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Your jaw clenches as you work to steady your breathing. Your blood simmers hot in your veins, muscles taut as you fight your body to remain calm. An earlier disagreement with the group left you tense and unraveling, a coil in your gut that just would not leave.
Time. You just need some time and space, some breathing room from the people you’ve seen every day for weeks, some of whom know how to get under your skin far too well.You sit away from the group under the pretense of keeping watch, steadying your breath, a light breeze cooling the back of your neck.
Until you feel a prickle. You’re being watched; an unmistakable calm intensity you feel in your bones that could only be one person.
Legolas sits beside you on the rock you claimed as your watchtower. Close but not touching. A respectable distance.
“You are still tense.”
You do not answer, jaw clenching.
“It unnerves me to have such feelings between our companions.” he says, matter-of-factly.
“I’d like to be left alone. Please.”
He looks at you from the side, eyes scanning your taut posture, set jaw. Your spine straightens out of reflex. He sighs.
“Your anger needs a way out. Try to breathe evenly.”
“You think I haven’t tried that?” you snap, and regret it instantly.
He does not seem to mind. “Your anger is misdirected.”
You look at him. He looks back at you patiently, soft sapphire eyes meeting your blazing ones.
He stands. “Come.”
“Where are we going?” you ask, standing hesitantly.
“Somewhere quieter.” he says over his shoulder, leading you into the nearby forest.
Light filters through the leaves in dappled smudges of molten gold. The forest, ancient and quiet, speaks only in rustles and birdsong.
He stands behind you, close but not touching. You feel the heat radiate off his body.
Voice low, near your ear, he says: “Still yourself. Breathe with me.”
The forest goes still, just the two of you and your breathing. You match the inhale and exhale of his even breaths, breath syncing.
“Close your eyes. Focus on the air around you, feel the breeze.”
You do as he says. Except your breathing stumbles for a beat as his mouth is dangerously close to your pulse. You keep your eyes closed, hoping he did not notice.
He hears it. Of course he does.
Internally, he nearly curses in Elvish about it. This is a calming exercise, but you seem to be having the opposite reaction.
“Perhaps it will be easier if I show you how elves calm each other without words.”
He steps a little bit closer. Your back is almost flush against him, steady and grounding. His hands hover near your arms without fully touching.
“Here,” he murmurs, fingertips barely grazing your forearm, “this means presence.”
His touch is feather light, but your pulse jolts as if struck by lightning.
He feels it.
He tries to pretend he doesn't.
You force your breathing to even out, steadying yourself but he is so close you can feel the pine and amber of his scent enveloping you, masking your brain in a thick haze. All you can focus on is the featherlight fingers on your forearm and the heat at your back, every one of his steadying breaths sending shivers down your spine. He pretends not to notice those too.
“You are still not calm.” His voice is low, but there’s an edge to it now you can’t place. “Let me show you more.”
He leans a little forward, and two delicate fingers brush against the bone on the inside of your wrist. “Trust.” His breath fans the shell of your ear.
Your body reacts before your brain does.
You exhale.
A little too sharply.
Your pulse leaps under his fingers like you’re being hunted. The coiled tension in your gut transforms into a new beast entirely. One that you don’t know how to control.
Behind you, he goes entirely still, a marble statue of self-restraint. He knows. You know he knows. The facade of a calming breathing exercise is cracking faster than you or him can manage.
Valar help you both.
He breathes into your ear, lips almost touching your heated skin. “Again?” he asks, voice dangerous, testing you.
Your breath hitches. The back of your neck heats, cheeks and face flushing.
You offer him your wrist without a second thought.
“I’m afraid I didn’t learn it the first time.” you whisper, testing him back.
He presses two long fingers right to your thundering pulse. His breathing shallows out, and just for a moment, his careful self control chips. His golden hair brushes against your neck with the breeze, sending goosebumps along your feverish skin.
“And this,” he brushes his thumb in a delicate circle against your hammering pulse, “means you may come closer…if you want.” He breathes right against the shell of your ear, shallow and tense.
The tension in your gut coils tighter. Instead of moving, you return the touch on his wrist.
Slow. Deliberate.
He freezes.
Then he steps closer. A slow, careful step that closes every inch of distance. You feel the rise and fall of his chest with every breath, pressed right against your back.
“You know what that means,” he says, barely above a whisper.
Come closer.
“Yes.”
Propriety all but forgotten, you repeat the touch on his wrist, and you could swear you heard his breathing stutter.
He steps around you – slow, controlled, composure stung together thin as spider silk. He hooks your jaw with two fingers, lifting your face delicately.
“This,” he murmurs, voice of velvet on steel, “means look at me.”
His gaze meets yours and for the first time you see how dark his sapphire eyes had gotten, pupils blown wide. The air you share could set a fire ablaze.
Legolas closes the distance between you, chest flush against yours. Breathing ragged, he says: “There is one more.”
“Show me.” you say.
“I should not.” he whispers.
“Show me.”
His soft fingertips ghost along the side of your neck, following the shape up to just behind your ear. Electricity follows his reverent touch.
Your breath shudders. His does too.
“I think you can guess the meaning of that.” His barely restrained hungry stare ruins every scrap of self control you have. Your knees go weak under the force of his ocean gaze.
You nod, not trusting your mouth to speak.
He leans in, lips a hair’s breadth from your jawline, hot breath fanning across your face.
“Tell me to stop,” he says.
You say nothing.
He cups your jaw with his hand, and closes the distance between your lips.
It is slow. Deep. Wrecking.
His other hand slides to your waist, pressing your hips flush against his. You pull him in even closer by the collar of his tunic, and it snaps any remaining restraint he had left. His lips move against yours like he’s been holding back for centuries, a creature awakened, and you feel his pulse, his heat, his barely-contained desperation.
He breaks the kiss only long enough to breathe your name against your skin. Your breath heaves in sync with his.
He trails his lips down to the crook of your neck, mouth slow and hot against your burning skin – intent, devout – teeth just barely grazing in a warning that sends heat pooling between your legs.
You dig your nails into his shoulders and the sound he makes is sinful. Possessive.
He backs you against a tree, lifting you up with the ease and grace only an immortal prince could hope to do. You wrap your legs around his waist instinctively, hands caging around his strong shoulders. You feel every muscle, every sinew, of the centuries of training beneath his tunic.
His hands settle at your hips, thumbs stroking slow arcs that make your stomach twist and the heat in your groins simmer.
“You have no idea,” he murmurs against your throat, “what you’ve been saying to me with every touch.”
You answer by pulling him even closer, fingers tangling in his gossamer hair.
He groans, soft and wrecked, his composure forgotten entirely.
Lips pressed to your neck again, he shifts between your thighs and you feel him fully. His need, his want, his intent. His tongue traces slow circles in the sensitive crook of your neck and you arch into him, stifling a soft moan.
“I want to hear you.”
Your chest heaves, head spinning, clinging to him with the remaining strength you have.
“I said,” he bites down, in the delicate space between your neck and collarbone that sends a jolt down your spine, “I want to hear you.”
The moan that leaves you as he marks you is unholy, and entirely against your best judgement. Your arch into him again and he presses back.
“Good.” he breathes into your ear. “More.”
His tongue traces the shell of your ear, one hand gripping the back of your neck, tangled in your hair and angling your head how he wants it, the other keeping you pinned against the tree. You roll your hips into him, and he groans into your ear, whispering something in Sindarin. You don’t know the translation but the tone alone could melt stone.
He trails his kisses along your jawline, his hips grinding into yours. He kisses you again, dragging your bottom lip between his teeth, wrenching a deep moan from you that he stifles with his lips. It’s deeper, hungrier, and your brain goes blank, thinking only of him and the heat between your legs.
Your fingers curl into his hair, your thumb brushing along the edge of his ear and the sound that escapes him could only be a growl.
He pulls back from the kiss, face flushed, hair undone by your fingers, and presses his forehead to yours, breathing ragged.
“Do that again and you will not leave this clearing being able to walk.” His breath fans your face, and you look him dead in the eyes.
You bring your lips right to his ear and whisper: “Please.”
You trace your tongue slowly around the shape of his delicately pointed ear, teeth grazing lightly, and you feel him shudder, pressing into you harder. Ever so slightly, he angles his head to give you access; and you take it.
Your tongue works around the shell of his ear. You pull it gently between your teeth, following it with more of your tongue and mouth, and he makes a sound he never intended for you to hear.
Your hand drifts lower until it reaches his belt, undoing it, and you feel him. You moan into his ear, a shiver running down his spine.
Half moon eyes and pupils blown, his hand tightens around your neck with a delicious pressure, the other finding the heat between your legs, toying with the band of your underwear, a finger slipping behind the fabric teasing you in lazy, languid circles. You whine into his ear softly, and your head rolls back against the tree, breathless and dizzy, unspoken begs for more of him threatening to spill from your swollen, bruised lips.
You arch into him with every movement of his fingers. “Show me what you learned.” He mutters against your lips between kisses.
Half aware of what you’re doing, the haze of him blanketing you like a fog, you trace your fingers along the shape of his neck to behind his ear.
Want.
“Good.” he smirks against your lips, soft, lethal.
You are very aware of every inch of Legolas as he slides himself into you.
You arch into him and feel him groan as his hips align fully flush with yours. You welcome the ache he leaves between your legs, the feeling of fullness as the pace he sets rewires your very being.
“You learn fast.” he whispers into your mouth, between groans and heated, ruinous kisses. Your nails rake down his back, undoubtedly leaving scorching red marks; a discovery for later.
His grip around your neck tightens as the other continues circling your most sensitive spot. “I told you,” he says, voice velveteen, “That I want to hear you.”
You mewl his name with every push of his hips, a breathless benediction, a sinful prayer, over and over again. Every movement reaches a deeper part of you that unravels you to your core, your toes curling at the heat.
“You’re doing so good for me,” he breathes, “So well.”
Your thighs cage him, pulling him closer instinctually, wanting–needing more. He answers it, breath laborious, with every stroke. His hand leaves between your legs to cup your thigh, adjusting your position so he can go even deeper, hitting the spot that shoots white hot electricity up your spine and heat pooling in your core.
“My pretty star,” he groans into your mouth, “come undone for me.”
It’s as if your body obeys him.
You gasp his name as you feel the wave rush over you, molten and overwhelming, and for a moment you see only him, golden hair haloed in the dappled daylight like stars dancing in your vision through half-lidded eyes.
His pace falters and you feel him twitch, as he sinks completely inside of you, his hands bruising your neck and thigh as his own release catches up to him.
“I think,” he whispers, his forehead against yours, “that you learned how to release your tension.”