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Zevran is a mistake. She knows this, and she makes it anyway. He's warm and hungry and there's no one to tell her that she should regret it, so she doesn't. She's always taken what she can get when it's in front of her because she understands how easy it is to lose.
She knows better than to get attached to the flighty ones, or at least she used to. He makes her forget what she knows, and it's as inconvenient as it is exhilarating.
“Inconvenient, hmm?” he mumbles against her skin. “Does that mean I should stop?”
“Don't you dare.”
He chuckles, teasing her with a quick dart of his tongue. “But I thought I was here to ease your burdens, my dear lady. If I am inconveniencing you, surely I have made a most grievous error.”
“Alright, I've set myself up for this one,” she says breathily. “If I concede now, what are the chances you'll show me mercy?”
One long, slow stroke of his tongue elicits a gasp. “Slim to none,” he replies, sounding entirely too smug.
“Void take you.”
“Ah, but if the void takes me, who will satisfy your most obscene desires?”
Sex is supposed to be quick and fleeting, a handful of stolen moments that bring release if she's lucky. This? This is dangerously close to making love, and she has no interest in love. He says he doesn't either, but she's not sure she believes it anymore.
“Are you suggesting I would lie to you, my gorgeous and astute leader?”
She half-smiles, swatting away the hand that trails through her loose hair. “If you did lie to me, you'd be smart enough not to admit it.”
He shrugs and says, “Then the point is moot, no?”
Zevran insists that he doesn't argue, and it's half-true. It's impossible to fight with him, even when she wants to. He parries every strike.
“I ought to teach you how, no?” He twirls his dagger, sending her a wink. “Then we could dance circles around each other.”
“I'm dizzy enough as it is, thanks.”
Some days, she can't keep up. She wonders when the world got so big, and if there were always this many wrongs to right. She wonders how many things she's missed, how much more she could have done.
“Come. I will make you forget all these troubles.”
The hand on her waist, the breath in her ear, is difficult to ignore. “Ignoring them won't make them go away.”
“Neither will fretting about them. You have done all you could do today.”
“You said the same thing yesterday. And the day before that.”
“And the day before that,” he continues with a chuckle. “And I will say it every day until you believe it.”
“That might take awhile.”
His teeth gently rake her earlobe, and she shudders. “I have time.”
They'll never have enough time; this has to end. Every day she reminds herself that she's going to lose him someday, but the words start to sound hollow. She says them anyway because the day she stops saying them is the day she falls, and it's a long way down.
His hands comb through her hair, loosening wet knots. “Your capacity for self-deception is astounding.”
“It's not half as impressive as your skill in being vague.”
“If you never define it,” he shrugs, “then you have nothing to admit.”
She leans back to look in his eyes, quirking an eyebrow as she asks, “And I'm deceptive?”
“You are a wily minx who is determined to bring about my ruin, and I am tempted to let you.”
This will ruin her too, whatever this is. She's never had a lover like him, one who kisses all the bruises and scars that mark her skin and holds her tighter when the nightmares come. He whispers things in her ear, and the most scandalous thing he ever says is I am yours.
She's never had much to her name. She doesn't know what it means.
“It means whatever you would like it to mean.”
“That isn't helpful,” she says, frowning.
There is a brisk, delighted laugh that makes her breath catch. “My dear Warden, have you ever known me to make things easy?”
But she expected it to be easy. He gives compliments and affection with every breath; he offers intimacy without all those winding strings. This should be easy, but it isn't. It's maddening and she doesn't understand it, but she wants it so much it aches.
It doesn't make sense, this thing they have. It takes months of worrying and thinking too much, but eventually, she stops trying.
“This is what I have been telling you all along, my darling.”
“To stop making sense?” She turns in his arms, raising one eyebrow. “Sound advice, that.”
He pinches the soft skin of her inner thigh, and she hisses. “Not that,” he says. “I've been telling you that you worry too much. You are trying so desperately to put a name to what you have instead of spending your time enjoying it.”
She raises the eyebrow again and asks, “Are we still talking about you and I?”
“I think,” he murmurs, planting a kiss on her collarbone, “that there is far too much talking at the moment.”
At the moment, they are together. Someday they will crash and burn because that's what happens to things that are set aflame; it'll hurt, but she'll survive. That's what she does.
She plays with fire because it's bright and warm, and so what if it leaves a scar? She's made of scars, silver-white imprints of all the mistakes and memories that hold her together. They remind her who she is when sporadic bouts of heroism and good sense try to make her into something else.
When he's gone she'll trace the scar with her fingertips, soft and reverent, and remember that he was her choice. Her mistake. Her Zevran, at least for a little while.
Perhaps longer than she thinks.