A great deal of heady sensations, all at once. Jone returns what she can, scratching and biting-- he must love that, or he'd have complained by now-- and saying that name, over and over in his ear, his shoulder, his throat. Every bit of skin she can touch with her mouth. As sexual proclivities go, pretending to be someone else in bed is tame. Whoever Noah is, he must be... very fit.
If she flits a hand down to occasionally adjust his form, there are surely worse things. He must be used to her wanton demands by now. The old staple fits into this new frame. "Harder, Noah, please-"
It does not occur to him that she lacks context for his request. It also does not matter, as the means is drowned beneath the surface of sensation it weaves when combined with touch and tension and roaming, pinpoint demand: her fingers direct him, her requests inspire fervor— he snaps his teeth at her shoulder, before the impatient, near painful buildup of frictionless yearning is unbearable.
He cannot endure more without shared sensation, and so his fingertips withdraw in a hurried rush of movement, fleeing instead towards the waistband of his trousers, tugging harshly at them to free himself.
Ungraceful compared to his usual deft precision, borne of impossible avidity, it does not matter. Nothing matters, save for the hold he fixes on her hips when he levels himself against her— when he trades the rough set of scarred fingertips for the span of his own arousal, breath snared in the base of his throat.
She still feels lit up like a firework, waiting to go off, and there he is, bearing down. Watching him fumble with his drawers is a treat. Watching him undress, she could do that for hours. She's about to whistle, just to see if he reacts at all, when he's pinned her down again, and she falls back onto the bed laughing.
She rubs a wrist against a sharp cheekbone, fingers tracing his ear, and has a moment to murmur something sweet and stupid before he's on her again. "I could look at you for an age, Noah."
He is too lost to pressure and relief, both indescribably intertwined, to speak as normally he would. Be dignified, be courteous, be respectful, be aware— consider purpose and person: a tireless list of procedures to be kept to at all times, and in that moment all those failsafes fail him, prompting an unsteady, gritted sound as he eases into place. As he finds the meager start of a canting rhythm.
His face falls across her forearm, eyes shut. Inhale slow, words unsteady.
If she were in a more analytical mode-- in any mode but the one she's in, mind stretched taunt with overwhelming sensation-- she would wonder at this. How does it factor into the name? Would he say this normally? How do these elements aligh?
As it is, she only has him to contend with. She can remember what name to use, and not much else. One hand draws up, petting at the nape of his neck. "Not for you. Never for you."
It is a terrible burden, to be loved. To love. He has lost the shape of it to bitterness, to time— but the sound of her voice and the promises she holds are like the first gracing breaths of life in dulled ash, and were he not so uninhibited in this moment, he might shy from them like something wounded.
Like a man who has fit himself into the hollows of cold armor, holding fast to it for frigid relief.
Instead, she has it all. All. Every fragment of him that there is to offer in this moment, every roll and rise of his hips, as he sinks his teeth into the map of her already marked skin, as he lifts her higher to drag that much harder against her with each friction-laced thrust— there is no point where his loyalty ends, and his unconditional endearment begins.
In truth, Jone's pillow talk follows a rather predictable route. Gasping, begging, and reassuring. She is a creature of need, and finds great attraction in the needs of others. Gabranth has never truly expressed any, but the way he responds to her unbidden reassurances isn't a detriment. He barely responds to her at all, and when he does-- in moments like this-- she feels just that much more whole.
"I have you," she croons, more quiet this time than last. What has made this moment more intimate? She doesn't want it found by ease-dropping servants, for reasons that have nothing to do with the strategy of privacy. She is selfish and hungry for this closeness, and wants none of it shared with anyone, ever. Let this one little corner of their broken world be just this, folded away and hidden. "Oh, Noah, love, I'll never let you go."
Somewhere else he would hush this talk. It is too open, too constant— too easily overheard where walls run thin as paper. But if there is any benefit to the relief found in his own quarters, it is the promise that what occurs here remains isolated, cut off from the palace and all hungry whispers.
Gabranth is a paranoid man, at times, though not without learned reason.
Yet here he leaves all semblance of those instincts behind, rutting harsh and heavy, panting as though she drives him to this with her touch alone, fingertips curled tight against the muscle of her back, bruising. Needing. Anchored as the beating of her heart. He stops none of it.
And his breath hitches high. Sharp. He is nearing the pitching drop of something intangible and potent, his voice whining through his teeth as he rushes after it in starved chase.
She can just hear it in time to predict it. Jone has learned his breaths speak more than his words, and listens keenly. Where others would give her a warning, he starts breathing through his teeth.
Her legs unlock from the vice around his middle, ankle over ankle. Now she can draw one hand, fingers spread like claws, up his spine. Speaking directly into his ear, she says what she wants him to think about when he hits the top. "I have you, Noah; I always will."
Those words, wanted as they are, fail to register in full weight where white-hot bliss invades his senses, consuming everything but the barest notion of her presence— but perhaps it is unnecessary, for she has already made her promise iron-bound, long before this moment.
He would not be here otherwise, wound into her hold, embedded so deeply within her that she is— for all the reach of his unmoored senses— the very air he draws upon with every panting breath.
Time and time again she has strained to do as he has bid, and it was Jone who would have keenly let her heart beat its last so that his might yet continue onward. She grants him truth in darker places. She does more for him than his own blood has ever managed.
There is nothing of regret to be found within him when at last he sinks into her arms, his head across her breast, cheek pressed just above her heart— unmade. Unguarded.
It's becoming a bit routine, sliding her hand down afterward, but she isn't bored of it yet. Wound up as she is, pressed underneath him, there's a certain heady joy in it. The shamelessness, she supposes, and the intensity make it very appealing.
So she writhes under him a while, murmuring Gabranth and Noah in equal measure. Pressed into his body as she is, even when he's not moving it, the heat is overwhelming. She moans into his ear yet again, and this time, it's entirely inarticulate.
Again, not the best she's ever had. But the best she's ever had with someone she loves.
Indolent with listlessness, he does what he can to assist. It lacks potency, considering he’s little more than weight against her, a voice murmured steadily against her jawline, humming and soft with contentment. Higher in pitch than perhaps what she is accustomed to by now, without the matter of forced effort in the way; so much of what he upholds is as carefully crafted as that armor, no more than a facade, yet dutifully clung to all the same.
When she unwinds, it is into his arms, when she moans, it is into memory. He keeps her held fast, admiring the look of her lost to it— made shameless by stolen sight. His eyes are hooded, he blinks little.
And then kisses, once, the hollow base of her throat.
She clings to him, not because she needs to, but because he is warm and she is greedy. She wants him close, folded up with her, their breaths intermingled. She wants all of him, however she can get it. This is a better way than most. For once, he doesn't seem to mind.
Her lips find his hairline, and what she says there lacks voice, only the shapes of words pressed like kisses into his forehead. She pets at his hair, cradling his head, completing the circle.
She doesn't know what to say, so for once, she says nothing. She'd rather lie here until thought is lost to her.
For once, silence becomes them both, though Gabranth— diligent to the last— takes time after a few low-spun minutes to untangle himself from both her and her grasp, instead rising to snare her within the span of his arms, carrying her as though she were the queen of some southern state, resting her across the side of the mattress she’d taken up before, rather than leaving the both of them sprawled across it at some half hazard angle.
He isn’t more courteous than that, however, knowing the differences between care and condescension. The way it might irritate her to be treated as something overly precious. She’ll fit herself as she cares to, and he’ll not say a word about it, crossing again to sink into his own side of the bed, head resting easily against that lone, practical pillow.
“Leave when you so wish it. I shall claim justly that I offered you my bed as courtesy, should anyone inquire.”
Will they inquire? He cannot be certain. He cannot know how any of this will unfold, but unfold it must, for in the aftermath of all his warnings he is certain now that he is the one who has drunken too deeply of this comfort.
It's too sudden and grand a gesture for Jone to react to, and like all of Gabranth's sudden and fierce displays of emotion, it's gone before she can begin to understand it. She's left sitting on his bed, not in it, dazed from a long day and a longer night, untouched.
A slow sigh. She wouldn't be so enamored of him if he were simple, would she?
She settles in behind him, refusing to retreat. In her mind, it's proving a point, but she couldn't say what point it's proving. Simply that it must be shown, that he must be touched, and not forgotten for the sake of duty or propriety. She wants his comfort as well as hers.
Once more, lover's kiss to his poor, cold ear.
"I'll stay as long as I like. Please don't tell people sleeping with me is a courtesy." She knows that's not what he means. Her tone is obviously jocular, but far from teasing.
He does not force her away as she winds in. He does not grasp or snarl or even shiver, only sinking comfortably into what comfort she provides. They are where they ought be; he requires no more adjustments to that.
And then she speaks.
“I did not mean— ” his lips thin in frustration, hazel eyes opening once more in spite of all prior attempts to wend into sleep. “Jone, you must understand what would be said of your work, should the palace believe our associations are intimate.”
But a pause lives there, at the end of his stern reciprocation. The gears turn. He feels the fool.
Jone kisses him on the temple, soft and-- she hopes-- reassuring. She settles back down, giving another kiss to the nape of his neck.
"Please believe I know the importance of keeping this private," she says. Once again, her hand snakes around his side, petting at his chest. "And even if I didn't, I trust your discretion. Your phrasing struck me funny, that is all."
“I have spent twenty years dedicated only to ruin and report,” Gabranth mutters, tilting his head so that the shape of her hovers just out of his peripheral view. A shadow. A blurry silhouette perched at the edge of his vision. Her presence welcome all the same.
The edges of his sharper nature made soft by it.
“My phrasing will ever lack, when not discussing the merits of warfare.” As will his efforts to keep pace with humor or bitterness or anything distinctly human in nature. Languages he’s forgotten how to speak or trade in, bitter and acrid on his tongue.
“But I do believe in you, as you say. No one has ever laid where you do now, at my side.”
"Make excuses all you like," she says, a grin wrinkling her nose. "I've heard you joke. You're not as lost to the world as you say."
She's sure she'd be utterly bored with him, otherwise. Everything he does is just so perilously exciting, a mystery to be solved, or a fight to win or circumvent. She revels in it, just as she revels in being placed on that pedestal. She is special to him. That's a grand thing.
A kiss to his shoulder, so she can see him better and taste more of his sweat. Being around him always makes her so hungry for him. "There's nowhere I'd rather be." She kisses him again, a quick peck, almost impish. "Your bed's nicer."
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no subject
If she flits a hand down to occasionally adjust his form, there are surely worse things. He must be used to her wanton demands by now. The old staple fits into this new frame. "Harder, Noah, please-"
no subject
He cannot endure more without shared sensation, and so his fingertips withdraw in a hurried rush of movement, fleeing instead towards the waistband of his trousers, tugging harshly at them to free himself.
Ungraceful compared to his usual deft precision, borne of impossible avidity, it does not matter. Nothing matters, save for the hold he fixes on her hips when he levels himself against her— when he trades the rough set of scarred fingertips for the span of his own arousal, breath snared in the base of his throat.
no subject
She rubs a wrist against a sharp cheekbone, fingers tracing his ear, and has a moment to murmur something sweet and stupid before he's on her again. "I could look at you for an age, Noah."
no subject
His face falls across her forearm, eyes shut. Inhale slow, words unsteady.
“—you would waste an age to do so.”
no subject
As it is, she only has him to contend with. She can remember what name to use, and not much else. One hand draws up, petting at the nape of his neck. "Not for you. Never for you."
no subject
Like a man who has fit himself into the hollows of cold armor, holding fast to it for frigid relief.
Instead, she has it all. All. Every fragment of him that there is to offer in this moment, every roll and rise of his hips, as he sinks his teeth into the map of her already marked skin, as he lifts her higher to drag that much harder against her with each friction-laced thrust— there is no point where his loyalty ends, and his unconditional endearment begins.
no subject
"I have you," she croons, more quiet this time than last. What has made this moment more intimate? She doesn't want it found by ease-dropping servants, for reasons that have nothing to do with the strategy of privacy. She is selfish and hungry for this closeness, and wants none of it shared with anyone, ever. Let this one little corner of their broken world be just this, folded away and hidden. "Oh, Noah, love, I'll never let you go."
no subject
Gabranth is a paranoid man, at times, though not without learned reason.
Yet here he leaves all semblance of those instincts behind, rutting harsh and heavy, panting as though she drives him to this with her touch alone, fingertips curled tight against the muscle of her back, bruising. Needing. Anchored as the beating of her heart. He stops none of it.
And his breath hitches high. Sharp. He is nearing the pitching drop of something intangible and potent, his voice whining through his teeth as he rushes after it in starved chase.
no subject
Her legs unlock from the vice around his middle, ankle over ankle. Now she can draw one hand, fingers spread like claws, up his spine. Speaking directly into his ear, she says what she wants him to think about when he hits the top. "I have you, Noah; I always will."
no subject
He would not be here otherwise, wound into her hold, embedded so deeply within her that she is— for all the reach of his unmoored senses— the very air he draws upon with every panting breath.
Time and time again she has strained to do as he has bid, and it was Jone who would have keenly let her heart beat its last so that his might yet continue onward. She grants him truth in darker places. She does more for him than his own blood has ever managed.
There is nothing of regret to be found within him when at last he sinks into her arms, his head across her breast, cheek pressed just above her heart— unmade. Unguarded.
And glad of it.
no subject
So she writhes under him a while, murmuring Gabranth and Noah in equal measure. Pressed into his body as she is, even when he's not moving it, the heat is overwhelming. She moans into his ear yet again, and this time, it's entirely inarticulate.
Again, not the best she's ever had. But the best she's ever had with someone she loves.
no subject
When she unwinds, it is into his arms, when she moans, it is into memory. He keeps her held fast, admiring the look of her lost to it— made shameless by stolen sight. His eyes are hooded, he blinks little.
And then kisses, once, the hollow base of her throat.
no subject
Her lips find his hairline, and what she says there lacks voice, only the shapes of words pressed like kisses into his forehead. She pets at his hair, cradling his head, completing the circle.
She doesn't know what to say, so for once, she says nothing. She'd rather lie here until thought is lost to her.
no subject
He isn’t more courteous than that, however, knowing the differences between care and condescension. The way it might irritate her to be treated as something overly precious. She’ll fit herself as she cares to, and he’ll not say a word about it, crossing again to sink into his own side of the bed, head resting easily against that lone, practical pillow.
“Leave when you so wish it. I shall claim justly that I offered you my bed as courtesy, should anyone inquire.”
Will they inquire? He cannot be certain. He cannot know how any of this will unfold, but unfold it must, for in the aftermath of all his warnings he is certain now that he is the one who has drunken too deeply of this comfort.
Unwilling to let go.
no subject
A slow sigh. She wouldn't be so enamored of him if he were simple, would she?
She settles in behind him, refusing to retreat. In her mind, it's proving a point, but she couldn't say what point it's proving. Simply that it must be shown, that he must be touched, and not forgotten for the sake of duty or propriety. She wants his comfort as well as hers.
Once more, lover's kiss to his poor, cold ear.
"I'll stay as long as I like. Please don't tell people sleeping with me is a courtesy." She knows that's not what he means. Her tone is obviously jocular, but far from teasing.
no subject
And then she speaks.
“I did not mean— ” his lips thin in frustration, hazel eyes opening once more in spite of all prior attempts to wend into sleep. “Jone, you must understand what would be said of your work, should the palace believe our associations are intimate.”
But a pause lives there, at the end of his stern reciprocation. The gears turn. He feels the fool.
“...you were not serious.”
no subject
"Please believe I know the importance of keeping this private," she says. Once again, her hand snakes around his side, petting at his chest. "And even if I didn't, I trust your discretion. Your phrasing struck me funny, that is all."
no subject
The edges of his sharper nature made soft by it.
“My phrasing will ever lack, when not discussing the merits of warfare.” As will his efforts to keep pace with humor or bitterness or anything distinctly human in nature. Languages he’s forgotten how to speak or trade in, bitter and acrid on his tongue.
“But I do believe in you, as you say. No one has ever laid where you do now, at my side.”
no subject
She's sure she'd be utterly bored with him, otherwise. Everything he does is just so perilously exciting, a mystery to be solved, or a fight to win or circumvent. She revels in it, just as she revels in being placed on that pedestal. She is special to him. That's a grand thing.
A kiss to his shoulder, so she can see him better and taste more of his sweat. Being around him always makes her so hungry for him. "There's nowhere I'd rather be." She kisses him again, a quick peck, almost impish. "Your bed's nicer."
no subject