Philosophy + Sugar

He opened his mouth to ask, to say… something, anything, but she shook her head and took his face in her hands, her soft, shaking hands. While he let her lead his lips to hers, he couldn't ignore the fear in her touch and the hesitation in the way her lips moved against his. There seemed to be a shy plea under the crystal surface of her desire, a plea to help her forget, to stop thinking, to escape her mind and be in her body.

Lotor didn't know when he discovered the secret power to know what she wanted, but in her silence he heard her loud and clear, even if he couldn't quite translate why she wanted what she did. He kissed her deeper in hopes that he could define meaning from her tongue. His hands wandered under the hem of her gown. His fingers dug trails well-traveled across her hips.

She pressed into him with her arms around his shoulders, breathing little breaths into his open mouth. Perhaps a bit impatient, she placed her hand over his and led it to her center, warm and dripping wet.

Receiving the explicit message, he drew his hand away and licked his fingers clean, eager to taste the sweet nectar. He picked her up, her legs wrapped around his narrow waist, and walked to the bed. After he laid her down, he climbed on, kneeling in front of her, pushed her gown over her stomach, and spread her legs. He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, to her nose, to her throat, while he enjoyed the supple song of her breathy sighs.

Her hips bucked into the open air, as she whispered a desperate, “Please.”

He obeyed her wishes, not needing much convincing, and blew a feathery breeze at her core, before sticking out his tongue. The first taste caused her to gasp and he looked up to watch her face contort in painfully sweet yearning. He loved the way her little nose scrunched, the way  a veil of sweat glistened on her warm brown skin, the way the markings beneath her eyes glowed a hazy pink.

Her reactions seemed to roll and crash through her body like violent waves. They only encouraged his devoted ministrations. He dipped his tongue deeper and lapped longer and slower, savoring the taste.

Her hunger tonight was different. Even the lightest touch drew out sighs and whines that seemed to come from the darkest depths of her. Her eyes clenched tight. Her hands gripped the sheets in strenuous knots. She cried his name in such a high mewl, he had to peek to see if she was actually crying.

Despite the questions that scratched at his thoughts, he continued to fulfill her need with righteous reverence.

She began to tremble and moan a loose stream of vulgar encouragements in Altean mixed with his name in various truncations. Her fingers found purchase on his scalp as she rode the waves of her climax. Finally, her hips settled into the bed and her arms fell across her face as she caught her breath.

He gave her one last kiss in proud applause, then moved up to rest beside her. Watching her with careful eyes, he longed to know what weighed on her mind.

Slowly, she sat up and lifted the gown above her head, discarding it at the foot of the bed. She turned toward him, naked and raw and vulnerable, her ivory waves tossed over one shoulder. Her cerulean eyes studied his, searching… for something. Her pink lips parted slightly, but still, she said nothing.

“Come here,” he coaxed, taking her hands and leading her to lie on his chest. He pressed light kisses to her scalp and wrapped his arms around her waist. “What is it, Love?”

She twisted her body to straddle his and splayed her fingers on his chest, rubbing her thumbs across his skin.

He shivered at her touch and the way she wiggled in his lap, but tried to stay focused. “Allura, as much as I love our…” She ground her hips down and slid her hands up to his shoulders. Painfully but divinely aroused, he groaned, “...our sessions, but,” he held her hips to stop the distracting movements, “something’s bothering you. What is it?”

She leaned in to kiss him and whispered, “It’s nothing now.” Their lips brushed briefly, but he leaned back and cupped her jaw.

“Allura, please… you can tell me anything. I want… I want you to feel comfortable, talking with me.” As much as he felt like he was asking her to be honest and vulnerable with him, he felt like he was baring his soul to her. And despite their mutual states of undress, he felt like the naked and exposed one.

She inhaled a deep breath through her nose and stared at him, that same searching look in her gaze. Then, she tucked some stray wisps behind her ear, while she chewed her bottom lip. Her eyes became glossy as her mouth again parted. “I… um,” she paused and swallowed, “I had a, um, a nightmare tonight.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked while tucking a few more strands behind her other ear.

“No,” she stated quickly. Her shoulders dropped in defeat. “Yes.” Her voice took on a silken and sensitive lilt that he hadn’t yet heard from the dynamic, unyielding force of a woman that now sat in his lap trying with everything in her not to cry.

The tears fell anyway.

“What was it about?” he gingerly prompted.

“You.”

He said nothing, only waited patiently for her to explain.

“Only it was who I thought you were, or, who you were before?” She talked without stopping now, diving back into the solemn emotional intensity of the dream. “Your hands were around my throat, squeezing, and you were, you were laughing.”

The words felt like daggers dipped in acidic poison. He thought he had a little more time, but his demons laughed at his naivete. He thought they had a little more time in this sphere, this delicate sphere hastily formed by carnal lust and temporal passion, before she remembered who he had been. It was all crumbling, quick and in a hurry.

“Lotor. Lotor, look at me.” She took his face in her hands and raised his head so that his eyes would meet hers. “But I know you would never hurt me.”

He envied the ease with which those words rolled off her tongue, the certainty with which they fell from her lips. Her voice carried a clarity he had never possessed, but oh how he longed to. “How can you be so sure of me?” he muttered, ashamed.

“Because,” she took both his hands in hers, “These hands have brought me more pleasure than pain.” She placed them on her waist, then dived in to move her lips in languid motions against his.

“A villain,” he spoke between greedy kisses, “has many talents.”

As she rolled her tongue along his, she began rolling her hips in his lap again, eliciting a breathy moan from his open mouth. “A villain wouldn’t lick me like that,” she whispered.

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Now who’s the villain?”

In one swift motion, he flipped their positions, hovering over her body, his hair an alabaster curtain surrounding them. “You don’t understand.” He hesitated when he looked into her gaze that was demure and sincere, ready to hear whatever he had to say. He continued. He needed her to hear what plagued his heart every night she fell asleep in his arms.

“I wanted to hurt you, that first night, for making me feel… everything. You made me feel everything again, Allura. The pain. The pleasure. All of it. And I got drunk on it. Now, I don’t want to ever give that up. I don’t want to ever give you up.”

She said nothing and it unnerved him, unraveled him until he was a mess of tangled ribbons. Despite that, though, she reached up to run her fingers through his hair, to run her hands down his arms, to put him back together. Her eyes traveled the sinuous lines of his muscles and pierced his soul.

“Tell me what you’re thinking. I can handle it.”

He lied.

He had handled his father’s dismissive disdain, his people’s vehement revulsion, the gaping hole of his mother’s absence. Truthfully, he didn’t know if he could bear the weight of her rejection on top of it all. He was sure it would ruin the delicate balance of tiny fractures within him and smash him to unrecognizable pieces.

“Lotor, Prince of the Galran Empire,” she began.

His name from her mouth was beginning to be his favorite sound, but the addition of his title tightened his chest.

“Skilled swordsman, diplomatic ambassador, brilliant strategist.”

Didn’t she know that none of those things mattered? They were all meaningless trifle, if she did not love… If he wasn’t good enough for…

She stroked his cheek with her thumb. “You are fierce on the battlefield and in bed, but you are sensitive as well. Your eyes shine when you discover something new. You’re ticklish on your belly. Your ears perk up when you taste something good.” She smiled and he ducked his head in blushing embarrassment.

“You turn away from me when you’re having nightmares, so you won’t hurt me as you claw at the bed.”

He risked a brief glance at the tear in the sheets on his side of the bed.

“Then, you don’t go back to sleep, but always pretend you slept through the night when I wake up. When I come to your room in the dead of night, you don’t ask questions and somehow know exactly what I need. You think all you are is violence and war. You think your keen talent for reading others is only a weapon, but it is only a tool that you decide how to use.”

He dropped his head to her shoulder and whispered on her collarbone, “You make me feel I can do the impossible.”

“It’s not impossible,” she said somewhat hesitant. “It’s not impossible because I’ve fallen in love with you. In spite of everything, I’ve fallen in love with you, Lotor. And you made that possible.”

He rose and stared at her, eyes wide, mouth gaping.

“I love you,” she repeated, her voice positively euphonious and warm and sweet, an intoxicating, mellifluous song.

“I love you too, Allura.” A vivacious electricity ran across his nerves, surged through his veins, buzzed in his bones.

She brought his ear to her lips, as she reached between them to grasp him between the legs and said, “Take me.”

He needed no command. He sank into her and indulged in the way her body wrapped around his. He pushed in further until she gasped; and even if she offered herself to him, he pleaded with every thrust that she take all of him and more. This was a pleasure beyond the hazy amethyst edges of the universe and he wanted to explore every delicious modicum of it until it all collapsed like a star.

Her constant teasing had kept them on edge the entire night so they didn’t last long, before they peaked. They gasped and moaned, careening from the high, sweat mingling, hair and limbs in tangles.

He dropped on top of her, exhausted yet satisfied from having given all of himself. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek on her breast, listening to her excited heartbeat.

She combed her fingers through his hair and kissed his temple.