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Shamir never would have let Catherine tug her around like this in the early days of their partnership.
Things had been so different then. Shamir had been stiff and unfriendly, always stepping away before Catherine could get an arm around her shoulders. Catherine couldn’t count the number of times she’d started offering to buy Shamir a drink only to find that Shamir was already walking away, not even bothering to acknowledge her.
Shamir still saw Catherine coming every time, but now Catherine’s arm looped easily around her shoulders every time. Sometimes it even seemed like Shamir went out of her way to find Catherine, though she still acted indifferent at best towards the rest of the knights. And, right now, she wasn’t even bothering to protest as Catherine led her to a quiet spot where they wouldn’t be interrupted, where the grass was soft and the stone wall was cool under one of the few balconies in the monastery.
It’s the kind of thing that made Catherine think Lady Rhea had a point when she said Shamir had a special fondness for her. Or, of course Lady Rhea had a point - she’s Lady Rhea - but the way Shamir almost smiled at Catherine, completely relaxed even with the crook of Catherine’s elbow pressed against her neck…
Something twisted unpleasantly in Catherine’s guts and she let go of Shamir quickly.
Shamir picked up on it immediately, her hair slanting over one eye as she turned her head to focus wholly on Catherine. “What’s wrong?”
“Short and to the point, as always,” Catherine said.
“Catherine.”
Shamir’s gaze on her was so intense. She’d always had that assassin’s focus, able to block everything out to concentrate on her mission, then discard the old one the moment it was done.
Catherine wasn’t like that. Once something got her attention, she couldn’t ignore it for the life of her. So she’d been stuck on the same thought the last three days, since she’d been sitting on the bridge as she oiled her sword and out of nowhere thought, Shamir’s going to leave. And all of a sudden she had been unable to breathe, sitting there clutching Thunderbrand to her chest like it was a shield instead of a sword.
She’d known she was in trouble then, even before Lady Rhea had summoned her and told Catherine of her own suspicions about Shamir’s possible departure. But unlike Catherine, Lady Rhea had had a solution.
Instead of admitting any of that, Catherine just said, “Shamir,” and crowded closer to her, almost caging her against the stone.
Shamir let her, eyeing her with something other than an archer’s wariness.
There was something there. Catherine could feel it now. And it made it a little easier to press Shamir against the wall and kiss her.
Catherine got maybe a second of Shamir’s lips against hers, warm and wet and wonderful, before Shamir wedged her forearm between them, pressing it back against Catherine’s collarbones to pry her off of her.
Catherine went only as far as she was pushed, mouth still tingling and hips still pressed to Shamir’s.
“What was that?” Shamir looked more flustered than Catherine had ever seen her. Her forearm was still pressed sideways across Catherine’s chest, her hand curled into an anxious fist.
“Shamir,” Catherine said, looking her in the eye. “I…”
Convincing her was always going to be the hard part. Catherine had hoped that raw animal passion would do the heavy lifting for her, but that was always going to be a hard sell with Shamir, who rarely let animal anything override her better judgment.
“You’re my partner,” Catherine said finally, hoping Shamir would sketch in a meaning there that Catherine herself hardly understood.
Shamir licked her lips. “This is a bad idea.”
It felt more like a confession than a refusal. Shamir wasn’t bad at keeping her distance from people, but Catherine had heard that pause on the rare occasions Shamir mentioned her old partner. A bad idea meant Shamir was worried about getting too attached all over again.
But that was exactly what Catherine wanted, wasn’t it? So she leaned in again, pushing against Shamir’s arm, and for all her protests, Shamir didn’t push back.
The kiss felt more like a siege than a proper fight. Shamir refused to give an inch until Catherine made her, running her tongue again and again over the seam of Shamir’s lips until she broke. Then all at once Shamir was giving as good as she got, mouth open and wet against Catherine’s, her tongue rubbing against Catherine’s and forcing it back.
Catherine nearly laughed into her mouth. Wasn’t it just like Shamir to let this happen, but only on her terms? But it came out as a moan when Shamir shoved her leg forward, rubbing her thigh against Catherine’s groin. Taking the fight to her, as always. But Catherine had been her partner long enough to anticipate her movements, and she had a distinct advantage with Shamir’s arm still trapped between their bodies. It was easy enough to grab the back of Shamir’s thigh, rubbing right at the crease where it met her ass, her other hand stroking Shamir’s hip.
In response, Shamir grabbed her ponytail and pulled, hard enough to actually yank Catherine back, their lips sliding off each other as Catherine gasped and Shamir regained the use of both arms.
Okay, so Catherine had less of an advantage than she’d thought.
“You’ll rip my hair out doing that,” she said, squeezing Shamir’s thigh harder and grinding against it.
“You’ll survive.”
Shamir yanked again, shoving Catherine’s head back, and Catherine couldn’t help but laugh as she braced her arms against the wall for leverage, caging Shamir in. Even pinned against the wall like this, Shamir had to show that she could take back control at any time.
But that meant that Shamir was giving it up for now, and Catherine could work with that.
She strained against Shamir’s hold and Shamir let her, loosening her grip just enough that Catherine could kiss Shamir’s pulse where it beat a frantic pace in her neck. She scraped her teeth over it and Shamir shuddered, her grip faltering even more as Catherine left a trail of hot kisses down her neck and shoulder.
“Get this off for me, partner,” Catherine murmured, tugging at Shamir’s jacket.
Shamir didn’t help her at all, resting her chin on Catherine’s head as Catherine shoved her jacket down her arms. “You’re the one making this difficult for yourself,” she pointed out, which was - technically true, since Catherine was the one keeping Shamir pinned.
Catherine wasn’t dumb enough to let Shamir go, though. That was the trick to dealing with snipers - not giving them enough distance to shoot, or in this case, enough distance to trip Catherine and try to force the upper hand.
In the spirit of tactical thinking, she got Shamir’s jacket down past her elbows and then left it tangled around her forearms, where it would hopefully hobble her range of motion enough that Catherine could keep the upper hand. Then she got to work on Shamir’s distractingly tight shirt, which…
“How do you even get this on?” Catherine asked, frustrated, as she ran her hand over the small of Shamir’s back. “There aren’t even any laces!”
Shamir pulled on Catherine’s hair again, apparently just to prove that she could. “I put it on wet and let it dry in shape,” she said.
Catherine groaned and hooked the fingers of her other hand over the top of the shirt, trying to pull it down. “This is insane. How do you get out of it when you need to? Do you get it wet again every time?”
Shamir gripped the back of Catherine’s neck, squeezing. “Figure it out.”
Of course Shamir would make undressing her a challenge. Catherine grumbled to cover up her smile as she took the hint Shamir had so graciously provided her and bent her neck, flicking her tongue out at the place where the leather met Shamir’s breast and wetting them both. Shamir’s skin was so warm and smooth, and Catherine lost herself for a moment sucking a bruise into Shamir’s breast while Shamir’s grip tightened on her neck.
Eventually she got the leather loose enough that it relinquished its iron grip on Shamir’s skin, sliding down just enough that Shamir’s breasts sprung free.
Catherine’s mouth started watering all over again. They were so perfectly round, spilling over her hands, with big, beautiful nipples that were surprisingly dark given how pale Shamir was. Catherine couldn’t help but lean down to give one a kiss, feeling the way it hardened under her lips, before she took it into her mouth and sucked.
Shamir pushed her down, urging her on, as Catherine’s hand found Shamir’s other breast, squeezing it between her calloused fingers, marvelling at how amazingly soft it was.
She ran her thumb over Shamir’s nipple, feeling her own sword callus catch against the hardened nub and the answering catch in Shamir’s voice. She should have known Shamir would like that. Catherine scraped her teeth over Shamir’s nipple at the same time that she pinched the other one, and Shamir actually shook, letting out a near-inaudible moan in response.
Catherine could feel herself getting wetter in response, her cunt clenching as she rubbed herself against Shamir’s thigh. “Shamir,” she whispered against Shamir’s breast, before sucking a bruising kiss into it.
She was so distracted by Shamir’s breasts that she almost didn’t feel Shamir’s foot snaking around her ankle before Shamir’s hand pressed against her shoulder and pushed.
But only almost. Shamir was by far a superior distance fighter, but Catherine knew a thing or two about getting up close and personal and staying that way. She took a half-step back with her other foot, grinding the ball of her foot into the ground for better leverage, and shoved right back, pushing hard against Shamir’s chest as she tried to wrestle her into place.
Shamir was slippery, but Catherine had a height and weight advantage and wasn’t afraid to use it. As Shamir drove her weight down, meaning to drop right out of Catherine’s hold, Catherine wrapped the hand that had been at Shamir’s back around her thigh instead, shoving it up and cutting off Shamir’s leverage.
Shamir pivoted quickly, using the weight Catherine had redirected upwards to surge against her grip. It might have worked if she’d been able to follow it up with a good swing, but Catherine’s quick thinking earlier meant her arms were still hopelessly tangled, so that even with only one hand free, Catherine had an advantage. And she pressed it, using that hand against Shamir’s chest right below her collarbones to keep pushing Shamir back, until she was well and truly pinned against the hard stone wall despite her struggles.
Catherine hadn’t quite been panting before. She was now, her blood pumping even harder as Shamir stared back at her and tried to swing her captive leg forward.
Catherine barely thought before she pushed herself forward, pinning Shamir’s leg against the wall too, spreading her open with Catherine’s body flush against her.
...which had probably been Shamir’s whole plan, given the way Shamir leaned up to kiss Catherine before she even got her breath back.
Catherine kissed back, of course, but she tightened her grip on Shamir just in case, feeling the way Shamir’s breath caught against her mouth at the motion. “Why,” she said, then was cut off by another kiss, Shamir’s tongue hot and wet against hers. When she finally got the power of speech back, she continued, “do you have to make things so hard?”
She couldn’t keep herself from grinning as she said it, though.
“I could leave,” Shamir said, as if the answering gleam in her eye wasn’t as good as a grin back even before the shameless way she tried to grind against Catherine despite her terrible leverage gave her away.
There wasn’t any space between them, so Catherine made some, just enough to wriggle her hand down and pinch one of Shamir’s nipples in retaliation.
Shamir clamped down on a groan between her teeth, so Catherine kissed her to force it out, feeling more than hearing the little noises Shamir couldn’t totally suppress as Catherine pinched her nipple again before twisting it between two fingers.
She hitched Shamir’s leg up a little higher just because she could, marveling at how easily Shamir spread open, her leather-covered mound pressed so close to Catherine that Catherine almost thought she could feel her clench through both of their clothes.
It made Catherine glad that she wasn’t wearing her armor for once. Though that did make Catherine realize her next challenge - namely, how she was going to get Shamir out of those ridiculously tight pants of hers, because Shamir definitely wasn’t going to help.
That was a problem for later. For now, she squeezed Shamir’s breast as she kissed her neck, feeling the way Shamir’s pulse beat wildly against her lips, then bit there, right above Shamir’s choker.
She heard Shamir’s breath catch above her and bit again. Slowly this time, sinking her teeth tenderly into the sensitized skin there. Biting wasn’t really Catherine’s thing, but she’d guessed it would be Shamir’s, and the way Shamir’s breath kept stuttering as she did it was really bringing Catherine around on the whole thing.
Shamir kept trying to grind against her, and Catherine kept not letting her, keeping Shamir’s knee pressed against the wall at an angle that would have been uncomfortable for Catherine herself. But Shamir barely seemed to notice, too busy rolling her shoulders as she tried to free her captive hands from her own jacket.
Fine by Catherine; there was a limit to how long she could really keep Shamir caged, even with her superior brawling skills. But she kept licking and sucking and biting Shamir’s neck, her free hand wandering between Shamir’s breasts to tease one before making its way to the other, until Shamir’s freed hand wrapped around the back of Catherine’s neck, squeezing again.
“Do you have a plan beyond this?” Shamir asked. But she couldn’t manage her normal deadpan tone with how hard she was breathing, and the way she gripped Catherine closer made Catherine’s heart beat even faster.
“You know me, I’m more into improvising,” Catherine said, her lips brushing against Shamir’s neck with every word. “I usually leave the planning to you, partner.”
Shamir huffed out a laugh that turned into a gasp when Catherine bit her again. “You could at least plan to take my pants off.”
“I could,” Catherine agreed, letting go of Shamir’s leg to fumble blindly with the buttons of her trousers instead. Luckily, there was more give there than Catherine had anticipated, and it wasn’t too bad getting them undone one-handed, even distracted as she was by her other hand on Shamir’s breasts.
And they were distracting. Her nipples were so hard that Catherine couldn’t resist the urge to duck her head down and suck one of them, rolling the point of her tongue over it.
Shamir’s hands clutched her harder, hard enough that the one on her neck was starting to hurt a little. Catherine would have preferred more hair-pulling, but she’d take what she could get.
Catherine kept sucking, trying to get more of Shamir’s breast in her mouth. There was so much of it, more than enough for a mouthful, and Catherine groaned as she licked desperately at its softness.
Shamir must have read her mind, because she started pulling Catherine’s hair again. “Pants,” she said, though she wasn’t helping with the desperate way she ground against Catherine’s thigh.
“I was getting to them!” Catherine protested, though she did it without taking Shamir’s breast out of her mouth, so the message might have gotten lost. Still, she kept at both her tasks, sucking harder as she got the last row of buttons undone before pulling.
Predictably, Shamir’s pants stayed put.
“Use both hands,” Shamir said, shoving the top of Catherine’s head.
Catherine finally let Shamir’s breast go, sinking down on her knees to grab Shamir’s pants with both her hands.
They finally slithered down her thighs before getting stuck around her knees, the supple leather only giving so much under her hands. It was enough for Catherine to be able to duck her head under the leather and shove herself between Shamir’s thighs in the hole she’d just made, but only just, leaving Catherine’s head all but trapped against Shamir’s pussy.
Catherine couldn’t say she minded. Shamir was so wet for her already, her clit big and begging to be sucked where it peeked out between Shamir’s perfectly plump lips.
Catherine took a second to just breathe her in. Shamir smelled delicious and Catherine wanted to inhale her.
But Shamir had other plans, shoving Catherine’s face against her pussy and grinding against Catherine’s lips while Catherine spluttered, caught between laughing and moaning as Shamir smeared her own juices all over Catherine’s face.
“You’re taking too long,” Shamir said, rubbing her clit against Catherine’s lips.
Catherine took the hint and sucked it into her mouth, her tongue flicking at the hood of Shamir’s clit as she rubbed Shamir’s hole with two fingers.
“Fuck,” Shamir gasped, and Catherine had to press her own thighs together for some relief. “Hang on.” Catherine felt the shift in Shamir’s weight as she grabbed the wall behind herself for leverage, and then again as Shamir’s thigh slid onto her shoulder.
Make that both thighs. Catherine scrambled to wrap her arms around Shamir’s thighs, core tensing as she suddenly found herself bearing all of Shamir’s weight as she kept Shamir’s upper body pressed against the wall.
“Oof,” Catherine wheezed out, forced to spread her thighs again to balance Shamir’s weight - which was probably Shamir’s plan, the sadist. Not that having her partner literally in her arms, hips tilting up even further to show off her cunt to Catherine like the best reward she could imagine, was making her need some relief for her own aching pussy any less.
“You know this makes things harder for both of us, right?” She asked, digging her fingers into Shamir’s soft, firm thighs for emphasis.
“You like a challenge,” Shamir said dismissively, if a little breathlessly.
Well, she had Catherine there. So Catherine dove right back into the challenge presented to her, kissing Shamir’s beautiful hole, letting her tongue play with the rim as she sucked hard before licking in again and again, a little deeper each time before withdrawing to lick long, broad strokes over Shamir’s folds.
Shamir was so wet that Catherine could hear it with every move of her tongue, could feel how much she wanted Catherine every time she pressed her lips together against Shamir, kissing her desperately in the space between her hole and clit, before rubbing her tongue against Shamir in quick circles of the tip. She wanted so desperately to know everything Shamir liked, and Shamir obliged her, each quiet groan or yank of Catherine’s hair a message she understood perfectly.
Catherine was listening so intently that she immediately heard the footsteps over their heads, even with Shamir’s quiet panting almost drowning them out.
Maybe she wouldn’t have heard them if she hadn’t memorized them long ago and inscribed the rhythm of them into her heart. Catherine could have picked the sound of Lady Rhea out in a room with a thousand people; here in the open, with only Shamir’s breathless little gasps and the slick, wet sounds of her pussy making any noise, Catherine heard each footfall like a strike against a drum.
Catherine felt something twist painfully in her chest even as she kept nuzzling and licking Shamir’s cunt. It wasn’t quite as all-consuming as it had been a moment ago, before Catherine realized that she had, for a while there, forgotten that she was on a mission given to her by Lady Rhea.
How could she forget? How could anything have distracted her from why she was doing this - why she did anything?
Shamir hadn’t seemed to have heard anything, pushing Catherine’s face forward again and grinding there. Catherine went with the motion, laving her tongue in broad strokes over Shamir’s cunt, then flattening it to a point to lick the underside of Shamir’s clit in tight little strokes that made Shamir’s thighs tighten around her head.
Above them, Lady Rhea shifted. Catherine could imagine her perfect: looking down over the edge of the balcony, elegant hands gripping the railing as the breeze just barely ruffled her long, beautiful hair.
Lady Rhea probably couldn’t see them, hidden by the floor of the balcony and the shadows underneath them. But she could certainly hear them, out here in the quiet. Or at least, she’d be able to if they made noise. Shamir’s little gasps and wet noises didn’t feel like such a victory any more. Catherine needed to make her make more. She needed to show Lady Rhea how well she was carrying out her mission.
She kneaded Shamir’s thighs, groping and squeezing as much as she could without dropping her, at the same time that she ducked her head just enough to be able to drive her tongue into Shamir all at once.
Shamir groaned and pulled Catherine’s hair again, shoving her hips forward. Catherine braced back hard to absorb the motion, letting Shamir fuck herself on Catherine’s tongue again and again before starting to lick again, darting out the point of her tongue each time Shamir thrust her hips forward and licking deep inside of her.
“Catherine,” Shamir gasped, clenching around her tongue, and Catherine pulled away.
Shamir hissed and yanked up on Catherine’s disheveled ponytail, hips still rocking forward. “Let me - ”
Trapped as she was, Catherine didn’t have much room to maneuver, but she flattened her hands against Shamir’s hips and pinned them against the stone.
Shamir glared down at her, panting. “Didn’t take you for the type to draw it out,” she said.
Catherine wasn’t, especially not when she could see how close Shamir was, shiny-wet and open for her. Her mouth ached with how badly she wanted to drive back inside. But Shamir wasn’t desperate enough to be loud yet, so instead she twisted her head and left an open-mouthed kiss on Shamir’s thigh, lingering and sucking long enough that it would probably bruise. Then she bit, remembering how much Shamir had liked that before.
Shamir’s breath caught and she locked her ankles together between Catherine’s shoulder blades, trying to draw her back in. But Catherine had more leverage, and she stayed put, licking and sucking and biting along the line of Shamir’s inner thigh, until she saw some of the bruises starting to purple already.
“Catherine,” Shamir growled.
Catherine bit down again. “Say it louder, partner,” she said. “Let me hear you.” Let Lady Rhea hear her, up above where she belonged, her attention focused down on Catherine on her knees.
Shamir muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath, but as Catherine started kissing her way back towards Shamir’s cunt, she finally obliged her. “Catherine,” she said, a little louder this time. “Catherine…Catherine!”
She nearly shouted when Catherine drove her tongue back into her hole, licking up as hard as she could, her lips pressed flush against Shamir’s pussy as she fucked her with her tongue. Shamir clenched around her, shaky breaths turning into audible moans as she got closer and closer to the edge.
This time, Catherine let her go over, still sucking hard against Shamir’s hole as her tongue stroked her from the inside, feeling Shamir come all around her, hot and wet and perfect as she moaned out Catherine’s name again, loud enough that Lady Rhea had to hear it.
Shamir’s hand in her head held her there, still licking, as Shamir rode Catherine’s tongue through her orgasm, each shuddering wave making Shamir sigh a little more quietly each time.
She was silent again as she released Catherine, bracing against the wall again as Catherine ducked out from between her legs before setting her down on her feet again.
Shamir stayed braced there, chest heaving, as she looked down at Catherine. And then her eyes flicked up, just as Lady Rhea stepped back so quietly that only a knight as devoted as Catherine - or a sniper as canny as Shamir - would be able to hear her.
Shamir’s pants were still tangled around her knees and her breasts were still hanging out of her shirt, but that didn’t stop the cold impassivity from creeping back into Shamir’s expression, her walls coming right back up in front of Catherine’s eyes.
Catherine stayed on her knees, slowly wiping Shamir’s wetness off her face with the back of her hand as she looked up at Shamir, not sure what to say.
“...that was close,” she settled on, smiling up at Shamir.
“Hm.” Shamir’s eyes flicked back down as she worked her pants back up her thighs, buttoning them silently before grabbing her jacket off the ground and shrugging back into it. It looked odd as she closed it over her half-undone shirt, but Catherine guessed it was as hard to put on as it was to take off.
She’d gotten so good at reading Shamir, and yet in that moment, she couldn’t read her at all. Did she know?
Shamir sighed and offered Catherine her hand. Catherine took it, letting Shamir haul her back to her feet.
But then Shamir didn’t let go, her grip tightening instead. “You’re impossible,” she said. “We’re doing this indoors next time.”
Catherine grinned, crowding in a little closer. “Works for me.”
Shamir sighed and looked away, but the line of her shoulders was relaxed, and she still didn’t let go of Catherine’s hand.
Whatever she suspected, she wasn’t making any decisions based on it. And Lady Rhea’s plan had clearly been a success.
So why did Catherine still feel that uncomfortable squeezing inside her chest?