"I may make a habit of it," Jone says, but the tone she'd meant-- a warning-- comes out more like a promise. She keeps her gaze on the balcony, so it doesn't flicker back to his hands, his mouth.
"Where are your rooms? You've visited me, but I've never returned the favor."
Surely that's no secret. Their movements are doubtless accounted for. It is a grand palace, but it's still a beehive in the center of an imperial capital.
Jone's face twists into an expression of utterly fond longing, which is fine because she's still staring off the balcony rather than looking at him. How fucking embarrassing, otherwise.
"Yes, yes," she says, finishing off her drink. "I may as well be converted completely to the ascetic's lifestyle."
She can't imagine he has much flair for interior design, not that she can throw stones.
That comment earns a disapproving glance from across the edge of his shoulder, though by then she's likely dropped all softness at the seams. From there he rises— tall and yet not so tall as she— setting aside utensils and his own napkin in no particular order, cast without care as the meal is done, and propriety no longer matters.
"With me, then."
He does not wait for her, not even with her mending injuries (he imagines she appreciates that over overwhelming courtesy), cutting a path through the palace before they reach the most southernmost facing spire, all cold, dark architecture offset by glass and vivid art. His home sits at the end of one such corridor, interior no less sprawling— and, precisely as she had predicted, utterly spartan. There is furniture, but perhaps it was all placed before Gabranth was offered it for his own use, as the walls are untouched, the surfaces all clean and uncluttered. He holds no possessions save for a very minimal few, and those— like an armory— take up small residence in the corner of an overwhelming space.
It's nice to be right. Jone won't crow over it-- she suspects he doesn't really care that much, beyond his general distaste for being ascribed any traits that don't require swords and gushing blood.
So sorry for him, then, that isn't what she's after. Door closed and locked behind her, she leans across its frame. "You'd have to sit down, first."
He, on the other hand, misses that crucial hint. Interprets it instead at its most baseline value— as some sort of demand that he lower his guard and prove his own easement before she’ll tend to hers in turn, and so, with little ceremony he offers her only one sidelong glance as he seats himself across a lounger that is unreasonably large. Expectant. Attentive.
Jone looks him over, finding no spark of recognition, not even the smugly petty satisfaction of earlier. Is he hiding it? Does he not care? Is he oblivious?
The last option seems the most likely, and she hates how that makes her skin itch for him, all affection and needing to touch. What a strange, strange man. She adores him.
Still, she retains her composure as she walks over to him. There is no smile, no warning, before she sits solidly in his lap. Leaning over, her head finds his shoulder, her breath finds his neck. "Now, I'm comfortable."
The noise he makes is immediate, snorting and affronted like a startled beast— yet even so, even with his fine features made unbearably sharp by intrusion, it takes only the span of a single second, two, before the tightness in his shoulders relaxes beneath her. Before his arms, held uselessly on guard at his side, rise ever so cautiously to curl around her, rough fingers perched against her spine.
In truth, perhaps without knowing so, he invited this. Wanted this. Waited for this from the moment he moved to her side.
“You are a strange creature.” He breathes, and it sounds, for all the cruel harshness of the world around them, like a compliment.
The fact that he just holds her, doesn't immediately move for more... in that moment, it means everything. Jone feels like her ribs are caught full of hot, heavy air, and she takes a moment to appreciate that fleeting warmth before Gabranth's words leave her exhaling it in a snort of laughter.
"Are you complaining?" She kisses his neck, soft and dry, almost chaste. "I can leave."
"Dare to try, and I will never forgive, nor forget it." Gabranth warns, and the darkness in his voice speaks dangerously of truth even as his pulse jump beneath her lips: he has never been a heart built to endure even the slightest removal of those he so clings to with both hands.
His hands lower, fingers dragging lines over clothing, harsh weight across the span of her hips and the tense-wrought musculature she makes her own. He is not fine-boned. He is not faint of effort. He is more acclimated to this now, and she will stay, and he believes that truth to the bone.
She curls a little closer around him for that promise. It might sound portentous and threatening, and Jone certainly appreciates that interpretation-- she enjoys it. To be wanted is a grand thing. To be wanted with such force is an unexpected compliment.
When has she ever been wanted? Chosen, based on merit, no accidents of birth or circumstance. She presses her face into his neck to hide an ungainly smile. Her breath is hot over his neck. One hand roams over his shirt, exploratory, while the other trails to his hip, squeezing to make a point.
It bears no particular inflection, no true judgment as the heat of her breath works its way across his skin, nesting hot against his high collar. Her touch is like embers, he warms himself by it.
His own, in comparison, is far more dull— but no less wanting: even without a compass in regards to this, he is decisive enough to push forward into what she offers. Tilting his head to kiss her, one hand sprawled across her thigh, the other settled high across her ribs, glancing against softer curvatures.
"That was more of a prom- mmh-" She accepts the kiss hungrily, deepening it immediately. As much as Jone is enjoying this slower, more comfortable start, she's still eager for affection.
A low sound of appreciation falls from her, and her shoulders relax in turn; she lets Gabranth hold her, to see how that feels, to give him an opportunity. She wants to know how he responds to her. She wants to know everything about him. Not petty facts, where he was born or why he's a judge. She wants to know how he reacts to every kiss, every touch she can think of. She wants all of him.
She knows that's not how anything really works. She'll never get that. But the answer in the meanwhile is to get as much as she can before this all ends in tears.
It's why she begins undoing whatever clasps or belts that hold his shirt in place, intending to run her hand over his chest, feel his breath, feel everything.
But as her hands reach to take, if such things were possible (they are) she might find him more stubborn this time than the last.
He catches her wrists, not forcefully, only halting: pressing them instead back towards her, and the clothing she still wears. She is not unwell this time— or at least not so much as before— and he in contrast now lacks the tepid uncertainty of years without a hand across skin that isn’t his own. Saying it is acclimation would be an overstatement, but the start of it? Yes. Unmistakable.
She doesn't understand why he pushes her back, but she knows a gentle rebuke when she comes across one. This is about as gentle as Gabranth gets. She won't push him.
She does sit a little straighter in his lap, kicking off her shoes so her knees can curl forward to touch one of his shoulders. She doesn't want to lose the informality of the moment, at least.
Tentative, she takes the hand that rebuffed her, and brings it to her mouth for a soft kiss. She's done this several times, now; for her, it's becoming a ritual. Be close to me when you can't be.
The kiss is pleasant. Contact craved as much as any, but— it does puzzle him then, to realize that she’s halted so completely. This, of course, is why communication is important regardless of Jone’s love of it, and as it sinks in that he isn’t getting what he wants, he corrects his own chosen tack as surely as he would in the midst of any fray: dark brows dropping, expression gone stern with agitation in need of routing.
“Undress yourself first.”
Before him. Before she thinks him the passive party to her need, her desires, for he has his own in turn.
Jone looks up from another kiss to his hand in an expression that would be coquettish if she had larger, prettier eyes. She doesn't quite laugh, but a warm huff is released over his knuckles before she starts to move. It doesn't take long to reposition herself so she's no longer sitting side-saddle in his lap, now facing him head on.
"And there I thought you wanted me to slow down. More fool me."
In truth, she's a little pleased. Her body generally isn't something to be cared for so very much. So she's smiling, crooked and smug, when she begins unbuttoning the clasps of her loose shirt, revealing nothing but herself underneath.
He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t assuage her, as she knows now he is no less wanting— or perhaps simply has been made wanton— in this moment.
Yet the moment her skin is bared he fits his hands to her, scars and smoothness, his touch holds no preference: it is all a part of her, and so it draws his attentions equally with an effortless magnetism— the rough pads of his fingers crawling across her chest, then mouth, then tongue and teeth. Less exploratory than expectant.
Whatever else she desires is hers to manage. The blockade against further ventures lifted, now that he has what he sought after.
He touches her-- kisses her-- and that's far better than she could expect. She lets out a sound, not quite a moan, but the promise of one if he continues. He wants her, and he wants her the way she wants to be wanted-- demandingly, hungrily, ceaseless. He's simply too composed to show it, and she supposes it's only just. She was the last to undress, last time.
Fair's fair, then. She wants reactions, and when he shows interest, that's something to be sought. Shucking off the last of her loose shirt and the silly metal bangles that went with it, she rises her hips a little, so she can begin untying her breeches. It leaves Gabranth's face at the height of her chest, something she thinks could either be appeasing or annoying depending on his temperament. She's never been much good at guessing that, but if she had to bet, it'd be on annoyed.
Annoyed, yes. To a certain extent, like a faint tension sharpening the catch of his teeth, the clawing pull of his blunted fingertips as he trails them parallel along the musculature framing her spine; it feels more frustratingly evasive than helpful, even if overall it works to his benefit (and so be it, he’ll not fight her over such small delays in his own roaming gratification).
Even so, when his attention rises, away from the heart of her chest— her breasts, her scars and constellation-drawn spots— it’s only to sink one deep, definitive bite against the slope of her shoulder. Not harsh enough to draw blood, but the mouthing snap of a hound that’s gone impatient in detainment.
It gets a little gasp out of her, surprised pleasure. She shouldn't read too much into it, but some stupid, silly part of her is glad he'd have her marked. She still wonders how his neck looks, if it still bears the bruises from her mouth, under that high collar.
She shucks off her breeches with greater quickness, and while the maneuver is inevitably a bit awkward, it ends with her undressed, as promised. She feels a bit put on display, awkward in that moment. He may be relatively more out of practice, but she lacks his beauty. What a pair they make.
She takes one of his hands, and guides it to her hip. The bruises he left on her, at least, are still there. Her hand goes to touch his lips, running over them carefully.
"I liked that," she says. She means the bite, but why clarify? She's not going to do all the work with talking, if he only speaks when he doesn't get his way.
She approves of his coarser nature, the jagged corners of his being; for a man long-lived in the shadow of a better reflection, there is a sort of balm in that shameless truth. To know he keeps company with someone who would not think him the worser of two broken pieces.
Comfort lives there, as it lives beneath his hand when she fits it to her hip, reiterating sallowing bruises, much like the ones across his throat. He contents himself with reviving them under pressure, gripping her with surety and purpose as he draws her near, just as he contents himself with chasing the fingertips at his lips with his teeth.
Perhaps she hopes for more. If not, he imagines he'll soon know.
She lets out another little sound of pleasure, and her hips buck unbidden. It's a little embarrassing, she knows, but she tries to keep in mind how Gabranth's made his enjoyment clear. Not as clear as she'd like, maybe, but not everyone rings like a bell. He's said he doesn't know how to talk during this. She can't change that with pure willpower or petty nagging. It just is.
She kisses his hairline, touches the softness of his mouth, breathes into his brow. "Please," she murmurs into his skin. Her free hand finds the clasp she had worked on earlier, trying to undress him. "Can I have the rest of you now?"
Maybe he likes begging. That could be interesting.
Her answer comes easily. Then again, maybe it never stood as much of a mystery, than a man with an ego as endlessly hard-wrought and adamantine as the armor that he wears, enjoys being catered to by an equal. Were she nobility, this might not be so.
Yet thankfully for the both of them, they remain blissfully leashed to their undignified pasts; there is no glimpse of guilt to be seen in the wake of that question, only the further scuff of his profile against her within reach, the shadowed glint of his eyes as his gaze upturns with vivid focus, grip left tight in roaming— before he relents in leaning back to grant her room to work.
Dressed in high collar, few buckles, a simple mixture of cloth and leather in a faint mirror of his armor, though far simpler a thing to unmake.
In the meanwhile he worries at her shoulder, chases her hips with his fingers, his knuckles, impatient. Always impatient.
For herself, she hasn't figured it out yet. As much as she likes to think herself a keen judge of character, a great deal of Gabranth remains mysterious. But she understands enough to know she can take off his shirt, now, which is enough of a blessing she'll happily take. It's off as quickly as she can manage it, and then she's back to kissing him hungrily, rocking into his touch.
She finds herself similarly impatient, after what she considers restraint. It wasn't much, she knows, but she was trying. She certainly wouldn't have expended that effort for someone else. So the hand not scratching at his chest reaches down between his legs, palming him shamelessly through thick fabric.
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"Where are your rooms? You've visited me, but I've never returned the favor."
Surely that's no secret. Their movements are doubtless accounted for. It is a grand palace, but it's still a beehive in the center of an imperial capital.
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The bluntness of a man who knows nothing else.
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"Yes, yes," she says, finishing off her drink. "I may as well be converted completely to the ascetic's lifestyle."
She can't imagine he has much flair for interior design, not that she can throw stones.
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"With me, then."
He does not wait for her, not even with her mending injuries (he imagines she appreciates that over overwhelming courtesy), cutting a path through the palace before they reach the most southernmost facing spire, all cold, dark architecture offset by glass and vivid art. His home sits at the end of one such corridor, interior no less sprawling— and, precisely as she had predicted, utterly spartan. There is furniture, but perhaps it was all placed before Gabranth was offered it for his own use, as the walls are untouched, the surfaces all clean and uncluttered. He holds no possessions save for a very minimal few, and those— like an armory— take up small residence in the corner of an overwhelming space.
"Make yourself comfortable as you like."
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So sorry for him, then, that isn't what she's after. Door closed and locked behind her, she leans across its frame. "You'd have to sit down, first."
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Is this what you wanted, Jone?
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The last option seems the most likely, and she hates how that makes her skin itch for him, all affection and needing to touch. What a strange, strange man. She adores him.
Still, she retains her composure as she walks over to him. There is no smile, no warning, before she sits solidly in his lap. Leaning over, her head finds his shoulder, her breath finds his neck. "Now, I'm comfortable."
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In truth, perhaps without knowing so, he invited this. Wanted this. Waited for this from the moment he moved to her side.
“You are a strange creature.” He breathes, and it sounds, for all the cruel harshness of the world around them, like a compliment.
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"Are you complaining?" She kisses his neck, soft and dry, almost chaste. "I can leave."
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His hands lower, fingers dragging lines over clothing, harsh weight across the span of her hips and the tense-wrought musculature she makes her own. He is not fine-boned. He is not faint of effort. He is more acclimated to this now, and she will stay, and he believes that truth to the bone.
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When has she ever been wanted? Chosen, based on merit, no accidents of birth or circumstance. She presses her face into his neck to hide an ungainly smile. Her breath is hot over his neck. One hand roams over his shirt, exploratory, while the other trails to his hip, squeezing to make a point.
"See, I really like it when you say things."
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It bears no particular inflection, no true judgment as the heat of her breath works its way across his skin, nesting hot against his high collar. Her touch is like embers, he warms himself by it.
His own, in comparison, is far more dull— but no less wanting: even without a compass in regards to this, he is decisive enough to push forward into what she offers. Tilting his head to kiss her, one hand sprawled across her thigh, the other settled high across her ribs, glancing against softer curvatures.
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A low sound of appreciation falls from her, and her shoulders relax in turn; she lets Gabranth hold her, to see how that feels, to give him an opportunity. She wants to know how he responds to her. She wants to know everything about him. Not petty facts, where he was born or why he's a judge. She wants to know how he reacts to every kiss, every touch she can think of. She wants all of him.
She knows that's not how anything really works. She'll never get that. But the answer in the meanwhile is to get as much as she can before this all ends in tears.
It's why she begins undoing whatever clasps or belts that hold his shirt in place, intending to run her hand over his chest, feel his breath, feel everything.
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He catches her wrists, not forcefully, only halting: pressing them instead back towards her, and the clothing she still wears. She is not unwell this time— or at least not so much as before— and he in contrast now lacks the tepid uncertainty of years without a hand across skin that isn’t his own. Saying it is acclimation would be an overstatement, but the start of it? Yes. Unmistakable.
And he would test how far that carries him.
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She does sit a little straighter in his lap, kicking off her shoes so her knees can curl forward to touch one of his shoulders. She doesn't want to lose the informality of the moment, at least.
Tentative, she takes the hand that rebuffed her, and brings it to her mouth for a soft kiss. She's done this several times, now; for her, it's becoming a ritual. Be close to me when you can't be.
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“Undress yourself first.”
Before him. Before she thinks him the passive party to her need, her desires, for he has his own in turn.
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"And there I thought you wanted me to slow down. More fool me."
In truth, she's a little pleased. Her body generally isn't something to be cared for so very much. So she's smiling, crooked and smug, when she begins unbuttoning the clasps of her loose shirt, revealing nothing but herself underneath.
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Yet the moment her skin is bared he fits his hands to her, scars and smoothness, his touch holds no preference: it is all a part of her, and so it draws his attentions equally with an effortless magnetism— the rough pads of his fingers crawling across her chest, then mouth, then tongue and teeth. Less exploratory than expectant.
Whatever else she desires is hers to manage. The blockade against further ventures lifted, now that he has what he sought after.
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Fair's fair, then. She wants reactions, and when he shows interest, that's something to be sought. Shucking off the last of her loose shirt and the silly metal bangles that went with it, she rises her hips a little, so she can begin untying her breeches. It leaves Gabranth's face at the height of her chest, something she thinks could either be appeasing or annoying depending on his temperament. She's never been much good at guessing that, but if she had to bet, it'd be on annoyed.
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Even so, when his attention rises, away from the heart of her chest— her breasts, her scars and constellation-drawn spots— it’s only to sink one deep, definitive bite against the slope of her shoulder. Not harsh enough to draw blood, but the mouthing snap of a hound that’s gone impatient in detainment.
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She shucks off her breeches with greater quickness, and while the maneuver is inevitably a bit awkward, it ends with her undressed, as promised. She feels a bit put on display, awkward in that moment. He may be relatively more out of practice, but she lacks his beauty. What a pair they make.
She takes one of his hands, and guides it to her hip. The bruises he left on her, at least, are still there. Her hand goes to touch his lips, running over them carefully.
"I liked that," she says. She means the bite, but why clarify? She's not going to do all the work with talking, if he only speaks when he doesn't get his way.
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Comfort lives there, as it lives beneath his hand when she fits it to her hip, reiterating sallowing bruises, much like the ones across his throat. He contents himself with reviving them under pressure, gripping her with surety and purpose as he draws her near, just as he contents himself with chasing the fingertips at his lips with his teeth.
Perhaps she hopes for more. If not, he imagines he'll soon know.
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She kisses his hairline, touches the softness of his mouth, breathes into his brow. "Please," she murmurs into his skin. Her free hand finds the clasp she had worked on earlier, trying to undress him. "Can I have the rest of you now?"
Maybe he likes begging. That could be interesting.
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Yet thankfully for the both of them, they remain blissfully leashed to their undignified pasts; there is no glimpse of guilt to be seen in the wake of that question, only the further scuff of his profile against her within reach, the shadowed glint of his eyes as his gaze upturns with vivid focus, grip left tight in roaming— before he relents in leaning back to grant her room to work.
Dressed in high collar, few buckles, a simple mixture of cloth and leather in a faint mirror of his armor, though far simpler a thing to unmake.
In the meanwhile he worries at her shoulder, chases her hips with his fingers, his knuckles, impatient. Always impatient.
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She finds herself similarly impatient, after what she considers restraint. It wasn't much, she knows, but she was trying. She certainly wouldn't have expended that effort for someone else. So the hand not scratching at his chest reaches down between his legs, palming him shamelessly through thick fabric.
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types tags from the wilderness
wilderness tags back.
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finds typo in my prior tag, promptly expires
resurrection scroll tyvm.
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