Chapter 7: The Afterglow
Her fingers, cold and shaking, closed around his wrist just before he reached the tent flap. The contact was a shock, a thread of silk on scarred leather. He went still, his back to her.
“Please,” she whispered, the word cracking. “Don’t go.”
Aaron turned, his eyes scanning her where she lay amidst the torn maps and rumpled furs, her dress open, her skin gleaming with sweat. His gaze was analytical, cold, tracing the fresh bruise on her neck, the marks on her thighs. He walked back, each step deliberate, until he loomed over her. With a swift, brutal motion, he yanked the fur blanket from her body, exposing her completely to the chill, smoky air.
Her breasts tightened, her nipples pebbling. She tried to cover herself, but he caught her wrist, pinning it beside her head. “Look at you,” he murmured, his voice a rough scrape. His free hand trailed down her stomach, through the damp patch of dark curls, and slid between her folds. She gasped, arching off the furs. “Still so fucking wet.” He withdrew his fingers, slick and glistening, and held them before her eyes. “Still dripping for me.” Before she could speak, he lowered himself, his shoulders pushing her thighs wide apart. The first flat stroke of his tongue against her swollen clit was a lightning bolt of shock. She cried out, a sharp, startled sound. Her hands flew to his blond hair, not to push him away, but to clutch at him as his mouth settled on her with ruthless precision.
His tongue was a foreign, slick invasion, tracing a path of fire she had never imagined. It lashed her clit with a focus that felt surgical, then plunged deeper, tasting her with a low, possessive groan. Kia shuddered, her hips lifting from the furs of their own accord, a strangled gasp escaping her lips.
This was wrong. It was profane. In her temple, such an act was whispered about as a degradation, something men did to whores. She was a priestess. Her hands, which had been clutching his hair, now pushed weakly against his scalp. “Aaron, stop,” she pleaded, her voice thin with shame. “You mustn’t.”
He ignored her, his grip on her thighs firm, holding her open. His mouth was relentless, sucking and licking with a rhythm that shattered her thoughts. A coil of pressure, different from the brutal fucking over the maps, began to tighten deep in her belly. It was a slower, more insidious heat, blooming from where his tongue worked her. Her protest died in her throat, replaced by a whimper. She was so sensitive, so raw from his earlier taking, that every stroke bordered on pain, yet tipped into a pleasure so sharp it stole her breath.
Her back arched, her breasts aching. As if sensing it, he pulled away from her cunt. She felt the loss immediately, a cool shock. Before she could comprehend it, his mouth was on her breast, his tongue circling a nipple before drawing it deep into the heat of his mouth. The sensation was shocking, electric. A moan tore from her, loud and wanton in the quiet tent.
“You taste like my come and your own slick,” he muttered against her skin, his voice thick. His teeth grazed the peaked flesh, sending a jolt straight to her core. She cried out, her fingers twisting in his hair, not pushing anymore, but holding on as the dual assault—his mouth on her nipple, the memory of his tongue between her legs—unmade her. “So fucking sensitive.”
She was drowning in it, the embarrassment burning her cheeks as her body betrayed every lesson, every vow of modesty. “I can’t…” she sobbed, but her body was speaking another language, her hips making small, desperate circles against the empty air.
He released her breast with a wet pop and moved back down her body. His hands hooked under her knees, spreading her wider, exposing her completely. The cold air hit her wetness, and she flinched. Then his mouth was on her again, his tongue thrusting deep inside her this time, fucking her with it. The intimacy was devastating, a claiming more profound than any penetration.
Her hands fell from his head to claw at the furs beneath her. “Oh, gods, Aaron,” she gasped, the words a ragged prayer. The coil within her snapped without warning, a silent, stunning convulsion that locked her muscles and stole her voice. It rolled through her in endless, pulsing waves, her cunt clenching around nothing, her vision spotting with stars.
He didn’t let up. He drank from her, his tongue gentling now to lap at her through the violent tremors, prolonging the shocking, unbearable sensitivity until she whimpered, her body twitching with overstimulation. Only then did he lift his head, his mouth and chin glistening. He looked up the length of her trembling body, his blue eyes dark and unreadable.
He crawled up her, his weight settling over her. He was still fully clothed in his gambeson, the rough fabric scratching her oversensitive skin. He kissed her, hard, forcing her to taste herself on his lips and tongue. The saltiness, the musk—it was her own shame, given back to her. She kissed him back, desperate, lost.
He broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers. “You see?” he breathed, his voice rough. “Your pious little body doesn’t know prayer from a prince’s mouth on your cunt.”
He shifted his hips, and she felt him, hard and urgent against her thigh. With one hand, he guided himself to her entrance, still pulsing and slick from her climax. He pushed in slowly, a stark, filling stretch that made her gasp. He was allowing her to feel every inch this time, a torturous, perfect invasion. He buried himself to the hilt and held there, watching her face.
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. He leaned down and licked one away, his movement inside her a subtle, devastating grind. “Now,” he whispered against her ear, his voice a promise and a threat. “Now we fuck.”
He pulled out almost entirely, the sudden emptiness a cold shock. Before she could protest, his hands gripped her waist, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips. He hauled her up, turning her with a rough efficiency that left her dizzy. Her back was against his chest now, his thighs outside hers. She was exposed, held aloft in his lap, her legs splayed wide over his.
“What are you—” she began, her voice thin.
His hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her. “No more questions,” he growled into her ear. His other arm banded across her stomach, holding her firmly against him. She felt the blunt, hot pressure of his cock nudging against her from below. “You wanted me to stay. So take me.”
He guided himself, not with his hand, but by shifting her hips, the head of his cock parting her slick folds. Then he released her, his grip on her stomach the only anchor. “Do it,” he commanded, his voice a dark promise. “Sink onto it. All of it.”
Trembling, she let her weight drop. He was thicker than she remembered, an impossible stretch that burned. She whimpered against his palm, her body shaking with the effort, with the shock of the sensation. She could only manage an inch before tightening, resisting.
His teeth grazed her earlobe. “I said all of it.” His arm tightened, and he pulled her down while thrusting up.
She impaled herself in one brutal, tearing motion. A choked scream was muffled by his hand. He filled her completely, a deep, shocking invasion that stole the air from her lungs. She shuddered violently, overfilled, stretched beyond bearing. Her head fell back against his shoulder, tears seeping from her closed eyes.
“It’s too much,” she sobbed, the words distorted against his skin. “I can’t, it’s—”
“You can,” he interrupted, his voice grinding. “You are. Feel it.” He began to move, a shallow, punishing pump of his hips that ground him deep inside her. Each upward thrust lifted her slightly, her own weight driving her back down onto him. The friction was ruthless, lighting every raw nerve.
Her breasts bounced with the jarring rhythm, a helpless, obscene jiggle that made her cheeks burn with humiliation. “Stop,” she begged, her body a traitorous contradiction, clenching around him even as she voiced the protest. “Please, it’s too deep.”
He ignored her, his pace increasing. His hand left her mouth and gripped her jaw instead, forcing her to look down at where their bodies joined, at the dark thatch of his pubic hair against her pale skin, at the shocking sight of him buried inside her. “Watch,” he commanded. “Watch your body take what it was made for.”
He slammed up into her, a particularly vicious stroke that made her cry out. The sound was loud, uncaring. Her nipples hardened, peaking in the cool air. Her own arousal, a slick shame, made wet sounds with every plunging movement. He fucked up into her with a relentless, mechanical precision, his breath hot and ragged against her neck.
“I’m failing,” she gasped, the confession torn from her. “I’m supposed to… to find peace. This is… I’m just a… a hole for you.”
His hand slid from her jaw down to her throat, not squeezing, just holding. A possession. “Yes,” he rasped, his thrusts becoming harder, faster. “My perfect, tight hole. Dripping for it. Begging for it even when you say no.” He punctuated each word with a deep, driving plunge. “Your. Fucking. Body. Knows.”
She was unraveling, the coarse words weaving with the brutal physicality, the undeniable pulse of pleasure building from the ache. Her hands gripped his thighs, her nails biting through the fabric of his trousers. Her earlier climax had sensitized her, and now each drag of his cock sparked a firestorm. Her moans became continuous, a broken melody sung into the smoky air.
He shifted his angle slightly, and the next thrust brushed a spot deep inside that made her vision whiten. She shattered. Her orgasm was a silent, convulsing seizure, her cunt clamping around him in rhythmic pulses, milking him. She threw her head back against him, a final, wordless cry escaping her lips.
With a guttural snarl, he followed. His hips stuttered, his arm locked like iron around her middle as he drove up one last time and held her there, impaled. She felt the hot, internal rush of his release, a flooding pulse that seemed to go on forever. He shuddered against her, his groan a raw, unfiltered sound of completion.
They stayed like that, joined, his softening flesh still inside her, his weight supporting her completely. Her body thrummed with aftershocks, a spent and trembling wreck. The only sounds were their ragged breaths and the distant call of a night watchman outside.
Slowly, carefully, he lowered her from his lap onto the furs. He pulled out of her, and she felt the immediate, mortifying trickle of their mixed fluids down her thigh. He stood, buckling his trousers with hands that were, for the first time, not quite steady. He looked down at her, a stark, ravished figure against the dark fur.
He poured water from a flagon onto a cloth. Without a word, he crouched and cleaned between her legs, the rough fabric a strangely tender abrasion. She was too overwhelmed to feel shame at the intimacy.
“Sleep,” he said, his voice stripped of all inflection. He threw the blanket over her. “We ride at dawn. You’re going back.”
He turned and walked to the map table, dismissing her. She curled onto her side, pulling the fur to her chin, the smell of him and sex clinging to her. The information about Lord Braxus lay between them, unspoken. It didn’t matter now. She had offered her body and he had taken it, again and again. She was a message sent, and she had been read.
She was a message sent, and she had been read.
The cold seeped into her bones then, sharper than the tent’s chill. It was the ice of understanding. She lay shivering under the rough blanket, her body a map of fresh aches and sticky evidence. She heard him shifting papers at the table, the sound of his strategy reasserting itself over the animal silence they had created. She closed her eyes, wanting to disappear into the fur.
The sound of water sloshing made her flinch. She opened her eyes to see him placing a wooden bucket by the bedside, steam rising in the dim light. He knelt, dipping a clean linen cloth into the warmth. "Sit up," he said, his voice devoid of its earlier command. It was flat, practical.
She hesitated, clutching the blanket to her chest. Her nakedness felt like a second skin of shame. "I can do it," she whispered, her voice hoarse.
"You're shaking so hard you'd spill it," he observed, not unkindly. He wrung out the cloth. "And you missed a spot." His gaze flicked to her inner thigh.
Heat flamed her cheeks. She allowed the blanket to fall to her waist, too exhausted for modesty. The air pebbled her skin. He reached out, and she braced for roughness, but his touch was different. The warm, damp cloth smoothed over her shoulder first, where a bruise was forming from his grip. It moved in slow, methodical strokes, washing away the sweat, the dried salt from her tears, the smudges of ink from the scattered maps.
He worked without speaking, his focus intent. The cloth passed over the curve of her breast, and she gasped, instinctively covering herself with her arm.
"I'm not starting again, Kia," he said, a faint edge of amusement in his tone. He gently moved her arm aside. "I'm cleaning you up." He continued, the warm linen circling a nipple before moving down her ribs. The tenderness was a shock more disorienting than the violence. This careful ministrations, after everything, felt like a language she didn't know how to read.
When the cloth touched her belly, she tensed. He paused, his hand resting lightly on her hip. "Easy," he murmured. The word was so soft she almost didn't hear it. He washed down her legs, each stroke firm and deliberate, rinsing the cloth in the bucket when it grew cool. The water darkened.
Finally, he nudged her thighs apart. She squeezed her eyes shut, humiliation burning through her. "Please," she breathed, a mere exhale.
"You're clean there, too," he said quietly. The warm cloth dabbed between her legs, a swift, clinical touch that held no trace of desire. It was strangely merciful. He cleaned the drying trails from her inner thighs, his movements efficient. "There."
He stood, taking the bucket and soiled cloth to the corner of the tent. He returned with a soft, dry square of linen and handed it to her. "For your face." She took it, avoiding his eyes, and pressed it to her cheeks. It smelled of plain soap and cedar.
He watched her for a moment, then sat on the edge of the bedroll, his back to her. He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture tired. The lantern light carved the lines of tension in his shoulders. "The information about Braxus," he began, his tone shifting back to that of a commander. "It's good. It confirms what my own scouts hinted at. It changes some of the troop movements I had planned."
She blinked, trying to follow the sudden pivot. Her mind was still fogged with the scent of warm water and soap, with the memory of his tongue. "Oh."
"We leave at first light," he continued. "But you're not going back to the fortress." He turned his head slightly, looking at her over his shoulder. "It's not safe for you to travel with just two men, not with Braxus possibly mobilizing. You stay with the campaign. With me."
Her breath caught. To stay here, in this world of mud and iron, surrounded by his army? The thought was terrifying. "I would be a burden."
"A liability I've chosen to manage." He finally turned fully to face her. The storm in his eyes had settled into a weary, pragmatic resolve. "You'll have a tent. You'll have guards from my personal cohort. You will not, under any circumstances, wander. Is that understood?"
She nodded, clutching the dry linen to her chest. The naivety of her journey here, of thinking she could simply deliver a message and retreat, crashed over her in a cold wave. She was in it now. Whatever 'it' was. He studied her, his gaze lingering on the fresh mark on her neck. His expression was unreadable.
"You should sleep," he said, standing. He moved towards the table again, but then stopped. Without looking at her, he added, "The washing. It wasn't about... what happened. It's about keeping clean. Infections in camp can kill you faster than a sword." He paused, his back rigid. "And you were shivering."
He returned to his maps, leaving her with the bucket of cooling water and the scent of soap on her skin. The kindness, offered so mechanically, confused her more than his cruelty had. She slid down under the blanket, her body clean but her mind stained with the night's contradictions. Outside, a lone wolf howled, a long, mournful sound swallowed by the vast, waiting dark.