Strange, but Coll would have thought the opposite. Would very likely -- may very well have -- fucked some hot young thing he met at some bar, blind drunk, exactly the way they fucked that first time, athletic and laughing and free-standing. Couldn't imagine fucking a stranger like this, though, so close, so slow, so felt, so intense. This reads as something
more.
He is half in love with her by the time she wraps him up in her arms and legs and takes him into her body. He is most of the way in love with her when she starts to come, when she tells him don't stop don't stop don'tstopdon'tstop in those tiny gasps, those ever-escalating, ever-more-urgent little cries; when she clutches at the lean hardness of his sides and presses her sounds into the knotted hardness of his shoulder and everything about him is spare and lean and hard and everything about her is soft and rose and gold and
oh, the way she turns her head, the way she seems suspended on the threads of her pleasure: he is wholly in love with her then, kissing her neck fervently, kissing her cheek and the corner of her mouth, raining these kisses on her as he moves in her, again, again, grindingly steady, not stopping, not stopping.
It starts to let her back down. He is just hitting his peak. It comes on the heels of hers, one tumbling into the other. He has his arms around her and he squeezes her so tight; he buries his face in her neck and he cries out there, shuddering groans and short-caught grunts, comes into her a second time -- pressed close this time, pressed deep, climaxing in deep-seated waves that flood her somewhere deep inside.
He loosens his arms but a little when it's over. He is heavy atop her, making absolutely no attempt to stir. He attempts only to catch his breath and find his heartbeat again.
Iris DahlstromThey are strangers, though. And they are not a camp follower and a soldier. And they have gleefully, athletically had sex in the center of the room. And they are doing this now, this which is different for him in a way that nothing is very different or very new for her. But then, it doesn't need to be. She thinks he's quite good, she feels so fond of him, he's given her quite a treat tonight and she doesn't want to leave yet. She doesn't want to even think, or try to figure out, what she feels about it.
She comes, soaring off some peak like the sun coming up, held in the air by nothing but faith. She feels him kissing her, fucking her still, slowing a bit, grinding into her nice and deep while her orgasm is cresting over her, covering her, keeping her pinned there as surely as his body does. Iris hasn't the faintest idea what is going on in that Stag's heart of his, fey-touched and known even among werewolves for their passion. She hasn't heard it skipping a beat or felt it turn over in his chest; she can't look in his eyes and see that right this moment, at least for now, he is entirely in love with her, and that those kisses really are as adoring as they feel. She can't, because she doesn't know him.
Which, if she let herself think about it, might make her a little sad.
Iris is panting, but she's turning to tell him to go, to tell him to keep going, but he needs no such encouragement. He picks it up again, holding her against his body, hiding his face against her neck while he fucks her. She folds her arms around him. She's muttering to him to let it go, give it to her, telling him that's it, that's it, yes, that's my good man, yes,
and he is letting it go, giving it to her, that's it, yes, he's her good man. Yes.
She doesn't need him to move. Muscular as he is, tall as he is, she doesn't feel crushed. She rubs his back with her hands, smoothing her palms over him. She would murmur to him, but all she can do right now is pant, catching her breath along with him, holding him in her arms and legs and turning to rest her face close to his. They're still technically under the covers. It's just that the covers are around their waists now.
Coll MacCullochThere are strange psychosexual theories floating around out there. Most of them are ignored nowadays as backwards, oversimplistic, and even male-centric and bigoted by any self-respective psychologist or psychiatrist, but some few remain faithful, and plenty more laymen remain intrigued. Coll has heard of none of them; has heard nothing of the discourses and treatises written on why men seek this closeness with women; knows nothing of the parallels drawn between the act of intercourse and the pursuit of procreation and the return to the origins and the search for lost Eden.
He feels something of it, though. Right here, right now. He feels welcomed by her. He feels held by her, warmed by her, oddly protected by the way she holds him in her thighs, in her cunt, in her hands smoothing over his back. There is a little piece of paradise here for him and her, here outside the normal strictures of time and space. Here in this half-world where his moon always burns in the sky for him, where he can meet and adore her and pretend for a little while that he knows her.
Her face rests close to his. His eyes are closed still. His breathing is evening, his heartbeat resetting to baseline. She is still panting, those lovely soft breaths, that lovely soft way her breasts move against his chest. His heart could burst from it.
He stirs at long last. He moves aside a little. Rolls to his shoulder and his side, his arm still over her torso. He keeps her close and he keeps close to her; doesn't want to leave her figuratively or literally. He opens his eyes. They both have green eyes, don't they? He thinks her eyes are green. This is how little he really knows about her.
And yet how much he knows, too: the way she fucks, the way she moans, the way she clutches at him when she comes. He knows all of that, all those secrets that he shares with that select and blessed brotherhood she has thus honored. Is that a chauvinistic, male-centric way of thinking? Perhaps Coll knows no other way; he is, after all, such a son of Stag.
He raises himself on an elbow before long. He leans over her and kisses her over her heart. He kisses her nipples, one and then the other, delicately. He rubs his face on her breasts and then he settles again, closer to her, wrapping his arm around her.
Iris DahlstromThere is something in his eyes that she does see, and does know, when he rolls away from her and her own eyes open to find his face. She looks at him, seeing it there. Her eyes are green, but hard to tell in the half-light, the silver light. They are green, though. He must remember that clearly from downstairs, looking into her eyes while they drank.
Oh, she recognizes him now. Sees that bit of adoration, the closeness, the way he stays near. She doesn't mind, doesn't instantly begin recoiling: oh no, he's gotten attached. She has seen modis of hard hearts and bitter rage look at her a bit like that. No, not really -- not the same look, not the same thing exactly. But she's been wrapped up in arms, kept close, wordlessly near, and she has seen reluctance to let go just as often as she's seen them let go anyway, get up, put back on whatever clothes they bothered to take off, leaving without a word.
Iris knows a bit, though she doesn't know him, and she doesn't worry about it. She strokes his hair while he leans over her, kissing her chest, her nipples, rubbing his face on her. She smiles at him with an odd but not unwarranted tenderness.
"You in love with me now?" she teases, softly, but not coldly. Not meanly. Her hand still moves through his hair.
Coll MacCullochThe corners of his mouth lilt up. Those wolves she knew before -- the hard-hearted modis, and even the younger ones, the ones of lesser moons but the same stony blood -- such a frank and tender confrontation would likely have made them reticent and embarrassed, would likely have turned their eyes away and sent them packing all the sooner.
He is not one of her wolves of the north. He comes from greener lands, warmer legends. He smiles a little, and she strokes his hair, and he nuzzles a little closer to her.
"You goin' tae pack your things an' go if I say yes?" he volleys back -- just as softly. There's a hint of tease to this, too.
Iris Dahlstrom"That would take some time," she tells him, eyebrows arched. "Bra, panties, necklace -- I'm not sure where everything is right now. Wouldn't be much of a hasty exit."
Coll MacCullochHe laughs quietly. That arm around her gives her a squeeze, a little hug. He kisses her shoulder now, the curve of it closest to him.
"Well then. Maybe I am in love wit' ye. Ye cannae blame me for'it."
Iris DahlstromIris's hand keeps moving in his hair, stroking it back, and though it's no buzzcut, it isn't too long. She strokes it anyway, not because it's in his eyes but because it's there, and because this touch can be so bonding, so caring, so warm. And she is bonded, and caring, and warm.
Her mouth quirks. "That was fast. Am I going to make it home tonight without a proposal?"
Coll MacCulloch"Tonigh'?" he echoes, a quick-passing grin answering her quirk. "I was rather hopin' ye'd stay th' night. Maybe you can leave 'ere with a proposal in th' morn."
Iris DahlstromIris laughs softly: in his arms, in bed, lying entangled naked with him in sheets that smell of their joined sweat. She shakes her head, eyes twinkling. "Oh, I can't possibly get to sleep without a proposal. It's like a bedtime story."
Coll MacCullochHe laughs with her. He laughs, and then he smiles, and then he pushes up and climbs over her and slides off the edge of the bed and bends the knee there, taking her hand in his.
"Iris Dahlstrom," he says, ever so serious, ever so solemn, "will ye do me th' honor o' marryin' me, for better an' worse, rags an' riches, sickness an' in health, tae love an' cherish until death or the front door o' this funny litt'le inn do us part?"
Iris DahlstromShe should have known better than to goad a hotblooded young Fiann, particularly one of his moon, particularly a young one with such a flashing grin, into proposing marriage.
Because he pushes up on his hands and slides out of her and she starts protesting, a noise here and then aimlessly grabbing at his arms, silly man leaving the nice warm bed and not nuzzling her nice soft tits anymore. She laughs, propping up on her elbows as he gets off the bed, bare-ass naked, getting on one knee to hold her hand in his. Maybe it's the one he fingered her with.
She's laughing through it all, until the very end: until death or the front door. Her brows tug together. Just for a moment. Then she laughs softly again, squeezing his hand. "Coll MacColluch," she says back to him, naked from the waist up because the sheets only go up so high, her hair tousled and her flesh pink and her eyes as luminous and fiery as cut gems, "nothing would make me happier."
Coll MacCullochThat stitch in her brow. She's not the only one that feels it: the sorrow beneath the laughter, the knife's twist beneath the tickle. Her eyebrows tug together. His hand grips hers a little more firmly. Then she laughs. Then he really feels it, that twist, that pang:
nothing would make me happier.
He rises up on his knees and he kisses her again, because of course he does. He kisses her with furrowed brow, with sudden force. He hand sweeps up her side, spanning her long waist, cupping her breast. Holding her breast in his palm, feeling her heart beating against his wrist, as that first kiss comes to an end and he presses a second sealing one to her lips.
"Well, tha' settles it then," he says; manages, again, a slow-quirking smile. "You an' I will make honest people o' each other. Here," he starts to climb up, "let me back intae bed."
Iris DahlstromThe way he responds, she wonders if that answer has just made him want her all over again. He seems the type, for his body to forget that he just had sex twice in a row and get hard again, ready again, eager all over again. He kisses her, pulling her face to his, hands roaming, cupping her breast, feeling her, weighing her in his palm. Iris gives a little shudder.
Coll starts to climb up. Iris laughs and yanks the sheets up to cover her chest. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't," she says, trying and failing to feign seriousness. "Don't you think our wedding night would be so much more special if we stopped sleeping together until then?"
Coll MacCullochHe should laugh it off. They should keep it light. He should guard his heart against breaking; keep it wrapped in laughter. He should, but right this moment he cannot quite bear to. He musters a faint, aching smile. It's the best he can do.
"I think this is our weddin' night," he says. "I think maybe this is as good as we're goin' tae get." His hands are pressed to the mattress on either side of her, wrinkling the sheets and denting the covers. He bends; kisses her just over the line of the sheets she -- to use archaic terminology -- clutches to her bosom. And then he does smile after all, full and bright and warm, lifting his face to hers.
" 'tis all righ'. I donnae mind so very much. It's a lot o' good we are gettin', f'r what it may be worth."
Iris DahlstromThis is their wedding night.
He's coming over her, naked and turned strange, shifting colors by the moonlight and the shadows. She lays back again, though she's still covered. He bends to her, kisses her like an animal lowering its head to drink from a stream. She breathes in deeply, lifting her chest against his mouth, and exhales.
It's all right, and he doesn't mind,
and it's good, for what it's worth.
Iris thinks he's lying. At least about the first half. She lifts her hands from where they clutch at the sheets and touches his face, drawing his mouth to hers. "All right," she whispers, kissing him once, murmuring against his lips. "Then marry me, and tonight can be our wedding night."
Coll MacCullochMaybe he is lying. The Fianna lie for a good story, remember? Maybe he's lying to himself, too, that he doesn't mind, that one night is better than none, that at least there was this much. Maybe he lies and maybe he does mind and maybe he doesn't ever want to leave this stupid tavern, maybe he thinks he could just live here with her forever, caught outside time and outside the world and outside the war. Maybe maybe maybe.
None of it matters when she touches his face. When she draws him back to her mouth, and when he goes: animal to water, pilgrim to mecca. He accepts that kiss and he returns it and she says what he does and he smiles against her mouth. He climbs back up onto the bed after all, slipping under those covers, scooting her over to the still-warm hollow he'd occupied a moment ago.
He could climb over her and fuck her again. That's what people do on their wedding nights, isn't it? Perhaps she even expects it; certainly, he would welcome another round. Not quite yet, though. He gets in bed, he's on his stomach, he reaches over to the nightstand and opens the little drawer and feels around and finds a little pad of paper, a pen. He leaves the paper where it is, but the pen: he takes that.
Rolls onto his back beside her. Holds his hand out for hers. If she takes it, he draws on her skin: two lines around the base of the fourth finger and, comically large, a diamond set right in the middle. Smiling, then, he brings her hand to his mouth; kisses her over that inked-in ring. "I do," he says.
Iris DahlstromIt surprises her. Not just how much it aches but that it hurts at all. They kiss and he means it; she means it, too, when their mouths touch and they taste each other again again again. She breathes in, scooting over, welcoming him beside her again, rolling toward him but he's not getting on top of her for another go. He's reaching past her. He gets the pen. Scribbles on the pad to make the ink start flowing from the ballpoint, and she is bewildered and at a loss until
she's not anymore, and he's finished drawing a ring on her left hand.
Iris doesn't laugh this time. She looks at the ring and smirks, then lets him take her hand and kiss it. "No, I've seen movies. First there are vows," she instructs him, chastising.
Coll MacCulloch"Och, I spoke my vows when I proposed," Coll argues. "Efficiency, Mrs. MacCulloch. Almos' as important as diction, ye knoow. I was sayin' I do tae all o' them jus' now. Unless ye've other vows in mind?"
And he hands her the pen. Also, his hand.
Iris DahlstromIris just smiles. She can't help it; it's a little sad.
"Say them again," she says quietly, tucking a lock of his hair behind his ear.
Coll MacCullochAnd Coll gives in. He can't help that either. He turns toward her, facing her now on the bed. Takes that hand of hers with its ridiculous little ink-ring. Kisses her fingers, and then recites,
because she's not the only one who's seen movies:
"I do take ye, Iris Dahlstrom, as my lawfully wedded wife from this day forth. Tae 'ave an' to hold, for better an' for worse, for richer an' for poorer, in sickness an' in health, 'til death do us part."
Iris DahlstromThis time he leaves out the front door. Which may be intentional. Which may be an accident, a slip. Iris doesn't ask him to clarify. She smiles, then picks up the pen, scooting up to sit up, taking his left hand. And as she draws, leaving off the diamond he gave her but giving him a nice thick ring around his third finger, she says,
"I take you, Coll MacCulloch, to be my lawfully wedded husband from this day forth. To have and to hold, for better and for worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health, 'til death do us part."
The pen clicks. She flicks it off the bed and looks up at him, holding his newly inked hand, and smiles. But before he can lean in, even though no one's telling him he can now kiss the bride, she tells him: "I'm keeping my name. I hope that's not a dealbreaker. Oh, also, I can't have babies, so if you were hoping for a big family that could be a problem. And my sister is a real bitch."
Coll MacCulloch"Well, I am keepin' my name too," Coll replies. "We can always adopt. An' I have an obscene number o' brothers an' sisters an' cousins an' aunts an' uncles an' they are all nutters, drunks an' bastards. So.
"Wit' ye permission, Mrs. -- what are ye, then, are ye Mrs. Dahlstrom? -- I'd like tae kiss m' bride."
Iris DahlstromThey'll each keep their names. They can adopt babies if they want to. And his family is full of crazy people too. So.
So, she thinks back at him, smiling. Is she Mrs. Dahlstrom? Iris laughs, and takes his face between her palms, and pulls him down to kiss her. She's falling back into the pillows as she does so, all but mauling his mouth.
Coll MacCullochHe can hardly be faulted for falling into that kiss the way she falls into the pillows, can he? After all, he's the beaming groom, she's the glowing bride, this is their wedding night. Which is, in fact, how he thinks of this night. Their wedding night. They're married now. He met her a couple hours ago and he fell in love with her thirty minutes ago, if that, and now: married. 'Til death do them part, and the front door can go stuff itself.
He laughs as she does, laughs as she kisses him, muffles that laugh against her mouth as she pulls him with her,
tumbles down atop her with his newly beringed hand cupping her cheek, cupping the back of her head. He grins into that kiss, which is a happy, hungry, inexact sort of kiss. And let's be honest: pretty soon his hands are straying, pretty soon he's touching her breasts and cradling them in his palms and lifting them and rubbing them. Pretty soon he's rolling onto his back -- flopping, we might even say, the mattress jostling with his motion -- and rolling her atop, and grinning that lazy grin up at her.
"I think 'tis your turn tae be atop," he says, and leans up, and, yes,
kisses her again.
Iris DahlstromMrs. Dahlstrom, whose inhospitable womb and wonky eggs and bitchy sister and past exploits and different blood and so forth do not appear to deter her new husband, who seems to be taking their new marriage very seriously.
And why not? They have rings now. He's given her vows she knows better than to believe and given him vows she knows better than to say. She thinks that perhaps, when you do something against your better judgement, when you do something even though you know better, maybe then you mean it. Maybe then you must want it, somehow, in a way that defies logic. This does defy logic. Or at least it defies good sense.
It breaks her heart a little that he drew a diamond on her ring. Such a stupid little thing, to find it so endearing.
There's a sheet between their bodies now. Iris is kissing him, eyes closed, smiling, and eating at him, running her hands through his hair while he's running his hands down her body, pawing the sheets away, caressing her breasts, making her inhale and steal what's in his lungs, in his quickening breath. They are, just by moving, tugging the covers away from between them, getting Coll closer, getting their skins together.
He flops before they get him under the covers with her. He tells her it's her turn. Iris laughs, pushing up on her arms, then her knees, working the covers down and untangling them and pushing them until Coll is bared and she's bared and everything else is kicked to the foot of the bed. She's straddling him through half of this, at least, and he's maybe touching her, a cupped hand there, a stroke there, while she's arranging the bed and chastising him:
"...married thirty seconds and he thinks he can tell me what to do..."
She reaches behind him and fluffs his pillow. All this, fixing up their marital bed to be messier and cozier, which is all essentially to ignore his suggestion and go on nakedly straddling his body. And sometimes she leans forward and there are tits in his face or a soft stomach stroking his cock, and sometimes she's twisting, leaning back, and when he looks he can see that sweet pink warm loveliness between her legs and she's muttering about what a mess he's made of the bed and she
"...married a total slob..."
and she is enjoying herself, yes, she's tsking and trying not to laugh and teasing him, teasing him, of course.
Coll MacCullochThey're both enjoying themselves. He grins up at her, lifting his head obligingly as she fluffs his pillow, raising one arm and then the other, raising his shoulders off the bed as she -- let's just say it -- fusses about the covers and the mess and what a slob he is.
"Married t'irty seconds," he counters, "an' she's done havin' sex wit' me an' dooin' chores aroun' the house instead. M' poor dick. Ridden raw an' then ignored f'revermore."
She's near him. She's leaning over him and doing something with the sheets, stretching them flat. He catches her around her waist, around the back. Hugs her to him, pressing those nice soft tits against his chest.
"Hey," he says softly -- jokingly, except it's not a joke, just the same way their drawn-on rings are jokes but not, just the same way their marriage is a joke but not. "Maybe we oughtae jus' stay 'ere. You can be a waitress downstairs, jus' like ye said ye wanted. I'll be a barkeep. O' maybe th' gardener an' groundskeeper, I doon't know. We can jus'... we can live 'ere together. Man an' wife."
Iris DahlstromIris laughs. Now that they're married, he's apparently morphed into a grumpy, bossy slob and she's become a fussy, frigid nag. She plumps his pillow one more time and is leaning over him even as he's pulling her down, close, and she gives a faint shiver, then melts over him, flesh to flesh, warmth to warmth. Kisses him, on his jaw and his neck, her hand going into his hair while he tells her what they might ought to do.
Stay here. She can waitress like she said; he'll tend bar or the grounds. Just live here and never leave.
Slowly, hearing him, she softens her kisses. Seals on tenderly on his cheek, lifting herself up on her elbows to look at him. Her hair is a bit thin but there is a lot of it; it hangs down around her cheeks, his face, brushes his skin. Her brow is wrinkled a bit.
"Is there something out there you don't want to go back to?" she asks, very quietly.
Coll MacCullochHe likes her hair. He likes that it is what one might unkindly call flat and kindly call sleek; he likes that there is a lot of it and it gets everywhere. He can imagine silly, grumpy-old-married-couple arguments with her years down the line, vacuuming and finding her hair snarled in the brushes, I doon't understan' why ye cannae brush ye hair over th' wastebasket, woman, do ye knoow how many vacuum cleaners we ha' been through? and Coll MacCulloch, do you have ANY idea how RIDICULOUS that sounds? He likes her mouth too, wide and wry and maybe a little thin-lipped. He likes that absurd fake-gentle way she has of talking when she's really making fun of you, except she's not really making fun of you, she's actually flirting.
He sighs a little as she asks him if there's something out there he doesn't want to go back to. It is not an exasperated sigh, or a bored one, or ... anything like that. It's a wistful one.
"No," he says. " 'Tis no' tha'. It's jus'... well, there isnae truly anythin' out there tha' I do wan' tae go back ta. Or... nothin', at least, tha' I woul' be inconsolably crushed tae leave behind."
Iris DahlstromShe can imagine bickering with him. She wasn't, before, but now she does, she is, she's thinking of it as she fluffs the pillow and straightens the sheets and, well... bickers with him. She's not bickering, or thinking of bickering for very long, after she leans over him, touching him with gentleness, asking him that gentle question which is not making fun of him or flirting with him.
She's just being gentle with him, and it's not fake, and it's not absurd. Even if all of this, from their inked-on rings to their insane sex to their bickering to everything else, is pretty absurd. She strokes his jaw with her fingertips, looking into his green eyes with her own.
If she could have children, and they were his, surely they would be green-eyed, with red-gold hair, and they would be Fenrir-blooded Fianna, fierce warriors and poets and lovers and dancers and brawlers and drunks, but not bastards, because Iris and Coll are married.
Maybe they'll adopt little ones who won't have green eyes, or red gold hair, but will still grow up to be fierce warriors and poets and lovers and dancers and brawlers and drunks but still not bastards.
Iris smiles a little at what he says, touching him like that, on and on. "I know the feeling," she says, and she means it. Leans over him, kissing his mouth, folding herself to his body, and into his arms. It's odd, how gentle-slow she takes him then. Rubbing herself on him, and then maybe he or she reaches down, and they fit together, and she does it slowly, their mouths together, breathing and kissing and soft, soft,
warm, warm.
Coll MacCullochShe knows the feeling.
He thought he might. Well, no. He didn't expressly think that, but when she says it, he's not surprised. Of course she knows the feeling: this woman who drove in from nowhere, to nowhere, this woman who was skimming a PennySaver to look for a waitressing job, maybe, and maybe open her own diner somewhere down the line. It's almost a fairy tale. The sort of half-baked hopes and aspirations of a woman who perhaps didn't so much plan a future as decide that she was tired of her own past. Done with it. Moving on.
Nothing left there that would crush her to leave behind.
He smiles as she comes down to him. Returns to him, his wedded wife, and maybe it wasn't exactly lawful but really who was going to check? He wraps his arms around her, long and lean and hard, and she rubs herself on him, and he gasps softly into her mouth, and then someone reaches down and someone shifts and someone stirs and then,
oh, they fit together, she does it slowly, his eyes are closing, they are kissing in these warm soft wet little kisses and he moans ever so quietly. He puts his hands on her ass. He rubs his palms over her skin, up and down and up again, tracing the curvature from waist to flank and back again, as they move together.
Iris DahlstromHe has it right. She's not running from anything either. There's nothing out there she'd just die to go back to. She's just tired of her own past. Ready to move on. And maybe that means this, or a waitressing job, or... both. Who knows. They don't talk about it anymore. She kisses him, and takes him, and slides warm and tight down onto him, which is where she stays.
It's slow this time, with his hands rubbing over her body, cupping her breasts or her ass, stroking her back while she moves. She winds her hips on top of him, moves him inside of her while she nibbles his ear. They've had each other once, twice already, and they are in no hurry now. Beyond that: it's their first time as husband and wife. They may as well fuck like it.
The room is still so dark. Luna has not moved from where she is framed, as though they are stuck in time. They only see each other by moonlight, but Iris keeps closing her eyes when they kiss, and touching his body, and once, when she's moving a little faster, rougher, when he can feel her tightening up, getting close,
she whispers his name. It arcs through the air like electricity, like lightning, from her lips to his even when they aren't touching. It's a breathed sound, a gasp all its own, a plea.
Coll!
And if he is not in love with her right then, deeply and wholly and forever, then he's never known love at all.
--
She comes warm, soft, and wet as one of those kisses. She is holding him, covering him, moaning into his mouth, pushing her fingers into his hair, tightening her thighs around him. It's good. It was good the first time, and it was good the second, and it's good now, and for a thrilling moment she just enjoys having a younger, lean, muscular lover underneath her. She just enjoys him. It catches her, good and sweet and taut, before it starts letting her go,
good and sweet and loose, undulating, rocking on top of him.
--
Some time later, she is panting on his chest, worn out from her orgasm, from his. Iris's hair is spread over his arm and his shoulder, her breath hitting his nipple. She is sweaty again, will cool soon. He'll have to cover her up, keep her warm.
When she can breathe, and when she can think, she gasps out: "Do you wanna --" then she remembers, and does not finish the question.
Coll MacCullochColl hardly does any work at all this time. He doesn't jackhammer up into her. He doesn't flip like a fish and pound her against the mattress. He certainly doesn't carry her all around the room and fuck her standing up or against the mirror or any of the scandalous, shocking things they've done.
He
just
enjoys it. Loses himself in it. Lies there, laid out, holding on to her and touching her everywhere, everywhere. Her ass and her sides and her back and her breasts and her hair and her cheeks and, near the end, when she's kissing him, where she's going a little faster, when she's riding to her orgasm and then riding it out on him in those short, tight, ecstatic little grinds,
wrapping his arms around her. Hugging her tight tight tight to his chest, holding her, closing his eyes to the sound of his name and lifting his head and closing that tiny gap, kissing her, kissing those gasps out of her mouth as he lets go, dissolves, tumbles headlong into his own blind-hot climax.
--
Some time later she is worn out, and so is he. She is breathing across his chest, sweaty, cooling. He is covering her already, though not with blankets or sheets: with his hands, spreading them over her back. Half a question she gives him; then breaks off.
He opens his eyes. Trailing strands of her hair touch his hand, slip between his fingers. He rubs her back slowly, adoringly.
"Do I want tae what, love?"
Iris DahlstromOf course they haven't said they love each other, not without a bit of teasing. They're married but they don't say I love you, ew, gross. He calls her 'love' and she is hopelessly, suddenly endeared and simultaneously rolling her eyes at herself. How could she be so ridiculous?
But they're lazy and cooling themselves in the air. She slowly moves up a bit, not far, just enough to part their skin, just enough to look at him. Smiles, a pull of the corner of her mouth outward.
"I was going to ask if you wanted to stay the night here with me," she murmurs to him, because this used to mean something. If he was asked to stay the night, to sleep with her, to wait til morning, then there was usually no exchange and he usually wasn't one of her boys. It used to mean something, but doesn't now,
because he's her husband.
Iris leans to him again, kissing his cheek, softly, then nestling down against his shoulder while he touches her hair. "But of course we're staying," which is what she remembered. "It's our wedding night."
Coll MacCullochColl's eyes are closed. Coll is so lazy and satisfied and replete right now. Coll murmurs some quiet appreciative noise as she slides up, looks at him. He cracks his eye open a little. Just one. Just a slit. He is still smiling.
"O' course we are stayin'," he echoes, and
the truth is he wants to say the rest. He wants to say we are staying here forever because you will be a waitress and then maybe one day the owner, and I will be a groundskeeper or a bartender, and we will grow old here and never worry about your bitchy sister or my crazy cousins or whether or not we ever adopt kids or whether or not Gaia wins the War. We are staying here, tonight and forever, because otherwise
I might never see you again.
But that makes him terribly sad to think about, and with so little time, it seems a waste to spend any of it being sad. He doesn't say it. He says what he does: of course they are staying, it's their wedding night. He says it and then he wraps his arms around her a little tighter, urges her gently and wordlessly and insistently to lie down, lie down, lay her head down on him again. Be close.
"We're married," he whispers, like a lovely little secret; like a reminder neither of them really need. He has a ring around his finger. She has one around hers. Hers has a diamond because of course he would want her to have a diamond, just like he wanted her to have the finest scotch he could afford, even if what he could afford turned out to be paint thinner. Of course his ring doesn't have a diamond because he is a male, he is a warrior, he is her male and her warrior and so, daughter of Fenris that she is, she decided his ring should be unadorned and simple and strong and bold as he is.
Iris DahlstromOf course they're staying. Iris smiles at this, and it's almost a smirk, because so many of her smiles are at least halfway there. Fond, aching, wry little smirks. She kisses him again, softly, coming down around him again, wrapping her slender arms around his shoulders. By comparison to him, at least, she's effervescently soft. And there's no one else here to compare her to, so it can be left there: she is fair and warm and soft. It can be how he feels for her, even if she has callouses on her fingers, even if her hair is sometimes lank, even if she has a scar or two, even if she was never pampered any more than she might pamper herself.
Iris holds him, nuzzling under his chin, while he thinks deeply sad, almost melodramatically sad, thoughts. He is a Fiann, after all. What she doesn't question is the way he holds her, urging her closer, closer, wrapping her up in sheets and body heat, because if he doesn't do this, if he lets go, if they leave here ever, ever, then she may be gone forever. They met such a short time ago, and while it's true that you can't just marry someone you just met, they can, and they did. They may as well go all the way, and feel sad at the thought of losing one another.
Her hand strokes his side as she rolls a bit to her side, so she's not lying right on top of him anymore. They're sort of messy. She doesn't get up again, though, at least not right this second. She lays her head on his shoulder, his chest, his arm wrapped around her, and she closes her eyes slowly. Opens them slower. Every time she blinks it is a revelation.
"Do you want to sleep?" she asks him, which is just another way of saying: are you going to keep me awake?
Coll MacCullochToo lazy to open his mouth to let it escape now, a laugh rumbles through him. Truth be told Coll was already halfway asleep by the time she moved; halfway asleep again by the time she asked if he wants to sleep.
"Aye," he murmurs, and shifts a little: repositions, resettles, turns his head to kiss her with warm-rough affection; not on the mouth this time but on the temple or the brow or the hair, wherever is easiest to reach. "Let's sleep. Doon't leave wit'out me in th' mornin', okay?"
Iris DahlstromPerhaps that's her job now. To fluff the pillow and fuss over the sheets while neglecting his poor dick, to snap at him when he tells her what to do, to keep him awake when he wants to sleep and when she wants to sleep. But that's not why she asks. She asks because of the way he has fucked, over and over, the way he keeps getting hard in an eyeblink, and she's truthfully not sure he's going to let her get any rest tonight.
But he's half asleep in the dark beside her, and then she's smiling, closing her eyes as he kisses her. He's so young, she thinks. Young and dumb and reckless, she is guessing, but if you're going to marry a man you just met with ballpoint-pen wedding rings, may as well go with the man who suits the occasion.
They sleep.
--
The moon does set. The sun does rise. Wherever they are, these things, at least, remain. And the sun rising sears through the open window, making Iris -- always a night owl -- scoot down and hide her face against Coll's ribs, her face half-covered by the blankets. She thinks to herself you stink and she thinks to herself that she feels so gross, and then she just goes back to sleep for awhile.
She is not the first to wake.
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