The engagement was made when you were both children and he was only supposed to be a prince, but now circumstances had changed and he was king of a fractured nation. He would need to marry for the good of Ravka, so a political match would be much more beneficial. You wouldn't blame him if he chose to marry a foreign princess or noblewoman, but your parents insisted that you would be the future queen of Ravka.

"Stop fidgeting," your mother commanded. You straightened out, averting your stare as you mumbled an apology.

It was cold outside the front door of your parents' home in Os Alta. Goosebumps had broken out on your skin and you struggled to not rub some warmth into them. All you could do was wait for the king to arrive. He was more than ten minutes late, but your father had insisted that you all remain standing at the entrance until Nikolai arrived. 

As you heard carriage wheels in the street you swore you could leap with joy that you would soon be allowed inside again, but you stayed perfectly poised. The royal carriage swung around the corner and you felt your heartbeat pick up, kicking into double-time. You pitied any nearby heartrenders, for the thumping must have been utterly annoying; but you came about it honestly.

There was always a fear in the back of your mind that you would be found out. Someone would discover your family secret and you would be exiled from respectable society before you could marry your Lantsov fiance. But you couldn't worry about that now, not when the carriage had stopped and the king was getting out.

If you had been worried about the cold earlier, it was now the farthest thing from your mind. King Nikolai's stare was enough to make your face heat up, and you thought you might burst into flames without a moment's notice as you curtsied to him. He still looked a little like the boy in your faded memory of him, the boy that you met when you were twelve and he was fourteen. He had a boyish countenance, a light-hearted look to him as he stepped out of his carriage.

You were prepared for a bit more resemblance to his older brother, but he was comparatively more handsome than Vasily ever was. His smile was charming and warm, not greasy or snide as his brother's had been; he had a stronger chin than his brother, and really just a better bone structure in general. But perhaps the lack of similarity between him and his brother gave credence to the rumours of his lineage. You often wondered if people thought that way about the differences between you and your parents.

Whatever the case, you were too conscious of the way he didn't offer you his arm as the four of you entered the house to care about any of that. In Ravka it was common for engaged couples to do that sort of thing, even when they were practically strangers, so it seemed the whispers of his detachment from you had some truth.

You settled in the drawing room where tea was presented to the four of you. Mere minutes of small talk passed before your father broached the topic of the engagement. He set down his cup and saucer, leaning back in his seat as he stared at the king. Nikolai had just told an anecdote about the tiring details from his coronation several months ago and your father was ready to pounce.

"I suppose the wedding will be as much of a headache to plan, but this time you'll have my daughter to shoulder some of the weight," he said, a cheerful air to his voice despite the trap he just laid.

"Lord Antonov," Nikolai smiled politely, "I don't suppose you've heard any news from my father or mother."

Your father shook his head, a confused twitch in his brow.

"They were the ones to arrange this marriage, but, as it is, they are not around to see it through. They approved the match back when I was a boy and my father was still king." Here it was. The rumours were about to be verified. Nikolai kept on, "Things have changed since then; I am no longer a boy, and my father is no longer king, so you will forgive me if I would like to drop the agreement that my parents made you many years ago."

"Promises and plans were made, your highness, and they cannot be easily undone--"

"And yet they must be undone." Nikolai levelled your father with a heavy stare. "Ravka needs strong diplomatic ties, and I believe that one of the best options to achieve this is through marriage. I cannot sacrifice the good of this country for an old arrangement made by a party that is no longer in power."

"But what will my daughter do?" Your mother piped up. "She'll have to find a new suitor, but who would want her now that she gets older?"

As much as you would have liked to say that her words did not affect you, you couldn't deny their sting. To your parents, all that their daughter–their only child–had ever been was a bartering chip for well-born men to marry and continue their noble lines, and it showed in your mother's primary concern. If you weren't young, you weren't beautiful, and if you weren't beautiful, who would dare marry you? 

Nikolai nearly laughed. "She is twenty, that is not old. And if you're so concerned that she needs to be married, I will see to it that she finds someone suitable. I know enough barons and marquises who would be glad to marry her."

"For centuries we Antonovs have dedicated our lives--our entire estate--to this country and the Lantsovs, and this is how we are to be repaid?" Your father narrowed his stare. "Have you no honour? That you would go back on your word--some king you are."

If your mother's superficial worries weren't enough to make Nikolai rethink the marriage, insults from your father definitely wouldn't change his mind.

"Father," you gasped as a sorry attempt at admonishment. When you felt eyes on you, you couldn't help but speak, even if your parents wouldn't like what you were going to say. "You should consider the importance of his highness' role in Ravka. If our country needs a political marriage to strengthen diplomatic ties, then perhaps it is for the best that we sever the arrangement you made with the former king."

"My daughter doesn't know what she's saying, your highness," your mother tried to backtrack, but you weren't having it. You'd be in deep shit with them for that first comment, and you figured you should continue since they were already angry.

"If you two are as patriotic as you often say then you would understand that the good of your country comes first. If the king asks you to forgo an old agreement, you should forgo it."

"There you have it," Nikolai said. "The two most important voices in this conversation have spoken." He stood and looked at you. "I must be going now, but perhaps could you walk me out, my lady?"

You stood and set aside your tea, eager to be out of the room. In the hall, you caught Nikolai staring at you. He smiled, looking forward.

"You handled that well," he said.

"I should hope so." You glanced at him. "Like you, I was educated at Ketterdam University where most of my classmates were hog-headed boys who went on and on about the most insignificant topics. I found the best way to assert my voice in the classroom was through a light shaming of those who couldn't figure out when to shut up."

"Very effective," Nikolai remarked, his eyes alight. "What did you study at school?"

"Economics for the most part, but there was also advanced physics as well as debate classes."

"You must have made quite the student." There was approval in his voice.

You held back a proud grin. Men are frightened by smart women, your mother often said. She maintained that you must hold back your brains until after you had a ring on your finger, but because you weren't marrying him, you didn't see the need to hide your intellect. You straightened out and replied, "I was always top of my class."

When you reached the front door Nikolai fastened his jacket and turned to you with a conciliatory smile. "I hope I haven't bent your parents too out of shape."

"They'll get over themselves." But you weren't too certain of your words. You amended, "They'll have to."

"I meant what I told your mother," he said. "I can help you find a fiance. Though I'm sure you wouldn't have difficulty finding one on your own."

You chuckled. "Yes, undoubtedly my mother is already scheming to entrap the next richest bachelor in Ravka into a marriage."

"That's not what I meant." At your quizzical brow, he smiled and fixed the cuffs of his coat. "I only meant to say that you're highly intelligent and quite beautiful. Anyone would be lucky to marry you."

You dared to look away from his hazel eyes, tracing the gold frame of a portrait as you quickly dispelled the heat from your face. When you looked back he was trying to hide a smug smile that told you he knew exactly what game he was playing at. 

"You've scrapped our engagement, and yet now you're flirting with me," you observed with a tsk. "Are you always this contradictory?"

"When the mood strikes me," he said. "Now, it has been a pleasure but I must be getting back to the palace."

You parted ways with a handshake, Nikolai returning home and leaving you to face two very upset nobles.

..........

A/N: Thanks for reading! Feel free to like, reblog, and comment if you want to read more, I really appreciate the feedback! If you want to be tagged in the other parts of this series or to be added to the Nikolai taglist please comment on this part or send me an ask. Otherwise, I hope you have a great day/night :)

Masterlist

Part 2

Summerhall appears like a fortress carved from ivory amongst velvet green hills. Large windows glisten and reflect the midday sun, and the gardens tended around are thick and lush. Even the air is cooler out here, fresher than what traps stagnant in the alleys of your home slum. You can’t quite believe what you’re looking at as you clamber from the carriage with a timber-like stiffness in your bones. You clutch your satchel of medicinal supplies, a small trunk of your belongings at your feet.

Ahead of you, Aerion dismounts his horse with a flourish of his black cape. It billows around him like wings, and as he settles, his palfrey guided away by a servant, he spares a look in your direction. The corner of his lips quirk, something near a smile, as he appraises your expression of wonder, your eyes glittering as you stare up at the grand royal residence. Your fingers clutch nervously at your satchel, and there’s a subtle dip in your brow that tells Aerion all he needs to know.

But you’ll be fine here. You have him, after all.

He takes a few steps in your direction before he stops. He freezes, boots crushing gravel. There’s an obvious flex in his jaw as he watches a member of the kingsguard—oh, it’s Roland fucking Crakehall, Aerion immediately thinks—approach you with kind eyes and a disarming smile. Roland says something that snaps you out of your little trance, and you bow your head, saying something in return that makes the smile on Roland’s face split even wider.

Aerion watches you look up at Roland, and the nervous fidgeting of your fingers against the smooth leather of your satchel suddenly stops.

There’s a tick in his chest. A small, dull tug at the bottom of his heart and it sets off in a structured rhythm as he watches you and Roland interact. It has the nerves along his spine standing up, prickling with a heat he’s never felt before, venomous in its leeching through his diaphragm and up into his brain. He can taste it now—jealousy—and it’s sour on his pointed tongue, dripping from his teeth as his lip curls itself into a grimace.

He kicks himself from the gravel and approaches with meaningful strides. He feels the eyes of servants on him, hears the way they skitter out of his way like vermin. They drop their heads and lower their voices, and the tension that hangs treacle-thick in the air makes him feel great. It makes him feel alive.

He calls your name, and your eyes find his immediately. A rumble passes briefly through his aching chest, a proud purr as you respond so obediently to him. He snaps his fingers at a nearby servant then, gesturing to the wooden trunk at your feet. The servant nods, and immediately moves to pluck it from the ground and hurry towards the castle.

You frown. “Aerion, I am perfectly capable of—”

Roland speaks at the same time. “I was already offering—”

Aerion waves a hand, cutting both you and Roland off as though he had shouted at you. The silence is painful in the cool air, and you find yourself clutching your satchel firmly to your chest as the prince draws nearer.

“I will take my witch to her chambers,” Aerion says, and seizes you firmly by the elbow.

You do not dwell on the tightness of his fingers at your sleeve, nor do you dwell on his use of my witch. Instead, you offer Roland an apologetic smile as the prince all but drags you across the threshold, busy servants making quick work of throwing themselves out of his way.

You look around, possibly for someone to help. Not that you had belief anyone could save you from this situation, but maybe someone could at least offer you sympathy. But Prince Maekar was nowhere to be seen; neither were any of the other Targaryen siblings. Although, you think you catch a fleeting glimpse of dirty blond hair disappearing towards the kitchens, but that’s all it was: fleeting.

Aerion hauls you up a wide flight of steps, your footfall muffled by thick carpet. You shoot a glance downward as you ascend, in the general direction of the hall which would lead you, you’re sure of it, to the servants’ quarters. You were technically a servant.

“Your grace,” you begin as he hails you down a long corridor, grip still unrelenting on your arm. “Should I not take residence with the other servants? Surely—”

“You are not sleeping alongside the help.”

You scowl at his tone. “Well, I am the help, your grace.”

Aerion scoffs, pulling you around a corner. There’s another long hall that stretches, lit up by sunshine and hues of green where light passes through stained glass. It’s also empty, and you yelp when Aerion spins around and slams you roughly against the wall. You drop your satchel on instinct, the bag falling to your feet with a clattering of glass bottles—thankfully, not glass breaking—as your hands shoot up. Your palms rest flat to his chest as he presses close to you, one of his hands still on your arm, the other caging you in, propped up against the wall by your head.

“You are not the help,” Aerion begins, voice low. His eyes flit across your face, violet irises bright. “You are my help. You help me. And because you help me—you’re here for me—you will take residence where I tell you, yes?”

Your hands tighten against the red velvet of his gambeson. “I don’t think—”

“Yes?” Aerion repeats, the fingers on your arm clamping down. There’s a bite of blunt nails through the material of your sleeve too, and you draw in a calming breath as you try not to melt beneath the heat of his violet stare.

“Yes, your grace,” you whisper, dropping your head.

Aerion huffs, the hand on the wall shooting across to seize your jaw. You blow out an exasperated sigh through your nose as he forces you to look at him. The pads of his fingers are soft against the bone of your jaw, but his grip is tight. Unyielding.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” he says, cocking his head. He raises his eyebrows, imploring, waiting for you to speak again. “Speak up.”

“Yes, your grace,” you echo, louder this time. Your voice carries in a murmur down the hall, and you grimace hearing yourself bounce from the ornate walls.

But it pleases the prince, for he breaks out into a vulpine smile and pats your cheek firmly before stepping back. You release a tense breath, collecting your satchel from the ground as Aerion resumes his hold on your arm and leads you down the hall.

After a moment, he gestures to a door with a torch mounted to the wall nearby.

“These are my chambers,” he tells you, then leads you further down the hall. You pass by several more doors before the hall’s end greets you, where a door sits beneath a large Targaryen banner. He opens the door with a heavy hand. “And these are yours.”

The room is… not small. It’s grand and spacious, with the largest bed you’ve ever seen taking up a considerable amount of space to the right. Tall, latticed windows allow bright light to stream in, resembling ghostly fingers reaching for the Myrish carpet that covers the floor. There’s an empty hearth, plush chairs, and a writing desk nearby too. The desk is bare, and you approach it tentatively, placing your satchel down. As you take off your travelling cloak, draping it across the desk, you notice that your trunk of belongings already sits at the foot of the bed.

“This is excessive…” you find yourself muttering, turning and leaning back against the solid wooden desk.

Aerion looks at you from the doorway. “This is what you get.”

You grip the edge of the desk, looking around. “It’s not that I’m unappreciative, but—”

“Then thank me,” Aerion interrupts, stepping forward. He closes the door. “Say thank you.”

You look at him as he slowly crosses the room. You utter softly, “Thank you.”

“Thank you what?” Aerion stands before you now, trapping you against the desk. 

You can feel the heat radiating from his body; the blemishless shine of his pale skin. He leans in close and you can feel his breath ghost across you, tainted with mulberries and hazel. 

“Thank you, your grace,” you reply, challenging his gaze.

He grunts, a rough sound from the back of his throat, as he grabs your wrist. You let him steal your hand away from the desk, and you let him press your palm flat to the front of his trousers as he leans in closer. You smell ash and lavender wax soap across his skin. You bite your lip, ignoring the sudden wash of heat through your core, as he gently ruts his hips against your palm. There’s a shift beneath the fabric, and your lips part.

“Say it properly,” Aerion hisses, still looking at you. He runs your open palm against the front of his trousers, and you feel his cock give another jerk beneath the material. 

His hand is warm around your wrist, and you wonder if he can feel the thundering of your pulse beneath his thumb.

“Thank you, Aerion,” you whisper, and the lilt in your voice has his hips rolling deeper into your touch. “For the room.”

“Thank me for bringing you here,” he says quickly. He gently moves your hand up and down, and you can feel a tent pitching beneath your palm. “Tell me how lucky you are to be here with me.”

You frown, turning your head, his eye contact too intense. It’s cloying, overwhelming, molten heat that sticks to you the longer you look. You shake your head slightly, muttering, “Aerion—”

The prince’s other hand snaps up and grabs you harshly by the nape of your neck. He forces you to look at him, his other hand continuing to drag your palm across the bulge in his trousers. He looks at you, waiting.

“Say it.” It’s firm and venomous in its delivery.

The heat inside you doesn’t vanish. It swirls deeper, fills you broadly, and your free hand grips the edge of the desk in an effort to stop yourself from trembling.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” you say quietly, and you notice something flash in the violet of his eyes. You continue, “I am… I’m very lucky to be here.”

“With me,” Aerion utters, hand squeezing the back of your neck.

“With you,” you add, a little breathless.

Silence stretches. The distant rustling of leaves seeps in through the windows behind you, and the rush of blood in your ears is loud enough to bring you some sort of comfort. Aerion stares at you, blinking slowly, pupils tracing the lines of your face as he continues to gently move your hand against his covered cock. He’s so close that you can see the tiniest little scar just above his lip—a well-healed blemish you’ve never noticed before.

His eyes find your mouth.

You press your palm harder against the length of him, and he lets out a strained groan, before tipping forward. With his hand still on your nape, he cranes your head slightly so he can bury his face into the crook of your neck. He inhales deeply, the sensation causing a shiver to rocket down your spine. His pelvis presses closer then, trapping your hand between his hips and yours. He groans into your shoulder, mouth against bare skin where the neckline of your dress exposes you.

You feel his teeth sink into your skin: not enough to break, but enough to have you squirming beneath him. You feel him chuckle, then pull away. A string of saliva stretches from the little indents at your shoulder, to his lips, but it snaps when he levels his face with yours. His tongue darts out and swipes across his bottom lip.

There’s a wordless message passed between you. 

Your fingers find the clasp of his trousers and you surprise yourself by undoing it one-handed. Aerion seems impressed too: he smiles and shoves his hips forward, rutting against you. You find the ties at his waist next, pulling at the knots as he lets a low groan slip from his mouth. Heat is sticky and stagnant in your stomach, sitting heavy in your core as you undo the ties of his trousers, exposing the linen of his breeches.

He helps you, shoving his trousers down his thighs as you untie his breeches. You need another hand for this, fingers moving deftly, eyes directly down. But you can feel him looking at you still, waiting for you. As you yank the ties of his breeches open, he leans in and presses his lips to the curve of your jaw—a brief moment of intimacy before his mouth opens and he licks like a dog across your pulse.

“Aerion,” you breathe out, tipping your head in an attempt to flee his tongue.

He just chuckles, pulling away and peering down at where you finally push his breeches down. His cock, blushing warm and hard, hangs free. You shift to take it with reaching fingers, but he slaps your hand away. You jerk back, then forward when the gap between you increases, and suddenly he’s guiding you onto your knees by the hand on the back of your neck.

He fists himself as he settles you in front of him, your head parallel to the desk behind you. You peer up at him, hands resting against his thighs, and he peers down at you. There’s a mirror in your expressions: a silent need as you squeeze your thighs together and he grips, white-knuckled, around the base of his cock.

“Say thank you,” the prince whispers, dragging his cock along your cheek. He’s drooling out against your skin, leaving glistening lines in its wake as he smears himself across your lips. He’s warm and solid, skin soft and blushing and pliable as he rolls the shaft across your other cheek too. He grins, bringing the tip to your lips. “Say thank you, sweet girl. Thank me for this cock.”

“Thank you,” you manage to say, gripping the bunched material of his trousers.

Aerion grins, lilting, “Oh, you’re welcome, little witch.”

He bullies his cock between your lips then, and you part them with a grunt. Still grinning, fox-like and stretched across his pride, Aerion pushes his cock deeper into your mouth, feeling over the bumps of your tongue as you lower your jaw to take him deeper. An airy moan leaves him as he grips your neck and feeds his cock down your throat, pressing your face into his pelvis. You close your eyes, screwing them shut as you withhold a gag. 

He pulls out, then shoves back in. You manage to open your eyes, tears wet in your lashline as you look up at him. He’s already looking down at you, the smile still there but a lot smaller as he fucks his cock into the heat of your mouth.

“You’re here, in this room,” Aerion begins suddenly, vowels extended through a poorly hidden whine. “For me. You will come to my chambers when you are called upon, no matter the time. You will serve no one else but me.”

You want to argue. You’re a healer of the people. If someone else needed your assistance, it would go against all you believed in to disregard them.

But, of course, you can’t argue. Not just because you’re dealing with Aerion Targaryen, whose wrath sets ablaze like a dragon’s fire, but because you’re choking around the width of his cock, words beat back down your throat.

Instead, you moan around him. The vibrations tremble thick and fast through his cock, and he lets out a hoarse moan.

“For me,” he whispers, looking up and speaking it directly into the ceiling.

There’s a loud knock on the door and your heart drops into your stomach. Your hands squeeze his thighs tightly as he pulls you firmly against his hips, holding you there as he struggles to even his breathing. Aerion waits, and you swallow around his cock, saliva building uncomfortably in your mouth. His fingers tighten around the nape of your neck, a warning, as another loud knock rocks through the chambers.

“What?” Aerion calls, curt and obviously angry.

“Apologies, your grace.” Roland Crakehall. Aerion could murder him. Through the door, the kingsguard continues politely, “I’m looking for the lady.”

“Why?”

“Ser Donnel requests her presence in the main hall,” Roland replies, his voice slightly muffled through the thick wood. “Immediately.”

Aerion looks down at you, and you give him a pointed look. He shakes his head, and you take a gamble: gently scraping your teeth along the sensitive skin of his length. The prince sucks in a quick breath, and you manage to pull yourself from his cock, coughing lightly. Aerion is seething as you fend off his hold and get to your feet, hurrying towards the door whilst wiping your sleeve across your mouth.

You pull open the door and smile at Roland. “Hello.”

“Oh.” Roland bows his head politely. He addresses you by name. “I apologise if I’m interrupting something.”

You shake your head, smoothing your hands down your skirts. “Not at all. Shall… I come with you now?”

Roland nods. “Please. And bring your supplies.”

You nod, quickly rushing across the room to snatch your satchel from the desk. Aerion, hard cock stuffed back in his trousers, reaches a hand out, the tips of his fingers just brushing your arm before you breeze past him. 

He grunts, messily tying a knot in the laces of his breeches, shifting towards you with ire flashing in his violet eyes. “Now, wait—”

“Lead the way,” you say to Roland when you reach the doorway once more, ignoring the Targaryen prince looming. 

You quickly step out into the corridor and slam the door shut behind you. Roland can’t help himself: he lets out a small laugh as he begins leading you down the hall.

“I’m not sure if he wants to murder me or you,” the knight says plainly, thick with humour. His eyes sparkle as he looks at you, matching the gleam of his polished white armour. “You’re as brave as they say.”

You ignore his first comment with a playful roll of your eyes. Instead, you cock your head. “They?”

“Those who work for the household,” Roland tells you. “Word travels fast, and the woods witch Aerion Targaryen has taken a liking to makes for good conversation.”

“Great,” you mumble sarcastically.

Roland reassures you with a polite smile. “Don’t fret. You are well liked amongst the ranks, and Ser Donnel speaks very highly of you.”

That puts you slightly at ease as you traipse the sun-soaked corridors of Summerhall.

—✿—

As the sun sets, Aerion realises he hasn’t seen you since Roland whisked you away. You had vanished; seemingly slipped into the shadows, or danced off with the wind. He scoured the brightly lit halls, shoving open doors and tearing curtains from their hooks with dramatic flourishes as he peered out windows. You weren’t anywhere, it seemed, and there was a pit forming in the base of his stomach: a heavy stone, almost unbearable in its weight.

Having done three laps of the royal residence, Aerion huffs to a stop near the entrance to the servants quarters: the only place he hasn’t checked. He curses himself for being so ignorant as he stares down the dark, narrow hall that winds itself deep into the castle’s interior.

“Your grace.”

Aerion turns, finding Ser Donnel approaching. The kingsguard rests a hand casually on the pommel of his sword, which sits snug at his hip. He looks at Aerion with slightly narrowed eyes, a flat smile, and the look of a disappointed father.

“She’s in there, isn’t she?” Aerion questions, although it’s less a query because he knows. The shadows of the narrow passageway are thick, and he’d be a fool not to have noticed the way you looked at them when you had first arrived.

Donnel shrugs. “And what if she was? Do you intend to fetch her?”

“Yes,” Aerion replies quickly.

Ser Donnel lets out a mirthless laugh. It’s quick and sharp, and Aerion’s jaw twitches in response. The knight shakes his head too.

“Leave her be, just for the evening,” Donnel says firmly.

Aerion narrows his eyes at the kingsguard, the white of the armour appearing grey beneath the evening shadows and the flickering of mounted torches nearby.

“You sent her there,” Aerion mutters, recalling his little witch’s sudden—and unwelcome—departure from him earlier that day. “What did you say to her?”

Aerion grips the handle of his dagger, which rests comfortably at his side, sheathed in black leather. Donnel notices the movement and shakes his head, breathing out a chuckle. He nods towards the passageway, the air around him shifting.

“A few of the cooks suffered burns preparing supper,” Donnel tells the prince.

“We have maesters for a reason,” Aerion growls out.

Donnel gives him a pointed look. “Yes… we do.”

Aerion huffs, lip curling as he grips the black leather of his dagger. “Do not patronise me, Ser Donnel. She is mine. She is not here to serve anyone else.”

Donnel takes a step towards the prince, armour clanking. He drops his voice, speaking low, “You have already taken her from her shop, and her livelihood, and her people: the least you can do is let her help others while she is here.”

Aerion seethes. “How dare you speak—?”

“You do not need her help at this moment, your grace,” Donnel interrupts. “Please let her be.”

Aerion passes a challenging look to the kingsguard. Never in his life has anyone dared speak to him in such a manner, except possibly his mother or father. Ser Donnel matches Aerion’s glare with a calm look of his own, and Aerion realises that this knight really does care for you. He’s protecting you.

You don’t need protection from Aerion. You’re his.

Aerion spins on his heel and proceeds down the passageway. The firm, metallic footsteps of Ser Donnel behind him only spur him on, and he ducks down the narrow hall like a serpent shifting through stones. He breaks through a doorway and finds you sitting amongst a group of servants, your satchel open and resting in your lap. Beside you, a young woman admires a glistening cream-coloured salve—obviously your work—spread across her forearm, obscuring an angry burn. You hold a small bottle between your fingers.

“This is a natural disinfectant. It’s good for cleaning wounds, on both humans and animals…” You trail off, eyes lifting to find Aerion in the doorway. You swallow thickly, slowly placing the bottle back into your satchel as the servants notice his presence.

They scarper like rats, Aerion thinks, as he watches the group disperse in a flurry of limbs. Many scramble past him, disappearing down the hall, whilst others vanish through another narrow entrance across the room. They leave you alone, perched on the edge of a rickety wooden bed, the straw mattress threadbare and thinning beneath you.

“You grace,” you begin, getting to your feet and hefting your satchel over your shoulder.

“You’ve been hiding from me,” Aerion says.

You shake your head. “No, I’ve been helping—”

“You’re not here to help them,” Aerion spits, crossing the room now. “You’re here to help me, yes? You’re here for me.”

You look past Aerion as he draws within a few feet of you, and the prince turns to see Ser Donnel in the doorway. Your hands shoot out, finding the plush warmth of Aerion’s doublet, but your eyes are still on the kingsguard across the room.

Donnel frowns. “M’lady?”

“I’m alright, Ser Donnel,” you tell him gently, fingers balled in the prince’s shirt. It’s half to keep you grounded as you breathe, smelling cedar and smoke in Aerion’s clothes, and half to keep him in check, for you have a feeling he may lunge at someone. You nod at the knight. “I’m fine.”

Donnel looks between you and Aerion. “Are—?”

“She said she’s fine, did she not?” Aerion spits over his shoulder. “Now, be a good knight and fuck off.”

Ser Donnel, despite the worry flashing across his gently aging features, turns and slips down the hall and out of sight. Aerion was still his prince after all, and he knows better than anyone that the prince is… temperamental.

Aerion turns to you now, his hands finding the satchel on your shoulder. He carefully removes it, wordlessly, eyes near black in the darkness of the room. A small candle, dripping wax mounting at its base, illuminates part of the room, but the shadows here are consuming. They cling to your body as Aerion’s hands find your hips, rubbing up and down your sides, fingers ghosting across the top of your skirts.

You breathe out carefully, fingers loosening in his doublet. You rub circles across his chest, soothing. You pet him like a cat, fingers bending and circling. And he responds like a cat, eyes closing as a purr-like rumble stirs from deep in his chest. You feel the vibrations as he slowly moves you until the back of your calves hit the low bed.

“Aerion,” you whisper, and you mean for it to sound stern, but it’s breathless. 

Wood and ash, a smouldering hearth, is what you swims in the air around you as he leans over you, head dipping and finding the bend of your neck and shoulder. But there’s a sweetness in the white flicks of his hair as it brushes against the side of your face, his mouth drawing over your skin. Cedar and blackberry wine, sugared with the smell of sweat.

He says your name in response, muffled as his teeth skim over your skin. He bites again, a firm imprint of teeth, before he sucks hard. It lodges a whimper in your throat, head leaning to the side as your hands grip at his doublet once more. His own hands dip low as he hunches against you, guiding you down, down, down until you’re sitting on the narrow bed. You squeak out, aware that this isn’t your bed and this isn’t your chambers and Ser Donnel is only just down the passage—

“Too sweet for your own good, aren’t you?” Aerion mumbles against your neck as his hands bundle up the material of your skirts. He brings them up to your hips, exposing the clean linen of your smallclothes. He ignores the muffled whimper you let out, your lips pressed in a tight line. He tuts, “Such a good little helper. They just love you, don’t they?”

“Aerion,” you breathe out again, your hands finding his shoulders now. 

You feel the working of the muscle and joints as his arms shift to take hold of your smallclothes. His arm is thick and warm between the press of your thighs, but you don’t try to close them—in fact, you part them, shuddering as he pulls the linen away and exposes your slick cunt to the shadows of the quarters. His other hand finds the back of your neck as he picks himself out of your shoulder, lips shining with spit. He angles your head so he can trace the lines of your face with his swollen pupils.

“You enjoy spending time down here?” Aerion whispers as two fingers run down your slit, spreading you apart. He groans at the wet heat and the little moan you try to catch between your teeth. “With the servants and the maids?”

His fingers languidly shift, drawing your folds apart until they press to your hole. He wastes no time either: running a couple of circles around you, he dips his fingers inside you, slowly pulling you apart knuckle by knuckle.

“Yes,” you say around an exhale.

“More than with me?” His fingers crook inwards and your head tips back involuntarily, a hushed moan slipping from tongue to shadow. Aerion cradles the back of your neck, watching you carefully as you slowly settle your head to meet his gaze. You give a subtle shake of your head, and Aerion smiles. “No?”

“No,” you whisper, then bite down on your bottom lip, eyes closing. His fingers press against that perfect spot, your cunt clenching around the digits as something rolls in your tummy, a rope of tension stringing across the front of your womb.

Aerion rucks his fingers in and out of you. The silence of the room is filled with the slick plap-plap-plap of his fingers inside you as his movements pick up. You writhe, whimpering softly, and your fingers grip his shoulder tightly, pulling him to you. He obliges you, chest nearly against yours as he rests his mouth against your forehead. His lips press to the soft skin, not quite a kiss, as he pants against you, eyes fluttering as he feels the hot clutch of your cunt around his fingers. So wet and warm and wanting.

“Does being down here make you happy?” He asks, words breathed out against your warm skin.

You whimper.

“Answer me,” Aerion whispers, but it’s not harsh. It’s pushed out on an exhale and it’s surprisingly gentle. Smothered by shadow, carried away on a light summer breeze.

“Yes,” you manage to squeak out. “Yes, my prince.”

He crooks his fingers as he ruts them in and out. There’s slick dribbling slowly across his bottom knuckles, and there’s small sounds working out of your throat like the mewls from a kitten. His mind swims, cock half-hard and twitching in his breeches, sweat tacky on his forehead as his arm and fingers work.

“Okay,” he begins, pulling his fingers from you. He angles back, and you groan at the empty feeling that braces against you like a chill. Your orgasm recedes and you let out a breathy whine, fingers tugging at his doublet. He shushes you, the hand on your nape pulling you back and laying you on the mattress. “Okay, sweet girl, you can help them.”

You open your eyes properly. “Really?”

“But you will always help me first,” he says, and you’re already nodding. He doesn’t want to share, but he’s doing this for you. He takes his fingers, wet with you, and presses the pads to your lips. “You will help them when I say you can. Not—” he shoves his fingers into your mouth. “—when Ser Donnel says, yes?”

You hum around his fingers, tongue wrapping. He smiles, pleased, pulling them out. He pats your cheek before he shrinks back, parting your thighs. Hefting your hips, the prince bends and settles his face directly against your core. The abruptness of it has you keening, and the moan that leaves you is frighteningly loud. Aerion chuckles to himself as his mouth parts against your pussy, tongue splitting up between your folds, laving over your clit. You mewl, hand shooting down out of instinct to fist his hair. He groans in response as his fingers find your hole again, pushing in with an audible shlick.

“Oh, fuck, Aerion, wait—” You cut your whispered plea off with a moan as his fingers curl. Perfect, precise. It makes your hips grind down, twitching against his face as he licks across you simultaneously. The sounds that leave you, draped in shadow and hushed between the desperate clenching of your teeth, spur him on. You whine, that rope of tension in your lower belly pulling taut. “Aerion, my prince, please.”

Aerion’s other hand is tight on your thigh, dimpling flesh as he keeps it hooked around his shoulder. His head moves, eyes unwavering in their stare over the mound of your belly, the bunched fabric of your dress, the valley of your breasts, and onto your face. You’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen: eyes fighting to stay open, teeth sunken into your lip. You writhe beneath him, and you’re just so warm. Your cunt, wet and hot; your thighs soft and warm against his ears.

His tongue follows your sounds. The high-pitched mewls you try to hide when he licks over the puffy bud of your clit, or the low keen he feels rumble through you when he spreads your folds apart. Deft fingers push and pull, in and out, until he can see the way your body begins to tighten and tremble. He knows you by now.

The rope inside you frays and you arch off the thinning mattress. You press yourself deeper into his touch as your release snaps through you, fingers tightening in his hair as you cry out his name. It’s loud, and the little candle nearby flickers as the sound bounces off the stone walls. The shadows do nothing to muffle it as you shake, thighs tightening around his head as your pussy clenches around his fingers. The prince groans into you as you whisper his name, his cock painfully hard in his breeches.

Slowly, and with a pained grunt, he pulls himself from between your legs, wiping his mouth against the inside of your thigh. You make a noise of complaint, but he shushes you as he rights himself.

“Should’ve known this pretty pussy’d taste of the heavens,” Aerion whispers, more to himself than you.

You hum in response, reaching down and grabbing your smallclothes where they gather messily near your knees. Aerion shifts back and watches, palm resting over his pelvis, as you pull your undergarments back into place. You sit up, then stand on shaky legs, allowing your skirts to fall back into place. The prince sits on the edge of the low bed, not saying anything. He simply watches you.

“Come now,” you whisper, holding your hand out.

Something lurches in his chest. He takes your hand and gets to his feet. And then he follows you from the quarters, his hand fitting so perfectly into yours, and he doesn’t even bat an eye when they pass by Ser Donnel waiting at the entrance, ever the good knight.

—✿—

Three days later, you open your satchel in search of a small scrap of gauze. Rhae, having toppled from her pony, sits on the stone bench beside you with a small cut on the palm of her hand. Tears wet in her eyes, she watches you as you carefully rifle through your supplies. Butterflies breeze overhead, birdsong filling the garden as the sun shines warmly against your back. In your satchel, you find your roll of bandage, but what you don’t find is your pouch of moon tea. Where it usually sits, amongst your vials and bottles, is empty. You frown to yourself, pulling the bandages out anyway and setting to work.

“Thank you,” she mutters, watching you with glossy violet eyes as you wrap a small scrap of the linen around her hand.

Not long after, you send her on her way. You peer into your satchel then and confirm that yep, you’re moon tea is gone. You look up and around, annoyed. Aerion lounges across the garden, head tipped back with serene bliss stretched across his face, skin glistening like tallow. As if sensing your eyes on him, the prince, without even looking in your direction, simply crooks a beckoning finger.

You huff, but oblige, padding across the soft grass until you reach where he lays.

“Have you seen my moon tea?” You ask him. There’s a nagging in the back of your head. You know exactly where your moon tea has gone.

“Your what?” Aerion opens one eye.

“You know exactly what, your grace.”

Aerion scoffs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fine,” you say. “I’ll fetch some more.”

“Fine,” Aerion replies casually, closing his eyes again.

—✿—

That night, he has your face pressed into the pillows of his bed. They smell of him, of a settled dragon, as you suck in short gasps as he splits you apart on his cock. He kneels behind you, mattress dipping beneath his weight as he locks his fingers around the plush of your hips, pulling you back to meet his thrusts. His movements are deep and heavy, the thick reach of his cock nudging towards the base of your cervix as you arch your back for him. You grip the silken sheets either side of you, panting, legs trembling.

You come with his name muffled against feathers, a sob breaking free of your throat as you turn your head to moan through it. Your pussy sucks him in tightly, fluttering with the rapid beating of your heart as you release for the third time since he’d dragged you to his chambers.

The prince groans in response, hips slapping against your arse as he ruts into you, chasing his own high. “Fuck, yeah, ah shit.”

He angles deeper, pushing you further into the mattress, your knees threatening to buckle. A deep-seated moan, thick as stone, fills the room as he pitches forward. Pleasure sits hot in his lower belly, itching at the base of his spine.

“Here it comes, sweet girl,” he grunts behind you, one hand leaving your hip to smooth up the dip of your back. “Take it all—take your dragon’s seed like a good little—”

Aerion knocks forward as he comes, all but flattening himself into you as he falls apart. His jaw hinges around a moan of your name as he spills, cock pumping thick and hot inside you, right up against the plug of your womb. You don’t have the energy to respond with anything else but a loud exhale that snags the end of a whine as it passes through your lips. Aerion’s hips roll himself through it as he empties completely, and even when the movements of his hips still and he’s sticking to you completely unmoving, he doesn’t pull out. The thick of his cock plugs you full as he hovers behind you, hands roaming, kneading, squeezing as he settles back within himself.

And you fall asleep like this: with him stuffed inside you, your back pressed to his sweat-slick chest. Slumber finds you easily, although you wake hours later with a dull ache between your thighs and the soft length of him resting against the cleft of your arse. 

Gingerly, you pick yourself out of bed, careful not to stir the sleeping royal, wrap yourself in your cloak, and vanish out the door. You’ve gotten quite good at leaving unannounced.

In your chambers, you find your satchel.

You pause. The fresh moon tea you had picked up that afternoon was gone. You can’t help but roll your eyes, exhaling an exasperated sigh through your nose as you opt for one of your homemade remedies instead, plucking the small vial from its place in your bag.

You know exactly what Aerion is trying to do, and for the most part, it makes you fume. As you uncork your own vial, you stew in your anger: he’s trying to get you pregnant; he’s trying to tie you to him, a tether of flesh and blood. You down the bitter liquid in a few deep gulps and your face scrunches in disgust. It tastes, for lack of better words, fucking disgusting. Sour with fermented tansy, bitter with concentrated mugwort. The moon tea at least tastes a bit better than this.

However, there is a part inside you that grows hot. You place the empty vial back into your satchel, licking the aniseed from your bottom gums. Aerion wants you. His need grows teeth: long, sharp fangs that sink deeper and deeper into your flesh. He doesn’t want to let you go—he can’t let you go. And the thought, as you close your satchel and bundle your cloak tight around your naked body, sits heavy in the front of your mind.

A sticky heat prickles beneath your skin, the feeling of being in the sun for too long. You hurry out of your chambers and back into Aerion’s, taking your cloak off and slipping back into his bed.

So, he’s hiding your moon tea from you. He wants you with child.

You smile at his sleeping form, noticing the way his white eyelashes rest against his cheekbones. You can let him play this game for as long as he wants. He won’t win.

—✿—

Two days on, Aerion leaves his father’s solar and makes for your chambers. A carnal need claws against the hooked bone of his ribs. He needs you.

He pushes open the door of your chambers without so much as a knock, expecting to find you at the desk, or perhaps lounging by one of the grand windows with a book in hand. However, the hearth is cold and the room is empty. 

He frowns to himself and heads down the long hall.

He checks the servants’ quarters, startling those who huddle within. They spook, staring at him as more phantom than man as his eyes settle on women who are not you.

“Where is she?” He hisses, and one of the younger women—the woman you had treated for burns, he remembers—raises a shaky hand and points behind her, gesturing in the direction of the gardens. 

Aerion nods curtly and departs.

The sun greats him warmly, as does the sound of your laughter, and he physically feels his heart leap in his chest. His need for you has reached his teeth now, and his jaw works as he grinds his molars, gnawing on the desire to sink the points into your flesh. Your thighs, preferably, or the fat of your arse. Although your shoulder works just as well when he’s stuffed to the hilt inside you.

The thought has his cock jerking in his breeches.

Across the garden, you stand amongst blooming carnations, pink petals soft as silk. You rub the tips of your fingers against one—one that Ser Roland fucking Crakehall had plucked and handed to you. The knight hovers by your side, a pleased smile on your face as you speak to him, rolling the delicate flower between your hands. Aerion can’t make out what you’re saying as you gesture to the blooms around you, but Roland is paying close attention: his eyes never stray, his smile never falters, and he nods along as you ramble.

The need inside Aerion sheathes like cat’s claws.

Anger remains. Why can he never seem to keep you for himself? You’re his.

“I know that look,” Ser Donnel says around a tired chuckle, appearing at the prince’s side. He looks down at Aerion, then over at you and Roland. “You must let her have some freedom, your grace.”

“I do,” he spits a bit too quickly. “I’ve let her treat the servants.”

“You have,” Donnel replies, clearing his throat after. “Which was very gracious of you, your grace, but she is a young woman who deserves more freedom than you give her.”

Aerion scoffs, eying the knight suspiciously. “Since when have you ever spoken to me so openly, Ser Donnel? I could have your tongue for that.”

Donnel gives the prince a pointed look.

Aerion shakes his head. “She has freedom. I give her freedom.”

Donnel grunts, unconvinced.

Aerion looks back over to you. You’re bending, plucking another carnation from a nearby shrub, and the curve of your arse beneath your skirts is on full display. Roland ducks his head, preserving some kind of decency between the two of you. When you right yourself, you turn and accidentally bump into the knight, who reaches his hands out to steady you, fingers on your upper arms.

Aerion’s jaw twitches.

“Your grace…” Donnel warns, low and father-like, and it reminds Aerion, for a split second, of the day he first met you: the day when Ser Donnel had been taking too long in a healer’s shop. A healer the knight insisted was the best in all of King’s Landing.

Aerion ignores the knight though. Lightning quick, he reaches down and plucks Donnel’s knife from his side, ripping it from its sheath in one smooth movement. Before the kingsguard can even react, the prince slices the blade across his own forearm, ivory giving way to crimson. Blood ribbons over his skin as he hands the knife to a gaping Ser Donnel.

Aerion calls your name, approaching with one hand pressed to the finger-length wound on his inner forearm. You lift your eyes, smiling as the prince approaches, but it quickly vanishes when he presents you his arm.

“Oh!” You jump away from Roland and immediately take Aerion’s arm in your hands, the carnation you had been holding fluttering to the ground. Your touch is warm, soft. Caring. “Aerion,” you breathe, shaking your head. “What’ve you done to yourself?”

“I need your help,” he tells you, ignoring your question. He lifts his gaze and gives Roland a firm look. Roland shifts uncomfortably, before ultimately looking away.

You’re nodding before he even finishes his short sentence. “Okay, okay, come on.”

You take gentle hold of his wrist and guide him away. He spares a look at Ser Roland, and then another at Ser Donnel. Both read much the same: Aerion Targaryen gets what he wants.

Back in the sanctuary of your chambers, he sits on the edge of your bed. Clean, white sunlight fills the room and a pleasant coolness sweeps in from where one of the large windows sits open a crack.

You bandage his wound silently. And he watches you the entire time. You sit beside him, fingers wrapping, and he watches you with violet eyes glossy and nearly unblinking. There’s a heat in his gaze like the brush of a candle flame. You can feel it against the skin of your face, and you wonder then if the silence in the room is amplifying the hammering of your heart against your sternum.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you tell him finally. The silence is too heavy.

“I’ll look at you however I want,” he replies simply. 

He cocks his head, dipping slightly to speak. He’s imploring, begging you to look at him, but you resist as you fasten the scrap of bandage into place. A beat passes, and he speaks again. He speaks your name, and it’s soft. Too soft for Aerion Targaryen. Too soft for a dragon’s tongue and teeth.

You relent, looking at him as you place your spool of bandage aside. Your hands fold together in your lap. It’s there again, the silence. His eyes dart across your face, feature to feature, and you see his pupils expanding the longer he looks at you.

“You’re such a pretty girl,” the prince whispers, and the hand of his non-injured arm finds your cheek. The backs of his knuckles trace across your skin, up over your cheekbone; a sweep of a raven’s wing, no scales or spines. You can smell the ash, the fire and the cedar and the blackberry wine, but you don’t see a dragon. He breathes out slowly, hand flipping so he can run the pads of his fingers down the side of your neck. “My pretty girl…”

“Aerion, don’t…” You whisper, watching the point of his tongue find the corner of his mouth. 

He doesn’t register your words as his hand finds and cups the base of your neck. “Gods, you always take such good care of me, don’t you? My sweet girl, so smart…”

You wait for a mock, a jibe, a force of his hand against your thundering pulse. But it doesn’t come, and the anxious weight in your chest quickly trades places with the needy weight in your stomach.

“What would I do without you?” He asks, hand travelling from your neck and over your jaw. His thumb presses to your lips. Words evade you. You let him press the tip of his thumb against the corner of your mouth. He continues, voice low, “What would you do without me?”

His hand shifts then, cupping your jaw and bringing your face forward. He carefully presses his lips to yours, the motion tender. And his lips are soft against yours. Years of care within castle walls; years of healthy food and drink at banquets; years of being coddled by the powers of coin and gemstones. A prince of the realm.

But his movements begin hard. He holds your jaw tightly now, coaxing your mouth apart as his lips move, and he groans against you when you obey. Your eyes flutter closed and your hands, once on your lap, shift to his chest and shoulders. Aerion makes another deep sound before he angles further inwards and his tongue graces between the split of your lips. You oblige him once more: parting with an airy whine and allowing the point of his tongue to slip over your teeth. Your tongues meet as you try and push back, need growing white-hot. You fist his doublet, pulling him tighter against you as his free hand sets on your hip.

You move like you’ve both been practising. Aerion pulls you up, the both of you standing. He breaks the kiss with a pained whine and spins you around so quickly you almost lose your footing.

“My prince,” you whisper as his mouth finds the side of your neck as his fingers—quick and experienced—begin unlacing the threads of your gown. You arch your neck into his touch, feeling the pinch of teeth. “Aerion.”

In seconds, you feel your bodice loosen around your chest and torso, and you help him by slipping out of the sleeves and kicking off your shoes. The dress pools at your ankles, and you kick it away as the prince spins you again and slams his mouth back to yours. This one is harsher, faster. He’s licking over your teeth like he’s committing your taste to memory, and you can’t help but whine as he kisses you again and again and again.

You tug at his doublet, and he gets the message. Parting from you, silence stretches thick as he throws the garment over his head. His tunic follows as your hands find the laces of his breeches. You easily pull the knots apart, and he discards himself of his boots. You lift your head and slam your mouth back to his, and he groans in surprise, one hand cupping your cheek, the other helping you in pulling the ties of his breeches apart.

Your movements are hurried, and when you get his breeches open, you break the kiss and try to drop to your knees—but he stops you. With his hand on your face, he urges you back to him and kisses you. You whine, pulling out of the kiss, and now you’re both panting.

“Aerion,” you breathe, but he’s not listening.

He grabs the material of your chemise. “Arms up.”

You listen, and he pulls the garment off your body. It flutters away and the prince lets out a long-winded moan that sets your core alight. You can’t help but squeeze your thighs together as he looks you up and down, eyes glazing over.

“My pretty girl,” he utters, dipping to kiss you again. Your tongues meet, passing ash and berries and sugar, as he guides you onto your bed.

You move as though you’d done it all before. You shuffle back and he chases you, mouths barely leaving, barely pausing in their movements. When he gets you flat on your back, Aerion pulls away and his hands immediately find your tits. Kneading, rolling your hardening nipples beneath his thumbs. Then, they travel, skimming over your sternum, your ribs, and down your tummy.

“Here she is,” the prince coos as he parts your thighs. One of his hands massages the pliable flesh there, the other grips the base of his cock. He’s hard, tip a bruising red and leaking from the slit, pearling and rolling down the vein on the underside. Your throat works around a moan as you watch him, his eyes on the slit of your pussy. “My prettiest girls.”

You moan. “Aerion.”

“Don’t start,” Aerion mutters as he pushes the head of his cock against you. You moan again, embarrassment crawling up your neck as you feel how wet you are—you feel the cool slick webbing between your folds as he parts you, the movement too slow, too gentle. Aerion chuckles as you squirm. “Oh, she’s wet. M’gonna slip right in, aren’t I?”

This is the Aerion you’ve come to know.

He chastises you as he drags the head of his cock up and down your slit, coating himself because, as much as you burn from the inside–out, he’s right. You’re soaked, cunt clenching around nothing as you lay back completely bare for him. For him.

“Gods above, she’d be worth more than a few gold dragons, wouldn’t she?” The prince whispers, almost in disbelief, as he slowly pushes the leaking tip of his cock inwards. You suck in a breath—no stretch of his fingers, no circle of your clit—as your cunt parts around him. He groans, “But—oh, fuck—b-but I’m the only dragon you need.”

If he wasn’t spearing you on the thick of his cock, pushing in and splitting you apart with a lithe string of moans falling from his soft lips, then you would’ve rolled your eyes. You would say something to quell his ego, but you can’t. You simply moan, a desperate and loud sound that rattles through your skull, and arch. He leans over you as he rolls his hips, bottoming out with a moan of your name.

Then, he bends. His mouth is on yours like he can’t get enough. And, in all honesty, neither can you. Your hands find the back of his head, threading through white strands and tugging as your teeth clash and your tongues meet. Aerion grunts, hoisting your thigh up around his hips as he pitches forward, then shrinks back. You gasp out of the kiss when he notches the head of his cock just inside you.

And doesn’t move.

Sunlight spills across your joined bodies. Your nails scrape along his scalp causing goosebumps to appear along his arms. He pants like a worked hound, eyes on your face as he feels your pussy fluttering around his tip. Begging for it.

“You’re perfect,” Aerion whispers suddenly. It tastes like I love you on his tongue, but he knows that’s impossible. You’re perfect because you’re here. With him. Doing as he says. Aerion Targaryen doesn’t love. He continues, “You’re perfect and you’re mine.”

He doesn’t have the patience in waiting for your response. He thrusts back in with a curl of his spine. It’s rough and hard and it knocks the wind from your lungs. The sound that leaves you is distressed: a broken mewl as a bruising ache festers low in your stomach. But as the prince moves in and out, setting a rhythm that rocks you into the mattress, the pain subsides and is instead replaced by that simmering heat you’ve become all too familiar with.

“Oh, g-gods,” falls from your mouth as you take both hands and seize him by the shoulders. “Aerion, my prince, oh—”

You press little indents into his shoulders as you rock beneath him; the angle he’s made of you, with a hand on your thigh, driving him deep towards the plug of your cervix. He pries you apart so effortlessly with both his words and the length of his cock.

“That’s it, just like that,” Aerion grunts as he fucks you. Sweat glistens high on his forehead and there’s a light blush over his cheekbones as he drives you into the mattress. The fingers on your thigh squeeze, dimpling the flesh as he groans. “Taking your prince’s cock like an absolute dream, little witch.”

Heat moves through your body like steaming water. It coils tight in the pit of your stomach, sitting heavy behind your navel as he hits that perfect spot inside you over and over. You grip him with tightening fingers, pussy clenching around the thick of him. Your thigh on his hip presses inward, driving him closer to you as his pelvis meets yours.

The mattress groans slightly beneath you as you both rock. Dappled sunlight blurs through your lashes as you look up at him, whining when he dips his head again to kiss you. You take it with kiss-bitten lips, opening for him while he grunts. The wet grip of your cunt around him is silken soft, and it draws his thoughts away as his mouth moves messily against yours. You snake a hand to the nape of his neck and hold him to you as his hips roll deeper.

“Aerion,” you mutter against his mouth. You’re not kissing anymore. It’s an open press of lips as you both grunt and mewl and take what you need.

“Say it like you mean it,” he mutters back, the tip of his tongue flicking serpent-like over your parted lips. He pulls back slightly so he can shift his spine and push his hips further against you. “Say my name when you come, sweet girl, c’mon.”

Blood replaced by a golden-hot ichor, you tip your head back as you tremble. Your release builds hot in your veins and you’re right there, bathed in sunlight, as you’re taken apart from the inside–out by a prince of the realm. Your fingers scrape down his front as you arch off the bed, moaning—airy and wanton and loud—as you come.

“Aerion—!” The syllables are rich and honey-sweet in the warm summer air of your chambers. Your entire body trembles, limbs tightening as it takes hold: a gold-fingered grasp around your diaphragm as your moans turn to whines.

Aerion groans, smiling to himself as your cunt clenches tight around the width of him. Muscles pull taut, fluttering with your beating heart, and it gushes too—he can feel it, hot and slick as he rolls his hips, a thin white ring around the base of his cock. The clutch of your pussy around him, and the little whines you taper off with, some battling around whispers of his name, have the tension in his belly and spine contracting. 

He screws his eyes shut, muttering to himself, “Oh, sweet girl, my sweetest girl…”

He thinks of spilling inside you. He thinks of filling you with his seed and watching you grow round with his child. His poor little woods witch, pregnant with a bastard child but oh, how he’d look after you. You’d never leave his side. You’d be spoiled beyond reason.

“F-Fuck, oh fuck,” he curses at the thought, cock jerking inside you. You whine, fizzling down from your release, fingers tracing lazy circles across his chest. He opens his eyes at the sound, gazing down at you. He coos, “Oh, don’t cry yet, little witch, your prince is here. Your dragon’s right—fucking—here—”

You choke on a moan. You hadn’t noticed a tear slip from the corner of your eye.

He speaks around heavy, rolling thrusts, cock knocking up deep until you feel his body shudder beneath your touch. He groans, thick and leonine from the back of his throat, as his head dips down one last time.

The prince kisses you as he spills right up against your cervix. A low utter of your name passes from his mouth to yours as he licks over your tongue, his cock jumping inside you as he comes. Thick, hot ropes pulling deep from his being, and the weight of his orgasm has him collapsing half on top of you as he continues to spill. The pressure on your belly and the angle at which your legs part around his body makes you gasp, then whimper, but the prince licks the sound before it touches sunlight.

Aerion picks himself out of the kiss, sitting back on his haunches. You pant, hands gripping the sheets now as he slowly pulls his cock from you. He watches himself drool out of you. The feeling makes you squirm.

“Uh-uh, don’t be like that,” Aerion whispers, one hand coming to rest on your lower belly. He presses down firmly, and the throaty whimper that leaves you is completely involuntary. His other hand collects his seed from the curve of your arse, using two fingers to stuff it back into your cunt. You whine, and Aerion shushes you again. “Fussy girl. Can’t let it go to waste, can we?”

You bite your lip and stare up at the ceiling as Aerion curls his fingers into you. Your legs still bracket his hips and you can feel the ash-licked warmth radiating from his pale skin.

His fingers stretch you, curling and splitting against the silken walls of your cunt. They reach deep too, and after a moment of holding back your whimpers, you feel a prickling heat reappear beneath the press of his hand. Your legs shake before you can say anything, and the heat builds and builds as you attempt to lift yourself onto your elbows.

“A–Aerion, wait, wait—” You stutter out, then fall back onto the mattress as another orgasm rockets through you. It’s sharper, hits you in the base of your lungs and forces sounds from you you barely recognise as your own.

He watches you come undone again with a satisfied smile on his face, his softening cock giving a feeble twitch against his thigh. Your pussy squeezes around the thick push of his fingers, and he strokes you through it, pushing his cum right up towards your womb. The hand on your tummy gives you a gentle pat when you quit your shaking, and he carefully pulls his fingers from you, watching the way your slick and his seed webs between the digits.

You watch, vision blurred by your back-to-back orgasms and the early afternoon sunlight, as his tongue unfurls from between his kiss-bruised lips. He licks his fingers clean in a few curling movements, and you feel something jump in your belly, a flip beneath the press of his hand.

“My prettiest girls,” the prince whispers, wiping his wet fingers on your inner thigh before giving your pussy a quick pat—the sudden pressure making you jolt against the mattress—and manoeuvring himself beneath the sheets. 

He helps you with him, and after a moment of silence, you’re both tucked beneath the silks of your bed. You don’t say anything as he pulls you to him, tucking your body against his. But you do look at him as he rests against the pillows with his eyes closed. You admire the way little orbs of sunlight dance across the bare skin of his chest, shoulders and neck. You can’t help yourself: you reach up and trace the dappled light with your fingers, trekking up the side of his neck until you reach the curve of his jaw. His pulse jumps out to meet you.

He opens his eyes and peers at you sideways. “Something you want?”

You hum a no, then say, “You’re so pretty.”

Aerion rolls his eyes, but you don’t miss the tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Silence beats through the room like a racing heart.

Then, “Aerion?”

“Hm?”

“You cut yourself on purpose, didn’t you?”

The prince opens his eyes again and shifts his head to look at you. His eyes dart across your face as if searching for any disappointment or anger. But he finds none.

“Maybe,” he replies after a moment.

You sigh. “You’re impossible.”

“Ser Roland was too close to you.”

“We were talking about flowers.”

Aerion huffed. “You can talk about flowers with me.”

You give him a sceptical look, fingers tracing the sunlight on his shoulder now. “Do you even know anything about flowers?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then what kind of—?”

“They’re carnations,” he interrupts. He looks away from you. You pause, hand over his heart. He continues quietly, clearing his throat. “My… my mother had them planted.”

You pout. “Oh, Aerion…”

“So, yes, I know flowers, or whatever the fuck you’re interested in,” Aerion hisses, reaching an arm around and taking your jaw between firm, still slightly sticky, fingers. He leans down and presses a kiss to your lips before pulling back before you could plead for more. “And so the next time you want to talk about flowers with someone…” He looks away, almost embarrassed. His cheeks are pink. “You can talk to me.”

These words taste like I love you as well, and it makes him grit his teeth.

It’s not said possessively. He holds your jaw tenderly, and his words match his hold. He actually means it: it’s sincere and honest, and he’s bearing his heart to you and hoping you don’t tear it apart.

“I’d love that,” you respond, your hand finding his and guiding it away from your jaw. You kiss his knuckles as he closes his eyes again.

I love you is written all over that too.

———

they kissed and everybody cheered

tags 🌿

Your heart hammers wildly in your chest, clattering against your ribs as you peer up at the imposing towers of the Red Keep. They didn’t seem as scary from the low streets beyond, but here, directly before the grand doors, the entire castle seems to lurch skyward and pierce the heavens with thick-stoned talons. It casts a long shadow too, and the cold that comes with it quickly seeps beneath the material of your cloak, soaking through your marrow.

“His grace is this way, m’lady,” Ser Donnel says, gesturing for you to follow.

You move without a word, following the knight into the Keep and down a long hall. Flaming torches light the way, and the long hall that stretches before you seems to glow with it. Ser Donnel guides you up a flight of stairs, then another, and by the third you find yourself breathless as you clutch your satchel of supplies. Another long hallway awaits you, and Ser Donnel slows his pace to allow you to catch up. He peers down at you then, soft eyes crinkling at the edges as he takes in the well-disguised terror.

“Do not fret,” he says, offering you a small, sympathetic smile.

“Easier said than done,” you reply, eyes finding the thick red fabric draped across the walls. Blood red, a deep crimson, strung up high above your head to obscure the pale stone walls. Ser Donnel’s gaze brings you no comfort.

A couple of lesser guards open a set of thick wooden doors, allowing you and Ser Donnel to pass through uninterrupted. A few servants bow their heads as the pair of you pass, and you finally have the courage to look over at Ser Donnel.

“How long have you been with the kingguard?” You ask as Ser Donnel leads you around a corner and then down another long hall. 

This one is lined with windows, and the hall is filled with brilliant, golden rays of sunshine. You glance out the windows as you pass and admire the glistening surface of Blackwater Bay. It looks nicer from this high up.

Ser Donnel chuckles quietly to himself as the hall ends and traps you within the thick stone walls once more. “Longer than you’ve been alive, m’lady.”

The answer leaves you lost for a reply, and you chew on your lip nervously as, after a few more paces, Ser Donnel stops before a door and wraps his knuckles against it. You stand patiently, hands clasping your satchel and willing your hands not to tremble.

Inside, there’s a murmur of a voice, and somehow that gives Ser Donnel permission to enter, for he opens the door with one big shove. He beckons for you to enter first. You do.

The chambers look ordinary for what you assumed belonged to a prince. A large, four-poster bed on one side, draped in thick fabrics and lush brown furs. A stone basin and a writing desk sit not far from it. The other side boasts a large fireplace with a stone hearth that extends outwards towards a pair of cushioned chairs. Shadows dance across the room, and latticed windows are obscured by fluttering curtains that pick up the breeze that flows through the open door between them.

You inhale deeply, smelling salt and sea. It smells nicer this high up, too.

Ser Donnel gestures to the open door, which leads to a balcony, with a sky-facing palm.

You frown, turning to him. “I can’t go alone.”

Ser Donnel nods solemnly. “You can.”

“I can’t. He listens to you.”

“Judging by the circumstances which have brought you here,” Ser Donnel says, eyes twinkling. “I can guarantee you he does not.”

Warmth fills your belly at the memory, but you quell it with a shake of your head. Taking a deep breath, you turn from Ser Donnel and make your way out onto the balcony, where the sun kisses warm against the skin of your face, the seabreeze dancing beneath the hem of your cloak.

Aerion Targaryen sits facing the sea, stretched out like a cat on a lounger. His torso is bare, pale skin nearly glowing beneath the sun, and despite the urge to trail your eyes down the firm lines of him, your eyes immediately draw to the gash in the soft flesh of his upper abdomen. It bleeds freely down the inside of his bicep, ruby-red against ivory.

“Your grace,” you greet softly, dropping into a curtsy.

Aerion’s head shifts lazily to the side, his violet eyes finding you. There are dark rings beneath his eyes, as if he hasn’t slept, and there’s a colourlessness to his cheeks that makes you frown. He looks ill, and as you draw nearer, you spot the puddle of blood on the other side of the chair.

You frown, settling on his other side straight away and opening your satchel of supplies. The prince watches you carefully, wordless, as you rifle through bottles and bags.

“This is ridiculous,” you say openly, your fear having departed in the seabreeze. The angry puncture on his arm and the thick droplets of blood that mar the stone is enough to boost your confidence. “You should have let a maester see to you.”

“I didn’t want a maester,” Aerion mutters, and it’s the first thing he’s said to you. His words are firm in their landing, sending your heart into a clatter against your sternum. He sighs through his nose when you take out a gauzy spool of linen bandages and a generous bottle of orangey-brown liquid. “You can fix me, can you not?”

His words echo those from three days ago, but you ignore them. You take a small scrap of linen and clean the wound with gentle hands. The prince hisses lowly, but otherwise makes no sound, his eyes glancing out to sea momentarily before finding your face again. You feel the way he traces the lines of your eyes, your nose, your lips, and you feel as though he’s committing you to memory.

You dab up most of the blood before uncorking the little bottle. Your other hand takes hold of the prince’s wrist, and you carefully angle his arm so you can pour some of the liquid across the wound. He watches you without a flinch, the liquid staining bronze on his skin and suffocating the bleeding wound.

“You’ve bled a lot,” you remark when the silence becomes too much and his gaze is too heavy on you. “You should’ve wrapped it.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“A maester would have,” you retort as you pull apart the linen bandage and begin winding it around his bicep.

Aerion hums from the back of his throat. The rise and fall of his chest is even, and you see the curves of his pectoral muscles shifting in the corner of your eye as you wrap his wound. After another tense bout of silence, you secure the linen in place and pull your hands back to admire your work. It’s neat and clean and you can’t help but smile to yourself.

The prince gives it a brief once-over. “Perfect.”

You stuff the bandages and the rest of the bottle back into your satchel, ignoring the way that one word of praise sets your entire body alight. Your blood pumps hot in your veins, treks beneath your skin, body a furnace beneath the wrap of your cloak.

You clear your throat. “How do you feel?”

Aerion drags his eyes across your face again. “Better.”

“Good,” you say, then get to your feet. 

You don’t get far before Aerion’s hand is on your wrist though, sun-warmed fingers pressing firm against the joint. You freeze, satchel of supplies gripped in your hands as he holds you near him.

“Actually,” he drawls, the blunt nail of his thumb digging into the supple skin on the underside of your wrist. A warning. Don’t move, don’t leave. He continues, “Give me some pain relief.”

You think for a second. “I have some sourleaf you could chew on—”

“I don’t want any of that shit,” Aerion interrupts with a disgusted growl, as if he could taste the bitter herb on his tongue. It flicks out, as serpent-like as you remember, swiping against the corner of his mouth before he speaks again. “I know you have something in that bag of yours.”

“Of course, your grace,” you murmur, setting your satchel down again and opening it up. You shift through your vials of pain reliefs before settling on one used frequently by injured sellswords in Volantis, of which you learnt to brew on your travels across Essos. You offer the prince the vial. “Drink this. The whole lot.”

“What will it do to me?”

“Ease your pain,” you reply plainly, still holding the vial out. “Like you wanted.”

Aerion huffs out a quiet laugh at your impatience, but he still doesn’t take the vial. His hand is still on your other wrist, and it slowly drags further up until he can push the fabric of your cloak up your arm. His fingers ghost the inside of your elbow before trailing back down your forearm.

“Feed it to me,” he says, fingers back on your wrist now. He thumbs at your beating pulse before drawing his hand back, gesturing to himself with a lazy flick of his fingers. “Fix me.”

You want to roll your eyes. “Your grace—”

“Feed it to me,” Aerion utters and it’s firmer this time. It’s as thick as the castle walls around you. As strong as the sea that slams against the jagged black rocks below.

You swallow your retort and inch closer, uncorking the vial with a press of your thumb. The prince parts his lips for you as you gently press the vial there, tipping it and watching the murky green liquid empty from its glass. Your other hand instinctively moves to his cheek, cupping his face to steady his head as you feed him the pain relief. His skin, having bathed in the sunshine, is warm to the touch, soft and clean beneath your palm. Aerion closes his eyes as he drinks, head inclining the tiniest fraction, chasing your touch.

The little bottle runs empty and you slowly draw it away. Aerion smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a light dip in his brow as he tastes the pain relief. You ignore the way you heat up even more as the lump in his throat works as he swallows, and the narrow point of his tongue runs over the ridges of his teeth. You retract your hand too.

“Tastes like wildgrass,” Aerion says as he closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath. 

The peacefulness of sleep threatens to take him as he reclines on his cushioned chair, the sounds of the ocean below a lulling melody to drift off too. But you see him fighting it: you see the way his arms twitch, the way his lips curl into a subtle snarl, and the way his eyes wrench open as his brain tries to pull him under.

He appraises you with narrow eyes. “What’s happening?”

You hook your satchel over your shoulder, standing back now. “It’s an incredibly effective pain relief, your grace, but it also acts as a natural sedative. Rest helps the body heal, you know.”

Aerion scowls. “Witch.”

He pushes himself off the chair then, stumbling to his feet. You yelp as he reaches for you with his injured arm, and you quickly dart around him, cloak billowing behind you as you hurry inside. Ser Donnel is nowhere to be seen. Aerion follows on unsteady feet, clutching the doorframe as you make it across his chambers. He holds himself against the frame, and you toss a look over your shoulder, his lean body silhouetted by the bright ocean that stretches beyond.

“Don’t leave me,” Aerion calls, vowels hinged across tonal desperation. He breathes heavily, bare torso heaving, his linen trousers hanging low on his hips as he pitches forward, staggering into the room, affected both by the sedative and prolonged blood-loss.

The way he speaks hooks your heart and forces you to turn fully, your back to the door. You watch as he makes it to his bed, ringing his arm around one of the thick wooden posts to hold himself up. He’s no longer the preening prince who had been lounging cockily on his outside chaise, his pretty little woods witch tending to his wound. He was a shell of a man, injured and alone in the sea-kissed warmth of his chambers.

Curse your kind heart.

You sigh softly. The prince watches you with hooded eyes as you cross his chambers with careful steps, and he groans with relief, unwinding his arm from the post as you take his forearms gently.

“Come now,” you whisper, urging Aerion towards his bed. 

You pull back the furs and linens and allow him to tumble onto the plush feather mattress. It’s thick and spongey, and you’ve never seen anything like it. The one you sleep on is thin, tearing at the seams and stuffed with straw you find yourself replacing too often to be practical. The prince settles on the mattress with a groan, and you draw the blankets over top of him. He continues watching with those calculating violet eyes, but they’re hazy with sleep.

“Rest,” you say.

“Don’t leave.”

“It’s okay,” you reassure him. Before you can stop yourself, you run a hand across the blankets in a soothing swipe; a gentle caress across his chest. “Rest.”

Aerion stares you in the eyes one last time. “If you leave me, I’ll burn your shop to the ground and chain you to my fucking bed.”

Then, he’s gone. He topples into a sedative-heavy sleep with a flutter of white eyelashes. You exhale a shaky breath, waiting a minute, before getting up and hoisting your satchel with you. He won’t remember any of this when he wakes. So, cloak flicking out behind you, you take your chances and slip out the door.

—✿—

Early the next morning, you’re in the market with a basket full of herbs and flowers. You peruse the stalls, crowds of other commonfolk milling around you, going about their daily lives amongst the damp, narrow streets of the inner town. There’s a gentle buzz of collective voices that hangs in the air, and you add to it as you hum a tune of your childhood, your skirts picking up road dust as you walk out onto the main thoroughfare.

That buzz, however, is quickly interrupted by a burst of commotion up the road. The rumbling of hooves against cobbled stone echo through the streets, and whinnying horses piece the din in high-pitched whistles. You weave through the crowd of onlookers as a group of riders descend upon the open-air market, banners and colours unmistakable. You stare the red, three-headed dragon directly in the face as it billows in the wind, held high by one of the guards.

You quickly spot Ser Donnel atop his palfrey, eyes scanning the crowd. You have it in your mind to simply duck your head and hurry back to your shop undetected. But something draws you to the front of the crowd, and something even stronger in your mind, something even louder, tells you that they’re here for you.

You break the line of people, still holding onto your basket. “Ser Donnel?”

Ser Donnel’s eyes snap to yours and a look of pure, unbridled relief washes over his face. He quickly dismounts his horse and beckons you out of the crowd. The other guards are quick to pull their horses around, shepherding the rest of the commonfolk away with stamping hooves and threatening brandishes of their glinting blades.

The kingsguard addresses you by name. “You weren’t in your shop.”

You nod down to your basket. “I had to replenish my supplies. What’s going on?”

“He requests your presence again,” Ser Donnel says, and this time, you don’t need to ask for clarification. You know exactly who he’s talking about.

Still, you shake your head firmly. “No.”

Ser Donnel frowns. “M’lady, you must understand—”

“If he is unwell, or if he is injured, he must see a maester. A real maester,” you reason, fidgeting with one of the flowers in your basket. “He cannot just summon me if he requires—”

“But he can,” Ser Donnel interrupts plainly. “He can summon you if he requires you, m’lady. He is a prince of the realm. He is the son of the Prince of Summerhall. You are in no place to refuse.”

You’re taken aback by Ser Donnel’s words. He speaks plainly, and with little interest, as if his admittance that you have no autonomy over this situation is boring him. You suspect he’s becoming tired of chasing you around at Aerion’s command.

“Please,” Ser Donnel suddenly adds, softer now. “The prince is not known for his patience, nor his understanding. I beg you not to make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

You sigh through your nose, crushing the velvet petal between your thumb and forefinger. You look around, flanked on all sides by colours of black and red; trapped by flashes of ash and blood and a three-headed dragon with its fangs at your neck.

“What does he need now?” You question.

“You,” Ser Donnel replies simply, and now you see that twinkle in his eye you’ve become accustomed too.

“I understand that,” you say. “But has he injured himself again? Is he ill?”

“No.”

“Then what—?”

“He needs you,” Ser Donnel interrupts, then gestures to his horse. “Now, m’lady, if you’d be so kind.”

You gape at him. “But Ser Donnel—”

“Get on the horse.”

“…Yes, ser.”

—✿—

You know how to get to Aerion’s chambers, but Ser Donnel follows you there anyway. He’s your shadow—a gleaming white shadow with a hand on the hilt of his longsword—as you traipse through the halls. This time, servants are quick to scamper out of your way, dropping their eyes. They do not bow to Ser Donnel like they did yesterday.

“They look frightened,” you comment when you reach the top of the stairs, another servant jumping out of your way to let you pass by.

“They are,” the kingsguard replies.

You frown. “Of me?”

“For you,” he says pointedly as you pass through those heavy doors again. A moment later, you reach the sunlight-drenched hall. “The prince has been irate these last few days. No one but you and I know the real reason, but whispers travel well through these stone walls. You’re the poor little woods witch Aerion has decided to torture. You’re one of them. Commonfolk, pressed beneath the thumb of another unruly Targaryen prince.”

You bite your lip, feeling the warm sunlight on your skin with each window you pass.

Ser Donnel continues. “But please do not fret, m’lady. No harm shall befall you as long as I’m here.”

That makes you scoff as you arrive before the prince’s door. Even the sight of the thick wood on its steel hinges has your stomach churning with anxiety.

“Yet you send me in there alone,” you murmur, eyeing the door as if it might leap forth from its solid frame and slam you into the ground.

Ser Donnel offers you a small, comforting smile. 

“The prince is… temperamental. He is unruly and stubborn and acts with a cruelty I have never before seen within these castle walls,” Ser Donnel says gently. “But he wants you. He needs you, and he has gone to great lengths to get you here. He will not hurt you. I don’t know what exactly happened those days ago, but he needs you more than he’s needed anything. So, m’lady, I can assure you that you’re safe here.”

You chew your lip nervously.

Ser Donnel gestures to the door, then wanders off down the hall, his armour gleaming in the sunshine. You know he never goes far, but the isolation of it all hits you as you raise a tentative fist to the door. Your heart is in your throat and your stomach is in knots.

But before you can knock, the door flies open. A servant stands there, eyes wet with tears, and she lets out a startled squeak as she almost crashes into you. She holds a silver tray and clutches it tightly as you step out of her way.

“Apologies,” you mutter, then take in her distraught appearance. “Are you alright?”

The servant looks you up and down, eyes widening as if just realising who you are. 

She lowers her voice, barely above a whisper. “He is a man most cruel, and I pray the gods shield you from his wrath better than they did me.”

And then, she’s gone, scurrying up the hall and disappearing from sight. Her words don’t scare you, but instead ignite something deep within your belly. You frown to yourself, recalling the tears in her eyes and the slight tremble in her lip. You are not going to be the poor little woods witch everyone thinks you are.

You enter the prince’s chambers and find it much the same as yesterday. You close the door, traipsing across the red patterned Myrish carpets strewn across stone. Blinking against the summer sun, you step out onto the terrace and find Aerion in the exact place as yesterday. He reclines in his plush chaise, mostly lying down with his upper chest and head supported by the chair’s back. Once again, his torso is bare of a tunic or doublet. His linen trousers sit low on his hips, showing off the lines of his abdomen and the white trail of hair you remember being soft beneath your tongue and fingers.

You shake your head and rid yourself of the heat the memory causes, instead focusing on your frustration at the prince’s malevolence.

“Aerion,” you say as you approach, and he inclines his head to peer at you. His bicep is still bandaged as he rests his hands on his stomach.

“Careful,” he warns, but you ignore him.

Your skirts swish around your ankles as you stand before him, casting a shadow across his body. He looks up at you, violet eyes flashing.

“You made that poor girl cry,” you tell him, hands balling into fists at your sides. 

He looks at you with a mixture of amusement and confusion. “Who?”

“Your servant,” you say, gesturing to his chambers. “You upset her—!”

“I don’t care,” Aerion interrupts, eyes narrowing. “She insisted my bandage be changed and the wound be cleaned. I told her to fuck off, and if she tried to touch me again I would throw her into the fucking Blackwater.”

You spare a glance behind you. The ocean crashes against the rocky precipice with thundering power, and your heart lurches in your chest when you remember just how high you are. You turn back to the prince with a frown.

“She’s right,” you say. “The wound should be cleaned and the bandage should be changed.”

“Which is why you are here,” Aerion replies as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. He reacts to your face of shock with a roll of his eyes. “What? Did you think I wanted some grimy little servant girl putting her hands on me?”

“Your grace…”

“No. The only hands I want on me,” he speaks lowly. “Are yours.”

Your throat works around a nervous swallow as the prince bends to the side and plucks a fresh role of linen bandaging from the ground beside him. He offers it to you, pointing at the same time to a small basin and cloth sitting nearby.

“Fix me,” he orders, and your feet are moving before you can even think.

You take the gauzy bandages from his hand and grab the small stone basin and cloth from near the Keep’s wall. You return to the chair, and he shuffles to the side to allow you to perch yourself on the edge. He hums, obviously pleased, as you gently unwrap the bandaging from the previous day. The wound beneath weeps, but it is clean of infection.

The prince continues to hold his arm out as you dot the wet cloth against the wound, soaking up the blood-misted fluid that leaks from the clotting edges. Aerion hisses when you press the cloth directly against the wound—on purpose, but not too hard since it actually does have to be cleaned out again—and you pull it away when you’re satisfied.

“See? I don’t need a maester,” Aerion mutters as you wrap the wound again. You secure the soft, fibrous linen against the muscle and fat with careful fingers. Aerion watches you curiously. “Why would I need a maester when I have you?”

“Stop it,” you whisper as you secure the bandage to his bicep.

You can’t help it. His tone is cloying and heats you like a sparking ember beneath your skirts. It’s the same tone, just lighter, more awake, that he had used when he stumbled into your shop several days ago.

Aerion ignores you. “You can fix me. You can fix anything. I don’t need anyone else—I don’t need servant girls and I don’t need any of those useless fucking maesters. I have you.”

“I’m not a maester. I can’t work here as one.”

“Does it look like I care?” Aerion’s hand shoots out, strong fingers wrapping around your wrist as you attempt to get up. You settle back on the edge of the chaise. “You’re better than any maester who has ever treated me. Why would I want anyone else but you?”

His words continue to fan the heat sitting deep inside you. You’re powerless against his pull. His leg presses to the curve of your arse where you sit on the chaise, and he holds you so firmly that you know you can’t flee.

“Besides…” Aerion continues, eyes drawing down your body again. “How many princes can say they fuck their healers?”

Your surprise lodges in your throat. “Wha—?”

“Come here,” the prince interrupts, patting his thigh. When you shake your head, Aerion tugs on your wrist. “Don’t be like that.”

Your body is humming with arousal at the way he wants you so openly, but your fear is constricting. Shakily, you turn and clamber across his lap, spreading your legs across the mass of his torso. You hover yourself just above his navel, your skirts fanning out around you. Soft hands rest on his chest, and he hums from the back of his throat, something closer to a purr, as he urges you to touch him with his hands splayed across the backs of yours.

“That’s it,” he whispers, head reclining in the chaise. It’s a large seat and comfortably cushioned, so your knees rest easily either side of him. He urges your hands to knead at the flesh of his pectorals. “That’s it, touch your prince.”

You follow his actions, spurred on by his words that are not clouded by the effects of one of your stimulants. His skin is delightfully warm under your fingers, and you feel the gentle beating of his heart as you massage your thumbs down the curve of his chest. You bite your lip, heartbeat settling between your spread thighs as your thumbs ghost over the short, almost invisible white hairs between his pecs, then across the muscle, before swiping over his nipples. He groans, eyelids low as he watches you through light-coloured lashes.

Where you straddle his torso, you glow hot. And he feels it—he feels the slick heat of you building between your thighs, trapped beneath the linen of your smallclothes as your fingers work along his chest. Experienced hands drag away from yours now, shifting downwards to tug at the skirts of your dress, riding them up until he could take two large handfuls of your thighs.

“I meant what I said the other night,” Aerion begins, rubbing the flesh of your thighs. It causes you to jerk your hips involuntarily, the heat of your covered core rutting against the lines of his abdomen.

He groans, pleased. “You’ve a pretty little pussy that belongs in a whorehouse. So tight and wet…” One of his hands drags inwards, two fingers brushing over the damp gusset of your smallclothes. He continues, “...You think she’ll remember me?”

You exhale a shaky breath and it dances along a whimper. Aerion preens at the sound, taking that as further encouragement to rub his fingers firmly down your covered slit. The points angle inwards, and he spreads the lips of your cunt beneath your smallclothes, dampening the fabric as he moves up and down. Another trembling breath leaves you as you stroke the flesh of his pectorals, hands shifting up to squeeze at the muscle near his shoulders.

“Of course she will,” the prince continues as he ruts his fingers along your slit. The linen of your smallclothes is completely wet now, sticky against the warmth of your core as his fingers continue to move. A rumble sounds from deep in his chest, his other hand still kneading the flesh of your thigh. “She’s already so fucking wet, sweet girl. Making a mess of herself in here.”

His fingers draw back and he pinches the fabric of your smallclothes between two fingers. He pulls it away from your slick core, a rush of air bracing against your folds and forcing a whimper from your throat. Your fingers cup the muscle of his chest, hips rocking as he releases the linen before patting your core with two heavy slaps. You jolt, lifting your hips to flee the sudden pressure, but his hand bundles in your skirts and drags you right back down.

“Rub yourself on me,” he says, both hands settling above your skirts now, gripping the flesh of your hips. He holds you tightly against his torso, his cock slowly hardening behind the curve of your arse. “Show me how much you need this. How much you need your prince’s cock.”

You pout a little, fingers holding warm muscle, but you do as you’re told. With his hands a heavy and guiding weight on your hips, you slowly start to grind yourself against him. You roll your hips, moaning softly as a gentle sea breeze braces against your back, the heat of your clothed cunt smothering against the rigid lines of his abdomen. He responds with a low sound of his own, the muscles of his abdomen contracting as you rut yourself against him. The heat inside you picks up as the heartbeat between your thighs surges, blood pounding in your ears.

The contours of his stomach are soft but prominent enough that your clit catches with each upwards rut, the linen of your smallclothes rubbing against the split of your pussy in just the right way. You keen, holding yourself against his chest, as you roll your hips and chase the heat spreading through your womb. It’s dizzying, overwhelming. You smell the rich salt of the Blackwater Bay and you can hear her churning against the rocks below, and the distant calls of seabirds are largely obscured by the little moans that drip from your lips.

Aerion watches you with a pleased smile stretched across his face. There’s a light hue of pink on his cheeks as his eyes alternate between your face, which filters beautifully through emotions of pleasure as you rub yourself against his torso; and your core, which he just manages to see by holding your skirts at your hips. He looks like a man who’s got everything he wants, and then some more.

“Can you feel how wet you are?” He whispers, cocking his head as he watches you drag your clothed core against the ridges of his stomach. “Can you feel the mess you’re making? Gods, she’s a messy girl, isn’t she?”

You whine in response, circling your hips and angling your clit down hard against his muscle. A shock travels through your legs and fissures deep in your belly, igniting the heat that fans through your womb. The linen of your smallclothes is soaked through, and the remnants of shame prickle at the back of your neck, but it doesn’t last. Not when Aerion is pulling you down even harder on his stomach, his muscles flexing beneath you, cock hard and aching behind you. He grinds you down onto him, grip tight as you mewl and whine, your fingers groping the muscle of his pecs.

“Come for me,” Aerion says after a long, quiet moment, filled only with your soft whimpers and his deep breathing.

“Aerion,” you moan out, the sound carried along the breeze. There’s a dull ache in your thighs as your hips increase in speed, grinding your clit down hard onto his torso. “My prince, I can’t—”

“Don’t fuss,” he hisses, and those two words hurtle you back in time to when he had you bent over your shop counter. You respond with another moan, nails pressing red crescents into the flesh of his chest. He holds you tightly and grinds you onto him. “Don’t fuss and do what you’re told.”

The heat in your lower belly solidifies into a pressing weight, and you feel it grow heavy in the heartbeat that strings through your core like a live wire. You toss your head back, sun a wash of honey and gold against your face, as you whimper through a few last rocks of your covered pussy against him. You moan his title into the salt-licked breeze, and it’s carried away as you come into the gusset of your smallclothes. Your thighs tighten either side of him as you release, body shaking as he gently guides you through it.

He pulls your orgasm from you with a proud smile on his face, the points of his teeth visible against his lips. “There we go…”

You shudder out an exhale as you hang your head, palms flat on his chest. You collect yourself, listening to seabirds cawing high above and water lapping far below.

Aerion doesn’t wait for you to rest, though. His hands disappear from your hips and gather beneath your bunched skirts. He slides a hand between your thighs and palms at the wet bridge of your smallclothes, huffing out a laugh to himself before he takes the fabric across two hands. You feel his arms straining beneath you, but before you can say anything, Aerion rips the gusset of your smallclothes apart with a loud tear.

“Aerion!” You gasp, snapping out of your post-orgasmic bliss with the sound of fabric shredding loud in your ears.

Aerion ignores you, prying the linen apart and baring your cunt to him. He groans when he settles his fingers against you, sliding over your puffy clit and running between your slick folds. You’re hot and wet against his fingers, and your release traps in strings between the digits when he pulls his hand away.

That same hand quickly pushes against your lips.

“Open.” He taps them against your closed mouth.

You do as you’re told, lips parting for him to slide two inside. He’s not gentle with the movements: shoving them in, knuckles knocking against teeth, pressing hard to the back of your tongue in such a way you gag. His thumb shifts to rest against your chin, locking his fingers in place as he rubs them along the bumps of your tongue. You gag again.

His other hand fills the space left between your legs. Your cunt aches with your heartbeat as he slides two fingers through you, petting you with a surprising gentleness you hadn’t been expecting. You whine around his fingers, allowing the tips of your teeth to sink down into his skin as your tongue writhes beneath the press of them.

“Missed this mouth,” Aerion murmurs, and you wonder if you were supposed to hear it. His fingers rub against your tongue as his other hand works through your folds. Two blunt fingertips find your leaking hole, tracing a delicate circle. The corner of his mouth quirks up as he feels the slick drooling from you. “Missed her, too.”

You moan around his fingers, hands still pressed to his chest as he sinks inside you. All the way to the bottom knuckle. He shoves his fingers all the way in. No stretch, no gentle pulling you apart on his lap, just an unceremonious thrust upwards that has you keening against his torso. A trickle of saliva escapes the corner of your mouth as your hips jerk, responding to the solid curl of his fingers inside you. He splits them apart, then brings them together, curling and searching for that spot inside you he found easy enough with his cock.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” Aerion grunts, crooking his fingers towards himself. That presses against something inside you and your jaw goes lax around his fingers. He hums, pleased, pressing down a few times before retracting his fingers—then thrusting back in with a third. He settles into a blistering pace with his three fingers splitting you open. “Ride my fingers, c’mon.”

You do as you’re told. Again.

With a shaky whine around the fingers in your mouth, you lift yourself slightly then drop back down. Your thighs are still aching, and you whine again at the pull of your muscles along the back of your hamstrings. There’s a pinch in the base of your spine too as you roll your hips, knocking the tips of his fingers against that good spot inside you. The pleasure that emerges from the depths of your belly, crawling from your first orgasm, is quick to quell your aches and pains though, dragging you back towards a searing pleasure.

Aerion’s fingers are thick inside you. You can feel the bump of his sword callouses against your gummy walls, and you squeeze him tight each time you take him to the hilt. Something tugs at your womb when he moans in response, the sound loud and unabashed in the air around you. You wonder then if he ever made these sounds for the girls he used to pay for. You also wonder, briefly, how much he’d be willing to pay for you.

He moans again as he watches you take his fingers, his hard cock rutting against the stitched seam of his trousers as his hips lift to meet your movements. Phantom strokes: he’s chasing a pressure that isn’t there as you rut yourself onto his fingers, slick dribbling down his wrist as your movements deepen.

“Fuck, fuck, that’s it.” Aerion watches you, transfixed. “Gods above, you’d take anything I give you, wouldn’t you? You’d ride my knife like my cock if I asked.”

You’re relieved you can’t see a knife anywhere as you sink up and down against his fingers. The idea passes across Aerion’s face like a shooting star, lighting up his violet eyes as they drag up to your face. You shake your head in a silent response, tongue still pinned to the bottom of your mouth by his fingers.

Aerion huffs. “One day.”

He removes his fingers from your mouth, wiping your spit across your cheek. They wrap around your throat next as he helps in pushing you down onto his fingers. The curve of your arse ruts against the tent in his trousers too, and you can tell he’s getting himself worked up by the flush crawling up his chest and neck. He’s warm beneath your palms, but he grows hotter as he watches his fingers stretch you apart.

“Shit,” he growls out, suddenly pulling his fingers from you. It leaves you coldly empty, and you sigh, desperate, as both of his hands snap down to your hips. But before you can protest, he’s urging you backwards, and you shuffle back until you’re straddling his thighs instead. He groans, “Take my trousers off.”

Nimble fingers make quick work of the ties of his trousers, and you tug them down before reaching the ties of his breeches. Those unwind too, and you pull his undergarments apart as he waits patiently, watching you with pupils blown wide across the violet of his irises. As you pull his aching cock out, he sucks his fingers into his mouth, licking the taste of you from his skin, before he’s reaching down with that hand to tug on your skirts.

“Spit on it and sit,” he instructs as your warm fingers wrap around his length. 

He hisses out when you squeeze him, chest shuddering as your thumb presses firmly to the underside of his reddened head. Pre-cum beads at the slit, and you watch it pearl before bringing a wad of saliva to the front of your mouth and letting it drop from your lips. Aerion watches it happen with a groan, eyelids lowering. Your spit lands squarely on the tip and follows a vein on the underside, and the prince moans your name loudly as you chase it with your fingers. You smooth it, wet and warm, around his shaft, your pussy clenching around nothing at the wet sound it makes, and the small whine that leaves him when you squeeze around the base.

You lift yourself then, breathing deeply as you run the head of him through your slick folds. His hands find your hips, holding you in a vice-like grip as you shift, sliding the tip of his cock back and forth.

“I said sit,” Aerion grunts, and you can’t help the little smile that graces your lips when you finally notch the head at your entrance and slowly sink down. 

The angle drags him deeper inside you, the warmth in your stomach resuming its fiery tirade as you sink lower and lower, and lower still until you settle flat to his pelvis. The thick of him stretches you open, and you whine helplessly as you wriggle your hips a little, the stretch warm and familiar.

“There she is,” Aerion drawls, head resting back against the chaise as your cunt sucks him in.

You moan softly as the head of his cock comes to rest near the plug of your cervix, so deep, so close to you. You feel the heat of him, how he throbs as you still, as your pussy clenches as you shift your hips. His hands are branding on your hips, gathering up your dirt-stained skirts to watch the way you take him.

He groans when you decide to rock against him, puffy clit catching in the hair at the base. The white shines with your slick, and the sight alone has his balls twitching beneath the soft press of your arse on his thighs.

“Pretty girl,” the prince whispers. His eyes are hungry as they take you in, sweeping down your body. His hips jerk up, and he nudges deep inside you, relishing in the way you gasp. He groans, “Yeah, that’s it, sweet girl, ride me—ride your dragon.”

You respond in kind, whispering out a desperate call of his name as you cautiously lift yourself up, then drop back down. That same ache appears in your thighs again, but you ignore it as you start up your rhythm. Your hands find his abdomen, much of it dewy with you as your fingers scramble for purchase, nails etching between the strong lines as you grind yourself against him. His hands move lower, squeezing the fat of your arse over your skirts as you flatten yourself against his pelvis.

The sun watches on amongst a veil of cloudless blue, sweat beading beneath your dress and down the dip of your spine. It gathers where your knees bend too, and you whine at the heat trapped beneath your weakly-boned bodice as you ride him.

“What’re you pouting for?” Aerion asks, lifting a hand to cup your chin. He angles your head so you’re looking at him, and your pout only deepens when he squeezes your cheeks. You can smell yourself on his fingers as he holds your face firm, and it makes you dizzy with need. Aerion cocks his head, imploring, “Huh? What’s the matter?”

His hips lift to meet the rolling of your hips, and the head of his cock nudges that spot inside you hard. You hiccup around a moan, the sound coming out like a strangled gasp. He releases your face, slapping your cheek gently, like one would the hind of a hound.

“S’too much,” you say as the heat builds inside you. 

Each knock of his length against the plug of your cervix has you keening, and the heat in your belly mirrors the fires that mount the walls of this very stronghold.

Aerion laughs, but it’s mocking in its delivery. He observes the way you writhe in his lap and remediates it simply with a hand to the front of your dress. Threading his fingers through your low neckline, he pulls downward and you feel yourself lurch forward as he tears the front of your bodice down your chest. Beneath, you feel your chemise give way too, a painful tug at the back of your neck as some of the fabric rips at the seams. Your tits spill out, nipples hardening in the warm, salty air.

“Aerion,” you gasp, but he dismisses your shock.

“Bet that feels better,” he says instead, and, shamefully, it does. As you rock your hips, pussy working up and down the length of his cock, heat coiling inside you like a copper-ringed serpent, the cool air against your chest is heavenly. 

You can’t help but whine. Aerion’s hand cups one of your tits beneath slow moving fingers. He rolls a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and you keen with his title falling from your lips.

The sound of your cunt sinking up and down his cock is loud and wet in the emptiness of the terrace, and the skin-on-skin as his pelvis ruts against the backs of your thighs is even louder. Aerion grunts, exertion pink on his cheeks as one of his hands grips your hip and helps you drop onto the thick of his cock. His other hand moves to your other breast, kneading the flesh with skilled fingers as you begin to come apart in his lap.

“Four fucking days you left me without this pussy,” Aerion growls, biting through the silence. “Four days—and don’t think I forgot about that little sedative you gave me.”

He twists one of your nipples, tugging it. You yowl, arching forward before he smoothes over the sensitive flesh with a swipe of his thumb.

“Too smart for your own good,” he continues, hand leaving your tits now. He seizes your hips, clutching at the material of your skirts. The chaise creaks beneath you both as you come together again and again. Aerion swallows, then grunts. “Gods, but I can’t stay mad at you, can I? Sweet girl. My sweet girl, doing so well for me.”

For me is said pointedly. Molasses-thick and sweet as green nectar wine. That sets you off, and you lean forward with your tits bouncing above the bunched fabric of your bodice. You moan, heat blooming thick and fast through your stomach, reaching into the depth of your core.

“Aerion, fuck, oh–oh gods,” you ramble as you begin to lose your rhythm. You grind yourself onto him, chasing your high that spreads through you like a wildfire. Your cunt clenches tight around the thick of him, and he groans, holding you tightly as you take, take, take, legs shaking atop the chaise’s cushions. You moan, heart pounding against your ribs as the pressure in your womb stretches tighter. “Please, please, my prince, oh my—ah, ah…”

“Let me feel you, go on,” Aerion whispers through his panting. “Come on my cock. You can do it, sweet girl, c’mon.”

You shake in his lap as you come, his words pushing you into it. You tumble into the embracing heat, tossed into the churning sea, and you moan as your pussy clenches tight around him. You gush, soaking him as your hips twitch and you writhe as the warmth of your release consumes you. Fingers stamp crescents into his pale flesh while you rock, swollen clit throbbing heavy with your heartbeat as you whimper.

“Aerion,” is a soft whisper as your hips tremor to a stop, chest rising and falling with the speed of your panting.

Aerion groans, and you feel his cock twitch inside you. The hands on your hips tighten even more as he thrusts up into you, slick pooling out with each thrust. His balls slap up against the soft curve of your arse, wet with your slick, and he huffs with each clench of your pussy around him. Gods, how was he ever going to go back to a whorehouse when he knows he has this waiting for him?

“You’re mine,” he spits out then. “You can’t leave me.”

His cock jerks inside you.

You moan, almost pained, as his cock punches up against the plug of your womb. You call his name softly, trembling fingers running over the contracting muscles of his abdomen.

With another deep-seated groan, the prince spills inside you. A chant of your name—closer to a prayer the way he whispers it towards the sky—greets your ears over the crashing of waves as he fills you, buried all the way to the hilt. He comes, and comes, filling you warm as he leans forward and buries his face between your tits. A desperate, strained moan fights its way out of his throat, muffled in the valley of your chest as his cock twitches, emptying against your womb. You hum softly, feeling the thick warmth in your belly.

He stops coming, but he doesn’t pull out. He stays rooted deep, even when you feel him softening inside you. The sensation has a shiver running down the length of your spine, and you whimper a little as you adjust yourself, rocking your hips.

Aerion closes his eyes as he leans back in the chair. He doesn’t say anything.

You slowly, slowly lift your hips.

His hands tighten and you freeze, cock half-way inside you. His cum dribbles from you, down his flushed shaft and onto his pelvis.

“You don’t move until I tell you,” he says quietly.

You settle yourself back into his lap. The wind braces against your bare tits, and you make quick work of tucking them back into your bodice—although the fabric sits looser now, the seams at the back of your neck having been torn apart. You look mangled.

The prince catches his breath as you rest in his lap, pussy aching where it sits split apart on his softening cock. A few long moments later, his hands slip away from your hips. You take that as your cue, lifting yourself up. His cock falls out, wet and spent against his thigh as you clamber, with shaking legs, off of his lap. You grab the blood-stained cloth from the basin and rinse it clean, before dabbing it between your legs where your smallclothes lay in ruins.

You rinse the cloth again, then reach across the prince to wipe the slick that smears across his stomach and pelvis. He opens his eyes, watching you as the tepid water braces over his skin, and you clean him without a word. Once he’s clean, you discard the cloth, replace the knots of his breeches and trousers, then get to your feet.

“Where are you going?” Aerion asks, looking almost offended as he reclines in his chaise.

Perplexed, you gesture to the door. “I just assumed—”

“You don’t move until I tell you,” Aerion repeats, then pats the space beside him.

You look around briefly, then clamber back down onto the chaise. Aerion doesn’t move to make space for you, forcing you to curl up at his side. You keep your hands tucked against your chest as his arm—the injured arm—wraps around your shoulders in an alien display of affection.

Noticing your tentativeness, Aerion grunts. “Put your hands on me.”

You do. You drape one of your hands across his chest, palm flat. You feel the strong beating of his heart as you rest your head against him. And you lie there, tucked into his side, lounging in the heat of the summer sun and listening to whispers of the Blackwater.

—✿—

Two days later, you’re replenishing your stash of moon tea—considering you’ve been through a significant amount of it—when your shop door opens. At this hour, the streets alight with the colours of the setting sun, you expect Ser Donnel. Aerion had agreed to let you spend the day at your shop, and you awaited the gleam of white armour to whisk you back to the Keep.

Instead, Aerion himself stood in the doorway.

“Your grace,” you greeted as calmly as possible.

“I need you to pack your things,” he says in return.

You frown, shaking your head. “Your grace, I’ve told you, I cannot leave—”

“My father makes for Summerhall on the morrow. The city grows too warm, and my siblings and I will accompany him,” Aerion interrupts. He doesn’t look around the shop with disinterest as he enters. He’s looking at you. “You’re coming with me.”

You gape at him. “No, my prince, I can’t—”

“Leave your shop.” Aerion rolls his eyes. “What do you make in a day?”

You don’t really know, but that isn’t the point. “It’s not about the coin. It’s about the people that need me.”

“I really don’t care. I need you,” Aerion says pointedly. “That’s all that should matter.”

You swallow, nervous. “My prince…”

“Whatever you make in a day, I will triple it.” Aerion waves a hand dismissively through the air. “Now, pack your belongings and come with me.”

“But—!”

“Or I can pack for you, tie you to the back of my horse, and set this damned place alight,” Aerion utters, leaning across the counter to pluck a sprig of lavender from your hair. “What shall it be?”

You nod slowly. “I’ll… I’ll pack.”

“That’s a good girl.”

———

all this and they haven’t even kissed smh

tags 🌿

Your shop is rather small, but you love it.

Behind the sturdy wooden counter—which itself is laden with misshapen plants sprouting from old teacups and half-filled bottles of sparkling powder—sits rows upon rows of shelves. The shelves are stocked full of your natural remedies and creations, vials big and small, pouches of linen and pouches of ribboned silk. You have everything, perfectly organised, by remedy and in alphabetical order.

For years, you’ve operated out of your little shop in a narrow side-street in the heart of King’s Landing, just a stone’s throw from the main thoroughfare. You’ve helped countless travellers and residents with a range of issues: from sedatives for unruly hounds and salves to treat festering hoof-rot, to fast-acting contraceptives and bitter-tasting hallucinogens.

You can make anything.

And because you can make anything, you’ve become familiar with many a noble and knight in your time.

The door to your shop opens as you’re serving a little old lady, handing her a parcel of dried mushrooms. A cool breeze smelling faintly of winter rain and freshly baked bread sweeps into your shop, jostling the bundles of herbs you have hanging from your ceiling. You wave goodbye to the elderly women as you look up, smiling politely as you catch the unmistakable glint of midday sun against white armour.

“Ser Donnel,” you greet with a small bow of your head as the older kingsguard enters your shop, his gleaming armour making him appear like a pearl in the sand amongst your dim wooden shelves. “How is your finger? I trust the salve I made you helped the wound heal?”

Ser Donnel approaches the counter, offering you a small smile as he lifts his hand. He flexes his fingers, eyes lingering on the index, which he had sliced open a week prior.

“It did, thank you,” Ser Donnel says, his eyes lingering now on the shelves behind you.

“What can I do for you?” You ask, drumming your fingers on the solid wood of your counter, watching as the older knight spins slowly on his heel, taking in the other shelves and tables packed into your small shop.

“Don’t suppose you have something for horses?” He asks, back to you. When he turns, however, he gives you a rueful smile, then laughs. “Of course you do.”

“Of course I do,” you mimic, rounding your counter and leading the older knight across the room. You find a shelf near the shop’s far side, gesturing to an array of small vials, many labelled “Dog – Rash” or “Cat – Sneezing” and even “Chicken – Eggbound.” Ser Donnel looks at the array of small vials with complete amazement as you turn back to him. “What’s wrong with your palfrey, ser?”

Ser Donnel points to his own eye for emphasis. “Got something in her eye. All red and weepy and that. Not pleasant.”

“I see,” you say, then turn to your shelf. It takes you less than a second before you’re plucking a vial with dark brown glass off of the shelf. You hold it out to Ser Donnel. “Sounds like conjunctivitis. Very common, and, lucky for you, easy to treat. Just a few drops of this, morning and night, and she should be all better in a couple of days.”

Ser Donnel looks at you, visibly pleased, as you gently press the small vial into his palm. “You’re an absolute darling, you know that?”

“I try,” you reply, smiling as you return to your counter. Ser Donnel follows you, dropping the vial into a pouch and pulling out his coin purse at the same time. He drops several stags onto the counter, and you gape at him as they clatter loudly against the wood. “Ser Donnel, this is too much—”

“For the eye-drops,” Ser Donnel insists, pushing the stags towards you. “And for your services, okay? Now, I don’t want to hear another word of it.”

You bite your lip, hiding your smile as you reluctantly scoop up the stags and slip them into the coin pouch on your belt.

“Well, can I at least give you something for your generosity?” You ask, ducking beneath the counter before he could even open his mouth to reply. You snatch up a small pouch and get to your feet, offering it to the knight, who peers at you as if you had grown another head. You sigh through your nose, amused. “Sourleaf. Fresh in this morning.”

Ser Donnel offers you another kind smile, taking the pouch of painkillers and slipping it alongside the pouch with the vial.

“Thank you,” he says, bowing his head, just as the door to your shop opens and another gust of wind blows in.

The cold breeze sweeps through the store, and the door bangs harshly against the side wall, creaking on its hinges from the force. You startle, and Ser Donnel whips around. Composing yourself, you’re quick to sink back, making yourself appear smaller, as Aerion Targaryen bursts into the room with eyes spitting embers.

“How long could it possibly take to buy an ointment for a fucking horse?” The prince seethes as he steps into the shop, looking around with genuine distaste. His eyes linger on a murky liquid in a large bottle on the wall beside him, before they drag through the dim to Ser Donnel. He makes a face, eyebrows raising like he’s expecting something. “Well? Did you get it?”

You hear Ser Donnel release a short, quiet breath.

“Yes, your grace,” he says, glancing back over his shoulder sympathetically before stepping towards the prince. “We may be off now.”

Aerion scoffs, allowing Ser Donnel to brush past him, but his eyes lift and land on you. He peers at you, as if just noticing your presence, his gaze burning holes right through the centre of your face. He looks at you half with distaste—probably due to the leaves in your hair and the powder dusted across your arms and apron—and half with interest, like a merchant admiring a newly minted coin.

“So you are the woods witch Ser Donnel speaks so highly of…” Aerion comments, eyes unwavering in their stare. You shift your eyes to the floor. Aerion huffs, partially amused. “I expected an ugly old thing, but this—”

“Your grace,” Ser Donnel warns with a sternness akin to a strict father.

“—is unexpected,” Aerion continues, unphased. He traipses into the shop, cloak swishing behind him like a pair of raven’s wings. His eyes scan the walls of bottles and vials and jars, and he plucks a small one from the closest shelf. Spinning it between his fingers, he speaks with considerable disinterest, “How exactly do you know how to make all of this?”

You lift your head slowly, hands clasped in front of you. “My… my mother taught me, your grace.”

The vial he holds holds a sticky green liquid, the colour of forest moss. He peers at it strangely. The liquid inside sticks to the glass, viscous and slow-moving as he turns it.

“What’s this for?” He asks, and you know he doesn’t actually care. You lock eyes, and you realise he’s testing you.

“Eases infant colic,” you reply straight away.

Aerion drops the vial on the floor and it shatters against the wood. You flinch, startled by the sudden noise. You hear Ser Donnel protest with a gruff call of the prince’s title, but Aerion is undeterred, slipping behind the counter and appraising the towering shelves behind you. He takes another vial, the liquid inside a deep, mustard yellow.

“And this?”

“Inflamation caused by pox,” you answer. “Soothes the skin.”

He huffs, and drops that vial too. It shatters, but this time, you don’t flinch. You watch the syrupy yellow liquid leech between the floorboards, glass shimmering in the ghostly light streaming in through the only window near the door.

Aerion walks further behind the counter, and you shift until the small of your back is pressed to the solid wooden lip. The prince closes in on several vials on the very top shelf, and he has to stand on his toes to reach one of them. Your heart leaps into your throat, and you open your mouth to say something, but no words fall.

Aerion’s pale fingers snatch a small bottle from the top shelf. The glass is clear, and it’s labelless, but you know exactly what it is. The substance inside resembles wine: a deep, blood-red that bubbles a little on the surface as the prince sloshes the liquid around. There’s a small, oil-like sheen to it as he holds it up, violet eyes finding yours.

“What’s this?” He presses, and you wonder if he catches the fear in your eyes.

You clear your throat. “I, uh, it’s—”

He uncorks it, and you raise an arm.

“It’s a stimulant,” you blurt out, stopping yourself from pulling the vial from his hands. Aerion continues, unphased, as he lifts the bottle to his nose and sniffs. You can almost smell it yourself: overripe grapes, crushed honeysuckle, and what smells uncannily like the perfumed skin of an expensive courtesan. Aerion pauses, something flashing in his eyes as you continue shyly, “To… increase desire and maintain… maintain a man’s excitement.”

Aerion stares at you, slowly lowering the little bottle from his nose.

He holds it carelessly, and as Ser Donnel sends another warning from across the room, you attempt to prise the bottle from his fingers, your touch slow and gentle.

“Please be careful, your grace,” you utter, fingers skimming the cool glass of the vial. “It’s incredibly potent in large doses—”

Aerion jerks away, and you snap your hand back as though you’d been burned. 

The prince hisses at you, serpent-like as the pointed ivory of his teeth glint in the grey light. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

You withdraw. “Your grace, please—”

“You’re trying to scare me,” he seethes, shaking the bottle enough for a few droplets to flick out and onto the pale skin of his fingers. It stains like mulled wine. He continues, staring you down. “How dare you even—”

“Your grace,” Ser Donnel’s voice booms through the small room, and you find yourself cowering back against the counter, stuck between two brewing storms. Ser Donnel sighs loudly. “Listen to her. She knows a lot more than you do, believe me.”

Aerion lets out a bitter laugh. “Don’t mock me.”

You chime in hesitantly. “Please, your grace. It’s a concentrated mixture. I wouldn't want you to—”

“I can do what I want,” Aerion spits out, and before you can even react, he downs the entire vial in two quick mouthfuls.

You gasp out. “Your grace—!”

Aerion drops the vial and it shatters right at your feet. You jump back, avoiding the splash of broken glass, as the prince turns on his heel and makes for the door. You scramble after him, but you’re stopped by Ser Donnel, who places a gentle hand on your shoulder.

At the door, Aerion turns and gives you one last look, eyes trailing up and down your figure, before he rolls his eyes and vanishes back onto the street.

You’re breathing deeply, overcome with guilt. Ser Donnel strokes your shoulder gently, calming you.

“It’s alright, it’s his own doing,” Ser Donnel assures you, hand shifting up to pat you comfortingly on the cheek.

“But—he just—the entire thing.”

“Will it harm him?” Ser Donnel asks. His voice is firm and it almost makes you want to cry. “Will it kill him?”

You quickly shake your head. “No, ser! It—it will be very intense, and very, uh, difficult to remediate without—without help, but it will not harm him, no.”

“Can a cure be made?”

You feel yourself warming beneath your clothes, and you clear your throat, soothing your hands over your apron and your skirts.

“I suppose I can give you something to ease the racing heart,” you say quietly, ducking off to the side to pluck another small vial from a nearby shelf. You hand it to Ser Donnel. “Mix with hot water and it will ease the fast-moving heart, but I’m afraid… I’m afraid the other symptoms will have to be cured… in other avenues.”

Ser Donnel chuckles, taking the vial. “I suppose I’ll be taking him to the Street of Silk later tonight then?”

You offer Ser Donnel a sympathetic smile, nodding and trying to ignore the warmth in your belly. You put it down to the shock of the whole thing, and you give Ser Donnel a polite wave as he leaves your shop without another word.

You sigh, turning and examining the broken glass and spilled liquid across your floors. You grab your broom from near the door and set to work.

—✿—

Later that night, you’re setting a new set of vials on a shelf across the store, extinguishing the wall-mounted candles as you move. You hum to yourself, skirts brushing the dusty floor, the street beyond the small window empty and pitch-black as night falls across King’s Landing. A crescent moon hangs, thin and pale, above the horizon.

You take your apron off and place it neatly on a hook near the door behind the counter—the door which leads up a narrow flight of stairs to your home above. As you do this however, there’s a thud at the locked door. It rattles the old wood where it settles on its hinges, and your heart flutters a little in fright as you look over, spying a shadow through the stained glass. Taking a knife from a block behind you, you approach the door with your hand obscured behind your back.

There’s another thud. More like a knock this time.

“Are you alright?” You ask through the stained glass, the outer pane caked in grime kicked up from the street. You gently unbolt the door and open it a crack, peering out at the shadowed figure that hunches in your alcove. “I’m closed for the night, but if you are ill—”

“Let me in,” comes a familiar voice, and you squeak in fright when you recognise it. 

Quickly, you pull open the door, still holding your knife, and the shadowed figure slips into your shop. You close and bolt the door behind you, turning with your back to the surface as the figure drops his hood, and subsequently, his cloak, and you watch as Aerion Targaryen turns slowly as the thick black fabric pools at his feet.

“Your grace,” you mutter, dropping into a polite bow. Worry clenches tightly in your chest as the prince looks at you with narrowed eyes, features appearing gaunt in what remains of the shop’s fading candlelight. You spare a glance through the stained glass of the door, then through the pane of the window adjacent. “Your grace, I’m not sure if—”

“What have you done to me?” Aerion interrupts you, his question slicing through the nervous quiet like the blade you clutch. He takes a step forward and you suck in a startled gasp, slipping around him and hurrying towards your counter. You just want to put as much distance between him and you as possible. He groans when you breeze by him, slowly turning as he speaks, “You’ve poisoned me.”

You’re behind your counter now. “I’ve done no such thing.”

“You have,” Aerion hisses, and he takes another step forward. You notice he’s slightly wobbly on his feet, pitching forward chest-first as though his legs are too heavy. He catches himself on a nearby shelf, bottles clinking together as the wood trembles. “This is your fault. You’ve poisoned me. You’ve—you’ve cursed me.”

Your eyes grow wide. You shake your head. “Your grace, please, I would never.”

In the low candlelight, sweat sparkles like broken glass on Aerion’s forehead. His white-blond hair clings to his skin, damp near his temples, and there’s a dip in his brow that casts a dark shadow over his eyes. But when he cocks his head, staring you down, you see them flash violet in the ochre light, his pupils slowly expanding.

“Ser Donnel informed me of what I had taken, and what it would do to me,” Aerion mutters, his voice hoarse as he pushes himself off the shelf. His palms slam down on the counter directly across from you, and you take a step back, fingers tight on the bone handle of your knife. Aerion huffs, “So I drank your little tea for my heart, and I fucked a couple of whores, but nothing is working.”

You swallow, heart in your throat.

“I tried to sleep,” Aerion says, dragging himself around the counter. You mimic his actions on the other end, slipping to the other side to avoid him. He continues, one of his hands shifting to the thin buttoned tunic he’s wearing. He pops open the top button. “I tried to bathe, I tried to pleasure myself, and I went back to that fucking whorehouse twice more and nothing—” He groans, and undoes another button. “—is working. What have you done to me?”

Slowly, he exposes the pale, unblemished skin of his chest. He’s damp with sweat as you round the counter, skirts flowing around your ankles. Your heart hammers wildly in your chest as he advances on you lazily, eyes drawn to the movement of your body like a falcon.

“You drank the stimulant,” you tell him as gently as possible.

You’re at opposite ends of the counter now. He pauses, undoing another button.

“So it’s my fault?” Aerion hisses out. 

You watch as he pushes his hips against the lip of the counter and he groans, hoarse and animal-like from the back of his throat. It strings across a whimper, and heat floods your belly. You curse yourself, watching as the prince—the Targaryen prince Aerion Brightflame—ruts himself slowly against your counter. You can see the stimulant’s effects on him: the tent pitched in the front of his trousers, the beads of sweat that trek down beneath his now open-tunic, rolling between the grooves of his abdomen.

“Yes,” you say boldly, holding the knife. “You shouldn’t have drank it.”

Aerion huffs out, then groans again as he looks up at you, hips pressed firmly to the edge of the counter. “You’re a witch. Fix me.”

You release a shaky breath, then approach him. You move behind your counter, and he watches you with serpent-like concentration as you slowly place your knife onto the surface. He smirks at that, moving behind the counter too.

“You…” Your heart is wild beneath your ribs, and you can smell him as he nears. He smells expensive: smoked oud, honey-washed skin, patchouli incense from the Street of Silk. You smell sweat and wine too when he gets within a foot of you. You continue, “I cannot fix you, your grace. The easiest fix is to find… find a woman, or a man, I suppose, and engage in sexual intercourse until the effects wear off.”

You hope you sound confident enough. You fear you may faint as he looks you up and down, bare chest rising and falling, smoke trapped beneath shifting scales.

“This is your doing,” he says, seemingly ignoring your previous statement. One of his hands finds your hip and you seize up. “You will fix me. You will fix this.”

You find yourself shifting then as he pushes you up against the counter, the print of his hard cock pressing between your thighs as he pins you. You frown as he groans, the hand on your hip tightening while the other slowly rises to take your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“I can’t fix it,” you whisper as he forces your eye contact. You’re trapped beneath him, but there’s a heat in your belly you can’t deny, and the pounding of your heart travels south, settling between your thighs despite your racing mind. “I, well, I can try and make a cure—”

“I don’t want an elixir or a salve or a bunch of dried fucking herbs,” Aerion utters as his fingers tighten on your jaw. He ruts his pelvis against your thigh, and you watch as something flits through his eyes, the black of his pupils having engulfed the violet of his irises. “I want you to fix me.”

You swallow. “Your grace—?”

“I want your mouth on my cock, and I want you bent over this fucking counter,” Aerion interrupts with a voice strewn through gravel, dark and hoarse. Something twists deep in your belly as he bends his head, dipping his nose against the curve of your jaw. He grunts when he inhales, lips vibrating against your skin when he speaks again. “Will that fix me?”

Your hands are tight around the edge of the counter. “Yes, your grace, but—”

Aerion hums, teeth just skimming the skin of your jaw before he pulls back. “Good. Then get on your knees.”

The heat of his body leaves yours then, and you blink up at the ceiling. Aerion Targaryen was telling you to get on your knees? Aerion Targaryen was currently pulling apart the knots of his trousers, panting like a wounded dog as he dips his hand into his breeches to fist himself? Your mind was a mess.

But you did what you were told. You could have easily overpowered him in this state. Simply leapt from his reach and locked yourself in your room. But you didn’t want to. There’s a heavy fire kindling in your belly, fanning out over your womb as blood pumps hot between your thighs.

You sigh gently, slowly pushing yourself off the counter and sinking to your knees, your powder-dusted skirts flowing out around you. The wooden ground is hard but well-worn from years of footfall, and you settle on your knees as the prince takes a step forward, his trousers gathered just beneath the curve of his arse. The print of his cock strains against the white linen of his breeches, the front wet with pre-cum, and the way his fingers tremble when he attempts to unknot them makes you whine.

“My prince…” you whisper, reaching your hands to take hold of the strings of his breeches. 

He stills above you, muscles in his abdomen clenching as you pull the knots apart. While you do this, one of his hands comes to rest on the back of your head, and he pulls you to him. Adrenaline is thick and viscous in your veins, but you let yourself be guided despite the hammering of your pulse up the side of your neck. You’re dizzy with both need and fear as you open your mouth and press it, hot and wet, to the front of his breeches.

He bites down a hiss. “That’s right.”

You kiss over the line of his cock, open-mouthed and messy against the soft linen. You smell perfume and imagine the skilled hands of trained sex workers pulling the prince’s breeches down for him. You squeeze your thighs together at the thought, and you finally manage to pull apart the knots beneath his navel.

“Kiss me, that’s it,” Aerion groans out, holding your head firmly as your lips move across his covered cock. He’s burning hot and rigid beneath the fabric, and your hands find his thighs as you lave your tongue. That earns you a groan, and your eyes flit upwards to find him already looking at you. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “That’s it, fix me… fix this.”

Your head rocks beneath his hand as you mouth at his covered length. You feel him twitch beneath your lips, tip drooling out onto the fabric as you run the point of your tongue across it. Aerion hisses, hips bucking so harshly he knocks against your nose. Tears well along your waterline as he pulls you away then, just long enough to shove his breeches down.

He pulls his cock out, pale fingers wrapped tightly around the shaft. He groans at the raw contact, and you can’t help but gape as he clutches himself, tip a bruising red and wet with pre-cum. Pearlescent beads roll down the dip of his frenulum, and down his length as he slaps it against your cheek, then the other. He groans again when he pushes the tip across your lips, your eyes glassy as you watch him.

“Didn’t think witches could be as pretty as you,” he says suddenly as he ruts his cock along the warm lines of your face: over the curve of your cheekbones, rolling beneath the angle of your jaw. You kneel there, breathing hard, as he rubs himself over your skin. His words have heat flooding from your belly to your chest. The prince continues, “Might take you back to the Keep with me, huh? Keep you locked away…”

He tapers off when he groans, his balls drawing up tight. He grips the back of your head as he slides the head of his cock across your wet lips. He manages to bite out a quick “open” and you listen, opening your mouth and letting him slide just the tip in before he’s spilling in thick, hot spurts. Aerion groans, a shaking timbre from his chest as he rubs the head of his cock against the front of your tongue and spills into the warmth of your mouth. Some hits the back of your throat, and you squeeze your eyes shut, willing yourself not to choke as he releases, fingers firm on the back of your head.

After a moment, his cock jerks, but doesn’t soften. A loud, frustrated groan rips from Aerion’s throat as he pulls out and smears the remnants back over your cheek again.

“You did this to me,” he growls out as he shoves himself back into your mouth, barely giving you enough time to swallow. You open your eyes when he feeds himself into you, cock a velvet warmth against your tongue. He releases a stuttered breath, his other hand finding the back of your head as well. “So you’re going to take it.”

You gag when his hips rock forward and the leaking tip nudges down the back of your throat. You swallow, huffing out of your nose, and he groans loudly enough for it to echo. His hands tighten on your head and he physically starts moving you, pulling your head back and forth and fucking his cock down your throat. You try your best to lax your jaw, minding your teeth as you slide your tongue along the underside—you find a prominent vein easy enough, and you squeeze your thighs together as he whines, the muscles in his abdomen shifting.

The velvet of his trousers is plush beneath your fingers as you grip his thighs. They sit low on his hips, ties swaying as he pitches his hips, pulling your head back and forth. Every other thrust, he’s pushing you deep against him with a guttural groan, forcing your lips to the very root as the tip knocks against the back of your mouth. Your nose finds the neat white hair at the base, and the smell of perfumed oil should be a turn off, but it isn’t.

You whimper around him, cheeks hollowing. Your eyes are glassy and there’s a thin rivulet of saliva running from the corner of your mouth as he fucks your throat. Heat settles deep in the marrow of your bones, fluttering heart between your thighs. The feeling of spit rolling down your chin makes you whimper again, and suddenly, his eyes are on you. They’d been closed in, what you can only assume, is ecstasy as he chases another high. But now, he stares down at you with a subtle pinch in his brows. Like he can’t quite believe you’re there.

“If I knew you’d take my cock like this,” Aerion utters, petting the back of your head as he stretches your lips apart. “I’d’ve skipped the fucking whores and come straight here.”

You moan, something like a protest, but it’s shoved right back down your throat by the leaking head of his cock. You choke and splutter when he rolls his hips and he, somehow, goes even deeper. Aerion pulls back with a groan draped across a chuckle, letting you suckle the head as you catch your breath. His balls twitch as he slowly ruts back in, and once you blink the tears from your eyes, you reach a hand up to cup them.

He hisses out, “Fuck, fuck, oh gods—”

You let him press you to his pelvis, nose between the prominent lines of his hips. Your fingers and thumb work gently, rubbing over smooth skin as the grip on either side of your head tightens as he thrusts once, twice more before he begins to lose his rhythm.

“That’s it, that’s it, take it,” the prince moans, still looking at you, eyes black with lust as his hips slow and he forces you right down onto his cock again. He moans again when he spills—another thick, hot release that splatters down the back of your throat. You squeeze your eyes shut, practically holding your breath as his cock jerks, balls drawing up beneath your fingers. When your eyes close, Aerion lets out a quiet, “Look at me.”

It’s surprisingly soft. You blink up at him. His hand finds your warm cheek then, petting you two times like he’s trying to be gentle, and the effort puts a pit in your stomach. But it doesn’t last: his cock, still hard, dribbles as he pulls it from your mouth, taking a step back but still holding your head in one hand. His other hand finds the base of his slick cock and he moans as it pumps hot against his palm.

His bare chest is flushed, as are his cheeks. He pants like a dog too, and as he grips his cock, you watch with lowered lids as cum beads against the slit, then strings out like a spider’s web. It drips onto the floor as he groans, his lip curling up in a frustrated snarl.

“Why isn’t it working?” He asks you, fingers on the crown of your head.

You flick the point of your tongue across your teeth before you speak, tasting his release in the grooves. Overripe grapes linger in the back of your throat.

“You drank six doses worth,” you whisper, hands caressing his thighs.

“Fuck,” Aerion curses, and he watches with dark eyes as you lean forward, testing the waters, and press a wet kiss to the tip of his flushed cock.

You continue speaking as you slowly kiss down his shaft. “A single dose will usually allow a normal man three or four releases, if he’s lucky.”

Aerion grunts as you lick over the vein on the underside. It’s throbbing and hot against the flat of your tongue.

“But you, my prince…” Your tongue lowers and you lick a stripe from root to tip, and the sound that leaves him is more animal than human. You hide your smile. “Are not a normal man, are you?”

“Fucking witch,” Aerion seethes, but he’s preening. Like a cat being praised, a small groan lifts from his chest like a purr, and something flashes across his eyes. Pride. His hand pets your hair softly despite the venom in his tone, and he watches you in awe when the tip of your tongue darts out to collect a welling bead of pre-cum. He grunts then, pulling his cock away from your mouth with great effort. “Stand up.”

You do as you’re told. You clamber to your feet, and you feel slightly silly as you wait for him to kiss you. Of course he doesn’t—he spins you around with a grunt and pushes you roughly against the table. It hits your tummy as you bend, and you exhale a little “oof” as his hands make quick work of flipping up your skirts. He gathers them at your hips before he’s ripping your smallclothes away from your core.

“Cunt this wet from sucking my cock?” Aerion plasters himself to your back, leaning over to whisper in your ear as he runs the length of his cock from your arsehole to your pussy. You whine as he spreads you apart, slick webbing between your folds before they snap where he runs his cock through you. He groans at your heat, head dropping to rest between your shoulder blades as he rocks back and forth. “Gods, you’re dripping, sweet girl.”

The pet name has you reeling.

You hadn’t been expecting it, and it seems like he hadn’t been either. The length of his body stiffens behind you, as if his words were involuntary beneath the haze of his pleasure. With a grunt, he pulls back, taking the flat of his palm and muscling you down from between your shoulder blades until your tits are pressed tightly to the surface of the counter.

“Fucking witch,” Aerion seethes, still holding his cock as he drags the flushed tip through your folds. You suck in a breath, mewling when he slaps it against your clit. He makes a pleased sound, squeezes it out between clenched teeth, before he circles the tip at your entrance. “You did this to me. You did this to yourself.”

He pushes in with a low moan. There’s no slow stretch. There’s no slow.

The prince shoves himself in like it’s all he can do, the thick of his cock pulling you apart from the inside out. There’s a sting low in your pelvis and a dull kind of ache that festers like a bruise in the base of your womb as he bullies himself into you. A deep, keening sound is pushed involuntarily from your chest as you clutch the counter, followed by a gasp of “my prince” as he bottoms out, hips flush with your arse.

Your pussy is slick and warm around him and you squeeze tight when he pauses.

He’s panting. You can feel him straining behind you, his hands gripping your hips so hard it’s like he’s anchoring himself to you. The walls of your cunt hug around the thick of him in such a way that he’s completely lost himself.

“I—fuck… gods above…” Aerion mutters, slowly pulling out.

You press your cheek to your counter, attempting to look back at him, but the angle is awkward and you can only just make out the look of pure awe on his face. His dark eyes focus on the tight pull of your cunt as he slides out, shaft slick with you. A small whimper—he covers it quickly with a grunt—falls from his parted lips when his head notches at your hole.

“Maybe you belong in a whorehouse,” he whispers after a moment of tense silence. He rolls his hips and shoves himself back in, ears picking up the wet schlick as he slides home, balls coming to rest against the curve of your arse. He hums, pulling out again, then pushing back in. “Men’d pay good coin for a cunt like this.”

The prince sets a rhythm that rocks you against the counter. It’s sharp, desperate. You clutch onto the edge as if he might push you over, his cock rutting in and out of you at such a pace you’re becoming dizzy. He’s panting, frantic, the speed of his hips filling your small, dark shop with the echoing sounds of skin-on-skin.

His previous words settle and then he hisses like he’s offended himself. A disgruntled jeer as he grips your hips and fucks you back onto him.

“Too bad you’re here,” he utters. His thighs are a firm bracket behind yours as he fucks you. The way he speaks is dark and smooth. Dangerous flashes through your mind as you moan, a solid heat collecting in the very depth of your belly. He continues, “Too bad you’re here. With me. Too bad no one’ll stuff this cunt like your prince.”

You gasp around a small moan at his words. They hit you right in the stomach, churning something erotic inside you. You grip the counter, bottles nearby clinking at the movement, and you try to turn your head to look at him again.

“My prince—”

“Shut up and take it,” Aerion interrupts with a bite. A gnashing of ivory as he fills you over and over, the head of his cock finding that spot inside you that has you arching for more. 

Your body trembles, shaking against the counter as he folds you over it. The fat of your arse shifts with each of his thrusts, his fingers a bruising hold on your hips. Sweat builds beneath your dress, damp along the dip of your spine as you grow hotter and hotter. It’s an unbearable sort of heat that sparks in your womb, then spreads. It spreads up and out, flaring like a pair of glowing wings.

“Fuck, I can feel you, sweet girl,” Aerion says, his pace slowly losing it’s pattern. He’s scrambling now, sweat tracing down the back of his neck as his heart clatters against his ribs. Your pussy flutters around him like she doesn’t want to let him go. He groans, eyes slipping up your body, before resuming on where you take him. “Let me have it. Give it to me.”

You gasp out. “My prince, I—”

“Don’t fuss,” he snaps, hips stuttering. “Don’t fucking fuss and do what you’re told.”

There’s a heaviness in his tone that pins you down, but you expect nothing less. You instead focus on those gold-guilded wings spreading out inside you—filling your tummy, fanning heat through your chest as your tits squeeze almost uncomfortably against the wooden counter. The flames of pleasure are crawling down your spine now too, and with four more heavy thrusts of his cock against that perfect spot inside you, it reaches your core.

You can’t help what happens next: you call for him, his name, a sickeningly sweet “Aerion!” as you come around him, pussy pulling tight as the warmth overwhelms you. Your release is bulky as it takes hold, dragging you into ecstasy as his cock drives you through it. Your eyes squeeze shut, body shaking, as it takes over.

He mutters something under his breath then, hips rolling as he slowly begins to lose focus. You feel his cock jerk inside you as he slams inwards, tip nudging up towards the plug of your cervix. The feel of him is muddled in your brain and you feel sick with need as your orgasm begins to fizzle out, embers flickering.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Aerion groans. 

He spills then, with his cock flattened deep inside you and his fingers vice-like on your hips. He curls forward, dewy forehead finding your shoulder blades as his cock twitches, filling you in hot strings. It’s thick and viscous and makes you moan, and Aerion matches the sound with his own, feeling the clutch of your pussy tighten around him.

Some long seconds pass and he’s still spilling. Your eyes fly open as his cock, still pulsing and hard and hot inside you, jerks with his release. Spurts of it, again and again. You whine at the feeling. Too full, too full, you want to mutter, but you can’t. Your tongue is heavy in your mouth, throat dry as the prince rolls his hips, rutting himself against you with his face in the laces of your dress. You writhe, and he groans, open-mouthed and pained as he holds your hips, unwilling to let you go.

“No, stop, fuck,” he hisses out, muffled in the material of your dress. “Don’t fucking move—don’t—ah, ha, fuck, fuck.”

You still immediately, freezing like a scolded puppy. The prince breathes heavily against you as his cock jerks and jerks inside you. He whines into your dress. The sound has your heart fluttering.

“Gods above…” Aerion whispers after another long moment. 

His cock stills now, but he’s still hard. And he doesn’t pull out. He does, however, lift himself from you gingerly. His hands tremble on your hips, but you pretend not to notice.

“I can’t…” He tapers off, breathing heavily. 

There’s a searing pleasure in his abdomen that’s almost painful now, and his cock aches something fierce—like he needs to release again, like he’s edged himself for an hour. But he hasn’t. He’s spilled more times than he can count, but the pent-up need is making him nauseous with desire. His heart is beating too fast in his chest, and his skin feels too hot against his flesh.

He swallows thickly as he plugs your pussy full of his seed. His cock twitches and, much to his horror, he feels the hot press of tears behind his eyes. “I can’t… I need…”

“I know,” you whimper.

The change in his tone, in his demeanour, is a slap across the face. It’s abrupt and unexpected. You almost feel sorry for him—sorry for the man he’s become as he slowly rolls his hips, his cock barely moving inside of you—but you don’t. He’s done this to himself.

“One more,” he whispers, pulling out until only his flared head rests inside you.

“One more,” you repeat after him.

He groans, pushing back in once he’s caught his breath. You moan quietly, body pliant and spent beneath him now. There’s a prickle of overstimulation in your belly, but you don’t complain. His cock knocks right back up against that perfect spongy spot inside you and you shut your mind up with a string of whimpers.

The prince builds his pace again. His cheeks are pink with the effort, and strands of his white hair cling to his forehead as he ruts into you. A thin white ring builds at the base of his cock as he thrusts, his seed drooling through your folds as he bends and fucks you. It’s wet and loud, and paired with the little whimpers you’re trying to hide, it’s better than any sex he’s ever bought. And he didn’t spend a single coin on you.

“No one else took me like this,” he utters as thoughts of you, you, you clatter around his skull. You’re a witch. You’ve poisoned him. He grunts, almost mad at himself. “You take me like you were made for it.”

“Aerion,” you whisper, eyes drooping, another orgasm encroaching on you. This one is even heavier than before. You can feel it in your bones, seeping into your marrow as he fucks you and rambles all the while.

“Made for me,” he continues. “Made for the dragon.”

His thrusts are loosening, and he chases his release with his cock barely leaving you. He rolls his hips, sliding against you as he huffs and bends. To your surprise, he places a kiss between your shoulder blades, teeth tugging briefly at the laces of your dress before he pulls back. He rocks and rocks, a thick moan fighting its way out of his throat as the counter trembles. A glass vial topples with the force, rolling off and onto the floor. It shatters, but neither you or Aerion flinch, too consumed in your pleasure to pay it any mind.

“Ah, fuck, fuck, oh fuck, sweet girl—” Aerion rambles, and then he’s spilling again.

He moans loudly as he ruts himself through it, cock shuddering inside you as he comes in more thick spurts. Back dipping, you feel him fill you even more than before, and you feel the heat of it seep like honey into your womb. It makes you dizzy, and it makes your own orgasm reveal itself from the ashes of the first.

You come with his name on your tongue again, holding onto the counter as you stiffen up. He groans when your pussy tightens around him, fluttering as the tension releases like blood pouring from an open wound. He falls over you as you tremble, sweat-slick chest finding your back as his cock gives one last jerk while your orgasm tapers off, slipping back into the shadows. He pants behind you, hands still on your hips, cock still inside you—but it’s softening.

The prince moans in relief as his cock slowly softens, his seed leaking from your spread pussy as he slowly, slowly pulls himself from you. A quiet moment passes before he exhales, presses one last almost imperceptible kiss to the covered space between your shoulder blades, then rights himself.

“I trust you have something to deal with… this,” Aerion mutters, and you feel two thick fingers drag through your folds before pressing inside you. Despite his words, obviously slightly concerned with the fact you’re filled with him, he plugs you, knuckles against your core.

You release a shaky breath. “Yes, my prince.”

“Good,” he huffs, still catching his breath.

You’re still bent over the counter. And his fingers are still inside you. He sighs, more to himself than to you.

“Thank you,” he whispers, sounding the most unlike himself of the entire night. 

That’s all he says, and you know he doesn’t want a reply.

—✿—

Three days—and several cups of moon tea and other fast-acting contraceptives—later, you’re restocking the shelf behind your counter when the door opens. You cast a glance over your shoulder, finding Ser Donnel entering, white armour gleaming as his mass fills the doorway. You turn and greet him properly.

“Ser Donnel,” you say, bowing your head respectfully. “How is your horse?”

Ser Donnel smiles. “Fine. You fixed her right up.”

You smile back, busying your idle fingers by stuffing a small pouch with crushed willow bark. “That’s great to hear. What can I do for you?”

The knight clears his throat, looking around the empty shop for a moment before speaking. “He requires your presence. At the Keep.”

“I beg your pardon?” You cock your head. “Who?”

“The prince,” he says pointedly.

You frown, tying a knot around the little pouch and placing it to the side. Nerves spike in your chest as you wait for Ser Donnel to continue. He does.

“He’s earned himself a nasty gash—” Ser Donnel gestures to his own bicep for specification. “—during training. And he’s, uh, refusing the help of his maesters. He wants you.”

You gape. “But I’m not a maester—”

“But you can help him, can you not?” Ser Donnel interrupts you before you spiral. “You’re a smart wee thing. You can fix anything.”

You bite your lip, nervous. “Ser Donnel, I don’t think—”

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t a request,” he says as gently as possible. “He won’t be taking no for an answer. I’m here to escort you.”

“Right…” You sigh, turning back to the shelf and gathering some supplies.

You shouldn’t have expected anything less from Aerion Targaryen.

———

be nice to the woods witch ❌

fuck her against her shop counter ✅

idiot (need him)

tags 🌿

he made sure you came on his face at least three times. until your legs were jelly, brain mush, voice hoarse from begging him to stop. ‘i-i can’t’ you had whined, ‘ ‘s too much andy!’. he did it to get you into that floaty head space where you’re babbling mindlessly and lax for him.

and you’re exactly that as pope crawls up your body and settles where he belongs, above you and inbetween your legs. still, you breathlessly slur the question that he despises. “condom?”

he feigns frustration even though this is exactly what he planned. “shit— i left my wallet in craig’s car… i don’t have one.”

your response is a needy whine that morphs into a gasp when he rests his cock against your drenched folds and slowly slides back and forth. “can i just have you like this sweetheart?” pope rubs his thick length upwards, angry pink tip catching your clit with every pressing glide. you whimper through your desperate nods, nails clawing at his shoulders, fusing your knees to his ribs to stay spread for him. such a good girl, he thinks to himself.

he keeps his ruttings short. almost playfully light in order to not get you anywhere besides out of your mind from teasing. just how he wants it. when you start to wriggle beneath him, whimpering a few mindless “please please please”s, he looks down at your aching pussy to see her clench around nothing. poor baby, she needs me so bad, he tells himself.

his dick is so coated in your slick releases that pope ‘accidentally’ notches at your opening. staying in motion, he pushes in ever so slightly. your eyes shoot open in surprise “ohh- andy!” you squeal. frustration bubbles in his chest, but he doesn’t give up. because your panic simmers to pleasure and your mouth forms an ‘o’ as you moan at just his bare tip breaching your wet heat.

he buries his face into your neck to hide his satisfied grin, licking and suckling the skin how he knows you like. “jus the tip sweetheart? please?” he emphasizes his wimpy whines with an inching forward of his hips. your nails tear at the flesh on his back as you shudder. “p-promise?” you croak out in hazy compliance. his reply is strained. “ ‘course honey.”

popes promise — to him at least— goes up in flames when he slips a tiny bit further inside and is met with warm, silky tightness. fuckkk. he groans, muscles tensing and you cry out, eyes rolling back. his thrusts are shallow and unsatisfactory. after a only a few, he’s twitching in need, pathetically trying to inch deeper.

you notice, starting to whine and pant. “you cant andy! i’m not on the pill!” the words almost make pope start to piston in and out of you. the thought of coming in you until you’re swollen with his baby infiltrating his mind. that you’ll be tied to him forever and— oh yeah. that’s happening, he decides.

pope leans down to kiss you languidly. trying to tongue fuck you into submission. your pussy is rapidly fluttering around the first inch of his cock, telling him that you want this just as bad as he does. he uses his words. “you just feel so good sweetheart. need you so bad. need all of you.” a breathy moan slips from you at his praise as you return his kiss greedily.

you pull back and blink up at him with your glossy eyes and kiss bitten lips. when your legs start to wrap around him, crossing tightly at his back, he knows he’s almost home free. “okay... i- i need you too andy.”

you barely get the words out before he hastily pushes all the way inside of you. guttural noises of pleasure are ripped from you both as you clench around him so prettily and he stretches you out so perfectly. it’s searing, intimate and raw. so fucking raw.

as pope starts to thrust in and out of you eagerly, obscene slapping sounds echo throughout the room. he whimpers loudly at the warm, wet feeling of you and the noises your body makes for him.

when you shakily tell him between moans “you h-have to pull out.. okay?”

Throughout Andrew’s life, many people have come and gone through the doors of Smurf’s house. It would take another lifetime just to count them all. 

The parties started when he was young and never ended. The faces blurred together for Andrew now, not that he could really bring himself to care all that much in the first place. Just like Craig’s girlfriends or Smurf’s boyfriends, nobody was ever really a permanent fixture in Andrew’s life. Not if they weren’t family.

He knows that everyone thinks that he’s different. That he’s weird. He notices their looks when he lingers around the pool, in the kitchen, when he’s just sitting on the couch. His own brothers even, a lot of the time. Everyone eyes him like a ticking time bomb, just waiting for him to go off.

Andrew doesn’t really mind, though. Or, if he did, he'd become numb to the feeling a long time ago. In fact, he’s probably become numb to a lot of feelings. But Andrew doesn’t know any other way to be. He’s just Pope and he has been for a very long time.

This party in the Cody household wasn’t different from any other. Booze, drugs, and a big mess Andrew would definitely have to clean up later. The music is loud, bass turned up too high, and Craig is attempting to jump off the roof into the pool again. Amidst the cheers, Andrew thinks about the rest of his brothers and wonders for a moment where exactly it went so differently for him, or if he was just simply born that way.

His brothers seem okay with being in the spotlight. Even his nephew seemed to fare better than him, assimilating perfectly into every situation that arose, especially when people were involved. Andrew was never like that.

J must have gotten it from Julia.

Andrew was never a people person. He was always out of place, like the Cody that just didn’t quite belong, all jagged edges. The parties always send him into the corners of his mind that he didn’t really like venturing into.

The pounding of the bass is getting to him.

He pulls open the door to his bedroom hoping for a moment of silence, when he’s greeted with a pair of bare feet hanging off the edge of his bed. The figure doesn’t stir when he enters, so he creeps in further and shuts the door quietly. He turns his head, scanning now that he has a better view of who exactly is in his room.

You’re laid on his bed, eyes shut, hugging your phone to your chest like a stuffed animal. You’ve clearly come to escape the crowds of the party, same as him. Andrew can’t help as his eyes drag up your legs all the way up to where your short dress shows just a little too much of your thighs. He notices your heels as well, placed nice and neat beside the bed.

“Who are you?” It comes out a bit more gruff than Andrew anticipated and your eyes finally flutter open. It takes you a minute to notice him but when you do you’re shooting up to your feet, spine rigid. It’s cute, he thinks, the way you panic. You startle like a small puppy.

“Oh my god,” you squeak, clearly embarrassed. Your hands fall to adjust the hem of your short dress, much to Andrew’s disappointment. He gives you a once over; it’s half assessing what exactly you’re doing in his room and half just taking you and your skimpy outfit. “I’m so sorry. Is this your room?”

Andrew gives a small nod and you wring your hands nervously. You’re taking him in now, a Cody brother here in front of you, live and in the flesh.

“So which one are you?” you ask, head cocked. Now that you know this is his room, he notices you assessing him in a different light. People always do —it didn’t bother Andrew much anymore but with you he feels a twinge of shame in his stomach. “Deran? Or, um…”

Andrew knows that you’re searching for his name. His nickname. It had to be since there was a short list of people who called him by his real name. Pope Cody is known by everyone in Oceanside. Andrew Cody, on the other hand, is not.

“Andrew.” he supplies, voice softer than before. Now you’ve been added to that very exclusive list. You repeat his name back to him, voice a little warm, no doubt from one of the many drinks that the Cody’s provided. Then you introduce yourself and Andrew attempts to burn your name into his memory.

“Okay, Andrew. Are you hiding too?” Now that he hasn’t kicked you out, you take a seat on the edge of his bed. He notices the compression of where your body laid just a few minutes before on his neatly made and pressed sheets but doesn’t say anything. He likes the sound of your voice too much to interrupt you. “Or just making sure nobody is defiling your room.”

“I’m not hiding,” he replies, crossing his arm over his chest. The strap of your dress falls and Andrew tries not to get distracted. “This is my house. I’m free to go where I please.”

“Fair enough. I’m hiding,” you shrug. A beat of silence passes and you pat the spot next to you, inviting him to sit on his own bed. Andrew is curious enough to oblige, sitting on the other end of the bed, putting distance between you. He doesn’t miss how your shoulders drop slightly in disappointment. “My friend is here with Craig and they’ve conveniently disappeared... I don’t even want to know what they’re doing.”

“I have a few guesses.” Another one of Craig’s girlfriends. The giggle of a girl coming from Craig’s room that Andrew had heard when he was walking by suddenly made a lot more sense. 

He wills himself not to flinch when you scoot closer to him, closing the distance he deliberately put between the two of you. Andrew was interested, too interested, and that worried him.

Pope Cody wasn’t allowed to want.

“Is it okay if I stay here with you?” you ask, and Andrew’s heart flips. He clears his throat, hoping that you don’t see the blush that’s creeping it’s way up his neck. “I’m just not really sure how long it’s going to take and I would much rather be in here.”

With you, hangs unspoken in the air.

“Sure.” Andrew likes the way you smile when he answers, a small flash of teeth. You scoot even closer and tuck your bare feet under you. You’re so close now that your knee is nudging his thigh. He can smell your perfume from here and it’s heavenly compared to the sweat and chlorine laced air outside. “I don’t really want to be out there either.”

“So, Andrew,” His name sounds like honey when it’s falling from your lips and he wonders how often he can make you say it. The feeling that settles in his chest when you say it is too addicting for him to live without it now. “Not really a party person?”

“No. But my brothers are.” He gestures vaguely to the door, the music pounding on the other side of the wall and then his hands retreat back to his lap. He can feel your eyes on him, but not in the usual way he always tends to notice. You scan him with a kind of curiosity that he hasn’t felt in a long time.

“I’m not really a party person either,” you agree, glancing at the door he had just gestured towards. You look a little sad, even. It makes Andrew’s fingers twitch.“My friend said she needed some moral support coming to meet this guy. So I came, and then she ditched me like an hour ago.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a shitty friend.” Andrew says plainly and he’s caught off guard when you let out a laugh. 

“Yeah, I guess,” You shrug, shoulders still shaking with remnants of laughter. Andrew has turned his head fully now to look at you but he doesn’t really understand why you’re laughing. “But maybe it’s like fate, or something.”

“Fate?” Andrew echoes, even more confused than before. You lock eyes with him and he has to resist the urge to break it, enthralled enough by your gaze to ignore the awkward feeling settling in his chest.

“Yeah. Like maybe it’s fate that she left? Because then I wouldn’t have hidden in a cute guy’s room and got to talk to him.” He can tell that your mind is elsewhere, but his eyes are still on you. There’s a dreamy look painted on your face and he’s so distracted he almost misses the fact that you called him cute. Almost.

He opens his mouth to respond but your phone beats him to it, the shrill sound of your ringer filling the empty room. You look at him sheepishly and turn your head to answer as if that would give you the privacy you were looking for. It doesn’t work because as soon as you hit accept, he can hear what he assumes is your friend’s voice on the other side of the line. 

You get up and he watches you nod along to the conversation. You’re not doing a lot of talking, but your friend definitely is; he can tell by the murmur of her drunken chatter and the sound of the music pulsing on the other side of the line. You’re kind enough to let her continue on for a bit longer before you let her know that you’re coming, don’t move! 

Then you’ve turned back to Andrew, tapping your phone on your palm as you try to find the right words to say. You look genuinely apologetic —for what, Andrew doesn’t know. The silence stretches long, and Andrew is the first one to break it.

“You don’t have to stay,” he says plainly. You don’t really owe him anything, although the look on your face makes him feel otherwise. You take a step closer, poised like you want to take a seat next to him again. Andrew wants you to, but he won’t admit that part out loud.

“I know. I want to-” you start, but your phone starts buzzing like it’s possessed, cutting you off. A quick glance is all it gets; you’re quickly scanning the messages before returning your attention to him. Your phone doesn’t stop vibrating. “It’s hard to leave when you’re looking at me like a lost puppy.”

Andrew chooses to ignore that comment, instead turning to grab your shoes from the side of the bed next to him. He offers your heels to you, arms outstretched, closing the distance between you just like you had before. You give him a small smile as you take them from him, fingers brushing his just a beat too long. The way it sets his nerves alight is also something that he chooses to ignore.

“Thank you,” you say, slipping your strappy heels back on. Andrew looks everywhere but you as you bend down to tie them up, feeling the blush creeping up once again. Once you’re straightened up he gives you a small smile in return, watching as you pull your phone back out again. “Sorry for messing up your bed. I’ll make it up to you next time.”

You say it so definitively, like you somehow know there will be a next time. Before he can reply, you’re giving him a shy wave goodbye, sliding out the door. The music leaks in for a moment when you open it, blending in with the cheers of partygoers outside. When you close it he’s back to the silence of his room, alone. He had come in there looking for a moment to himself but now that you’re gone, he can’t help but want the opposite.

Andrew really hopes that there will be.

—

The next time Andrew met you, it was in Deran’s bar.

He could count on one hand the amount of times he actually sat at Deran’s bar for any other reason besides work. It was rare that he ever got to enjoy a beer, much less have a moment of free time. But between Deran’s insistence and Craig’s staggering frame, Andrew agreed to stay for one drink.

He’s on the dregs of his beer when he notices Craig straighten up in his seat and saunter over to the front door of the bar. Andrew’s head turns and suddenly he’s glad he came, perking up the same way his brother had just moments ago. A girl comes out to greet Craig, looking like his usual type, and he slings an arm over her shoulders, steering her towards the bar with a sly smile.

Then you walk in and Andrew almost falls off his stool in surprise. You’re dressed differently than when he first met you, softer and more casual. Both of you look like you’ve just come from the beach, donned in shorts and tanks, hair curled from the salt water in the air. It makes his heart skip a beat.

You walk in far more hesitantly than your friend, like you’re not too sure if you belong or where to put yourself. Andrew can empathize with the feeling. He watches as you scan the bar; maybe for your friend, or maybe for another place to hide. You lock eyes with him once you finally notice his presence at the bar and you begin to make your way over. Andrew isn’t sure if he should break eye contact but he can’t help it, eyes darting away before they make their way back to yours.

“Fancy meeting you here,” You take the seat next to him, flashing him a grin. Andrew mumbles something under his breath, but you’re not deterred. In fact, you scoot your stool closer to his. You’re laying it on real thick, but he has to admit that he kind of likes it. “You come here often?”

“You know Pope?” The moment is interrupted by Deran, who sets down a full glass of beer in front of you. He’s got a bemused look on his face, eyes darting between you and his brother. Andrew tries his best not to frown, especially at the use of his nickname when you only know him by Andrew. From the expression on your face, he can tell that he’s failing. Your eyes flicker with some kind of recognition, like you were suddenly recalling the name that you had forgotten the last time you met.

“Yeah, I do,” you nod, not even acknowledging the fact that his own brother had just called him by a completely different name. You gesture to his empty glass, the one that he had set aside to fully focus on you when you approached. “And I think I owe him a drink.”

“You do?” It slips out of both Deran and Andrew’s mouths, disbelief on both their faces. It comes out a bit rougher for Andrew, while Deran inquires like you just told him that unicorns were real. You handle both questions with grace.

“Well, I said I’d make it up to you next time,” You smile, pulling the glass that Deran set down closer to you. His brother leans in closer, clearly interested in what exactly was going on between the two of you. Andrew tries to shoot his brother a glare before you look back at him but he doesn’t have enough time. “So, are you going to have a drink with me, or what?”

“Yeah.” Andrew says, perhaps a bit too eagerly as Deran snickers under his breath. He slides him a beer as well, a knowing look painted all over his features. Andrew takes it with a scowl, but his expression softens when he looks back at you. You bring the beer to your lips with a smile and Andrew can’t help but smile back. 

Two and a half beers later, Andrew’s face is a lot warmer and you are a lot closer. You’re so close that he can feel your shoes scuffing the edge of his newly polished boots, but he can’t bring himself to care. He likes when you giggle at his jokes; the way that your eyes shine. Andrew can feel his brothers’ eyes on the two of you; he even catches his nephew looking his way a few times. 

But for the first time in a while, Andrew doesn’t really want to shrink away. He’s tuned out the background noise, even your friend’s obnoxious drunk laughter at Craig’s pretty mediocre jokes. Because, in reality, Andrew is not the type of guy that a lot of girls like. And Pope especially, is not. But here with you, he lets himself believe that maybe just this once, he’s allowed to have something just for him.

“I like your smile,” You break the silence the two of you were sharing once the conversation you were having earlier came to an end. Andrew hadn’t even realized that he was smiling. He had really just been using the silence to soak in your presence; you still smell the same as you did when you met the first time. Wearing the same perfume that you left on his sheets and pillows just a few weeks ago. He didn’t want to admit how many times he shoved his face into them, chasing your scent before it faded. “It’s cute. I like your teeth.”

There it was again. That word. Cute. It’s not a word anyone used to describe Andrew, probably not since childhood. Or possibly maybe never. He almost wants to swing his head around to see if the rest of his family had heard.

“You really think I’m cute?” He can’t help but ask. It might be the beers or the way you look at him or the fact that he can feel your body heat, but his brain is a bit fuzzy. You look over at him, eyes a bit glazed over from the alcohol. Now he can feel you examining him again, looking him up and down.

“I guess cute isn’t really the word for a guy like you.” His heart sinks at that, wondering what you really think about him now that you know Pope and not just Andrew. He knows the stories that circle around Oceanside about him and he’s not sure if he’s ready to hear the ones that you’ve heard.

“A guy like me?” Andrew echoes, trying his best not to sound so sad. His mood perks up when he feels the heat of your gaze taking him in, seemingly a bit unguarded, presumably from all the alcohol.

“Yeah. You’re all built and…” You look around, trying to place a word to describe him. Then you lay a hand on his arm and Andrew stiffens for a moment but he softens quickly, leaning into your touch. You look pleased that he allowed you to do that, smiling like you’re ready to take a bite of him right then and there. “I don’t know. Strong. Thick. Handsome.”

Andrew is sure that he’s red all the way up to the tips of his ears. He’s also pretty sure that he saw Craig choke on his drink at your comment a few stools down from you, but he decides that’s a later problem. 

“Thanks,” he says gruffly and it’s really the only word that he can get out of his mouth, embarrassingly. You shoot him a smile, and it’s all sweet and a little too enticing. Andrew wouldn’t be surprised if he was leaning into you, ass halfway off his stool.

“Sorry, I’m being a bit forward, aren’t I?” you say, swirling whatever was left of your beer. He tries to shrug nonchalantly but it doesn’t really work. “I just get flirty when I’m tipsy.”

“So you don’t think us meeting again is fate?” He’s teasing, half smile tugging on the edge of lips. You giggle and Andrew basks in the sound. He can’t remember the last time someone made him feel like this. The last time he wanted to be so close to someone.

“I never said that,” You’re hiding a cheeky grin behind your glass and Andrew desperately wishes that he could see it. “You do believe in fate then?” 

Andrew has to think about it for a moment. He’s not sure, really. Lots of fucked up shit has happened in his life and it would be cruel world if that was the fate that the universe had in store for him. Then again, he’s done some terrible things as well, so maybe it was what he deserved.

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. Andrew stares into his drink and reflects on all of the things he’s done, the crimes he committed. Julia. Cath. They swirl around in his mind, weighing on his conscience. Then he looks at you and they all seem to float away. “Maybe.”

“Well, let me know when you decide.” He thinks that you can probably sense his hesitancy or the spiral that it sends him down when he thinks about it too hard, so you pump the breaks. He almost can’t stand the way you’re looking at him, eyes wide open and curious. Andrew is unsure of which version of him that you’re seeing or what exactly is going through your head. He doesn’t have the courage to ask.

“Okay.” he says, a bit too distracted by the pieces of hair that have fallen in front of your face as you turned to take another sip, shielding his view. His hand flexes as he resists the urge to push them away.

Then, like you could read his mind, you tuck them behind your ear and shoot him another look. You open your mouth to say something, but you’re interrupted by Craig, who is steering your friend in your direction. Andrew’s hand flexes again as this time he suppresses the urge to hit Craig for cutting in.

“She just puked in the plant over there, and I’m pretty fucked up, so…” Craig isn’t subtle in what he’s asking and Andrew notices the worry flicker across your face as you take in your friend, who can barely stand up on her own without his brother gripping her shoulders. You mutter under your breath and he thinks he hears you basically cursing out Craig.

“Okay, just… take her outside. I’ll be out in two minutes.” you say, and Craig stumbles off, your friend in tow. Then you turn to Andrew, an apologetic look on your face that’s becoming all too familiar to him now.

“Is she going to be okay?” His gaze wanders to the door swinging shut behind the pair. You wring your hands nervously, standing up from the stool. Gathering your things a little frantically, you shrug. Andrew deflates a bit as he watches.

“Yeah, I think so. She’ll probably just puke into her purse on the way home or something,” Once you’ve gathered everything in your arms you give a deep sigh, turning your full attention towards him. He notes that you seem a little deflated too, but he’s not sure if it’s because you’re leaving him or because your friend and Craig seem to be deeply irresponsible individuals. “I’m sorry. Again.”

“It’s okay.” Your lips curl with a small smile, still tinged with a bit of anxiety. It’s cute when you lift your free hand up in a small wave, the same way you did last time, and then you’re gone. Your perfume is still lingering in the air when Andrew turns back around and it’s his turn to smile. It melts when he sees Deran standing behind the bar, a smug look on his face.

“You got it bad, man.”

—

After that, Andrew sees you a lot more often.

Your friend and Craig seemed to have made things very exclusive, because now she’s basically living at Smurf’s house. Which means that, since you’re her best friend, she invites you over quite frequently.

You two haven’t been able to have a moment alone since that night at the bar, much to Andrew’s disappointment. The brothers have been busy planning a job, which meant that he was in and out pretty often. His mind was elsewhere though, distracted by the way you brushed arms in the hallway on his way out or when your eye contact lingered longer than usual.

So, maybe that was why the job went a little awry.

They got what they needed to, but not without a fight. The boys trail into the backyard one after the other, everyone bruised and cut up. It always annoyed Andrew when his brothers were impulsive; he was the one that was always suffering the consequences.

He quickly notes that you’re laid out next to the pool in your swimsuit, your body shimmering with sweat under the sweltering sun. Andrew watches a bead of sweat drip from your neck to the valley between your breasts. Time slows as he watches, licking his lips. He barely has time to drag his gaze away before Deran is wheeling on Craig. 

“Why are you always pulling this crap?” Deran almost has a finger in his face, gesturing angrily. Craig just rolls his eyes in response, pushing past him and giving him a glare. Andrew can see the tension tight in their shoulders as they both seethe.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dude.” Craig shoots back, making his way back to the house. Tension has been high between the two lately, just like always, trapped in a toxic cycle.

It seems to snap for Deran, especially after the job, and he jumps on Craig’s back, knocking him over. The commotion is loud, Craig hitting the ground with a loud thud. Deran throws the first punch and Craig’s skull cracks hard against the pavement. Craig is quick to recover though, probably due to his size, and it’s a full blown fist fight in seconds.

The two exchange blows for a minute before Andrew and J rush forward to pull the two of them apart. They don’t put up much of a fight and the two of them stalk off in different directions; Craig into the house and Deran out of the yard. J shakes his head and follows after Craig, hands shoved into his pockets.

A quick glance proves that the pool chair you were on just moments ago is left empty, your drink still sitting on the ground next to it. He assumes that you snuck out once his brother hit the floor, probably wise enough to know how the situation was going to unfold. He can see your figure in the window padding around the kitchen, blurred from the distance.

Andrew closes the sliding door behind him when he enters the kitchen and he finds you there, skimpy bikini and all. You’re rummaging through the fridge and he takes the opportunity to take in the view before you shut the door.  

You’re holding the carton of orange juice when you turn, finally taking in Andrew’s state. The cut on his eyebrow, the bruise beginning to bloom on his cheek and his torn up knuckles. You make your way towards him, your brow furrowed in concern.

“Are you okay?” He hides his hand instinctively when you ask, which you definitely notice. You rub the back of your neck with your free hand, a bit sheepish. “I heard, uh, your brothers fighting.”

“Oh.” Andrew frowns as embarrassment clouds his thoughts. Will this deter you from coming back? He really hopes not. He’s silent as his eyes follow you as you grab yourself a glass and begin pouring.

“Yeah, oh.” You shoot a glance in the direction of J and Craig’s rooms, eyebrows raised. “So, back to my question. Is everything okay?” 

Andrew contemplates his answer for a second, not sure how much detail to go into. You eye him in the same way that you always do and he is suddenly keenly aware that this is the first moment alone you’ve had together in ages. Pushing that thought aside, he settles on two words: “It’s complicated.”

“Right,” you scoff, making your way around the kitchen island. Andrew can’t help but watch you move, all bare shimmering skin and he shifts a little as all his blood flows downwards. He sucks in a sharp breath as you settle in beside him, resting your arm on the counter. Your sweat and tanning oil smears all over the stone island but he’s too focused on how close you are to be bothered by it. “That’s why you guys all look like shit. Did you guys get in a fight or did you guys do that to each other?”

“Like I said, it’s complicated,” he repeats and you set your glass down, a serious look on your face.

“Andrew, I know who you guys are,” you say and now he’s shifting uncomfortably instead, the sentence shattering any sort of lust filled haze he was just on the precipice of falling into. “I can keep a secret, don’t worry. I just… want you to be careful, okay? That’s all.”

“I’m always careful,” he replies and you huff in disbelief, but it also seems like you can’t help but smile. It’s a nice sight and it even makes him brave enough to take a step closer to you, finally being the first to lessen the gap between you two.

The proximity and the way you look up at him has the haze settling in once more. Andrew wants to reach out and toy with the strings of your bikini bottoms but he thinks better of it. His tongue darts out to wet his lips and he almost has to physically shake his head to rid himself of the thought.

“I’m sure you are,” You scan him up and down, examining his cuts and bruises. Though, Andrew swears that he can feel your gaze linger on his arms and his chest. It makes a shiver run down his spine. “But if this is you careful, I’d hate to see when it gets messy.”

“I don’t do messy,” he emphasises, his mind wandering back to the oily smudge you’ve left on the counter. You give a familiar giggle and your hand comes to rest on his arm, and he immediately forgets all about it again. This is the first time you’ve broken the touch barrier between the two of you on purpose and Andrew’s stomach flips at the thought. The heat of your hand is searing through his shirt and he’s glad you can’t feel the goosebumps that are rising under your palm.

“I know, Andrew. I’ve watched you clean,” you joke. Andrew loves hearing you say his name, his lips parting as you do so. He tries to pull his mind away from all the different things he would do to you to keep hearing it slip from your lips. 

“Where’s your friend?” he asks, desperate to change the topic to anything but him and his family’s line of work. You let out a sigh, making your way back to the fridge. The door swings open and you start rummaging through the freezer like you lived at the house. Really, at this point, you kind of do.

“I’m not sure,” you say, voice a bit muffled from behind the freezer door. “Her and Craig are probably doing lines off each other’s chests or something.” 

You pull out a bag of frozen vegetables, shutting the door behind you and approaching Andrew once more. You hold it out to him and he cocks his head in confusion. Rolling your eyes, you grab his bad hand and place the bag on top of his knuckles, still bloody. The cold dulls the stinging that Andrew had learned to ignore too early on in life.

“Why do you hang out with her?” He all but blurts out, but he can't help it. There was plenty of time for Andrew to watch you two interact when you were over, and you seemed more like a tired mother than a best friend. Plus, Andrew figured that if he could keep you distracted with conversation, you wouldn’t let go of his hand just yet.

“She’s been my best friend since, well, forever…” Pressing the bag into his knuckles further, your hand grips his gently and he can’t help but look at you while you fiddle with the frozen bag. “And if I don’t take care of her, who will?” 

“I know the feeling.” Andrew says sincerely. He can’t remember a time in his life when he wasn’t a protector, an enforcer, a guard dog. You look up at him now, eyes soft. He feels his gaze soften in return, lips parting.

“I can see that,” you hum like you’re contemplating his words. “Is there someone taking care of you?” The question catches him off guard and he almost jerks his hand back reflexively.

“I don't need anyone to take care of me.” It's a statement that doesn't fully ring true; he thinks about the people who have tried and what he’s lost. It's better off this way, perhaps. But he also thinks you probably wouldn't like that answer.

“Everyone needs someone, Andrew.” Coming from anyone else, he thinks he would refuse. But from you, he feels a bit more inclined to agree. You sound sincere, he feels. Or he just likes you too much to think about disagreeing.

Maybe he does need someone, but no one was ever up for the job. At least no one that knew him —all of him.

A door slams in the distance and you flinch at the loud noise. Not a moment later your friend is rushing past the pair of you, clad in a similar bikini to yours. She’s crying though, mascara streaking as she pushes her way into the backyard. Andrew watches as your head turns to follow her, eyebrows pinching in concern. She sits down on one of the lounge chairs outside, shoulders shaking as she cries silently. You look back at Andrew with a frown and just like always, he knows you have to go.

Maybe his fate is that the universe just wants to cockblock him forever?

“She and Craig probably got into another fight,” you sigh, chewing your lip. You take his uninjured hand and place it on top of the bag, looking up at him. Your face is stern as you speak, like he’s a dog that got caught chewing on the couch legs. “Keep it iced, okay? I’ll talk to you soon.”

You pat his hand gently, soft smile on your lips. You always say that. Soon. Like you know that you're going to cross paths again. That he’s a permanent fixture in your life.

He watches you walk away, eyes on your swaying hips in your cheeky swimsuit bottoms. He’s still staring when you sit down next to your friend, rubbing her back comfortingly. 

Andrew stands alone in the kitchen, half hard, frozen bag of vegetables still pressed to his torn knuckles. The worst part is, he’s not even sure what exactly had made him hard; the sight of your body in your tiny swimsuit and the feeling of your hand in his or watching you take care of your friend so tenderly.

Yeah, Deran was right. He is so fucked.

—

If Andrew thought that he couldn't get you off his mind before that afternoon, now you were all he thought about. 

When he was making lunch, when he was cleaning his guns, when he was fisting his cock in the shower, trying to keep quiet. All he could think about was you. Your perfume, your smile, your body. Your touch. He wanted to feel it all over his body, soft skin against the raised bumps of all his scars. 

So the fact that you weren’t around as often anymore made things more difficult for him. Your friend and Craig seemed to be on the rocks, which means she was around less and less. Which means that you were barely around.

You said you’d talk to him soon and then promptly stopped being invited around, and the thought of how exactly he would get to see you again had him pacing. He didn’t want to scare you off, so he had to pivot towards more conventional methods. Which meant waiting around until Craig had finally got bored enough to start texting your friend back again. 

Weeks passed and he rarely saw you, just in flashes; by the pool, walking through the front door, lounging on the couch. He barely had the chance to look in your direction lately, much less have any type of conversation with you. The distance made him hungry, desperate enough to try to flip the odds in his favour.

“What about a party?” He suggests to his family one afternoon, all of the Cody’s crowded in the living room. All three of them turn their heads, looking at him like he’s grown an extra limb. The room is silent as they all try to process the words that came out of his mouth. “What?”

“Pope wants to throw a party.” Deran states, like saying the words out loud may help him truly understand them. “Why?”

“Don’t worry about it,” He crosses his arms over his chest, aware that he’s become a bit too defensive just a beat too late. All pairs of eyes are still on him and he shifts on his feet uncomfortable. “Just do it.”

“You won’t hear me complaining, man.” Craig says on his way out, clapping a hand on Andrew’s shoulder before he goes. The remaining Cody’s watch him go, and then eyes are back on him. He doesn’t want to answer any other questions, so he turns on his heels before they can ask any and follows his brother out.

So that’s how he ended up here.

This party was the same as the rest. Andrew wasn’t around for most of it; he had some loose ends to tie up for his family and he always elected to be out of the house whenever there was something going on, especially now that he had the choice. When he returns, he sees the same damage as always; trash in the pool, people passed out on the lawn, empty solo cups and wet footprints littered across the hardwood floors.

And Andrew does what he always does. Starts cleaning up. He wasn't really sure what his plan was, if he's being honest. He knew you always liked to linger once the parties were done, to make sure your friend was okay. Andrew was hoping that you were a creature of habit with this idea. Seems like right now, it's just delegated him to the role of janitor with no reward.

He starts out by the pool; toeing the stragglers to wake up and get off his property, sifting the garbage out of the pool and throwing the random discarded bikini tops into the trash bag right after it. It’s already the late hours of the morning when he finishes up outside. The neighbourhood is silent besides the sound of the chlorine water softly lapping at the tiles of the pool. Then he makes his way inside and starts tossing out everything in the kitchen, trying not to think about exactly what was occurring when he was gone to make this sort of mess.

“Do you need some help?” A small voice asks and he whirls around on instinct. He turns to face you and he almost wants to drop the black trash bag he’s holding out of shock. Andrew gives you a once over and you look so similar to the first night that he met you that it makes his heart skip a beat in his chest. A short dress and barefoot, except this time your heels are nowhere to be seen. You seem a bit groggy, dark make up smudged around your eyes. He oscillates between dwelling on how beautiful you are and wanting to get on his knees to see exactly what you got on under your dress.

“It’s late.” Is what he says instead, continuing his job of cleaning up. There’s a thousand unsaid things with those two words and it seems like you somehow know him well enough to answer all of them.

“Craig said I could crash on the couch,” you say, beginning to collect some of the empty cans off the kitchen counter. Andrew tries to level a look at you, to let him do it, but you give him a look straight back and continue. “And I want to help you. Doesn't seem like anyone else is.”

He accepts that and you two clean in silence for a few moments, working alongside each other. His eyes can’t help but follow you as you flounce around the kitchen, picking things up and tossing them into the bag into his hand. And then you speak. “So, why am I the only one helping you?”

He furrows his brows, pausing for a second as your words catch him off guard. Andrew glances over at you once more and you’re looking at him expectantly. He can’t help but feel compelled to answer, although your big fluttery eyes may play a small part in that. Trying to ignore the blood rushing downwards, he answers. “What do you mean?”

“Um, I mean there’s like, at least two or three other people who live in this house,” He can basically hear your frown as you speak, unceremoniously throwing another piece of trash into the bag. “Why am I the only one helping you clean up? The mess of a party that they threw?”

Andrew has never really thought about it before. He supposes this has always been his role, cleaning up after his family. Solving their problems. Making the bad things go away. Doing the messy work.

“I don’t need any help,” he says simply, voice gruff. He tries to ignore the heat of your disappointed eyes on him as he turns around, but he can still hear your loud sigh. You notice that he’s trying to avoid your gaze, so you catch his forearm in your hand. His muscles twitch under your touch, warmth seeping through your skin. Andrew slowly drags his gaze up from your hand on his arm to your face and he can’t help but soften. “I got it.”

“I just meant that you’re always taking care of everyone else, Andrew,” you explain, hand still on his arm. Your voice is soft in the way that he likes; a tone that seems to be reserved just for him. “Cleaning up after everyone. Making sure they don’t kill each other. Craig’s told me that you’ve bailed him out plenty of times.”

Andrew frowns. He doesn’t like the idea of his brothers talking about him when he’s not around, especially to you. He scowls at the thought, tying off the full garbage bag and placing it aside. He tries to pull away to grab another bag and continue, but your grip tightens on his arm.

“I’m serious. Just leave it for them to deal with for once,” You pull him back towards you, but he feels conflicted. He doubts anyone would actually do it if he left it for them to do —he’s seen the state the house gets into when he’s gone. Andrew hesitates for a moment, but all thoughts fade from his mind when your hand slips from his forearm into his palm, fingers twining with his. All he can do is stare while his brain tries to catch up to what’s happening. “Come on.”

You pull him along and it doesn’t take much effort to have him following. Continuing to stare, he’s got half a mind to hope that his mouth isn’t hanging open. He realizes where you’ve taken him in Smurf’s just a beat too slow as he enters the room.

His room.

He turns to face you slowly and the expression on your face is unreadable as you shut the door behind you. It reminds me of the first time that he saw you all that time ago. The room is silent for a moment as you two take each other in. Andrew hopes that you can’t hear the shaky breath that he lets out from across the room.

“Sit,” you command, gesturing to the bed. Andrew doesn’t waste any time obeying, sitting on the edge of the bed, feet planted firmly on the floor. His hands rest on his thighs, clenching and unclenching anxiously. You approach him slowly, closing the distance until he’s face level with your torso. The position has him blushing —he’s sure his face must be red. He tilts his head up to look at you and you take one step closer. His legs part naturally to accommodate you, bracketing your figure.

“Will you let me take care of you, Andrew?” you ask, hand sliding into his hair. He struggles to not let out a groan, blood rushing straight to his dick. He’s so distracted by the feeling of your nails scratching along his scalp as he leans into your touch that he barely even registers the question.

“Okay.” It comes out quiet and breathy, but it feels loud in the silent room. He watches the ends of your lips curl up into a smile, his eyes fluttering. You take the hands that were settled on his thighs and place them on your hips. Taking the opportunity to appreciate your body, his hands run over your curves slowly as he sucks in a sharp breath. He doesn’t break eye contact with you as he does so, too enraptured to take his eyes off you. It makes him twitch in his jeans when you lean a little closer, breath fanning over his face.

A few moments pass as you let him feel your body; he’s practically drooling at the feeling. Once you’ve decided he’s had his fill you climb into his lap, straddling him. He’s sure you can feel how much he wants you, the heat of your clothed pussy on his jeans making him all the more hard.

You barely give him a second to breathe before you’re catching your lips in his, your mouth parting instantly. The kiss is slow and sensual and it has him letting out a broken whimper into your mouth. That seems to spur you on, fingers gripping the front of his shirt to kiss him even deeper. 

Andrew doesn’t even know how many times he imagined doing this with you. At this point he’s lost count, but this was beyond anything that his mind could ever put together. The smell of your perfume envelopes him and your body is so warm under your thin dress that it sets his nerves alight.

He can’t help just taking a bit more, big hands gripping your hips and grinding you against him. The small moan you let out as he does so has his hips bucking. Hands still roaming, he instinctively slips his tongue into the kiss. The fact that you continue to rock your hips against his once he lets go of your waist makes him dizzy. The kiss is wet and desperate and all Andrew wants is to get closer, greedy hands grabbing.

Then he feels your fingers drift to the hem of his shirt and he lifts his arms, allowing you to pull it off. The sensation of your nails dragging across his chest sends a shiver down his spine. His hands had settled on your thighs, gripping so tight that he’s sure he’s leaving marks. He feels bad, but then he decides that he’ll kiss them as an apology later, if you’ll let him.

You stop grinding and scoot backwards a little, moving further down his lap. He opens his mouth to ask why, but then your hands are at his belt buckle and the words die in his throat. You’re quick to undo his jeans, wasting no time in pulling him out and taking him into your hands. Your hands are much softer than his rough and calloused ones, warm against the hot flesh of his length. His head tips back as you begin to stroke him slowly, eyes to the ceiling as he lets out another shaky breath.

He had always imagined what your touch would feel like wrapped around him like this, letting himself imagine it was you touching him instead of himself when he was alone. The way you twist your wrist languidly, like you know exactly just how to get him going, has his mind going blank.

“Do you like that?” You mutter, tucking your face into his neck now that he’s made the space. The way you kiss slowly up the sensitive skin of his neck makes his mind fuzzy. He can’t seem to get the words out, so he gives a slow nod instead. “Good.”

The praise makes his hips stutter, fucking into your fist. You let out a small laugh, presumably at how desperate he is for you. A low moan escapes his mouth as you swipe your thumb over the head of his cock, swiping away the precome leaking from the tip. Your touch disappears for a moment and he tips his head back forwards to you, looking at you through hooded lids. He watches as you spit into your palm and resume your actions, his jaw dropping open ever so slightly. Andrew feels drunk, the slick shlick of you stroking him filling the room.

He thinks you can tell that he’s getting close. He knows that his hips won’t stop rising to meet your touch: a dead giveaway. It’s almost embarrassing how fast you get him there, cock leaking in desperation as he whines. Your hand slips away and he groans out loud at the loss of sensation. His mind is still fuzzy and he almost misses your fingers wrapping around his wrist, guiding his hand across your body and under your dress. Looking down at where your hands meet, his breathing almost stops when you dip his fingertips past the waistband of your lacy panties.

“Don’t you want to feel how wet I am for you, Andrew?” you breathe into his ear. The words affect him deeply and he lets out a strangled noise, but he can’t bring himself to be embarrassed with you on top of him like this.

“Yes,” he says, voice hoarse. He sounds absolutely wrecked as he swipes a finger along your wetness, sickly slow, brows furrowing as he watches your lips part at his touch. You’re dripping for him; he can feel the wet patch you’ve left on your panties against his knuckles as he slides a finger into you. It’s your turn to moan, and he swears at the sound, “Fuck.”

He pumps his finger in and out slowly, basking in the feeling of you sucking him right in. You surge forward and capture his lips in yours, kissing him breathlessly. You let out a whimper into his mouth as he slips another finger alongside the first. His breath catches in his throat as he feels you flutter around his digits, velvet walls pulling him in even deeper.

Andrew loves having you like this, your dress bunched around your hips, giving him a full view of your pussy covered in lace as you grind your clit into the palm of his hand. It’s all too much for him; he drops his head to your shoulder, breathing in the scent of your perfume. He thinks of all the times he’s touched himself to the scent of you; whether that be from the sheets from the first time he met you or the way that it lingered in his room after a conversation with you, long after you’ve gone.

His pace quickens and he can feel your legs shaking against his while your hips buck, practically riding his hand. You’re mewling now, coming apart on his fingers the same way you do in his dreams. He feels you clamp down around him and he can tell you’re going to cum seconds before you tell him. He can barely hear it, words lost in your soft whimpers. A rush of wetness is slick against his palm as you let out a moan so loud that Andrew remembers there are other people in the house.

Eyes never leaving yours, he pulls his fingers out from your panties and brings them to his mouth. The way you taste has his eyes almost rolling back into his head, licking up the cum that had dripped down his fingers. He wants to get his head between your legs real fucking bad and eat you until the sun comes back up or until you’re begging him to stop. His cock aches with the desperate need to fuck you, eyes trailing down to your chest as you pull off your dress and toss it aside. He decides to save it until later. Maybe round two?

He’s appreciated your body countless times as you tanned by the pool, but the view of you on top of him, being able to touch you the way he wants, has his blood running hot in his veins. He could die under you right now and he’d die a happy man.

You push him down onto the bed with a soft push and his back lands against his freshly pressed sheets. Lifting your hips, you pull his jeans and boxers down, leaving them to pool at his ankles where his feet are still planting firmly on the floor. He kicks them off and moves further up the bed, loving how you giggle as he jostles you.

Your tongue swipes across your lips and you settle yourself into position, the lace of your panties scratching intoxicatingly against his cock. Mesmerized, he watches as you hook your fingers into your panties and pull them aside, not even bothering to remove them before lowering himself down onto his length.

The two of you let out a needy noise as you sink down, taking him to the hilt. You look absolutely beautiful, the sight of you absolutely fucked out for him making his cock impossibly harder. His hands fly to your hips as you begin to grind again, much like you were earlier.

He lets out a sharp inhale through his nose, eyes hungry. You’ve spread your cum across the short hairs at the base of his dick, whining as you chase your high. You get tired of the grinding and lift your hips, bending forward and resting your forehead against his. His eyes are on yours as you slam your hips back down, eyes fluttering shut.

The pace you set is brutal, hips pistoning as you ride him. The force of it has the frame of his bed swaying, headboard making impact with the wall every time you drop your hips. That combined with the volume of both the noises you two make as you ride him is more than enough to hear through the wall or the door. 

“So good, baby. Feels so fucking good,” he coos, lost in the way you fuck him. The wet slap of skin on skin is absolutely sinful, echoing in the room and mingling with the heavy breaths you let out. He’s got one hand on your ass and the other on your breast, overwhelmed with the need to memorize every part of your body. “Been fucking dreaming about your pussy.”

“Oh my god, Andrew,” you whine, hips moving fast. He can feel you clenching around him, trapping him in your cunt like a vice. He can barely keep his eyes open, lids low from the pleasure. You’re squeezing him so fucking tight that he swears his vision is going white. You straighten up and place a hand on his broad chest, using it as leverage to hit a whole new angle.

Andrew feels himself brush against your walls and it has his jaw dropping open as his entire body shaking at the feeling. He’s close but you’re closer, nails digging into his flesh and your moans grow more high pitched, picking up the pace. You don’t stop moving your hips when you cum around him, barely able to keep yourself upright. The feeling of you tightening around him and the sight he catches of your cum glistening around the base of his dick has him moments away from falling over the edge.

“M’gonna cum,” he slurs, hands around your waist to hold you in place as he fucks up into you now. Still sensitive from your second orgasm you squeal, falling even farther forward into his chest. Soft grunts are punched from his chest every time his hips meet yours, taking what he needs from you.

“I want it so bad,” you babble mindlessly, voice dripping with pleasure. He’s never heard you like this before, but now he can’t imagine ever living without it. His thrusts are messy now, determined to hear you beg some more. “Please, I need it.”

“Yeah?” He barely even notices himself speak, too busy fucking into your pussy to think of anything else. He’s so close that his arms are shaking, thick muscles twitching in anticipation. He almost wants to cry, overwhelmed by the way he’s buried so deep inside you. “You want me to pump you full of my cum, baby?”

“Please,” you whine, voice cracking with need. The sound of it has Andrew’s hips faltering as he does exactly that, swearing sharply as he does so. His entire body jerks from the feeling, so wracked in pleasure that he can’t control it. You let out a moan alongside his as he fucks him cum back into you, nice and slow. Once the overstimulation gets to him his hips come to a stop, sweat beading on his forehead.

You fall limp on top of him, the deep rise and fall of your chest matching his. He wraps his two big arms around you instinctively, pulling you closer against him. Andrew basks in the quiet, punctuated by nothing other than your quiet breathing, closing his eyes.

“You okay?” Your voice is muffled against his chest, warm breath fanning over his skin. He’s got a hand running absentmindedly up and down the bare skin of your back, still sticky with sweat. “That wasn’t too much?”

“No,” he rumbles, voice soft. His fingers are still skimming as allows himself to take in the moment for just a beat longer. Then he’s got you under him, flat on your back. He loves the way you look up at him, legs still wrapped around his waist. He noses his way into your neck, noticing that his scent is intermingling with yours the more time you spend with him. His hands begin to roam once more and he can feel his blood rush downwards when you look at him with your big curious eyes. “Not enough.”

If Andrew had any say in it, you two were in for a long night.

—

In the morning, Andrew is the first to wake up. He always had trouble getting to sleep, sometimes staring at his ceiling for hours in the night, but the warmth you brought to his bed had pulled him under within minutes.

He turned his head to face you, eyes flicking over your face as the amber light of the sun painted your face. You were clad in one of his shirts, the plain black looking much better on you than it ever did on him. Andrew shifts slowly so as to not wake you and slides out of bed.

The walk to the kitchen is quiet, like it usually is in the morning considering the fact that the rest of his family regularly kept late hours, so he was surprised to find Craig, already seated at the bar, tucking into a bowl of cereal. He looks up and sees who it is, his face twisting into something much more smug as he takes another bite. 

Andrew is quick to pull a face back, not interested in hashing out his night with Craig, who clearly wants to hear all the details. Instead, he starts to clear the mess that his brother had left out while he assembled his breakfast. Craig waits a beat, like he expects him to change his mind, but Andrew stays silent.

“Pope, man-” he starts, but a door creaks shut in down the hall that distracts him, leaving the unfinished sentence in the air. Then you turn the corner, still only in his shirt, and Andrew realizes that it wasn’t the noise that caught Craig’s attention. Your hair is still mussed and you’re rubbing the sleep out of your eyes when you approach him. You wrap your arms around his wide torso and his arm settles at your waist. Natural as if you’ve done it a million times before. Andrew allows himself to smile at the feeling, not even caring that his brother is watching with a shit eating grin on his face.

she hasn’t looked at you once since the doors shut. you watch her reflection instead. 

“homelander likes symbols,” she says. her voice is flat enough that it could mean nothing. but she is the smartest woman on the planet, so it doesn’t. 

you tilt your head slightly, watching the numbers climb. “does he?”

“he likes completion. loyalty. visible gratitude. people who understand their place before he has to explain it to them.” 

you smile a little, because the cameras in the elevator don’t even pretend to be hidden. “good thing i’m very grateful.” 

sage’s reflection looks at you then. her posture doesn’t move entirely, just her eyes. “are you?”

“i’m here, aren’t i?”

that’s not the same thing. you know it. she knows it. somewhere above you, homelander probably knows that too. he chose you. that matters. not in the sweet way vought will sell it tomorrow morning, with your face lit gold on every screen in the lobby and some expensive headline about a new dawn for the seven. it matters because homelander is not making choices as a leader right now—he’s making them as a man trying to build a room where no one can leave him.

that makes you useful. that makes you dangerous. that makes you careful. 

“he wants the seven to have seven members,” sage continues. “the joke got old.” 

“must’ve been a very painful time for branding.” 

“branding survives pain better than people do.” 

you almost laugh, but you don’t. the elevator keeps climbing, and for a second, in the reflection of the doors, you catch yourself the way the world is going to catch you: clean hair, warm skin, mouth soft enough to trust, eyes bright enough to make people nervous if they look too long. 

the suit helps. vought has never met a woman it didn’t want to turn into a product first and a person never. yours is golden and cream and fitted close to the body without tipping into firecracker’s cheap little flag-bikini theater. elegant, they called it. aspirational. high-necked but not modest, with a sculpted bodice that catches the light when you breathe and a deep, curved line across the chest that makes a point without begging for one. the fabric hugs the waist, your hips, the tops of your thighs, tailored and expensive and just armored enough to pretend it’s practical. 

sage notices you looking at yourself. “don’t overplay it.” 

you drag your gaze back to the doors. “my face?”

“your devotion.”

that one lands. the bitch is smart. her words aren’t a warning, but they don’t land cruel, either. they’re just enough to remind you she didn’t get her place here by missing things.

you turn your smile into something smaller, sweeter, easier to swallow. “i would never.” 

“everyoen says that before they do.” 

the elevator dings and sage steps forward first. you follow. 

the hallway outside is colder, brighter—the kind of white that makes everyone look a little guilty. the seven’s meeting room waits at the end of it behind massive doors. 

homelander stands when you enter. that’s the first thing everyone notices. not you. not the suit. not sage’s hand gesturing lazily in your direction as if she’s presenting a weather update instead of the newest member of the most powerful team on earth. 

homelander stands, and the room changes around him. firecracker’s smile sharpens in a way that shows she’s trying to decide whether she hates you or wants to be photographed next to you. black noir says nothing, which makes ridiculous contrast with whatever the deep is thinking while his eyes briefly dip below your face. you let him look. then you meet his eyes. he looks away immediately, straightening up in his seat. 

soldier boy, seated with one boot braced against the base of the table, doesn’t move at all. he just looks you over with the bored entitlement of a man who has survived too many decades of being told he’s the prize. 

he’s bigger in person. uglier too—but not in the face. the face is unfortunately good. it’s the rest of him that’s ugly: the easy arrogance, the bored set of his mouth, the old-world confidence sitting on his shoulders like a coat he has never had to take off. 

homelander smiles warmly at you. 

“there she is,” he says, and the room listens because he says it like a benediction. “halo fever.” 

you dip your chin just enough. not a bow. not submission. appreciation wrapped humbly. “sir.” 

his smile deepens. “no, no, none of that.” he gestures you closer, palm open, inviting. “we’re family here.” 

you walk further into the room, heels quiet against the floor, and stop near the empty chair at the end of the table. the seventh seat. the one vought has probably been polishing for a press release before they knew what name would be attached to it. 

“everyone knows who you are,” homelander continues, still watching with that bright, hungry pride. “but i wanted to do this properly. after all the betrayal… after all the instability… after people treating this team like some kind of revolving door…” his jaw tightens for half a second—there and gone. “we are moving forward. together.” 

firecracker nods vigorously. “amen.” 

the deep nods a beat too late. 

sage continues watching the entire room. 

and soldier boy snorts. not loud, exactly. it doesn’t need to be; in a room trained around homelander’s breathing, even disrespect has a spotlight. 

everyone looks. homelander’s smile doesn’t drop, but something behind it tightens. so many daddy issues. 

soldier boy is either too stupid or too committed to being himself to care. his eyes remain on you, amused, unimpressed, dragging over the gold of your suit before landing on your face with a little curl of his mouth. 

“sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “just thought the seven was supposed to be superheroes, not a beauty pageant.” 

the room goes quiet. it honestly wasn’t the worst thing he could’ve said. and no one in the room is innocent enough for shock. but there is that pause people take around a loaded gun when someone taps the barrel for fun. 

you feel homelander’s attention shift to soldier boy first. then to you. waiting. measuring. the situation just turned into a fucking test. 

you could be offended. maybe you are, somewhere under the polished surface. maybe some part of you recoils at how casually he spits in your face—how easily men from his century and yours dress contempt up as charm and expect you to laugh because they smiled while cutting. but offense is not useful unless you know where to put it. 

so you smile. soft. lovely. almost forgiving. “that’s okay. i know it’s hard when new things happen.” 

the deep makes a noise that dies instantly when soldier boy’s eyes flick toward him. 

the cheaper version of captain america’s grin widens, meaner now. “new? sweetheart, i’ve seen plenty of girls with pretty lights.” 

“oh, i’m sure.” 

“most of ‘em didn’t need a cape to get attention.” 

firecracker’s mouth twitches. sage’s face doesn’t move. 

homelander is simply enjoying the spectacle. “halo fever,” he calls you. 

it’s not a warning, yet you turn immediately. you don’t ignore him. you don’t make him repeat himself. you look at him the second he calls; almost like his voice has weight in your body. here, it does. it has to. 

“yes, sir?”

his eyes search your face, pleased by your attention, curious about your restraint. “you alright?” 

“of course.” you let the warmth enter your expression before the room can mistake your calm for weakness. “i just think soldier boy might benefit from a demonstration. if you think that’s appropriate.” 

you ask. not because you need permission from a man to defend yourself, but because this room doesn’t belong to you. not yet. and because homelander chose you, and that means every public move you make in front of him has to confirm his choice—not compete with it. 

homelander’s gaze flicks between you and soldier boy. for one thin second, he looks almost boyish. a little kid, pocking with a wooden stick at the weird gooey thing he found on the floor. 

“a demonstration,” he repeats, tasting the idea. 

soldier boy scoffs and leans back in his chair. “oh, please.” 

homelander turns his smile on him now. “scared?” 

the word barely changes soldier boy’s face. it would be easy to miss if you weren’t already looking for the seam. you are always looking for the seam. 

“of her pretty party trick?” soldier boy laughs once. 

homelander looks back at you, lifting a hand in invitation. “go ahead.” 

your pulse answers before you do. the power awakes under your skin, golden and warm, sliding up through your chest, your throat, the backs of your hands. you keep it low.

the room brightens by half a shade, as if the sun has shifted closer to the windows, and the deep blinks too many times. noir tilts his head. firecracker’s fingers curl around the armrest of her chair. and soldier boy doesn’t move. 

his mistake. 

you take one step toward him. 

“that’s close enough,” he says.

“is it?”

his mouth opens, probably to say something filthy and outdated and deeply impressed with itself. you touch the air between you instead. not him. not his body. not even the edge of his chair. just the feeling sitting behind his ribs. 

it’s almost embarrassingly easy to find. 

soldier boy has been exposed in public too many times now. america knows his face, his legacy, his son, his failures. vought can polish the story all they want, but the wounds are not buried—they are barely even covered. a father returned to a world that no longer bends for him. a legend introduced as someone else’s bloodline. a weapon thawed out and placed beside the thing that replaced him. he has so much pride packed over the damage that all you have to do is press where it shines. 

the gold under your skin flares. 

soldier boy’s breath catches. it’s small… but oh, it’s everything. his boot drops from the table with a dull thud, one hand clamps around the armrest; the other curls into a fist so tight the leather of his glove creaks. for half a second, his face stays locked in that arrogant mask, jaw set, eyes hard, mouth ready to sneer. 

then his chest starts to glow. not the violent red everyone has seen on shaky footage and classified clips. not the nuclear burn. this is different. gold, faint at first, spreading beneath the dark green of his suit from the center of his sternum, warm and pulsing, like something inside him has been caught answering you before he could stop it. this is the party trick—the glow. the real show is about to present itself.

his pupils widen. you feel it spill up in him: anger first; humiliation right after it, sour and hot; then the thing underneath, the old bruised need to matter so badly it almost feels young. it hits the air between you in a rush he cannot hide from anyone in the room—not with your power wrapped gently around the truth and pulling.

his chair scrapes back an inch. “cut it out!” his voice is lower now, strained. 

you tilt your head, still smiling, still sweet enough for every camera in the room. “i thought it was a party trick.” 

his lips part. nothing comes out. that is it. not the glow. not the heat. not the way the deep stares with his mouth slightly open or the way firecracker’s expression flattens into something sharper, threatened despite herself. it’s soldier boy, america’s first great brute, suddenly silent because his body has betrayed him before his mouth can save him. 

you could push harder. that’s the ugly truth. you could make him choke on the rest of it. make him feel every scrap of envy, want, loneliness, resentment, make him burn gold from the inside out until the whole room understands exactly how much of his swagger is just exposed scar tissue. you could make him look at homelander and feel it—the son, the mirror, the replacement. 

your fingers twitch once. then you stop. the warmth snaps back into you so cleanly it almost hurts. 

soldier boy inhales hard through his nose. the glow in his chest fades under the suit, leaving nothing but the brutal rise and fall of his breathing and the furious look he pins to your face. 

You give him your prettiest smile. “cute party trick, huh?”

no one laughs except for homelander. just a pleased little breath, this private sound of satisfaction, and somehow it’s worse than the whole room mocking soldier boy. 

homelander looks around the table as if waiting for everyone else to understand what he already has: you’re not starlight. you’re not a trembling moral lesson in a white cape. you’re not here to cry under fluorescent lights and beg the machine to become kind. you are the machine’s newest favorite blade. 

“see?” homelander says, spreading his arms slightly. “that. that is what i’m talking about.” 

soldier boy says nothing. his stare promises several forms of retaliation. you look away first because you can afford it. 

homelander moves to the head of the table, energized now, shining with the glow of a man who has mistaken control for love and found a room willing to play along. “this is the team,” he says. “this is what we were missing. strength. loyalty. purpose.” 

sages watches him with the faintest turn of her mouth. firecracker nods again, but this time her eyes cut toward you with something new in them. wariness. 

soldier boy leans back slowly, recovering inch by inch, but you can still see it in the tightness around his mouth. he felt it. he knows you felt him feeling it. that is worse than pain for a man like him. 

homelander places a hand on the back of your chair. “sit.” he commands, gently enough for the word to sound like a gift. 

and you do. the seventh seat is cold beneath you. 

homelander keeps his hand there a second longer than necessary before pulling away, and you keep your face open, grateful and bright. you play the part because the part keeps you alive. because this whole building runs on performance and fear and the kind of devotion people offer when they’re smart enough to know worship is safer than honesty. 

“now,” homelander continues, smiling wide enough to make the room obey. “no more empty seats. no more betrayal. no more jokes.”

his eyes land on you again. chosen. that is what he wants ypu to feel. so you let the gold warm under your skin, just enough to make the room soften around him, just enough to make his smile stay beautiful and terrible. 

“the seven,” homelander murmurs. “is complete.”

the room empties in pieces. 

firecracker is the first to stand, heels clicking against the floor as she collects herself with that too-bright smile still stuck to her face, all gloss and teeth and badly disguised insecurity. she gives you one last look before she leaves—not hatred, not yet. this is thinner. something that says she understands attention as a limited resource, and you have just made a show of stealing some of hers. 

“welcome to the family,” she says, syrupy sweet. 

you smile back. “thank you.” 

her eyes flick toward homelander, then away again. “you’ll fit right in.” that one is not sweet. 

noir passes behind her without a word. the deep almost trips over his own chair because he’s still trying not to look at you and somehow making the effort more obvious than just looking would have been. homelander notices—he notices everything here. his mouth twitches with something between amusement and disdain before his attention returns to you. 

that’s the thing about homelander—when he looks at you, it feels less like being seen andn more like being selected from a shelf. “big day,” he says. 

you stand beside the seventh seat because staying seated after he rises feels stupid. “yes, sir.” 

his expression warms again at the title. he pretends to dislike it. you’re beginning to understand he likes pretending almost as much as he likes obedience. 

“you did well.” not good. not great. well. a measured thing. a reward, not a compliment. 

you lower your eyes just enough to make the gratitude visible without making it pathetic. “i’m glad you think so.” 

“i do.” he steps closer, and the whole room seems to tighten around the movement. “what you did with him—” his eyes cut toward soldier boy, who hasn’t moved from his chair. “that was impressive.” 

soldier boy gives a humorless little breath through his nose. 

homelander hearts it and lets it live. “controlled,” homelander looks back at you. “tasteful. strong.” 

“i didn’t want to overstep.” 

“no.” his smile brightens. “you didn’t.” 

and he shows it again—the pleasure. not because you were kind or harmless. because you understood the order of the room and acted inside it. because the show happened under his hand, with his blessing. because you asked. 

homelander likes loyalty, sage had said. you disagree. homelander likes proof. 

“your suite is already prepared,” he says. “sage will show you. anything you need, you can ask. we take care of our own here.” 

our own. you know better than to buy into the fantasy.

“thank you. that means a lot.” 

“it should.” 

and then he smiles like he has given you something sacred—a place in the seven, a family, a new beginning. like you are supposed to feel reborn because he decided you are useful enough to keep close. 

you let yourself glow. only a touch beneath the skin, a warmth that softens the air around him, gentle enough that it can pass for admiration if anyone in the room is foolish enough to believe in clean things. homelander’s shoulders ease by a fraction and his smile steadies. some deep, hungry part of him accepts the warmth and calls it devotion because that is what he needs it to be. 

sage watches from the doorway as homelander leaves, cape sweeping behind him in a ridiculous bright flash that would look stupid on anyone less terrifying. the room keeps his shape for a moment after he’s gone. then, sage speaks: 

“this way.” 

you turn from soldier boy without looking like you’re turning from soldier boy. he has been watching you since the glow faded from his chest. not speaking during the rest of the meeting. not moving. just sitting there with his jaw tight and his eyes ugly, furious in a way that feels almost clean compared to everyone else’s careful performance. anger is easy to read. anger tells you what door to open. 

you follow sage into the hallway. she doesn’t ask if you enjoyed yourself and you almost respect her for it. 

the walk to your suite takes longer than it needs to. vought tower has always been designed to make distance feel ceremonial. halls that shine too much, walls lined with screens, employees who glance up, recognize the suit, recognize sage, and immediately learn the floor again. 

your face is already on one of the monitors near the elevator bank, a still from an interview you gave, gold light washing across your cheekbones under the headline: halo fever joins the seven: a new dawn for america’s heroes.

you nearly laugh. they work fast. 

sage notices without looking at the screen. “they had drafts prepared.” 

“for me?” 

“for everyone.” she presses her thumb against a private access panel beside a set of double doors. “you were just the first one homelander wanted this week.” honest. cruel. useful.

the lock clicks open. 

your suite is beautiful. so much so that it becomes a problem—so beautiful that, for one second, your body wants to trust it completely. cream walls, gold accent, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city in glittering indifferent pieces. a pale sofa curved around a glass coffee table. fresh flowers on the sideboard. a vanity lit soft and warm, covered with unopened products in your colors, your shades, your approved scent profile. a garment rack waits near the bedroom door with press outfits steamed and arranged by occasion—daytime interviews, evening events, crisis appearances, charity softness, televised grief. 

they have made you a home out of costumes. 

your boxes sit near the far wall, ordinary and brown and almost embarrassing against all that glass. 

sage stops beside you. “security is internal. external press access is controlled. household staff comes through twice a day unless you request otherwise. anything private should not be assumed private.” 

your lips press together as you absorb the information. “sweet.”

“nothing about this is sweet.” 

“i didn’t mean it literally.” 

“i know.” 

you look at her then. sage’s eyes move over the suite with the same bored precision she gives everything else, but there is something almost human in the corner of her mouth. not kindness. that would be pushing it. maybe recognition. maybe the dull amusement of watching another woman learn the shape of her cage. 

“he’ll test you,” she says. 

“homelander?”

sage’s gaze shifts toward the hall behind you. “both of them.” 

you don’t answer, because nothing is private and she doesn’t look like someone you can trust fully. 

she turns to leave, then pauses at the threshold. “soldier boy doesn’t like being made small.” 

you glance toward her. “does anyone?”

“no. but most people don’t have decades of national mythology rotting under the skin.” her eyes settle on your face. “don’t confuse humiliation with victory. it’s noisy. victory is quieter.” 

“is that advice?”

“it’s information.” then she leaves. 

the doors shut behind her with a soft, expensive click.

for the first time since the elevator, you’re alone. 

you exhale and let your shoulders drop. not all the way. never all the way. but enough to feel the ache under the suit, the pinch fo the bodice, the place where the fabric presses too perfectly at your ribs. your reflection catches in the dark window, all gold and cream and vought-approved radiance, and for a second you stare at yourself the way you stared in the elevator. 

the world is going to love this version of you.

you start with the boxes. the first one has books, framed pictures wrapped in sweaters, a small ceramic dish you bought because it was pretty and useless and nobody at vought would have picked it for you. the second has clothes. actual clothes—soft ones; the kind no stylist has touched; folded shirts, worn jeans, a cardigan you have no business owning now that you are supposed to be a golden national asset; and three little perfume bottles stuffed inside socks so they wouldn’t break. you set one on the vanity and watch it look immediately out of place. 

the door opens behind you. you don’t even need to turn around. 

“didn’t hear a knock.” 

soldier boy steps inside anyway. his reflection appears in the window first: broad shoulders, dark suit, mouth set in that tired cruel line, eyes moving across the room with open judgment. he doesn’t look ashamed to be there—men like him rarely do—shame would require manners.

“door was open.” 

“no, it wasn’t.” 

“it wasn’t locked.” 

you glance back over your shoulder. “that’s not the same thing.” 

he closes the door behind him. slowly. the soft click sounds louder with him in the room. 

you go back to unpacking because reacting too fast would make him happy, and soldier boy looks like he has already had a difficult enough day without you handing him a present. 

“nice place.” 

he walks farther in, boots heavy against the polished floor. vought’s pretty little suite looks different with him inside it. he picks up the ceramic dish from the vanity, turns it over once in his hand, then puts it down in the wrong place. you correct it immediately. 

his mouth twitches. “you always this particular?”

“you always this invasive?”

“usually worse.” 

he moves to the garment rack next, flicking through the outfits with two fingers. cream dress. gold blazer. while silk blouse. fitted trousers. a gown with a slit cut high enough for vought to call it empowering in a press memo. 

he gives that one a second look. “they dress you up nice.” 

“that supposed to be a compliment?”

“depends on how sensitive you are.” 

you fold a shirt and place it into a drawer. “you came all the way here to find out?”

he looks at you then. not the way deep had done—not at the suit, or boobs, or your mouth. at you. it’s the first quiet thing he’s done.  for half a second, the air changes, and you understand sage’s warning differently. 

he’s not here because he thinks you’re pretty—though, he does. he’s here because, in that meeting room, you reached into him and found something he didn’t give you permission to touch. for soldier boy that wasn’t intimacy—it was trespassing. 

“what the hell did you do to me back there?” he asks. 

you keep folding. “a demonstration.” 

“don’t give me that shit,” he spits out. 

“then don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.” 

he steps closer. “you think because homelander let you play with your little light show that means you can do it again?”

you smile down at the drawer. “let me?” you repeat. 

“you heard me.” 

“i asked because he enjoys being asked. not because i need him to hold my hand.” 

his jaw shifts. 

you slide the drawer shut and turn to face him fully. “and i didn’t play with anything. if i had, you would’ve known.” 

soldier boy’s eyes narrow. he’s too close now. not touching yet—but close enough that you can smell him beneath the tower’s clean air: leather, smoke, whiskey buried under mint, something warm and metallic that might be his suit or his skin or the violence he carries without thinking. his anger has settled since the meeting, but not disappeared. it sits in him low and restless, circling the same bruised place you pressed.

you could touch it again. but you don’t. 

that restraint seems to irritate him more than the threat would. “you like doing that? digging around in people’s heads?”

“it’s not mind control.” you scoff. “i’m not in anyone’s heads.” 

“whatever.” 

“and no.” you pause. “not always.” 

“bullshit.” 

you lean back against the dresser, crossing your arms. “you’re very committed to having a bad time in my room.”

“your room.” he looks around, unimpressed. “you been here five minutes.” 

“still mine.” 

he lets out a low laugh. “everything in this building belongs to vought.” 

you smile. “careful. that includes you.” 

his expression goes flat and it’s beautiful and dangerous. then, he looks away. he’s choosing not to reach, which is different and somehow more telling.

he walks past you, deeper into the bedroom area, where the boxes are messier, where the suite begins to lose its showroom shine. he looks at the framed pictures waiting on the bed, the small pile of personal jewelry, the open suitcase with soft cotton and lace peeking through. 

“don’t touch my thing,” you warn. still, he picks up a framed photo. you sigh. “selective hearing. great.” 

he studies the picture longer than you expect. not because he cares who’s in it, maybe. more because he’s looking for something he can use. something normal. something soft. proof that the woman who made his chest glow in a room full of monsters still has people in frames and old sweaters in boxes. 

“this your boyfriend?” he asks. 

you cross the room and take the frame from his hand. “no.” 

he picks another one. “girlfriend?”

“no.”

“fan?”

“are you always this desperate for personal information?”

“are you always this defensive?” he argues back. 

“only when strange men walk into my bedroom and start touching my things.”

his eyes drop briefly to your hand on the frame. then to your face. “strange?”

“would you prefer elderly?”

his mouth curls. there he is again. meaner when amused. easier to deal with when he’s trying to insult you than when he’s trying to understand you. 

“you’ve got a mouth on you.” 

“and yet you keep inviting it.” 

the words land before you can decide whether you meant to say them exactly that way. soldier boy’s eyes darken a fraction. not much. but definitely enough. 

you turn away first this time. heat is useful until it starts making decisions for you. then it’s just stupid. “i have things to unpack. you can go brood somewhere else.” 

“brood?”

“sulk, then.” 

“i don’t sulk.” 

“you followed me across the tower because i embarrassed you in front of your son.” 

the silence after that is immediate and ugly. you definitely reached too far. maybe not far enough. you feel the room tighten around his body with a violence that doesn’t require performance because everyone’s seen what he’s capable of. 

when he speaks again, his voice is lower. “watch it.” 

you look back slowly. this is the line—where a joke stopes being a joke and becomes a hand near a trigger. 

you don’t apologize. you also don’t press. smart is knowing the difference between fear and timing. 

“then stop acting like i chased you here,” you say, and there’s a drop in your tone—softer now, almost bored. “you came into my room, soldier boy. not the other way around.” 

his stare holds yours. then, because he’s either incapable of leaving well enough alone or allergic to losing the last word, he turns and opens the nearest drawer. 

you move instantly. “hey!” too late. 

his hand disappears into lace. soldier boy looks down and then he smiles—slowly. “well.” 

“put it back.” 

he lifts a pair of panties from the drawer like he has discovered classified intelligence. they are pretty—pale gold with delicate lace at the edges, soft enough to look innocent if he wasn’t holding them in his big, careless hand. the sight of it does something irritating to your stomach—not embarrassment, exactly. 

you refuse to name it. 

“these vought-issued too?” he asks. fucker. 

“put. them. back.” 

he rubs the lace between his thumb and forefinger, inspecting it with the kind of obscene focus that makes your jaw tighten. “nah. i’m gonna keep ‘em.” 

you step toward him. “i’m not joking.” 

“neither am i.” 

“soldier boy—”

he looks up at your voice. “ben.” the correction is sudden enough to catch. 

you stop half a step away. 

he watches you register it, and his smile changes. smug again, but not only that—there’s something underneath it, too, now. a hook thrown into the water just to see what bites. 

“if you’re gonna threaten me in your underwear drawer,” he taunts, “you might as well use my name.” 

you hate that your pulse reacts. you hate it more that it’s so visible he sees it. 

“ben,” you say, clipped and sweet. “put them back.” 

his gaze drops to your mouth for one heavy second. then, he lifts the panties higher. you reach for them, which only causes him to raise his arm above his head—easy, lazy, infuriating—using every inch of height and strength. you step closer without thinking, hand catching at his wrist, and suddenly there’s no polite distance left between you. just him—solid and warm and too close.

his chest is right there. no longer glowing now, but you remember how it looked. gold blooming under the green. his breath catching. his silence. the place beneath his ribs where pride turned soft and furious when you touched it. 

he remembers, too. you can tell by the way his smile thins when your eyes flick down. “don’t you think about it.” 

“what?”

“using that little power of yours.” 

you look back up at him. “i’m not using it.” 

“sure about that?” the question is quieter than the rest. 

for all his arrogance, all his filthy little games, there is a piece of him that genuinely doesn’t know. not fully. he doesn’t know where your powers ends and his reaction begins. he doesn’t know whether the pull in the room belongs to you, to him, or to the ugly private thing you made visible in front of everyone. 

good. let him wonder. 

“i don’t need it for this.” 

his eyes hold yours and you see something shift across his face, almost imperceptible, like he likes the answer and resents you for giving it to him. 

your fingers tighten around his wrist. “last chance.” 

“or what?”

you lift your chin. the move brings you closer—close enough that the front of his suit brushes the sculpted gold of yours; close enough that you feel his breath warm against your cheek when he laughs under his breath. not much of a laugh. more of a dare learning how to stand on its own two feet. 

you keep your voice calm. “don’t make me ask again.” 

soldier boy looks at your hand on his wrist; then at the lace dangling above your head. his smile comes slow as his eyes finally meet yours—mean, curious, hungry in a way he probably thinks he’s hiding. 

“or what?” he asks again. “you gonna make glow, doll?”

you look at him for a second too long. his arm is still raised above your head, your panties caught in his fist, his body too close for this to be funny anymore. it stops being a game between his breath touching your cheek and your hand closing tighter around his wrist. the room is quiet around you, all cream walls and gold light and vought-approved luxury, but he has made the space feel less decorated. 

“no,” you breathe out, gaze flickering down to his mouth then back up. “i want you to know this is you.” 

his smile fades by a fraction. 

you reach higher, fingers tightening on his wrist, not really trying to win anymore. you both know you can’t overpower him that way. that’s not the point—it’s the way his pulse kicks under your fingers. it’s the way his eyes don’t leave your face. it’s that his body has already started answering, and there is no glow in the room expect the faint warmth under your skin. 

“put them down,” you tell him. 

for once, he does. the lace drops to the floor between your feet, soft and forgotten immediately, because his freed hand comes to your jaw before you can breathe. his palm is rough against your cheek, thumb pressing under your chin to tilt your face up, and the touch is not gentle. it’s too sure of itself. too familiar for someone who has no right. 

“tell me to leave,” his voice is lower now. still arrogant; still him—but stripped of the perfomance sitting around it before. no audience. no homelander smiling from the head of the table. no firecracker watching for weakness. no sage quietly filing away every reaction. just him. just you. just the bad idea already breathing between you. 

you hold his stare. “if i wanted you gone, you’d be.”

his jaw flexes once. then he kisses you. his mouth hits yours hard enough to make your back brush the dresser, his hand still on your jaw while the other catches your waist and pulls you into him. 

you make a sound against his mouth, sharp and surprised, and he swallows it before it can become anything useful and sane. 

soldier boy kisses like he fights—direct, hungry, impatient with anything that isn’t surrender. 

you don’t surrender. not in the way he’d want. you kiss him back with your fingers fisted in the front of his suit, dragging him closer even as every smart part of you starts listing reasons to why this is a terrible thing to let happen. he’s soldier boy. he’s homelander’s father. he’s angry because you exposed him, and you’re turned on because he came back anyway. there’s no soft moral angle to polish this with. no clean explanation. just his tongue in your mouth and your body going hot under his hands. 

his hand slides from your waist to your hip, gripping hard, testing the give of you through the fitted gold fabric. the suit is too tight. it looks made for cameras, not for the way his thigh presses between yours, breaking your breath when he forces your stance open. the edge of the dresser bites lightly into the backs of your legs. 

“all that control,” he murmurs against your mouth. “and this is all it takes?”

you bite his lower lip and he groans. you feel it in his chest where it presses against yours, and the sound goes straight through you, low and ugly and satisfying. 

“don’t talk.” 

his mouth drags to your jaw. “make me stop.” 

you tug at his hair hard enough to pull his head back. his eyes flash—dark and bright—furious that he likes it. you can feel the heat coming off him now, the hard press of him against your stomach. no power needed. no trick. no excuse left for him to hide behind. 

“you came to my room,” you remind him. “touched my things.” 

“mhm.” 

“you wanted this before i did.” 

his grip tightens on your hip and the gold under your skin flickers. his eyes drop to it. “there she is…” 

“i’m not using it.” 

“you’re glowing.” 

“because you’re pissing me off.” 

he leans close enough that his mouth brushes your ear. “then you’re gonna light up the whole damn tower.” 

your breath catches before you can stop it, and that gives him the opening he wants. his mouth finds your throat, teeth scraping over the sensitive place under your jaw, then lower—rough kisses pressed down the side of your neck while his hands start working at the back of your suit. 

he finds the zipper too fast. his knuckles graze your spine as he pulls it down, and the sound is obscene in the quiet room, the slow parting of fabric, the private little surrender of something designed to make you untouchable. 

cool air touches your back. then his mouth. you close your eyes. 

“look at that,” he murmurs, voice rougher now. 

you open them because there is a mirror above the dresser and he has turned you toward it, one hand spread against your stomach, the other peeling the suit down your shoulders. you see yourself flushed and bright-eyed, the gold fabric loosing over your body, your mouth swollen from him. you see him behind you—bigger, his face close to your neck, his eyes lifted to the reflection—watching you watch. 

the suit slips lower, catching at your waist, and your breasts spill free into his hands. 

his breath changes. that tiny break in him is better than a compliment. 

his palms cover you, heavy and warm, thumbs brushing over your nipples until your body arches despite every ounce of pride you still have left. 

“sensitive.” 

“you like it.” 

his hand closes more firmly around your breast—enough to make your head tip back against his shoulder. “i like this.” 

his other hand slides down your stomach in a slow treacherous pace. you grip the edge of the dresser as his fingers move under the loosened suit, beneath the lace at your hips, and when he touches you, when the rough pad of his finger drags through the wet heat of you, both of you go still. 

his forehead lowers briefly to your temple. “fuck.” 

you part your thighs without meaning to, and his fingers follow the invitation immediately, stroking you with a confidence that makes your knees loosen. your glow pulses brighter in the mirror, gold threading over your collarbones, down your arms, blooming where his hands touch you. 

“all this from a kiss?” he asks, but the arrogance is fraying at the edges. 

“don’t flatter yourself.” 

he pushes on finger into you. your answer breaks into a moan. 

his hand tightens on your breast. “say that again.” 

you can’t. not cleany. 

his finger works into you slow, then curls, and the pleasure lands low and sharp enough that your hips press back into him on instinct. he makes a rough sound against your neck, then adds a second finger, stretching you open while his thumb circles your clit with dirty, unhurried pressure. 

his name comes out before you can stop it, “ben—”

his mouth opens against your shoulder, teeth pressing there as if he needs somewhere to put the reaction. “again.” 

you shake your head once, stubborn even with his fingers buried inside you. he trusts them deeper. 

your fingers slip against the dresser. “ben.” 

“there you go,” his voice drops, thick and pleased. “knew you could ask nice.” 

“i’m not asking.”

“you will.”

you should hate him. you should shove him back, pull the suit over your chest, kick him out, and let him spend the rest of the night wondering if he imagined how close he came to losing himself in your room. 

instead, you reach behind you an grab the back of his neck, pulling his mouth to yours. the kiss turns filthy, all tongue and teeth and broken breath. his fingers are still moving between your legs, your hips rocking into his hand now. he groans into your mouth when you grind back against him, when your ass presses against the hard length of him throuhg his suit. 

he pulls his fingers out suddenly and you actually whine. 

“pretty,” his eyes sharpen. 

then he turns you around. your back hits the dresser again, and he’s on you before you can catch your balance, one hand gripping your thigh and hauling it up around his waist. his mouth drags down your chest—hot and rough—and when he takes one nipple into his mouth, you nearly unfold. his tongue works over you, teeth grazing just enough to make you gasp, while his hands keep your thigh high against his hip. 

the suit hangs around your waist now, half-off, ruined. your vought-approved armor turned into a mess of gold fabric bunched between your body and his. 

“this thing cost them a fortune,” you manage.

he lifts his head, mouth wet, eyes dark. “then they can buy you another.” 

his hand moves between you, fingers finding you again, slickinmg through the wetness he already pulled from you. you bite your lip hard, but not fast enough. the sound slips out anyway, and soldier boy looks at you with a satisfaction that makes heat twist through your stomach. 

“don’t hold back now,” he says. “room’s probably soundproof.” 

“probably?”

his smile is brief and wicked. “guess we’ll find out.” 

you pull at the front of his suit. “off.” 

that’s all you say. it works better than any long, clever line would have. 

something in him snaps into focus. he strips down only as much as he needs to—impatient and rough with the fastenings—his mouth finding yours between movements because apparently even underessing is too much distance. when his cock is finally in his hand, thick and hard and flushed at the head, your mouth goes dry. 

he tears open a condom with his teeth, rolls it on, and steps back between your thighs. one hand settles at your waist; the other grips your thigh higher, opening you for him. 

he pushes in slow enough that you feel every inch. the stretch is immediat and deep and almost too much—your body forced to open around him while your fingers dig into his shoulders. he curses under his breath, head dropping forward, mouth near yours but not kissing. not yet. he watches your face instead—watches the way your lips part, the way your brows pull together, the way your glow flares hot under your skin. 

“fuck,” he groans. “you’re tight.” 

you let out a shaky breath that turns into his name halfway through. 

he stills when he’s fully inside you. 

your leg tightens around his waist, pulling him closer even though there’s nowhere closer to go. the dresser presses into your back. his hand presses into your hip. the room narrows to the heavy fullness of him inside you and the sound of both of you breathing. 

“look at me,” he says. 

you do. which is a mistake. his face is wrecked in the most brutal way—jaw clenched, eyes blown dark, sweat starting at his temple, control held together by spite and not much else. you can feel him trying not to move; the restraint in the tremor of his hand on you. 

“ben,” you whisper. 

his hips snap forward and your head falls back with a cry. 

there's no gentle build after that. he fucks you hard agaisnt the dresser, one hand under your thigh, the other braced beside you, each thrust driving the air out of your lungs. bottles rattle behind you. the mirror shakes. your suit slides lower on your hips and he watches every inch of you come apart under him with a hunger that makes your skin burn. 

“take it,” he manages. 

you mean and his rhythm falters for half a second. enough for your power to answer. gold light spreads across your chest, down your stomach, over the hand he has on your thigh. his own chest flickers against yours, faint at first, hidden under the loosened suit, but you feel the heat of it. 

so does he. 

his mouth crashes back to yours before you can say anything. 

you kiss him through it, messy and desperate—fingers in his hair, nails scraping the back of his neck. he groans into your mouth when you clench around him, and the sound does something vicious to you. makes you tighten again just to hear it. 

“shit,” he breathes. “you feel that? squeezing me every time i make a noise.” 

“i’m the one making you—” 

he thrust deeper. you cry out. “me too, sweetheart.” 

his mouth moves over your throat, your collarbone, the top of your breast, leaving heat wherever he touches. one of his hands slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, and the pleasure spikes so sharply your nails bite into his shoulder. 

“oh, god.” 

he lifts his head, eyes on your face. “wrong guy.” 

you almost laugh, but his thumb presses harder and the laugh breaks into a moan. he watches it solemnly; watches you lose the shape of the response; watches your mouth open and your eyes go unfocused, and something about that seems to hit him harder than the glow ever did. 

“that’s it,” he murmurs. “that’s what you need.” 

“don’t get smug.”

“too late.” 

“ben—”

“i know,” his voice drops. “i can feel you.” 

he can. there’s no hiding it now, your body is tightening around him, pleasure building fast and hot, your glow bright enough to wash the room in soft gold. his chest answers more strongly this time, pulsing against yours with every deep thrust, and you feel a vicious little thrill at the evidence of it. he’s not untouched. he’s not above this. he’s not standing outside the fire making jokes about it. he’s burning too.

“you’re glowing again,” you whisper. 

his hand moves to your throat, applying just the right amount of pressure to hold your attention in place. “so are you.” 

your lashes flutter. he feels that too. 

“you like that?” he asks, voice darkening. “like my hand there?”

you don’t answer, holding onto the faintest shred of pride you’ve got left. 

his thumb strokes once along the side of your throat, almost tender if not for the way his hips keep driving into yours. “tell me.” 

“yes.” 

his exhale is rough. “good girl.” 

the words land low in your stomach. 

he kisses you again, and this time there’s less fight in it. his mouth stays on yours while his thumb works you faster, while his cock drags deep and thick inside you, while your leg starts to tremble around his waist. you’re close. too close. embarrassingly fast, maybe, but there’s nothing neat about this. he has a hand at your throat, his body between your thighs, his chest glowing because of you, and the entire rooms feels fever-warm from the power spilling off your skin. 

“come on,” he mutters against your mouth. “let me feel it.” 

you shake your head, breathless. it’s not because you don’t want to—but because the edge comes too fast and too bright.

“yes,” he squeezes once. “don’t pull away from me now.” 

your body obeys before your mouth agrees. pleasure snaps through you, sudden and blinding, your glow flaring so hard the mirror catches nothing but gold for one broken second. you come around him with a cry you can’t swallow, hips jerking, fingers locked in his hair, body clenching down until he curses and buries his face against your neck. 

“fuck,” he groans. “that’s it. that’s it.” 

he keeps moving through it, slower but deep, dragging the orgasm out until your legs shake and your breath turns thin. 

his control is worse now. you can feel it slipping in the roughness of his thrusts, the way his hand tightens on your hip, the way his mouth presses hot and open to your shoulder because he has stopped pretending he doesn’t need somewhere to put the sound. 

when your body softens, he pulls out just enough to turn you. you’re still half catching your breath when he spins you around with that same blunt strength that makes your pulse kick. your hands hit the dresser. the mirror steadies in front of you, reflecting your flushed face, your half-undone suit, the gold light still shimmering under your skin. 

one hand spreads between your shoulder blades, easing you down until your elbows press to the dresser. the other grips your hip. you see him in the mirror, big and tense and behind you, jaw tight, chest glowing faintly beneath the open front of his suit. 

“watch,” he commands before he pushes back inside. 

the angle steals whatever breath you had left. 

you moan, louder this time, fingers curling agains tthe polished surface as he fills you again from behind. he pauses when he bottoms out, just long enough for you to feel the full weight of him, the heat of his body curved over yours, his breath at your ear. 

“look at you,” he growls. “taking me so good.” 

your eyes close from please.

his hand catches your jaw immediately, turning your face toward the mirror. “no. watch.” 

you do. you watch him start to move. you watch his hips snap into yours, your own body jolt forward with every thrust, breasts brushing the cool dresser, mouth falling open as the pleasure builds again too soon. it’s filthy seeing it this way—him behidn you, his hands on you, your gold suit shoved around your waist, his cock disappearing int you over and over while the room glows warmer with every broken sound you make. 

“ben,” you gasp. 

his eyes lift to yours in the mirror. that does something to him. 

his rhythm roughens. “louder, doll.” 

“ben.” 

“again.” 

you say it again, and he fucks you harder, one hand gripping your hip while the other slides around your waist and down between your thighs. your body jerks when his finger find your clit again, still sensitive. 

“i can’t—”

“yes, you can.” 

“fuck, no—” 

“you can.” his voice is low at your ear. “give me another one.” 

you push back against him, helplessly chasing and resisting at once—your body split between too much and not enough. he feels it. he feels everything. every clench. every tremble. every time your breath catches instead of becoming a moan. his hand works you through it, his thrusts deep and relentless, his mouth pressing against the side of your neck. 

“that’s it. c’mon, baby. one more.” 

the words hit before you can brace for them. your body clamps down around him. his hips stutter and you see it in the mirror—the way his mouth opens, the way his brows draw tight, the way the gold in his chest flares bright enough to paint the edges of your reflection. 

he sees you seeing it and he doesn’t have the breath to deny it. “fuck.” 

“there you are,” you taunt. 

he grips your jaw tighter while he drives into you hard enough to make the dresser knock against the wall. “don’t start.” 

he’s falling apart now. you feel it in the shape of his body over yours. in the rough drag of his breath. in the way his dirty mouth is actually loosing it’s stamina. 

“so damn tight,” he mutters. “fuck. you feel so good. knew you would. knew you’d take it.”

your second orgasm builds meaner than the first—dragged out of an already-sensitive body. the gold under your skin pulses wildly. your reflection blurs with it. you’re glowing everywhere—chest, cheeks, throat, the backs of your hands braced on the dresser. he looks ruined behind you. 

“come for me.” 

it takes a couple more seconds before your body locks around him. the orgasm tears through you hot and hard, your cry spilling into the room with no attempt to soften it. soldier boy groans behind you, hips driving deep as you clench around him. 

he comes with your name half-buried in a curse. 

his body shudders over yours, one hand braced beside yours on the dresser. the other still grips your waist hard enough to leave memory if not bruises. you feel every pulse through the condom as he stays buried deep, breathing hot against your shoulder. 

his forehead lowers to your shoulder for one heavy second after the worst of it passes. neither of you moves. the suite hums quietly around you. 

your skin is damp. your thighs tremble. your suit is ruined around your hips, your hair mussed, your mouth swollen, your body still clenching faintly around him as the last waves roll through. 

his glow fades before yours does. 

he pulls out carefully. you straighten slowly, palms still on the dresser, trying to gather yourself into something that looks less thoroughly taken apart. 

behind you, he deals with the condom, tucks himself away, closes his suit enough to look almost respectable if someone ignores the mouth and the hair.

you turn around. 

your panties are still on the floor and you watch as he bends and picks them up. 

for one stupid second, you think he’s going to hand them to you. then, he puts them in his pocket instead. 

you stare at him, an incredulous laugh escaping you. “seriously?”

his eyes move over you, slower now, less performative. “yeah.” 

“give them back.” 

“no.” 

your body is too tired for the argument, but your mouth is not. “you’re unbelievable.” 

“you were saying my name a minute ago.” 

you step closer, still half-dressed, still glowing softly where his hands had been. “next time you walk into my room without knocking, i’ll make you cry.”

his gaze drops to your mouth. then back to your eyes. “next time?”

you hate that your pulse reacts. so you smile, pretty and warm and mean enough to be useful. “get out, ben.” 

he watches you for one more second, hand still in his pocket around stolen lace. then he turns toward the door. 

at the threshold, he pauses. “i’m keeping these.” 

you’re glad he didn’t turn around to face you. the smile is on your face, stupid and a little naive. as he keeps walking, the door shutting behind him with a heavy click. only then do you let the last of the gold fade from your skin.