He kissed her, his lips hard on her this time instead of soft.
"Desperately," he pleaded, his lips still touching hers.
One of his own hands slid slowly down from her back until he squeezed the round swell of her buttocks. Then he slid his hand up over her thigh, until he was cupped over her center instead.
Ayla’s hands wrapped around Niel’s shaft. The knight groaned. His lips stilled against hers as she gave him one long, slow stroke, feeling the length of him and the iron stiffness beneath the velvet-soft skin. She rubbed her palm over the head of his cock and stroked down his length again.
His mouth split against her own, not kissing but a jagged pant of air. His hand curled over her mound, one finger pushing between her folds to press at her entrance, but she could tell his attention was on what she was doing by the way his whole body reacted to her touch. The slightest move of her fingers had him tensing against her. His hips shuddered if she tightened her grip.
At her next stroke he shifted to press his cock deeper into her fist. Then he did so again, faster, and exhaled hard.
"Ayla," Niel moaned. His voice was a jagged plea. "Maker, Ayla, you…." his words broke off.
He slicked his fingers over her center again, searching, and thrust one finger deep inside her swollen grip. Ayla kissed his bottom lip as he breathed roughly against her. Niel's body bucked into her hand.
And then, as her fist stroked down his length again, Niel groaned, tightened, and spilled himself in pulses against her stomach.
Neither of them moved. He panted, one finger still pressed inside her, and then drew his mouth an inch back from hers.
“Fuck,” Niel muttered. “I… sorry.”
“It’s nothing to apologize for,” she whispered. She let go of him to bring a hand to her stomach, to stop more of the spend from dripping to the bedclothes. For a moment she opened her mouth to explain to him about Ditmar and the leaves he’d burned; how she had not been aiming to bed Niel fully in any case. But she shut her mouth. She did not want to think about Ditmar now, and to say anything about him would surely ruin the moment.
“I’m acting like some unblooded youth.” His cheeks looked flushed. “You deserve more than that.”
“Niel,” Ayla whispered back with a soft smile. “If you find me so appealing that a few strokes of my hand is enough to spend you, I am flattered, not bothered.”
He withdrew his hand from her, and leaned away to grab his tunic from off the floor, exposing her to a shock of cold air for a moment as the blanket shifted. Then Niel was there, mopping at her body with gentle strokes of the cloth.
“I had envisioned it differently,” he muttered, as she lay back and watched him clean her off with some amusement. It was freezing, even though the bed was near the fire, but she found there was a benefit to having the blankets drawn. Niel was a warrior in his prime, one who spent hours of each day in exercise and combat training. His naked body was unlike any other man’s she’d seen before. He was beautiful, in a deadly way. The angledfirelight highlighted the chiseled cut of his figure in bright light and stark shadow. She wished shecouldhave him, all of him. She wanted to feel him deep inside her; wanted to join their bodies until there was no space for any thought but pleasure, and feel him pulse into her.
“You envisioned this?” Ayla asked. The knight’s hair was mussed, most of it still tied back. Despite his hard features, there was a soft look to his face; a gentleness she had not seen before. Even as close as they’d grown, she felt he’d still kept walls up. Now, for the first time, she thought she was seeing the knight without any of his defenses raised.
“Yes,” he admitted. “More than once.”
This tickled her. She could not help but reach out to trace the sharp line of his jaw.
“What, exactly, did you envision?”
“Oh, no,” Niel said sternly, his dark eyes finding her own. “Having failed to deliver, I will certainly not invite you to laugh at how stoically I thought I’d lead you to your own pleasure, nor how many times you’d find it before I sought my own. Those details will remain private.”
“Surely your good intentions count for something,” she offered.
“You distracted me,” Niel said, and tossed the tunic away before cupping one of her breasts again. “With these.”
“Did you not anticipate that I would have breasts?” She fought not to laugh.
“I very much anticipated,” Niel informed her. He dragged the blankets back up over the two of them. As his body fit against her own, he ran a hand with slow deliberateness from her chest down towards her hips. “But I failed to account for how perfect they would be. Nor how distracting.”
She was agonizingly aware of his hand, warm against her cold flesh, traveling over the skin of her thigh. It felt good to betouched by him, and her body craved more, even knowing it would not happen. His own seed was already spent, so surely he did not care to continue. But then Niel’s hand slid between her legs and came back up to the junction. Ayla’s breath caught. He traced his fingers over the folds and lips of her center, his movements slow and exploring.
She wanted him, desperately. And that filled her with a shame she could not name.
“It is no bother,” Ayla told him. “You need not waste your time.”
“Did I disappoint you that badly?” he asked quietly. His hand moved an inch, to rest on the inside of her thigh instead of at her entrance. “That you wish I stop altogether?”
“What? No,” Ayla said quickly. “But surely, having found your pleasure, you no longer wish…”
