She was lost in this tumultuous riptide of sensuality and pleasure, drowning in the heady plumes of breath that trailed from Dimitris' mouth and the demanding need that pressed against hers.  It spoke in ways his words could not.  Actions that had her cheeks searing a violent red deepened by the unfamiliar constraint of the silver band now properly placed on her wedded hand.  Matrimony sealed with a kiss.  Voracious governance that sparked life into the fluttering wings within Ethel's stomach and the racing pace of her thundering heart.  Her tongue tip trailed the line of his mouth methodically, tasting him, relishing the feel of his heady lips before taking the plunge within.  Invading tongue circled him with sensually ravishing strokes - a testament to the confession.  A tender endearment that needed no voice.  Unadulterated adoration. Ethel draped her arm around his broad shoulders, holding him close, dragging her nails against his hewn back while the other cupped his rugged cheek into the splay of her demure hand.  Then she was wholly lost to the waves of budding bliss, this wanton storm like static sparks crackling across the skin.  It left her feeling weak, fiery, and lost in a haze of carnal floods.  They wracked against her writhing body, a rousing sensation stirred by the caress of bold fingers into that most intimate flesh and feminine folds slick with the waters of desire.  Ethel felt no shame in the way her body responded - in the way her hips gingerly rode against his fingers, grinding against that salacious touch of pleasure. Hesitantly Ethel pulled away from their kiss to lay back against the bed, her hair sprawling like untamed tendrils across the berth of his pillow.  Her eyes closed and her breasts rose with the draw of breath and fell when his name purred at the edge of her lips.  "Dimitris."  A soft sigh, a gentle moan, an encouraging plea for more of his intoxicating touch.  ‘All that we see or seem’, ‘Is but a dream within a dream.

Jahi

I'LL USE YOU AS A WARNING SIGN. . .

He could feel the beginning of the end as she started to unravel. The way she ground into his touch, the close, breathless pant of her soft moans falling against his lips, the languishing adoration of her affection. The way her fingertips braced along his back, the way her sere nails bit at the skin there in rhapsody of her virulent flame of impassioned bliss. Elation. Sublime, and, pure, and entirely wrought by his own caress. She reclined, parting the warmth of his frame in favor of light distance, the dark lines of her seemingly endless lashes closed, her hair fanning like a dark halo to frame the flushed, heated expression that marked her features. She breathed in, deeply, and exhaled a sultry purr, a lascivious calling of simply his name. Yet it was more than that, it was beckoning, inquiring, wanting.

He would drift from her, habitually kicking free of his boots before coming to a stand, keeping his back to her for a moment as his hands unbuckled his belt. A slight pause drifting through sinew as he slowly withdrew it from the loops of his pants, folding it within his hands, a sudden sense of sheepish hesitation seizing him as he cast her a slight glance. He was still brimstone and fire, engulfed, devoured entirely by the seething coals, a relief briefly chased by undoing the button of his trousers. Pressing them down with a muffled hiss, settling back onto the edge of the bed, trying to reign in, to maintain that sense of control. Patience. Patience. A mantra, a near constant reminder that whispered within the back of his mind.

He wanted to savor this, to take his time. To relish in her outlandish beauty, a thing he had never dreamed he would be permitted. A curse, he'd thought in the beginning, the very same that ensnared his own creation. The seeds of hatred planted, not even by his own hand. An affliction, a weight that would seek to drown him, and yet now such vehement inclinations seemed so far away. So very unreal in comparison to this benign malady that sought to destroy him - to plunge the order and strict vow into oblivion. In truth, it already had, and she had permitted it, encouraged it.

But what would this mean on the morrow in the face of her most sought after freedom? Would she deign it a flaw, a mistake, this time spent with him. Would it become a regret in and of itself, one blamed strictly upon her drink? Could he simply turn away from both confessions uttered before the hedonistic pyre was lit? However, he had requested to be selfish, and she the same, and this was to be her askance.

Once more he would lean over her, the gentle warmth of his mouth tracing over the darkening mar upon the swan curve of her neck from earlier. The motion was tender, silently apologetic as his knee settled betwixt her thighs, parting them in anticipation for his lean hips. "If you don't want this, tell me now." his vocals were low, rough, raw with the weight of tension settled on his tongue. The final remnants of restraint. 

!

. . . THAT IF YOU TALK ENOUGH SENSE THEN YOU'LL LOSE YOUR MIND

The heady plume of wanting breaths and lurid coos was deafened by the thud of boots against the wooden floor.  They fell with nonchalance and Dimitris was quick after them, robbing her of his warmth and the salacious touch that had driven her body to sin.  A modest woman may have turned to allow him that brief interlude of privacy, to let him disrobe without the gluttonous filet of prying eyes.  Unfortunately for him, Ethel was anything but. She was curious.  Her eyes were just as greedy - if not more so - than the undulating beckon of siren hips in the way they ravaged down the hewn thews of his back.  The body of a fighter, a person whose dedication lies within the savage lands of blade and pride.  He was beautiful - handsome, an Adonian silhouette but she'd always thought that.  Each imperfection was seared to memory; each discoloured freckle, the lines of wounds long since healed.  Even the delicate little dips that ruined the otherwise perfect curve of his exposed backside held their place within that precious cove of memoirs.  Brief was that precious glimpse before he sat at the edge of the bed. It was as if Dimitris was frozen by an encumbering hesitation, a terse interlude of contemplation that had her stomach sinking with anchors of dread.  Worriment whispering that she'd pushed too far this time, that she'd asked for more than her fair share.  Demure fingers reached out only to have the shadow of his body loom overhead.  Skin like fire.  His lips were velvet lace against her bruising flesh and Ethel craned her neck in the opposite direction, giving him the entirety of her throat.  His throat.  His voice was like coals in ice, searing her with their embering glow.  "Please,"  The plea was a low, husky growl.  A beseeching coo accompanied by the frenzied caress of roving fingertips through the white locks of his hair.  She held him close, close enough to drown in the musk of earth and woods; of budding sweat and smouldering desire.  Lithe legs hooked around his broad waist, their enticing hold loose should he choose to entertain any notion of doubt.  "I need you." ‘All that we see or seem’, ‘Is but a dream within a dream.

Jahi

I'LL USE YOU AS A WARNING SIGN. . .

 
He could feel the avaricious possession of her hungry gaze upon his flesh, and had the wanton fever not so possessed him, he most certainly would have shied away or perhaps even scorned her unabashed witnessing. His cheeks burned, from the knowledge of her watchful attention, or the ruthlessly razing pyres she had lit within him, he knew not. He was little better, if not worse than she, smoldering gaze raking the heaving lines of her barren bodice, disheveled, panting, heaving for he and he alone in this moment. His bruising mouth remained slightly parted, unveiled awe, appreciation lavished with the slight lapse of tongue over flushed lips.

Her outstretched fingertips were met with the roughened grasp of his own, pinning her searching touch to the pillow above her head. The first quickly followed by the hand tracing through his hair, a touch that was far too much. He couldn’t stand it, not with his blood burning as hot as it was, with the last of his restraint teetering upon a dangerous precipice, the flames licking ravenously at the remaining supports. "Please," the word was hungry, yearning, a pillowed demand he had no intent of denying. "I need you."

He felt like a drawn bow string, the sensation only building as her lithe legs wrapped around his waist. Lean hips leaned forward at her beckon, into her welcome embrace, teeth gritting heavily where he lay his forehead softly against the crook of her neck. Smoldering adoration giving way to the more base of instinct, a transition that was slow in coming and yet  growing more and more rushed within the heat of her want,  fueling his own with an unrestrained fury. One there no longer could be any denial of, the hand that did not hold her devious touch captive traced the lithesome curves of her bodice: trailing calloused fingertips over the swell of her breasts, down the length of her side to catch hold of her hip. His grasp would tilt her upwards, towards him, against him as he rumbled lowly against her porcelain throat with the sensation. His grasp tightened but didn't entirely halt as he finally ensnared her thigh in full.

Crown would finally rise, mouth hungry, possessive as it claimed her own. In the same breath, his hips rolled forward, a slight shiver rolling down the length of his spine at the feel of such intimate flesh. His grip intensified further upon her leg, pulling her closer still as a somewhat rougher thrust allowed him to fully sheath himself within the engulfing warmth of her temple walls. His. The word nearly echoed in the low growl that reverberated in the depths of his chest, as his tongue swept the interior of her mouth in ravenous, carnal desire. Mine.

!

. . . THAT IF YOU TALK ENOUGH SENSE THEN YOU'LL LOSE YOUR MIND

Were she the woman Jothan always dreamt her to be, Ethel might have turned away from the piercing hunger of her husbands' maddened stare. A devouring caress of a lone eye that left nothing unscathed. It'd be a lie to say she didn't enjoy the way he looked at her nor the way it made her feel so... beautiful. Were she her father's prim and proper daughter, she would have recoiled at his touch, hiding her writhing body from view beneath the coverlet. Anything, everything, for even a shred of girlish modesty to remain. What would the neighbours think? But she wasn't that woman. She was anything but the chaste, proper dream child of Jothan Nethersole. She was Ethel Markai, the blemish of the Nethersole name. She was Ethel Markai, the liked wife of Dimitris and she wanted him to kiss her, to look at her, to touch every aching part of her body. The woman whose virgin lips should have pleaded decency instead whimpered with an impassioned yearning. More than anything she wanted to feel the length of his naked body pressed against hers. No linen to bind them. No concerns or fears to still their hands and mouths from exploring this intimate lunacy. Calloused fingers ensnared hers, lifting the length of her arm above her head and to the cotton cradle of the pillow beneath. There was no resistance to the way he guided her body. Instead, there was only a wicked smirk tugging at her lips; heady the sigh which plumed from them. His gossamer touch left sparks flickering on her skin, trailing her breast, her hips, and her thighs. But it wasn't enough to quell these sultry urges, the same which pulsed throughout her maidenhead and blossomed throughout the ensnaring hold of lithesome thighs. The foreign strength of his emboldened, carnal dominion pressed against her and Ethel pushed against it - a shameless askance. One that needed no voice to understand. There was the warmth of his mouth encapsulating her wine-dressed lips and its avaricious embrace that she met with equal urgency. Fevered and wanting. Dainty fingers tightened in his restraining hand and when the plunge of masculine flesh delved into her sodden core, a mewling moan rumbled into their fevered kiss. Lithe thighs held him in an unrelenting vice, unwilling to let him move away as to relish this sensation of him inside her most intimate crux. Unified as one. At last an answer to dreams and sensations that had plagued her for months on end. A rush of emotion flushed throughout Ethel's racing heart and urged beckoning hips to languidly grind against him, to loosen the hold of her thighs and feel the jolt of indescribable pleasure surge throughout her needy body. More. ‘All that we see or seem’, ‘Is but a dream within a dream.

Jahi

I'LL USE YOU AS A WARNING SIGN. . .

 

She robbed the air from his lungs in a low, guttural groan that fled his lips in answer to her own girlish sigh of pleasure. His fingers tightened around her own slightly, the dull ache of the debilitating injury searing up the length of his forearm in bitter reminder to the affliction. A stark reminder that he could have lost her. An unpleasant memory, important perhaps only for this realization to strike home. A thing from Rophuin that he would much rather forget, along with the irrational paranoia that had followed with the knowledge that he could become a wanted man in a land where none even knew of him. Only by a simple moniker, and he could be ensnared again.

She could have been caught in the crossfire yet again. This time with intent rather than simple madness in a crowd. To never see her bright smile again, to witness the flourish and pure happiness of her dance again would have been a fate far more cruel than death or anything else their captors could divulge. That's why he had implored her to come with him, to flee the dangers of her own home in favor of what he thought could be a better life. His return had been secret, discreet, but regardless he was certain she would be more secure here than there. Yet the reaches of the arms of strife were long indeed and greed would only beget greed in return.

In the end, no where was safe for her. Nowhere but here. With him. Always, he would keep her safe, a silent promise and vow he had already taken. Her legs clenched around him, holding him in place, and he stilled, dull nails biting against the tender skin of her thigh. It was enamoring, the way she cradled him, the warmth of her barren skin, the sight of her flushed bodice. The scent of her skin, of the wine that slicked her tongue and wet her lips, and the slight burn that accompanied the sweep of her tongue that mentioned the presence of alcohol as well. She was perfection, all consuming. His grasp loosened, trailing from her leg up to the curve of her waist just above her hip as her own clasp loosened.

He met the grind of her hips with his own, a rough exhale planted against the plush curve of her mouth. Slow was his withdraw, fingers squeezing against her side and her own dulcet hands as he thrust once more back against her. The roll of virile hips was slow, thorough as he savored the intoxication of her velvet walls.

!

. . . THAT IF YOU TALK ENOUGH SENSE THEN YOU'LL LOSE YOUR MIND

There were many nights spent in the broad arms of restless conjecture.  A young girl led into the dark hollows of the unknown by a whisper, a musing.  One thought that unleashed a thousand more in its place.  "Why'd you come here?"  Ethel thought of the opium stare looking at her from the pools of her mother's once enamoured glance.  She thought of Jothan's strict dictation of a ladies' dress, hair and manners and how none of it appealed to her.  It was to escape them, wasn't it?  To be free of their dominion and take this chance to build a new life beyond the constraints in Rophuin.  Emancipation.  She'd had that the moment they kissed to seal the matrimonial binds.  Dulcet fingers traced the scars on the back of his broad hand, a feathers touch, a dancing glissade mirrored in the way her thighs studied the curve of his hips.  Every minute detail of his body was committed to memory, seared into the deepest core of her racing heart.  "What's the real reason, then?"  If not freedom, perhaps adventure.  The thrill of excitement was like static weaving throughout her skin.  A rather unfortunate addiction she'd acquired from a child's age when her lips first met with the fishmonger's son.  His lips weren't possessive like Dimitris'; they weren't warm or inviting.  They hadn't made her heart quicken like fleeing rabbit's feet nor did they make her body unfurl in response like a blossom first touched by nourishing light.  The taste of him still lingered in her mouth even after they'd taken leave - the faintest hint of spiced fruit.  It was complimentary to the wine she'd had but moments before they tangled in this affair of gleaming hearts and fleshly pleasures.  A harsh, enraptured breath rolled along her mouth as a testament to his licentious serenity.  Gratification that her enveloping body gave.  Supple lips coiled, mirroring the coy nature of faerie folk or perhaps that of satisfied nymphs lounged by their river banks.  They parted, they grew warm with the purr of a breathy moan when the rippling waves of heady passion fluttered up her body.  Ethel found it hard to think of much else than the languid withdrawal, the rupturing entry, the slow grind of robust hips exploring her most fleshly, intimate secret.  A secret she'd give without reservations. "He asked me to."  Wild tresses shifted along the pillow like the curling arms of sea creatures when she tilted her chin back, fully exposing the curve of her neck.  "That's why I came here."  Womanly, beckoning hips rose to meet his thrusts, each searing delve inviting a whispering moan to tremble in her throat.  It felt surreal, like a dream she wished to never wake from.  "Because I like him.  I like him so much...  That's why..."  As they moved in unison, the sensitive tips of her breasts caressed the naked skin of his chest, soaking in the warmth of him, the stark contrast between his hardened skin and her more refined softness.  "I don't want to be anywhere without him."  ‘All that we see or seem’, ‘Is but a dream within a dream.

Jahi

I'LL USE YOU AS A WARNING SIGN. . .

 She had wanted freedom. He had, in the beginning, no wish to leash her - and even now to say that was his intent would be a lie. Despite his adoration of her, of her features and each and every dulecet line he would commit to memory, it was inevitably the love she held for independence that made her burn so brightly. To chain her would be to dull the vivid fervor she held in life, the allure of her coaxing flame. She would become the sour imagery of a caged bird, singing softly to appease the ears of those who claimed it, yet unable to taste the wind of open skies. They oft forgot the sensation, their voices would grow rasp with sadness and rife with grief and loss until it eventually claimed them. He would not see her become the same, and yet he could not deny the way his own bodice formed a cage around her, the way he pulled her close. The way he held her there. The way he claimed her as his own and she him.

Another breathless pant abandoned his lips, flush against the heavy presence of her pulse pounding like gales of thunder and rain trapped within her skin. Heavy hand would trace the veins of the storm, trailing from the curve of her hip, pressing over her abdomen, catching slightly upon her navel, calloused fingers sprawling slowly over the plush of her heaving breast. His clasp was not harsh, but so too was gentleness vaguely lost in the way he kneaded the sensitive skin in tandem with each of his thrusts. He leaned ravenously into the lavish of her frame, each and every breath, every minute movement, the flutter of her heart, he wanted it. He wanted to feel it.

His own quickened, craven in realization. Desire, a foreign thing, yearning that was strange and before unprecedented. Abandoned as unnecessary and now insatiable, unable to deny the growing tides of strange euphoria that bled into his veins. Never before had he experienced such a thing, other than in the poison of adrenaline that snared like a toxin in the heat of battle. An enigma, a wanton inquiry that danced perilously upon the tip of his tongue, threatening to slice with a single misstep. Yet it was a blade he was wholly unaccustomed to, one he had no way of wielding with steady grip like the iron he was so fond of. She had just as much control as he, another oddity in the schism of things. An askew view of a twisted reality he was now privy to. Perhaps even more. He would raise his head,  lips brushing against her jaw, roaming hand gently cupping the opposite as he brushed his thumb tenderly over the porcelain curvature of her cheek.

What would he not do for her?

!

. . . THAT IF YOU TALK ENOUGH SENSE THEN YOU'LL LOSE YOUR MIND

His breathless pant fanned these promiscuous desires like an encouraging spur into the side of a stubborn nag.  A sound bestowed during laborious chores, while chopping wood or swinging his sword.  Only now did Ethel truly hear it, appreciate it, crave to hear it again and again.  To feel its hot sting against her aching flesh, to be warmed by the plume of his pleasured breath caressing the sensitive bend of her pulsing neck.  It was not this breath, however, that she felt glissading across her skin, exploring the nakedness of it, the exposed form of her feminine curves. Rugged fingers calloused by steel trailed across her abdomen, her heaving breast, the hard tip of her nipple warmed by the palm of his hand.  A touch that had forgone gentle curiosities and dipped its toes into the realm of hardened demand.  It was rough, pleasantly so, and his thrusts matched each pleasing squeeze.  She bit her lip to tame the hearty moan that threatened to unfurl though it did little to truly mute that impassioned roar. Ethel's fingertips dug into the broad curve of his shoulder, seeking some means of grounding as she became wholly subservient to their primal intimacy.  Her quivering, jolting thighs held him, hips rocking in tandem with each fervent claim pressing harder and deeper until she felt like she'd burst at the seams.  Endearing kisses, the touch of his thumb against her cheek.  It was nearly more than she could handle.  Ethel shifted her head seeking to kiss him harder than before, more pressing, more urgent in finding release from the growing pressure and erotic heat that brewed within the tightening depths of her maidenhead.  ‘All that we see or seem’, ‘Is but a dream within a dream.

Jahi

I'LL USE YOU AS A WARNING SIGN. . .

Despite himself, he couldn't help feeling cheated as she bit her lip in an attempt to cage the sound so fervently fighting to free itself from her lungs. He answered with a graveled sigh of his own, a pleasured groan against the curve of her ear like a fervid secret. She turned her head towards him, her lips pleading - no commanding - in their intensity and savagery. A depravity that he matched in equal turn. The flames were further fueled by the tremble of her dulcet thighs, the clench and relish of her silken walls, that bid his head to tilt, rolling as teeth grit, another exhale searing with molten heat through his lips.

He shifted, raising his weight from above her, unwilling to part from her intimate embrace, instead pulling her flush against the virile slam of his hips. "You're beautiful." The tenor of his vocals would gravel roughly, pale stare razing her blushing skin, the contours of her feminine curves, of her immaculate features. Perfection, a difficult thing to fathom, an unrealistic reality. Perilous Aphrodite made flesh and bone, or perhaps rather Artemis - the avid huntress with her impeccable aim. Piercing easily through the repertoire of his armor, the head of her venomous arrow burrowing until it was wholly embedded within him in permanency. A secret poison that was now far too late to combat, woven into each and every fiber of his being. Until every bit of him burned like a pyre.

He would grasp her ankle lightly, raising her leg until her calf rested against the breadth of his shoulder, glissading touch scathing a trail down to the sensitive bundle of nerves betwixt her thighs. His ravishing pace continued, unrelenting. He would see her come undone, an unabashed wish, a monstrous, ravenous greed. Teeth and lips nipped and adorned affections upon the curve of her calf, but his vision would remain riveted to her, to the salacious part of her lips, to the crimson sheen of her proud cheeks, to the draw of her knitted brow. The fan of her wild locks was like that of a burning halo spread over the canvas of her pillowed throne.

!

. . . THAT IF YOU TALK ENOUGH SENSE THEN YOU'LL LOSE YOUR MIND