Stormchaser Roleplaying - hunters-after-dark

It’s late into the night - or is it morning? - when the door handle of the bedroom finally turns. Elodia stands in front of a large map supported on a small side table, the heavy gilded frame leaned back against the wall. Dim candlelight flickers off golden hair and the finish of the dozen tiny flags inset into the surface, marring the region. There are initials on each if one cares to look closely enough; an appalling mix of Vs and Cs and Js. “Is that my husband?” It’s a coy musing even as she reaches for him with an imperious hand behind her, otherwise fixing another pennant into the map. “Returned to the land of the living at last.”

The whispered breath of a low draught of air wafts in through the open door, making the candles and drapes flutter alike. Shadows dance across the trappings of the heavy four poster bed and Elodia can see the long silhouette of a man approaching her from behind. "...and what would you do if it wasn't?" Francesc purrs, running the backs of his fingers across his wife's jawline and down her throat to her shoulder. He grasps Elodia's honeyed locks, scraping them back as he draws in close behind her.

“Mm.” She muses, leaning back instinctively into the touch as the embers of anticipation begin to stir across her skin in its wake. Around them the candles begin to settle, the shadows' dance slowing across the map. “Depends.” She reaches behind her to catch his free hand and snake it around her waist, fingers slowly and covetously stroking across his own. “Perhaps I’d welcome him. My husband must be cruel indeed for it to be so very late and left me so alone.”

"Perhaps," Francesc murmurs as he lowers his lips to Elodia's shoulder. They dance a line up her neck to just below her ear. "If you wanted him dead." The words are whispered warmly in her ear, but there's a hard truth behind them.

Each touch of his lips is another step in the waltz to Elodia's ear, and when the whisper forms they coalesce into a liquid shiver that laces through her. “You know already who I want dead,” she murmurs, neck arching before him to bare more of her throat. ”And you know at least one of them is in this city." She momentarily closes her eyes against the map in front of them and its loathed initials, her hand on top of his across her waist hardening possessively. "Was she there, tonight? You've no bloodied knife to show for it.”

Francesc laughs against Elodia's throat and his teeth graze her skin, his tongue teasing between them. He pulls her tight against him and she can feel him pressing into her from behind. "I doubt the bitch even bleeds. Or would you have her father wage war on us for nought a drop?"

“I might. It might be worth it, to see if she’s capable.” She sinks back with a faint, contented exhale and a slow ripple of her hips against him. “I’m right, aren’t I. She was there.” Her gaze lowers and she turns their entangled hands over lazily, making a show of tracing her nail absently across his palm. ”Are these hands still mine, I wonder?”

Francesc closes his eyes, sighing with Elodia as her feels her move against him. One thumb moves to her mouth, tenderly gliding across her lips. "She was, of course. Here to have her fun at our expense... he's in Piotrgrad, or he was. Dallying with a band of bounty hunters."

Her lips part beneath his touch. ”Odd.” The vowel is enough to pull the tip of his thumb into her mouth and for a long second she savors the familiar taste of him, eyes drifting closed. The kiss to his fingertip that releases him is languid and slow, the reluctance to release him tangible as she sighs against his skin. Speech presses another kiss to his nail pillowed on her lips, the syllable breathy and curious. ”Why?”

Elodia can feel the rise and fall of Francesc's shrug against her back. His other hand slides down across her lower stomach, while his fingers caress her cheek. "I don't think they know. She seemed uncharacteristically uncertain, tapping at that tablet of hers."

”Uncertain is good. Uncertain means there’s an opening.” From his hold Elodia considers the map in front of them for the first time since he’d arrived, even as her hand snakes beneath his arm to start undoing the laces at his shoulder that hold his sleeve. The semidark still skates across the Cs and Js, an unavoidable answer. ”Someone should speak to them,” she says in a lilted voice that insinuates a greater point, turning her face in his hold to press her lips to his palm. ”And they won’t trust you.” (edited)

Francesc scoffs and lifts Elodia's chin so that she is looking at him for the first time since he entered the room. "That's because they're smart," he tells her, before leaning down to press his lips to hers.

Her gaze meets dark eyes and then forget them as the touch of his lips stirs something primal and familiar and dark within her. Her hand abandons his clothes to find his jaw, pulling him ever closer, and for a moment she has half a mind to turn in his hold and forget the conversation. As he well knew. ”Unfair,” she tells him disparagingly when the kiss breaks, unable to force herself to pull away far. Her fingers ghost down his jaw and she’s looking longingly at his mouth even as she asserts, ”I’m going to speak with them, Francesc.” His name is still on her lips when she pushes them against his with finality so he can taste it, treasured syllables, insatiable and wanting.

Francesc leans into Elodia as they kiss, his tongue dancing forth to tangle with her own. He walks with his love, sending her stumbling back to rest against their bed. Finally, Francesc pulls back and smirks as he leans over Elodia, suppressing a laugh. His nose flares as he breathes her in. Sweet and musky and familiar. "You are going to speak with the Trio Infernale?" He teases. "You know that the blue one can't stand us? We remind her of those she hates most." (edited)

Elodia falls back into the bed and misses the weight of him immediately, soothed only by the promise of him looming above her. ”Well, then I’ll give her reason to love us,” she replies with a knowing smirk. She rises from the pool of her skirts to her knees to bring herself close again, preoccupied with a caressing finger across his lips. ”One of us must, and I can only assume you haven’t. But I’ve always been an easy person to love.” Her mouth lowers to the corner of Francesc's jaw, the barest tease of contact as her fingers begin to pull apart the first buckle of his doublet and she murmurs against his skin, ”Haven't I?”

Francesc snaps playfully at Elodia's finger as she reaches for his lips. Reaching down, he bunches her skirts around her waist, trailing his fingertips up and down the outsides of her thighs. "Hm?" He queries, meeting Elodia's gaze with a dark stare and cocksure grin.

The answer that is not an answer pulls her from him, an eyebrow arched at that maddening smile. Her fingers still at once on his chest, dripping possessively down it before they wrench one side of her skirt from his grasp, letting it fall back into place over her thigh.    Blue eyes meet his in challenge, eyebrow still coolly lifted. “I can always make it harder.”

Francesc's eyes narrow at the challenge, though the smirk never leaves his lips. Taking the hand still on Elodia's leg, he suddenly and forcefully spins her hips, sending her toppling onto her front, backside exposed as he tosses her skirts forwards. "You can, but you might regret it," he growls, climbing atop her to begin dismantling the laces running up the back of the garment.

She twists into the bed with a surprised cry, his weight upon her before she can react. The pull of laces is a promise that leaves her aching but that smirk is still fresh in memory, equal parts hated and beloved. ”No.” Unable and unwilling to stop his progress, she instead raises a hand to unpin the heavy blonde twist that had haloed the crown of her head, voice as lofty as it can be with elbows pressed into sheets. ”I don’t think I will.” She drags fingers through the previously immaculate braid and tosses it together with the rest of her heavy hair over her shoulder, a rain of gold to cover the very laces he‘d made his work. (edited)

Francesc laughs and slides his fingers up between Elodia's thick tresses, holding them close to her scalp and arching her head up so that he can, once more, savage her neck with his mouth. He slides forwards onto her as he does so, letting his weight rest upon her back. "Really?" Francesc murmurs in Elodia's ear as his other hand drifts down to slowly massage between her legs. (edited)

Elodia’s breath catches and her eyes close; she tries to focus on something to ground her, to not let him win - but the gentle pain in her scalp, the rough pull of his lips on her throat, and the languid, familiar touch between her legs are a deadly combination. ”Yes,” she tries laboriously to assert, struggling half-heartedly to push back against his weight and close her legs. But her body is a traitor, and the flimsy lace beneath his hand was wet the moment Francesc’s lips touched her neck in front of the map.

Francesc smiles knowingly, feeling Elodia's breath quicken beneath him. His fingers brush the thin covering of fabric aside with ease, delving beneath to trace slick between her lips. Up and down his fingertip glides, gradually working its way ever lower to tease where he knows that she most longs for his touch. "Say that again," he breathes in her ear.

Elodia’s breath is stilted and shallow despite her best attempts to not react to the cruel touch, fingers curling into her palms. Her head falls forward, straining against the command of his hold in her hair, and her hips arch and undulate beneath him, trying to force what his hand denies. The word that comes isn’t the one she’d like to say, but it comes as both demand and whine all the same. ”Francesc.” (edited)

"Yes, dear?" He murmurs in return, his fingers working inexorably in circles around their target. With the other hand, Francesc releases Elodia's hair, setting her face down gently on the sheets as he brushes her golden mane back up over her shoulder and continues plucking at the laces of her dress.

”Am I.” she pants derisively, bucking harder beneath him and pushing her legs open further, desperate to force his fingers. The sweet, brutal anticipation every lazy circle births coils deep within her, taut and low. Elodia presses into the sheets as her arm twists to impatiently pull her laces in the opposite direction. ”I don’t feel.” Every word is a breathy, bitter struggle. ”Very dear.”

Francesc chuckles as he finally frees Elodia of her dress, sliding his free hand beneath her torso to cup her breast. He says nothing, but simply begins to gently brush the end of his soaked finger over her clit, even as his other hand seeks her nipple.

The stimulation sends twin shudders down Elodia’s spine, something warm and relieving spiked with something sharp. Her hips flex back into him even as the rest of her strains for his fingers, nipples teasing against the fragile lace of her bra to meet his touch. Body rippling with warmth, she writhes an arm free from the confines of a sleeve, then painstakingly the other, bodice peeling away from flushed skin and the hand at her breast. The spiked shiver glimmers ever lower and she tenses and arches beneath him, murmuring a breathy demand of, ”Don’t stop.” (edited)

For a few moments, Francesc continues, slowly driving Elodia higher and higher as he rests upon her. He pulls his fingers back up her sex, gathering her wetness before pushing two inside - and then he stops, instead pushing up off the bed and standing besides it. "Take it off," he orders with a ragged snarl, throwing off his own doublet and unlacing his shirt. (edited)

The noise of protest she makes is inelegant as she slumps into the sheets, the sudden loss of him against her outdone only by the feeling of the warmth draining away, leaving her pulsing and cold. For a long moment she doesn’t move, glaring at him even as she thrills at the order; she has half a mind to finish herself what he started, but the promise of his own clothes on the floor stills her hand. With monumental effort she shifts her hips through the heavy fabric, tossing it contemptuously at his feet once she’s free. There’s a split second where the barely-there lace and boning beneath might be pink, but in the next it’s darkened to red; the deep warning shade of them and wanting and home. Body still bitterly chasing the dull warmth he’d taken, she lays there for a moment watching him, breath slowing and pale skin flushed. Then she crawls across the sheets, her nails hard on Francesc’s chest as they slide beneath his shirt, pushing it up impatiently. Her lips and teeth snap at revealed skin, trailing upward as she forces the fabric away.

Francesc's eyes darken as the dress comes off. He reaches forwards, fingertips trailing lightly over the bad memory that is the scar across Elodia's lower back, until she twists away from him demonstratively. He sighs as he feels her lips against his skin, tossing off his shirt and trailing his fingers affectionately back through her hair. Looking down on her, Francesc holds Elodia's gaze, eyes burning with desire as he unbuckles his belt.

His gaze is heavy and Elodia burns beneath it; nerves alight in the stillness of this moment, the air heavy with promise. Horrific as it had been, the mark across her back seems a small price to pay to be able to want Francesc so brazenly; to look into the intensity of his dark gaze and begin already to feel that heat creeping back. For a moment the only sound is their breath and the sound of his belt; of need and wanting. Then she reaches to slowly pull the belt free, dropping it to the floor. Its clatter is the sound that sends her trembling fingers back up his bare chest, possessive on his neck and jaw, pulling him towards her. But for all her demands, when she kisses him it’s deep and slow and sloppy; the heat of before begins to pool again below her navel and she melts into him, caught in the veneration of her tongue languid and needy against his own.

One hand slips around Elodia's waist to the small of her back, pulling her tight against him. The other curls about the nape of her neck, holding her firmly in place as Francesc's tongue dances and writhes with her own. He kisses her with all the hunger of an addict, desperate for her taste. He kicks off his trousers and his desire presses warm against her stomach.

When it comes to Francesc, Elodia has always been insatiable. Each kiss is ragged and ravenous, the language of the starving. She bends toward him, entire body seeking his touch; pressing a prayer of ”I want you” into his mouth with a reverent murmur. The feel of his need for her is all she requires to pull them both backward, legs parting in welcome as she uses his grip on her to maintain the feverish kiss. They’ve barely landed before her hand reaches for the length of him, hips angling up as she guides him to the thin, sopping underwear left to separate them and slowly traces over it with his tip. ”I always want you,” she sighs, the words low and distracted against his lips.

Francesc breathes into Elodia as they fall against each other and her touch provokes an involuntary groan. His kisses drift down her neck and he peels the straps from her shoulders, his mouth falling across Elodia's breasts until his tongue swirls around her nipple. Francesc pauses, pulling tenderly at one engorged nub with his teeth as he rolls the other between thumb and forefinger. "Tell me again," he growls against her.

Elodia’s fingers knot in his dark hair and her breaths are sharp and shallow as she ripples beneath Francesc, the sight and feel of him at her breast overwhelming enough she has to close her eyes to maintain any semblance of control. She tries to answer him but the words are quick to die in her throat; her hand reluctantly untangles from his hair to instead run jealously down his spine and around her hip, slipping briefly inside her underwear. Fingers pass over her ache for him, lingering against the feel of him teased against the thin barrier by her firm other hand, before she pulls away and drags the slickness roughly across his cheek to his lips. ”Always,” she repeats hoarsely. (edited)

Francesc snatches at Elodia's wrist, catching it with unexpected speed and holding her in place as he takes her fingers into his mouth and sucks down on them. His tongue caresses the tips, stealing what he can of her taste. Like a man obsessed, Francesc slides further down past Elodia's hips, kisses trailing across her stomach until he finds an obstruction - the drenched film of her underwear. Deftly, he slides them away, leaving her naked, vulnerable and his for the taking. Kneeling besides the edge of the bed, Francesc nestles Elodia's thighs over each of his shoulders and slowly trails his tongue up the length of her sex, until the tip settles between the folds at the top. "Tell me again," he murmurs in between.

Heat winds tighter and tighter between her hips as his lips journey down her body, until by the time he’s between her thighs her every nerve is raw and thrumming. The agonizingly slow touch of his tongue is enough to force her head back into the sheets, her breath devolving into faint, erratic bursts; her body begins to tremble beneath him, fingers that are desperate to keep him burying themselves violently in his hair. Elodia attempts to answer him, or maybe it’s his name she tries for - but heavy-lidded eyes get one look at him between her legs and her head falls back again, the word lost in a high, indecipherable moan. (edited)

Hands reach up to paw at each of Elodia's breasts, fingers seeking her nipples once more as Francesc relentlessly brushes his tongue back and forth over her clit. (edited)

Elodia had half-expected him to pull away, and isn’t ready for the raw well of heat when he doesn’t, a noise of surprise escaping her in a whimper at the first stroke of his tongue. His hands find her breasts and one of her own rises to scrabble over the back of it, desperate to touch him, have him, mark him. She can feel the intensity of the feverish warmth stain first her cheeks and then begin to crash relentlessly downward; it isn’t long before her fingers sharpen to claws against his hair and skin and her thighs begin to quiver. This time she’s able to get his name out, but barely. A warning and a plea.

Feeling the tension peaking within her, Francesc finally pulls back from Elodia. Firm hands grip her hips, turning her onto her front and pushing her thighs up so that she's bent over, resting on her knees at the edge of the bed. A hand sits softly upon her behind and Francesc's thumb runs once more down the length of her lips, spreading them apart and teasing at her clit beneath. The next thing Elodia knows, she can feel him against her. His tip plies gently at her opening, just for a moment, and then in one smooth stroke he buries himself inside her.

She’s pliable and burning as he turns her, desperation no longer a want as much as it is a basic need. Swallowing breaths as her weight goes to her knees, there’s a moment when she thinks her weakened limbs will simply collapse beneath the weight of anticipation as he touches her, weeping with want beneath his thumb. Elodia’s fingers twist into the sheets, tension coiling unbearably as she feels him against her: one more tease, and then a promise. Then at last a shuddering, relieved groan exhales from her as he finally grants what she’s wanted all along; the only possible answer to the hollowness that fills her any moment Francesc is gone. The shiver of lightning blazing through her swiftly rallies all the warmth that had begun to creep away and she shifts in his grip, reaching for his hand to return it roughly to her breast as her back arches to lift her hips and bring him ever closer. (edited)

Painfully slowly, Francesc eases back and then forwards again, each time leaving just the head between her lips before plunging back inside. One hand cups Elodia's breast, lifting her up to him, while the other reaches up under her armpit to gently, but firmly caress her throat. He pulls her shoulders back towards him as the strokes grow ever faster, showering her with kisses and love bites alike. Francesc's breathing grows faster and ever more grunts and moans escape the man as he begins to lose himself in his lover.

The sounds of him behind her are almost her undoing, her inhales becoming sharp and jagged as raw feeling threatens to pull her under, no longer breaths so much as they’re gasps. With each kiss and bite and push into her she melts further into his grip on her throat, muscles tightening around him with each stroke to try and welcome him ever further, hand caressing roughly over his knuckles to cling in an iron grip at his wrist. Through eyes dark with fervor, she risks one look back at Francesc, at the sight of his face as he takes her - and the battle is lost. Any breath she has left is torn from her with a stilted cry and the brilliant sting of desire swells to an irrepressible shudder. Her legs numb and tremble and her nails cling to her love wherever she can find him, gaze fixed on his face even as she shatters beneath him until she simply can’t keep her eyes open anymore and he’s lost to the wave.

Francesc softly lowers Elodia to the bed as her orgasm washes over her. He brings his knees up onto the bed, mounting his love as he pushes her flat, his fingers knotted into her own, pinning her hands above her head. Still, he continues unrelentingly and his mouth lowers to her ear. "Mine," he tells her between between grunts of exertion.

Elodia presses into the sheets, aftershocks of the orgasm thrumming through her as he pins her down. ”Yours,” she pants breathlessly, legs closing tighter and hips lifting reflexively against him. Once more she looks back at Francesc through sweaty blonde locks, fingers curling tightly into his. ”Make me drip with you. I want everyone to know.”

Francesc glances down at Elodia, their eyes meeting through the curtain of golden hair that hangs across her face, and her breathless begging is exactly what it takes to send him plummeting past the point of no return. His thrusts accelerate, his hands pressing her own down into the bed, until he finally rams home, hips bucking against his love as he empties himself deep inside her. Still shuddering from his orgasm, Francesc slumps forwards on top of Elodia, his weight resting upon her as his fingers stroke and caress her hair, until she can feel the last pulses of him slowly taper out as the flow abates. "Mmmm," Francesc murmurs in satisfaction, his eyes closed as he nuzzles affectionately against her neck. (edited)

Elodia lets out an ancient sigh of deep, satisfied contentment as she feels Francesc fill her, her favorite way to be. Reveling in it, she presses back, squeezing to pulsate coaxingly around him until he’s spent, unwilling to lose a drop. ”Mmmm,” she agrees, turning her head to brush her nose playfully against his cheek even as her ankles thread around his legs to lock him against her. ”Welcome home.”

Francesc echoes Elodia's sigh, pulling her along with him as he rolls onto his side. A lazy hand drapes around her waist to hold her close, before drifting up to sleepily caress her breast. "Home," he concurs with a self-satisfied smile, enjoying her warmth as he flexes his penis inside of her for emphasis.

Elodia smiles knowingly at the unexpected pulse and carefully settles back into him so as not to slide him out. “We ought to have left Beaufort sooner,” she says idly, entangling their fingers enough to use his to trace over her collarbone and the base of her throat, where the necklace she never removes lies as the only adornment left. “I will wait till morning to hold it against you that you didn’t ask about my map, my love," she remarks drowsily. "It took three of the staff to lift it onto that table.”

"It's beautiful, dear," Francesc yawns, cupping Elodia's breast and squeezing her tightly against him. His eyes are closed and she knows from experience that anything that she says now is unlikely to be remembered in the morning. (edited)

Elodia rolls her eyes, though there’s a smile on her lips. Knowing well there’s little point in trying to hold him to further conversation, she folds back against him and quickly falls asleep. (edited)

When morning comes she’s the first to meet it, squinting at the sunlight that dares to pierce the curtains. At some point in the night when they’d inevitably peeled away from one another she’d drawn the duvet over them; she turns beneath it now to face Francesc beside her, predictably still asleep. Complementary as they are in most things, he’s always been a deep sleeper; she uses it to her advantage now to tilt his sleeping face towards her, playing her fingers lightly across his rough stubble before they skate down his neck to circle gently on his chest, where they momentarily still. For a long moment, Elodia watches him, his dark features so uncharacteristically serene; it only takes one look at the window to remind her the sun is climbing higher in the sky and with it her expression grows devious. Slowly shifting to her knees atop the mattress, she leans over him, careful not to move too quickly. On any other morning she might twine herself around him, manually inserting herself back into his arms; this morning, she instead gently places a knee on the other side of his hips, lowering herself painstakingly slowly until there’s an imminent threat of surely waking him by brushing sensitive skin. Smiling, she leans forward, just enough for the tips of her long golden hair to tickle his bare chest. ”Francesc,” she murmurs, stroking the back of her fingers from the edge of his lips to his cheek even as her other trails lower and lower down his stomach. ”I'm leaving. Don't you want to say goodbye.” (edited)

Francesc stirs a little, batting at his chest with a small noise of discomfort, as he would back at their home in Beaufort when there was a mosquito in the room. The insects were one thing that he had never missed. (edited)

For a man who keeps questionable company, sometimes she thinks it’s a marvel no one has ever tried to harm him in his sleep; it would be extraordinarily simple. She supposes she has Mikhail to thank for that, Francesc’s ever-present shadow who might be here even now and she’d never know it. Part of her hopes he is, so at least someone is enjoying the show. Rolling her eyes, she takes his wrist and pushes it from his chest, small hand forcing it to the sheets at his side. Her other sharpens to drag pink marks down his skin in its place as she lowers herself fully to straddle him, grinding slowly and purposefully against his morning erection and feeling herself begin to grow wetter atop him with each tilt of her hips. ”My love, that wasn’t a question.”

"Mmmm," Francesc murmurs, stirring again, followed moments later by a deeper groan. His eyes flutter open, taking in Elodia's angelic features, framed above him by the golden halo of her hair. "Good morning," he notes happily, reaching up caress her cheek, though his hand soon falls to her chest. His hips rise against her, pushing back into Elodia's grinding with a sleepy grin. "So early... don't you know that I'm a creature of the night?" Francesc adds with a wicked smirk.

”There you are. I was starting to think I should just take care of myself.” Elodia playfully grinds deeper into him, an arduous roll of her hips to push him back down before brushing his hand away and snaking up his body to claim his smirk and greet his tongue with hers. She sighs into him in contentment when the kiss is forced to break. ”I know you are,” she smiles patiently. ”But if they attend your club, so are your bounty hunter friends. I mean to see them before they disappear on whatever unseemly contract.” Her nose skims across his jaw, breathing in the scent of him. Kisses begin to take a leisurely path across his chin and down his neck, on a slow and pointed journey downward. ”Tell me about them.”

Francesc hungrily kisses Elodia back, but frowns when he hears her plans. "What do you mean 'see them'?" He demands, clearly concerned by the idea.

The question distracts her enough from where she’d drifted to kissing and grazing her teeth against the base of his throat, looking up with a frown beginning to crease her brow. ”I told you last night. I’m going to speak with them.” She pulls away just enough to be able to consider him, tilting her head. ”Did you think that was a joke?”

"I was a little distracted," Francesc teases, stretching his neck up to try and kiss Elodia again.

”And that’s different than now how?” she quips, pulling just out of distance and pushing Francesc back to the pillow with a playful hand to his throat. ”Must I cut my hair and wear a sack to be heard?”

"It would help!" Francesc retorts with a smirk, playfully pretending to struggle against her. "But it would also be such a waste... Beauty is both your blessing and your curse, my love."

”Sometimes I think perhaps more one than the other,” Elodia remarks archly, though it’s clear she’s pleased. Fingers pulse sweetly against Francesc’s throat before she releases him, body sliding back down his again. Her palm follows, running covetously down his neck and chest to still and lightly circle his nipple with a nail. Her lips are halfway to joining it, marking his chest with bites and kisses in penance, when she hums in prompt against his skin, ”These hunters.”

"Mhm," Francesc sighs contentedly in response, his eyes closed. "The Trio Infernale," he finally elaborates, musically drawing out each syllable of the moniker. "Although there's rather more than three of them, at this point. Five, in fact, and tonight they had a Dwarf with them too. Most of them are Tieflings though, plus the Elf and their 'god-given' leash."

”If gods are giving leashes, you might be following the wrong one,” Elodia teases, continuing her idle path of kisses across his chest. ”You said one hates us already. The others?” She reaches her fingertip and cool air exhales from her lips across his nipple, the warm tip of her tongue tracing across the outline before pulling it fully into her mouth.

Francesc shivers and goosebumps prick across his chest. The sensation verges on ticklish. "Yes. The blue one. Shivala," he breathes in return. "She's aggressive and direct. Ling, the pale one, she's more playful, though desperately insecure." He pauses and glances down at Elodia. "I think you'd like her, but you might also make her feel threatened."

Elodia pulls from him to consider that, consternation creasing between her eyebrows. ”Back to the sack so quickly, then. A shame.” She slithers down his body with a run of open lips down his core, situating between his knees as palms drag greedily over his ribs. Her lips alight on thin skin between his hips, wetting it with a lave of her tongue before kissing and sucking until it promises to better match the jewel at her throat. The metal from her necklace, warmed by her flushed skin, presses to his groin as she muses provocatively, ”Perhaps the men will like me better.”

Francesc coughs and twitches, all but flinching as the cool metal touches him. "Perhaps. Nikolai, the purple one, he's wary of strangers and protective of the girls. The pallid Elf is Caio. He pretends not to care, but something drives him. Something about the Ninety-nine-hundred. Find out what and you'll know how to manipulate him." (edited)

”Mm.” Elodia hadn’t particularly expected an actual answer but doesn’t press it, considering the information as she pulls back enough to shift to a familiar position. Her hand finds Francesc’s hip, affectionately stroking her thumb over the bone. ”You said there were five.” She lowers slowly, fingers closing around the base of his shaft to meet it with her lips. ”And a dwarf.” She drips a promising kiss to his tip before her chin tilts to begin flicking the tip of her tongue along the underside of his head.

Francesc rolls his neck back as he basks in Elodia's tender ministrations. Her every touch is exquisite, the warm, soft embrace of her lips bested only by the pinpoint touch of her tongue, which sends shocks of pleasure flying to his spine. He flexes involuntarily against Elodia's mouth as she works, arching his back as he grasps haplessly for words. "Alaris," Francesc just about manages with a groan. "He's a knight of Vida. The Dwarf, I don't know." (edited)

Elodia trips kisses down the length of him, laving back up with a greedy lap of her tongue. ”New, then?” she murmurs, the strained sound of him flaring pleasure low inside her. The words are barely between them before her lips close fully around his tip, gaze flicking up to his as she sucks gently and then more insistently, pulling Francesc further and further inside.

"Mhm..." Francesc confirms, trailing off as Elodia finally takes him in her mouth. A hand falls to her face, pushing golden locks back to better watch her work. Even in his chosen life of hedonism and debauchery, few other pleasures can compare to the steady slide of her tongue up and down the underside as her lips slide along his length. "Never are you more beautiful than now," Francesc murmurs, his breathing quickening as she takes him deeper.

He knows exactly the effect those words will have on her and she revels in it, fingers grasping at his hip as she takes him further and deeper until she threatens to choke. Watching him watch her, she slides back up him, hand working in tandem as she caresses the underside with the tip of her tongue, eyes only closing when a stifled moan vibrates around him from the back of her throat as she falls into a rhythm of worship and hunger. The more longingly she takes him the more flushed she becomes, until her body ultimately shifts to straddle one of his legs so he can feel himself the effect taking him like this is having on her, warm and wet against his skin.

Now very much awake, Francesc's hips rise against Elodia as she sucks on him, his hands repeatedly trailing through her hair and across the back of her head. Arousal drips from his tip in a steady flow, mixing with the saliva on her tongue and running slick between her fingers and across her lips. He throbs in her mouth, pulsing stronger with every dip. "Get on your knees," he finally tells her, nodding towards the edge of the bed as he feels the building pressure coming to a head.

Elodia doesn’t obey at first, impudently sliding deeper as he pulses against her tongue. When she does finally pull away it’s with palpable reluctance, fingers uncurling from him one by one as she drags a hand over glistening lips. Pulling back to the edge of the bed, she winds thick curls into a long golden rope and pushes it behind her, reaching for Francesc with darkened eyes. ”Make me yours.”

Francesc gasps as Elodia pushes down on him, brushing her to the side with a playful grin when she finally relents. Stretching, he pushes himself to his feet, standing before her and slowly running his fingers up and down his length as he looks down on his love. Precum beads at the tip in a thick drop that threatens to fall at any moment. "Perfect," he mutters half to himself, eyes roaming across every part of her where she kneels. Taking his penis in one hand, Francesc curls the other in a firm, but affectionate caress behind Elodia's ear and smears the sticky end from her forehead to her lips, marking her with his scent. "Finish it," he instructs, tiny points of red light shining on his fingertips.

The anticipation burns within her until Elodia’s eyes close against him, chin tilted up and lips parted as he anoints her, glistening and sticky and his. She barely waits for the words to be in the air before she reaches for him again with urgency, bringing him firmly between lips still shining and sticky with his taste. Looking up at him beneath the imperceptible and yet deliciously heavy, slick weight of his mark, she moans longingly against him, venerating him with an insatiable tongue that proves her to be far more pious on her knees in front of him than she ever was in a church back home. (edited)

Francesc groans as he feels Elodia's tongue slither against the points where she knows that he is most sensitive. Her lips part hungrily for him, sliding rapidly up and down his length and bringing him ever closer to the edge. Right when he can almost take no more, Francesc takes a step back, pulling himself free of Elodia's mouth with a smack of her lips. Her hands continue to work, flying up and down his shaft until, finally, his balls contract and his cock jumps between her fingers, sending the first spurt of his orgasm flying towards her. The warm, sticky liquid hits her with a splat, running down her cheeks to drip onto her breasts and landing in her open mouth on her waiting tongue. "Cᴏᴍᴇ," Francesc calls out to her, his voice ringing with divine power in the same moment as he does so himself. The order is absolute and Elodia's body is left with no choice but to obey. Another jet follows, and another. Elodia knows this incantation well. Francesc will not stop until she is marked irrefutably as his. The spell leaves its own imprint where he has touched her, visible to anyone with the skill and knowledge to look for it. By the time Francesc's orgasm finally subsides, Elodia's face and chest are both thoroughly coated in his seed, which runs and drips onto her thighs and the floor. "You know," he muses as he looks down at her, admiring his own handiwork. "I was wrong. This is you at your most beautiful."

Francesc’s voice turns divine and the orgasm that normally has time to build within Elodia hits her with twice the force; it’s a blessing she’s already kneeling, as raw, all-consuming pleasure wracks her limbs. Tension seizes her, snapping down her spine, and then immediately washes away with an urgency so powerful her head falls back, high, breathy cries drowned by the deluge being rained upon her, thick and warm and branding. She’s still panting, throbbing with the aftershocks, when she’s able to slowly look up at him again through eyes weighted by the viscous liquid with which he’s painted her. The attempt to preserve her hair was futile and she finds she doesn’t care, dragging a hand through it and then down her coated face and rolling neck, over her collarbones and dripping breasts and down between her legs, spreading the mark everywhere it needs to be before fingers laden with him lift to her tongue. She tastes him in a way she hadn’t been able to in the grip of her orgasm, achingly familiar and yet never enough, and rises slowly beside him, floor wet and sticky beneath her feet. ”Oh?” She stands in front of him on shaky limbs with a self-satisfied smile, skimming close enough to feel his warmth but not quite touching. ”I had thought a dress, but perhaps this is how I should go to meet the Trio Infernale. I want to make sure I’m impressive.” (edited)

Francesc grins smugly, smudging a thumb across Elodia's lips. He scoops some of the cum up from around her mouth and pushes it inside, enjoying the sensation of her tongue against him. "You're always impressive, but if you show up like this they might well be quite taken with you," he retorts with amusement, his eyes sparkling.

Elodia laves the saltiness from him with a flick of her tongue, biting playfully at his thumb. ”Perhaps for our second meeting,” she teases, stickiness beginning to disappear with a curl of her fingers as she reminds herself the important mark is stained far deeper, for those who care to look. She starts with her face so she can arch on tiptoe to pull his face to hers, kissing him deeply. ”Assuming they don’t abscond with me for ransom on the first."

Francesc holds Elodia's face against his, returning her kiss and tasting himself on her tongue. "I pity the poor soul who thinks that he can kidnap Elodia del Toro," he tells her with a chuckle, planting an affectionate kiss on her forehead. One hand drifts down to trace teasingly over her nipple, gliding across the slick surface of the glazed breast. "...but I'd know either way," he adds with relish. (edited)

”Yes, you would.” Elodia smiles in satisfaction at the fact, continuing to brush herself clean as she preens beneath his kiss. Her hand skips over his at her breast, passing over the rest of her body before returning to his touch. She smears the cum that remains over her nipple and across his fingertips, circling lovingly across their backs before her arm slides beneath his and she pulls herself flush.   ”Perhaps I’ll request it of them,” she says idly, pressing her lips to Francesc's collarbone, the nearest skin she can easily reach without her heels. ”I think I’d like seeing what you would do.”

"You probably would," Francesc replies with a smirk, running his fingers through Elodia's hair. "They wouldn't like it though. I thought you needed them for something, before I destroy them?" (edited)

“No, they wouldn’t. They didn’t get where they are by being stupid,” Elodia sighs, tilting her head instinctively into his touch. ”We need them for something, before you destroy them. Promise you’ll remember that the next time they come to the Temnitsa.” She gives him a knowing look, playfully thumbing over the dimple in his chin. ”It does little good for me to make friends if you’re to make enemies. I’ll have to tell them of us, if they’re to think it worth their while.”

Francesc rolls his eyes. "...but I'm so good at making enemies," he teases. The smirk slowly fades from his face and he looks down at Elodia in earnest. "You're really set on this, aren't you?"

She swats a hand against his chest, wrinkling her nose playfully, but her expression softens as his does. ”I am. It’s the best chance we’ve had at being free since we came here.” Her head tilts up towards him and there’s a bitterness crossing her face that darkens her eyes in a way very different than when she usually looks at him. ”At least, as free as we can be, here. It’s all false so long as Gabriel is out there.”

Francesc's jaw clenches and he stiffens at the mention of his brother. "I should have killed him when I had the chance..." he mutters, holding Elodia tightly as though somebody might tear her away at any moment.

”It would have been too swift. He ought to die a thousand times over.” Elodia's voice is edged as she presses herself to him, cheek against his chest, glad her back is to the bed so she doesn’t have to contemplate how much time she was forced to spend within it. ”I want him to suffer.” (edited)

"That can be arranged..." Francesc muses with a nasty grin, "which is probably why he hasn't shown his face. It makes me wonder what he's waiting for."

She tilts her chin up to look at him, weighing that. ”You think he knows we’re here?”

Francesc shrugs. "It's hard to say. We are more well protected than we are well hidden." His fingers run between Elodia's tresses, the nails lightly scratching over her scalp. "That's why I worry about you leaving," he adds, lifting her chin with his thumb and forefinger so that he can look her in the eyes.

Elodia’s eyes closed instinctively against the feel of his hand in her hair, familiar and soothing, and only open again as she feels Francesc’s authoritative touch at her chin. ”I didn’t know you knew how to worry,” she remarks with a smile, though her voice lacks the teasing edge the words would normally carry. A gentle hand alights on his wrist in punctuation, thumb rubbing slow lines across it. ”If there’s one place he won’t expect either of us to be, it’s with bounty hunters. You’re in far more danger here. As you have been.” Hand still on his wrist she arches on tiptoe again, grazing her lips against his as she finishes in a low murmur, ”As I’ve hated.”

Francesc returns the kiss, squeezing Elodia against him as he scours the depths of her eyes. "I can take care of myself, but I have others looking out for me too. You'll be all alone..." he muses quietly as he holds her close. Something shifts in Francesc's expression and Elodia can see that a decision has been made. "I know that there's no stopping you," he tells her, releasing the embrace and crossing the room to his dark wood bureau. There's a click of a key and a drawer slides open. Francesc takes a pair of flat, circular bloodstones from within. Each is about an inch in diameter, polished and engraved with an inscription in a ring around the edge. The letters are of a language that she does not recognise. "Take one of these. Hold it and think of me. As long as I have the other, I will receive the message."

”If thinking of you is all it takes, you’ll be getting many messages,” Elodia says simply, taking the stone and turning it over in her palm. Gratitude is so simple and obvious it feels beneath them; unnecessary when they’ve already come this far for each other. Tracing over the unfamiliar etchings, she looks up at last from the stone. ”I may yet not need it. I’m only speaking with them - they may turn me away, or say whatever he’s after is in Piotrgrad. I may not need to leave.” Even as she says it she knows without knowing how that it isn’t true, and the optimism in her gaze dies quickly, yielding to pragmatism. They’ve never before had secrets between them, and as she looks back through his eyes it feels almost sacrilegious to start now. ”Once I know more, I’ll find you before I truly go.” She takes Francesc’s hand with her free one, knotting their fingers together tightly in promise and prayer. ”You’ll need something to remember me by, lest you forget me.” She smiles faintly at the ludicrousness of the mere possibility and her fingers squeeze promisingly around his. ”Something like that first night after Breanne.” (edited)

Francesc smirks and reaches behind Elodia to squeeze her behind. "I can live with that," he tells her, her eyes daring his wife to follow through, "but right now I'm going back to bed." Slowly releasing her, his fingers clinging languidly to her limbs as he pulls away, Francesc clambers back between the comfort of their sheets.

She lets him go, rolling her eyes affectionately. Dressing is a relatively simple matter without him to distract her, a long cloak over as understated a dress as she owns, realizing quickly there’s a glaring gap in her wardrobe. A look out their window opposite tells her it’s somewhere between late morning and early afternoon, and she finds herself hoping she hasn’t missed them. With luck, the bounty hunters share her husband’s reversal of day and night. Her departing command is as simple and inarguable as it ever is. ”Dream of me.” With one lingering glance back, she’s gone.

The colors of sunset are starting to smear across the sky when Elodia descends into the shadowy underworld of the Temnitsa, the darkness of the club rising at once to swallow the vibrance of golden curls. Swiftly she makes her way through turns that aren’t as familiar as they should be, shoulders heavy with the knowledge of where the earlier events of the day will eventually lead. She had left the Black Sheep knowing her desire to find Francesc was eclipsed only by her need to; yet he hadn’t been home. The back office is her last thought of where she might find him before the club begins to fill, and the sight of Mikhail nearby confirms the suspicion. Smiling, her hand drifts fondly over his arm in greeting, unperturbed by the man’s perpetually-cold eyes. Though some might say there are few worse men in Piotrgrad, Elodia is inclined to think there are few better. She leaves him with only a meaningful look as she brushes past him further down the corridor. She likely shouldn’t be here this close to dark, and knows it, but it doesn’t stop the knowing smile from reaching her eyes anyway as she lifts the hood of her cloak from her hair with one hand and knocks lightly with the other. Even as much as she needs to see him, she’s too well-trained to not be aware prying eyes might be watching, and an imperious entrance into his chambers might raise eyebrows; they’ve done far too much work to ruin it now. “My lord.”

The dark wooden planks of the heavy door are banded together with blackened cast iron fittings. "Come," a familiar voice calls from the far side. It's the same warm timbre that Elodia knows and loves. Rich and deep, but edged with a weariness that has only grown of late. The hinges let out a low creak as she enters, revealing a stone-walled room lined with bookcases on the far side. She's reminded of how her husband mourned his lost collection when they first left their homeland. Never has Elodia known Francesc not to surround himself with wisdom. 'Knowledge is power,' he would tell her fondly. The object of Elodia's search sits at his desk on the far side of the room, back to the wall and facing the entrance. A great painting of a coastal landscape at dusk hangs in a gilded frame on the wall behind him - Beaufort Bay. He's leant over a ledger, curly locks hanging besides his face as he scribes something with a quill in the candlelight. Francesc looks up to see who his visitor is and his frown softens to a smile. "Buenas noches, señora," he greets her in their native tongue, "I'd started to wonder if your new friends had decided to keep you."

Elodia leans back against the door to emphatically shut it behind her, looking at him for a long moment framed at his desk before floating further into the room. She so rarely dares to come down here it seems there’s always something new to see, and her gaze rakes accordingly over artifacts and shelves, searching for things long-forgotten. Attempting to replace the books he’d been forced to leave in Beaufort had been one of the few projects she’d been able to help with from her sickbed, writing endless lists of the ones she could remember and imploring Mikhail to find peddlers in all sorts of unsavory nooks and crannies. Still, there were many that even her husband’s resourceful shadow had been unable to source; one more insult, one more injustice. One more sacrifice they’d made. “If they had? Would you object?” That same knowing look with a smile that reaches her eyes before it does her lips, the language of their youth easy on her tongue as she brushes a hand along the edge of the desk opposite him as she drifts by it, taking in his shadowy realm; so different from the light and gilded surfaces of their home above. “This world does suit you, mi amor.”

Francesc sets down his quill, props his elbows up on the table and temples his fingers in front of his mouth. "I don't take kindly to it when others try to claim what is mine," he tells Elodia with a smile that never reaches his eyes. "You caused quite a stir outside das schwarze Schaf." A flimmer of a smirk crawls up one side of the man's face.

The smile that had always been present in Elodia’s eyes at last reaches her lips, satisfied with his answer. Her gaze rakes past the bookshelves to return to his. “Well-informed as ever,” she says lightly, circling nearer his desk. “Which means you know well I did no such thing. One of the tieflings, Shivala, turned into some furious sort of creature upon hearing me speak. I’ve never heard of such a magic, have you?” She gauges him for a moment before her features harden into something alien to her normally angelic face, reminded of the rage and distrust she’d been met with. “I’m ill accustomed to that sort of reaction. I don’t care for it.”

"I did tell you that she hated our kind," Francesc retorts smugly, leaning back in his chair. Such an incident can surely be traced back to her fiendish blood. These mercenaries have no self control," he adds, rolling his eyes as he scoffs.

"And what would you know about self control." One corner of Elodia's lips lift, expression softening enough to turn fond before she corrects, "She did hate our kind. After we quieted her I think I was able to talk her around enough not to try and claw you the next time she sees you." She drifts closer, running her fingers familiarly over the top of the books on the edge of his desk before she looks up at him knowingly. "Despite your best intentions for the contrary."

Francesc remains silent, but arches an eyebrow pointedly at Elodia's assertions.

”We did flee across half a continent due to neither of us having self control, my love,” Elodia playfully reminds him at the sight of that look, gliding to his side of the desk, where she stops with her hand curled around the top of his chair.

"Oh. No, dear," Francesc laughs with a shake of his head. The heavy, darkwood chair abruptly scrapes backwards across the flagstones as Francesc stands, suddenly making the difference between his and Elodia's heights very apparent. He steps in close to where his wife stands, looking down on her with dark eyes. "I could have stayed in Breanne and kept my position and my influence. My birthright. I could have chosen the world and walked away... except, that was never an acceptable option. Not really. Not for me. I chose you, Elodia del Toro," Francesc emphasises, bringing his forefinger to her chin with a gentle pressure that demands she meet his gaze with her own.

Light eyes lift to meet dark, a perfect mirror, and lips part at the declaration. Years of history stretch between them, so close she can all but feel the hot Breannian sun again; years of longing glances, of searching fingers, of being close but never quite close enough. “I stand corrected,” she breathes. “One of us had self control.” Her gaze flicks from his eyes to his lips and back. “I’ve wanted you since I knew what wanting was.”

Francesc smiles, letting the backs of his fingers trace up along Elodia's jawline, until he can curl them into the golden locks of her hair. He says nothing at first, only tilting his wife's head back further and caressing her cheek bone with his thumb as he stares into the ice blue pools of her eyes. His other hand rests familiarly on her hip. "You were saying?" He teases with a smirk.

Elodia’s eyes drift closed almost as an afterthought as she basks in his touch. After her tense day at the Black Sheep and even tenser afternoon outside it, there’s solace to be found in being in Francesc’s hold again. ”Mmm, was I?” she murmurs, head tilting intuitively to arch further into his touch.

"You talked Shivala down," Francesc reminds Elodia, pulling her into a tight embrace against his chest.

”I did,” Elodia acquiesces with a contented sigh, folding into Francesc as if slotting into place. ”Being hunted by Breannian nobles was something we had in common.” She's quiet for a long moment, taking in the steady warmth of him before adding, ”We were right, they do have a lead on getting rid of the witch’s family.” She pulls back ever so slightly, just enough to be able to look up at him with large, troubled eyes. ”In Littlewood.” (edited)

"You want to cross the Gap of Hirn?" Francesc asks with a touch of incredularity, placing his hands on Elodia's shoulders as he meets her gaze with equal concern.

”I want to stay right here, where I belong,” Elodia amends gently as fingers alight on one of his wrists, thumb stroking over the back of his hand. ”But this could be what we we've been looking for. And they’ve agreed to bring me with them, if I wish.” Even as she expresses her need to go, her own distress is impossible to mask as she searches through his eyes. "It will be the furthest from you I've ever been."

Francesc grows quiet, but his hazel eyes speak volumes as they hold Elodia's fearful stare. He sighs and looks down, slipping a hand into his own pocket where he rolls the sending stone over and over in his fingers. "It would be," he acknowledges quietly, "but you sound like you've already made up your mind. What is the lead?"

"Jonathan has sent them to meet a scholar with information on how to remove his father." Elodia watches him hopelessly. "If it were anything else...but this could finally be what we need. And they already have a direct link to Jonathan. What choice do we have?"

Francesc rolls his eyes at the mention of Jonathan. "This whole endeavour could as well be a wild goose chase. Do you honestly think that the boy has something real in hand? Valentine would never allow it." (edited)

”He has no reason to send a group of bounty hunters there for a farce - particularly not when he cares for one of them. By all accounts, he’s not his sister.” Elodia stares up at him intently. ”Would you rather us gamble and risk losing the opportunity to be through with this once and for all?”

Francesc looks away, rolling his shoulders and groaning in frustration at the truth in Elodia's words. "I can't stand these Morgensterns," he complains, before looking back to her with a wry smile. (edited)

”All the better to be rid of them,” Elodia soothes, before singular distaste darkens her golden features. She pulls herself close again. ”That harpy has grown far too comfortable thinking to have her claws in you and take my place at your side.”

"She's not actually interested," Francesc scoffs, teasingly, "she's just not used to anybody telling her no."

”Then I truly don’t have a choice,” Elodia remarks. ”I seem to recall that mentality being something you find attractive in a woman.”

"Maybe..." Francesc admits with a smirk, stepping in towards Elodia and turning so that she is forced backwards into his desk.

Elodia catches herself against the edge of the wood, buzzing with the proximity of him. “If that’s meant to comfort me, it doesn’t,” she breathes, her tone betraying her mollification with the feel of the desk behind her. “What then if I were to say I haven’t stopped thinking about you pinning me to this desk since the moment I walked in here. Would you be the first to tell me no, Señor del Toro?” She tilts her head and looks up at him through long lashes, her fingers curling back into the lip of the wood as it bites through her skirts. “I know you’re very busy.”

"Do I tend to comfort?" Francesc asks with a flippant smirk, stepping closer still, so that his hips are pressed against Elodia's. His fingers caress her throat, applying gentle pressure that encourages her up atop the edge of the desk. "Do you think that I don't know what runs through that devious mind of yours?" He's so close that the challenge is all but breathed against her lips. "Maybe I should leave you wanting," Francesc teases. "Maybe you deserve it."

Her eyes close at the familiar feel of his hand on her throat, somehow comfort and threat and promise all laced into the spread of five fingers. She arches into the touch from atop the edge of the desk, and lips part in a faint whine at the taunting proximity that is close but not close enough. ”They’re right, when they say you’re cruel,” she breathes stiltedly. Blue eyes are dark and half-lidded as they open and gaze at his lips so close to hers. ””I’m yours.” They lift almost in a heavy stupor up to meet his gaze. “Show me what I deserve.”

"You love it when I'm cruel," Francesc growls at Elodia, letting his fingers trail down from her neck and across her chest. His hand lingers for a moment, before breaking contact as he steps back away from the desk, letting himself fall into his chair. "Take it off," he orders, already undressing her with his eyes.

Elodia doesn’t correct him, both of them aware the only way to do so would be to lie. She watches him intently on his throne as she obeys, relishing in the weight of his gaze as she unclasps first her cloak, letting it fall with abandon, before pulling deliberately at the laces that line her back. Slowly, the bodice peels from her skin, the elaborate sleeves dripping from narrow shoulders. Her lips part as she watches him, pushing the fabric demonstratively to her hips; the only sound between them that of the heavy red brocade dropping to the floor. She had looked for Francesc first at home, and her intent coming here is apparent now when underneath the dress she’s bared not in a chemise or even lingerie but nothing but pale skin, want, and the jewels he’d collared her with. Long, loose golden curls fall over her breasts and past her waist, shifting across her nipples as she steps from the pool of fabric in towering heels that are the only reason she ever comes past his chest. Her gaze is covetuous on his as she slowly and pointedly states the obvious. ”I’ve needed you all day.”

Francesc holds Elodia's gaze as she begins to shed her dress, his eyes falling to follow her neckline when her clothes drop to the ground around her, slowly unpacking his prize. He shifts in his chair, obviously moved by the display, his attention lingering on her breasts and between her thighs. "You had me this morning," Francesc points out teasingly, the corner of his mouth curling in a smirk. "Come here," he beckons with the two forefingers of his right hand, his left elbow propped up on the armrest while he strokes his chin in thought.

”I didn’t think you minded,” Elodia responds with a smile, obeying the summons to where Francesc so naturally holds court and closing the distance between them, lowering herself slowly and indulgently onto his lap. ”Can you blame me, for trying to make up for all I’m going to miss.” She looks down to where her fingers had automatically risen to toy with the edge of his collar, and her gaze stays there for a beat, smile fading as she glances back up to search through his. ”We leave two days from now.”

Francesc watches the swaying of Elodia's hips hungrily as she approaches him. "Never," he confesses, trailing the fingertips of one hand up her calf as she perches atop his thighs, the other sliding around her waist to pull her close. However, the playful look in his eyes fades when he hears her plans. Silently and inexorably, Francesc's hand works its way up Elodia's legs, sliding between them to cup her lips, feeling for her need for him as he presses his lips against her throat.

Part of Elodia wants to simply fold into him as he pulls her close, her own words weighing on her, but the rest of her is loud and insatiable and craves intimacy of a different kind. Melting into Francesc’s hold, she pulls her thick curls over one shoulder to better bare her throat for him, currents of anticipation following his fingers up her legs as her thighs obediently part. Her eyes drift closed as his touch elicits a breathy exhale, shifting in his lap to grind slowly and welcomingly into his hand.

Francesc's middle finger dips between Elodia's folds, trailing wetness from the bottom to the top where he draws the languid little circles that he knows will drive her mad. His teeth catch the pale skin of her neck between them and his kisses fall down across her collarbone to her breast. His tongue glides softly across her nipple, moving in sync with his finger as he coaxes the little bud to hardness, his own arousal pressing up through his trousers beneath her.

Elodia’s nails scrabble across his scalp and tangle in his dark curls, holding Francesc to her breast as his indolent circling starts her into a spiral as only he can, her body arching and begging and attuning to his every touch. The teasing is expert and deliciously brutal, and her unsteady breathing reflects it when she finally pulls herself away with monumental effort and eyes drunk with want. Her body is still thrumming with need, hand trailing longingly over his growing hardness as she shifts, lifting her knees to press into the wood on either side of him as she lowers herself naked and bare to slowly grind against the fabric that separates them and straddle him atop his throne.

Francesc brings both hands up to cup Elodia's breasts where they hang in his face, rolling each nipple between his thumb and forefinger while his mouth roams left and right between them. Long golden locks brush back and forth across his cheeks and forehead as her head lolls forwards into him as she grinds and he grunts half in pleasure, half in discomfort at being so confined. "You know..." Francesc breathes between kisses, "...if you want me... ...you're going to have to... ...take things... ...into your own hands." Firm fingers close around Elodia's wrists, guiding them down to the laces in his lap.

Elodia’s breath is shallow, caught in her throat; the basic need to breathe made difficult with his lips and attention against her flushed breasts. Her hips slow to a stop as she lovingly palms his hardness through his trousers, wrist straining sweetly in his grasp. She lets the pressure and promise of her stroking linger there for a beat before her head bows over his to obey, golden curls pouring into dark as her fingers deftly unlace him. A moment of stilted panting later, the urgency that had first brought her here to his work rises with new fervor as she parts the fabric with reverent hands and reaches for him, breathing with difficulty, ”I had to see if you wanted me, first.”

Francesc rolls his eyes and kisses Elodia hard on the lips. They're soft and pliable beneath his own and he shudders into the kiss as he feels her fingers glide slick and sticky across his skin. His own hand hand curls into the back of her head, hair taught in his fist, while the other cups her cheek and jaw in his palm. "Have I ever not?" He whispers between breaths. The question is rhetorical and he flexes against her hands to prove the point.

Elodia looks at him, blue eyes searching his as the words wash over her, her breath stilling against his lips. One look, four words, and the fear that had driven her here is erased, overwhelmed entirely by the brutal need to have him take her here, hard, and now; all at once she surges into motion, rising higher on her knees and relishing in the sweet pull of his hand in her hair as her own strokes purposefully light and slick down the length of him. Fervent, she kisses him deeply, tongue needy and insatiable, free hand running up his neck and past his hard jawline to tangle covetously in his own curls. When she’s finally forced to part it’s with obvious reluctance and she can’t bring herself to go far, gently pulling his lower lip with her until that too is forced to release. There’s a heated breath where she looks at him, held so close her nose skims against his. Then slowly, achingly, Elodia shifts to lower herself back into Francesc’s lap, leaning into him closely enough that he can taste the soft, shuddering cry gasped against his lips as she guides him inside.

Francesc groans, his lips fluttering against Elodia's as she sinks down onto him. Strong arms wrap tightly around her back, nails scoring soft lines across the pale canvas of her skin as he rolls his hips up against her own. Tracing down the edges of her hour glass, his hands come to rest just below her waist, holding her against him as he grinds his pubic bone against her mound. Their eyes never part for a moment.

Elodia’s gaze on Francesc is that of one transfixed, her every moan and mewl telegraphed before they’re heard in the overwhelmed flush of her cheeks and parting of her lips, begging wordlessly just centimeters above his. Her nails scratch against the back of his neck and head, desperate for something to cling to, even as her back arches against his hold to force her lower body ever closer. Reflexive, an after thought, her right hand flings backward to try and steady herself on the armrest of the chair as she takes him deeper, faster; his name the word that finally takes form between them to fall pleadingly from breathless lips.

Francesc's hands slide down and around to cup Elodia's behind as she rocks back and back and forth on his lap. Abruptly, he pushes up from the chair with a grunt of exertion, holding his lover against him, tangled arms around his neck keeping her in place. A couple of steps forwards and she's set down upon the edge of his desk. A sweeping arm casts parchment and paperweights aside as Francesc leans over Elodia, hands planted either side of her head as he begins to steadily increase the pace of his thrusts. His eyes find hers once more and a playful thumb seeks her mouth, toying with her lips even as his palm caresses her cheek.

The cold wood of the desk is nothing compared to the heat emanating from Elodia’s body, her legs wrapping around him and ankles knotting against Francesc’s back to spur him closer, as if any form of close was ever going to be close enough. Her mouth is eager for his touch, lips hot against his thumb as she laves and sucks and follows it, head ultimately turning in his hold to press urgent kisses to his palm. ”Never stop. I’m so close,” she pants against his hand, arching and grabbing hold of his wrist by her head as her hips meet his thrusts, desperate for an anchor. Her eyes find Francesc’s again, and the words are as breathless as they are a simple, moaned truth. ”I was made to fit you.”

Elodia's words threaten to push Francesc closer to the edge then he's ready to go. Tension leaves his arms as he lets the weight of his torso press down on her, cupping his lover's head to him as he growls in her ear, ravaging her neck with kisses and bites. The rhythm of their dance never ends; even if he wanted to, she has him locked in place. Tension and heat build continuously in Elodia's body beneath him and Francesc's fingers arch against the smooth surface of the desk as their tips grip the tabletop.

Francesc is in her and on her and against her, and with his lips against her throat and growling at her ear Elodia utterly unspools. Her cries heighten and sharpen before, only distantly aware of where they are, she forces herself to turn in his grip with what strength remains her and drown them against his neck. The fear and tension and need that had riddled her all afternoon peaks and crashes in his hold, her nails turning stinging before they slacken abruptly as her cries fade to whimpers and her limbs tremble violently around her love.

As Elodia spasms around him, Francesc maintains his merciless rhythm, waiting for her to orgasm to pass and leave her limp and malleable and shuddering from the aftershocks beneath him. His weight leaves her chest and she finds herself flipped onto her stomach, still impaled from behind and twice as helpless as before. The thrusting resumes, the table rocking beneath her and then a sudden heat trickles along Elodia's spine from top to bottom; Francesc has grabbed the candle that lights his work.

Elodia’s breath hitches in a sharp gasp, the pain shocking and bright and immediate down her back. Her body, pliable beneath Francesc just seconds ago, convulses on contact, whimpering as she reflexively arches into the wood as if to get away from the wax that burns her spine - but he’s deep inside her and there is nowhere to go. Her head bows forward, golden mane a sweaty mess and fingers curling around the desktop as he continues thrusting into her, stilted breaths bleeding into moans as the stinging pain edges toward pleasure. (edited)

Francesc sets the candle down besides them, his fingers digging into Elodia's hip as he begins to go faster and harder still. There's a shiver of skin on skin as she feels the caress of his other hand glide gently across the porcelain perfection of her behind and then the pad of a thumb begins to trace teasing circles over the sensitive skin of her rosebud.

The wax drips slowly down the slope of Elodia’s spine as she writhes helplessly beneath her husband, the stinging heat blending with raw pleasure and furious yearning in a dizzying, forceful cacophony. He buries himself relentlessly in her and her hand grasps haplessly back for his, hard on her hip, clinging to it there as her hips arch and buck beneath both the rolling wax and his unyielding touch. ”Gods,” she gasps, eyes squeezing closed and lips moving soundlessly at the wood in front of her. ”Francesc.”

"Mmm, yes dear?" He whispers back with a smirk, steadily increasing the pressure on his thumb until the tip slowly sinks inside. Francesc can feel the dull new pressure rubbing against the top of his shaft as he penetrates Elodia both above and below. Tension builds in his thighs and abdomen, his body stiffening as he nears release. Letting go of her hip, Francesc reaches forwards, scraping his nails across her scalp as he tangles his fingers in her hair, forcing Elodia to lift her head and arch her back.

Elodia’s scalp stings and she cries out as she arches roughly off the table, hands curling around the desktop and skin creasing in the hardening wax that pulls at her spine, breath strangled. ”Francesc -” She tries to turn, to look back at him, but doesn’t think she’d be able to even if Francesc’s grip allowed it; pure sensation is too overwhelming, her body tightening and numbing and pulsating hotly around every aspect of him - unable and unwilling to separate pain from pleasure when really they’ve always been one and the same. ”Fill me. Please.” It’s all she can do to whimper it to him as raw feeling consumes her, ”Yours. Make me yours.”

Francesc's fingers loosen amongst Elodia's curls, his hand drifting down to caress her neck and shoulder, before sliding forwards to cup her throat. His hips moves faster and faster until, finally, he buries himself deep inside her with a heady groan. There's a violent lurch and Francesc's fingers spasm around Elodia's neck as he bucks against her behind, giving his lover exactly what she has asked for. He pulses and throbs inside her, until his climax eventually subsides, only occasionally twitching with the shudders of an aftershock. Finally spent, Francesc slumps forwards, resting his weight upon Elodia's back once more to feel her familiar and warm against his chest. "You've always been mine," he murmurs affectionately in her ear as the rest there for a moment and catch their breath, still joined at the hip in the truest sense of the phrase.

He finally grants her wish and for a long moment Elodia lays thrumming beneath Francesc, her eyes closed and breath struggling to slow as she tries to calm her erratic heart, trying to memorize every aspect of the completeness of this moment. The weight of him atop her is achingly familiar and she’s particularly loath to be parted, tightening around him as if that alone might keep him close even just for a second longer. ”Mmm.” She sighs and shivers at his words, head turning against the wood to look at him. ”I think that’s true,” she murmurs, fingers slowly uncurling from the desktop to reach back and admiringly run through his dark hair. ”I never stood a chance, did I.” (edited)

Francesc shakes his head in affirmation and showers Elodia's neck with soft, tickling kisses, before gradually pushing himself upright with a grunt. Glancing down, he smirks at where he's still lodged inside her. "I wish I could capture moments like this..." he murmurs, easing back until the widest part of him is still just barely lodged between her lips. Francesc lingers in the moment, teasing Elodia briefly before pushing back until their hips lock against each other once more. "Stay."

Elodia groans as heat flares low again, the unexpected momentum rocking her forward back into the desk. The command hits home almost as hard and directly as Francesc does, and it’s all she can do to keep her tone from showing it. ”Right here?” she posits playfully instead, looking back at him as her hips slowly and poignantly undulate into the wood in a bid to draw him deeper, fingers curling around the edge again. ”Very well. Though it may make work difficult eventually.”

Excruciatingly slowly, Francesc edges back again, a trail of white leaking from between Elodia's lips to run down her thigh like milk on porcelain. "Stay in Piotrgrad," he hums in return, fingers trailing lightly across her rear in an addict's caress. "We'll work out some other way."

Elodia tries to focus on Francesc’s fingers on her skin; the warm liquid dripping invitingly down her leg; the coiling embers stoked brighter with every brutally deliberate move he makes inside her. Anything but the heavy knot in her chest his words bring back to the surface, that his lips on hers had momentarily helped bury. ”Will we?” she asks softly. ”It’s been a year, and this is the closest we’ve ever come.” She pushes herself up to her elbows and her hips unceremoniously back against him, a deep sigh shuddering from her at the contact. The hardened wax down her back pinches tight against her skin at the movement but that too is another welcoming distraction. ”You think I wish to go?”

Francesc groans as Elodia sinks back onto him and a wry smile dances across his lips. Reaching forwards, he peels a strip of wax from the skin of her back. "I can live like this, if it means that I can have you," he muses sadly, "but I know that you need more freedom. I've not always done what is best for you. I could have sent you away long ago, but I kept you close to me. Close to them. I could have let you live a life of comfort and security in Breanne... but you belonging to anybody else was never an option." Slowly, he pulls away, sighing as she slips off of him and extending one hand to help her down from the desk.

Elodia sighs in tandem, skin still prickling with the sting of the wax leaving her spine. Reluctantly she straightens, accepting Francesc’s hand and shifting off the desk, fingers not relinquishing his once she has. The upright position draws attention to the white fluid trickling further down her leg and the tight skin across her hips she already knows will bruise, black and purple reminders of an evening being pushed against wood. ”You say it like I ever would have chosen that life in the first place,” she counters, using her grip on his hand to pull herself close and lean against their clasped hands. ”Like there is any possibility where I wouldn't have followed. We’ve just established I never had a chance of being free of you. Even if either of us had willed it.”

"So stay," Francesc counters again with a smirk, his other hand pulling Elodia's hips against him where they stand, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes. "What do you expect me to do with myself with you gone, hm?"

”Nothing, if you know what’s good for you,” Elodia retorts with a pointed look, nevertheless folding close to him as if compelled, so her bare hips brush against fabric. For a long moment she looks up at Francesc, considering, and after a pause her eyes and shoulders both seem to soften at the same time they somehow seem to steel.    ”If you asked it of me, I would stay. Tell me now that you know of a better way to make things secure for us and I’ll never again leave Piotrgrad. For it to be safe to hope that this –“ She runs a hand up the back of her own thigh and lifts it to her lips, holding his gaze as she slowly and deliberately licks her fingers, “– doesn’t end here tonight, and grows into part of you I can keep with me for longer than an evening. For it to be safe to dream of the del Toro legacy we wish to build; to dream of our family.”

Francesc visibly swallows as Elodia licks his seed from her fingers. The last words are barely out of her mouth before he presses his own against her, his tongue hungrily seeking its partner as he squeezes her breasts and pulls at her nipples. "You just don't know how to quit, do you?" Francesc growls as he comes up for air, his hands all over her. "How could I ever say no to that?"

Elodia seizes onto Francesc as soon as the surprise of his sudden movement abates, groaning against his lips as his hands find her breasts, her own tearing at the ties of his doublet with a frenzy that is eager to rectify the mistake she’d made of not unclothing him earlier. ”Then don’t,” she challenges jaggedly into his mouth, hips pressed flush to his. ”It will soon be safe. Let tonight be the night you finally put a baby in me.” (edited)

Francesc swiftly sheds what remains of his clothes, his fading erection beginning to show signs of new life in response to Elodia's words as she presses against him. "How do you know that I haven't already?" He teases, glancing at her sticky thighs.

”I’d rather be thorough,” Elodia remarks with a smirk, hands roaming over Francesc’s newly bared skin as if it had been months since she’d last seen it rather than hours. She presses heated kisses down his chest as her hand runs to his hip and then to his erection between them. Her hand strokes coaxingly down the length of him, still promisingly slick from being inside her. Her eyes lift slowly to his, silent for a breath as she watches him. ”So tell me where you want to make your son.” Her hand becomes insistent against him. ”I want to be the first thing you think of when you enter this room.”

Francesc's hips shift, his eyes fluttering in response to Elodia's sensitive touch and his breath shortening. When he looks at her again, it's with an intensity as though his desire could burn a hole through her. Silently, Francesc takes his wife's hand and leads her over to the rug in front of the fireplace on one side of the room, before pressing down on her shoulders with each hand.

Elodia sinks slowly in front of Francesc, holding his gaze as her knees hit the rug. There is something about the firelight on his bare skin that reminds her of the first time she’d assumed this position, a lifetime ago in Breanne. She’d burned then beneath the heavy weight of his gaze much as she burns now, every nerve alive and alight. Gently, virginally, she takes hold of her husband, taking her time to drip light, painstaking kisses down his shaft, every breath a warm promise. Her tongue in contrast is swift and practiced as she abruptly changes tempo to lave back along the underside, sweeping hotly across the taste of both of them still sticky on his skin.

Francesc watches Elodia intently, caressing her curls as he pulses and stiffens beneath her tongue. Finally, he too sinks to his knees, gently guiding his lover onto her back and raising her ankles up onto his shoulders. He pauses there, meeting her eyes as he rubs his tip teasingly up and down between her lips. "Tell me what it is that you want," he intructs as his skin glides against hers.

”You know,” Elodia replies with difficulty, trembling against Francesc as she burns beneath his gaze, breath stilted. Her hands palm over her breasts to twist into the rug and the gilded curls splashed behind her, searching and needy. ”You’ve always known.”

Francesc's tip parts Elodia's lips, teasing around the edges of the opening beneath as he moves up to brush back and forth over her swollen clit. "I want to hear you say it," he tells her firmly, undeterred.

This. You. Us,” Elodia moans in reply, one hand unclenching from her hair to find her breast, toying roughly with her nipple as if it might provide relief from the brutal heat shuddering through her with the taunting promise of what Francesc won’t quite give. ”I want you to flood me.” If she were taller she’d knot around him, pull him to her; but she’s small and vulnerable and utterly at his mercy. Each pass against her clit is exquisite torture. ”I want to drip with you,” she breathes at last when it becomes unbearable. ”So I know you had no choice but to leave a piece behind.” Her eyes are nearly as dark as her husband’s in the firelight, unmoving from his even as her lips move soundlessly with every teasing movement. ”I want our son.”

Elodia's words leave her mouth and Francesc shifts his weight forwards, slowly lifting her hips off the ground as he folds her thighs up against her body and sinks inside. "Beg," he growls, rolling his hips against his lover in long slow strokes, his hands planted either side of her head. Brown eyes lock with blue, holding her gaze as he continues to push as deep as she will take him.

Elodia’s breath dissolves abruptly into a high moan as Francesc pushes deep inside her, her head arching back against the rug. Fingers unclench to jealously roam his skin above her before he goes deeper still and her nails instead bite in to brace herself, clinging to his wrists. ”Please,” she pants breathlessly as she looks up at him, the heat of his gaze as intense as that welling lower with every arduously slow roll of his hips. ”Gods. Fill me. Mark me. Claim me. I want all of it. Every drop. I’m so empty without you. I -” Her words hitch suddenly in a sharp inhale as she feels the impossible fullness of him pushing inside her, and when she finds them again it’s with a naked gaze and ragged need. ”Please, I’ll be good. It’s all I want. I’ll do anything.”

Francesc's mouth falls to Elodia's neck, biting and kissing and suckling at her as he thrusts with ever increasing intensity. The tension in his arms grows and he grasps at the nape of her neck, pulling her up into him. "Good girl," he rasps in her ear, his stomach tautening as he pushes them closer and to closer to her desire.

His hand on her neck and words at her ear send a searing shiver through Elodia, every push seeming impossibly deeper than the last as she winds tighter and tighter beneath him. Moans give way to gasps and she clings to Francesc with renewed fervor, nails dragging sharp and merciless down his back. ”Look. At me,” she breathes stiltedly, head tilting to try and find his as she tightens further around him with every thrust with muscles that have begun to tellingly tremble.

Reluctantly, Francesc pries himself away from Elodia's throat, looming over her as he stares into eyes that are like deep pools of crystal water. His dangling curls form curtains framing their faces and his breath grows ragged as his manhood begins to flex and pulse involuntarily with stroke. A shudder runs from Francesc's shoulders down to his hips and he jerks violently, burying himself as deep as he can inside Elodia as he fills her with his seed. His mouth finds hers, tongues dancing as his body presses her into the floor, twitching automatically with every spurt.

His dark eyes on hers alone pushes her to the edge, but the moment Elodia feels Francesc shiver inside her she free falls past it, shattering beneath him so completely she doesn’t know or care if she’ll find the pieces again. Her helpless cries are swallowed by his mouth on hers as her body quivers around him, tongue reverberating against his while her grip around him tightens and then abruptly slackens, fingers turning from needles on his shoulder blades to weak, adoring caresses down his back and her cries soften to whimpers and then to ragged silence. Pressed hard into the rug, her kisses slowly fade from desperate and urgent to long and indulgent as she pulses tightly around him, alight with aftershocks so strong it seems impossible to lift her limbs.

Francesc slumps atop Elodia, his full weight crushing down on her as he catches his breath and their senses slowly return to them. Time loses meaning as the pair lie there, united in their embrace, and minutes somehow feel like hours and seconds all at the same time. However, one way or another, Elodia eventually needs to breathe and Francesc rolls off her and onto his side, his gradually softening manhood reluctantly dislodging itself. Propped up besides her, he reaches between his wife's legs to catch the slow trickle of cum leaking out of her. Familiar fingers gather the sticky, white liquid and trail it up between her folds and across her navel and cleavage until he brings it to her lips.

Elodia had been struggling to catch her breath, her eyes closed and body uncoiling when she feels Francesc’s hand warm between her legs again, tracing wetly up her body and over her breasts to waiting, parted lips. Feeling them without seeing them, she takes his coated fingers with a faint, contented moan in the back of her throat, slowly and worshipfully sucking the cum from his skin. Eyes slowly opening to lift to his, she reluctantly pushes his fingers back with a purse of her lips when the salty taste of him has been cleaned, gently kissing the tips as she murmurs playfully, ”I think that belongs somewhere else.”

"You're so full, you're overflowing," Francesc hums against Elodia's neck between kisses, reaching across her hips to press her thighs together and hold any further drips inside. His fingers trail caresses back and forth around her stomach and tease at her still sensitive nipples. That is what you wanted, after all."

”It’s what I always want,” Elodia smiles in satisfaction, beatific as she arches her neck beneath Francesc’s lips and rolls her hips up to best angle herself to keep every drop inside, the movement simultaneously pushing her breasts further into his touch. Her palm roams across his chest, reveling greedily in skin still warm from either exertion or the firelight or both. ”And you’re very good at giving it to me. You’ll have me sore and aching tomorrow.” Her eyes open, and though her smile doesn’t fade it does soften, her fingers searching and gentle as they brush through his dark hair. ”Tell me it’s what you wanted too.”

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have done it," Francesc assures Elodia, drawing her close as he turns on his side to spoon with her in front of the fire. He's enjoying the moment, but she can sense the restlessness in him. The inner turmoil between the desire to fall asleep right here and the knowledge that eventually they must rise and prepare for what is to come.

Elodia melts back against Francesc, staring into the flames flickering in front of them as her light fingers trace patterns over the arm keeping her close. He doesn’t need to speak for her to sense his disquiet; as in many things, her mirror. It would be all too easy to lock the world away and stay here on his office floor, but it also wouldn’t solve anything - and she knows she needs that more than ever, if her tightly clenched thighs have anything to say. ”I’m frightened,” she admits at last to the fire, her fingers still absently whispering across his forearm, as if should she stop touching him he might disappear. ”I don’t feel safe without you near.”

Francesc responds by squeezing Elodia tighter against him. "I had Mikhail acquire something for you for your investigations," he admits, "something rare and special. Something from me that you can envelope yourself in so that you'll always be safe."

Elodia looks back over her shoulder at Francesc in wonder, pressed so tightly against him her words are all but murmured against his jaw. Ever searching, her fingers entangle tightly with his atop her bare skin. ”What is it?”

"A new cloak," Francesc replies with feigned casual indifference, "in that colour that you love so much." Leaning into Elodia's shoulder, be begins to walk a soft trail of kisses from her shoulder to her ear. (edited)

”Really?” Elodia’s eyes light up immediately, an exquisite shiver sliding down her spine at his kisses. ”Careful, my love,” she teases, her hand reaching back to caress Francesc’s jaw and follow him on his path up her neck as her beaming face tilts searchingly back towards his. ”Gifts like these and I might leave more often.” (edited)

Francesc's palm drifts lightly down across Elodia's navel, his middle finger worming its way between her tightly closed thighs to stroke gently over her still slick clit. "You could never stay away," he whispers in her ear. "You'd miss me."

Elodia inhales sharply, still keenly sensitive, as she squirms against his finger. ”That’s not fair.”

Francesc continues to slowly but steadily circle his fingertip over Elodia's swollen little nub. "Would you like to see your cloak now?" He murmurs in her ear.

”It’s here?” She makes a faint, strangled noise, shivering against his touch or his lips at her ear or perhaps both. ”No. Yes.” Her eyes drift closed, her hand reaching back to caress his face and keep him close. ”You’re asking me to make an impossible choice.”

"Mhm," Francesc intones affirmatively, "Mikhail brought it by this afternoon. It's wrapped up in my desk." The languid circles never cease.

”You couldn’t have mentioned it when we were there.” Elodia’s voice is tight as she painstakingly and impatiently tries to grind in sync with his hand, building to the small whimper in the back of her throat she tries and fails to swallow. ”Ask him to bring it.”

"No," Francesc whispers with a smile, merciless as he pushes up into Elodia's grinding. He presses his body against hers, his teeth nipping at her ear. (edited)

”Why not.” The words begin as a frustrated huff before her breath cuts shallowly and her hand reaches instead to brace herself against his thigh as her hips try to keep up. ”Then I will.” The threat comes in a would-be lofty, strangled voice, though her hand is digging in to him and the noises that escape her as his fingers taunt and the warm, familiar weight of him settles against her are anything but those needed for the spell. (edited)

Not one to be outdone, Francesc quickly sits up, pressing Elodia's hips to the rug as he straddles her head, abruptly planting his penis between her lips and replacing his finger with his tongue. He sucks at her clit, flicking the tip of his tongue across it as he presses his own hips down on her face. "You were saying?" He mocks between breaths.

Elodia’s startled shriek of protest is stifled by the sudden invasion of her mouth, choking on Francesc as he relentlessly enters her and she struggles to force her throat to relax. The shock is overridden only by the overwhelming sensation that comes with his tongue and her hips buck involuntarily beneath him, the strain felt all the way to her toes. There’s a second, a brief second, where she relaxes into him and begins to suck him deeper - but then his derisive taunt hits and she abruptly claws him instead, nails biting bitterly from his hips to his thighs as a muffled angry retort hums around his shaft from the back of her throat.

Francesc grunts as Elodia's nails mark his hips red and his own licking intensifies. Fingers trail around her thighs, teasing at her lips from beneath where the entire area is still slick and sticky from his own seed and her arousal. Groaning into his wife, Francesc rolls his hips, slowly fucking Elodia's mouth as he kisses her sex.

Elodia’s outraged cry is forced abruptly back down her throat as Francesc uses her, bleeding into a noise of frustration and then something vibrating she’d never admit was a moan. Refusing to choke on him, she tries to force herself to relax and let his slick tip slide past her lashing tongue at the same time she struggles to squeeze her shaking legs shut, writhing beneath him and attempting to fight him off her with sharp, furious hands. But for every raging touch she throws at him her body is a traitor, and grows steadily wetter and weaker beneath his lips.

Francesc continues relentlessly, until Elodia begins to soften beneath him. The more that her body gives way to his touch and the less that she struggles, the more tender his grip and the shallower he thrusts. His fingertips caress her folds gently, teasingly, and all the while he laps at her clit, waiting for the full groans of pleasure that she knows will be an admission of defeat.

Elodia’s struggling slowly dissipates the more Francesc touches her, legs moving involuntarily rather than forcefully and hands softening from angry strikes to feeble shoves. Her chest heaves from the effort, his ministrations not making breathing around him any easier as she fights to not give him the satisfaction of hearing her moan. Arching beneath him at a particular stroke of his tongue, she caves at last with a begrudging swallow; taking him deeper there’s no mistaking the cadence of words she finally mumbles around his sticky tip. ”I hate you.”

Finally slowing his assault on Elodia's senses, Francesc lifts his crotch from her face. Saliva trails between them as he turns to straddle her, making even more of a mess of her chin, and his hands move quickly, snatching her flailing wrists from the air and pinning them above her head. There's a wet thwack as he lays his manhood between her breasts and his eyes meet hers with a triumphant smirk. "Would you like to see your gift now?"

Caught off guard yet again, Elodia strains against his hold on her, panting for breath through lips sticky and glistening with fluid. Her hips lift against Francesc in vain before falling back to the rug with finality, body struggling to make sense of the abrupt and brutal abandonment as her senses slowly reorient. For a long moment she’s silent, glowering at him as the heat his tongue had promised spirals further away and her hands flex in his hold. Then, eyes on his maddening smirk and breaths coming hard and fast enough to lift her breast and him with it, she says resentfully, ”Yes.”

For a brief moment, Francesc grinds a little more into Elodia's cleavage, enjoying the perks of this position. However, finally, he does push himself to his feet, reaching down to offer Elodia a hand to pull her up with too. His dark eyes hold her stullen, icy stare the whole while.

Elodia takes his hand begrudgingly, rising reluctantly beside Francesc on unsteady legs. Fingers in his, for a beat she continues glaring at him, breath slowing as she barely resists the urge to wipe her face clean. Then she surges abruptly up on her toes to roughly press her mouth to his, kissing him violently and biting hard at his lip as she makes his chin just as much a mess as hers. It’s tempting to stay there, but with a ragged breath she rips herself away and brushes by him to head toward the desk.

Francesc chuckles, slowly rubbing his knuckles across his chin, before following suit and heading for the (still sticky) desk. His long legs rapidly close the distance to Elodia and he swats playfully at her behind as he passes her. Once on the far side, Francesc bends to fetch a small key from his tunic and unlocks one of the the lower drawers, fetching some kind of bundle wrapped in linens from within. He turns to face Elodia, holding the parcel out towards her. "Open it."

It’s difficult to stay petulant when he’s handing her a gift, as Francesc well knew it would be. Elodia’s body is already uncoiling as she reaches for the bundle, delicately stepping over the carnage of objects he’d swept from the desk to the floor when laying her on it to set the linens on the edge of the wood. She obeys him reflexively, pulling at the ties to part the wrappings; it’s not long before her face lights up immediately as she catches sight of the finery beneath. ”It’s beautiful,” she breathes as the linens part, running a hand reverently over the rippling fabric it had obscured. True to his word, she can tell already it’s the exact shade of deep red that she favors and always makes her think of them. All sulkiness forgotten, she looks up to him in wonder. ”Where did you find it? There’s nothing this beautiful in Piotrgrad.”

"Morgenstern gold has to be good for something," Francesc remarks with a wry smile. "Mikhail sourced it. I believe it was enchanted in Tanemburg." Lifting the velvet cloak from its packaging so that the full length falls to the ground, he holds the white fur trim so that he can drape it about her shoulders. "Put it on," he whispers. (edited)

Elodia drifts close to Francesc, turning against him and pulling her long golden mane to the front to bare her back. ”It isn’t often you tell me to put things on,” she muses playfully as the luxurious fabric settles atop her shoulders, the softness of the fur outdone only by the luxe red pouring from it. For a moment she lingers there, reveling in the gift. Her fingers are obsessive raining down the folds as she slowly turns in place to face him, voice light and gaze on his as her chin tilts. ”I should thank Mikhail. Ardently.”

Francesc wraps the cloak around Elodia and his hands drift down the sides of her body, framing her hips as he pulls the velvet tight around her. His lips fall to her neck, planting a soft kiss before she turns to gaze up at him once more. *"You are are a temptress and a devil, you know that?" He tells her affectionately, running a gentle hand back through her curls. For a moment it looks like Francesc is about to kiss her again, but then he looks away, biting his lip as he stretches out his neck with a stilted sigh. "We should get dressed, or we'll be at this all night. Eventually, somebody is going to come looking for me," he reminds her resting his lips on her forehead.

"I am what you made me," Elodia replies with a self-satisfied, knowing smile before the levity drains and she sighs, eyes fluttering closed as her head bows beneath his lips. A hand drifts down his bare chest, loath to be parted. "Perhaps somebody should respect the meaning of a closed door," she retorts, though she's already looking back for her discarded dress, careful not to dislodge the cloak. Finding his clothes nearer, she hands them to him. "You work too hard."

"We'd lock ourselves away for days if we could... and you know it," Francesc counters, his tone gentle and affectionate as he throws his shirt back over his head. He watches Elodia as she gathers her clothes, enjoying the view as he dresses herself. "Will I see you in the morning?"

"And? We should be able to. Especially now," Elodia replies tartly, though she steps into her dress all the same, demonstratively pulling it over her hips and breasts with unnecessary slowness. Pulling her hair and the fine weight of the cloak over one shoulder, she bares her back to Francesc again, this time for lacing. "Yes. Will you be late?" She presses her chin to her collarbone to look back at him, her smile turning knowing. "Later than usual."

Francesc steps towards Elodia, standing so close that they're almost touching as he inhales the scent of her hair like an addict while slowly lacing up the back of her dress. His eyes meet hers sidelong, matching the self same smile. "I'd hope not," he tells her warmly, before grimly adding, "assuming that there are no more unpleasant surprises." (edited)

"Let someone else handle them," Elodia coaxes, turning only when she feels his fingers against her shoulder blades and letting the cloak ripple back into place down her back. "Just for a night." Her hands return to his chest, pressing a kiss to his sternum as she affixes the ties to his shirt. "Perhaps two. Are you seeing us off on Sunday? I imagine it will be early." She looks up to match blue with brown, palms smoothing down the fabric. "They may be likelier to return me in one piece if they have a reminder it's important to."

Francesc's brow crinkles in something between amusement, affection and confusion. "Wasn't the entire point that you are unknown?" He asks with a tilt of his head, holding her close, like he doesn't want to let go. "That could change if I come and they are watching me. Or if 'Miss Morgenstern' comes to find where I am tonight."

“Then perhaps I hope she does, so it won’t matter,” Elodia replies petulantly, pressing her cheek to his chest. ”I have more than a few things I’d like to say.”   She stays like that against Francesc for a long moment, her reluctance to leave tangible. But the sense in the logic that has kept them safe this long ultimately prevails and she sighs, lifting her head and touching her hand to his face. The air is heavy between them, and though it isn’t quite goodbye yet, she can’t help but feel like it’s the start. Her thumb traces along his familiar cheekbone and then the backs of her fingers follow, her eyes searching meaningfully through his. She doesn’t know how long she looks at him, as if he isn’t already memorized; only that when she moves again it's with a faint smile. The expression is fleeting and almost sad as she pulls herself close, brushing her lips dryly against his cheek; voice a distracted murmur. ”You are my first, and last, and only love.” She pulls away, arching further on tiptoe to catch his lips with hers one more time. ”Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

Francesc captures Elodia's hand as it trails his contours, holding it tightly in his own until she is ready to leave. "You outshine anything that you put on", he tells her quietly. "You needed something with a hope of keeping up." Walking with her to the door, Francesc holds it until Elodia has gone, before closing it behind her with a deep and final thud.

The Laughing Lada It's some time in the middle of the afternoon when Shiva is stirred from her nap by a knocking at the door. Ling is nowhere to be seen and neither is Shiva's flaxen-haired companion from this morning, but a near empty pitcher of wine still stands on the bedside table.

Groggy from several hours of napping, Shiva sits up slowly as she tries to recollect just where she is and why she's there. She stretches, then gets out of bed to collect and don her clothing before walking over to open the bedroom door. (edited)

Shiva opens the door and leaning with one arm propped up against the door frame on the other side is Sonya. "You're back," she notes, with one eyebrow arched in amusement.

Shiva brightens as she finally lays eyes on the shining copper hair and disarming beauty of the woman that she had been waiting to see. With a big toothy smile, she speaks softly. "Is that alright? We had such a good time, I couldn't keep myself away." (edited)

"Alright? I live to serve," Sonyo purrs back at Shiva, stepping through the door so that they're standing face to face, a lazy finger slowly trailing up from the tiefling's navel to her lips.

Sonya's finger is enough contact to ignite Shiva's insatiable desire, and as the finger grazes her lips, Shiva's eyes close as she pulls her into a passionate kiss. Wrapping her arms around Sonya's waist, their lips remain just centimeters apart as Shiva speaks in a voice that's just above a whisper. "I....I wanted to do something for you. Take you out. Spoil you. Make you feel as special as you deserve to feel."

Sonya giggles in Shiva's arms. "...and how were you planning on doing that?" She asks between kisses.

Shiva kisses Sonya deeply once more before stepping back and out of her arms with a devious smile. "I recently came into a bit of gold, how would you like to spend the afternoon?" (edited)

"In that bed?" Sonya confidently proposes, stepping in after Shiva and moving to close the distance between them.

"That sounds perfect." Deftly, Shiva removes her top, exposing sumptuous breasts and a chiseled abdomen. She kisses Sonya again, then takes the woman's hands in hers and brings them up to palm her Oxford blue nipples. "And we can order as much food as you like, as much wine. Hells, we can have a dress made for you if you like." (edited)

"A dress?" Sonya queries, the same amused expression as before written all across her face. The girl's hands push up against Shiva's breasts, squeezing and kneading them as she drives the tiefling back, until her legs touch the edge of the bed. "Is this one not your style?" The question rings with mock-naivety and, reaching down, Sonya plucks the hem of her skirts from around her knees and pulls the flimsy material over her head, leaving her standing naked in front of Shiva.

Sonya's tender grasp on her breasts sends a quiet pleasure branching out into Shiva's body that collects in her crotch. She opens her mouth, but any response that the tiefling could have given is stolen from her lips as Sonya strips nude in front of her. The breathtaking sight of her luminous skin, her perfect breasts spotted with brown freckles, and her soft round thighs is almost too much to take. And sitting atop those thighs is the river from which love and pleasure flows unending, lightly covered with more of her copper hair. Shiva stands unmoving, hesitant to disturb the immaculate image before her. But the lust that had begun to build up in her crotch lights a heated, desperate longing in her. She throws herself into the woman's breasts, kissing, licking, and sucking with unfettered passion. (edited)

Sonya giggles as Shiva assaults her chest, clambering forwards onto the bed and forcing the tiefling to lie back while her whore straddles her. Bouncing breasts hang low over Shiva's mouth and Sonya begins to drag her sex back and forth over the firm stomach beneath her.

Shiva buries her face in Sonya's breasts, feeling the warm wetness as she grinds against her abdomen. She kisses her way up the lovely chest and beautiful neck to bring their lips together once more, all the while gently pinching the nipples that hang above her. "Do you want me inside you, baby?"

"So badly," Sonya moans into Shiva's kiss. Her tongue pushes into the tiefling's mouth and she presses her breasts against Shiva's, pulling the pair against one another.

Shiva's tongue zealously meets Sonya's as her body reacts to an instinctual command. Small golden currents jump across her skin as the tiefling's clitoris becomes engorged, expanding up and out into a beautiful blue cock. Reaching down to grasp it, she leans back to rub the head against Sonya's clit. "Use me, please." her voice is breathy and quiet.

Sonya grins smugly and presses back against Shiva, slowly impaling herself on the tiefling's new appendage. She gasps a little and rocks back and forth, easing the oversized member inside until, finally, she takes it to the hilt. "You want to be used by a whore, Shiva?" Sonya teases in a sing-song voice, grinding against her lover's public bone. "Put your arms above your head."

Shiva breathes in sharply as Sonya descends onto the length of her. The pleasure was overwhelming, and she wished to drown in it. "Yes, I want to be used by a whore." Slowly, she raises her arms over her head, never breaking eye contact with the beauty before her. "Make me yours, your plaything. ' It felt so natural to beg for affection, and she would beg till tears ran down her face if it pleased this woman.

Sonya beams a wicked grin and leans forwards, cupping Shiva's powerful neck in her tiny hand and squeezing down on the tiefling's throat as she rides her. "You already are," she whispers, pinching one of Shiva's nipples to the point of pain.

Shiva's body is bombarded with pleasure that radiates out from her womanhood as Sonya rides her. The sensation in her nipple seesaws from pleasure to pain to pleasure once again, and she yelps and moans in response. The warmth and wetness of her partner combined with the dominance that she has taken drives Shiva into a carnality-induced stupor. As her throat is constricted, her moans become airy and high-pitched. With each stroke, she squeaks "Thank. You. Thank. You. Thank. You." (edited)

Sonya takes her hand off of Shiva's throat and slaps her sharply across the face. The girl doesn't enough strength to strike particularly hard, but the impact stings. Painstakingly slowly, she lifts herself inch-for-inch off Shiva's transmuted member, teasing the tip for a moment before she climbs off entirely. "Lift up your legs," Sonya tells the tiefling wickedly, pushing her knees back towards her chest.

The hard slap across the face brings Shiva back to attention, but the blow is softened by Sonya's gentle easing off of her. Silently, Shiva obeys and lifts her legs, showing off the entirety of her appendage. "Do I make you happy?" (edited)

Sonya gives Shiva a smug grin and steps in close to her exposed behind. The girl crouches, head dipping out of sight and Shiva feels warm breath against her exposed labia and rosebud. There's a sharp grating noise, like wood scraping on the floor, and then something cool and smooth plies at the opening beneath the tiefling's bouncing cock.

Shiva hums with soft approval as the warm breath passes her delicate entrances, before her own breath catches upon contact with this new object. Slowly spreading her legs, she looks down to Sonya with a smile.

Sonya palms one hand against the base of Shiva's shaft, holding it up as she slowly presses a varnished wooden toy inside the tiefling. The copper-haired girl takes her time, easing the tip in and out until the dildo has completely vanished inside. Once the toy is in, Shiva hears a soft pop from somewhere out of sight and Sonya smears something thick and oily in circles over her guest's rim, the fingers of her other hand curling around the tiefling's shaft and stroking it leisurely up and down.

Shiva twitches, the head of her appendage briefly swelling as she becomes even more stiff under Sonya's touch. Then a growing sensation of pleasure as the the toy is slowly pushed into her, gingerly working it's way deeper and deeper. Barely notices the pop from beyond her view, Shiva pants and moans as she grinds against the air, trying to work the toy sitting within her. Her cock is rigid and begging for stimulation, but she maintains her position, hands stationed above her thighs. Then warmth and lubrication comes to her asshole, and she once again falls into a stupor, cock twitching as it is worked over. "Please please fuck me hard, Sonya." Her speech is heavy and slow. (edited)

Sonya takes her time. There's a dull klink and then Shiva feels something metallic begin to enter her below the first toy. Her rosebud steadily stretches until the plug slips inside with a pop. "Now you're ready," the girl observes with a note of satisfaction, standing and pushing the tiefling's knees back as she climbs atop her. Shiva is both bent in half and stuffed full when Sonya finally begins once more to tease the head of her lover's cock against wet and waiting lips.

Shiva groans faintly as her lower hole expands to accommodate the toy. While overwhelming at first, pleasure begins to creep along the interior of her hole, and being so full was elation like she'd rarely experienced. As Sonya mounts and begins teasing her, all she can do is release quiet hums of agreement. "..mmm...mmm...please...mmm..." (edited)

Tantalisingly slowly, Sonya sinks down onto Shiva's length until she's fully impaled. A satisfied gasp leaves the slight girl as she lets herself be filled and finally Sonya starts to rock back and forth over Shiva's hips, pushing the Tiefling's thighs down into the bed as she fucks her.

Shiva's mind goes blank as Sonya lowers herself onto her. Every inch of her tingles as Sonya sways and grinds, moving the toys within her as she is pushed into the mattress under her lover's weight. In time with her, she strokes lightly as her member pulses and throbs, reaching up and cupping the perfect breasts that dangle above her. "No one...has ever..fucked me like this."

"Are you going to cum for me, blue?" Sonya rasps, bending low to graze Shiva's throat with her teeth as she rides. "Are you going to fill me up?"

Unable to do anything beyond whimper and moan, Shiva's body starts to quiver as her partner mercilessly rides her. "Fuck. Yes. Oh fuck." As she tips towards release, she begins to desperately pinch her nipples, eyes beginning to well with tears. "Wait wait, I'm gonna cum too hard. Pl-." Eyes rolling into the back of her head, she is lost to an unspeakable pleasure. Convulsing as her body is rocked with refulgent euphoria, her tongue lolls out of her open mouth. "AaaAAAaaaaaAa.." (edited)

"Fuck, yes..." Sonya echoes, rolling her hips unceasingly over Shiva's cock as she feels a rush of heat and the tiefling spasming inside of her. The copper-haired girl's mouth finds Shiva's, capturing the tiefling's tongue and swallowing the moan.

Shiva closes her eyes as Sonya's tongue curls around her own, muffling her ecstatic exclamation. Inundated by a sensory lightshow, the taste of sugar rises on her tongue as it sometimes did in these moments. The redolent scent of Sonya's sweat mixing with her own fills the air with a licentious bouquet. As Shiva descends from her orgasm, a sweet warmth envelops her. "You are...everything." (edited)

"Blue, you have no fucking idea," Sonya quips, sitting up and reaching over her hip to extract the first of the toys.

"I'd like to." Shiva says with a smile. "I'd like to see you of-". Her breath catches in her throat as the first of the toys is skillfully removed from her with a quick gesture. "Often."

Sonya gives Shiva a look that is as tired as it is jaded. "You are leaving," she tells the tiefling simply, tugging at her plug. "Tomorrow, if I am not mistaken."

Clouds begin to roll in over Shiva's happiness as she registers Sonya's change in attitude. She frowns as her head tilts to one side. "Yes. But I'll be back. I want to spend more time with you. How did you know that I'm leaving?"

"You talk in your sleep," Sonya retorts haughtily, plucking the plug from Shiva's behind with a sudden, harder pull.

"Oh, I-MH." Shiva's eyes go wide, but she quickly collects herself from the jarring removal of the last toy, reaching out and laying a hand on Sonya's arm. "I...you're a reason to come back." (edited)

Sonya chuckles, finally pushing up to climb off of Shiva. A thick puddle of cum oozes down the girl's thighs and drips across the tiefling's stomach as the demonic member pulls loose. Walking slightly stiffly at first, Sonya crosses the room to pour herself a goblet of wine. She stands there naked for a few moments, watching Shiva lying on the bed as she drinks. "Like I haven't heard that one before."

Shiva spreads out across the bed once Sonya releases her, allowing her body to relax. Her blue appendage then begins to shrivel and shrink, retaking the form of her clitoris in a matter of seconds. Then she merely lays there, watching the beautiful woman cross the room and fill a goblet. She looks to the ceiling, her mind fuzzy with emotion. "I'm sure that you have. And I'd like to give you all that I have to prove to you that it's the truth, but the simplest way to do that would be to keep my word." Sitting up in bed, she turns to face Sonya. "If it is within my power to give it to you in this moment, then whatever you want is yours. Apart from that, all I can do is promise you that you are special to me, and that I would like to be with you. What I feel when you touch me has been so very rare in my life, and I would like to know it for as long as I can. I would like to know you." (edited)

"So stay in Piotrgrad," Sonya challenges, confidently. She perches on the edge of the dresser and pours herself another cup of wine. "That is 'within your power', yes? If you want to know me and see me so often, then remain in the city."

Shiva opens her mouth to speak, then closes it. She slowly rises, bringing herself onto her knees above the sheets. "I'm sorry, that.. isn't something that I can do. My group has taken an escort assignment and already been paid half of our earnings. I dearly wish that I could stay, but my group and I have a problem, and our destination may be a way to solve it." Getting up off the bed, she approaches Sonya and reaches out to take her hand. "May I suggest something?"

Sonya takes Shiva's hand, but her expression remains sceptical.

"I don't know where you're staying now, and you're entirely free to stay there, but you could live at the Black Sheep while I'm gone. I would see that everything that you could possibly need or want will be taken care of during your stay. I don't know exactly how long I will be gone for, but you will never be in danger of being thrown out. Or, you could continue to live where you are now, and I could give you enough gold for a vacation that I'm sure is long overdue." A hopeful smile graces Shiva's lips. "I want you to feel safe." (edited)

Sonya's expression softens slightly. "Well I won't say no," she coquets, delicately stroking Shiva's wrist, "and what do I do when the money runs out and you never return, because your corpse is slowly rotting in the back of some monster's den?" The girl adds, batting her eyelashes.

Running a finger up Sonya's forearm, Shiva thinks for a moment, her gaze floating to her left. "Then I would have lied to you, and I would apologize for that. Would you lament my end, or the end of my funds, dear?" (edited)

Sonya looks Shiva in the eyes and holds eye contact for a moment before asking. "Is it too much to ask for both?" The teasing girl breaks off into giggles as soon as the words are out of her mouth.

Shiva's lips curl into a soft smile that has no warmth. Her eyes become distant, and she leans in to kiss Sonya on her head before turning to make her way back to the bed. "No, I suppose not." Laying down, she stares at the wood of the bed frame. "I suppose not.." She whispers to herself.