"i can explain-" you yelped as she tossed you onto the bed, watching you bounce on the silk sheets. before you can fully sit up, her hand pushes you down with ease, laying you flat on your back.

"you disobeyed me. again." her eyes narrowed, hovering over you as her hands pressed yours to the bed. she felt you flex your fingers beneath her grip, unable to move beneath her.

evidently, you had interrupted what seemed to be a very important meeting for something she deemed not so important. you had barged in, not bothering to knock, not keeping track of her schedule.

you could admit that was your fault, but you didn't think she would be so angry.

"i'm sorry, my lord." you mumble, shifting around beneath her. "forgive me, please."

"i'm afraid your half-hearted apologies won't cut it." she answers you, letting go of your hands in favor of flipping you over onto your front.

she sits on the edge of the bed, dragging you across her lap. your dress is shoved over your hips, panties pulled down as her hand rests over your skin. "my lord-" you protest, and her hand quickly comes down.

before you can move, her free hand presses into your back, keeping you rooted onto her lap. "you should keep count. otherwise, we'll be starting all over again." she advises, feeling you squirm against her.

her hand comes down on your ass repeatedly, listening to your pathetic excuses in between numbers, skin warm to the touch. you wonder briefly if she's infused her own hands with pyro from how hot with shame you feel.

she finally lets up after what seems like an eternity, pulling you up to kneel on the bed, holding your jaw firmly. "next time, should you feel inclined to interrupt my schedule, use your better judgement to determine if that would be necessary. and at the very least, knock."

you nod rapidly, eyes teary. though, she doesn't let you look so downtrodden for long, bringing you in to press a chaste kiss to the top of your head. "though, you did take your punishment well." she muses, voice rumbling against your head.

you nuzzle against her, pressed up against her thigh in the most delicious way. she can feel you grinding against her gingerly, getting the tiniest bit of friction that you can from the fabric. she pulls your head to rest on her shoulder, hands finding your hips as she controls your pace.

lifting you seems to be no difficult task to her. she doesn't even hold you hard enough to bruise. she drags you along her thigh, leaving wet spots she can feel beneath her pants on her own skin.

even when you try to control the pace, wanting to grind your clit more firmly onto her thigh, you find it impossible to break loose from her. she makes sure to take her time, keeping you on the edge, not allowing you anything more than what she provides you.

“I miss you. You’ve been gone for so long, when are you coming back?”

“I’m unsure, dearest. You know this, the missions are unpredictable. This one has been a hassle.” The voice coming from the phone switches from being slightly delayed to clear and sounding like she’s almost in the room with you. Weeks of a new mission has her in Sumeru, with you at home. She hates to leave you alone, truly, she’d much rather spend her days with you, even if she doesn’t say that outright— the way her eyebrows knitted together and the way her mouth turned slightly downwards when she got the call told you enough.

“You’ve been there for weeks.” You murmur, pouting slightly and looking at your phone screen. You’re propped up on her hotel room desk, the karmaphala wood old and worn. Paperwork is strewn around, a half drunk water glass is what you balance on. She doesn’t even use her phone often. Truth is, she doesn’t know how. Arlecchino chooses to use it only to contact you and to receive calls from whatever subordinate chooses to bother her.

“I’m painfully aware, angel.” Her eyes flit up at you, moving from a piece of paper she holds between her thumb and forefinger. Red crosses move over the phone screen, and her eyebrow arches in one quick movement when she takes in exactly what you’re wearing, or rather, what she thinks you’re wearing. “Are you wearing the red bra? Underneath your shirt.”

“Yes.”

“Why? I’m not there.” Her voice, though flat, holds some sort of tease only you can pick up on. It makes you grin, and you glance away to try and contain it.

“Makes me think of you.”

“Good,” Arlecchino’s eyes glance back down at the paper before she sighs almost inaudibly. She drops it, and looks back up. “You should think of me. How often do you think of me?”

“All the time.” You adjust your position. Your phone is propped on your coffee table, you’re sprawled out on the sofa, and you move so you can properly face her. “When I wake up, when I go to sleep. Of course I do.”

“Yeah?” Arlecchino’s voice quiets a little bit, and her voice takes on a certain tone you can’t truly describe, but you know what she’s doing, especially when her eyes lock with yours, and all you can do is swallow.

“Yeah. Of course.” Your own voice is quieter, but it’s only because the eye contact makes you lose your breath for a second. She knows that. She revels in it.

“Good girl! That’s good, mon cœur.”

“You can’t. You can’t do that, Arlecchino.”

“Can’t I?” Her head tilts slightly to the left, her eyes not leaving you. The crosses have a sort of challenge to them now, it seems, they’re shining the way they weren’t a few minutes ago. “Why?”

“Because. Because I’ll get all… and you aren’t here.”

“You can’t fix it yourself?”

Your cheeks warm, and you look at your hands. You can’t. You’ve tried, if you’re honest with yourself. It works, sure, but it’s the weakest fucking orgasm you’ve had in your life. It just isn’t the same. You think it’s because it’s the fact you need her to watch you, to comment on the little reactions you have, the way your teeth graze your lip and the way your breath catches. You don’t realise you’re so lost in your thoughts that you’ve been silent for a minute or two, until her voice cuts through them.

“You can’t, can you?”

“I-“

“How pathetic,” she chuckles, but it’s a mocking laugh, and you can hear it. Her chuckles, albeit rare, are warmer than one would expect, and this one is cold. Cold in a way you like too much. Cold in a way she knows you like too much. “You can’t even fuck yourself without me? Do you need me that much, angel?”

You can only nod, mouth slightly agape, eyes wide. Arlecchino leans closer, eyes narrowing as she looks at something. You realise your eyes have dilated and she’s watching it happen. You can’t hide your reactions even if you tried to. Not with her, at least.

“What, can’t speak? Are you all brainless already? I haven’t even done anything. Are you that desperate?”

You stay staring at her, chest rising a little faster than before, and you hide the shocked grin when her voice turns into a barked command.

“Fucking answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Good! That wasn’t hard, was it?”

“No,” you feel your voice turning into a whimper, and it’s hilariously embarrassing, but she seems to have ruined you, because you don’t have shame the way you once did. “I need you. I miss you.”

“Yeah? Does my little whore need me? What a shame I’m not there, dearest,” she leans back, chair scraping the floor, and moves her legs so she’s sitting the way she does when you’re kneeling in front of her. “So let me watch, hm?”

Unsure if you’ve heard her correctly, you freeze for a split second before grinning, moving yourself once again until you’re laying with a blanket over you. You get it halfway covering you before—

“Remove the blanket.” Arlecchino says it in a way that sounds bored, but you know very well she’s perfectly entertained. When you freeze, hand on the blanket, her eyebrows raise. “You speak English, don’t you? Remove. The. Blanket.”

You’ve always liked it when she’s a little mean. You’re a masochist, after all, at least a little bit. So when she commands you, you do what she says (after being a brat for ten minutes). This time, it’s been so long that you don’t wait, you want to be good for her, so the blanket comes off, revealing the shorts you wear often as pyjamas.

“Touch yourself for me, angel,” Arlecchino’s eyes pierce you as your hand slides down your body, eyes focused on her. When your hand reaches the place you want it to go, your face doesn’t change. Not for a few seconds, anyway. When it does change, it’s as minute as your eyebrows furrowing. “Feel good?”

“How…”

“I just know, do not question my intelligence.” A warning, a stern one. She can tell your mouth is about to open, about to give some snarky remark, and her head shakes almost imperceptibly. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. You know where it’ll get you.”

So you say nothing. Instead, your breath catches and you swallow down the first noise of the evening, your hand moving under the layers of cotton. Your eyes stay locked on hers, barely blinking, head tilted to ensure that you don’t lose her gaze amidst the sensations flooding your body.

“What are you doing to yourself?” She hums, feigning curiosity. She knows very well what you’re doing, you don’t do anything unless you’re told to. In this situation, anyway.

“Just touching myself,” you breathe, voice trembling. You try to suck in a breath to calm yourself, but it shakes, and receives an “aww” from the phone.

“Was that a shaky breath I heard?”

“Be quiet.”

“Watch it,” Arlecchino warns. “Finger yourself for me.”

You stare at her dumbly, but your hand moves anyway. Her eyes watch, and her own chest heaves with whatever emotion she’s trying to hold back. The few other times she’s done this with you, she’s touched herself at the same time, and she doesn’t speak much, save from the whispered praises or degradation or whatever it is she’s chosen for that specific time. Tonight, however, she chooses to focus on you, no matter how difficult it is to not give in to her own urges. You have missed her, awfully, and you’ve been so good for her, have you not?

You gasp and your head tilts back when your fingers slide into yourself with ease. For the first time, she smiles, a genuine smile. It’s rare that she does, but it’s warm and fits her perfectly in a way that makes your heart flutter. A giggle escapes you, but it slips into a whine you can’t hide quick enough.

“What, dearest? Are you pretending I’m fucking you?” When you nod frantically, jaw slack and harsh breaths wracking your body, she speaks again. “So pretend I’m there. Slap yourself for me.”

You freeze, lifting your head up a couple inches, shock on your features.

“You like it, don’t you? You’re the one begging me to do it when we’re together.”

She has you there, and you both know it. You hesitate still, choosing to curl your fingers quickly, causing your head to flop back down. When she continues to stare however, becoming more and more unimpressed, your hand raises. You hesitate again, and then slap your cheek. It isn’t super hard, it stings, sure, but it’s not going to leave a mark, and the noise you make after tells her that you enjoyed it (too much, perhaps?).

Your fingers keep moving, curling inside of you the way she’s done to you countless times before. The familiar knot in your lower abdomen grows bigger, and your noises grow more frantic, you begin looking at her desperately.

“I can hear how wet you are, and I’m not even there. Do you understand what a pathetic whore you are for me? You’re so obedient, too,” she muses, legs spread comfortably on her chair, arms resting on the top of the chair as she sits on it, the way she sits when she knows you’re staring at her. “Think you can cum for me?”

Nodding frantically, you whimper a string of ‘pleasepleaseplease’ and ‘please don’t make me stop,’ and other unintelligible things until her voice softens and she gives you permission.

So you unravel, barely aware of the praise she’s softly muttering to you. The only thing you know is that if she were here, you’d worship her like she was the only archon in Teyvat. You cum so hard that you’re dizzy for a second and laugh breathlessly when it’s over, hiding your face.

“We don’t talk about that,” you murmur behind a hand covering your face, shoulders shaking with embarrassed giggles. Arlecchino only hums incredulously. You both know she plans to bring it up later, when she’s finally home.