Chapter 30: Elspeth’s Quarters
The fire in Elspeth’s quarters had burned down to embers, painting the room in shades of copper and deep shadow. She was sitting in her worn armchair, still in her day dress, when the door opened and Kerr filled the frame. He stepped inside and closed the door with a soft, definitive click, the weight of the castle hallway sealing away behind him.
For a moment, they just looked at each other. The silence was full of the day’s accusations.
“She came to see me,” Elspeth said finally, her voice a dry rustle in the quiet room.
“I know. I found her after.” Kerr began to unlace his tunic, his movements methodical, a warrior shedding armor. The heavy fabric slipped from his shoulders, revealing the sheer, scarred landscape of his torso. He wasn’t gentle with the garment, tossing it over the back of a chair. “Gave her my terms. She didn’t like them, but she accepted.”
Elspeth watched him, the familiar ritual of his undoing. “She threatened to hold me accountable if you falter. If this,” she gestured vaguely between them, “costs you a second in a fight.”
Kerr barked a laugh, short and without humor. He sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots, each one hitting the floor with a solid thud. “She doesn’t get it. None of them do. They think it’s a distraction. A weakness.” He stood, undoing the fastenings of his trousers. “It’s not. It’s the other half of the same thing.”
He stepped out of his clothes, naked in the fire-glow, a giant carved from living oak and battle. He wasn’t aroused; this was a different kind of vulnerability. He walked to her chair and slid down to the rug at her feet, his back against her knees, his head resting against the chair’s seat near her hip. A massive man making himself small, seeking contact, not an entry.
“Shouldn’t be so hard to understand,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble she felt through the fabric. “My fulfillment comes from two places. Fighting. And lovemaking. That’s the whole list. One requires me to be hard, and the other lets me be soft. One drains the rage, the other… doesn’t.”
He tilted his head back to look up at her. The firelight caught the planes of his face. “Look at me, Els. I’m six and a half feet tall. I weigh over three hundred pounds. Why in the Maker’s name would anyone try to stuff that into some tight-arsed nobleman’s costume, sweating in a palace, trading lies for favours? I’m a projectile. I’m a siege weapon. I belong on a battlefield, or leading an army from the front. Not in a parlour.”
Elspeth’s hand came to rest on his hair, her fingers tracing through the short, coarse strands. “It’s what’s expected.”
“What’s expected is a farce,” he said, closing his eyes at her touch. “What I do, or do not do, with my cock is nobody’s business but mine. And yours.” He opened his eyes again, a sharp grey gleam. “And why should you be ashamed? You hear the chambermaids giggling in the scullery. They all whisper about what it might be like, to have a man, to feel a fat cock stretch them. To come on one. You’ve lived it. For years. Why should you hang your head for the countless orgasms you’ve had? For the fact that you’ve coated the biggest cock in Thedas with your pleasure more times than either of us could count?”
There was no bragging in his tone. It was a statement of fact, wielded like a shield for her.
“Hush now,” she soothed, her thumb stroking his temple. “I’m not ashamed. Not of that. Never of that. I just fear for you. The weight she talked about… it’s real, Kerr.”
The weight she talked about… it’s real, Kerr.”
He didn’t answer for a long moment, just leaned into the touch of her fingers in his hair. The fire popped, sending a brief shower of sparks up the flue. “I know it is,” he said finally, his voice so low it was almost part of the darkness. “And that’s why I need this. Not in spite of it. Because of it.”
He turned his head, pressing a rough kiss to the inside of her wrist. The simple affection in the gesture, so at odds with his size and the day’s conflict, broke something open in her chest. Worry melted into a fierce, protective ache. Talking was done. Politics and duty were locked outside the door. Here, there was only them, and a language older than any house motto.
“Come here,” she murmured, her voice changing.
She gently pushed his shoulder, prompting him to shift. He moved with a puzzled grace, rolling onto his knees on the rug to face her chair. She looked at him, this monumental man waiting on her, the firelight gilding the sweat on his skin and the worried crease between his brows. She smiled, a real one, feeling the years slide away.
“You think too much,” she said, her tone shifting into that familiar, light cadence he’d come to the kitchens for a decade ago. “All that brainwork’s gonna strain something. Let’s get you out of your head for a bit.”
Her hands went to the laces of her own dress, not with seduction, but with practical efficiency. She shimmied it down over her shoulders, letting the fabric pool at her waist. The cool air touched her skin, tightening her nipples. His gaze followed the movement, the grey of his eyes darkening, the weight of his mother’s words visibly receding.
“That’s better,” she said softly. “Now you’re looking.”
She slid from the chair to join him on the thick rug, her knees settling on either side of his thighs. She didn’t kiss him. Instead, her hands pushed firmly at his shoulders until he yielded, lying back on the woven wool, his body a vast territory before her. She admired him openly, the hard planes of his chest, the trail of hair leading down.
“My gorgeous boy,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
Then she bent her head. Her mouth found the rigid line of his cock where it lay against his stomach, already thick and full. She didn’t start slow. She took him into her mouth all at once, sucking him deep with a practiced, hungry urgency that made his whole body jolt. A ragged groan tore from his throat, his hands flying to fist in the rug.
“Els… fuck.”
She hummed in response, the vibration traveling through him. She worked him with a devoted, relentless rhythm, her head bobbing, one hand cradling his heavy balls. She lost herself in the taste of him, the salt and skin, the sheer physical proof of his life. This was her answer to his mother, to the weight, to everything. This was her claiming, her solace, her power.
She felt the telltale tightening in his groin, the twitch deep in her throat. She redoubled her efforts, taking him impossibly deep, her nose pressed into the coarse hair at his base. His warnings became choked, incoherent gasps.
His warnings became choked, incoherent gasps.
Her world narrowed to the single point of aching pressure against the back of her throat, the familiar stretch of her lips, the heavy, living weight of him on her tongue. She knew the exact rhythm, the precise angle of her head that made his thighs tremble. A decade of practice lived in the hollows of her cheeks and the tight seal of her lips. She applied subtle suction on the upstroke, her tongue flattening along the thick vein underneath, then relaxed her jaw completely on the descent to take him deeper.
One hand worked the root of him in a counter-rhythm, her fingers barely meeting around the tremendous girth. The other gripped his hip, feeling the muscle there twitch and lock. She tasted the first metallic hint of his climax, a ghost on her taste buds. Her own body clenched in sympathetic need, a hot pulse between her legs that had nothing to do with direct touch and everything to do with the power of this act.
He came without a sound, a silent, breathless seizure. The first eruption was a scalding flood hitting the back of her throat, a thick, insistent jet. She swallowed instinctively, greedily, her throat working around him. The second load followed instantly, even heavier, a deep, pumping release that filled her mouth with his distinct, musky salt. She drank it down, a profound, claiming satisfaction settling in her belly. She milked him through the last pulses with gentle, relentless pulls, until he was soft and spent in her mouth, until every drop was gone.
She released him slowly, with a final, soft kiss. The taste of him lingered on her lips, familiar and anchoring. He lay utterly still on the rug, one massive arm thrown over his eyes, his chest rising and falling in deep, slow waves.
The fire cracked, settling. For a long while, the only sound was their breathing, syncing gradually in the dim room. The specter of Eleanor, of duty, felt very far away, burned off by simple, naked heat.
“You,” he finally mumbled from behind his arm, his voice thick and ragged, “are a menace.”
“Aye,” she agreed softly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She stretched out beside him on the rug, the wool scratchy against her bare skin. “Your menace.”
He turned his head, peering at her from under his elbow. The harsh lines of his face had softened into a look of drowsy, sated wonder. “She didn’t break you, then. With her talk of accountability.”
Elspeth snorted, a surprisingly sharp sound in the quiet.“Break me? I’ve survived a blight, a husband’s death, and thirty years of noble whims. A disappointed lady’s lecture is a Tuesday.” She traced a random pattern on his chest. “Thing that worries me is her breaking you. With her expectations.”
“She can’t.” He caught her wandering hand, lacing his thick fingers through her slender ones. “Because this doesn’t weaken me, Els. It’s the opposite.” He brought their joined hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “It’s the only thing that makes the rest of it make sense.”
They lay in comfortable silence, the warmth from the embers and from each other seeping into their bones. The urgency had passed, replaced by a profound, weary connection. She watched the firelight play over the hard contours of his stomach, the dark trail of hair leading down. Slowly, she saw the shift. A slight thickening, a renewed fullness resting against his thigh.
A faint, knowing smile touched her lips. He was young, his recovery swift as ever. The current of energy between them, momentarily stilled, began to hum again.
His breathing, which had settled into a steady rhythm, hitched. He turned onto his side to face her, his gaze intense and searching in the gloom. Without a word, he pushed himself up and got to his feet, his shadow enveloping her.
He moved behind her where she lay. Large hands, infinitely gentle, found her hips and urged her up onto her knees. He gathered the fabric of her dress, still bunched at her waist, and lifted it over her head in one smooth motion, letting it fall forgotten to the floor.
The cool air touched her skin, raising goosebumps. Then his heat was against her back. His hands came around to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her nipples until they peaked into tight points. He bent his head, his lips finding the sensitive curve where her neck met her shoulder. The kiss was slow, open-mouthed, a brand.
One hand slid down, over the plane of her belly, through the coarse silver hair below, to the molten warmth waiting between her legs. He stroked her there, a slow, deliberate circle that made her gasp and push back against him. He was already hard again, the thick length of him pressing into the small of her back.Words were done. There was only the sound of his breathing, warm against her ear, and the low, involuntary moans that vibrated in her own throat. He guided her toward the bed, his touch firm and sure.
At the edge, he bent her forward, her palms pressing into the soft coverlet. He knelt behind her. One hand stayed on her hip, anchoring her. The other slipped between her legs, fingers parting her, finding her slick and ready. He stroked her, once, twice, a deep, curling touch that made her legs tremble.Then he moved lower. His tongue, hot and wet and shockingly intimate, lapped at her, but not where she expected. It traced a lower, tighter circle, probing at a place that made her jolt and cry out. The sensation was sharp, illicit, overwhelming. She fought to retain control, to keep from shaking apart right there.
She failed the moment she felt him shift. The blunt, broad head of his cock nudged against her entrance, so different from the teasing of his tongue. With a single, powerful motion, he lifted one of her legs up onto the bed, opening her wider, and buried himself inside her in one deep, claiming stroke.
The fullness was breathtaking, a stretch so complete it bordered on pain before melting into unbearable pleasure. He began to move, his thrusts rhythmic and consistent, each one pushing a choked moan from her lungs. Her eyes slammed shut. Her world narrowed to the nerve-shattering feel of him, the drag and plunge, the spot deep inside he found with unerring accuracy.
The first climax took her suddenly, a wave that crashed without warning, her internal muscles clamping around him in rhythmic pulses. He didn’t pause, didn’t falter. The steady, deep pace continued, stoking the embers again almost immediately.
The second peak built slower, a tightening coil that snapped with a silent scream, her back arching. The third was a diffuse, rolling shock that left her dizzy. The fourth tore through her just as he drove in deep and held, a hot, liquid release flooding her depths as his own control shattered.
Her legs shook uncontrollably, muscles turned to water. The feeling of his warmth spilling inside her, that intimate, sweet claim, pulled a final, ragged “Yes” from her lips, more affirmation than pleasure. He collapsed over her, his great weight a comfort, their sweat-slick skin sealing them together. In the dark, with him still nestled within her, the castle and its burdens ceased to exist.