Shannie Pie

It is lavender that perfumes the clawfoot tub they insist Will find his place in. Vincent has done this a few times on his own, but by now she’s joined them before. They sink him into the bubbles and the pepperdust sweetness of the lavender bath and then go to their gentle work sudsing his hair and running a soft cloth along his shoulders and arms. He’s stiff beneath their ministrations... but only for awhile, and his quiet sigh of surrender slides him further into the water. After he is clean, they keep him there and torment him with kisses light as moonbeams and touches that begin to slide toward his belly. Their sleeves are wet, but then he is in two hands at once and an anguished cry flies up to the ceiling when the back of his neck finds the lip of the tub. There is splashing but he can only think on how they are touching him, how silky the water makes every caress. Then they start talking and he can’t think at all.

Vincent, what do you do with someone you love when you know they need extra care?

You care for them, of course.

…and some significant edging.

Mozart’s an extra tsunny Dom. He’ll run cold and hot in the same encounter. Until he snaps (at which point he becomes an experrrrrt dirty talker), you can expect him to be putting you through opportunities to earn his favor. If you succeed, you can get to really nice rewards (you on his lap while he strokes your clit in perfect countertime to his tongue in your mouth and grinds his clothed lap up underneath your behind) very quickly. If not, he’ll snap at you… but there will always be an opening for you to use to course correct yourself back into his good graces. He gets hot under his collar during that kind of game because even though he feels in control of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily feel like he has the best grip on himself. And of course he takes it all very seriously, so not letting himself get out of hand--which would be losing his ability to keep you safe-- is very important to him. He expects you to defer and submit, but doesn’t mind if you sneak a peek at him so long as he’s not looking at you.

He’s not into anything that keeps you far away. He wants you beside him or on him or under him or between his legs. Doesn’t have any concept of sexual punnery so he goes pretty heavy with the music prompts for you sometimes. But most of all, he does a lot of ordering you to tell him how you’re feeling, and when you’ve been together awhile and he’s learned your body he’ll start to tell you how you’re feeling.

And he likes to dress you up in pretty lingerie, the lacier and frothier the better. The farthest he ever wants you to get from him is when you’re a few steps away, giving him a grateful twirl.

You like it when I love you with my mouth? Sing for me, then, and you’d better keep your pitch if you want me to keep going.

On your knees. Knees! Forget your skirts, just go to your knees! Dither again if you want to see what I’ll do to that blasted fabric!

Down your throat now. Be brave, I know you can do this. Good, good. Good girl. Now hum. Don’t give me that look. Hum.

Keep that leg to the side, I’m going to make you moan until you’re hoarse.

Shakespeare is a mercurial but consistently obsessive Dom. I’m sure you’re familiar with the ways he seesaws from stable to vulnerable. The upside of this for you is that when he is feeling safe and stable (and loved), his attention to your every exhalation and eyebrow change is unmatched. And when he’s in a good place, he doesn’t fret about puzzling out any unhappiness you’re experiencing— he just makes it better. He thinks your overstimulated tears are more beautiful and valuable than actual diamonds but he also loves you getting fucked so well you can’t help but laugh with joy. What Will needs is to see you feeling.

He will do some knifeplay, because your trust is so priceless. He knows best of all that he’s not the most stable-centered person, Your love is his goal, and as your Dom he just wants to pull it out of you every way he can. Gentle coaxes, cosseting you with sweet words mumbled over your nipples while he uses a toy to fuck you because he can’t get as deep with his hands as he wants to without fisting you, which... on the table, for-fuckin-sooth, if you’re up for it. He’d love to see his wrist flush against your sex while your body squeezes his hand.

He’s extremely tactile. You’d have to beg him to wear gloves. And he would, for you! But left to his own devices he wants to be touching you directly, hands and limbs and EVERY PART, as much as possible. As his sub you are in for a lot of extremely intimate, connected sex in places where neither of you have to wear a single stitch and your flesh can touch in long lines down your bodies. He’ll have you do breathplay just so you can sit and look into each other’s eyes, and if you manage to look into his so long that he’s actually satisfied and gives you his sweet smile, he’ll lay you out and love you from your eyelashes to your toes. He does covet you to the point of obsession when he’s feeling scared, but he is a big, big giver when he feels safe and loved.

He’ll push you very far. He’ll stop immediately if you tell him to, but you’ll need to use your words. He’ll be too into what he’s doing (and too accustomed to your trembling) to know unless you tell him. This is why he never gags you.

Eyes, eyes on me, love. I need to know we are together in every breath. Follow my lungs. Take my breath. I’ll take care of you.

All I’d have to do is press to split your skin, you know. You’re as well made as a muscat meant for a table on Olympus, sweet, and your fragility is entrancing...

Louder, sweet! This room is tall, the air is yours to fill. Your cries of pleasure could never hurt mine ears. Be shrill if you like.

You have never met a man who is so firm. Perhaps one day you will find out if that is because he is a vampire or because he is Vlad. His legs are made of supple skin, you know this from countless touches and your time spent between them, surrounded by them. But beneath you tonight he is so strong he might as well be made of iron himself.

He would of course be wrought in the most beautiful, classic pattern: roses. Their stems curling in a smith’s poor imitation of nature’s perfection. He has told you he only trellises certain plants for their health, he likes the idea of a flowery space gone wild but when he tried it, it did not make him happy. So he ripped it all out and started over.

The tension under you makes you think he is going to rip your nightdress sometime soon. There is a current of tension under his elegant calm. Vlad has the patience of a gravestone but sometimes the roses and the phases of the moon get in his blood and he moves. He would never strike you, but his impulses tend to MOVE with the suddenness of a fist. So you have learned not to get attached to any of the silk slips he buys you. They are not destined to be long lived.

How could you mind that? His speed is always so pleasurable for you, the speed and the sure way he grips your body and the way his hair shines truest silver in moonlight. These things work in constant concert. Most importantly, you love the beauty of his soft, true smile when you are alone in the garden, your only company each other and the many roses.

The other castle residents know to stay away from this place at night. Vlad only likes an audience for certain things. Your late night discussions are private, and your occasional garden lovemaking is something he’s only teased arranging an audience for. As far as you know.

“Fullness,” he muses after a long silence. The backs of his fingers slide along your shoulder. “Is that what you are thinking of, too?”

You snuggle into the space above his chest instead of answering. The side of your face knows no better pillow in all the world. Even when he is made of iron, there is a give and a gentle depression there. It cradles you as though his bones love you as much as his heart does. He’s told you that, you remember it now. My bones and sinews and blood love you, and you know how important blood is to one like me.

You hum to acknowledge his question. “Yes,” you begin slowly, “I was thinking of how happy the garden makes you, and how happy that makes me.”

He nuzzles at the top of your head and it makes you think of an old woodcut illustration from collection of fairytales: the Beast, tenderly embracing Beauty. You have not thought of him in that term before because he is so beautiful. But you like it.

“I like it when you are happy,” he murmurs. His voice is soft and deep, and it raises the curious, comfortable goosebumps only he puts on your skin. They feel warm in the space where the backs of his fingers touched you. “It has become necessary to me, did you know that?”

“I’d never presume,” you say demurely. His smile deepens against the top of your head, and one of his thighs flexes under you. It must be what sitting on a bench during an earthquake feels like, his strength nearly lurching you forward. Vlad is at least as terrible and powerful as a natural disaster. He has certainly made your entire life resettle around the shock of his presence. It’s not so shocking these days, your time together has become easy and sweet. Like the roses.

“The sort of fullness I was thinking of,” he continues, voice going just a bit lower and his hand gliding around your middle, as smooth and slippery as the silk he’s put you in, “would be here.” His press is as gentle as his words, and just as meaningful. “This has become necessary as well, I believe.”

Your breath catches in your throat like a single dandelion seed caught on a thorn. It’s not unpleasant. It’s very, very natural, and when you swallow it is like the dandelion seed has settled itself onto hospitable ground. The two of you haven’t been trying to prevent pregnancy in any way, but you haven’t talked about attempting it, either. Sometimes his eyes shimmer at you in the afterglow like sunstones lining a streambed, their power and warmth heavy with meaning. But he has never said anything. He has touched you so many ways, but never as he is touching your belly right now.

Still, this approach is very like him: physically unyielding, voice exquisitely gentle, only the desire of the words themselves revealing what he wants. The greatest pressure is his presence, thick as the fragrance in the air around you. You have no desire to deny what he is planning, but if you did you think he would simply slide his hand away. For the time being. Your lover is not a man who easily relinquishes a desire. It is why he holds you so securely there in his garden.

You haven’t given it much thought, it’s not a dream you’ve had. You have been too busy loving him. But his suggestion flows into your consciousness with the gentle density of an evening fog. You like the idea. So you dare to whisper “Perhaps it already has,” and notice the exact moment the hand resting on your belly goes very still as he takes your meaning. Your eyelids flutter shut as he begins to stroke you through the silk. He is not tentative— that is not his nature— but he is very gentle.

“Already?” he whispers mildly. He hums as he thinks, a bit of song that might as well be a scrap of sheet music caught on the briar of his mind. “I had expected to have to convince you.”

You feel heat in your cheeks at the way he’s caught your sudden willingness, but since he has caught you there’s no use denying it. Your hand slips over his, not as smooth as his movements— you will never be a pureblood— but more sure. You know he’ll catch your certainty. And he always respects what power you do possess. “When?” you whisper. “How soon?”

He puts his other hand over yours. “Since you are willing,” he whispers back, “And since it is such a beautiful night, I see no point in delay.”

The way his hands sandwich yours on your belly reminds you of the many mattresses of a tested princess. You wonder how soon you will feel it when you become pregnant. Surely his seed grow in you like a well-tended rosehip. You can’t imagine anything about him not doing exactly what he intends.

“Come here,” Vlad demands warmly. He brings your mouth to his via a forceful hand slipped up behind your head. Once he’s made your head spin from his tongue, he asks onto your dizzy lips “How do you feel about right this moment?”

“...Full of happiness,” you slowly answer. His hum of pleasure at your response is low and deep, and he tucks the last trace of it into your mouth with his tongue again. His hands reach for yours and guide them up behind his neck, and then he trails his fingers lovingly down your arms and to your back, where his palms find their own places to rest against silk and skin.

His kisses are slow, building your passion high like Rapunzel’s tower. His fingertips curl against your skin so gently you find yourself melting faster than usual, getting anxious for him. You can’t stop thinking of what he plans. Your nipples pebble the silk of your nightgown and your hands rake through his hair to surround your fingers with that moon-magic silver, luminous and beautiful. When you sigh his name into a kiss he puts yours on the heel of it, ever-attentive and ready to echo you.

Vlad says “Hold onto me,” and you cling as nature intended. He stands up with you in his arms as you reverently suck his lower lip, and you release it as he begins to spin you, a show of joy he only makes when you are alone. You cling tighter and smile under his mouth, loving him and his magic. When he slows to a stop you are dizzy from him, not the whirling, and not so dizzy you miss the careful way he places your back onto the table in the place your bodies warmed. He shocks you plenty, but he will not even allow the weak chill of metal on a summer night to surprise your skin.

You’re grateful enough, and enough in love, to keep clinging when he tries to stand up. You even make a few soft nos and tell him to stay. The hair at the back of his head is Rumpelstiltskin’s white-gold prize between your fingers, or maybe fairy strands of platinum made gossamer. Whatever they are, you don’t let them go.

He kisses your chin, then your throat, and reaches behind himself for your wrists. “I am not going away,” he promises. “Release me now.”

He can speak his every wish as an order. To you he says everything in such soothing, gentle ways that even though they are very much-- and very inarguably-- directions, you don’t feel any cruelty in them. You relinquish your grip on his beautiful hair but he does not let go of you, keeping your hands where they were but without purchase.

The gentle weight of his cheek is against yours, and then he kisses your mouth. Then your chin. He is loving you with his preferred slow, attentive seduction. Achingly slowly, he brings his lips together over a spot on your throat as though the loving drag of his mouth over your skin is supposed to tell you something he is not. He presses against you in a kiss and opens his lips again to suck until he raises blood close to the surface of your skin without piercing it. “See?” he points out as he clasps your wrists together and guides them down to an unwarmed part of the table above your head. “I am right here. How could I be any closer?”

You can think of a significant way, but you don’t have the courage to tell him. His idea-- his plan-- is so attractive to you it has robbed you of your voice. You use the table to press yourself up toward him and enjoy the way the silk of your nightdress skims against all his clothes so smoothly.

“So eager.” He says it calmly, but there’s the most wonderful note of approval in his words, and he trails his fingertips down the swells of your arms and over your shoulders. His hands find the curves of your breasts and cup them, idly thumbing your nipples. “So eager,” he repeats. He puts pressure into the touch without pinching, managing to push the nipples down only to let them stiffen back up under his thumbs as soon as he releases them. The touch makes you feel pinned like a specimen, and it puts twin lines of need in you, thin as the fairy gossamer you imagined his hair to be, strong enough to speed through your insides right down to your sex. His hardness is evident through his trousers and your nightdress, rocking against you, with his usual gentle inexorability. Never have you wanted to avoid him, and thank goodness. He is entirely unavoidable.

He sighs. “I am not eager to share these,” he says, pressing with his thumbs again, deep enough that you buck against him. “But I suppose compromise is in order to get something else I want.” He presses his hips down onto yours, a third pin to hold you in place, that first length pressing against you hardest of all, and you whimper for it. The night is not cold, but his warmth through his clothes and your nightdress feels so good.

You’re reveling in it when he leans back and takes it all away, the devil. He is not gone long, but you’re pouting by the time he’s done getting a knee up on the table between your legs. All the fine musculature of his body seems concentrated into the place just above his knee, which he nudges toward you until there’s a satisfying press of contact and your body yields. As it always does. You can feel the way you’re wet behind your doomed panties, the silent squish. You listen closely but can’t hear it even when he relaxes and the pressure lessens.

“It’s nice to know we’re of one mind,” Vlad says, as he presses his knee back against you. He is so firm and you have so much give thanks to have warm and needy his idea and his touches and kisses have made you. Your sex and your womb feel heavy like hunger, the way you can ache from emptiness alone. As he eases back again, his hands smooth down your face, gentle as a blessing. When his thumbs finally drift away from the lowest part of each of your earlobes, he presses against you again. With a little more force. It’s enough to make you groan.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been lonesome with this thought.” His tone is so level a mathematician would covet it, so soft a musician would weep. But there’s a catch of challenge in it, not displeasure... unraveling his mood is like undoing a tapestry, some nights. Does he want you to guess? It’s hard to talk when he’s grinding against you with such directness and passion when all the rest of him seems so calm, so gracious.

“I dreamed of you with a round belly ages ago,” he confesses. “All filled up and swollen.”

You were already convinced, but he is using his voice to make it all sound so sexy-- you want him to say all filled up and swollen again. And again.

“Please keep talking,” you whisper. “I love it when you tell me what you’re thinking.”

He does not move his knee, but he leans back so he can look at your eyes. You can look at his, too, and the gentle pleasure evident in his face is so beautiful you want to reach for him, but since he put your hands on the table you know that’s where he wants them. You use your own words again. “You’re so beautiful,” you add. “That is what I am thinking.”

His smile is small, so it is really from the way his eyes crinkle at he corners that you can see he is delighted by the compliment. Vlad dips his head to acknowledge your words and places a gentle kiss on the tip of your nose. “We are thinking the same of each other,” he promises. “You are the loveliest bloom in this garden.”

You know how proud he is of this space and how he cherishes each plant. He is paying you so fine a compliment you’re not sure how to respond. Your eyes slide down from his face when you’re unable to withstand the great love in his gaze, and then they close when his hands lace into the hair at the sides of your head. You are cradled by him. You feel surrounded and deeply cared for.

“Since that is so,” he continues, returning to your throat with more kisses and more words, “Let me tell you that I have often thought-- very often thought-- of making you pregnant.”

“Define ‘very’, please,” you dare to ask. He doesn’t demand respectfulness, but it is expected.

There are flares of heat on your scalp when his fingers tighten in your hair, and your breath hitches when his teeth are flat against your neck in a gentleman’s hiss. “Daily,” he admits, lingering over the word. His body is still perfectly calm, but his grip and the sound of frustration flatter you. “It is... my favorite fantasy,” he adds. Even when it is colored with so much heat, his voice is entirely composed.

“Commanding your body to yield to me,” he says slowly. He murmurs more against your neck, weakening your nonexistent resistance like sugared poison in tea. His voice takes you down into his imaginings as he continues to gently rock his knee against the wet patch of your nightgown. “Is there anything I desire more? It has been a struggle to think of much else. I dream of you beneath me in all the places of the earth, your body alchemical and your hips toward heaven while I push transformation into you.”

You are panting under him, enjoying his visions and the way he is loving along your neck. His soft, slow kisses and deep breaths of your scent are familiar. You are both content for a moment to indulge in this comfortable unfolding of arousal and purpose. It’s always a special joy to see the reveal of your desire for one another. He takes his time in the rose garden. You may be here until the sun rules the terrace again.

“I want what I want because I adore you now,” he tells you. “But the most moving idea is that you will change for my desires.”

“Change?” you ask. It comes out so small.

“Change,” he whispers, sure as ever. His hands slide from your hair, flowing down over you like perfumed bathwater. “Your chest will change,” he explains. Lower go his hands, down along your sides. “Your hips will change.” He squeezes them slowly. The pressure of his grip builds, never unpleasant but significantly stronger. The ways he has already changed you mean you can withstand this kind of handling. You won’t even bruise where you can feel him dimpling your skin.

But your heart might, from his quiet groan. “I cannot tell you how badly I want to see it,” he tells you, stroking your neck with the points of his teeth. It gives you goosebumps. It’s not just a baby he wants from you. He wants you to be pregnant with his child. All he is saying means he finds the idea erotic. That makes you find it erotic, too, and it makes you feel safe to relax into his desire. And to admit your own.

You say his name and he hums and begins to guide you toward his knee. His pace is measured because he is never a frantic man, Vlad, he is an elegant person who moves slowly and meaningfully. That is the way he is moving now, against you. And that is the way he is moving you against him, because he is in control. Meaningfully, so you know exactly what’s to come.

It is impossible to keep your breath quiet. It feels impossible to keep any kind of quiet when he moves you like this. Thankfully, his smile on the side of your throat is proof of what he always tells you, that he likes it when your body is honest.

He adds some teeth to the kisses he’s laying on your skin. The nips are slow and hot, and they roll your eyes back and make you grip at the metal lace of the table beneath your hands. “There are other... sensitivities... that I look forward to seeing heightened,” he tells you.

“All your skin, of course,” he explains, flexing his hands around your hips when he grinds against you so hard you gasp. He slides his grip up high before he pulls back down to mash your sex against his knee. You feel every layer of arousal, cotton, silk, and him. “All this beautiful skin. A magic line,” he says, letting his thumbs stroke from your navel to very, very low on your belly, so long you anticipate a touch he doesn’t give. Instead, he licks your neck in a wide strike that goes all the way to your jaw. Down. Up. Your head swims. “The way your pulse will change,” he murmurs against the wet skin. There is a tiny bit of wistfulness in his voice that nearly makes you swoon. “The way there will be two pulses. The way I’ll be right here to hear them.”

The masterfully cultivated balance of his voice tips toward passion. “Your taste will change,” he says quietly, letting his fangs scrape enough that you shiver, and only as you tremble finally piercing you directly, just deep enough to draw one appreciative suck into his mouth. You feel all of the magic from a shallow bite same as you would from a deep one, and the slow-building, gushy heat he has set in you suddenly bursts bright all over, making you write under him on the table as he swallows.

All you know is pleasure. All you know is his pleasure, and how much you want to give it to him. You want him to put a baby in you, you want him to touch you while you grow, you want him to kiss you over your nursing child.

“Perfect,” he slurs, drunk from one sip of you. “I wonder if you’ll still want to drink from me when your appetite changes.”

It’s odd to hear self-consciousness from him. “Always,” you manage to moan, and even though your body is already healed, your neck burns where he bit you. “I love you.”

His laugh near your ear is confident again, low and warm, and it settles on your sensitized flesh like a shroud of the thinnest tissue. It makes you feel vulnerable and naked there on that table, at his mercy in the middle of the garden in the middle of the night. This man is going to change you in all those ways. He wants to. He wants you. The knowledge makes you feel full of want and love and readiness. You’re as eager as he said you were.

“I love you,” he says sweetly, holding your hips in place again. “I crave you.” The way he rocks his knee back and forth across you, not just into you, is proof of his words.

His affection has never been in doubt, his very presence demands acknowledgment of his interest, but he has never said these things to you together and the words braid themselves up with the feelings of desire burning in your heart, and they make you feel tight as a snare.

“Have me,” you tell him, direct even as your voice shakes. “I’m yours.”

The curve of his smile against your jaw is softer than a petal-stuffed pillow. He hums. “I know you are mine. That is what I have to need to rush.” He releases your hips and inches his knee forward, without any give. It means your body must give instead. “Do you see?” he asks, leaning his body back and keeping his leg tight against you. “I will take my time getting my wish. That is how I will savor it. Savor you.” He grinds as he lingers over the first savor.

Above your head, you grip the garden table as hard as you can to keep from reaching for him. Vlad’s patience is something you don’t possess. You want him to hurry up and savor you thoroughly right this minute, and can’t trust yourself not to ruin things by pulling him.

The warmth of his hand settles near yours. “I’ve thought about how you will look when you touch yourself for me when your belly is full. Can your perfection be improved?”

One of his hands taps yours. It’s a shameless prompt and you are going to shamelessly fulfill it. You release the wrought iron and skim your tingling hands down your front. He doesn’t stop you from lingering over your nipples, unmissable and still tender from his earlier touches. The warmth of his body is still above you, his chest keeping you down on the table. He has left just enough room for your hands.

“I thought you were saying you wanted to watch,” you respectfully chide. You take the moment to pinch yourself, trying to give your body sensation to help refine the needy fire his bite put into your every cell.

“I do,” he says with a sweet smile. He kisses your forehead and then slides down all the silk and skin of you until he kneels on the ground. “Show me the body of the mother of my child, and how it likes to be touched,” he adds. His hands cup the inside of each of your legs and push them open wider. “Now.”

After one last hard pinch, you slip your fingers down your front. Without being asked, you pull up the front hem of your nightdress, mindful of the slippery damp patch he created with all his grinding, and flip it onto your stomach. Before you can do anything about your underwear, he slips the cloth down and away, easy as a maid and strong as a god. Now there is nothing to impede his view.

“Show me where I tease you,” he demands softly. The tip of your middle finger goes directly to the waiting bundle of nerves at the crown of your sex, and the touch makes your leg muscles jump under his hands. You know how to touch yourself (and you are very familiar with how he touches you), but that bite has made you hungry and tender.

“Show me how you tease yourself.” You do, circling your dewy opening, staying just outside to chase the magnificent, decadent almost. Every slip of touch makes your body tense, the magic of his bite still potent. You are immediately close. It’s as though he vaulted you there.

Your eyes are rolling back when he says “Show me where I’ll fuck you to make our baby,” and your head presses back against the table as you follow the curve of your body and slip a finger just inside yourself. You grind the swell of your palm against your most frantic sensitivity and he gently kissed your thigh and sighs “Yes,” onto your work. You’ve heard him sigh over paintings and fine sculpture the exact same way.

That is all he does for a while, watch you and make thoughtful, appreciative sounds. Once he hooks your fingers with his to pull you away and make your touch more shallow. “That’s mine,” he corrects, as gently and calmly as he might guide a horse. All it does is get you closer, close enough to relax into what you are doing and clutch at the certainty of it in your mind. Close enough that your lips are trembling around an unvoiced word when he says “Stop. That will do.”

Your limbs shake and your hands indignantly flex in rebellion as you take them away. He does not usually deny you like this. Your frustration is difficult to endure. Like labor will be, someday.

Amused, if his smile is anything to go on, he stands and slips one hand up the inside of your leg to cup the slick mess of your center. “I want you to get pregnant this time,” he explains. The slight breathiness of his voice is the only sign he is not perfectly calm. “So I want you to come when I fill you up, to ease the way.”

Your eyes are still wide eyed from how he overwhelms you with that gently-spoken depravity when he leans down to kiss your forehead with a saint’s patience. He whispers “And before that, on my tongue.”

You are near tears when he slides down your body once more, then shocked out of them when he rips your nightdress right up the middle without a word. The destruction of the silk is noisy, and you are stunned into silence as the softness of the frayed edges fan down your sides. It tickles. He doesn’t apologize and you know he’s not sorry. He does say, “We’ll need bigger gowns, hmm?” with a note of predatory delight.

Vlad touches you with his palms, spreading you open to the night air. He must be able to see how being exposed like this makes you twitch inside, and you feel a terribly fierce burn in your cheeks despite your need. His thumbs stroke your wetness and all his touch says this place is mine.

You clench again, your sex and your hands at your sides, around nothing. You wish he felt some need to hurry. You’re beyond worked up and getting desperate.

“Frustrated little mother,” he says warmly. “Adorable.” Finally, gently, he works a finger inside. You feel the way your body has made the way so easy for him, plumped up but soft inside— you have all the give of a budding rose. It can’t possibly be much work at all to press into you.

“This is where it will happen,” he whispers. You focus on breathing and keeping your drool in your mouth and, of course, on the magnificent feeling of him stroking your walls. It’s like he’s painting with his finger, trying to get pigment in your crevices, and when he curves a long touch down one side of your walls your hips shift up toward him, desperate to give him a more accessible canvas. You moan without restraint at the first wet slip of his tongue, and your hands shoot down to bury themselves in his hair again. You would never dare to press him, you just… need him to know that you want him there. He has no caution of applying his own pressure, and he does, immediately: a warm press of his tongue, the bright touch of him wide and directly under the nubbin it feels like he has made a needle of sensitivity. You are his clay and stone and Galatea, his to shape to suit his wishes. He rubs his cheek against your thigh without touching where you need him.

As he pulls his finger out, slow as a sarabande, he says, “I won’t be able to talk now. Why don’t you spend some time begging?”

He gives you no time to consider otherwise; it feels like his entire mouth is on you immediately, his heat demanding your submission as he licks a forceful line up your seam and then his focus is where you have needed him all along.

“Pleeeeease,” you have no trouble saying into the night air. He moves his tongue too well for you to be sure, but you think you feel him smile. He does like to get his way.

You beg him for his tongue and then, beyond shame and in the grip of his interest, you beg him for his children. “Vlad, I want— hmmmmmn, please— I want you to do it, I want you to fill me up, want it to take, want a baby,” and you have no time to feel embarrassed by your babbling before his snarl of pleasure shakes you to your core. He has never made this sound before, so unrefined and sharp and passionate. And since he is pressed so close, it has nowhere to go but up into your body so it can shake your bones and ready your womb. The feeling makes you beg him all over again.

He pulls himself away— and when he does he is again elegantly, slow, effortless, beautiful, maddeningly tranquil despite the snarl— to say “I told you: on my tongue first.” It’s the gentlest form of reproach, a thorn through a stack of glossy green leaves thick enough to cushion you from any threat.

And you had forgotten! Though he seems determined not to let you forget it again when he puts the flat of his tongue back against your body. It feels like being massaged by a petal, by a wide, healthy succulent. You see a hundred leaves uncurling and a thousand flowers bursting from bud to bloom and you can’t hold on any more—

All you can do is send a throaty call up to the moon, to let her know what Vlad is doing to you. And then you pant, your jaw working as though you’ve released something from your mouth instead of your soul.

“May that,” he says, and then smears his face against the inside of your thigh, “be the last time you taste that way.”

As ever, the calm in his teasing makes your insides twist with pleasure. It’s as though your body remembers how it feels to be deeply filled by him and is trying to remind you by making all the places he can touch yearn for him at once. As if you weren’t already doing so with your entire being.

When he stands, he flicks open his belt with his usual effortlessness, and it is only the directness of the effort that keeps you from yanking at his clothing. Instead, you watch your body breathe as you look down your belly to see him release his flawless cock into the night air. As he pumps himself you remember that curious sense of succulence when he made you come. You’ve had him in your hands, too, and you know this will be even better. The way he fills you always stutters your breathing... it makes you feel so whole, so tenderly cradled inside and out. And this time he’ll be fucking you with that exquisite purpose of his. He is watching you now, his eyes narrowed in his way of showing pleasure without smiling. He looks soft and adoring. How will he hold your children? You want to see it.

Over his shoulder, you see one of the castle windows go warm with the light of a fresh candle. It is Faust’s room, if you’re not mistaken. You look back at Vlad and gesture toward the window with your eyes. He actually smiles, then, and does not turn away from you in the slightest.

“He is a doctor,” he says simply, finishing with his trousers. “Of a sort. Let him watch, I will not be stopped. And you are not allowed to think of other men tonight.” It would be frosty at best coming from any other person, but from Vlad the words are only quiet, unshakeable confidence. He talks like a king.

You shudder so hard your back teeth chatter, more from recognition of his power than from the idea of exposure. There is no way this would be the first time the other castle residents have heard you.

“I hope you are ready,” Vlad says, waiting for your attention with a gentle edge in his voice— something like the side of a well-used bookcase, not a knife. As he leans over you there is a comfortable familiarity in his closeness. There is also certainty to it; you can tell he has no intention of leaving your body again. His hardness is heavy against you, wonderfully solid and thick. The feel of it makes you whimper as he slowly brings his belly down to yours. His shirt is so, so soft against your skin.

He begins to grind again, but this time the contact is richer, smoother. And this time there is nothing between you.

“When I make love to you when you are carrying, we will have to be careful,” he says quietly. “But you are not carrying yet, so tonight all my care will go toward fucking a child into you. Understand?”

The hush of his voice makes your mouth go dry. “Please,” you whisper. You shift your hips to rub yourself against him, eager. His thickness makes the lips of your sex spread. Some other day you want to make yourself come simply by rocking against him, feeling how you make him slippery. But now you want him to make you a mother.

He shushes you affectionately and you cannot help but think of how he’ll do the same to your children. This new life is in your head already. You don’t want it to get out of your head, you want it to become real. You can’t stop thinking about it until it does.

He keeps his face just enough away from yours that you can look into his eyes without getting dizzy. You know better than to look away. He whispers, “I want to know what sound you will make when it happens.” He shifts his stance so he can stroke you with the head of his cock, and he thumbs it down against you without pushing inside. “Soft songs?” he muses, stroking down so he presses your clit with a gentleman’s grace. “An aria?” He makes a series of staccato taps to your weakness, like an aria turned to touch. “Or perhaps,” he suggests, still so very calm despite the way he is pressing his cock against your opening, “an earthier sound altogether. You know I love it when you moan for me.”

You moan then because you cannot live another moment without doing so.

“Like that,” he says indulgently, and takes his hand away, and begins to push inside. “Perhaps it will be like that.”

As he slowly slides in, you moan again, so long you nearly lose your breath, so loud there is no way the doctor in the castle can’t hear you. Vlad fits in you like a key, making your sex part for every centimeter until he is pressed to you. Home.

“Deep in here,” he says. With his face so close you notice the way he is speaking through his teeth. “Deep,” he repeats, and presses until your body cannot give any more against the table. He has made you strong enough to take this.

He does not pull out as far as he usually does. He keeps his body close to yours and stays well buried in your heat. Very gently, he orders “Take it,” as he presses you down as far as he can. There is tranquility in him, an endless well of stability and certainty. If he is this confident in his desire, you only need to go along with it. He will keep you safe. And he will keep your children safe. “That is your only purpose tonight,” he whispers. “To accept the first of my children. You can let me do everything else, it is my pleasure to have you like this.” 

You don’t really have the ability to do much else, with him filling and pinning you so completely. Thankfully he’s made his very appealing case and you are willing, you are so willing.

He makes slow strokes, short ones that keep him deep inside you, and watches your face so carefully you feel like he has pinned you there, too. “I do not want to get too far from your womb,” he admits, with a small chuckle. “Silly of me.”

The sound of your breath and of each gentle but decisive slap of his body against yours rules the air for a few minutes.

“What is your purpose?” he asks.

You begin to answer but he snaps his hips back and then back to you, so your response becomes a wail of nonsense. He repeats the process of asking his question, waiting, and then destroying your answer several times, until you fell as though he has lovingly battered open the way to your womb. You are trembling and the summery pollen-copper scent of your blood is in the air from where you have gripped the wrought iron too tightly.

“To accept your children!” you manage to wail.

“That’s right, love,” he praises, “Though just the first for now. We will have more another time.” He is pressing the head of his cock against the tiny notch of your body where you can tell he plans to aim his release. It… twinges, it doesn’t hurt. But you feel it.

“You will feel all of it,” he whispers. “And your body will take it. Put your arms around me and relax, remember that this is my pleasure.”

You can’t move your body up to him, but you throw your arms around him so forcefully he laughs again and rubs the tip of his nose against yours, just as he rubs the tip of him against that spot again.

“One day perhaps I’ll push through and be more direct,” he says sweetly. It’s a violent thought but he has never hurt you. He’s made you strong enough for anything. You know he would make you enjoy it. “It will be easier in time.”

You just cling and feel and crave him as he goes back to slowly fucking you, massaging both your bodies with his careful thrusts. One thrust is slightly higher and it catches your top wall and bends one of your legs like a reflex. He slows, laughs, and reaches down to bend the other, too. He trails his hand down to your naked foot and caresses the arch like you are his Cendrillon. You squeeze around him in gratitude.

Unexpectedly, he gasps. “Do that again,” he demands. “It opened you.”

You squeeze again. You can’t feel it opening anything, only tightening, but he drops his head to your shoulder and groans quietly. And picks up speed. The way he drags out and forces all the way back into you is heaven. You do it once more.

“I want to be inside you every way I can,” he rasps in your ear. “Let me.”

You nod again, bounced by the way he’s fucking you. He slides an arm around your hip with no thought for the iron beneath your body and teases the heat of your rim before pressing his fingertip inside. Immediately he uses it to press toward his cock, just on the other side of something thin and vulnerable inside you, and when you are gasping he bites you in earnest. Sharp. Deep.

The pleasure shimmers behind your eyelids for one silent second and then it births a galaxy of brightness, explosive and hot and wet. His movement in you, finger and fangs and cock, strokes your every muscle, suspending you in a bliss more intense than anything he has yet given you. You feel yourself shake and gush over him and you hear every thick, low note of his satisfied hum. So low in his throat it might as well be a growl.

“Take. it.” he hisses, flesh of your neck still held between his teeth. You sob out agreement but he keeps talking. “I am going to soak your insides until there is no way you won’t be carrying my child. When the sun rises, you will be seeded, do you understand?”

You nod, tight and quick. He is strong inside you, and of course his force doesn’t hurt you at all, but it is not something that can be denied. Not the force of his body or his voice.

He releases your neck to say “Grow, my little garden,” like a spell laid into your ear, and then he begins to spill-- shoot-- soak you, just as he promised. He is pressed up against that space in you, so tightly fitted that you swear you can feel every pulse of his cum, gently warm as always. What does not manage to go deeper into you instead seeps out around that point of connection.

What does go deeper into you feels like destiny. All the lines of a story woven together into something beautiful. It’s so warm and so good that you groan and tiredly attempt to tighten your arms around him.

“Please stay,” you mumble, exhaustion winning its war against you. You don’t want to let go of him or this beautiful, important moment, but the warmth makes you sluggish and the bite and your release don’t do your wakefulness any favors.

He kisses each of your closed eyelids. “You feel it,” he says. Not a question. “Good girl.” He does stay in you, but pulls his hand away from your backside, shushing you when you fidget and whine. Lightly, he licks at the fresh wound on your neck. It will be gone by morning, but it will take the hours of the night to heal.

You don’t mind. You like it when he bites you.

“All filled up and swollen,” he murmurs. He kisses your jaw. “And soon your belly, too. Will you tell our child fairy tales?”

You don’t think you manage to answer before you fall under the dark of your eyelids. You wake in his arms as he is carrying you back to the castle, up the moonlit garden path.

“Use your hands,” he whispers.

As though they have ears of their own, her fingers quickly adjust her hold on her skirt, bunched up to show him everything. And it is everything— he already had her step out of her panties. She is so ready to make Seth happy she does not hesitate to use both her pointer fingers to spread her lips for him. She can tell from the slipperiness that they are shiny, and no wonder: he was whispering to her in the kitchen while she did the lunch dishes. Now there is no one here but the two of them, and though she is standing and he is kneeling, his presence in the room is massive. She likes the way it makes her feel enveloped.

“Oh, honey,” he says, touching her with a bare finger. She can feel that a string of her arousal connects them until he pulls his finger slowly away and it falls silently apart. “Have you been needing me?”

“Yes,” she confesses, hoping he has time to give her what she needs. Seth knows how to do it just right. And he always says the nicest things that make her skin feel like it is coming awake. The way he’s bright his finger back to toy with her is promising but she knows she has to be good, he likes to be able to say those nice things and she has to be worthy of them.

He hums and tells her she’s so pretty and honest, and he gives her one wide, fast lick that makes her wail. But she doesn’t drop her skirt. And she doesn’t move her fingers even though her brain screams at her to reach for him! She knows she’s not allowed. He’ll tell her when she can. It’s so comforting to know he will tell her.

“You’re being so obedient, so honest,” he tells her. “You’re a good girl who listens. I like that.”

Her skin blooms, like a peony, a camellia, a zinnia; so many soft petals uncurling, making the hairs on her arms stand on end.

“Can you be even better and trust me to hold you up, sweetheart?”

She mmhmms and tries not to look desperate when she nods, but he smiles at her the way he does when he sees she’s getting anxious. He presses his thumb on her just a little harder and sweeter and her legs go so jittery it’s difficult to keep herself upright when his other hand slides up the back of her leg and raises her knee. He can get in closer now, and he does. Another wide lick, so slow she can feel the exact shape of his tongue and live suspended in anticipation of when the end of it will curl under her little nub and then flick it.

He makes her wait for it. Seth keeps his tongue flat against her, pushing between the lips of her weeping sex like he’s collecting nectar, and gently sets her leg behind his shoulder. Then he finishes the lick, and when he flicks her he does it twice, once what she expected, going up, and then again coming back down, like a wet, gentle lashing.

The sound that comes out of her is too loud. She unthinkingly lets go of her skirt with one hand, intending to clasp it over her mouth, but his hand is around her wrist before she quite realizes what she’s done.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. His voice is so unfailingly even, patient as an educator and commanding as a king. “I closed the door, and that’s as much as you’ll get, Alice. Now please be good for me and do what I told you to do.”

“Yes,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.” His hand stays on her wrist like a bracelet as she gets the material back into her hand and holds it up. A curtain for their second act.

He releases her and strokes the skin of her thighs as he kisses both of them. Every touch is gentle and there are little licks in between the kisses, so she knows he’s not upset. “You don’t have to apologize, sweetheart. Just be careful. I know you want to be good.”

She nods fiercely again. Being good for him-- and having him be good to her-- is all she wants to do right now. Maybe all she wants to do ever.

“I’m going to put my mouth on you again,” he promises her sweetly. “Four time. What are you going to do?”

“Love it,” she confesses. “And keep my skirt up.”

He looks deeply pleased. “Oh, that’s my good girl. I think I’ll make it eight instead.”

“Please,” she whimpers.

He shushes her and sucks on a spot inside her thigh. “Be so good I can’t help but tell you, and I will.” Light nibbles make a path from the spot where he was to where he promised to go.

“Eight,” he says slowly, against her most sensitive skin. His breath is warm and sets her quivering all over again. “Behave and it will be more, I promise. You know I want to be right here, don’t you?”

She suspects he is drawing out the talking because he likes to watch the way she slickens. And everything about what he is saying makes her body want to make it as easy as it can for him to have what he wants. His tongue is, of course, incredible, but his breath on her, the warmth of his words... This is a kind of torture she hasn’t endured much of before. It’s marvelous. She hopes he’ll do it again. She hopes he’ll keep going right now.

“Right here in heaven,” he singsongs, still slowly. He is definitely trying to draw this out. She squeezes her muscles, just in case there’s something hiding inside that he can watch ooze out of her to show how good she can be. “Right here to see and taste it all,” he tells her before he kisses her slit and moves his face from side to side like he’s listening to music. It drags the tip of his tongue over her entrance and she grips her skirt like her life depends on it. Seth’s tongue slides on the wetness he brought from his mouth into her and the wetness he found, slippery and so, so wanting.

“Everything about you is just so sweet and good,” he praises. “You make me want to take you right here in the kitchen, did you know that? Maybe I closed the door so I could do that, instead of all this. But you’re so obedient, honey, here I am. I don’t want to leave this“-- he sucks at her and the thigh laid over his shoulder jumps so hard she almost misses the audible slurp-- “for anything.”

“Please don’t,” she begs. “Leave. Please don’t. Please please don’t.”

She can feel his mouth curve into a smile, wet against her flesh, before he does it again. Her sound of pleasure comes out her nose, squeaky and not very suppressed, despite her efforts. But she is devoting every available piece of her focus to keeping her skirt up, and most of her is honed in on the feel of him pulling her with his mouth.

When he stops, he gives her another sticky kiss and rubs his nose over the spot that makes her tense fingers flex.

“I want to preserve the beauty of this thing for as long as I can,” he says offhandedly. She quietly says he’s right to do so. It truly is a lovely fruit, golden yellow fading to the gentle red. She can smell the fruit in his hand and the ones still in the crate.

“Where did you find these?” she asks. He holds a finger up to his lips as he continues to turn the pear this way and that, and finally thumbs open the knife and begins to press the tip into the fruit.

“Watch,” he whispers. She leans closer. There’s a bead of clear, fragrant juice already pooling up onto the shiny blade. Will puts in more pressure and the knifetip vanishes into the fruit, taking that magic nectar with it, but unleashing the scent into the room twice as strong.

“Oh,” she says under her breath. These are wonderful!

He nods. He still does not set the pear down, and when he has sliced cleanly through, he slices again to cut a wedge, and slips it out of the fruit like a perfect piece of cake. He holds it out to her on the knife.

“Be careful,” he warns. “But not too careful, lest the magic be missed.”

She watches him with a little wariness-- the blade is very thin and her body knows it is sharp beyond what she has seen with the pear-- but opens her mouth. He tilts the knife handle up and the fruit slides right onto her waiting tongue, where it makes her smile immediately at the sweetness and freshness of the taste.

He smiles at her pleasure and cuts a piece for himself. “What do you think?” he asks before he pulls it into his mouth with his teeth.

“Delicious,” she says quickly. “Very juicy and sweet. It tastes like it smells!”

He chuckles and feeds her another bite, from his fingers this time. He doesn’t close the knife so it gets close to her face, but he’s turned the back of it to her so she has no fear. He continues cutting out individual segments for them to share, and asking her to describe the taste. Will has told her a dozen times the way she talks is enchanting and it inspires him. She’s pleased to do it.

The pear is beautiful but not very big. Soon there’s just the last would-big slice, the pip and stem still attached, in his hand. He finally sets it down, not onto the table but on a small porcelain dish with a beautiful pattern and two big chips missing from the rim. It looks like something saved from an old castle. She hopes he might like that imagining, so she tells him so.

His smile is so warm and pleased it crinkles his eyes at the corners. She was right to tell him.

“Tilt your head back for me, sweet, and swallow,” he says. She does as she asks, excited by the shift of conversation. Sometimes he likes to bite her after he’s fed her something yummy, just to prolong the sensation of pleasure from the taste. It was certainly the most delicious pear she has ever had. She folds her hands in her lap and tilts her head back for him.

There’s the faintest whistling sound when she closes her eyes, and then there’s something wet and sharp at her throat. She gasps but stays where she is, her nervous system protecting her from moving and cutting herself. The essence of the pear still clings to the blade, and it is confusing to smell something so lush and comforting and be in so much danger. Her hands squeeze each other and she looks for William’s eyes.

They are still smiling, but they are smiling less now. “Swallow,” he reminds her. She does so as minutely as possible. Her heart is beating so hard she can barely feel the kiss of the knife’s edge.

“There’s nothing so precious as trust,” Will tells her dreamily. “You stay put now, my princess of the pear.”

He scrapes the knife down her throat, pressing more down than in. It’s the way she imagines a man would be shaved in this time. It makes her tremble, but he does not seem to want to hurt her, only witness her endurance. She allows this.

She croaks his name and can see when he tilts his head as though he wonders what she needs. “What are you doing?” she asks in a small voice.

“Trusting that you will trust me,” he answers pointedly.

The knife is resting against the bottom of her throat, so she chances a very small nod. He hums and slowly scrapes the knife back up, beyond her neck to the underside of her chin, and does not press against her as she tilts her head back even further to keep from being cut.

“That’s beautiful,” he whispers. “That is beyond compare, my love.”

And then the knife is gone, and she lets her head fall forward and sucks in a series of deep, deep breath. She’s jittery, a little high on the thrill of survival, and of pleasing him.

“Not done yet, ma poire,” he warns gleefully. “And in time I’ll see your pearlike shape, don’t you forget.”

Her face goes terribly hot, but she nods. His games do usually end that way. He is obsessed with her hips.

“Show me your palms, sweet,” he orders. She looks up at him with some apprehension, but raises her hands. He presses a kiss to the well of one palm, then replaces his mouth with the knife. She can see now how it flashes in the light, well-maintained. The handle is made of something red with an inlay that might be mother of pearl. The truth of it is hidden in his hand.

She knows she should be more worried about her own hand. But she allows this.

“If you are truly still,” Will whispers, “Then you will never be split, and you have nothing to fear.” She has a hard time believing him as he presses the knife-- gently, but she feels it-- into the give of her palm. She whimpers in her panic but does not move her hand (though it does shake as he continues to press even after her fearful sound), and just as she is resolving that she must move and save herself, he lifts the knife away with a flourish and returns his mouth to the spot, holding the back of her hand with his free one and kissing her like an ardent courtier. She is too stunned to do anything but allow this.

“It’s the most magnificent,” he tells her between kisses. “We shall do the other for symmetry, and then be done. Agreed?”

She opens her mouth to say something and a vulnerable sound falls out of her. He laughs merrily.

“Fear is for others,” he tells her gently. “Think of what you have already done. No more than that do I ask. Yes?”

“...Yes,” she says, though she does not feel sure. She does not think he actually wants to hurt her, but this is dangerous and it feels it. It is hard not to think that fear is precisely for her at this moment.

He calls her angel and truest beauty and fortune’s fortitude, and then he lets go of her hand and straightens up and presses the blade against her other palm with no kiss at all. She is scared, but she endures. And he’s sighing with so much pleasure he is nearly groaning when he finally lifts the knife away from her again and uses it to slice off the pip and stem from the remaining piece of pear on the once-magnificent plated.

He offers it to her slowly, his hand cupped under the knife to catch the fruit if it should fall. “A treasure for a treasure,” he murmurs, looking into her eyes. “The last piece is yours. Have no fear.”

She sighs in relief and leans forward toward the still knife. She is still a bit shakey with relief, so she doesn’t trust herself to successfully pull the end of the pear into her mouth. When her eyes go to his he nods immediately and says “Now I will be perfectly still. It is a promise.”

So she opens her mouth a little to go over the pear and the knife, and though he is just as still as he promised to be, more still than she managed, she cannot yet be as still as she must. So there is the slightest sudden sting on her tongue beneath the knife as she pulls back. Less than a light papercut, far more surprising than painful, but enough to flavor the pear with salt and metal. If she’s honest, it is oddly complementary, and she swallows thoughtfully. Somehow the texture and sugar of the pear do not even make it burn. It has already faded.

“Are you alright?” William asks. He drops the knife on the table and goes to his knees at her feet. He is the picture of concern. “Forgive me, I did not mean to...”

She shakes her head and a hand, just to show him she is fine. “Just a mistake,” she tells him. “It must be a tiny cut, it doesn’t even hurt any more.“

“Let me see,” he pleads. She smiles and looks away, but shows him her tongue.

“Scarlet upon perfect pink,” he muses. When he stands he is very close to her, and there is a delicious and dark intent in his face. “May I taste?” he whispers as he leans down to her face.

The frame creaks beneath her when she sits on the cushion (a little bit of stuffing bleeds upwards through a rip in the fabric), but she is convinced nothing could break this chair if they haven’t already.

“Hands out, my lady love,” he says sadly. “This is for your own good.”

The cuffs are cold and heavy. It is only that she knows their weight, knows him, that keeps her from being too sad about all this.

“Will, I--”

“Do NOT!” he says immediately. “Do not,” he repeats with a desperate little smile and a soft laugh that begs her to understand. She’s not sure she does, but she nods.

“That’s so much better,” he tells her, tugging the chain between the thick manacles. “Now, tell me... what do you love in this world, lovely girl?”

She names her favorite food, something they’ve shared together countless times. She describes her favorite flower and her favorite pieces of music. He nods for all of this, listening to her very solemnly and not appearing frantic, which she takes to mean he knows she will put him in the very last, most special space on her list.

“And you, William,” she finally says. “I love you most.”

He looks like he will cry. “Is that the real truth?” he asks.

She nods, mimicking his solemnity. “It is.”

And that is somehow all it takes before he is on his knees before her, clasping her hands as though there is no iron around her wrists, calling her good and beautiful and so dear. He pulls her up gently, puts one of his hands behind her back, and guides her to his bed. “Sit here,” he urges, “My beauty. Divine.”

His mattress is still so new, soft and clean.

“My lovely love,” he croons, tracing her hairline from the middle of her forehead to her ear. “Made so well, with the most excellent symmetry, she--” he stops, shakes his head, kisses the start of her nose and breathes her in. He whispers “She would never look at a silver prince, no?”

“We only talked,” she is eager to tell him how little Vlad means to her. “About a flower.”

He whimpers. “No no, that is worse than you know,” he says. “Now we must cover up your eyes and ears, too, to keep you from being bewitched by night’s royalty.”

Ah, so that’s what the pretty red cloth was for. “Alright,” she says, and she closes her eyes and leans forward into the fabric as he wraps the silk around her head. She can feel his fingertips smoothing things down, careful not to catch any of her hair in the knot.

“My pretty girl, mine,” he says. She can still hear him quite well, the fabric does not keep out his voice nearly as well as it blocks her sight. “All mine,” he continues, stroking both her cheeks, both sides of her throat. “What a heavenly, pliant, graceful being has alighted upon my very bed.”

She tries not to smile.

“She is bound!” he cries. The cuffs are still heavy even with her hands in her lap, and she thinks yes, you bound me, sweetheart, but he is working at the buttons of her blouse so she supposes that’s what he was talking about.

“A thousand spells to encase a princess, one for each of her virtues,” he muses. He is stroking the skin of her chest and stomach as he opens her shirt.

“Skin so sweet and smooth is not seen every age,” he says. Right against the skin he’s talking about. It tickles and she shifts, and his hands are on her shoulders in an instant.

“Be still and let me love you,” he says. She is not supposed to be able to hear him, but she doesn’t want him to fret. She nods. It is immediately worth the risk when he laughs.

“Such a good, obedient girl,” he praises, tugging the tails of her blouse out of her skirt. “Beautifully formed, a blessing to behold.” William nudges up her chin up so he can suck at the base of her throat, and when he can take in no more air he expels it against her in a groan. “There is no orchard on earth or heaven that smells half so sweet.”

When he gets this way, it makes her blush. It’s nice to be loved and she likes to be praised, but he is very poetic and intense.

She can feel his hands on the mattress, beside each of her hips. His sleeve touches her right side-- it must be inside her open shirt-- and she tries not to pull away from the gentle tickling again.

His breath is hot and wet against her shoulder, and he mouths at her without even using his teeth, a very loving sort of... chomp, she thinks, she has no other word for it. He’s murmuring soft, good, perfect and he’s doing it in that hushed voice that makes her weaker than all his compliments.

“Don’t worry,” he says sweetly. Then there’s the tiny sting of teeth, close to her neck. Only practice keeps her from tensing up against the agony that comes next, despite his warning. Between wide, gentle sucks, he shushes her whimpering. She can hear everything through her so-called protection, the wetness and his sighs and her own helpless little cries, the way she nearly puts ten holes in the fabric of her skirt, digging her fingers in at the ecstasy that floods her after that first terrible pierce.

She drifts in the sensation, unable to hold him or help herself. She comes back into her own consciousness when he’s lapping at her.

“Heaven’s blessing and gift,” he whispers. “You are delicious beyond measure.”

When she says his name, her voice comes out in a needy croak. He hushes her again.

“I know, pet, I know,” he says before he kisses her. It’s metallic and salty and warm, like a new coin in her mouth. His hands are all over her, pushing her gently to lay on the bed, to keep her from falling, to stroke and agitate and soothe her.

“I don’t know if I could sleep,” she confesses. “I’m not usually scared of storms, this one is just intense. I could keep watch instead?”

Seth and Fenrir laugh at the same time. Not at her, not unkindly. She knows they mean neither would ever let her do what they should. They’re so protective she’s surprised she was allowed to come on this mission. Seth had said something vague about it being safest for her with them, and she hadn’t had time to press on what that meant.

“Not happening,” Fenrir tells her. “But if you can’t sleep, I’ll stay up with ya.” His fingers are gentle over her hand clutching at the top of her sleeping sack.

She’s not sure, a few minutes later, quite how they pry it out of her— maybe it’s that last loud thunderclap startling her out of her wits— but she says it, right into the air where they’re both so close they can’t miss it.

“You know, this is really all a girl could want, one of you on either side of me.” It’s nervous and high again and she finishes it with a little laugh.

Seth and Fenrir aren’t laughing. It’s dark in the tent, but not so dark she can’t tell they’ve both propped themselves up on an elbow each and are looking at one another over her, still clutching the edge of the sleeping bag like it will hide what she just said.

“How d’you mean?” Fenrir asks. His voice is husky and hushed. She’s never heard him talk like that, and it makes her throat feel dry.

“Do you mean closer than we are now?” Seth’s voice is lower than usual, but just as steady as ever. It’s not a voice she thinks a person can hide from. She nods meekly.

“Much closer?” he prods.

“Yes,” she confesses on a whisper. “Much closer. Both of you... on either side.”

“They you should open your sleeping bag, Alice,” Seth whispers back, “And turn on your side so we know which one of us you want to kiss.” And as she is processing that, he adds “First.”

“Yeah, and don’t think you have to face that fox just because he thinks he’s calling the shots,” Fenrir says, audibly miffed.

Oh, oh dear. But also oh yes. She shimmies the zipper of her sleeping bag all the way open, down to her toes and back up, and turns toward Fenrir just to make up for Seth’s teasing, as though she can smooth everything over by choosing him first.

“Hi,” he whispers, freed of his own sleeping bag. He’s rolled toward her onto the open bag, and he smells woodsy in a very nice way. Like what the forest will smell like in the morning, probably. Clean and verdant. “Is it okay to--”

“Yes,” she says. She’s warm enough to feel his grin.

“Good,” he says just beyond her lips. And then he’s on them, and his arm goes around her and the other slots itself perfectly under her neck to support her. He kisses like he knows exactly what he’s doing. She has never been kissed by someone so good at all of it; the holding, the moving, the soft sounds he makes right into her mouth and the way he brings their echoes out of her throat.

There are hands coming around her, as sure as if they were being woven together, and they go right to her breast and the curve of her waist that she thought was flush against the ground. But it seems Seth is very good at finding openings. He curls his fingertips around her and it tickles in the slightest undeniable way through her nightdress.

Why on earth had she packed a nightdress for a recon mission?

Now make sure you have everything you need~, someone had told her.

He doesn’t let it stay on long. She can’t focus through Fenrir’s kisses to pay attention to how he does it, she mostly realizes that she’s been moved and that there are hands— three hands— on her breasts. If there were another pair she doesn’t think she’d be able to do the math.

She can still follow orders, though. When Seth says “Turn your head, Alice,” she breaks away from Fenrir with an apology kiss and goes to the other mouth that waits for her. He is right there, partially over her, in just the right spot that she can kiss him without stretching her neck so far it hurts. She breathes a surprised little exhalation into his mouth and Seth hums a little Mmmhmm, yes. It goes right between her legs and so does one of Fenrir’s hands, while his mouth dips to the breast Seth is holding for him.

Her cry is swallowed up in Seth’s mouth, and a mild thunderclap, nothing like what boomed before. It seems the storm outside the tent is mellowing as another increases within it. Seth doesn’t miss a beat, he swallows the sound and kisses her like he knows exactly what she’s doing, and she loses herself in it very quickly. He tastes like their dinner and spices that weren’t part of the meal. His tongue curls around hers silky and skilled.

Fenrir’s fingers are already inside her, and the way was easy. She can’t mind, she’s thrilled, but she’s a little embarrassed.

“He’s thinner,” Fenrir says against her nipple. “Just so you know.” And then he is drawing her out of herself with his mouth and she is whining into Seth because it feels so good, the fingers inside and against her, Fenrir’s sucking, Seth’s tongue.

“Longer, too,” Seth whispers. Fenrir snorts and it brings his teeth into her nipple just a little bit more and her moan is louder than thunder. The tent goes still and quiet.

“...do you like a little bit of hurt, Alice?” That’s Fenrir, but his voice is so smooth it feels like Seth.

“I don’t know,” she whispers back. “But I did like that.”

He does it again without the snort and yes. She definitely likes it. She realizes she has hands herself and she puts one on the back of each of their heads. “Good girl, Alice,” Seth purrs. The words vibrate against her tongue and she whines again, wanting to be good enough to hear that again.

“Oh?” Seth asks. He sucks gently on her lower lip, slowly enough to give her time to feel the way it builds in intensity, just like the pace of Fenrir moving his hand between her legs. “Do you want to be a good girl who gets a little pain and likes it?”

“Yes,” she warbles into his mouth, on the tail end of his question. “I do. With you both. From you both.” And then she is kissing Seth, perhaps to keep herself from saying anything else. His smile against her is sharp and sweet.

“Fenrir,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Fenrir mumbles. His hand does something different, slipping out of her but then going right back in before she can be too sad about it. One of his fingers (she definitely cannot do the math) is rubbing at the spot she touches when she’s alone and fidgety in the night, the other (others?) are inside her, except for one that is speeding her slickness back and back, other a place she has not touched, to a place she has not even dreamed of touching, only hoped they would one day touch for her. And now they are.

“Good girl,” Fenrir breathes onto her skin, and it lights her up from the inside out. She had no idea she wanted to hear that so badly. She has always wanted to be good, always wanted people to think well of her, but this is something beyond her understanding of herself before she unzipped that sleeping bag.

“Mmhmm,” Seth agrees. “She’d be an even better girl if she opened up her mouth.”

Her jaw falls open before she can even think to do anything. She wants to do everything they want, so, so very badly.

“Good girl.” Seth purrs the praise and for some reason she says “Please,” not that she even knows what she’s pleading for.

But they do. They keep kissing her, but some of their hands drift away from her and she can hear the clinking of belt buckles, the hushed sound of zippers. Not the sleeping bag kind.

“Very good,” Fenrir is chanting against her breast. He’s moving back and forth a bit, more than he was, and when she realizes his body is moving because he’s stroking himself she feels so hot she worries she will catch the tent on fire and burn it until the rain outside cools her down. No such thing happens, but he does reach for her hand and pull it down, and then he’s in her grip, impossibly smooth and promisingly rigid.

“Fenrir,” she whimpers, and Seth bites her lower lip.

“No,” he says. “You can say his name into his mouth, Alice. Who are you kissing?”

“Seth.”

“That’s my good girl.”

“Our good girl,” Fenrir says, voice a little tight. She squeezes him gratefully.

“What can you be doing with your other hand, I wonder,” Seth prompts. She shakes her other hand just to figure out where it is and immediately pulls it down from Seth’s hair to stretch down between them and there he is, ready to meet her. He is slender. Slender and perfect.

She immediately begins to stroke him, too, pleased that a rhythm comes to her that is easy to keep. She kisses him firmly and pulls her mouth away. She has to tell them something important. “I’ve never... before...” she trails off, not sure how to explain, hoping they will understand like they have so beautifully understood everything else.

Seth shushes her and rubs his cheek against hers. “Sweet girl, we know. It doesn’t matter, but we know. We’ll take good care of you. Aren’t we already?”

“Yes!” Her voice is, again, embarrassing. But she can’t stand the thought that they wouldn’t know she values how good they are being to her.

He laughs against her so lightly. Like she has made a joke over tea. It sounds terribly sinful and if Fenrir wasn’t rubbing against the spot between her spots-- heavens-- she would really, truly go up in flames. But she would much rather live for more of the feeling of the pads of his fingers slipping against her, finding every place he can press.

“She’s good,” Fenrir says, and she knows he is talking to Seth but she is still so happy he has said she is good that she turns quickly to kiss him in gratitude. His amusement is in his laugh and his tongue. “Very good,” he amends.

“I know,” Seth says, and he puts a slim hand over hers and guides her to pull him up against her. “This first,” he whispers in her ear. “It will be easier, and then Fenrir will come in and make you feel better until it all feels good, I promise. Do you believe me?”

She nods and moans, and hopes her meaning is clear.

“You are such a very, very good girl, Alice,” he says slowly. “Be just a little bit better and breathe in for me, real deep. Deep as you can.”

She can feel him still holding one of her breasts. Surely he can feel how her chest expands as she breathes just like he said.

He presses against her and she cannot gasp because she cannot take in any more air. “Breathe out now,” He whispers. “You can go as fast as you want.”

And somehow it does help, with the way he is coming into her, even though she cries into Fenrir’s mouth. Shh, shh, almost there, he tells her, and kisses her sweetly, then not so sweetly, as she trembles. And then Seth’s hips are flush with her body and she groans. Not unhappily. This is foreign, but it is not uncomfortable or bad, only filling her up somewhere she craved him. He feels wonderful.

Seth is laughing in her ear. “Thank you,” he says. “So do you, sweet girl.” He settles behind her and moves his hands to her hips. His palms are comfortably warm around her and they make her feel safe.

“You did beautifully,” Fenrir says, nudging her with his nose. “Good job.” She manages a smile that trembles only because her body does not know how to handle what she is feeling, nervous energy leaving her body through little shakes.

Fenrir shushes her again and strokes her arm. “Okay?” he asks.

She takes stock of herself through the persistent trembles. “Could... be better,” she whispers, feeling bold.

“Is that so?” he asks. He sounds lively and bright, and she wants to throw her arms around him and cling to his brilliance.

“Hmm, is that so?” Seth repeats. “You’ve been so brave. If you want something, all you have to do is ask, sweetheart. We’ll give you everything you want.”

She drifts in the silk of those words for a moment, happily dazed. Then she remembers that one of her hands is around Fenrir, and she pulls him with a little more force. To her. “This,” she breathes, stroking him over the seam he’s made so slippery. “I want this,” she tells him.

“You can have it,” Fenrir tells her. “You want to put it in yourself or you want me to do it, sweetheart?”

“You,” she whines. “Please.”

“Those are some really top-notch manners,” he tells her, and presses inside without hesitation. Her breathing becomes moans; it is all her body can do. Seth, snug inside her, pushes her against Fenrir in a way she could not dream, not even when she dreamed of this. Fenrir swears and she thinks she might.

“Angel,” Seth praises after Fenrir stills, bottomed out deep inside her heat. “You could not be better. So good.”

They fuck her, there is no other word for it, but they do it gently. The give her so much praise she feels like if she opens her eyes she will blind herself by her own glow. She has never felt so surrounded (or filled) by care, glorious and sweet and full of adoration. It’s not long before she is wrung out.

Fondling you VERY openly whenever you’re alone. He doesn’t say anything, just opens your blouse (or not) and cups your chest and hums. It’s not about teasing you, he does it for the feel of you in his hand and the way it gives him peace. But if he catches your sudden inhale when he grazes your nipple, well. What kind of humble bard would he be, to leave a lady in so tragic a state? Surely he should repeat the contact and make sure all is well. No? That’s a curious sound, and a strange change of firmness. Hmm, a closer inspection is clearly necessary... hope you didn’t like that shirt too much/rip and also RRRRIIIIPPPP* that’s better, now he can see

Giving you many gifts for writing and sketching: fine paper and pens, a truly lovely wooden lap desk so you can sit anywhere you’d like. And he would love to see you sit with it in that particular wine-colored chair, perhaps in only your slip? No? That’s such a shame... perhaps in nothing, is that what you were angling for? Beguiling temptress!

His hope that you are playing coy (or outright flirting) seriously springs eternal. He’ll never be disappointed by whatever you’re doing, but when you are flirting prepare for SurprisedShakeskachu.jpeg because the man cannot believe he’s getting what he wants.