to leave her tight heat any more than necessary. He gave her arms a bit of slack, letting her bend down further, now able to push even deeper. She tensed suddenly around him, and he leaned his head back with a growly groan that rumbled up from deep in his chest. She let out a harsh exhalation, as if she’d been holding her breath, and her sheath stopped gripping so tightly before he heard her gasp and she tensed up around him again.
He laughed and gave her rump a firm smack. “You’re doing that on purpose. Trying to hurry me along?” She squeaked when his palm connected, breaking her concentration and her grip. He dropped his voice down to that register that would never fail to make her needy and shameless. “Naughty girl. You’ve been bad… ”
She let out a long, quiet moan, and he kept a firm hold on the shirt tied around her wrists as he bent forward with her, letting him put more force and weight into his movements. He whispered into her ear, voice low and hushed. “Good thing you already sucked me off tonight, or that might have worked.”
She shuddered beneath him, teeth biting into her lower lip, and he took some pity on her. He slowed his movements, no longer pulling out but grinding steadily against her. The hand that had been steadying her hip came up to slide along her waist, up past her ribs, coming forward to squeeze her breast. He kept whispering to her, as if everything he said was some grand secret. “Every part of you is so soft, and it all feels so good.” No one could ever possibly compare to her, he was sure of it, and he never wanted to be with anyone else to find out anyway. What would be the point, when he had already known absolute perfection?
He hummed as he rubbed his palm over her nipple. “I wonder what it would feel like to fuck these, to shove my cock between your tits until I come all over your pretty face.” That might be one of the only things they hadn’t done at this point. The notion had only passed through his mind briefly, but her reaction made him glad he’d said it.
“Oh, please, please,” she moaned, grinding her ass back into him desperately.
“You like the sound of that? Hmm, I’ll have to keep that in mind for later.” He straightened up again, pulling her vertical with him, and adjusted his stance to better match the new angle. He couldn’t drive nearly as deep like this, but Maker, she was just so tight. Sometimes he wondered how he even fit inside her in the first place.
She gasped as he started thrusting again, steady, slow rolls of his hips as he tried to draw out the experience as long as possible. He hadn’t been lying earlier, he would have come ages ago if he hadn’t already come once, and he could feel it rapidly building again now.
He mouthed at her neck and her ear, quietly purring his praise to her. “You’ve been such a good girl, waiting for me to finish. I know how much you love my cock – it must be so hard.” He smirked a bit at his unintended double-entendre. “Can you wait just a little longer? Soon, I promise.”
“Yes,” she moaned. She didn’t have any leverage in this position, especially not with her arms tied behind her back, so every sensation came only from him. It was a heady thought, that he was in sole control of everything she felt, and it made him want even more. Balanced well enough on her knees, he moved both hands to her breasts, his fingers rough and demanding on her skin as he left harsh kisses along her neck.
“Wish I could fuck every inch of you at once,” he murmured into her shoulder, rolling his hips into hers in a continuous motion that was steadily gaining speed. “I want all of you.”
“You have me,” she gasped. “All of me. All yours.” Her legs started to tremble, and she bit her lips together, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she held back.
His movements became frantic, pressing as much skin as he could against hers, fingers digging into her flesh as he tensed. “All mine.” They hardly even sounded like words, more like the growling of some crazed beast, but she apparently still understood.
Her affirmative gasps of “yes, yours” stoked the blaze in him even higher, and he brought one hand up and turned her head to catch her mouth with his, thrusting his tongue between her teeth as if it could help him claim her more thoroughly. She would absolutely be the death of him some day, but Maker, would he die satisfied.
“Say my name,” he demanded, lips barely parted from hers.
“Alistair,” she moaned, and he grinned as he fucked her even faster.
“Again.” He stroked his fingers over her pearl, knowing he wasn’t going to last much longer and wanting her to be right there with him.
“Alistair,” she gasped, throbbing under his fingers and squirming with her eyes squeezed tight.
He fought to keep his fingers going as he buried his cock deep, groaning in relief as he spilled inside of her. He pressed sloppy, exhausted kisses to her jaw. “Come, Sweetheart,” he whispered, thrusting while he was still mostly hard, wanting to give her every last bit of him.
She called his name again as she came, and he slumped back to sit on his heels, his arms wrapped around her and bringing her with him to sit in his lap.
After a few seconds of breathless panting and even more breathless kisses to the side of her face, he reached between them to free her arms again. She immediately twisted around in his embrace, hands all over him, on his face, his back, his sides, his biceps, in his hair…
He huffed a laugh at that. “So desperate to touch me again?” His actions betrayed his apparent nonchalance, however, as he leaned into the fingers scratching against his scalp and his eyes slid closed for a moment with a soft sigh.
“Of course,” she said, without even a hint of her usual teasing. She gave him a small, nearly bashful smile. “I love you. I always want to touch you. Even if it’s just bumping shoulders or holding your hand. It’s relentless.” She smiled a little wider at that last part, and he gave her an affectionate squeeze.
“I feel the same, you know.” He stroked his fingers up and down her back. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Well, here’s hoping you never find out.” She leaned her head on his shoulder, nuzzling at his neck. “Did that help? I thought it was wonderful, but was it what you needed?”
He nodded, stroking her hair. “I think it was. I think…” He paused, not sure yet how to put it into words. “Maker, this is going to sound stupid, I just know it.”
“No it won’t. I promise. You never sound stupid to me.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve you, you know. A lot of times, if I’m honest.” He took a deep breath, trying to sort through his thoughts. “You know how I grew up. I was kept away from my father, never given a choice if I even wanted to meet him. I was shoved off to the Chantry, and I had zero say in the matter. They trained me to be a Templar, which I didn’t want to be. I at least wanted to join the Grey Wardens, but I was still conscripted. I was forced into service, so what I wanted still didn’t matter. And once you go through the Joining, you don’t have any choice. You’re a Grey Warden for life, like it or not.
“Then Ostagar happened – again forced to be somewhere I didn’t want to be in that final battle – though I’m glad of it now. If I hadn’t gone to the Tower of Ishal with you we would both be dead.” He had a little involuntary shudder at the thought. “And now all this – chasing down allies and running for our lives and trying to stop an entire blight by ourselves… it still wasn’t really a choice. It’s a duty, one we are bound to by blood. I don’t regret it, not one bit, but I think the only important thing I’ve ever chosen in my whole life was you.”
He wrapped his arms firmly around her, as if he was afraid she might slip away. “I… I needed to know you really did choose me, as well. That you would give yourself to me as much as I give myself to you. Proof, or maybe more reassurance, that you want me just as much.” He gave her a sad smile. “I feel like… like you’re the only family I’ve ever had. It’s probably naive, but I thought that finding someone that shares my blood would mean that we would have some sort of bond – a bond that I’d been missing my whole life, something deep and unbreakable.” He raised a hand to her face, and his throat felt tight. “But I didn’t need to go looking for a stranger to find that. I already have it with you. You’re a better sort of family, one that’s chosen, rather than born.” He leaned his forehead on hers, looking into her eyes that seemed to shimmer with emotion. “You know that I would give you everything, right? I’d die for you,” he whispered, “in a heartbeat.”
She blinked and two heavy tears fell down her cheeks as she smiled. “Please don’t, though.” She wrapped her arms around him as well, over his back to cling to his shoulders. “I appreciate it very much, but I’d really prefer you live for me.”
He grinned back, using his thumb to wipe the tears from her face. “I do that already, my love.”
She sighed. “Me, too. Every day.” She sniffed a little, adding quietly, “You’re my only family now, too.” She placed her hand over his heart, then he mirrored the gesture and they each covered the other’s hand with theirs: their ritual of affirmation. “I am yours, and you are mine,” she said.
He answered, “Always and forever.”
They stayed like that a few minutes longer, heads bent with foreheads touching and eyes closed, looking almost as if they were kneeling together in prayer, until he raised his head to kiss her cheek. “It’s late,” he said. “We should get some rest before the night is over.”
She nodded, and they both moved to lay in their bed while trying to keep as much physical contact with each other as possible. It was a bit awkward and resulted in more than a few giggles, and he was certain that it would have been much simpler to lie down and then snuggle up again, but neither wanted part for even an instant.
Once he had her tucked against his chest, one arm wrapped around her waist and their legs tangled together with her feet trapped between his calves, he was almost immediately overcome again with the depth of their devotion to each other. More than anything sexual that they did – no matter how enjoyable or depraved – this was proof that she loved him and he loved her. It was in the way that she pressed as close as possible to him, in how he tried to surround her and protect her when they embraced, in how quickly both of them would start to drift into the Fade, safe and whole in each others’ arms.
And, of course, it was in that final shared whisper of “I love you” that would be the last thing either of them remembered before the morning came.