Chapter 9: More fun
The laundry basket was a fortress of clean linen, starched and smelling of lye and sunlight. Elspeth carried it like a shield, its woven wicker bulk pressed against her thighs as she navigated the west corridor. It was a narrow, forgotten artery of the castle, lined with tapestries so faded the battles they depicted were just ghostly smudges of color. Her mind was a ledger of tasks: linens to the blue chamber, then check on the rising dough, then supervise the scullion boys peeling the mountain of turnips for tonight’s stew.
The thought of turnips, of the dough, of the relentless domesticity of her life, was a dull ache. Then the air behind her shifted.
A shadow detached itself from a deeper alcove. A large, warm hand clamped over her mouth, not roughly, but with decisive certainty. Another arm, thick as a hawser, snaked around her waist, basket and all, and pulled her backwards off her feet.
She didn’t scream. Her body knew his touch even before her mind caught up. The basket tumbled, spilling a cascade of white sheets onto the stone flags as he spun her around the corner into a dead-end servant’s nook, little more than a recess for a long-forgotten statue plinth.
“Kerr,” she hissed, his hand dropping from her mouth to clamp over her hip. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic counterpoint to the solid, unyielding heat of him pressed against her back. “Are you mad? The laundress is just–”
“Gone,” he murmured into her ear, his voice a low, pleasant rumble. “Saw her head to the stillroom. We have a minute.”
“A minute,” she echoed, disbelief warring with the immediate, traitorous slickness between her thighs. His body was a furnace. One of his hands slid from her hip, down over her apron, the rough wool doing nothing to mute the intention in his touch. The other hand came up, fingers splaying across her belly, holding her firmly against him. She could feel him, hard and insistent, even through their clothes.
“Maybe ninety seconds,” he amended, and she could hear the smile in his voice. His fingers found the hem of her skirts, bunching the coarse fabric in his fist. There was no ceremony, no preamble. This was pure, focused urgency.
He yanked her skirts up. The cool air hit the backs of her thighs. He fumbled with his own laces for only a second before she felt the blunt, familiar pressure against her. He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. Her body arched, a silent, answering consent.
He pushed into her with one smooth, relentless stroke. The fullness was shocking, a gasp ripped from her throat that she muffled by biting her own lip. He was not gentle. This wasn’t the solar, wasn’t her cot. This was a claim staked in a sunlit hallway, fast and deep.
“Quiet,” he breathed, his own breath coming in short, hot bursts against her neck. He set a brutal, efficient rhythm, each thrust driving her forward against the stone wall, the rough-hewn rock scraping her fingertips. The laundry, the turnips, the entire weight of the castle dissolved into the sensory overload of him: the smell of his skin, leather and clean sweat; the powerful flex of his thighs against the backs of her own; the devastating, perfect stretch as he filled her again and again.
She came quickly, violently, her climax a silent, shattering wave that made her knees buckle. He held her up, his arm like an iron band, his pace never faltering. A few more pounding thrusts and he stiffened, a low, guttural sound trapped in his throat. He pulsed inside her, a hot rush that seemed to go on and on.
For five seconds, maybe ten, they stayed like that, locked together, panting in the dusty silence. The only sound was their ragged breathing and the distant, muffled chatter from the kitchen yards far below.
Then he withdrew, the sudden absence feeling vast and empty. He released her skirts, which fell back into place with a soft rustle. She heard the quiet whisper of him retying his laces.
She leaned her forehead against the cool stone, waiting for her legs to solidify. A white sheet from the spilled basket had drifted partly into the nook, a pristine island on the grey flagstones.
“Sorry about the laundry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. She turned to face him. His hair was ruffled, his cheeks flushed. That mischievous glint was back in his eyes, bright and satisfied.
“You’re a menace,” she said, but her voice was weak, thready. She bent to gather the fallen linens, her movements shaky. He knelt too, helping her refold a sheet, his hands absurdly large and careful on the fine fabric.
“A menace who missed you,” he said, his tone lighter now, almost boyish.
“It’s been six hours.”
“Exactly.” He stood, pulling her up with him. He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, his thumb lingering for a moment. “Meet me later. The kitchen. After the supper rush.”
“Why?”
“I want to help you wash the dishes.”
She stared at him. “You’ve never washed a dish in your life.”
“There’s a first time for everything.” He winked, then slipped out of the nook, leaving her standing amidst the scattered laundry, the scent of him and sex clinging to the still air.
The kitchens after supper were a battlefield in the cooling phase. The great fires had banked to glowing mounds of peat, but the heat lingered, trapped by the low, vaulted ceilings. The air was thick with the ghosts of meals: meaty gravy, burnt crust, the sweet tang of stewed apples. Towers of dirty platters, crusted pots, and greasy skillets stood sentinel on the central chopping block, a monolithic testament to the castle’s appetite.
The cavernous room echoed with the last clangs of scullions finishing up, their voices fading as they headed for the barracks or the town below. Elspeth stood alone before the greasy mountain, her arms already aching in anticipation. The weight of the day, of the encounter in the corridor, of everything, settled into her lower back. She picked up a bristle brush, the handle worn smooth by generations of hands, and plunged the first platter into the steaming, soapy water.
The door to the kitchen yard swung open without a sound. Kerr leaned against the frame, his shoulders filling the space. He’d shed his leather jerkin, wearing just a loose linen shirt and trousers. He rolled his sleeves up his forearms, the muscles there shifting as he did.
“Told you I’d come,” he said.
She didn’t look up from the pot she was scouring. “You’ll get your fine clothes wet.”
“They’ll dry.” He walked to the basin, picked up a drying cloth, and without another word, took the clean platter from her hand. He polished it with a few efficient, circular motions, set it on the stack, and reached for the next one. His movements were methodical, unhurried. He knew how to wash dishes. He was raised right. He was actually pretty good at labor.
They worked in silence for a while, the only sounds the slosh of water, the scrape of brush on metal, the soft clink of pottery. It was the most mundane intimacy they’d ever shared. More intimate, in a way, than the nook or the solar.
“Why are you really here?” she asked finally, handing him a dripping skillet.
“You looked tired this morning,” he said, not missing a beat with the cloth. “After I left. Thought you could use a hand.”
“I’m always tired. That’s what work is.”
“This is different.” He set the skillet down and turned to face her, leaning back against the chopping block. His gaze was direct, stripping away her pretense. “It’s the weight. I see it. You carry the whole place on your back.”
Her throat tightened. She looked down into the murky water. “It’s my job.”
“It’s my job,” he countered, his voice softening. “Or it will be. Father’s letters said they’re extending their stay in Denerim. Fergus is making… connections.” He said the last word with a slight twist, a hint of disdain. “So it’s me. For longer.”
Elspeth felt a cold trickle that had nothing to do with the dishwater. “That’s… that’s good. You’re ready.”
“Am I?” He pushed off from the block and came closer, standing beside her at the basin. He didn’t touch her. He just picked up another dirty plate and submerged it, his shoulder brushing hers. “I sat in judgment on the miller’s son today. Petty theft. The man wanted his hand struck off. I gave him two weeks in the stocks and restitution.”
“That sounds fair.”
“It felt like guessing.” He scrubbed the plate, his focus on it. “Like I was just choosing a path because I had to choose one. There’s no one to ask. You’re the only person in this entire fortress who doesn’t want something from me. Who never has.”
The admission hung in the steamy air. She watched his hands, capable and sure, working on the dish. These were the same hands that had pinned her to a wall hours ago, that had traced her cheek by firelight. They knew their business, whether it was washing a pot or mapping her skin.
“I want something from you,” she whispered.
He stilled. “What?”
“This.” She gestured vaguely between them, at the sink, at the mundane and the profound. “To stay in the shadows and the minutes. To not get ideas about your bed or the high table. To not get us both ruined.”
He was quiet for a long moment. The water cooled around her fingers. “You think that’s all I’m after? A bit of fun before they marry me off to some bored noble daughter?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it?”
He threw the dishcloth down into the basin with a wet slap. The sound was startling in the quiet kitchen. Water droplets hit the flagstones. He took a half-step back, running a hand through his hair, his movements suddenly jagged. The comfortable rhythm of their work shattered.
“No.” The word was flat, a stone dropped between them. “It’s not. Do you think this is some dalliance for me? A boy’s game?”
“What else can it be?” Her voice rose, matching his frustration. “You think I don’t know how this story ends? The younger son gets duty. He gets a treaty bride. The kitchen maid gets a few extra coins and a reference, if she’s lucky, and a lifetime of whispers.”
“You don’t know me at all.” His laugh was short, sharp, bitter. “You see the castle, the name, the fucking… expectations. You don’t see what’s underneath.” He leaned forward, his palms flat on the wet chopping block, caging her in without touching her. “I have no intention of marrying.None. Zero.”
She blinked, stunned by the vehemence.
“I’m a warrior,” he said, his voice dropping, low and intense, each word a deliberate strike. “Trained since I could hold a wooden sword. My hands are made to grip a hilt, to break a shield rim, to feel the give of a man’s ribs under my gauntlet. That’s my truth. I’m a fighter. A killer, when I need to be.”
The steamy air in the kitchen seemed to thin. She could smell the cold metal of the discarded pans, the fading scent of thyme from the drying bunches overhead.
“This,” he gestured, a vicious slash of his hand, encompassing the space between their bodies. “What we do. What we are. It’s the same category. It’s a physical truth. It’s the only thing that makes sense in my head. There’s no poetry in it, Elspeth. No grand sentiment. I value you because you are the only person who understands that. Who doesn’t flinch from it.”
He straightened, his gaze pinning her. “You’re real. You’re solid. You’re the only thing in this place that doesn’t feel like a role I’m playing. When I’m with you, it’s pure sensation. I push into you and the whole damn world narrows down to that one feeling. It’s heat and pressure and a fucking… perfect, stretching fit. It’s the sound you make when you can’t breathe. It’s the look on your face right before you come apart.”
He took a step closer. The heat from his body cut through the kitchen’s lingering warmth. “To put it simply, it feels damn good.”
He reached out, his finger tracing a slow line from her temple, down her cheek, to her jaw. A shiver, violent and deep, wracked her.
“You feel damn good,” he whispered, his voice a raw scrape. “And I intend to keep making you feel damn good. For no other reason than that. Because I can. Because you let me. Because in a life of performing duties I never asked for, it’s the one real, selfish, honest thing I get to do.”
The confession hung there, brutal and stripped of all romance. It was not a declaration of love. It was a declaration of physical truth, a warrior’s assessment of a battlefield where the only prize was mutual, shattering pleasure. It was the most honest thing anyone had ever said to her.
Her breath hitched. All her arguments, her fears of scandal and future wives, crumbled before this naked honesty. He wasn’t promising her a place at his side. He was promising her this: the raw, uncomplicated reality of their joining, for as long as they could steal it.
“Okay,” she breathed. The word was barely audible.
“Okay?” His hand stilled on her face.
“Okay.” She turned her head, pressing her lips to the calloused palm of his hand. It was a seal.A contract. An acceptance of the terms.
He watched her for a long moment, his eyes dark and unreadable. Then he moved. He didn’t kiss her. He simply took her hand, the one still holding the brush, and placed it gently on the chopping block. He took the brush from her and set it aside.
He pushed her skirts up himself, fabric bunching in his hands with a rasp. This wasn’t like the frantic coupling in the corridor. This was deliberate. She hoisted herself to sit on the edge of the wet block, the stone cold and hard beneath her. She leaned back on her elbows.
He freed himself. He didn’t say a word. He just stepped between her thighs, gripped her hips with those warrior’s hands, and pulled her to the very edge. He pressed the broad, blunt head of himself against her.
She was already wet for him. The sound she made as he pushed in was a gasp that turned into a low moan, swallowed by the cavernous room. He filled her with a single, slow, excruciatingly deep stroke. Her head fell back. Stars swam behind her closed eyelids.
He started to move. The rhythm was deep, primal, anchoring her to the physical truth he’d just described. Every thrust was an affirmation. This feels good. The delicious, impossible stretch bloomed from her core, flowering through her limbs.You feel good. She clawed at the rough wood of the block, her hips rising to meet his. I will keep making you feel good.
He was watching her face, his own a mask of fierce concentration. There was no tenderness in his eyes. It was something hotter, more honest: a kind of stark, ravenous appreciation. Like a man consuming clean water after a long march. Like a man finding solid ground in a swamp.
The pleasure built on itself, a feedback loop of sensation and purpose. He moved faster, his hips a relentless piston, the slap of their skin echoing softly off the stone walls. The world did narrow down, just as he’d said. There was only the ache in her thighs, the sweat on his brow, the raw friction, the sound of their breathing intermingling in the dark, silent kitchen.
She came with a sharp cry, her body bowing, every muscle clenching tight around him. He kept moving, powered her through it, prolonging the waves into a sustained, breathtaking vibration. Only then, as she crested, did his own control fracture. He slammed into her, once, twice, three more times, a low growl tearing from his throat. He held himself deep, pulsing, giving her every last drop of his honest, selfish truth.
He slumped forward, his forehead coming to rest on her shoulder, his body heavy and spent against her. They stayed locked like that for a long time, listening to the soft drip of a tap and the pound of their own hearts slowing.
Slowly, carefully, he withdrew. He helped her stand, her legs shaky. He smoothed her skirts back into place, his hands gentler now. The rough cotton felt strange against her sensitized skin.
He picked up the discarded dishcloth, dunked it in the cooling water, and handed it to her. She wiped her face, her neck, the damp tendrils of hair stuck to her skin. He did the same.
Without a word, he went back to the sink. He picked up the next dirty pot. He ran it under the water. He started scrubbing.
She stood there, feeling hollowed out and filled up in equal measure, the scent of him and soap and sex an indelible mark in the air. After a moment, she took the clean pot from him and began to dry.
After a moment, she took the clean pot from him and began to dry. The rhythmic scrape of bristle on iron resumed, a mundane soundtrack to the tremor still alive in her hands. They worked in a new silence, not empty, but thick with what had been said and done.
Water sloshed, clean metal clinked against the drying rack. The mountain of dishes shrank. Her mind felt scoured clean, too, stripped bare by his words. A physical truth. She turned the phrase over like a stone in her palm, smooth and heavy.
The last pewter mug was dried, its surface gleaming dully in the firelight. Kerr plunged his hands into the now-grey water, pulling the plug with a soft groan of old pipes. The water drained with a gurgling sigh, leaving behind a few stray oat flakes and a film of grease. He wiped his hands on his trousers, leaving dark smudges on the linen.
He looked at her across the steam. The fierce intensity had banked, replaced by something more tentative, almost shy. He cleared his throat, the sound too loud in the quiet room.
“Could I…” he began, then seemed to reconsider. He shifted his weight, a giant in a suddenly domestic space. “Walk you to your quarters?”
Elspeth froze, the damp cloth held tight in her fist. The question hung in the air, more intimate than his hands on her hips, more dangerous than anything that had happened on the chopping block. Walking her meant crossing territory. It meant being seen together in a non-transactional way, outside their stolen corners.
He saw her hesitation. His mouth twisted, just a little. “Not to come in,” he clarified, his voice softer. “Just… to the door.”
It was a concession. A small, careful step onto a fragile bridge. She heard the unspoken words: I want more than the shadows. Just a few more feet of light.
She nodded, once. A short, sharp dip of her chin. “Alright.”
He didn’t smile, but his shoulders relaxed. He took the cloth from her hand and hung it neatly on its hook, a gesture so deliberately normal it made her heart ache. He gestured for her to lead the way.
The corridors of the servant’s wing were deserted, lit by widely spaced, sputtering torches that painted pools of amber on the worn flagstones and left deep wells of shadow between them. Their footsteps echoed, mismatched: his a solid, booted tread, hers a lighter scuff of worn leather. The sound felt accusatory in the emptiness.
They walked a foot apart. The space between them vibrated with the ghost of his touch. She was hyper-aware of the cooling sweat between her thighs, the pleasant soreness, the way her body still felt shaped to his.
“That pot had a crust on it even Teyrn Bryce’s hounds would’ve struggled with,” he said, his voice conversational, as if commenting on the weather.
“It was the venison stew,” she replied, matching his tone. “Cook insists on searing it until it’s like boot leather. Gives the scullions something to pray over.”
He chuckled, the sound warm in the cool corridor. “A holy purpose, then. Our penance.”
They turned a corner, passing the arched entrance to the stillroom. The scent of dried lavender and rosemary seeped out, a clean, sharp counterpoint to the memory of kitchen steam and sex. For a few paces, the world just smelled of herbs.
His hand brushed hers in the darkness. It wasn’t a grab, just a passing contact, knuckles grazing knuckles. She didn’t pull away. His fingers slipped between hers, calloused and strong, holding her hand with a startling tenderness. They walked on, now connected by this simple, blazing point of contact.
No one saw. The stones didn’t care. But her breath caught all the same.
They reached her door too soon. The plain, dark wood was a full stop. He stopped, turning to face her, but he didn’t let go of her hand. In the dim light, his eyes were deep-set pools, unreadable.
“Here you are,” he said, softly.
“Here I am.” She looked down at their joined hands, his so much larger, enveloping hers.“Thank you. For the help.”“Anytime.” He lifted her hand, turned it over, and pressed his lips to the center of her palm. The kiss was dry, warm, shockingly formal. It was a courtier’s gesture, utterly alien to everything they were. It felt like a promise made in a foreign language
He released her hand. The sudden absence of his touch felt colder than the stone around them.
“Sleep well, Elspeth,” he said. He took a step back, then another, his form dissolving into the gloom of the corridor.
She watched him go until the darkness swallowed him whole. Then she turned, pushed open her door, and stepped inside her tiny, whitewashed room. She closed the door and leaned her forehead against the cool wood. Her palm, where his lips had been, tingled as if branded.