---

 
"Aeui ora veukum."  There was a fire in his eyes, a smouldering seething akin to a wild flame licking at the bark of freshly dried logs.  I recall that feeling snaking its way beneath my skin, piercing the veins, turning them to ice beneath the razing rake of his hatred.  Being the spoiled brat of a wealthy nobleman, I wasn't used to such unbridled emotions.  They approached me with respect.  They came to me with ambition, fear.  I wasn't accustomed to the barbaric way a man's eyes could wound worse than any blade.  "Nu suud kur kae doisrsar." Less so did I know the agony his words could inflict.  To him, I must have come off as a coward.  A boy standing with his fists clenched and mouth firmly shut.  Honestly, I was afraid.  Afraid he'd take the one thing away from me that truly sparked joy in this otherwise droll existence.

I was afraid he'd take Daesn'yri away from me.  I was worried that I'd never see her beautiful smile, the way her eyes seemed to sparkle when she was happy or hear her greatest dreams when we lay beneath the desert stars.  It would seem to be my destiny, though.  Losing her to the will of other men.  Her father.  My father.  This would be suitor.  I wouldn't let them take her from me - not again.

So I let my heart win this war between wits and passion.  My determination overwhelmed the faint, fading whispers of reason.  I let it take control of my falling hands loosening their grip on the soft velvet of her cheeks and gingerly caressed the swell of her hips hidden beneath the plentiful fabrics of her bridal gown.  I let those battle-bruised hands glissade across the cage of her hidden corset and rest at the space below her ribs.  Even if I was poison - even if I didn't deserve her - I couldn't deny this flutter in my stomach each time I inhaled her perfume nor the way her tounges touch - the razing of her teeth - made me toss away the remaining shred of sanity I had left.  If I was the poison her father proclaimed then we'd die together, hand in hand.

I was gentle when I lifted her, when I laid her on the bed beneath me and guided those svelte thighs on either side of my hips.  I kissed the curve of her neck where the thrum of her pulse raced just beneath the ivory of her skin once, then twice, like a feathers-sweeping touch.  I treated her like glass even if I knew she was anything but.  Daesn'yri was fire, she was stone.  She was the blade and the shield caught in the throes of will and ambition.  My eyes closed tightly as I buried my face into the crook of her shoulder and simply held her, bathing in her warmth, giving her time to push me away, to reject the poison of my touch before it sunk into her veins.  Before it sentenced us both to this inevitable death.

---

There was warning, and there was fear. There was the resilient anarchy of a young woman trapped between duty to home and land, the very word of her king (should it only be her father.) He had forbade her from being around the foreigner, strict to adhere to guarding the frail lady from the various dangers of the dunes. She always seemed promised to another, but in those days, she had openly rejected the notion, much more stubbornly and viciously than she had in the dining hall. Her hand belonged to the general, a butcher properly called savage by the twins. Words and gold did not own them there. Bonds could be broken, honor held much more aloft than promised dowry. He had sought to rule over her, and then she had fiercely resisted being caged. She had fought for her own freedom then, she had saved herself from having to endure that condemnation, and yet here she felt shackled, powerless. She yearned for reason, for anything to do the same here. Hells, she would fight them all if it meant scouring a path to freedom.

Yet what awaited her?

The answer seemed just before her, the wanton heat naught like anything she had expected. In fact, she had been steadfastly assured of his absence this night. Did they know? Had he spoken to them about what had been revealed? She certainly hadn't, she could not stomach another visit to the doctor, to being told she was merely recalling things from a life long gone. While in part it may have been true, she wasn't content any longer to bury her head like an ostrich. Her heart was like the roar of angry ocean waves pounding upon the shores of her ears. Did he mean those words? To run away with her? To finally make good on his promise to marry her? She should smile, gods knew she wanted to, and yet there was a horrid trepidation that stayed her words. Even if they were meant now, what would come to pass should the Beleverons make good on their promise? What would he feel should the true Arabella fall to her illness? In her youth, she had felt slighted by the sacrifices he had always been overly willing to give to the young maiden. Anything. Everything. Perhaps it had been some sense of jealousy, but deep within her chest, she knew. And it made her sick.

Bitterness lined her lashes as her fingers tightened around him, digging into the soft strands of his blonde hair. Was her kiss chaste with salt, could he taste the saline of her warring desire and sensibility. She wanted to suffocate with him, rob the air from both their lungs til neither would surface from these ravaging waves that raged in the maelstrom that threatened to drown her. She wanted him to follow her down, like the sirens she had heard tales of upon the pier. She wanted to rip her fingers free, to scream at him for tempting her so cruelly when she knew where his loyalties lay. She wanted to tell him to leave. To forget her once again to be desolate and alone on a wharf. But in the end, her selfishness won.

A shiver traced her spine at the heavy presence of his palms settling upon the curve of her hips. Her lips parted in a quiet gasp of slight surprise, realization and reality returning to her spinning, empty head with a vengeance. Her cheeks seared, a heat she could feel all the way to the tips of her ears. She could not deny the foreign shudder of delight that traveled her bodice in cadence with his hands. Her grip upon him loosened as he lifted her, though she did not deny it, though she thought she would burn alive as he drifted closer, as that deft touch guided her thighs to part, to allow him betwixt them. She'd been taught this, an instruction that further urged her face to redden with recollection of the woman who had offered explanation and more. She almost wanted to omit a nervous chuckle, but she was hushed by the heat of his mouth once again upon her skin, and she would tilt her head, a small murmur leaving her lips. His name, an askance, perhaps. Permission. Something she felt unsure and yet utterly certain of all at once. She would draw a breath in between her teeth, her hips shifting slightly against his own through the multitudes of layers that separated them, her hands smoothing over his shoulders, tracing back up the mid of his back, to his hair as she held onto him tightly. It was melancholy, this feeling of being robbed, of waiting so very long to have him so close. His fault, her own, those that wished to rule them. She loathed them all.

---

 
There was ample room for rejection, for her to cast me away.  To that end, I trembled.  My body quivered for fear that she'd fly from my touch, shove me aside and banish me from this domain that was hers, wholly.  I didn't know what to do, what she'd like.  Her body was an unfamiliar temple paying homage to demure bewitchment.  Beauty.  Lush and plentiful from the charming arch of her playful smile to the gleam of vibrant fire burning behind the blue of her eyes.  I was all too familiar with it. 

With Daesn'yri, I knew plenty.  I knew her pale skin and the softness of her palms.  She smelled of floral perfume and sweets.  An aroma belonging to the halls of feminity.  I knew now the salt of her skin against the endearing press of my wanting lips.  They tasted the crook of her neck, the slight jut of her clavicle.  Beneath those feather kisses, she ripened.  Even knowing what I knew of her, one question evaded its answer.

How did pleasure look on her?  Could she wear it as elegantly as the jewels in her golden hair?  How would the curves of her body react to my touch beneath the guarding shield of the ivory gown?  Would she shy from it?  Would she squirm?  Could she flush a deeper shade of crimson beyond that which stained her face and ears now?  I wanted to know it.  I wanted to learn everything there was about this woman who had captivated me so much.

When the soft, nearly incomprehensible coo of my name fell from her mouth, mine crushed against hers with a growing hunger that was commanding, possessive.  A claim that was spoken by the subtle press of my grinding hips cupped by her thighs.  Could she feel the way my passion languidly flowered behind the aegis of these damned breeches?  Did she know the depths to which I'd longed to hold her so?

My palm was cautious as it moved along her body.  I pushed the lace of her shoulder strap down along her arm to expose the paleness of her breast, the inviting tip flushed like summer roses.  At first, I'd roll the nipple between my fingers, gently, and feel it harden beneath my touch.  To my surprise, I felt a blush flood onto my face as I pulled away from hers with great hesitance only to replace the warmth of her mouth with the hardened swell of her chest.

---

She felt like she couldn’t breathe, and in part, she couldn’t. The restraints of the gown, the corset that decorated and accented her waist became more pronounced - or so it felt as she sought to draw in air almost desperately. Her gaze averted from the reality before her. She could object, yes, and in the back of her mind, there was an all too nervous whisper that begged her to do so. It wanted her to shy away, a well of what she could only compare to humiliation and something of shame. It flushed her cheeks, stung her eyes. Perhaps it would have been different if it weren’t for that visit to Shanton. Did he know of it? He hadn’t been present, and their “mother” had urged secrecy on her behalf as well. It would not do well to have someone know that she had visited such a place. She could only pray that it had been equally hushed through out the house, that none knew what she knew.

But she did know.
She knew and it made her skin crawl, burn.

As soon as the quiet utterance of his name left her lips, his mouth crashed against her own in a torrent of emtion. It was claiming, possssive, a heated passion that once more robbed her of her breath. She felt light headed, a giddy sensation burning through her chest without mercy. She gave to him without reservation, relinquishing the air from her lungs, lips parting softly to the want of his own. She arched into the touch of his palm, drawing in a jagged breath as he shifted the hardening breadth of his hips between her own. Legs clenched slightly around him in faint surprise, reality warring with the fantasy of the moment. The novelty of having him to herself, to think that he was hers and she his. 

As his fingers brushed down the strap upon her gown, so too was the cloud she found fogging her thoughts to the blissful warmth brushed away. She allowed the gossamer fabric to abandon her arm. She would relinquish her fingers from the grasp she had upon him, an initial instinct to cover the swell of her chest from view in modesty's sake. It was a movement found too late as she could feel the rake of his fervid gaze upon her, one that she dared not meet or witness. Instead, her fingers would coil in upon one another, her heart pounding viciously within her ears, her skin like hot coals as the flush deepened if humanly possible. Her breath hitched, caught wihin the back of her throat and refusing - or maybe forgotten - to exhale fully. It was dizzying, this electrifying sensation, the touch of his hand.

Her eyes closed hastily, clenching slightly at the feel of such an intimate sensation. Finally the breath found itself leaving on a gasp. Her back arched faintly into his attention, her nails biting eagerly at the palm of her hand as pure molten heat felt as though it pooled within her veins. She inhaled sharply as his calloused fingers were instead replaced with the warmth of his mouth. She couldn't get in enough air, a hushed, cooing sigh that poured from her parted lips dspite her efforts to remain quiet. The sound of music still drifting through the walls to remind her of what awaited just outside the room. A secret all her own, wanting not to feed the wagging tongues in the hall beyond.

---

 
Time did not dwell here.  It was only her and I in this space, the rise and fall of her belly, the series of quiet breaths we took.  Stolen kisses and fevered caresses, an exploration of unknown pleasures lurking beneath the skin.  Mine to traverse; mine to tame.  Even if the world outside thrived beyond that intricately carved pine door we were oblivious to it.  Time moved for them.  The music continued off in a distant room and the quiet hum of voices could do little to overwhelm the roaring croon of my heart or the soft exhale plying her supple lips.  I was afraid that she would stop me - that the air in her lungs would beckon me to cease.  She didn't. 

Her body wrapped around me like intimate fingers and I moved in tandem with her.  Despite the way she jolted as if to cover herself from the lechery of my gaze, there came no further protest when I was upon her.  I touched the sensitive bud of her breast, held it firmly between my teeth, and caressed it languidly with the flat of my tongue.  I tasted her, lavished her, drove myself mad with this leaded yearning beating with lupine hunger against these cloth restraints. 

My pleasure, however, could wait.

I wanted to hear her coos, those gentle moans, the heavy breaths that called out my name.  My fingers tip-toed along her side until they found the palm of her hand and the fingers tightly wound upon it.  A habit of hers, I noticed.  Mine slipped between hers and I'd move her hand above her head on the silken mess of the coverlet.  The other explored the coarse fabric of the ivory stocking covering her calf until it gave way to bare skin.  She was softer than I anticipated. 

I gathered and pushed the frills of this damned dress up to her hip.  I dared to delve into the forbidden valley, venturing into the gateways of sin, my thumb teasing the crease of her groin.  The attention to her breast ceased as I rose up in full to look at her.  She was beautiful.  Far more beautiful than the embers of galaxies, of the universe I saw knitted into her bones.  Though it was a strong emotion and far heavier than I could bear to say aloud, the thought of love whispered in my ear and shimmered behind the intrusive caress of my gaze. 

"You're lovely."  Husky voice commented.

For her, I smiled, if it could ease any uncertainty she had.  My lips curled up as I lifted the line of her veiling garment to slip my thumb beneath where the folds of her innocent vestal waited.  For a moment I paused.  A moment spared to glean whether she'd stop me, push my hand away, reject the flat of my thumb as it sought to plunge into those inner folds and find the treasure within. 

---

It was maddening. How he could speak so clearly with nary a word exchanged between them. How he seemed to know exactly what it was to do to her bodice to make it sing. She couldn't say she had thought of this moment often, not untl the visit to Shanton, to the woman she had been sent to see there. It was shameful, really,  this burning curiosity that had sense begun to eat away at her. Stolen glances, a path wandering by her trecherous eyes. The amount of times that she had at first asked forgiveness at shrines. How she had felt folly, disgust. Perhaps in the end it had been the memory of her body more than her thoughts. Simply because her mind had abandoned the mantle of sanity didn't mean that sinew had as well. A feat she had noted long before her mind had begun to piece itself back together.

Would she flush so vividly if she hadn't been to those darkened streets? Would it be far worse? Heat also tinged his cheeks, but it also marred his eyes, holding  her captive in the pyre that threatened to consume them both as they swallowed her little by little. She was only the tinder, cauterized in the flames of her  abashed yearning. It was the very same now, those helples glimpses as he rolled delicate skin between  teeth and tongue, coaxing her frame to bend to his will,  a heavy exhale pulled from  her lungs, her own lip caught. Hushing, quelling.

Gentle was the intrusion of his fingertips brushing along her side, following the svelte lines of her arms  wrapped in  lace. They found her own, and a simper would bloom upon her lips as her more delicate touch glissaded along the curve of his far steadier grasp. His other hand trailed the seams and hems of the equally itchy fabric of her leggings, elliciting the trill  of that shiver to race her spine once again. She shifted her hips against him, against that lascivious trek, a silent, thoughtless beckon. His first touch upon bare skin was enough to spark electricity through out her once again, chills reverberating through her. His hands were far rougher than she recalled, and if it were possible, she'd have flushed further at the observation.

She felt the bite of the air as he began to lift the layers of suffocating  fabric, a breeze that felt cold now against the warmth of her flesh. Even more so as the pleasurable torture of his mouth left her breast, enough to finally bid her open her gaze. The caress of his thumb drew a shuddering gasp from her, thighs clenching around him once more slightly, though this time the pressure did not abate. Adrenaline, wanton, the slight hints of trepidation causing the shiver that she felt threaten her very teeth to chattering.

Those eyes alone were enough to engulf her, that lava settling within her, molding into her very bones, combusting, consuming. Demanding. "You're lovely." Came the draw of his murmur, and the darker tone of his vocals alone were enough to further raze her, and she was caught like a deer in headlights, her kiss marked chest heaving, feeling as though her heart would  sunder it with the fury of its pounding. However, the remark would only futher cloak her expression in the demurity of her smile, a soft hum leaving  her, breathless yet, fumbling. She dared not speak, knowing her tongue would allow nothing sensible to escape it. If it was not his eyes that so  effortlessly condemned her, it  would be the truth of his own grin  - one she had not seen since her arrival. Cruel imitations, yes, but this was familiar. Melting.

Just as his touch was, the edge of finality, one she could no longer bear to witness least the rush of blood to her face drowned her alone. Instead, she turned her countenance into the crook of her arm. Deliberate. Slow. The air was too cold, she was too hot. She could stop, perhaps should stop, and yet the muddled thought did not find purchase, did not find its way to be voiced. Her body, the traitor that it was to his whims, merely sought more of his attention. Something dangerous,  infectious. He would brush beyond the last veil of decency, his thumb pulling from her a languid, soft sound, her fingers gripping his own as she rose against him.

---

 
Beneath the intrusive, languid caress of my thumb, there was a soft warmness that I could not have expected.  She was an inferno, a roiling flame of candid desire.  Quiet, yet loud, a scream that only I could hear.  A howl of impassioned want bellowed beneath that porcelain skin and thundered in the webs of her veins.  The way her belly shivered with breath; how she moved against my touch.  Lo', how the light glimmered just right on the exposed flesh of her kiss-bruised breast and the elegant curve of her neck. 

How I wanted to taste every inch of her.  Devour her.  See her naked down to the marrow of her bones.  Leave no secrets lingering betwixt us.  Lay everything bare until we were one soul drifting throughout the universal cosmos. 

I quietly admired her beauty - the Dianic silhouette lain upon this bed - and the way that petal-pink flush violently crept along her face and her ears.  Had I truly never noticed how grown she'd become in these long months together?  How she filled out that lanky, girlish body I'd known aeons ago?  No.  I had noticed it the moment I walked back into the Beleveron estate.  She'd become a woman, flesh and blood, a woman that could rival the legends of Helen.  Men went to war over women like her.  I would easily become one of them.

My hand gave hers a gentle squeeze, a comforting vice, and positioned so that I could brush the side of her cheek with the knuckle of my thumb.  It was an encouragement to release that desperate hold she had on modesty and relent to the bestial hunger of impassioned desire.  The same that tormented me like rabid lunacy.  Relent to me and the goading press of my thumb as it explored her intimate folds - caressing them gently - teasing just around the core of her feminine fervour but not quite touching it.  I took my time burning her body to memory.  The smell of her perfume, the softness of her skin.  The warmth of her body and how her thighs held me like a lid made for a particular box. 

Descending lips crashed against her honied mouth when I finally took the plunge, completely touching the swelling bead of her sensuality.  My hips added pressure with the surging bulge of my inflamed want gently grinding against her.  Against her mouth, I let out a shuddering breath, a trembling sigh, the softest hint of a heady groan as I felt that kinetic spark carve its path throughout my skin.

---

It was good, unimaginably, painfully good, this sensation. This pressure. She didn't know what she had expected, exactly,  but it wasn't this molten caress that threatened to melt her down to naught. He did not relent, disappear after that glissade, and his touch felt heavy upon the sensitivity of her budding flesh, unfurling beneath him and the drag of his gaze akin to that of an anchor upon the sea bed. Slow, agonizing, one she felt just as strongly as the plight of his thumb pad. A prisoner to this carnality, a willing victim to the shackles desire so agonizingly placed upon her. Undeniable, blissful.

Her wings had been singed, drifting far too close to the pyre he had offered, and she was now wholly unable to escape. That small voice that had warned her, that had offered the sensibility to flee was now mute, probably seared away just as well. What did she have to fear? To ward with caution? There was only the depravity called honor, a mantle that these people did not wear. She would have wished the circumstances were changed, she'd have chosen a different path, but that was a luxury she was not afforded in the end. She'd have taken him up on his offer, to claim him as her own, and she his. That was her now unspoken wish, a whispered thought that was enough to threaten the lined veil of her lashes. That he would have taken her away, and it hurt her. Far more than the lick of flames. Now, the voice urged her to make good on that. To escape into the night with him, to free herself from the burden that lay just outside. The chains of unholy matrimony that sought to claim her.

The soft squeeze of his hand upon her own drug her lids to open, hooded as they were. His hand clutching hers the first visage that greeted her, the very same that tenderly stroked her face. She would brush the softness of her lips over his thumb, another wordless, heedless hum trilling quietly from them as they parted with his insistent attention. She writhed beneath him, serpentine in the twist of her hips, brows furrowing as she relinquished another hard gasp, her sight finally finding his alas. She savored it: the way he looked at her, the feeling of him touching her. Immoral, yes, but also so purely intimate, gentle, patient.

As his lingering exploration fell upon the most sensitive part of herself, his mouth would once again crash like the tide against hers, swallowing the well of sound that would have otherwise escaped in breathless enamor. Her back arched into his touch, abashed at how shamelessly she reacted to it, to him. She chased ever more, an uncharacteristic greed burning within her. Even more so as she felt the press of his own want, she would embrace him, welcome him as her legs wrapped around him. She was enamored with the breathless sigh he allowed her, the sinful intonation that had claimed his vocals. She wanted to hear more, selfish as she hungrily swept the line of his teeth with her tongue.

---

 
In the fray of these carnal frivolities, the throes of impassioned want exonerated from temperance, my heart fluttered violently.  I feared it would burst from its bone prison and join the sparrows on their evening flights.  Its song thundered against my ears; it pulsed against my throat.  My head swam to the drumming tempo while my body careened to its tantalizing sway.  Subtle movement roused by the slow, torturous caress upon the searing warmth of her slickening folds. 

You would be mistaken, however, in believing that this torment was hers alone to bear.  My body craved her in a way that a ravenous hound longed for fresh meat.  I wanted every last thread of her tangled around me until I knew every intimate detail there was about her body.  Every freckle.  Every mark.  I already knew the taste of her mouth, the velvet touch of her lips.  They were soft even pressed against the skin of my thumb.  The digit lingered close enough to her face that I could feel the sultry, shaky breaths escaping the slight part of her lips. 

My other thumb now knew the warmth of her arousal.  It learned where the swelling apex of her passion dwelled and it discovered the intricate folds of her flowering maidenhead.  Lavishing her with attention, it caressed her even as I kissed her with the intensity of a raging pyre until I felt as if I could forget my name.  This was a passion that was many long, agonizing years overdue.

Candidly I smiled as if I were a young boy lost in the eyes of his first love and withdrew our lips with lingering hesitance.  I debated kissing her again, relenting to that siren's beckon, relenting to passion's careening waves but I didn't.  Instead, I pulled my hand away from the tempting embrace of her maiden's flesh but only long enough to cleanse my thumb of the metallic sweetness belonging to her desire.  Languidly I licked it away with the suckling sweep of my tongue.  I relished it, searing it to memory, and let out a low, pleasured rumble. 

The warmth of her body beneath me was replaced by a biting chill as I stepped back enough so that I could pull away the thin, lacy garment that kept her delicate folds fully from me.  I wasn't content until it lay discarded on the floor beside the bed.  I pulled her hips until she was at the edge of the mattress where I kneeled on the floor as if to worship her.  I moved her body so that the backs of her lean thighs roosted on my broad shoulders before I caressed her inner thigh with the tip of my tongue in a slow, teasing sweep.  My fingers were slow as they probed at her entrance, patient and gentle, before slowly sliding into the depths of her saccharine damsel.

"Do you want me to kiss you here, princess?"  My voice dripped with a raw, unkempt desire that threatened to devour us both and my mouth lingered just a breadth away from that tantalizing, beckoning bead.

---

She ached, a string strung so very tightly upon the quivering draw of a bow. Her nerves were alight, sparking electricity while her heart hummed a baleful thunder. Her breathing echoed in her ears as if she spiraled through the depths of a cavern, and for all intentions she could think of nothing more accurate. She delved into the catacombs of delirium, of madness.

Each and every touch he placed upon her was damning, binding her to the sinking ship. The waves rose ever higher and she was helpless to escape them. Abashment was becoming no longer a mask for her growing desire, but simply a byproduct. There was an uncertain notion to the way her bodice reacted to him, the way her lungs and vocals quietly sang to him. This hadn't been what she had expected, though it had been quite sometime since anything had gone in a way she may have surmised. She felt wholly unprepared, a streak of fear that mixed with the heady heat, words that may have very well been spoken of such a matter swallowed and crashing upon the shores of his teeth, his lips as they claimed hers with a fervor of his own. Her hands gripped his tightly, fluctuating in nuances as his thumb raked across the sensitive plight betwixt her thighs.

As the cold air kissed her in his place, she would once again open her eyes. Despite herself, a shivering sigh of disappointment abandoned her lips as as his touch also abated. A heat that seemed to spread upwards through her belly, burning within her chest, but it felt like the arctic in comparison to that which ferociously burned her cheeks. Hooded stare beheld the way he lifted his hand to his countenance, the way he cleansed the ardor of her growing lust from the digit. She shivered, her legs clenching together as her teeth bit at the curl of her bottom lip.

Then he was moving, and her pulse stammered within her chest as she rose to sit, unable to voice an objection before he halted. He stood before her, fingers hooked, pulling free the last veil that shielded her from the haunt of his stare. She shifted faintly, an effort half possessed in aiding his effort and partially to hamper. Her fingers wound within the duvet, tangled in the span of her gown as well. Her tongue was tied in knots as he knelt, pulling her towards him, like hapless prey caught in a snare. A chill rolled down her spine as he came closer, closer still until she could feel the warmth of his breath upon her skin. Even further until the warm, taunting glissade of his tongue had her lips parting. His touch, the slow intrusion into her warmth finally broke the dam of her brittle restraint and she would relinquish a lascivious moan as her head fell back, spine arching with shameful want into him.

"Do you want me to kiss you here, princess?" The raw, husky intonation of his voice was like lightening dancing upon her senses. Her knees would press against his crown, at his cruel tease, anticipation. Her lips were slightly ajar, tentatively shifting her hips with a hushed whisper. "Y-yes." She spoke finally past the sear of her cheeks.