Never Mind The Bollocks…

The first thing Daeron feels is a hand in his hair. 

For a few breaths, he does not know enough to make a person out of it. There is only the careful pass of fingers through hair gone tangled from the floor and the night and however many hours of poor decisions preceded it; there is only the faint graze along his hairline, almost to his temple, a thing to gentle to have context and too unlikely to require one. His half-sleeping mind, useless with the softness of it, does not think of you at first. It does not think of anyone, it only knows warmth where there should be none, the slight pull of a strand caught and released, the shape of a hand moving slowly enough that his body has time to trust it before thought can interfere. 

His body, treacherous and starving thing this body is, accepts it before he understands that it has. 

Something in him sinks. Not much, not enough for anyone watching to name it. A fraction only, the barest softening of his neck, his cheek turning by a breath toward the touch. Sleep still has him by the throat. Or perhaps not sleep, perhaps something worse, something like that small falling feeling before the body remembers to be afraid of falling. 

He does not jolt awake, not this time. He is still somewhere inside that slow, impossible descent when your hand is gone, and it is the cold left behind -instead of pain, of fear, of any of the usual mercies- that opens his eyes. 

Morning finds him, unsurprisingly, badly. 

There is pale light at the curtains, thin and grey-gold, enough for it to return shape to the room and cruelty to the objects in it. The bed is beside him, the floor is beneath him. His shoulder is pressed to the bedframe, his mouth tastes of old wine, one leg has gone so thoroughly numb that it might as well belong to some other fool entirely. And, most importantly, your face is clear above him, turned toward him and far too awake. 

You are looking at him. 

For a moment, Daeron does nothing. He does not move his hands, he does not breathe properly, he does not even manage the good sense to look away. In darkness, the room had been kind enough to blur itself around him, to make intention and accident resemble one another if one did not look too closely. Morning, as always, is less generous. It has arranged the facts with humiliating simplicity: floor, bed, wife. 

The promise to leave before you woke broken before he could even remember making it. 

He had meant to spare you this. Before light, before servants, before your eyes opened and found him folded beside your bed like some stray creature. He had meant to rise, to go, to leave no sign of himself but perhaps a little warmth where his shoulder had touched the frame, and even that would have been gone soon enough. A harmless failure, if there is such a thing. Small, quiet, entirely his. 

Instead, you are awake, and he is still here. 

Your hand is no longer in his hair by the time he is awake enough to know if it had even been there. That should make it easier to dismiss. A dream, perhaps, however rare the good ones are. A stray mercy invented by the last scraps of sleep. 

But his skin remembers the path of your fingers near his temple, and his cheek feels colder, and his body has the nerve to miss something his mind has not yet agreed happened. 

That, more than the floor, is the problem. 

Daeron looks down and finds his fingers still curled into the fabric of his trousers, stiff from clutching cloth through the night. His cloak has twisted around one shoulder, and his damn boots are still on, because of course they are. When he tries to shift in place, sensation returns to his leg in a hot, ugly prickle from knee to ankle, and his mouth tightens before he can stop it. 

Well, that is certainly dignified. 

He moves away from the bed. Not far, because his body refuses the ambition of distance, but enough that his shoulder leaves the frame and his head no longer rests against the mattress. Enough, perhaps, to pretend there had been intention in any of this. 

He can feel the shape his hair must be in, which should not matter, except your hand had been in it, perhaps, and he cannot decide whether it is worse if you know you touched him or if you do not. 

You watch him do it. 

Not cruelly, not even with the sort of pity he might survive by hating it. Your eyes are too clear for that, too awake. There is worry in your face, he thinks. Curiosity too, perhaps, in the careful way you do not ask the obvious question. You look at him as if he’s a puzzle that has appeared on your floor. 

“That cannot have been comfortable.” You say. 

Daeron does not look at you when he answers, 

“I have slept in worse places, I promise you.” 

It is true, but it still makes such a poor defense, even to his own ears. 

A small silence follows. He feels it along the side of his face, the back of his neck, the places where your fingers had been or had not been. Then he looks at you properly, because not looking has begun to feel more revealing than the alternative, and reaches for the nearest thing that might keep the morning from becoming too grave to survive. 

The smile comes by habit, poorly assembled and dragged from somewhere near the ribs.it trembles before he can make it useful, but it is there. 

With nothing else, he offers, “Good morrow.” 

You blink once, and then your mouth softens. Not quite into a smile, but near enough that his chest goes briefly, stupidly tight. 

“This is certainly one way to begin one.” 

It should not help. And yet, it does. Only a little, only enough that the room does not split open beneath him. 

You have taken the shape of what he offered you, ridiculous as it is, and answered in kind. Morning, manners, a prince on the floor wishing you a good morning as if he has not just woken beside your bed with one leg useless, his hair ruined, and his last scrap of good sense and self-preservation somewhere beneath the mattress. 

Or perhaps beneath your hand. 

No, not that. He refuses to let the thought linger. He is not certain there had been a hand. He would prefer, almost not to be certain. 

You shift against the pillows, rising a little onto one elbow. The covers move with you. Daeron’s gaze drops at once to your hand instead of your face, which was a mistake, because your hand is no longer near his hair or his face but it still exists, and that seems almost as dangerous. 

Your fingers rest loose against the sheets. Empty. 

He looks away. 

“That was a very poor use of a perfectly serviceable bed, however.” You say, tone light. 

His fingers tighten once against his knee. 

There it is: the bed. It has been in the room the whole time, of course. Large and soft and impossible behind him, above him, beside him, however one measures impossibility from the floor. Still, it feels newly named when you say it, as if the object has turned to look at him. 

Daeron studies the floorboards between his boots for a shameful moment. They are ordinary floorboards. Indifferent. He finds himself grateful for that. 

“I am hardly fit company for clean sheets.” 

The answer comes easily because it is not entirely a lie. He had been all wine and smoke and cold corridors when he arrived, wakefulness worn thin enough to tear. Whatever filth clung to him had at least been real enough to name, and that has always been the mercy of practical things. dirt can be washed, sheets can be changed, boots can be removed. No one has to speak of what else a man brings into a room when he comes there after days of refusing sleep.  

He glances up only briefly. 

Your expression has changed. Not enough for accusation, not enough for certainty. Only a small adjustment around the eyes, a quiet narrowing of thought. You do not believe him, perhaps. Or perhaps you believe the words and not the shape he has forced them into. Perhaps you have mercifully decided there are some answers to brittle to touch directly in the early morning. 

His stomach twists. He waits for you to say something. 

You do not. 

A knock comes at the door, light and routine, and Daeron goes still so quickly that his returning leg punishes him for it. Before either of you say anything, the door opens, because morning has rules and servants obey them, and princesses do not usually begin the day with their husbands half-curled on the floor beside their beds like a scolded dog. 

Three maids enter with the efficient quiet of women expecting the morning to behave like morning. 

“Good morrow, Princess,” The first says, “You ought to write to y-…” 

She sees him then. 

To her credit, she does not drop anything, only chokes on her words and halts her stride. The second maid stops half a step behind her. The third looks down at the folded dress in her arms as if it has, quite suddenly, become the most interesting thing in the world. There is a pause, small but complete, in which everyone in the room -or halfway into it- appears to remember at once that no one has been given the proper script for this. 

Daeron considers closing his eyes. That has rarely solved anything, but he has always appreciated the simplicity of the method. 

Instead he lifts a hand and offers a half-hearted wave of his hand, and the first maid’s eyes widen, turning in search for guidance to you. 

You sit up a bit more fully, unhurried. Not startled, not apologetic, not embarrassed. 

“Good morrow.” 

The maids take their cue from you, and the first is quick to recover, curtsying her greeting. 

“Princess,” A bow of her head, eyes that of a cornered rabbit when she stammers and adds, “Uh, m-my Prince.” 

Daeron remains on the floor. This is not the worst state in which the servants of Summerhall have found him. There are servants in this castle who could probably rank his humiliations by season. 

Still, for some reason this feels worse in a way he does not intend to examine while still sitting beside your bed with his leg half-numb and his hair in disarray. 

You keep your attention on the maids. 

“Have a bath drawn, would you, Laerra?” 

The first maid’s -Laerra’s, he learns- eyes flicker once, very quickly, toward Daeron. Then back to you. Only once. 

“Of course, princess.” 

No one says for whom, no one needs to, 

Daeron lowers his gaze to his hands. His fingers are still stiff, and there is a crease in the fabric where he held himself all night. Perhaps you believed him, when he told you the smell of smoke and grime of the day were what kept him from your bed. Perhaps you did nt. Perhaps you only decided to answer the lie he gave you instead of the truth he could not. 

He says nothing.

The room moves around his silence. Not with the brittle and tentative care of people pretending not to have seen what they have seen, no, although in some ways that might have been easier. Instead, the maids recover because you have recovered them, and morning resumes with the terrible efficiency of a thing that has never once considered stopping for Daeron’s benefit. 

One of the girls leaves to see to your request of a bath. Another goes to the hearth and kneels before the embers, coaxing what remains of the night’s warmth back into flame. The third crosses to the wardrobe with the folded gown still in her arms and lays it out with practiced care, perfectly aware of where it ought to go, of which hook takes which sleeve, of which warm boots belong with which shade, of which dress can bear a necklace of rubies and which requires something less severe. 

They know the room. 

That is the thing that Daeron notices, the thought that lingers, though he would prefer not to. He lingers not on the quick glance the first maid gives him before she disappears, not on the way the second keeps her eyes politely on the hearth, not in the third’s sudden and heroic interest in fabric. Those are familiar enough forms of discretion, and he has lived his whole life among servants and their careful blindness. Their presence should not matter. 

It does not matter, not in the way it should. 

What unsettles him is the ease of them, the way the room opens itself to their hands, the way they know which curtains to draw first, where the kettle waits, which small casket holds your hairpins, which shawl was left over the chair the night before. The way one of them, after only a few moments, says, with the familiar worry of a woman continuing a conversation that must have begun days ago, 

“You ought to write to your sister, princess. There is barely enough orange blossom left for the week.” 

You make a small sound that might be agreement and might be offense at being reminded of it. 

“She is well aware,” You state, “She has just chosen to abandon me to northern weeds.” 

The maid at the hearth smiles down into her work. 

“I am certain she would be heartbroken to hear your plight.” 

“She should be.” 

It is nothing, a small exchange, easy enough to pass unnoticed if one belongs in the room. Daeron does not. He remains on the floor beside the bed, half-numb and entirely too awake, and listens as if the matter of dried orange blossoms sent from your family’s home is a court secret he has stumbled upon by mistake. Orange blossoms, lavender, a sister who sends things. A morning habit old enough to be teased over. A life made of little continuities that have nothing to do with him. 

He had thought, somewhat stupidly and perhaps arrogantly, that his presence would make the room impossible. 

The room appears not to have noticed he has irrupted. Or worse, it has noticed and decided to continue anyway. 

You shift on the bed, and Daeron moves because you do. 

There is no thought in it at first. You draw the covers aside, and his palms press against the floor. You sit up, and he gathers one knee beneath himself. You reach for the robe folded near the pillow, and he rises, stiffly, because suddenly remaining on the floor becomes an absurdity too large even for him to defend. 

His body objects to the change with great conviction. His leg, newly returned to him and apparently resentful of its treatment, sends another ugly prickle up his calf. His back is stiff from the strange angle of sleep. The hand he uses to brace himself on the floor is slow to open properly, fingers still half-curled from the night. He manages to stand without making a so und, which he counts as a victory, although perhaps only because he has lowered his standards beyond recognition. 

You do not comment. That helps more than it should. 

You stand and slip into the robe with your attention half on the maid at the hearth, half on the morning itself, as though your husband rising from the floor beside your bed is only one more thing to be folded into the day’s order of events. 

Your bare feet touch the floor, and your face changes by the smallest degree. 

Then, with more haste than dignity, you make for the carpet before the hearth. 

It is such an ordinary little betrayal of discomfort that Daeron looks at it a moment too long. And suddenly you are less the clear face above him in the morning light and more a woman who dislikes a cold floor, and there is something in the small, ridiculous flight from the boards that makes the room feel less like a place where he has committed some grave offense. 

He looks away a moment too late. No one seems to notice. 

You reach the carpet and tuck one foot behind the other as though to scold the floor without giving it the satisfaction of words. The maid at the hearth set the kettle near the revived flame, another brings the cups and utensils to the small table by the chairs, and the scent of lavender begins to lift into the air, faint at first and then steadier, soft enough that it reminds him of last night. 

You move toward it, and Daeron follows. 

He does not decide to. Deciding would have at least given him the dignity of refusing himself. Instead, you move, and the rest of the room becomes briefly unreadable, and by the time he understands what his body has done, he is standing near the hearth a few steps behind you like a hound awaiting instruction. 

He stops. You glance over your shoulder. 

“You may sit, you know.” 

The words are mild. Almost formal, almost amused. 

Permission, at last. That is worse than a command in some ways, and better in others. 

Daeron sits. 

Immediately, which he realizes a heartbeat too late. The chair is not far from the hearth, close enough for warmth to reach his knees and for the revived light to catch on the rim of the tea tray.  

He should have hesitated, he thinks. He should have made some polite refusal, some gesture toward leaving, some claim about duties or intrusion or whatever shape of lie would have done the least damage. Instead, you gave him a place to put himself, and he put himself there. 

Very well. Apparently this is also the sort of morning he is having. 

You pour the tea yourself. 

A maid might have done it. Perhaps one usually does, he does not know enough of your mornings to know what is habit and what has been changed around him, which is its own discomfort. You rake the kettle in hand, steady and unhurried, and fill one cup before setting the pot down. The tea is a pale, almost grey amber in the morning light. The lavender scent rises with the steam. 

Not one thing about it is remarkable enough to justify the care with which he watches it. 

Then you turn and offer the cup to him. 

For a breath, Daeron only looks at it. 

A task, he thinks. Something ordinary enough that he can understand the expected use of his hands. 

He takes it because he has been given it, because he remembers his manners even when they have to crawl to him from very far away, because refusing would be stranger than accepting, because you are looking at him and the cup is somehow easier to meet than your face. 

The first tremor is small. Small enough that, had he been alone, he might have ignored it. The second sends the tea lapping against the rim, and he tightens his grip st once, too quickly, too visibly, his fingers closing around the porcelain with enough force that the heat bites into his skin. A drop spills over anyway, sliding down the side of the cup and across the knuckle of his thumb. 

It burns. He does not let go. 

For a moment, the whole of him narrows to the ridiculous work of keeping tea inside a cup. Not the bed, not the floor, not your hand in his hair or not in his hair, not the maids moving around the edges of the room, not the fact that he has no idea what to do with the mercy of being allowed to remain. Only the cup, the heat, the small crescent of liquid threatening the rim, and his useless hands making a spectacle of what ought to be simple. 

You look at the tea. Then at his fingers. Then, mercifully, not at his face. 

“I was overgenerous.” You say, choosing to critique the pour of the drink instead of him. Instead of the evidence that his body has followed the ruination of his mind, and some combination of too little sleep and too little drink has taken his hands from his control. 

A breath catches somewhere behind his teeth. It might have become a laugh in a different man, or in a different morning, or in a different world. 

Overgenerous. 

Yes. But not with the tea. 

The thought is there and gone before he can punish himself properly for it. You have been overgenerous with the chair, with the cup, with the calm way you let the morning move around him as if he has not dragged some private wreckage into your day. Overgenerous with the fiction that the problem is the pour and not the hand holding it. Overgenerous, perhaps, with letting him have the smaller lie when the larger truth sits beside him like another guest at the hearth. 

He lowers the cup enough to keep from spilling more. 

“My thanks.” He says, because that is safer than anything else. 

“For the tea or the absolution?” 

The question is light enough that one of the maids might mistake it for teasing if she were listening. Daeron does not make that mistake. 

He looks at the cup for a moment, before retorting, “I had not realized they were being served together.” 

This time, your smile does arrive, small and brief, and he has the terrible satisfaction of having caused it while wishing, at once, that he had not seen it clearly enough to want another. 

You turn back to the tray to pour for yourself. 

“It is better with orange blossom,” You say, after a moment, returning your attention and your words to the tea, “The lavender alone is too dull in the morning.” 

Deron brings the cup to his mouth because holding it and not drinking it has begun to feel absurd. The tea tastes of lavender and something faintly bitter beneath the floral softness. His mouth still tastes of old wine, the tea does not cure that, but it argues with it, which is more than he expected. 

“You dislike dull things in the morning?” 

“I dislike unnecessary dullness at all hours.” 

You are adding nothing to your own cup. No honey, no milk. Only the tea as it is, apparently inadequate but still worth drinking. The maid at the hearth makes a small, amused sound and hides it badly by taking the kettle and moving it away. You ignore her, which tells him this, too, belongs to the room: the tea, the orange blossom, your sister’s delay, the maid’s poorly hidden amusement, the shape of a morning that has made space for all of it before he even set foot here. 

“It lacks the freshness of orange,” You point out, glancing down into your cup. “And pomegranate rind. But my dear sister has abandoned me to lavender and boiled water.” 

He ought not to find the petulant affront at imperfect tea endearing, he ought not to smile. He does anyway. 

You sit then, close enough that the light from the hearth catches the side of your face and the steam from your cup rises between you in thin, vanishing threads. 

“When she remembers her duties,” You continue, “You should try it properly.” 

It is a small thing, so small a better man might have known how to leave it small. A cup of tea, no more. A comment made because you were speaking of orange blossoms and lavender and sisters who send gifts from home. Not an invitation, not a promise, not anything he should take into his hands and hold so tightly it cuts him. 

Daeron knows this. He knows this with the same part of himself that knows the cup is not too full. 

He should say something. A jest, perhaps. Something light enough to return the offering to its proper size. Instead, the warmth of the cup presses into his palms, and the room continues around him, and for once Daeron cannot find the cruelty in allowing himself to imagine a later in which he is still permitted to be here. 

“You might regret teaching me to expect better tea.” Daeron says. It is not the answer he meant to give. 

He meant to make some harmless remark about your sister, perhaps, or about orange blossom being wasted on a man whose palate has survived far worse offenses than inferior lavender. He meant to keep the offer where you had left it: small, domestic, no more dangerous than steam rising from a cup. Instead, the warning comes before he has decided whether he is making a joke of it. 

A poor habit, that. Speaking. 

You look at him over the rim of your cup. 

“I shall take my chances.” 

Of course you say that lightly, of course you make it sound as if the danger is only tea, only expectation only a prince developing standards inconvenient to your stores. That is the mercy of it, and the trouble. You leave the words exactly where he has placed them and somehow hear what sits beneath them anyway. Or so he hopes, against hope. 

Daeron lowers his gaze to his own cup. The spilled drop has cooled against his thumb, leaving a faint tackiness where tea and heat and his own unreliable hand have conspired against him. 

“A brave woman.” 

“A curious one, mostly.” You correct. 

That makes him look up again. 

You say it without solemnity, which is the only reason he does not retreat behind whatever flattery or foolishness he can find. There is no grand claim in your expression, no pretty gentleness arranged for his benefit. Simply the same watchful softness from before, made more dangerous by the fact that it is not trying very hard to disguise itself. Curious, then. Not frightened or disgusted. Yet, anyhow. 

He takes another careful sip of tea because the cup gives him something to do with his mouth other than make matters worse. 

The room continues around you both. The two maids that were lingering in your room finishing their duties bow their goodbyes and take their leave, while he hears somewhere beyond one of the internal doors water being poured. The bath exists now as a consequence of his own excuse, which means it is both mercy and a trap, and he is too tired to decide which name is less humiliating. 

You set your cup down first. 

“Had you slept before you came here?” 

The question is not abrupt, not exactly. It is simply placed there, careful and plain, as if you have followed the thread he offered and found, beneath better tea, the shape of something less easily sweetened. 

Daeron’s fingers settle more firmly around the cup. 

“That depends on what one counts as sleep.” 

The answer arrives with enough ease to be a tad painful. He even manages to make it sound mildly thoughtful, as if the matter is philosophical rather than pathetic. As if sleep is a category to be debated over breakfast, as if he has not spent a lifetime learning all the ways a body may close its eyes and still refuse to rest. 

You tilt your head a little. 

“I mean the kind after which one wakes rested.” 

Ah. A most difficult standard. 

He considers lying. He considers several lies, in fact, arranging themselves obediently as soldiers at a muster. Some are polished enough to be believed by someone less awake than you. Some are true in ways that would not help him. Some involve dignity, which is ambitions of them. 

In the end, he obeys an unspoken command, fulfills an unvoiced request, and offers truth. 

“Then no.”  

Your expression does not change enough for him to resent it. That is inconvenient.  

The truth sits between you, small and ugly and not nearly complete enough to explain itself. He dislikes it for that. A fuller truth, perhaps, could have defended itself. This one only sits there, insufficient and exposed, while you look at him as though you are not yet finished seeing it. 

Because his mouth proves often faster than his thoughts, he uselessly adds, 

“There was not enough wine to make a convincing attempt at it.” 

The words are lighter than the admission beneath them, or try to be. He hears that himself. Hears, too late, the shape of what he has given away. 

His reputation precedes him, he knows this. Tales of his vices carry just as far as the reputation of his House. But this is different, this speaks of something more. Not wine as pleasure, not wine as vice alone -though the Realm, he is sure, has enjoyed that simpler story well enough-. Wine as tool, wine as door, wine as a blunt instrument taken to the back of wakefulness until something in him quietens or pretends to. 

He brings the cup to his mouth again and finds it too empty to help him now. 

Your gaze drops once, briefly, to the cup. Then back to him. 

“And before last night?” 

There it is, then. The next door opening before he has found a way to close the first. 

Daeron leans back on the seat, or attempts something like it. The movement pulls at his stiff shoulders, reminds him of the floor, of the bedframe, of the absurd fact that he has already provided you with more evidence than any sensible defendant would allow. 

“Summerhall has more chairs and corners than any reasonable castle requires.” 

For a moment, there is no sound but the hearth.  

You do not smile. Not quite. 

“That was not an answer.” 

“No,” He says, with practiced insolence, “But it was a very accurate inventory.” 

That earns him something. Not a laugh, not fully, but a narrowing of your eyes that suggests amusement has considered entering the room and decided, for the moment, to remain near the door. He will take it. The Gods know he has taken less. 

You look toward the bed, then toward the chair beneath him, then back to his face. The movement is small, too small to accuse, too small to name. still, Daeron sees the path of it and feels something in him draw tight in answer. 

Floor. Chair. Bed. 

Not a difficult inventory. 

He knows what you are trying to understand, or thinks he does. A husband who will not sleep in the bed. A prince who appears at dawn beside it. A reputation dragged in behind him like mud on a cloak. A set of inconveniences you did not choose and are no expected, by law and Gods and men, to manage. 

You are measuring the burden of him, he thinks. 

Unsure as to why the words seem to claw their way past his throat, why restlessness demands of him something and his body obeys before he choses to, he rushes to say, 

“I did not mean for this to become part of your morning.” 

The words are not apology enough and too much apology at once. He hears the stiffness in them and dislikes it. He dislikes, too, that they are the nearest thing to honesty he can reach without touching the larger shape of it. 

Your dingers rest against the handle of your cup. 

“It became part of my morning when I woke and found you on the floor.” 

He concedes with a gesture of his head, looking away, “That was…poor planning on my part.” 

Your mouth softens a little. 

“I was warned of your proclivity for that,” You recall, “By you, if memory serves. Which only proved to me you were telling the truth, by the way.” 

It startles a laugh out of him. Barely one, gone almost before it arrives, more breath than sound. Still, it is there, and for a second the room loosens around the fact of it. 

Daeron looks back at the tea. 

“I should not keep you.” 

He begins to set the cup down as he says it, the motion careful and deliberate, because if he can return the cup, rise from the chair, leave the hearth, reach the door, then perhaps morning can still be folded back into something nearer to what it should have been. You will have your cold floors, your orange-less tea, your maids and your gown and your sister to accuse of betrayal. He will remove the question of himself from the room before it grows teeth.  

“You cannot leave now,” You say. His hands still on the cup. Your words do not sound like a plea, but they do not sound like an order either. Faltering for only a moment, you straighten in your seat and explain, “If you go, I will have ordered a bath for no one, and my maids will have one more reason to think me strange.” 

Daeron blinks once, then, because he cannot help himself, “They have reasons?” 

“They think me unreasonable about tea.” 

“A grave reputation.” 

“But a defensible one. If nothing else, written off as Dornish eccentricity. Requesting a bath for a ghost, however, would be…absurd of me.” 

He looks at you, and you merely look back, composed and absurd and apparently very serious about the political cost of unused bathwater. It should not work, it is as transparent an attempt at manipulation as there ever was one. 

You are not asking him to stay because you wish him to, nor are you asking him to stay because he looks like he may fall apart if given a corridor with no instruction. You are asking him to spare you a minor domestic embarrassment. 

A task, then.  

A reason to stay that does not have to be hunger, that does not have to bring shame. 

Daeron’s fingers leave the cup. 

“I would not wish to imperil so delicate a reputation.” 

“No,” You say, smile curving at the corners of your lips. “I thought not.”  

There is something too knowing in your response, but before he can decide whether to take offense or comfort from it, the door opens again. 

The maid who had left returns with cheeks slightly warmed from haste, though she has enough discipline not to show more than that. She curtsies from the threshold to the bathing room. 

“The bath is ready, Princess.” 

The words arrive like mercy with a latch on it. 

Daeron stands because this time there is a clear thing to do. His body protests less now, or he is better prepared to ignore it. The chair shifts beneath him, the light of the hearth slipping over the cup he has left behind, over the small place where his thumb has marked the porcelain with tea. He does not look toward the bed. He does not look toward your hand. 

He does, however, look at you. 

Only briefly. Only a moment. 

You give him no softness large enough to drown in, no visible permission, no careful speech about rest or shame or whatever else might someone be entitled to after finding a man on their floor. You only lift your cup again, as though the morning has not been derailed in the slightest. 

“Do try to enjoy it.” You say. 

“For the sake of your reputation also?" 

“Well, yes,” You agree, a glint in your eye when you turn your gaze to him, “It would speak poorly of me as a wife if my husband walks to the bath I had drawn for him like a man to the gallows.” 

For a moment, he forgets the maid, the bath, the open door. 

Wife is not a new word, the Gods know the word has lingered in his head since long before he had a face and a voice to tie to the title. Even if not spoken aloud, it has been spoken over him by septons and lords and witnesses, folded into contracts, fastened to him by law and ceremony. But in your mouth, in the morning, with tea still warm in his hands and steam waiting in the next room, the word seems to land in him differently. 

Not softer, worse than that somehow. As if the word has been allowed to mean something. 

He turns toward the adjoining chamber where the bath waits. 

It is an escape, of a kind. Only another room, steam, water, the consequences of the lie he was permitted to give. Still, it is away from the hearth, away from your eyes, away from the chair where tea sounds dangerously close to a promise.

His knees give. Collapsing his body - a tad inelegantly - onto your bed. Mussing the heavy covers. Brocade hangings swing with the juddering movement.

He’s drooling as it is. Was the minute you stepped around the screen in the bedchamber. Wearing a Dornish nightgown that may aswell have been sin in fabric form. Made his cock throb awake in his breeches.

It’s bright gold. Heart of the sun striking kind of gold. And it is so sheer it looks as if you are barely wearing a stitch. It hides nothing and you look like a fucking sex goddess to his eye.

The way you walked towards him made his eyes follow. He had his hands on you the minute he saw you in it.

He can see your tits on vivid display, makes his mouth feel empty. Nipples hard as cherry stones. Glimpse right between your legs at your full bush, hiding that plump and beautiful cunt he knows he will need sat on his face, and soon.

Candlelight travels across the fabric in swirls. Rich organza swirls.

You walk over to your bedside and wrap something around your knuckles. Loop it. Twirl it through your fingers. Cross to his right, to that same side of the bed. He watches you with that predatory yet playful intensity. Eyes following the trail of your hands.

And to the Quarth imported silk ties, he finds in them.

“Remember these?” You ask.

His smile is wider, brighter than sin. Oh yes. My lady.

“I remember.” He nods. His eyes alight with all the salacious things that you’d done with those ties.

You smile. “That was quite the memorable party. Wasn’t it.”

The huge amount of wine you’d drunk together. Poured on naked skin and licked off. Ravenous hunger in your greedy touch for each other. Entwined in the corridor. Nearly caught. But you didn’t care who heard or saw.

“You were voracious as I recall.” He tilts his head. “That Dornish lady we had in our bed… almost as wild as you. She had you screaming the ceilings down. I’m aching hard just remembering all the things you did to each other.”

You straddle him on the bed and his eyes go to that dark, flinty state when something dangerous truly pleases him. All oil shimmer and umber darkness. The one that twinned so well with that bright flash of his grin.

His hips buck under you. His solid weight between your thighs feels good. The heavy heft of his cock too. You can almost grow quietly-drunk off the power of having him under you. Astride your infamous Baratheon stag. A laughing storm between your plump thighs.

He reaches for your hips. Rough hands bleeding heat through the fabric. Calloused palms catching on it. You tutt his name. Glaring daggers. Tongue sharp as a smithy’s sword tonight.

He can only hope you intend to cut him on it.

“I think not.” You chide. In reference to his touching you. Without permission.

Linking your fingers in his. You raise both his hair dusted knuckles to your mouth. You kiss them each in turn. Slowly. Rings warm to the touch of your soft lips.

Before placing his arms up over his head. Your body making a fluid arch over him.

His muscles bulging with the new position. The raven nest of hair at his armpits heavy with the male scent of him. Burnt birch and orange clove from the soap he uses. You know you’ll find that flavour on his skin too. You’ll find it when you lick up that handsome jaw later on.

He chuckles. When he realises. The ties weren’t for him to use. They were for you.

“You fucking terror.”

You hold his arms above his head. Slowly. Methodically. Tying the silk around his wrists. One at a time. Looping the ties in the sturdy sailors knot that he taught to you.

You can feel the obnoxiously hard bulge of him through his breeches. Tenting. You’ve no doubt he was leaking in them already. For a man so loud and boisterous, he went where you pleased when pushed. Gave like a soft bellied thing rolling to submission. An animal submitting to its base weakness.

You sit back and let yourself grind to his cock a little. Through the layers. Smirking as you watch his eyelids flutter. Dark sweep of his lashes. The flash of his teeth where he bites down on his lower lip. Chest rising and falling fast. Whorls of his chest hair catching silver and raven in the light.

“Will you be compliant? I’ve only done one wrist.” You tease. Grin sharp as a knife box.

“Will you be nice?”

You smirk. Starting on the other. “No.”

He beams. It’s all kinds of filthy. “Then I should be just fine.”

Now you focus on the other. Making sure you could easily slip a finger between the tie and his skin. The flat bone of his hairy wrist. No risk of turning his hands blue.

He watches you the entire time. Eyes on the sweet smile as it lay gentle on your face. Both his arms now securely tied. Splaying him out across your bed like some doomed, pinned saint.

He won’t lie. He’s not capable of smothering his wants. His eyes do drop to your tits with a hungry longing.

“Your wrists look so pretty in gold. Husband.” You praise. Stroking a fingertip down the side of his cheek. Bristled beard under your fingertip.

Taking note of the way his arms strain in their bonds. Fingers curling. Testing. The way a storm teases at the horizon before it truly threatens hard pelting showers of rain.

He’s smiling at you. “Now you’ve got me here. You better put me to fucking use.”

“Don’t fret. I intend to.”

You reach back and boldly grab him through his trousers. Make him hiss. An unready stutter tumbles out his mouth. All bit off moan and shudder.

Curl your fingers over the rigid length. Run the width of your palm over his hardness. Jerking him through fabric in that hard punishing pace he likes most.

You move yourself down him with a lustful placid smile. Now you have the lusty beast of your husband leashed; you can take your time with him. Savour him.

You start by running your hands over his strong shoulders. Watch his face strain with the unfathomable need to reach out and grip you back; then the tortured flicker of remembering he can’t.

Your caress is slow. In a way you know would usually have him gnashing his teeth. But battling his love to let you do this. To lay down the control so it could be yours-

When you come to his chest, when you rake your nails down over his nipples, he starts to shatter. Bucks his hips up to you. A growl slopes out from between his clenched, grinding teeth. One that takes the shape of a curse. “Fuck.”

His eyes scream at you. Dark as the place between stars. “Touch me. Fuck me. Slap me. Fucking something. Anything. Please.”

You smile. Placing yourself further down his body to straddle his knees. Fingers finally hooking and weaving through the closures on his leathered trousers. Opening them. Yanking them artlessly down his hips. You take the torturous fucking decision of entirely pulling them down to his knees. Over his ankles. And throwing them behind you to the floor.

You have him entirely down to his skin. Pinned out below you like a carcass on a hunt. He makes for quite the tantalising prey.

“Get that pretty cunny on my face right this second. Or I will go fucking mad.” He swears. Promises. Desperation in his wide dark eyes.

You don’t.

He babbles newly above you, all sorts of pleas to every God he’s not familiar with, when you put your mouth on him.

Bedroom hymns or prayers that wouldn’t be out of place in a Sept. Hummed and gasped in that storm-bolting voice that shook the ceiling, and as always, he didn’t care who heard.

He sounds hoarse with the relief. Voice breaking on the first word. “Fuck. Sweeting. Yes fuckk.”

You know well the pattern he likes. You’ve certainly mouthed at his cock enough to know. Wrap your tongue around the cockhead. Tease the slit till his taste unfurls bolder on your tongue.

He thrashes when you sink down to take him deeper. Feeding every inch deeper. Nearly to the base, so your nose brushes that riot of wiry raven curls at the base of his dick. That salty-clean sweat of him strong in your nose. Heat radiating from his inner thighs. His blood ran hotter than a dornish sun.

Your fingers curl around his hair dusted kneecaps. Holding the firm strong legs as he threatens to kick under you like a thrashing, unbroken colt.

Though you suppose this dark horse of a man is more comparable a stallion than anything else.

He’s certainly hung generously like one. Your jaw aches already but you push through the stretch.

When he bumps the back of your throat, he finally lets go. The stormy resolve bleeds out of him.

Chokes on his own debauched moans when his curly head hits the pillow. Shoulder muscles jumping and tensing in his bonds. Fingers packed to tight fists. His rings wink in the gold light.

He sighs like a howling gale. Long and slow as his chest heaves. “Gods. Woman. That mouth of yours. Fucking heaven.”

His hips shift upwards to seek more of your divine mouth.

You punish him for it.

Push him down by the hipbone back to the bed. Stay. Tell him wordlesssly that obedience will get him more than defiance. A lesson you will have to achieve with a little force to get it in his thick, stubborn stag head.

He growls when he’s denied you. Spit shining on his lips where he’s drooling and panting like a beast.

“Fuck.” You hear the snap of silk pulling taut as he tests those bonds. The creak of it as it tightens on the wood. Frustration ebbing on his voice. “want to touch you. Sink my hands in that hair. Rut myself into your face.”

You lean over to better throat him. Sinking your fingers between his legs to cup his balls. The way that made his back arch up with the unexpected touch of it. His hips jolt to your mouth again.

There’s a slick wet slurp where you draw your mouth up and off him. Hollowing your cheeks to make his eyes roll back. A string of spit bridged between you- spit bubbles at the corner of your sinful mouth. He’d give anything to lick it away.

He pants- chin tipped to his chest. Open mouthed to watch you.

When his cock slips out your mouth. It’s weeping, slick and throbbing dark red. Your favourite sight to see. His need for you.

You circle your fingers to meet tight at the base. Squeeze him. Watch his eyes threaten to roll back. Cock pulsing. A bead of pre-cum sliding from his tip. You lean in and catch it with a swipe of your tongue. Flattened wide to suckle at the tip of him.

“Sweeting. Please your mouth- give me, huh. Put your mouth to me again. Now.”

“That doesn’t sound like obedience. Lyonel.” You warn.

“Fuck obedience. Get that devilish tongue on me before I lose it.” The silk chafed and twisted again. His fists clenched so hard his arms shook.

You pull away. Let him slap down. Flushed and leaking, with a heavy thud, to his own stomach. He jolts with it. A curse grit out between his pearly teeth.

You take him in hand. Stroke your spit up and down him. Thumb over the head. Watch him shiver. Stroking up and slowly down. You drop your lips to his thighs.

The scent of pure male and musk in your nose, tender skin and salt, as you nudge at his inner thighs. Soft and silky skin dusted with hair.

You lay your lips there. Draping wet kisses across his skin. Heading to those soft inner thighs. Your nose nudges his sack.

When you bite and suck- his hips lift clean off the bed crush themselves to chase the sting of your teeth.

You gaze up and see how affected he is becoming- cock leaking and throbbing to his abdomen. Nipples aching in hard points on his chest. You know he’ll cry out loud when your nails rake and swirl at those. Veins in his arms bulge. Every part of him strains. Pulled like leashed hound.

His neck glimmers where he stretches back. A long, tanned expanse of skin made for biting. He loves beyond measure when you sunk your teeth in. You could rip him apart with teeth and tongue, and he’d laugh and thank you as you sit back to watch the bruises form.

When you’d had other lovers in bed with you, he always angled to get the marks as a reminder. A trophy happily collected. Another man’s strong hands. Or another woman’s mouth or scratches.

He was delighted by the kind of love and lust that left its mark. Of crimson twin brackets of teeth set bloody in his shoulders. Marks of love bites anywhere they could get their mouth. Black and yellow lovely bruises over his collarbones and neck. Fingertip bruises deep deep purple on his thighs and hips. No matter what they did to him, he’d grin and ask for it harder.

But your marks? He treasured those the most. Valued them more than all the coin in the realm. More than gold.

So you take your sweet time. Bent to him. Ass pushed in the air. Lips on his inner thighs. Sure enough to leave a marching trail of red mouthed marks. You keep on until he was fully squirming. Hissing out every foul curse he knew.

“When I get out of these ties…Ugh shit. Fuck. I’m going to bend you in fucking half. Press your knees to your ears and—hmmm.”

You lick and lap and suck. Wet sounds reaching his ears like manna. Even taking a second to curl your tongue at one of his balls.

“Woman. You fucking- vixen…” He brokenly groans.

You rise up on your knees when you reckon he’s had enough. His tongue has run dry of insult.

Align your hips over his. Drop a little and let him feel the heat and weight of your cunt. Placing yourself just over where he needs you.

Rubbing yourself on that hard cock you love so much. The wet slick of you bleeding through the thin fabric. For him? The most cruel taunt.

You make sure he sees the way you lift your nightdress. Fingers crawling the fabric into bunches of yellow wrinkles at your hips. Keeping it on. Pushing it up to your waist. Saddling yourself on his lap. Still smearing your wet cunt and dragging your pussy lips over him to make him feel what having all this power did to you.

“Gods. You’re dripping wet. Seeing me all bound like this really does something for you, huh?” He huffs.

You smile. You can’t not. His eyes take to it like pure devastation. One he’ll beg endlessly for.

“One more threat. And I will gag you.”

He tilts his head at you. Dangerous. It makes you shiver. Hair standing on end at the back of your neck, that exquisite breed of danger.

“Try it.” He dares with bite. Eyes fixed on you.

“I will consider it if you’re not capable of keeping quiet for me.” You explain. Shifting up again.

“When I’m inside you, my storm? All bets are off-“

“Really?” You seek. Circling your hips in a wide arc. One hand holding your skirts at your belly. You watch his jaw clamp. Teeth grinding like he wants to turn them to dust.

He goes to answer you but you take the words right off the bed of his tongue.

Your hand strokes through the raven pelt of sweaty hair on his chest. Hand clasping over one of his nipples. Your other sought out his hard cock. And in one swift move, you line him up and sink down.

You flutter and clench around the size. But glide down smooth. Wet enough to take him all the way. Balls fucking deep.

He shivers so much, whole body gone with it like you’d flooded lightning though his veins. Mouth falling open, jaw wide and gaping. Lashes flutter onto his cheeks. Casting spidery shadows down them in the sultry gold candlelight. Such a beauty your husband.

The pleasure isn’t entirely all yours to be smug with.

The fierce final knock of him leaves you gasping out a cry that bleeds loudly out your mouth. Joining the crackle and hiss of the fire. The rap of wind and rain knifing on the window panes. That spot he curves into deep inside, had your belly flipping over. Eyes rolling over with bliss.

“Fuck— “ he hums. Spitting with it. Lips wet. “There it is. That the spot isn’t it, my love? Fuck me. When your eyes roll back- my favourite part.”

You shift your knees. Adjust your stance. Starting to get the hang of the rythmn that gets so good, you dig your nails to his chest. Hair sticking and slapping down your sweaty shoulders and back. Your cunt well and truly slick. Squelching with each lift of your pelvis.

You feel every throbbing inch of him moving deeper and deeper as you ride him properly. It’s strenuous work to take him like this, and you are soon slicked and beaded in sweat in no time. Dripping with it. But you can’t deny how delicious it is-

The bed is creaking where it hits the wall and the floor. The hanging sway with the tremble, and buck of your hips. The mattress sinking soft, pushed under your knees. He spears you so deep you have to be careful not to lose your breath.

His moans may be the most delicious part of all.

Loud. Unabashed. Husky out his throat. Nothing about Lyonel flourishes quietly.

His eyes are hazy. Dazed and fixed hungrily on your bouncing tits. His mouth waters for them. Even through the fabric right now he’d suck them if he could. You know his hands are itching- impatient to burst free. He wants to touch your hair. Hips. Your neck. Wants to grab. Despises that he can’t.

You angle yourself just right. Cock catching that magnificent place inside. You clench and rock and get lost in how good it feels to use him.

You can touch him everywhere. Everywhere you’re greedy for. Everywhere you like. His chest. His neck. Running up the tensed muscles of his arms.

When you cup his cheek. Leaning lightly over. Other hand braced on the bed near his ribs. He surprises you. Turning and tugging your two closest fingers into his mouth. Sucking them deep like he wanted to take skin off the bone.

He growls when that makes your cunt clamp down on him. Squeeze tighter than a fist. Makes you realise how close you’re getting.

You alter. Make your pattern faster. Riding him harder. His cock spears so deeply you momentarily get your mind wiped blank with pleasure. So fucking soaked already and you must be dripping down over his body to his balls with it.

“Plant your feet. Brace your knees- now“ You gasp.

He does as you ask. Arching his strong knees. Knocking himself upwards. Thrusting his pelvis to meet you. The pace turns from a ride to gallop.

Your fingers still in his mouth like he wants to gag on them. Spit wet. Your cunt is being pounded so well you actually think you’ll go fully insensate when you cum.

“Yes. Lyonel. Oh my-fuck, Yes.” You cry. Loud and needy. Barrelling towards your completion. Nails leaving five little moons in his hairy chest. Using him like some convenient toy.

You draw your fingers from the hot drench of his wicked tongue. He was starting to lick up between the webs of your fingers. Desperate for any touch and taste he could get.

You don’t need to tell him you’re going to cum. He can read it off you. Can fucking feel it. You’re flooding his lap like a spouting geyser. The way your face pulls and stills. Brows rising in the middle. Mouth wide. Head completly gone on the perfect plunge of his cock.

You swirl and drop your hips so fast, it feels like chasing insanity. When it does finally break, when your orgasm reaches out and seizes you. It comes as the most terrifying wave. It breaks you to pieces. Methodically. Disjoints you piece by wicked piece-

The pleasure blooms from your legs, your toes. Travels up your spine. Slowly takes your arms. Up your neck. You throb. You cry. You squirm and roll your hips until you gush. Clit throbbing where it met the sopping wet skin of his groin. Smeared to the bristled hair at the base of his cock.

You sag low over him to catch your breath. Gasping for air that comes too close and too hot.

“Fucking here. Come here-“ He sighs. Still grunting out orders.

Panting still he pushes his head to mash his lips to your own. Tongue seeking the cup of your mouth. Like a dying man who needed a drink. And instead chose your lips. He kisses you hungrily. No finesses. All spit and teeth.

When you pull away, his teeth scrape your bottom lip in a bite. You spy a wince of pain cross his face-

“What’s the matter?” You seek. Coming back to the room. Head still fluffed with cotton and daze, spinning like a top. Pleasure still twitching through you. Bleeding like a slow struck lightning bolt.

Words fall choppy under his breath. “My love. Can you.. check this tie- I think I twisted it- fuck. Tighter than hell. Hurts.”

You let your hands focus on the knot you tied. Brain stumbling as your fingers fumble. You untwist and unloop it as best you can.

Therein lay your mistake-

The minute he felt the tie go slack. He struck.

The ripping of silk gives way. Once. Then twice. In such quick succession you can hardly register what’s happened. All you soon know is that you’re on your back. He’s wrenched himself out from under you, and knocked you flat. A ruse of being captured. The bloody cheat.

The first thing you can register is both hands squeezing your tits hard. Before he’s wrenching that yellow gown at the neck with his fingers curled into the opening, ripped down the middle. Tearing, shrieking fabric. Baring your body to him.

Your arms he quickly binds, knot around your wrists, with the one ruined tie. The other flaps off his wrist. He can’t even be bothered to remove it.

“My turn.” He sneers down at you. Smile bright. Eyes alive with a wicked gleam. His sweat soaked curls in his eyes as he looms over you. You feel caught. He’s dangerous at the best of times. This was entirely unleashed. Feral Lyonel. Batting at his true full Baratheon, hedonist strength.

Before you can think to protest or fight, his hands sought your thighs. Looping them into his arms. His hips smack flush to yours. He grabs his cock and drapes the head of it. Slapping it to your cunt to watch you shiver. The love taps smearing your own sticky slick all over you. You groan. Twisting. Breasts jolting. Body turning. Glistening in the light.

He slams into you so hard you choke. Head tipped back on the pillows like his was. Cock rooted so deep it’s impossible to tell who was throbbing more. Him or you-

He tips his eyes to the heavens. “Seven. Your cunt was made for me.” He sighs. Only allowing himself a seconds indulgence.

When he tips his head down. He set about arranging your limbs to his satisfaction. Pushing your legs open. Wide and spread. Thighs cushioned plump to your body. His hips bracketing your own. Cock notched right were he needed it. Deep in your soaking cunt.

He’s trapped you in a mating press. The realisation draws a soft cry from your thick throat. Tears quiver at your lashes.

He means to punish-

His hands are hot and wide on your skin. Sweating and kissing your skin like a brand. He’s keeping you folded back as he likes.

“Hope you had your fun. My lady. I’m going to fuck every last noise I can out of you. For all I’ve suffered tonight. Watch you scream yourself silent for me.” He urges.

When he started to pound you, the wicked sloshing of your bodies meeting is the most savage, filthy sound you’ve ever heard. Entirely debauched. The exact language he spoke fluently and so well. Ruination.

You cry his name. Nails scratching the wood already and he’s barely begun. He heaves himself to you deep, each thrust seating from his back and hips. He grinds a pattern that gets you ready to sob.

When you open your eyes, he rears over you like his namesake. Like a storm. Dark. Immovable and ready to decimate all in his path. The look in his eyes is lightning, silver-strong, and frightening in its potency.

Sweat slicks every bit of him. Down his chest. Slipping to his stomach. Shining in his chest hair. Dewy in trails over the hills of his shoulders. His muscles strain and bulge and you feel them everywhere. The necklace he wears slams to his sternum like a pendulum.

“I’m going to ride the hell out of you til you gush all over my cock like a damn fountain. And that’s just for starters.” He grins. Voice ragged. “Understand me?”

You can barely respond. You gasp a nod but he rips it off you.

Your legs bouncing and jolting with the force of his thrusts into you. He keeps his brutal momentum. Feeling you wetter and tightening around him like a living pulse. You’ve cum once. And now this relentless drive is your punishment. The savage punch of his cock to your g-spot that makes your mind and body tremble.

“Lyonel.” You cry out. A plea. Desperate. Voice slipping into a sigh after. Long and drawn. Like a pulled arrow.

His fever hot mouth drops to your neck. He nibbles, bites. Sucks your collarbones. Tastes the furious hum of your pulse. It pats his tongue like a raindrop endlessly falling off the roof.

“You can take the storm. Can’t you, my lady.” He smugs. Teeth taking your neck in a way that pinches. Made you thrash in his hold. His searing body crushed to yours.

He tilts his hips. Drawing his cock right out of you to stuff himself right back in. No space spared. Adoring the way it makes your throat hiccup with the need. The vicious grind against your spot that feels like it’s filing you with mean, hot wet pleasure. The kind that hurts when it finally breaks- itching to pulse free out of you.

Your cries come louder. Faster. Threatening to break across the bedchamber. The way the sea scatters itself to ruin across the hard rocks below your window. Climax gains on you with all the intensity of a knife twisting in your gut.

“Please-“ you beg. Though if he grabbed your face in a sweat slick hand, and outright asked you what you begged for, you’re not sure you’d be able to unstick your tongue, and tell him.

He sips the breath from your dry lips. Sups a kiss of your wearied mouth. “Fuck. Woman. You’re bloody strangling my cock.” He chuckles.

“You’re there aren’t you? It’s right there—“ he plunges his hips. Swills his cock into the absolute wet, agonising mess of you. The noises coming out you are too wet to be believed.

He hammers himself to you. Gripping fistfuls. Hunting down your pleasure.

Your whimper is like something that’s been torn to shreds. Throat clicking with a swallow that near chokes you. A delicacy frayed to bits on a Storms Ends strongest gale.

Sweet relief streaks of climax rushes and swells through you again. Flushing from your groin and shattering up in sharp arrowheads of pleasure. Thighs shaking hard. Cunt clenching. You cum viciously. Brilliantly.

“Yes.” He sighs. “Yes. That’s it my love.”

He slows the roll of his hips to languid. Slow as warm honey. Drawing it out of you.

You squeeze him so hard he can’t fathom it. A trickle of liquid seeps around him. Brightens that grin of his to no end. He always kept his promises when they involved you gushing-

So dazed by the force of it. You can barely hold your eyes open. But he grips onto you tighter. Bodies crushing. Sinking to a pace that has you ready to cry and bring your hands up to push his chest off you. Your nails scratch his chest- but he grabs your bound hands and lays them to his shoulder to cling on for dear life.

“Easy with the claws. You can maul me later.” He pledges with an easy wink.

Your eyes roll back. It makes his cock pulse to see it.

His hold has tightened and you feel the intense need mounting on him too. It’s in the sway of his hips. Impatient. Fast. Chasing pleasure that seems just a fingertip shy of his reach.

You feel compressed. Choked. Clawed shut. A soft, wet cunt for him to use until he cums. One long throbbing nerve. Left out. Exposed. Until he plucks you raw.

“Got another I can wring out of you?” He checks. Eyes lidded. Smug.

The broad fat of his thumb pushes through your slippery lips to seek your clit. You cry - choking, but no sound comes. He swirls his thumb and cruelly nudges you into a third spasming crux of pleasure.

“There you go—fuck“ He urges. Before he has to slam his hand and arch over you.

Your sex ripples along him again. His spine goes iron rigid when he pushes and spills himself deep inside. Hands on your hips for sheer balance. Or he’d fly off this bed. Knees ground tight. Sweaty groin packed tight to yours. Your orgasms meeting in a sticky, slick puddle in the middle.

He finally goes boneless. Flooding himself deep into your cunt. Hips wetly slapping yours one final time. Body bowing. Sagging onto your spent body. Sweat comes off you in strips. Dripping to the bed. The meeting musk of sweat and cum soaking to the sheets. Heartbeats hammering together like thudding metal clockwork.

Your bound hands come up to loop over his damp hair. Hooked to his neck. He pauses before you can rest. Shifting up. Catches the golden tie in his straight pearly teeth. Pulls his head to one side to untie it. Yanking said silk away from your wrists. Spitting it across the bed with a “puh” noise.

He’s careful when he nudges his soft cock out of you. The warm rush that follows and beads down afterwards, makes him bite his lip. He smirked to see it. The most carnal method of possession.

Your arms crash over your head like tonne weights. “Fuck—“ you decide on.

“You’re telling me. I can’t feel my legs. Gods. Love. Your cunt is good.” He chuckles. Meanly.

He gives one stout, sweet kiss to your nipple before dropping to the side. Sweat dripped off his beard as he did. He flopped on his belly.

You lay there in a cooling puddle of sweat. His cum sliding out of you. Before shifting your gaze up above your head. Looking to where the definitely not twisted tie lay hooked on the poster.

“Was that a ‘no’ to the silk ties then?” You check.

“Definitely fucking not.” He leers.

You tilt your head. “You lasted longer than I thought.”

“Be warned. Lady Lightning. Us storms cannot be tied down for very long.” He grins. Rolling over to kiss your shoulder. Taste of salt and sweat on his tongue. He wanted to bathe every inch of you clean with his tongue.

“I’ll try and remember that.” You sigh.

Stretching your legs. He captures them with his own. Slinks and knots them together.

Captures your fingers again. Draws them towards his mouth and naughtily puts them on his tongue. Sucking and twirling his tongue around them. Enough to make you shiver-

“Good god. Not again-“

He seems to disagree. “Some wine. And round two?” He checks. All sparkling eyes and impish grin.

Your hand slides to find the silvery disarray of curls at the nape of his neck. Your favourite thing to wind, and tug your fingers through.

“You enter me again, tonight Lyonel. I will have no choice but to take your balls off.”

“Kinky.” He winks. “Save something for the next round my lady—“