put on your warpaint.

[ For anyone who may be interested, I am moving to a new blog: fightandfury. My intention is to only write when I have the time and inclination and not to be pressured into it otherwise. Other than this, I won’t be promoting (at least for now).

[ For anyone who may be interested, I am moving to a new blog: fightandfury. My intention is to only write when I have the time and inclination and not to be pressured into it otherwise. Other than this, I won’t be promoting (at least for now).

GUYS

WE CANNOT LET THIS SLIP THROUGH OUR FINGERS

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When her hand closed on his arm, he stiffened, his head snapping around to look down at her. His muscles coiled with all the practise of one used to combat as he looked down at her. It took him a long moment to realise what she presumed to ask of him and another long moment as he decided whether or not he would grant it to her. Unfortunately, she was correct. He was tired and it took only one more look into her face to convince him to relent.

And then he remembered there was a harmless girl in his bed, and his eyes lost some of their hardness, the lines of his mouth softening as she watched. Careful as he must be to keep his expression under lock and key, Sioda didn't quite understand why she felt she knew what he was feeling. 

It wasn't as though one joining had made a difference.

"I shall never let it be said," she replied, startled by the playfulness of her own voice, and relieved to find him laying down beside her after all. "Cruel and sneaky, but always magnanimous."

His green eyes raked over her, over the lithe lines of her legs and hips and breasts and over the striped of angry red pain upon her back. He shut the window firmly and snatched up his breeches, pulling them on but not bothering to lace them. 

"But never mind that," he said, the steel gone from his voice as though it had never been there, replaced with velvet and silk as easily as the sea suddenly calms from a storm. "You must be tired, sweet. Sleep. If you expect to return to your duties, you will need your rest."

No. She wouldn't even think it, lest he see the word milling around in the honey-dregs of her eyes and accuse her.

This time, though, even the venom that laced his velvet voice did not provoke uncertainty in her. No anger or fear rose to meet him; she was too tired, too sore, and all together too content for any of that.

"No sounds of pleasure," she agreed at a murmur, her mouth taking on the hint of a wry smile. They both knew the falseness of that statement now, but he made to turn from her again. Her hand shot out before she had a chance to think, catching his forearm before he could flee completely.

"My men will think whatever they wish," he said, "but will say nothing. They will not dare to. Many have been called to my quarters to be punished for misdeeds, but never overnight. They might wonder if you are my new form of entertainment. They whisper of my cruelty and taste for pain. Why not give them something more to whisper about? But if they ask of you what transpired in here or what you have done to warrant such a punishment, I trust you know to say nothing. Better if you told them I had forbidden you to speak of it."

He dipped the rag once more into the water, resuming his task after a moment’s pause, “But they will think many things. They will have heard your cries tonight as well as they heard your screams before. They will think me cruel and cold and merciless. As they should. They will fear me, they will whisper my name and my reputation will grow. But I care not.”

She did not say a word while he spoke, but she felt the moment when he'd finished cleaning her many wounds. As he made to stand, she maneuvered herself onto her side, leaning up on one elbow with her head in her hand as her eyes followed his shadow over to the window. Her back was alive with pain again, but she stubbornly pressed it to the back of her mind and turned her focus to their conversation.

There was a pause between when he finished and she began, a pause in which she seemed to be studying him, scrutinizing in the darkness. To herself, she thought that he was indeed cold and merciless, and the men were wise to fear him.

But there was more than that. What more there was beneath the surface, Sioda did not yet know. Perhaps she would not be so lucky as to ever know him completely, but some intrigue in this time of secrecy and loneliness would not go amiss. She sought the answers.

"They will," she agreed, this statement serving as her acquiescence; she would do as he said, should anyone ask. But he did care, she thought, eyes narrowing slightly, tracing the shape of him in the starlight. They would not have the right of it, not entirely.

Her movements were slow and sluggish and his hand snapped out to take her chin in his grip, forcing her face upwards so he could look at her. There was the faintest glimmer in the depths of her eyes of doubt and uncertainty. That would never do. He held her gaze for a long moment. A long moment in which the silence spun between them like a skein of wool being twisted into thread. His eyes stared deeply into hers, reading the hesitation in her heart. And then, slowly, sweetly, tenderly, he leaned in to press his lips to her forehead. He kissed her brow for a long moment, his hand smoothing her chopped hair, soothing her. 

He was not one for emotion. He was not one for sentiment. He loathed it. But what he loathed even more was someone who did not appreciate the gifts that had been given them. He had awarded this woman a noble place in his bed and she doubted him, she doubted her worthiness. He would not have chosen her had she not been appealing to him. 

Though neither of them had spoken a word to the other in quite some time, they were distinctly communicating. So it continued, their quiet understanding, as he gradually reawakened the stripes of fire that painted her back. She'd have fallen asleep beneath his gentle hands, had it not been for the sting.

You are not all hard edges, she thought, using her arms to pillow her cheek. He was a puzzle, one she was not sure she would ever be able to solve, but she had begun to try. She had set her sights now, and there was no going back.

Perhaps he did not care for sentimentality. She ought to be more careful with emotion, but he had demanded her trust and she had given it. Did he not like the way it looked?

With great effort, he pushed her away, rolling her onto her side and stumbling to his feet, catching a hold of the bedpost with one hand, his shoulders hunching and his own muscles tensing as he stroked himself firmly, his seed dripping from his cock onto the roughened floorboards of his cabin as he let out a soft exhale, like he had been struck in his gut, the air forced past his lips as he spilled into his own hand. 

He leaned his shoulder heavily against the bedpost, his lashes fluttering closed as he let himself enjoy his pleasure for a moment before straightening and observing the slender siren sprawled across his bed, trembling with pleasure, her back striped with pain. A sharp smile spread across his lips.

She did not feel abandoned for long, her desire finding itself as confused as everything else, the part of her that was undoubtedly woman honing in on the sight of a tall, beautifully built man seeking his release with her. Never before had she been so intimate with another person, and she watched each drop of his desire fall with hunger in her eyes.

Sioda could not form words to reply to him. Not yet. 

Were she a cat, however, she might have been purring.