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It's getting late. Twilight begins to peek into the night sky outside the window. You've been curled up on the bench for hours, nose buried in a book that has taken your mind away from the myriad of responsibilities that call to you here.
You asked for a brief respite after Rak'tika on account of your flows. They are irregular, perhaps because of the life you lead, but when they arrive they do so with a vengeance. You've learned to respect them and allow yourself the reprieve as your body undergoes it's natural process. In these brief days you indulge in a life you once had but no longer have claim to; one where your only worries are more tea, more blankets, and the next page of the novel you've chosen to immerse yourself in to ignore the pains in your body.
A chill has settled into your joints, however, even under the blankets you've wrapped yourself in, as the summer afternoon gives way to the winds of twilight. A plate sits on the sill with you, now empty of the stack of sandwiches you had asked for earlier. You've whiled away the day in comfortable loneliness, lost in the threads of imagined lives.
You hear him, of course. The portal's distinct sound gives him away. You're surprised it's taken him this long, honestly. You don't even so much as look away from the page, as the tap of his shoes against the floor approaches you.
He stops a few feet away from you, the fabric and fur of his finery at the edges of your vision.
"I suppose you intend to even sleep there, hm?"
You lose your place on the page at his telltale drawl. You sigh, the sound almost imperceptible, and look up. Gilded eyes meet you, intense in their appraisal. From the way his already thin mouth turns down further at the corners, it's clear he finds something wanting. Hair hangs slightly in his eyes, shadowing them. Yet for all his scrutiny, the rest of his posture hangs blasé, bored as ever of his surroundings. The front used to fool you. Now, when he comes to you every night, you know better.
"I might," you respond with a slight shrug, trying to focus back on your book. The interruption brings your attention back to the cramps of muscle in your body, which somehow manage to be more debilitating than battlefield injuries you've sustained in the past.
He raises an eyebrow, though you don't see it, trying as you are to read. "And what's spurred this sudden bout of lethargy? It's quite unlike you."
"Nothing you should be concerned about," you mutter.
"Ah, so there is something."
You flick your eyes back up at him, his face now lined with a lopsided smile. You sigh again, this time loud and clear for him to hear, then snap the book shut with one hand.
"Tell me, Emet-Selch," you say, swinging your legs around to drape over the side of the bench, leaning back so you could more easily meet his eyes. "By fact of you having grandsons, you must have at one time had a wife."
"A logical assumption."
"Then I assume you're familiar with the fact that about every month, you should really refrain from bothering a woman for a day or two."
His eyes light up in amusement. "Quite. Yet how long have we travelled, my dear, and this is the first time I find you shirking your duties so."
You shoot him a look, but all it achieves is to widen the smirk on his face. "It's none of your business, if I'm honest."
His hand reaches out then, white leather fingertips brushing down the side of your face, pushing back a stray lock of hair. You refuse to look away from him in defiance, even as a blush creeps up your cheeks and gives you away.
"You are entirely my business, my dear," he says, the timbre of his voice raking through you pleasantly. His hand cups your cheek, thumb running over your lower lip. "A shame, really. I had every intention of devouring you this evening."
It's difficult to tell if the twist of heat inside you is a reaction or your body's natural process. From the way your mouth goes dry and you have to swallow, you can make an educated guess.
"It'll have to wait," you manage to whisper against the thumb that rests against your lip. He pushes the digit into your mouth slightly, just enough for your tongue to wet it.
Time pauses for a moment like this. You, leaning back, staring up at him as gooseflesh raises along your arms. Him, looking down at you, every line of his form silently conveying his request.
"Will it?" he murmurs, his thumb tracing across your lower lip, leaving a damp trail behind.
You push away the desire he clouds your mind with. "Yes," you repeat, more forcefully this time, pulling out of his grip.
It's his turn to sigh, the intensity in his gaze melting back into half-lidded nonchalance. "Very well then."
He turns away, conjuring a portal to disappear to whichever corner he preferred to haunt when he wasn't with you. He pauses for a minute though, then looks back at you, eyes glinting. "By virtue of the lives I have lived, my dear, I'm more well-versed than you may think. Be sure to call for me when you inevitably need me."
Your brows draw together at his words, but before you can formulate a response, he has stepped into his and disappeared.
Your joints ache. They always do, and every time you ponder why this time is the worst so far. Just a touch of hyperbole you like to indulge yourself in.
Night has fallen thoroughly, and though the cold autumn breeze blows in through the open window, you've left it open, letting the stars themselves light the room.
You change your rags, one hand bracing against the post of the bed, wincing as the smell of copper fills the air as you peel the ruined cloth from your skin. You're sore between your legs, not in the pleasant way that Emet leaves you in most nights, but in a way that makes you feel like every muscle has been strung out and stretched too far. You pull the too-big sweater that's served as your only real clothing today over your head and palm through a drawer for a nightshirt.
Your thoughts drift again to Emet and his words, not for the first time since he left, your mouth twisting into a frown. "Horrible," you mutter under your breath, as if it would mask the way you bite your lip right after. Your sides may ache, but you know yourself - you recognize that the slightly more pleasant twist of heat underneath.
You've tried it before, of course. Never with someone else, just alone. You, alone with your fingers, the wet slip of your folds, the metallic scent in the air, the bite of your cramping muscles alongside the tightening of your walls.
Despite this, you've resolved you won't humour him. While you may share your bed with him, some things are better left on this side of propriety.
So lost you are in your own thoughts that when fingers touch upon your shoulder, you jump.
"What-!" You move to whirl, but an arm is around you too quick, holding you in place. The nightshirt falls from your hands - in nothing but your smallclothes, you are pressed against the familiar brush of fur and velvet, and just a touch of cold metal.
Fingers graze across the width of your exposed back, gently pulling the strands of your hair from their scattered mess across your back to neatly rest over one shoulder.
"You call me, and yet you startle so." His voice is a whisper against the back of your neck, the heat of his breath dancing along your skin. His lips press against the crown of your spine, a spark that sets your nerves racing through your body.
"Emet," you breathe, your eyes closing of their own accord as you lean into him.
His hands sweep up the planes of your scarred abdomen, barely touching, trailing a path from hip to breast. A thumb brushes across the thin fabric of your smallclothes, teasing the peak of your breast.
He is luring you, a stray thought warns. With it, you remember a detail. "I didn't call you."
His nose brushes against the shell of your ear, lips ghosting against it. "'Horrible', I believe was the word."
"Hardly me -" you inhale sharply as he pinches your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, "- asking."
He hums against your neck. "It is, my dear, when you think of me while saying it."
Before you have the chance to respond, his teeth sink into the base of your neck, drawing a moan from your lips and banishing all thought.
"Emet..." your tone is a warning, but the thought trails as his tongue salves against his bite. One of his arms tightens possessively around your waist.
"If you truly do not want this, my dear," he murmurs against your skin, butterflying kisses to your shoulder, "then say the word. But if it is your affliction that worries you so, then you have nothing to fear."
His mouth is at your ear, each reverberation of his voice tightening the coil in your core, your aching muscles responding in kind. "It's warmer, you know," he whispers, so low even the gods themselves would not be able to hear. "Warmer, and tighter, and utterly sublime. If it is my reaction that has you so wary, I assure you, I will enjoy it more than perhaps even you."
Your lips part to respond, but you have no words. That he would hold out his hand himself, inviting you to walk past the line most would shy away from - your heartbeat races as each breath elongates.
"Are you sure?" You finally manage, eyes half-closed as one of his hands trail up your throat.
Emet's laugh is soft against your ear. "I desire nothing else."
A sound escapes your throat as he pushes the fingers of one hand into your mouth, the other snaking down to the hem of your smalls. The taste of leather floods your tongue, his fingers stroking into the warm heat of your mouth, pushing deeper each time. He teases you with his other hand, fingers barely slipping under the cloth, inching towards the peak of your thighs at a crawling pace.
You moan around his fingers, hips jumping into his touch. "Patience, my dear," he says, amusement in his voice. His fingers slip from your mouth and begin to trace circles across the pebbled flesh of your areola - first the heat of the friction, then the chill of your own saliva dampening your clothes, then warmth again as the blood within you rushes to react to his touch.
When he pushes further into your smalls, the scent of copper, mixed with your own arousal, begins to lace the air. You recoil into yourself slightly at the realization, but it is at that moment that Emet-Selch finally touches you where you need it most, sending pleasure coursing through you, your body responding with the flutter of clenching, aching muscles in your hips.
"The, the -" you stutter, trying to form the words, but he shushes you before you can speak further.
"Do you realize, my dear," he murmurs, speaking the words against your neck as he inhales deeply, "how intoxicating your scent is? There have been moments after battle when I wished to take you right then, covered as you were in the blood of your enemies, but this, this..." His fingers brush against your clit, rubbing a slow pattern into it, drawing a soft cry from your lips. "It is wholly you."
He pulls away then, his grip on you loosening as he turns you to face him.
His white lock of hair falls into his eyes, but it cannot obscure the sheer heat of his gaze. Aurum irises radiate in the low light. The corner of his mouth turns up as he brings his gloved hand to his mouth, stained in red. Your eyes go wide.
You watch, unable to look away, one part horrified and one part terribly aroused, as the leather disappears between his lips. He does not look away from you, he does not even blink. When his fingers emerge again from his mouth, they are only dashed lightly in pink.
His gaze turns half-lidded. "Delectable." He cocks his head to regard you, a smirk on his lips. "To taste the womb I have seeded so thoroughly... divine."
You stare. You have been many things to many people across your journeys, but in this moment, you have never felt so... lovely.
You nearly throw yourself upon him as you cup his face and kiss him, tasting the copper on his tongue as you deepen it, as you press into him like a woman starved. He is just as eager, hands roaming every inch of you, and quickly you both become a single-minded flurry - legs wrapping, hands pulling, tongues dancing, nails scratching.
Emet-Selch moans into your mouth when you graze your teeth over his tongue, and it spurs him into moving you backwards until your legs hit the back of the bed. Despite the heat coursing through you both, he is surprisingly gentle as he cradles your body and lays you down on the bed, spreading you out below him.
He stands at the edge of the bed, taking in your form for a moment, his eyes burning with desire that you match. He brings one hand to his mouth, biting down on the tip of one gloved and pulling it off in one smooth motion, before repeating the action with the other. This little show, you know, is entirely for your pleasure.
He takes his time pulling your smallclothes off your body, clearly savouring the way you arch into his touch. It is a habit of his to explore your skin with his bare hands, tracing patterns on you that only he knows the meanings of.
It is only when he is satisfied in his study of you that he deigns to snap his fingers to rid himself of his own regalia, finally rendering him bare. In the starlight his skin fairly gleams, and you revel in the sight. From the jut of his clavicle, to the lean angles of his chest, to the vee of his pelvis and the dark curls below, from which emerges the thick length of his manhood, standing at full attention entirely for you.
Without realizing it, your tongue darts out to wet your lips.
He smirks.
"You are entirely mine this evening, my dear," he announces as he shifts your hips to the edge of the bed.
He takes both of your ankles in his hands and pulls your thighs apart. You resist at first, but the look he gives you forces you to acquiesce. The scent of blood permeates the air with renewed vigour; he closes his eyes and inhales until his lungs fill. When he opens his eyes again, the look in them is entirely predatory.
His attention focuses back on your now-exposed cunt, set on display for him. You can't see what he sees, but you don't miss the way he runs his tongue across his lower lip, nor the way his Adam's apple tightens in his throat. One of his hands leaves your ankle to stroke delicately over your folds. His touch is a kind of reverence, the tips of his fingers barely grazing over your clit, each minute touch a new lit ember within you, smouldering and begging to ignite.
"Exquisite," he murmurs to himself. He focuses back on you then, gaze heavy with lust. With one hand still wrapped around your ankle, he strokes his cock with the other - once, then twice, In the low light, you can make out the streaks of crimson he has painted upon his own length.
In the pallid light of the stars there is something unearthly about him, as if light cowers in his presence, a dark god set upon indulging you in your most carnal pleasures. He towers over you, his shadow draping over your own form, and yet those gilded eyes are radiant and consuming, the beginning and end of existence.
"You are mine," he says simply, an abject matter of fact. He drags the head of his cock against your clit, and you let out a soft whine.
"Please," you beg. Every nerve within you pulls towards him, desperate.
He hums, the corner of his mouth tilting up in that smirk that undoes you. "As you wish, my dear."
Both of his hands grip your waist firmly, holding you in place, as the tip of his cock splits the bloom of your folds.
You sigh and close your eyes, letting your head fall back as your raw, heated body accepts him into the deepest parts of you. It aches in that familiar, stretched-too-thin way. His fingers dig into the flesh of your hips and you echo the motion with your own, twisting into the sheets above.
Both of you savour every moment of his measured movement as he sheathes within you, stopping only when his hips are flush with yours. It is there he pauses, and when you open your eyes, his are shut.
"So warm..." he trails, lost in you. He opens his eyes to meet yours, clouded with lust. "The pleasures of your cunt never cease to amaze, my dear."
Your only answer is a soft moan, the only way you can convey the breadth of emotion that threads through you both. Emotion that is both so complicated, and yet not: completion in the arms of an enemy, and yet, it is home.
"Emet..." you whisper, your heart tightening with a feeling you can't explain. His nails leave little half moons in your skin in response.
Without looking away from you, he moves again, the outstroke as arduous as the first. Your walls tighten around him, clinging onto him, spurred on further by the muscles fluttering in your hips.
He pauses again when only the tip of his cock remains inside you, and you repeat his name in plea.
"Say it again," he murmurs.
And so you do. Something smoulders in his eyes, pinning you.
He pulls your hips up an inch before slamming them back down, thrusting into you in one fluid motion. You cry out, your head falling back as he fills you in the way only he can.
The pace he sets is grueling, every movement drawing out the ache that builds within you. You're soaked for him, and it echoes in the room around you. Your cunt paints him crimson where your bodies are joined, darkly tinted skin glistening in the low light. You feel the warm dribble of your own arousal, mingled with blood, drip from where your bodies connect.
He buries himself inside you over and over. Every movement of your lovemaking is controlled by him with his unshakeable grip, moving your body to meet him with every stroke. He makes no move to touch you elsewhere, or even pull you against him, and it is unlike anything else. Crisp autumn air from the open window plays along your body, chilling your skin even as it heats from the friction your bodies make. You are sore, cold, and yet aflame.
The grip on your hips mellows slightly, and you feel his fingers begin to rub circles into the aching muscles there. Your climb to your peak is guided by his reverent ministrations.
"Good girl," you hear him whisper. "Come for me, darling."
When you squeeze your eyes shut and come undone upon him, it is like a soft sigh upon the wind, the pain of your overtight muscles mellowing into bliss.
You lay upon the sheets for some time, mind lost in the empty haze, only coming to when you feel your limp form being lifted into his arms as he moves you along the bed. He settles you on your side and you blink blearily as he joins you. You press your body into him as soon as he's settled and he is just as eager, skin melding against skin until there is no space left.
You cradle his face with one hand and run your fingers down his jaw, pressing your lips to his. He hums softly against your mouth, both of you relaxing into each other's touch. Draping one leg over his, you grind against his cock in silent request.
He takes it without hesitation, sheathing himself within your slick heat. Your bodies melt into a push and pull, like tides under the cycle of the moon, punctuated with small, unhurried movements. Your hands play with the hair at the nape of his neck, while his thumb grazes your clit in slow circles. Your leg tightening around his waist, his fingers rubbing circles into your back. He breaks the kiss to press his forehead against yours, both damp with sweat, and you stare into his eyes, your world consumed by liquid gold.
No end to chase. What lay between you both was more than enough.
Time stretches out. He moans against your lips, a sound you inhale with you own. Words, beautiful ones, whispered to one another in this most secret of moments.
You feel the telltale tightening of his hips under the leg draped over him; his eyes squeeze shut, his head throws back. You kiss him fiercely, pressing your sweat-slicked body against him, and he responds in kind, clinging to you through the growls that leave his throat. He shakes for a moment, and when he stills, you know you are filled.
You stroke the sweat-damp hair away from his forehead as he comes down from his high, studying his features, which are utterly at peace. When he rouses he tries to pull away, but you dig your thigh into his waist to keep him close. He gives you a lopsided, sleepy smile.
You both drift on the silent waves of exhaustion. Distantly, you feel his seed trickling down your thigh, staining the sheets red.