---

 
Why are you doing this, Aethelos?  A whisper of rationality slipped through the craigs of this storming enchantment as I looked upon the ruddy fields of her fair cheeks.  I couldn't help but smile at the face of her beauty, such delicate artistry that could vier against Heaven itself and raise high a banner of victory.  You'd risk shaming her, and for what?  Your pride?  But it was deeper than pride.  This need had tortured me since the dawning of her identity and during those countless nights spent listening to her most treasured thoughts.  She'd confided in me things that no one on this Earth knew.  We shared secrets and dreams of domestic lives and I wouldn't let her squander hers for the sake of someone else. 

I'd lived it enough to know that this wasn't the life she deserved.  To live for the sake of someone else whose breath could stop at any moment.  We all knew that Arabella's time was near.  I didn't want to accept it, what brother would?  But still, I bent until my back would break in order to make her happy.  If my parents wouldn't ensure that she had a pleasant life to reflect on when that time came, then as her brother, I would.  Daesn'yri didn't have an obligation to her the depths of which I did.  I couldn't let her go through with this.  That's why I kneeled on the floor, why my hands were gingerly stroking the inviting skin of her silken thighs.  It's why my particoloured eyes closed as if the encroaching darkness would offer some manner of clarity to these racing turmoils.  Do you really think this will make her change her mind?

"Y-yes."  But my inner voice didn't offer that answer.  It was her abashed intonation chasing away the nagging thoughts and harrowing doubts.  The delicate whisper that I almost missed because of the vocalists and the quickening trill of piano keys and violin strings.  Languidly I opened my eyes to look up at her face with an impassioned flare smouldering in their depths.  A ravenous hunger that found no voice, only action, only the tormenting touch of my lips as they brushed gingerly against the gates of her maiden ship.  I couldn't stop myself from pushing my tongue beyond those walls and feeling the copper sting dancing across my tongue.  She intoxicated me; she injected passion straight into my veins.  I couldn't restrain the way I teased her swelling desire while exploring the intricacy of her flourishing heat.  My eyes would never leave her face as I devoured her, as I worshipped her, wholly.

---

Freedom was always a gilded word to her. It was a thing in her youth that she took for granted often. Even late into her teen years she had little obligations to stay her from doing whatever she wished. It was golden, like the ever shifting grains of sand that spilled from the shattered hour glass and rolled in lazy, yet ever constant motion of the dunes of her homeland. It was spun sunlight, like his hair. His smile. He had been her freedom. A dangerous act from which her father cautioned and yet set her heart ablaze with passion that she had thought the man simply could not comprehend. Perhaps he had recognized it, but she had never cared, and she could only assume that at one point or another, he had been the shackle-less future her mother had envisioned as well. Some poor tired lord of her house had probably only ever warned her over him as well in the same fashion.

But he had never sent him away.
Perhaps he should have, to avoid this very conundrum.
Perhaps he should have, to save her the turmoil she felt roiling within her now.

Though, in the end, as the naive heathen she had always been, she'd have followed him. She had not followed him here, but in a semblance, she had. Her broken, warped mind and fractured memories had lead her to the pier. A wraith, a skeleton of her former self that he did not even recognize when they had come face to face. She had gone to the wharf to wait for him. He'd always said he would come back to her when he was eld enough to strike away from his parents. And when Arabella was well enough. A happening that never came. Either of them, because it was a cruelty of his very parents that had discovered her instead. They had stolen her away, and now she was but a wolf in a den of snakes. They coiled around her ankles, detestable and venomous. He had been no different to bare his fangs at her, malicious and heated.

So why was it that she could not muster the fury she ought to at him? Why was it that she could only blush and coo, softly moan in response to his mouth, wordless and witless. Why did she not feel the anger biting at her veins that he would do this? That he waited so long, that he let her give away the sand and the sun and his hair and his smile? Was it because he sought to give it back now? That he begged her to keep it? No, and yet her mind did not truly care in the moment, her back arched and she released a heady breath from between parting lips as her fingers wrung themselves within the sheets that had caught her tears earlier that morning. Her body, her mind were traitors, but her heart bled. Confused, gored upon the walls she had built around it. Before she came here, shortly after he had left the welcome of the dunes. When her sister had comforted her with the harsh truth that they were not equals in the foreigners' eyes. She had been right, of course. He'd said it himself. His father sold to savages. Now she played dress up in the civilized world. A fantasy that would have never belonged to the daughter of the desert wolves.

She flinched softly at the deep delve he pressed her core, a stifled breath catching within her lungs as her thighs pressed softly against the warmth of his features. A quiet oh pulled from her on a breathy sound. His name rolled softly from her tongue as she tilted her head back. This was a luxury, one she could not afford, and yet could not deny as her fingers buried within his hair.

---

 
I wanted to hear it again.  I wanted to hear it a thousand times more until it became a soundtrack on loop until the ends of eternity.  A sweet, decidant rhapsody bearing her voice cooing out my name.  My skin prickled in response to her goading breaths, those drawn out sighs.  A volatile shiver rushed down the entirety of my spine to encircle my guts and warm my thighs.  God's, how I'd longed for this.  Ached, even, to place upon her body a plethora of devouring kisses.  To explore every inch of her milky skin with my finger tips and taste every last drop of her desire on the whole of my tongue.  It encircled her sensitive gem from which I could slightly feel the hastening of her rabbit-footed pulse - nearly a mirror to mine.  Each beat was like hail and thunder, but it alone could not tear me from the ambrosia of her impassioned core.

There was a gentleness in the way I explored her, touched her, even in the way I grasped those filled out hips and pulled her closer against my mouth.  My finger tips retained their grip on her soft flesh, holding on as if letting go meant the end.  If we were going to Hell, I was going to make sure the journey was worth it.

With a lengthy exhale, my tongue continued to tease her most tender spot with a slightly hastening motion.  Attention paid to one side, then the other, then both in circling unison.  My lips would press against her outter skin with an adoring sentiment, as if I were a humble pilgrim worshiping his patron goddess.  In truth, I was, for that is what she'd become to me.  A treasure I couldn't afford to lose.  I won't.  I can't.  Not again.  My hand drifted from her hip towards the underside of her thigh before a single digit gingerly slipped into her velveteen walls where I explored the depths with cautious strides lest it be painful or she'd had a momentary lapse of reason.  There wasn't a moment my eyes left her face nor my lips her inner thigh.  I kissed it softly, lovingly, before returning my mouths attention to her swollen bead.  The flat of my tongue brushed against it, the tip encircling then in time with my fingers languid thrusts.

---

It was winding, coiling, suffocating, freeing. It was akin to having ones head underwater, unable, not daring to breathe, only to learn that oxygen came easier this way. It filled her lungs, burned and ached in wretched adoration that threatened to constrict her heart to halt. This intoxication was not fleeting, only slowly building, accumulating like the bulk of thunderheads that roiled within her. A sense she had never experienced, a thrilling condemnation, though unlike any other bout of excitement she had ever had. Perhaps that's what made this into something else. The wrongness of it, the horrible, terrible act she willfully succumbed to. She knew it was, she knew that even in her homeland, what she did was sinful in every meaning of the world. There would be no overlooking the dishonor of her actions, the very same for queen or pauper.

But oh would they not understand the longing? The long years apart and the distance between? Would she not be forgiven this misgiving if they knew the sweetness of his name rolling upon her tongue? The way her pulse wrenched and soared with the elation of his each and every caress? The way she shivered with each delve and twist of his skillful tongue upon her most intimate desire? The way it had her lip curling inward, the pearl of teeth threatening to sink deep within it to hush herself, in some sordid attempt to keep this sanctuary just that. Oh to be caught would mean certain death for her heart could no longer take their pause and his absence. Not now, now that she knew the ecstacy that came flourishing from his presence. A gift that she was not so apt to abandon just for the sake of decency, even if it meant she was bereft of it. After all, what was she if not a savage heathen?

His hold upon her changed, the feeling of his hand trailing along the breadth of her lascivious hip, drifting closer to the inner contour of her thigh. There was knowing, a tenseness that came as she first felt the callouses upon his digit replacing the soft warmth of his mouth that still had her spine arched. She gave into him, clutching haplessly at the intrusion of his finger with a breathy moan, even more so as the steady rhythm continued to circle within her cerebrum like a loop of infinity. It burned her up within, liquid heat threatening to sear her alive. "Oh, Aethelos.." she cooed, the strummed melody strained softly, her cheeks painted flush to the tips of her ears as her gaze met his own.

---

 
That look could undo any man be he king, pauper or knave.  Despite the icy blue within the ring of her iris, her gaze was soft and tender.  As if that look alone could cradle me close to her heart where I'd remain her most precious treasure.  It made my skin crawl with pleasant heat that rode in waves down the length of my spine like a winding snake.  I felt it down to the soles of my feet, down to the curl of my toes encased within the shell of these leather boots.  Suddenly I was aware of how tight everything felt and how little my lungs drew in a breath.  My shirt and its collar, the stuffy jacket.  My breeches and undergarments held more tensely against my body with each salacious cry.  Each of her intoxicating moans was akin to scissors against my already thinning control.

"Oh, Aethelos.."

My last fibre of restraint snapped.  I watched helplessly as the tattered threads rained down leaving my body a scorching catalyst of volatile lust.  The whole of me pulsed, radiating wanton heat that would inevitably become the reason for my ruin.  A feral growl - low and rumbling - tore from my chest.  More.

A knowing smirk welcomed her stare even as my tongue continued to flatten over her flowering core, slowing its motion over the quivering bud before departing from it entirely.  The sweltering heat of my mouth was replaced with negligent cold.  It was hesitant, my motions, but I rose all the while maintaining the imprisonment of our interlocked eyes and the steady pace of a finger - now two - that applied gentle pressure to her inner walls.  While I would have liked to continue the banquet until she'd reached the apex of her desire, I knew that while we were in this domain, time was our enemy.  Everyone around us was an adversary to the impassioned thirst leaving us parched for naught but the other.

I took her throat gently into my hand and used my thumb to push her head gently to the side, barring the curve of her neck that I assailed with my lips.  Each kiss lingered heavily against that pristine skin while liberated fingers trailed to her dainty wrist.  I grabbed her and lured those delicate fingers on the aching fire burning between my thighs.  Fevered kisses trailed to her ear where the husky growl of my voice inquired.

"Will you have me, princess?  All of me?"

---

She could scarcely breathe, the entirety of her frame humming in tune with this salacious rythm. It was enough to drive her mad, a plague upon her psyche that robbed her of rationality. Again and again, that irritable voice spoke to her, cautioned her with perfectly good reason, yet each and every time she feigned ignorance. Maybe such a word was wasted upon her at this point, for she was well aware of how wrong this was, she simply could force herself to ignore it no longer. Not when every fiber of her being cried out for his affection. Not when every inch of her body was wreathed in the very essence of flame.

Her spine arched as another finger found entrance to the core of that heat, a breathless, silent noise shaping the contours of her soft lips. The shudder that threatened her knees to knock was only heightened by the growl that departed him, teeth softly edging the cusp of her lower lip. She'd never heard such a sound leave him, further heightened by the hungering press of his tongue. Her own hands ran the lithe confines of her corset, almost as if that alone would ease the tension of her lungs. Even that was electric brimstone, too much to endure as fingertips ghosted over the lace clad tips of her breasts.

If it was possible at all, her porcelain features would further stain satin pink at the heated smirk that claimed his expression, one that had her eyes avert quickly, truly unable to court his taunting in the present. It was only for the emptiness of his presence, the cold bidding her to glance back to him once more. Though he would not leave her entirely without as her thighs clenched tautly against his hand. His continued motion stirring the shiver that she could not suppress any longer, threatening even to chatter the clench of her teeth. A room that once was so overwhelmingly stuffy and smelled too heavily of floral perfume now seemed so cool in comparison to the heat of her flesh, to the close proximity he maintained as he stood over her.

Her head tilted, obedient at his guidance, azure stare slipping closed at the affliction of his razing path along the vulnerability of her throat. She felt the stray of his fingertips along the breadth of her arm, down to shackle gently upon her wrist. She had expected them to continue, to clench, to intertwine within her own as they had once upon a time, but she was reminded that this was a much different experience than those evenings that left them scattered upon the dunes. Breathless, albeit a far more innocent manner of mess. He lifted her hand instead, guiding her touch, and the raw intonation of his vocals burned her already reddened ear as he whispered to her, "Will you have me, princess?  All of me?" It was that same rasp that had escaped him moments prior, that had the hair along the back of her neck standing on end, that prickled her skin with goosebumps.

However, the heat in her cheeks would reach its pinnacle as realization found her of where her palm rested. The impassioned heat of his own want, one she tentatively pressed, nearly tasting sanguine with how hard ivory met the softness of her lip. The whole of her visage was encompassed in vermillion as sere nails of her free hand traced a path up the back of his shirt, to the back of his neck. The scent of his skin, the heat of his frame eclipsing that which had been so overwhelming before, a sea she was eager to lose herself within. "Y-yes." She whispered alas, beyond the faint knot in her throat, far too submersed in this tide, drug too far from the isles of refute. Her head would tilt, teeth grazing the softness of his cheek, followed closely with the lavish of her plush lips. There was a gentle greed for him within her heart, a guarded jealousy. "I vaerk aerr ag vai"

---

 
Her feathering touch scorched through the linens of my breeches and the undergarments beneath until I was certain that it would scald through the thin fabrics.  I half expected to look down and see nought but ash and cinder but my heavy gaze could not stray from the delicate warmth of her dulcet face.  Those ripe red cheeks and painted lips.  She was beautiful.  So painfully, adoringly beautiful that the flutter of my stomach howled with a knowing agony.  I would cherish this moment eternally for what it was. 

The first and - perhaps - the last time I'd ever witness her unflowering from the bondage of her chastity.  Each petal of her body unfolded into a beautiful display.  From the way her thighs clutched at my hand to how the tips of her fingers trailed along my spine and the back of my prickled nape.  My body leaned into her touch, pressing hungrily into those monumental affections.  I was starved, after all.  I was a neglected sinner finding his way into the arms of his benevolent Goddess.  I wanted to devour every little part of her, give her the last shreds of my virtue in turn until the unity of our souls soared across the cosmos.  A burning comet paying its homage to primitive carnality and emotions yet to find their voice.

"Y-yes.  I vaerk aerr ag vai."  I released her wrist in favour of unfastening the buttons of my breeches while turning my head towards her ministrations.  The soft raze of her teeth, the velvet press of her kiss.  I couldn't help but smile almost sheepishly.  My mouth grazed hers eagerly as deft fingers relieved the tension of troublesome clothing until they fell around my ankles. 

In my younger days, I must admit to dreaming of this precise moment after we'd watched the stars disappear over the desert dunes.  You know the ones, those wild reveries of an inexperienced boy.  Those dreams of drowning in the essence that was her body, of being enveloped wholly by the warmth of those clandestine walls until we both mounted on the high of ecstasy and wanton release.  Those midnight delusions could not hold a flame against the truth of her warmth, of her smouldering heat devouring the invading tip of my imposing virility.  I guided it to her sodden entrance with utmost care while my forehead endearingly pressed against hers. 

Then I dove in, gently plunging myself deeply into her until I had nothing more to give.  The entirety of my body shuddered with disordered euphoria, my skin prickling with overwhelming desire burning its way throughout every fibre of my sinew.  It took every ounce of restraint to be gentle, to remember her modesty, to keep myself still despite the internal rage of a lusting bull.  By the end of this night, I would remain as nothing but the weak embers of a once volatile pyre.  I welcomed it.  Embraced it and her. 

Devouring, groaning lips sought to mute a pleasured hiss and kiss away any pain my endowments wrought.  I wanted her to know the same pleasure that flooded through my veins.  I wanted her to writhe with newfound rapture until we both were lost for breath and reason.  

"Gods, Daesn'yri..." Husky, lascivious growl plumed against her mouth.


Seeking fingertips latched into the curve of her hip as I held her close to these beginning strides of thrusting pleasure.  My tongue beckoned for entry to the confines of her mouth, its tip glissading hungrily against the crease of those damning lips.

---

Trepidation grew rampant, her bodice flush with the nervous lament of uncertainty and yet sparking thrill. He flourished further beneath her hand, an unadulterated heat that burned through her palm without reservation. Her heart roared, a violent, cataclysmic tempo that felt as though it would simply leap from her lips at any moment. It would betray her, had it its way, to admit a certain cadence; to drip precious words like broken glass upon the floor to which she would forever have to walk around or slit her heels and leave a blood trail of potential regret that would ever be just behind her. Oh, but what she wouldn't give to not call it traitor, to embrace the turmoil in whole and clasp it softly between her hands, to breathe it in and smile as it departed her mouth.

For once upon a time, she loved him like she loved the sun. However, such decadent words had ever steadfastly evaded her, as it seemed they were always condemned to do. She was being selfish, greedy in this indulgence, in the lie that she so vehemently wrapped herself within.

Distraction was gifted at her words, the grip about her wrist freed in favor of unfastening the button that housed him. Curiosity whispered for her to watch, to look, and yet embarrassment chastised her harshly, immediately turning the flush of her wanton stare from him. He didn't leave her entirely, however, her focus binding itself to doting, the soft press of her mouth in given affection, inhaling the scent of his skin in a deep breath as if it may very well be her last. She could not entirely claim the title of modesty, however. Shameful in the ways her frame mourned the absence of his touch, of the testing breadth of his calloused fingers. A shudder poured down her spine, the shivers of anticipation, a precipice that yawned just before her.

A ledge she did not find herself at long. The heat of his skin razed against her own until she felt almost certain she would combust. His forehead pressed to hers, and despite the rushing fluster that colored her, he was yet no cooler in any regard. She would draw in a sharp breath as the weight of his virility settled between the slick of her folds, The soft keen that threatened to escape her lungs as he began to press in further was swallowed by the press of his lips. It wasn't until he was wholly sheathed within her warmth that he would again find pause, a myriad of sensation teetering upon the pinpoint of discomfort and pleasure. She burned feeling uncomfortably full as her bodice struggled to accommodate his sheer presence with the almost desperate flutter of soft, warm walls.

"Gods, Daesn'yri..." he would relent in heady need against her mouth, and dark lashes would part to behold the precious artistry of his features. To simply hear him speak her name was enough, nearly too much in the pining reflection of his own pleasure. To be addressed as herself rather than the masquerade that had begun to feel far too heavy and painful, no longer a playful and unknowing mask but a cage of iron that resided upon her countenance. She shivered against him, a moth afflicted with lunacy for the flames he elicited, wings far too singed to drift away. A soft moan still drew itself out upon her intonation as she shifted her hips against him tentatively, "Mm Aethelos...."

She was grateful when his lips found hers once more in hushing veil, his fingers curled about her hip as he withdrew only to pull her flush against him once more, a pleasure blooming through her, steadily overwhelming the initial sting and smolder. Her lips would part, unspoken invitation as her hand would graze his cheek, yearning for the taste of his kiss, of all the affection she had been deprived in the yawn of his absence. Had he thought of her in the time that had spanned? Had the thought of her departed as soon as he'd left the docks? Was she a fool, a mere convenience? If fate would have her to leave bloody footprints after all, could she ever find the confidence to do so proudly again? All fears and anticipations that circled like ravenous serpents within her cerebrum, driven scattered and muted by the steady rock of his thrusts.

---

 
"Mm Aethelos...."  As our bodies entangled into the forbidden, my name was like a song harped from the vocals of angelic choirs—the soft coos of her pleasure like a spur goading, encouraging this primitive momentum.  For years I'd heard lovemaking regarded in a multitude of ways.  With crudity coupled with cruelty, the lewd tongues of soldiers delving into the darkest reaches that could make the most seasoned harlot blush.  Others dare not speak it, thinking this was an evil thing akin to Satanic praise.  Being above her though, drinking in the flush of her ruddy cheeks and the warmth of her body, the way her legs blossomed and her core fluttered around me, this was the first time I realised it was sacred. 

She was an angel in my arms.  A holy spirit whose touch elevated me to the clouds of St. Peter's gate.  I'd lean into the soft cradle of her gentle palm splayed adoringly across the clean-shaven curve of my cheek as if parting would spell certain death.  It was the same way I kissed her, almost with a sense of desperation, of a wanting desire that had been caged since the years between our last meeting.  When she still lived at the heart of the desert.  When I thought she was gone from me what now felt like an eternity ago.  I kissed her with a swelling hunger, a devouring embrace of lips and tongue.

I made love to her.  I took my time at first ever vigilant to the ways her body responded to the initial thrusts of boyish hips.  I was ready to stop at the first sign of discomfort but instead, Daesn'yri moved in hypnotic tandem rousing a growing groan from the depths of my chest felt down to the slight curl of my toes.  The sound tangled with my tongue now searching the mysteries of her mouth.

The grip on her hip loosened so that my hand could wander to the heart of our union, where our bodies merged, where the swollen folds of her body housed the target of this sultry journey.  My thumb found it.  The flat pad of the digit swept against her sensitive clit slower than the pace made by increasingly hastened hips.  I felt the whisper of her hair beneath my free hand and gently tangled those fingers in those golden locks, held her endearingly close to gave me the vantage to kiss her with all the unadulterated passion thrumming violently within my chest.  I let my body speak the words my mouth could not.  I showed her the carnal ache in my heart until every fibre of my body felt like warm, smouldering honey.  Like raw electricity dancing beneath my skin.

---

He kissed her breathless and bruised, and yet her lips only begged for more, meeting the clash of his mouth, the twist of his tongue, the bite of her teeth softly demanding more. She could not get enough air, but it was not from breathing. No, she only needed to inhale what escaped his lungs. It was almost enough to destroy the wrongness that seeped into her bones, the feeling of modesty that still razed her cheeks. She couldn't escape it, and yet the care for it had long since abandoned her scattered thoughts.

With each press of his lascivious hips delving into the heat of her core, she could swear her wits had wholly departed her. It was this selfish addiction that ate away at her. She wanted everything he had, this envious yearning that swarmed her senses without respite. There was so much time to make up for, to recompense. Years of distance that she would never be satisfied by, even as he relinquished for only a moment the doting of his affection as if to gasp in air, she would hold him close by the jaw, her other hand splayed upon his shoulder, fingers curling, sere nails digging in a possessive rake against the strength of his back.

She could not get close enough to him, even if she raked her way into his very skin, it would not be enough. She drank down his reverberating groan, a striking reminder, a slight anchor in this furious madness. Her own soft keening was hushed by the sweep of his tongue. Her back arched, pressing flush to the contours of own bodice. While she had no experience in such endeavors, what Sava had informed her of had not prepared her for the sheer heat and insanity that poured through her veins. That pooled within the pit of her belly, that swam dangerously close to the precipice of the dam.

The shameless roll of her hips would stutter as his hand slipped betwixt them, his other tangling within the strands of her lengthy golden locks. The brush of his thumb against the hyper sensitive bundle of nerves had her trembling thighs clenching against the virility of his hips. Its rhythm was a stark contrast to the ramping intensity of his thrusts, tearing her attention. It was enough to bid the rising tide to crash against that forbidden well, beginning to spill over the cusp of the gilded goblet's edge. His lips caught her own ardent moan, muffling the sound as he held her close to his frame.