All the way up the stairs they could hear the sounds of the tavern below. The clink of glassware and the pouring of spirits. The murmur of conversation. The crack-pop of wood fires.
All those sounds faded away when the door closed. Truth is Coll isn't sure the rest of the building still exists. He isn't sure the rest of the world still exists; that everything has not fallen away, that all the world has not condensed into this one tiny, ordinary room.
He can hear so keenly here. Hear the parting of her lips. Hear the rustling of their clothes, and their bodies beneath their clothes. Hear his own hair deflect under her fingers -- the short-shaved sides and the longer, grippable length atop. He shudders when she puts her hand there, massages. His hands grasp at her hips; his breath against her nape is a rush.
He kisses her neck. He kisses her shoulder. If she doesn't turn her head then he turns it for her, putting his hand on her jaw, kissing her mouth as he finds it. They have yet to say a word in this room, but this is a language of its own: the sound their lips make, the imprint their breath leaves upon the air.
Iris DahlstromShe kisses him.
This is different from: she lets him kiss her.
--
She kisses him, twisting in his arms, letting her hair fall, turning to him,wrapping her arms around his neck, letting their bodies rest flush against each other. Maybe she presses him back against the door. Maybe he falls. Maybe it's both.
Coll MacCullochReally he's a savage young thing, raw and untempered. He's the type to say things that get him slapped as often as it gets him laid, and perhaps more often than not. He's the type to bite and boast and laugh and knock shit off the walls. He's the type to fuck with a bottle of beer in his hand, and to dash ten minutes after with a grin and a I'll ring ye, that he means wholeheartedly at the moment but forgets by morning. This would be fast by anyone else's standards, but by Coll's this is almost unbearably drawn out, a game more long and subtle than any he's managed to play so far. Uncertainty, she'd said. Walking a tightrope, she'd said. He's never done either before, and the speed and absoluteness with which his lust rises almost shocks him.
His eyes are open, he's looking at her when she turns. She comes to him and his arms welcome her. His hands push their way up her back. He grasps at her here and there, spasmodically almost, big paws clutching a palmful of that thin thin dress, a few beads of that not-pearl necklace he doesn't even trust himself to try to undo right now because he'll probably just break it.
She puts her arms around his neck and now her body is flush to his and he tries so hard not to make a sound but he does, and as she presses him back to the door he wraps his arms around her and lifts her right off the floor. Presses his face to her neck, her shoulder. Kisses her here and there. There's a scent about her, not the smell of her shampoo or her perfume or her soap, not that but her, the smell of her, which is entwined with but not the same as the smell of her tribe. He might forget her face, forget her voice, forget tonight, but he does not think he will forget her smell. That is deeper than memory; a primordial circuit from the senses straight to the soul. He does not think he can forget.
"I can't wait," he whispers to her. "I cannae wait."
Iris DahlstromYou never forget your first, they say. The two of them are well past their first of anything, though. But maybe they'll still remember this, and maybe they'll even be forgiven for remembering
this: her hands sliding down his broad shoulders to his upper arms, grasping him there, holding onto him there as he lifts her up against his body, shocked by his own lust. She's not shocked. He's young and he's an ahroun and it's his moon she sees outside, for one reason or another. He's of a tribe known for their lusts: wine, whisky, women, war, song. She's not at all surprised by his lust but is a little surprised by her own, the way she's letting go of his arms to shrug out of her rose-colored cardigan, tugging it off her arms and dropping it to the floor.
The way she's putting her hands up his t-shirt, palms on his abdomen, gasping softly at the ridges, the tautness, the muscular definition that comes out when the body's exertion outpaces the body's intake by far, when the work is hard and brutal and constant. She's not surprised or delighted but her gasp hints at welcome familarity; he feels the way a man should feel, the way a wolf should feel, as far as her body is concerned.
Iris draws back, but not her hands. She pushes them up, rucking up his shirt, pulling it up his arms and over his head and off before she steps back to him, hands on her shoulders, pressing down, because, well,
she is going to hop up onto him, legs around his waist, Mr. Cannae-Wait.
Coll MacCullochHe likes it. Coll likes the way she touches him. His arms, his shoulders, his arm, his body. The sureness, the wanting, which is unapologetic and uncompromising. The certainty and familiarity of it, as though she has done this countless times before with countless others like him. Which she has, he supposes. Strange; the thought doesn't make him irrationally angry
anymore.
He likes it. Perhaps that's the irrational thing now. One would think he wouldn't, that he should feel insecure or threatened by some imaginary comparison to whatever lovers she'd had in the past. One would think he should feel insulted that he isn't unique, that he's not special, that he's not her one and only but then; come on. They're adults. This is not their first rodeo, not his and not hers, and
in some strange way there's a strange comfort in being so strangely familiar to her. There's some strange comfort in the indefinable camaraderie he has with all the others who were here before him, all of them wolves, all of them warriors of the Mother, all of them somewhere on their own personal journal between birth and death, change and sacrifice.
He is not alone. That's how she makes him feel: he who never quite realized he sometimes felt solitary. She makes him feel not alone.
And there goes his shirt. He raises his arms as she pulls. It comes off and it goes -- somewhere. His hair is askew. He pushes one hand distractedly through it and then she is in arm's reach again so he touches her instead. He is touching her waist, touching her torso. He is putting his hands unhesitatingly on her breasts as she is pulling her cardigan off; he is looking for her mouth and kissing her roughly, hungrily, and meanwhile she puts her hands on his shoulders. Her feet push off. His hands catch her. She wraps her legs around his waist and he lifts off the door,
which rattles softly in its frame,
while he goes roving half-blind through the room toward the bed.
Iris DahlstromThat is why they have camp followers. To not feel alone, isolated on some rock of war with the brothers that may die any moment. A reminder of what the war is for, why it is worth fighting, what there is outside of war. A touchstone of what there is other than violence, bloodshed, trauma, the threat of death, the height of glory. Something at once harder and more demanding than all of that, softer and sweeter than they can imagine in the thick of it. That is why there are a few like her, here and there, not all Fenrir, not all traveling with Warclaws.
Not to say she has subjugated herself to service, to non-identity. There have been other reasons, along the way, from the beginning to the ending of it. But there is that bit of it: to be there for those who are there for her, always there for her and the others, between her and the others and certain destruction, corruption, violation. To touch them and tell them I know you and I'm here and most importantly, always importantly: you're not alone.
--
She wraps herself around him, wraps herself around that taut heat, dragging his mouth up to hers with her hands in his hair, kissing him with a moan in her throat, her skirt rucked up to her hips and draping down from her back. They get to the bed and tumble down, and she's still in her tango shoes, her dress-like-a-slip, her fake pearls, her soft skin beneath the soft fabric,
but one is thicker than the other, stronger, harder to tear.
"Wait," she whispers, whatever he's doing. "Wait, wait --" she is lifting up, like a situp, her core tight with surprising strength, as she reaches back to unclasp her own pearls, unwinding them from her neck, tossing them aside. They hit the covers of the bed they're on, sliding off to the floor, and she is touching him again instead, reaching for his waist, for whatever fastenings stand between her skin and his.
Coll MacCullochWith the exception of those rushed words he managed to give her, can't wait cannot wait, they've hardly made a sound at all. Then she moans, and god if that moan doesn't slam right through him. God if that moan doesn't make him want to claw his own skin off with wanting. He gives something back to her, but his is rougher, it sounds like a growl. He kisses her like suddenly he can only breathe what he breathes through her. She kisses him with her hands in his hair. They kiss each other like this means something,
not like he means something to her or she something to him, not quite like that. Like this means something bigger than either of them: like he fulfills one role and she another in a dance that has repeated itself again and again and again for longer than either of them have been alive.
They tumble onto the bed. He doesn't even know what tango shoes are, except that they are heels and they are strappy and he would tear them off her feet with his teeth if she asked him to. Her dress already rucked up, and he pushes it up further. He is on her, heavy but taut and lean, hot, still kissing her, pulling the soft cotton up until she tells him wait, wait.
He waits. He pushes up on his hands with a panted exhale and he looks at her, thinking maybe she's changed her mind, thinking maybe he'll just dash his head against the wall now a few dozen times or maybe jump out the window, thinking this while she reaches behind her neck. The way her arms lift and the way her elbows fold hit him somewhere inside. Hit him the same way it had hit him when she swept her hair over her shoulder and gave him her neck. Between his arms his broad shoulders, the width of his chest: the movement of his lungs, his ribs, the layers of flesh and skin overlying.
Her pearls come undone. He exhales a thin laugh. "Sorry," he says, without quite knowing what he's apologizing for. Then she is reaching for him. Then he is reaching for her, taking the hem of her dress in his hands and sweeping it up, pulling it up, wanting it off of her. Off.
Iris DahlstromHow she wants him shocks her. The heat she felt when he told her he wanted to take her upstairs and take her to bed and that's how they should wile away the time between being here and being... elsewhere. The way she almost shuddered when he stepped behind her, put his arms around her waist, put his mouth to the back of her neck. There's no possession in that; no surrender. There's only this rising tide of lust, overwhelming them both, and every time she comes up for air, it drags her back down.
She drowns.
He apologizes -- for not taking her necklace off before, presumably. She ignores it. She's trying to unfasten his jeans and he's pushing up her dress. Their arms cross, uncross, they find a way to accomplish both tasks without fumbling, because they have both done this or something like it so, so many times before, and neither of them wants to apologize for it, hide it, pretend something else. What a waste of time that they are fast realizing they don't have.
Iris lifts her hips and then arches her back as he's pulling that thin dress up and off, running his hands from her knees and her thighs to her hips, her stomach, her ribs, her breasts, her arms, til its gone. She has his jeans undone. She moans when she touches him, reaching in under whatever undergarment he's wearing, finding his erection, moaning into his mouth -- they're kissing again, you see -- as she starts stroking him off, wanton, unapologetic, aching.
Coll MacCullochThey don't know each other. They met an hour ago. They might never meet again. They have names but no pasts. No histories, no origins, no futures, no insight into each other, really, beyond that they're witty and adept flirts, she's big on diction, he's incomprehensible.
This is how they learn each other. Physically, viscerally. He learns what her skin feels like. The texture and warmth. He learns if she has any scars, any tattoos, any marks, any piercings. He learns the shape of her body, the length of her thighs, the span of her hip, the weight of her breasts. All of it, all of it, the most intimate details of a person's body. His hands run all over her, the lifting of her dress only the thinnest of excuses. He touches her because he wants to: sweeps his palms over her, pauses here and there, grasps, rubs, massages, holds.
They're kissing again. Her dress is gone. His jeans are undone. She's touching him, reaching past whatever cheap plain boxers he's got on, reaching under where the elastic waist of it snaps snug against his body. He is lean and hard everywhere; his hipbones defined under the skin, the span of his lowermost abdomen flat as a board,
and then concave as he sucks a breath in. Sucks it in because her hand has wrapped around him. He shudders. He kisses her with renewed fervor, kissing that moan from her mouth, kissing her mouth open to hide a moan of his own there.
Iris DahlstromEarrings, yes. Scars, yes. Tattoos: one, and he hasn't seen it yet. They see very little in the dark. Their hands move, run over skin, pull at clothing. She has a long waist and long legs, wears soft cotton underwear and an equally soft cotton bra. She's got her arms around him, wrists smelling of some perfume that smells like linen or honey or jasmine. A thin sheen of sweat has already broken beneath her hair, across her breasts. It lifts her scent that much more to him, wraps around him. She smells like Fenrir, too. It's there, potent if not powerful, maybe all the more appealing for being somewhat forbidden.
Her breasts lift in his hands; she leans her head back, shuddering. Starts stroking him, underneath his boxers which are so askew now, his jeans which he's working out of, kicking off. She's still got her tango shoes on. Which is appropriate, somehow.
Coll swallows the breath from her mouth when he kisses her. She tightens her hand, works him now, makes him moan again for her, curving up against the bed toward him, her core tight, quivering. Her teeth pull at his lower lip, for a second.
And she stops, looking at him, never once letting go of him, only slowing the movement of her hand enough so he can listen to her. Not stopping, though. Never that. Iris meets his eyes. "Take my shoes off," she tells him, and then her hand, finally, gradually,
well. Gives him one, two, three more firm, familiar strokes before taking her hand away completely, abruptly, maddeningly.
Coll MacCullochHe's a little lost when she touches him like that. He's a little lost, period. Lost in space, lost in time. Lost in his own existence, which has somehow skipped or hopped or doubled back on itself to cast him here, with her, two people who rightly should have never met at all.
His eyes search hers when she meets them. He watches her rapt and adoring, mindless, as she strokes him, blows his mind, makes tiny stars explode and die in his pupils. She nips his lip. He is still trying to kiss her. She tells him
something, they're just words, just syllables, just sounds,
and he has no idea what she said. He just kisses her again, his eyes open but the lids heavy, the green of them visible even in this light. His mouth strays over hers, grazes, catches, pulls, licks. He gasps. He groans again, and then:
she stops. His eyes fall shut like someone cut a cord somewhere. He pants a breath. He kisses her sudden and hard, murmuring disappointment and primal frustration against her mouth, reaches down himself, wraps long fingers and lean palm around himself, strokes, grips, jerks off for a little while. Where did her hand go? Can he reach it? He bites at it if he can: teeth grazing her palm, nipping at her fingertips, tongue licking, lapping.
She has to tell him again. Take my shoes off. The second time seems to work. He laughs under his breath, breathless, and then he rears up and sits on his heels, keeps stroking off with one hand as he reaches blindly with the other. Inexact, untutored, his fingers fumble with the straps. One can imagine the girls he usually fucks take their own shoes off or forget altogether, though once
there was an exception,
but that didn't last long. It didn't work out. They weren't from the same tribe, either, and that was only the beginning of their -- what do they call them? -- irreconciliable differences. He isn't thinking of her now. He wouldn't want to. This isn't a replacement, or a rebound, or -- anything like that.
This is simply: what it is.
Iris DahlstromThey're not quite fumbling in the dark. Searching, yes: the way he searches for her mouth whenever her face pulls away, the way he's looking for her hand, here, here, yes, here. And she laughs softly as her hand wraps back around him, as his is displaced.
She purrs something to him, into his mouth, wordless or meaningless or both. She likes that. Likes him touching himself, licking her fingers, wetting them a little before she starts touching him again. But tells him again what she did before, what he's to do. He does it.
Iris lays back, and he rises up, and she plants her left foot squarely, lightly, on his chest. Even then, it's hard to see in the darkness, but for the light the moon gives off: the strap is tiny, so tiny beneath his hands. Iris is smirking at him, sitting up on the bed without moving her leg, reaching behind herself to unclasp her bra.
Coll MacCullochHer balance, her audacity, her smirk: it all drives him quite wild. He stops half-assing it with her shoe. He stops jerking himself off like some brute, some caveman who just discovered his palm and five fingers. He grabs her foot, supports her ankle and tugs and pulls and yanks and jerks at the clasps and straps until they come loose.
The shoe comes off. It goes flying somewhere. He's not a foot man, Coll MacCulloch, he's really not, but -- something comes over him; he licks her right up the center of her sole, sucks her toes, bites her ankle; hoists that leg over his shoulder and leaves it there.
Holds his hand out for her other foot. Meanwhile: she undoes her bra. His eyes gleam at the sight thus discovered. Shall we just say it? His cock jumps and it's a struggle, it's an epic fucking battle, not to grab hold and stroke off again.
Iris DahlstromIris will not again know him like this, she thinks, and won't find out whether he's a foot man or not. All she knows is that he's terribly excited, undoing the strap of her shoe and tossing it aside. It thumps to the floor and she might consider the downstairs or the next room over but she doesn't. It may as well not exist. This room may as well be its own encapsulated universe, floating in the darkness where no shadow ever covers the face of the full moon.
He licks her. Filthy, that. Licks her and sucks on her toes and her foot curls, Iris shudders a little. Coll hardly has to pull her leg over his shoulder; it's going. She's wrapping her leg around him, folding him toward her a bit, lifting her other foot as she lays back down. Her bra is undone; it dangles from her shoulders, slips off of one, loses its shape, still covers her breasts
barely,
while Coll works on her other shoe.
Coll MacCullochBarely.
And not for long. The other shoe comes off easier. He's good with his hands. A lot of Ahrouns are. That's what war is. That's what killing is. Being good with your hands, your body, being able to make it do things that most people's bodies can't. Those clasps don't stand a chance this time. They come apart easily, he tugs that shoe off, he works it from her foot with something almost a little like finesse and he has the audacity, himself, to give her a quiet little smirk as he dangles it by its straps,
right there by the crook of his two fingers,
before he lets it drop. It thumps to the floor. He comes back to her then, terribly excited, yes, but -- slow, too. Savoring. He will not know her again like this, and if this is all he gets, if he might not even remember, then by god he'll enjoy what time he has.
So: covering her, laying himself out over her and between her legs, letting those long legs of hers fold him in an embrace both strong and delicate; letting his body come flush to hers by degrees. Their hips, their abdomens, their chests -- that's right, her bra: he brushes it aside like it's a wisp of nothing. His chest to hers, then, and the way that makes the pupils of his eyes open up. The way his mouth finds hers again, and the way that kiss unfolds. Familiar in a way he has no right to be.
Iris DahlstromThis time she wiggles her toes agains his chest for a second, stretches her foot, just stretches, strokes her foot against his chest while he's dangling her shoe,
dropping her shoe.
This time he climbs over her again, and she's working her arms out of the straps of her bra. He's settling between her legs and she's wrapping them around him. He's finding her skin as warm as his own and brushing her bra aside, off her body, and she's shivering slightly to feel their skins touch. They're kissing again, slower this time, no teeth, tongues tasting. Her hands smooth up his sides, over the planes of his back, her arms wrap around his neck, hand burying themselves in his hair.
Iris uses her toes to nudge the waistband of his boxers down his ass, murmuring to him in between kisses something so unnecessary, so absurd: "Let's fuck," she whispers, like she can't wait, like she just wants to tell him exactly what she wants, as though they're still downstairs, dancing around but not dancing at all.
Coll MacCullochColl laughs under his breath. He's glad for that: glad that she whispers what she does, glad that they are warm together, glad that they are smiling, are smirking, are laughing the way they did when they were downstairs.
Wasn't like that when they first came up here. Wasn't like that when they were so raw and so naked for a moment. When he stepped into her and put his arms around her and kissed her like a little piece of him was dying inside. Dying to know her, dying to lose her. What right did he have to mourn? He doesn't even know her.
And yet --
and yet. It's still there. That ache. That weight. It's there, he's just not addressing it. He's just not deigning to acknowledge. Why weep when you can laugh. Surely that's some sort of Fianna adage.
He's wrapping her in his arms as he settles against her, and she is nudging his boxers down his ass, and he forgot what the hell happened to his shirt but he thinks she probably pulled it off. He lets her work his underpants down too, lifts his body from hers just a little to help her along, reaches down at a crucial juncture to keep that article of clothing from catching on his erection unpleasantly; touches her on the way up. Brushes fingertips over her panties, the slant of his mouth curving.
"I do b'lieve tha's th' whole idea, miss," he whispers back,
and kisses her, a gentle brush of his mouth over hers, while he starts working her panties down. Or aside. Something.
Iris DahlstromOh yes.
His shirt is off.
She tore off, or made him tear off, anything between her and that skin, so delightfully, searingly warm against her palms. She could feel it radiating through her shoe, she's almost certain. She shivers now to feel it against her tits, feel him in her arms and legs and pressing hard to her. God, but she wants him.
Coll is the first to be completely naked, though. Which she likes. Him stripped down like this, not quite on display but so firm, so present, so undeniable. And by the time he's stepped out of his boxers and started touching her through her panties, Iris is watching him, touching his arms, feeling the veins and muscles alike. She can't get enough. She's looking at him with that hunger in her eyes, that ferocity, like any moment her touch is going to curl, her fingernails are going to rake, she's going to snarl to have him.
She's wet.
And as he starts tugging those panties down she says, not growling yet, panting it: "I mean now," and they come off, quick then, you had no idea they could come off so quickly did you Coll,
so she can rise up and kiss him, turning them, pushing, urging him to roll onto his back, following him, parting her legs over him, reaching to touch him again, to slide him against her.
Coll MacCullochHer panties fairly fly off. Let's be honest: Coll looks impressed. Coll's generally pretty impressed by the whole affair so far. How she handles herself. How she handles him, for that matter. How she keeps slithering up like that, strength in the core, coming flush against him and then wrapping her arms around him and
suddenly somehow he's on his back. How did that happen? When did he lose his shirt? His spine hits the bed; it jolts a laugh out of him that turns into a groan that turns into this rapturous, close-eyed, head-tilted-back sort of intense silence when Iris straddles him and takes hold of him and slides him against her.
"Oh, tha's good," he whispers -- that caught sort of whisper, tense and clenched. "Oh, tha's fucking incredible."
Funny, that. He rolls the r, sure, but the fucking -- that's almost plain normal english, there.
Iris DahlstromShe means now. She wants. Now. And when they're both -- finally -- naked, she turns him, climbs over him lest he get away, or make her wait, or simply because this is what she finds herself in the mood for. Iris leans over him as she touches him, stroking their bodies together, resting her breasts on his chest, kissing his neck. For a while, this is all Iris does to him. 'All'. She curves over him, hungrily, as though she just harried him, took him down, is feasting. The sounds he makes while she does so, rolling that r, whispering, panting, groaning, even laughing -- she devours those as well, elicits them, sucks on his earlobe with deceptive tenderness while grinding herself on his cock.
"Touch my ass," she mutters to him, because she wants this, because she wants him fondling, squeezing, because it turns her on, because she has no reason not to tell him. They're not ashamed. They're not shy. Look at them: a few drinks, a bit of banter, and here they are, bare ass naked on a bed that belongs to neither of them. They're atop the still-made covers, and she's hot to the touch, and he's so very hard, and she's eating him alive. Why shouldn't she? He's lean and warm and his mouth tastes faintly of scotch and greener lands than she's used to seeing.
With what feels like suddenness but is actually very slow, he is inside of her. She's eased herself onto him, risen up on his body with her hands on his chest to take him, guiding him past that initial tightness and into a warm, wet slide. She gasps a breath outward, maybe a vowel, an oh that barely has shape in the air. Her body embraces him in welcome, holds on tightly, while Iris looks down at him, watches him almost to see if he's ready, if he can handle more. She's touching his abdomen lightly, stroking those places which, on an animal, are so soft, so well-protected, so vital. And then, as if experimenting, she gives a deep, slow circling of her hips atop him.
Coll MacCullochColl, being the sort of fellow who generally wants to please whatever lady he might have the privilege of entertaining, is not averse to doing as told. Anything but, really. He touches her ass. He kisses her mouth. His hands roam slow and lazy over her body, discovering the shape of her rear, mapping the slope of her back. At the turn of her waist he traces her spine with just one finger, navigating that lordotic curve, sweeping to the sides to rub his thumbs over the dimples in her back.
His hands lose their way when she takes him inside. He loses his way altogether, his mouth open, his eyes closed. She is looking at him and he is unaware: unaware that he is being watched, unaware of that almost laughably beatific expression he wears, unaware of anything beyond what is going on between his body and hers. She touches him where he is vulnerable and vital, and his skin and musculature tremble involuntarily beneath her fingers.
That deep circle of her hips
fills his lungs with air, tips his head back, makes his fingertips lift off her skin. He is caught on the cusp of a moment, pinned into place by anticipation. When she comes back to center, flexes to take him deeper, he exhales all in a breath. Opens his eyes and looks at her, lazy and lost, his smile a loose and unabashedly erotic thing.
"Whyever are ye so far away?" he whispers, and reaches up for her. "Come back doown 'ere," -- and brings her down with his hand behind her head, fingertips in her hair, so he can taste her again.
Iris DahlstromThere's a good reason she told him where to touch her, when: Iris likes that. She winds under his hands, arches her back to follow the path of his finger, grinds a little on him in pleasure until that one deep circle that makes him forget to touch her, and how, and when. She chuckles, low and pleased in the dark, even as he's reaching for her, pushing his hand into her hair, drawing her mouth to his to swallow that chuckle. Iris murmurs into his mouth as she moves on him now, with no truly purposeful, directed rhythm yet. She just feels him. Moves him in her, moves herself on him, just to feel him different ways. It's slow. It's good and it's mindless and unhurried; she focuses on kissing him, for now.
"If you want to get on top again that's all right," Iris mutters softly, moving her lips to his jaw, his neck, licking him. And that's really all there is to the statement: this is all right. She'd like that just fine, too. They can roll each other in bed until this pocket of non-reality burns up, she thinks. She's in no rush to get there. This is good. This is -- to borrow a phrase -- fucking incredible.
Coll MacCullochShe's in no rush. He's in no hurry. They enjoy each other. She moves over him like she's grazing, he thinks. Like she's taken him down and now she's sampling him before she well and truly feasts: mouth, jaw, neck. The little hidden parts of him, the little subtleties that he doesn't even notice. Sometimes the touch of her mouth makes him shiver in undisguised delight.
If he wants to get on top again, she says. He murmurs a laugh. "P'rhaps later," he whispers. "I think I rather like ye atop."
And he gives her ass a little squeeze with both hands. Lifts her hips a little and sinks her back down again, eyes falling closed, exhaling slow-and-not-quite-steady. Tilts his head back as she's kissing his neck, licking his throat. Lifting his head, then, as he looks for her mouth again. Kisses her yet again,
as though no one had ever taught him the rules, no one had ever told him you're not supposed to kiss in a one night stand. Or something.
Iris DahlstromIris grins at him. Rises up just enough that the tips of their noses are centimeters apart. Grins at him, flashing teeth in the shadows. He squeezes her ass and they're kissing again, her lips to his mouth and then his neck again, her body holding his, working and winding atop him. Then their mouths once more, all over again, an infinite circuit. If you're not supposed to kiss whores, even former ones, or kiss on one-night-stands, well --
whatever, they're not listening. They don't care. Or maybe they know -- she knows, at least -- why it's normally a bad idea. Why you don't kiss. Why you don't laugh and tumble and open up at all. But it hardly matters. She doesn't think there's a morning where he exists again, in her life. She doesn't know if she's died and hasn't realized it yet, doesn't know if this is some waystation before the Homelands, doesn't know if this is a dream. She just doesn't think there's an after. An after where it might mean something to say when I kissed you, it wasn't --
whatever. It is what it is now. He keeps palming her ass, and she keeps fucking him, slowly but not lazily, languidly but not sleepily.
"You know what you should do," she whispers in his ear.
Coll MacCullochTruth is some of those thoughts have slipped through Coll's mind too. Where is he? What is this? Maybe he's dead. Strange that he doesn't remember dying -- you'd think one would remember such a thing -- but if he was dead then he's sure it was a fine and glorious death worthy of many songs. He wouldn't really mind if that was the case. He wouldn't really mind, especially with this little waystation on the way Home.
Or maybe he's not dead. Maybe he's just dreaming. Maybe this is only real the way dreams are real; maybe this is an in-between place where the living and the dead, the past and the present and the future, all meld and meet
just for a little while.
--
She's fucking him so languidly. It's so fucking nice. He doesn't fuck like this often. Maybe never. Doesn't take his time, especially with a new lover; doesn't slow down and ease back and just -- enjoy the ride. And the view. His hands follow her body, the rise and the fall. His mouth nibbles and nips at hers; at her chin and her jaw, at her neck. He's licking her collarbones when she finds his ear,
and then he attends to her, his brow pressed under her jaw, his breath a shallow rush against her throat.
"I do nae knoow," he whispers, and places a kiss against the pulse in her throat. "You oughtae tell me. Wha' shoul' I do?"
Iris DahlstromIris grins at him again, exhales, tipping her head back while he kisses her neck. She turns her head, looking past the end of the bed. "You should bend me over that dresser," she murmurs, without looking at him. "Fuck so we can watch ourselves in the mirror."
Coll MacCullochHis eyes follow hers when she turns. He sees the mirror, and he's no fool. He knows what she has in mind before she even says it. And even so,
when she says it,
a pulse of lust bolts down his spine, beating so hard in his veins that his heart turns lazily over on itself. There's a burn in his eyes. He kisses her -- again -- lost track of how many long ago. Kisses her hard, coming off the bed with his head and then his shoulders, pressing her back as he pushes upright.
"Oh, you're a shameless one, Miss Iris Dahlstrom," he mutters. Wraps his arm around her waist, plants one hand on the mattress, scoots them both to the edge. "Put ye arms aroound me," he says, and stands.
That sends a bolt of wanting through him too. The way their bodies slide against each other. The way he slides inside of her. That sets him to kissing her again, sets him to taking her by the waist and lifting her, lowering her, planting her on his cock. He nearly bites her lip. Groans against her mouth, tears away to kiss her shoulder, kiss her sternum, lifts her again so he can bury his face against her breasts. He's supposed to be taking her over by the dresser. Seems to have forgotten that.
Iris DahlstromWhen Coll sits up, he's deeper in her, hard in her, and she puts her hands on his shoulders, kissing him roughly, wrapping her legs around him before he has a chance to tell her to do anything, tasting his tongue with a pant of air while he lifts her up. Not for a second does she seem surprised or concerned that he's going to stand up with his goddamn cock in her body.
Reasons for that: fucking Warclaws for the past however-many years. Fenrir warriors, mighty ahrouns. She expects nothing less, even if he is just a Fiann. She's kissing him hard, riding up on him, like she has no intention of turning around, having him push into her again,
which in fact she doesn't. In part because Coll is just standing there, holding her, and she's riding him like that, ankles locked behind his back, pussy wet on his cock, his face between her tits, her moaning starting to get louder.
Coll MacCullochTruth is, if she'd told him to hurry the fuck up and put her over the dresser he would've done just that. If she'd protested his rough handling he would have set her down. If she'd -- god forbid -- so much as whimpered in pain he would have stopped, would have felt rather terrible about it all, would have tried, though he has no earthly idea how, to make amends.
That's not what happens. She doesn't tell him to knock it off. She doesn't tell him to stop that. She doesn't whimper,
though she does moan,
and god that moan goes right through him. He is groaning against her chest, lapping at her tits, sucking at her avidly and inexactly, and when she starts riding him, when she rides down on him, he loses her nipple with a wet pop. Eats that moan out of her mouth. Grabs her ass in both hands and lifts her, holds her, grinds her down; he's still trying to go slow.
Iris Dahlstrom"Oh, no," she breathes, panting it, using her thighs and her arms and fucking him like that, standing in the center of the room, moaning every time he strokes into her anew, even while he's resisting, trying to slow her down with his hands on her ass, curvy and familiar in his hands. "No, you don't," she's telling him, looking into his eyes, riding him, half-laughing, eyes sparkling with it. "I told you I wanted to fuck."
Coll MacCullochColl, for his part, makes some sort of incoherent noise. Diction, Mr. MacCulloch, he thinks to himself, and laughs -- this ragged-edged panting laugh that shreds into a groan when she takes him in again.
"We are fucking," he mutters. "Oh, my god, are we fucking."
Iris DahlstromIris laughs. Iris breathes laughter, pulling his face to hers again, kissing him, wrapping herself all the tighter around him. She's having fun. It's more than just enjoying herself or getting off on this. It's fun, it's fun, it's so much fun right now. If she's dead and this is a waystation, it's not a bad one. If this is a dream she doesn't mind it. She rolls her hips against him, circles as best she can with less leverage, whimpers softly with pleasure. "You're finally --"
a pant,
"--learning diction."
Iris moans then, rubbing herself off on him, leaning in, clinging to him, shuddering. "Set me on the dresser. Give it to me. Give it to me."
Coll MacCulloch"I am no'," he argues, softly, playfully, pantingly. "Those words jus' sound th' same in every language."
And --
she moans again. He kisses her again. Cause and effect. She grasps at his shoulders, his back. Something rather like tenderness lances through him now. It's an intoxicating brew; lust chased with something a little softer like that. Give it to me, she says, and feels him shudder beneath her hands. Between her legs.
He turns. Say this much for the Fianna, even if they aren't Fenrir, even if they're only sort of half-decent warriors: they seem an accommodating lot. They're over by the dresser in two long strides. He sets her down -- he plunks her down, really, makes the mirror rattle against the wall -- and then he plants his hands on either side of her and leans into her and bears her back against the glass with the force of his kiss. With the force of his thrusts, too: pushing her, holding firm, drawing back and slamming in all over again. Grunting on the end of that, dropping his mouth to her shoulder.
Iris Dahlstrom"So you admit," Iris says, the words tattering into a groan. They kiss again, her arms so close around his shoulders, holding him so very tight. He's hunting his lust; something else nips at his heels. Iris moans again, tells him: "-- you're barely speaking English."
A mockery, a tease, but even though she insists on finishing it, she doesn't care anymore. She's so ... well. To put it bluntly, to put it simply, she's so into this. She's thinking she's going to have him every which way, ridden on the bed and now standing and now, now, against the dresser, fuck her like that, fuck her.
The room is small. Cozy, even. And her ass touches the edge of the dresser, which is narrow, and her back touches the glass of the mirror, and Coll takes his hands off her and she knows why -- oh, oh, she knows why. She leans into it, leaning back and opening her legs wider and making these sounds, sharp and eager and... hot, every time he fucks into her like that. She lets her hands fall down his body, holds onto his hips, keeps him as close as she can.
"That's it," she tells him, punctuated by a thrust, a rough, erotic sensation every time. "That's it, fuck --"
Coll MacCulloch"You keep tha' up an' I'll break out th' Gaelic, doon't think I won't."
He's laughing. She's gasping. He's groaning. She's leaning back and opening her legs and he can't help it, he looks down her body. His eyes rove every inch of her; fixate in the end right where she'd expect him to. He stares at her cunt. He stares at her taking him in, watches himself fucking her; she's laid out for him and he's so fucking hot for her. Lust occupies every beat his heart now. Lust consumes every cell, every nerve. She holds him by the hips. He has his weight tipped forward, he has his feet planted, and now neither of them are going slow, neither of them are languid, neither of them are even particularly gentle, but
he does look at her again when she speaks. His eyes snap to hers, he watches her now, he watches her while he fucks her in those short, rough thrusts, and with the way she's leaning against the mirror and the way he's bending over the dresser their bodies have space between but their faces are close, and she can see his eyes so clearly, she can see him looking at her face, looking at her mouth, she knows he wants to kiss her again.
"I still wan' tae see ye in th' mirror," he whispers,
and then he kisses her. Closing his eyes, furrowing his brow -- a hard, insistent kiss to match the hard, insistent way they're fucking.
Iris DahlstromTo that, she says something in German. Something full-mouthed and guttural and somehow she makes it almost purr, rolling off the tongue. She grins savagely, kisses him again, hiding a moan in his mouth like she's going to retrieve it later. This is, of course, a moment before he's looking at her body, lean and long-waisted and pale and he's staring at the dark gold hair between her legs, the place where he enters her and fills her, sees her wet and sweaty and pink, so very pink,
so lovely.
She's smirking a little, in between her panting, when he looks at her again, snaps his green eyes back to her green eyes. She's flushed, her pupils are blown, she looks a mess. He wants to kiss her again, she can see it in his eyes and his beautiful goddamn mouth and she's going to bite that kiss off of him, she's going to suck on it like a candy, a chocolate, a sweet thing. She's going to fuck him until they simply can't anymore, she's going to come then, when her body dissolves around her and she can't bear it anymore.
He still wants that. Iris shudders, kissing him back, for a long time, deeper than before. Her legs fold around him, tighter again. But she doesn't argue. She does, however, slide her hands down,
slap him on the ass, urge him on, urge him to fuck her harder, faster now, yes.
Coll MacCullochOf course she speaks German. Of course she makes it a purr. Of course her grin is savage and of course she moans into his mouth and of course, of course,
all of this is just fuel to his fire. His hand wraps behind her head. He kisses her the way she kisses him, which is long, which is deep, which is carnivorous. He loves how she folds her legs around him. Holds him so tightly, pulls him so deep. He pants a breath, a laugh, a gasp into her mouth when she grabs his ass, and then:
he fucks her harder. He fucks her faster. He outright pounds her against that mirror, atop that dresser, and now all the wood joints of that piece of furniture are creaking, now that mirror is tapping the wall, now they should really be worried about neighbors or management or something except they're not because all the world outside this room may as well have ceased to exist.
No words now. Not in English, not in that awful unintelligible brogue, not in Gaelic and certainly not in German -- at least not from him. Just raw grunts, harsh breathing. His hand coming down from the back of her head, drawing heavy over her shoulder, palming her breast. He holds her in his hand as he fucks her, as he braces himself with the other hand, as he kisses her, panting now, close now, mauling her mouth every time he kisses her.
Iris DahlstromThe truth is, if he keeps kissing her like that, giving it to her like that, looking at her like that, she's going to start regretting that this is it. This might not, probably will not, ever happen again. That it might be a dream or they might be crossing on their ways to separate afterlives. She doesn't know, and she's not the type to think overmuch of what she can't know for certain. Worrying, she thinks, is like praying for the worst to happen. But she might find herself with a regret,
and she doesn't want that.
She answers him, well belated: "So -- turn me around," she mutters at him, breathily, but she's still kissing him, all but climbing onto him again, even though he keeps slamming her back, fucking her like that, animal and savage, making her whimper, making her let go of him to hold onto the dresser itself, tipping her head back against the glass. She unwraps her legs from him, finally, raises them higher, like she can't get him deep enough, like she just can't get enough, period.
He's finally giving her breasts some attention from his hands. He's not to be blamed. She kept telling him to fondle her elsewhere. But she gives a sort of yelp when his hand slithers up like that, wriggles into the touch, whimpers out another command, tells him flat-out to tease it. And when he does, when her perked nipple is rolled and pinched and rubbed and flicked between his fingertips, it's like a current goes through her, the way she reacts, the way she moves, the way she convulses around him, her pussy quivering in answer.
Coll MacCullochAll night Coll's been quite the accommodating lad. All night he's been happy to do as told. Take this off. Put that there. Touch me here. Tease it.
Here's an exception. Right here: turn me around, she says, and he,
with those shocking green eyes, with that laughing-smirking-lazily-grinning mouth, with those big rough hands and that big lean body that's giving it to her so fucking deep and good right now,
looks her in the eye and shakes his head. Kisses her, because she's kissing him: a quick skirmish of tongue and tooth and lip. "No," he whispers. He's playing with her tits, he's stroking her nipples to hard little beads, he's ducking his head to flick his tongue across, to suck on her quick and zingingly hard, and then he's lifting his head again. His mouth meets hers. It's almost a familiar thing now. Like they've done this more than once, more than ten times, like they kiss like this every damn day.
"Nex' go-aroun'," he promises, and on that note,
scoops her off the dresser. Raises her onto his body, wraps his arms around her, spreads his feet for balance and clutches at her back for -- well, to touch her. Starts, unmistakably, doing his best to fuck his way to orgasm inside her.
Iris DahlstromJust for the record: Coll was the one who said he still wanted to see her in the mirror. Coll, mid-stroke, pre-kiss, was the one to bring that idea up after they'd both apparently abandoned it for the more immediate pleasure of fucking atop the dresser, face to face, his hand on her tits and her hands grabbing at his ass. All Iris did -- though we must remember the idea was initially hers -- was give him the go-head. If that's what you want,
then do it.
But not now. No, which isn't quite a refusal, so he hasn't lost any of his points for being -- what's the word? -- accommodating. He says no, grinning, kissing her, palming and teasing her breasts. She loves that. She squirms against him, shudders and lets out a pant, a gasp when he sucks her the way he does. She loves that, too. And they're kissing again, and again, where it hardly bears mentioning except it bears mentioning every. Single. Time.
Then he picks her up in his arms for the second time, rises up from where she's perched her ass and keeps her planted firmly on his cock. Iris goes willingly, easily, wrapped all around him again, touching his face, kissing him while he settles her, braces her and himself. Before he's just well and truly fucking her. When kissing makes sense, when their mouths can seal and not break, when she isn't arguing with this or with nex' go-aroun' or chiding his diction. She's sweat and flesh and lust right now, and she's not far from her own -- with good reason. The way he looked at her pussy turned her on. The way he toyed with her nipples turned her on, obviously, because she demanded it and then started wriggling and squirming and whimpering and rubbing herself off on him.
But they kiss. For a long moment, a callback to when they first started on the bed and it was strangely slow and lazy and eager and needful all at once. She pants away from it, since her breath is coming as fast as her heartbeat, and looks him in the eye as though to say now,
yes,
okay.
In the grand scheme of things that kiss takes just a second or two. He's barely gotten his balance before he's bouncing her on him again, or she's bouncing on him, her head tipped back but her body leaned fully to his chest. Every so often he can feel, in time with her moaning, the way her cunt reacts to him, the slow warm wet squeeze of it, the clench, the hunger, the demand. But through it all she's muttering, gasping, telling him all manner of filth -- telling him to fuck her, that's it, fucking come in me,
give it to me,
fuck,
oh, yeah, fucking give it to me,
and whatever else churns up from inside of her mind as they, simply put, fuck the hell out of each other.
Coll MacCullochThey're rather ahead of the curve, aren't they. This is the way people -- athletic, brave people who feel secure in their own bodies, at that -- might opt to fuck well into the relationship. At least, not the very first time. Center of the room, freestanding, upright, chaotic: points for technique, certainly.
Points for presentation, too. Points for passion: grabbing at each other, holding so tight, kissing like that over and over and over and over and over and god the way she's moaning, the way she's riding him, thighs flexing, back taut; the way he's bouncing her on his cock, the way his hands are gripping her hips.
She's spilling all sort of filth. He's beyond words. He's just fucking her. He's just holding on to her, moaning against her skin. Her head is tipped back and he's panting against her throat. His eyes are closed and his hair is sweat-damp and he can taste her, smell her, feel every inch of her. She's making this demand of him, she's demanding it over and over, give it to me, and he wants to tell her i will and he wants to tell her i want to and he wants to tell her right fucking now but in the end all that comes out are those harsh, unrestrained groans,
which pile together and collide and escalate until he's flat-out shouting against her shoulder, flat-out yelling in vowel-noises while he grabs her,
slams into her,
comes into her. It's an orgasm like a thunderclap.
He's dazzled and dazed afterward. He's thrusting into her still, these short hard throws turning into these lazy slow ones, these grinding ones that make him groan at her throat. He's slowing and he's stopping and then he's bending, leaning, setting her inexactly down on the dresser-top. Leaning into her, head heavy, brow to her shoulder. Setting one hand down to brace his weight again.
Iris DahlstromThis is a treat. Living and working in a camper attached to a pickup truck isn't conducive to fucking standing up like this, legs wrapped tight around someone's waist, body held up by someone's muscular arms. Not that it never happened, not that sometimes there weren't motels or squatting in some ousted villain's domicile, not that there weren't rowdy celebrations at times, but this is still a novelty, still a treat. And Iris is enjoying it, enjoying the thought of it as much as she's enjoying the action, the motion, the sweat, the way they're kissing, the slight red soreness of her nipples and the unbearable beat between her legs.
She's laughing, panting, swearing at him while he's wishing he could use words. And she's grinding down on him, deep and warm and leaning over him to bite his shoulder while she groans, groans raggedly into his skin. It's quite raw, all this, unabashed and animal and joyful, and she cannot get enough of it.
So she tells him to give it to her. Demands it, tells him to fuck her, fuck her, give it to her, yesnowpleasefuck--!
...and Coll, oh sweet dear foulmouthed lazy-grinning nipple-teasing son of Stag that he is, accommodates her once again. He grabs her, groans, shouts as he comes, and let's go ahead, let's be crude, let's be filthy and acknowledge that she's snarling a little when he does, grinding down on him while he is -- we promised vulgarity -- filling her pussy up with cum. She's swearing at him, snarling something like that's it, fuck me like that, she's panting as she calls him a son of a bitch, which sounds almost adoring.
He is slowing, stopping, setting her down, leaning into her, and he's --
hahahaha. No he's not slowing down and he's certainly not stopping because as soon as she has that leverage, Iris grabs the edge of the dresser and starts fucking him again, legs wrapped tight around him, teeth gritted, working herself off on that cock. "Oh, you're not done," she mutters at him, her head lolling back. "You're not fucking done."
Coll MacCullochRight when he was just stopping that ridiculous hollering, too. Right when he was slowing down, easing up, coming down from the heights she took him to: that is when she starts all over again. Or really: she never stopped. She's not done yet, her teeth are gritted and god damn if she doesn't prove herself a headstrong merciless take-no-prisoners Daughter of Fenris now.
Coll
just about
loses his mind.
He lets out this yell. This barbaric yawp, really. This noise, no words, just decibels -- shuddering louder when she does it again, grinds on him again, and again, and again, and he's just yelling and grunting and moaning and groaning every single time and by then he's sort of collapsed forward, has a forearm braced on the mirror, has his brow braced on his fist, has his eyes closed and his other hand sort of just -- just -- just spread wide open across her ribcage, caught somewhere between trying to make her stop and trying to maul her tits while she rides out her pleasure on his poor oversensitive self.
"Oh, god," -- oh, he's found words again -- "oh, god, oh, god, oh god oh my fuckin' god," and she should congratulate him on his diction because that was almost perfect, so long as you discount the fact that he's moaning every word, so long as you discount the hitches when she makes him gasp, when she makes him shout, when she makes him all but implode in on himself.
Give him this much though. He tries to be accommodating. Not like he pushes her away or peels himself away or hides in the goddamn bathroom. No, Coll MacCulloch, mighty Ahroun of the Fianna who likes to tell everyone he's called Two-Spears for the one he fights with and the one he f---s with, is a gallant gentleman to the mindblowing end.
Iris DahlstromEach word, repeated and barely coherent, hits a beat of this wild, merciless new rythym. And this may very well prove now that the world outside this room doesn't exist anymore: no one is beating on their door or against the wall telling them to KEEP IT DOWN. JESUS. even though Coll is yelling, yelling, even though the pitch and volume of Iris's cries keep getting higher. Even though the mirror and the dresser keep knocking on the faux-wood-grain wallpaper. No one tells them to stop, not that they hear, but the truth is: they might not notice even if someone did. Not the way she's going at him. Not the way he's collapsing, grunting, trying to survive.
And Iris is going at him, roughly and eagerly and unashamedly. She welcomes his body against hers again, gasping at the feel of it, because every inch of her skin is oversensitive, too, hyperaware. She is so eager for this, hunting it, aware of the shape of his hand and the way he doesn't seem like he can stand it, he has to make her stop,
and the way he can't make her stop, he can't bear to stop her.
Iris grabs a hold of him again, hands in his hair again, pulling him down to kiss her -- again. And it's not a quiet or tender or gentle or soft kiss but they're both still yelling, moaning into each other's mouths. She mauls him like that, kisses him when she comes like she's trying to share it, pour it all back into him as her body tightens up, her cunt clenching around him. She holds him so tightly then, legs wrapped about his waist, hands holding onto his arms, his shoulders, his hair. She goes very still for a long, rapturous moment, and then she's trembling, quivering,
bouncing softly on him when she can move again, letting out a moan that's as undulating and protracted as her orgasm.
So it is. She's holding him now, arms and legs wrapped all around him, cheek to his shoulder, hair a tousled mess across his throat and chest, panting out each breath.
Coll MacCullochThat kiss -- the latest, the last in a string of kisses -- reawakens something in Coll. It reignites him whole: sets him aflame, sets his loose. He was moaning but suddenly he's growling, he's making hungry noises against her mouth as she rides that orgasm out on him, he's
thrusting back against her, fucking back against her, nailing her hard to that dresser while she writhes it out on him, grinding against her as she slings arms and legs around him, grips him by the arms, the shoulders, the hair.
"Tha's it," she can hear him whispering: harsh, low, insistent. "Tha's it, there ye go. Tha's it. Oh, ye beautiful woman."
She goes so radiantly still. He bites her firm on the shoulder. He can feel her quivering beneath her skin, can feel her quivering deep in her cunt, can feel the way that orgasm
breaks over her like a wave, setting her trembling, shaking, riding it out on him as it starts to roll out. It makes him shudder all over again, all over his body. It makes his knees weaken, and it's a good thing they're leaning atop that goddamn dresser now because otherwise they might just end up a puddle on the floor.
"Oh, my god," he's still whispering, softer now, a slurred run of words. Dropping his brow to the cool surface of the dresser just past her shoulder. Rolling his forehead there, pressing his lips to her neck. "Oh, god, ye almos' killed me. Oh, tha' was somethin' else entirely."
Iris DahlstromThe aftermath is scorched earth. Everything is raw, everything is on fire. Iris trembles inside, though her arms and legs are still wrapped around him. Looser, now, draped more than clutching. She is panting, sweating, piecing herself back together while Coll mutters in her ear. Told her she was beautiful, tells her she almost killed him. Iris barely responds. She's limp now, languid, seemingly exhausted.
After a very short while, she wriggles a little on him, squirms to feel him inside of her still. Breathes in a gasp, exhales a sigh. Slowly turns her head, rests her brow against his sternum. "That was a treat," she breathes, and it's the truth. She rubs her face on his chest.
"Let's get on the bed," she says, and it's unclear if she means for tha nex' roun' or just to get her ass off of the hardwood dresser. Since she doesn't move, clearly he is expected to lift her up again and stumble his way over there. Of course.
Coll MacCullochThey are quite naked. In the heat of the moment there was nothing but -- well. Heat. He was on fire, he was burning up. Now, in the scorched-earth aftermath, he begins to feel the coolness of the cycled air again. He begins to feel the chill on his back, the outsides of his arms, where sweat evaporates and draws body heat with it fastest.
She rolls her brow against his breastbone. That is still all warmth. He is still all warmth where he touches her; where he's inside her. When she squirms he gasps too. They both do. When she suggests the bed he is glad for it; he thinks it's a great idea. He would like to be on a soft surface with her. He would like to be under the covers with her, close and secret and smiling, touching. He is glad she isn't putting on her clothes, walking out the door. Perhaps it says something about his own past experiences, and perhaps it is a little sad, that he wouldn't have been terribly surprised if she had.
"Okay," he whispers, and gathers his strength, and lifts her in a brief strain of back and arms and flank. His arms wrap around her. He brings her up, slips out of her with a quiet grunt; brings her close to him, wrapped all around him, as he -- indeed -- stumbles his way over to the bed where he yanks the covers back and half-collapses down on the mattress. The bed is old, but clean. The sheets smell like no-nonsense, mass-quantity, production-line detergent. He rolls onto his back, rolls her atop and over and then to the far side of him, draws his trailing foot up from the floor and tugs the covers up into place.
Now they're lying on the bed, side by side, his arm still slung around her. His free hand lays forgotten over his stomach. The ceiling is blank. The mirror reflects blank walls, save maybe for an unremarkable framed bit of artwork. Violets and pansies or something.
Iris DahlstromYes. They are quite naked. So naked, in fact, that they have no clothes on at all. No panties around her ankle, no shoes left on his feet, no bra pulled askew. She still has her earrings on, but they're tiny tings, little gold studs. So nakedly, he hefts her up and gets them the two or three steps over to the bed, flopping down on it.
Iris makes a little noise when his cock slides out of her. It's sort of this amused, wanting little sound. It ends in a chuckle. She holds onto him while he carries her, slides easily away when they get into the bed. She's feeling the chill, too. But as he's yanking back the covers she kisses his cheek really quickly and trots away, bouncing here and there, to the bathroom.
--
She comes back, though. And by then he's under the covers, pulling them back so she can crawl in with him. She crawls on top of him, their arms winding around each other again with shocking familiarity. You'd think they did this every night, maybe some afternoons, plenty of mornings: fuck like circus performers and then snuggle in bed for a while.
Iris is smiling. She is wriggling, soaking up the warmth that has built up beneath the sheets thanks to his supernatural metabolism.
"That," she informs him, "was great."
Coll MacCullochHe's surprised when she bounces here and there all the way to the bathroom. He sits up, halfway under the covers, laughing after her: "Oh, come on. Why di' I carry ye all th' way tae the bed if ye were jus goin' tae run off to the bathroom a moment later?"
She answers or she doesn't. She kisses his cheek, she slips off, he flops his way under the covers and tugs them loose from their moorings and generally gets comfortable in bed. When she comes back he pulls back the covers for her and she slips under, beside, atop him. There's shocking familiarity in this. There's such a nice, thoughtless, fond closeness to it that his heart turns over a little in his chest.
He lifts his head to kiss her softly as she informs him of the greatness of their coupling. He has an arm around her waist; he has an arm around her shoulders, though that one wrap over the covers. "Aye," he agrees, "tha' was somethin' indeed."
Iris DahlstromShe doesn't answer him. She grins at him over her shoulder, that's all. Comes back later, and she splashed some water on her face and ran her fingers through her hair and she snuggles like she knows him, like she's known him for years. The truth is, she feels like she has. Like he's one of her boys, one of the nicer ones who might not always be able to pay but will sometimes save up -- a stack of furs or something, might fight a little harder to get a choicer hunk of meat, might go steal her something pretty and present it like a gift and not a price, even though that's what it is.
She feels fondly for him, scritching his side as he kisses her, smiling softly as she kisses him back. Her eyes close during that, lightly. Her hand stops scritching and starts tracing, just caressing him under the covers, stroking his side and his hip.
Iris kisses him again. His mouth, and then his neck, moving a little closer.
Coll MacCullochSurely the Fianna have something of the sort. Different, of course, because the Fianna were all about their wine women and song, and so everything had to be clothed in the gestures and appearances of romance. Maybe there were men and women, kinfolk, who lived over in the kin villages, who hung out at the kin bars, who were known to be flirts, who were known to flirt just a little more readily if you brought them a little gift. Who were all the more likely to take that flirting someplace if that gift was especially nice; who might -- with some pretty protest, of course -- accept a gift of actual cash so long as you said it's for your winter firewood or buy yourself a pretty new dress or something of the sort.
A little less direct. A little less pragmatic. A little less open, a little more under-wraps, a little more ... shameful, maybe, when you get down to it: because this is also the tribe that still believes its metises are fit for nothing better than an early cannon fodder death, that still believes its leaders must be free of all handicaps physical or mental, that somehow reconciles the wild philandering of a good portion of its faithful with the supposedly paramount and unassailable bastions of family, home and hearth. There are lies the Stags tell for the sake of a good story.
The point is, though: surely the Fianna have something of the sort. Some counterpart to the sort of work Iris used to do. Could be Coll's visited a few himself in his time, sometimes open-eyed and knowingly, sometimes quite likely stumbling into it laughing and dumb, not quite sure why he was bringing such a fine bottle of scotch that he'd 'acquired' from a rival through knuckles or teeth, knowing only that it was a fine, fine exchange and he was always a little sorry when it was over.
That's not quite what's happening tonight, though. He knows what she was. He knows that is not what she is. He knows he did not bring her a gift or a price; he knows she did not ask one when they looked at each other across the table
and he said I'd like to
and she drained her cup dry.
They did not discuss price or terms. They do not discuss them now. He kisses her and she is smiling that lovely soft smile which is a little like the lovely soft gently-mocking way she spoke to him earlier, below, though he does not think she is mocking him now. Her hands trace him out of the darkness. He feels himself rousing to her anew, first the fine reddish hairs on his arms pricking upright; then the pulse of his heart. Then his erection all over again, nevermind that she'd left him raw and used up in the best way possible. His hands delve beneath the covers, follow her back down to her bottom, curve over, find her thighs and open them to straddle him.
"Ye're no' too sore, are ye?" he asks, a murmured little concern against her mouth.
Iris DahlstromHe bought her drinks. But he bought her drinks in the way you buy drinks for someone you're interested in, and frankly, she also flat-out told him to. There were no coded words, no direct exchanges. He told her he wanted to take her upstairs and to bed and let's be honest: a couple of rounds of truly awful scotch doesn't even come close to Iris's previous asking rate. She'd already told him she retired. Neither of them went into this looking at it like that. And truth be told, it doesn't make much of a difference: Iris chose when, chose who. She always set aside what she could so she'd never be in a position to have to say yes when she wanted to say no, just for the ability to keep putting gas in her truck. They never would have let her starve, but truth be told it was more often her contributing food, or drink, building fires, doing guard duty. She could do most of what they could do, except fight in the war.
So: they fought in the war and she could sleep at night. A fair exchange. Another fair exchange: an hour or so, often less, of feeling pleasure and release, of escape, of a moment or two of humanity, in exchange for a clean pelt, a bottle of something, some valuable loot. Some couldn't really handle it, wanted something they were pretending they didn't, and eventually they weren't in any roving warpacks, they were finding real mates if they could, having children. Others had long since given up on that.
But that's giving in to some idea that all Fenrir are men. That no pack of Warclaws has ever had a female. And they came, too. Sometimes for sex. Sometimes a massage. Sometimes a night where they would have their hair brushed and their limbs stroked. Sometimes just talking, drinking -- the same kind of exchange, in a way. Pleasure. Touch. Escape. Humanity. Warmth. Iris never met a male camp follower, though. Not among the Fenrir, at least. She's wondered a few times if they're out there, or what it's like in other tribes, but not much. She's sure she's unique, too, in her ways. Not every Warclaw was the same, so not every warpack could be the same, and if you just follow that train of thought, eventually you see that you can't even lump in a whole tribe as The Same.
All of that is neither here nor there. Iris is cozily kissing and snuggling tonight's lover, who is not one of her boys but just some young, accommodating lad that she was flirting with and drinking with and has now had sex with and it's quite nice, she's quite happy with her choices.
A change in his breathing or a lift of his stomach or the way he shifts under the bed tells her, before anything else, that he's wanting again. Coll curves to her, hardens against her thigh, touches her bottom. Iris grins lazy, lopsided, at his concern. In answer, she kisses him again, opening her legs a little wider.
"Nah," she whispers, nibbling his lip for a second. "Are you? 'Cause I'd sort of like you on top, if you can."
Yes, Coll. There's a bit of a teasing challenge in that.
Coll MacCullochThe way she opens her legs for him arouses him so fiercely. She hardly gets to nibble his lip: she begins and then he is kissing her again, rising up off the bed in his wanting, pushing her back a little with his force.
She teases him a little. She issues a challenge. He lays back, smirking that loose lazy smirk up at her. "If I can, i'sit," he repeats, gently mocking.
And then: oh, he can't stop kissing her. Here's another one. Here's another one, as sudden-wanting as the last, and on the axis of that kiss he turns her. He rolls her under him, the bedcovers and bedsheets all soft and clean around them, that subtly welcoming and homey scent of laundry. Her hair spreads over the pillow as he moves over her. On top, as she said: accommodating lad, yes. He reaches down and she might think he's grabbing it to stick it in her, but
he's touching her instead, running his fingers down past that small patch of hair, parting her lips, rubbing the pads of his fingers over her slit. He smiles when he finds her. There's something at once sweet and lascivious about that smile. He wants to taste her; he settles for tasting her mouth, his eyes closing. The seat of feminine magic, if you ask the druids of his tribe. The source of procreative, fertile, wet, dark magic; divine chalices and holy grails and all that nonsense. He is not particularly religious, nor a fanatic of the Old Ways, but there is a certain filthy holiness to what happens between the sheets, he thinks. He rubs her with his hand, grinds his palm on her clit, touches her pussy with those soft, almost-delicate strokes of his long fingers; rubs himself against her thigh in time, withholding him from her for the time; withholding from himself that pleasure.
Iris Dahlstrom"Yeah," she breathes, grinding atop him then, after he's pushed up to her, mauling her mouth. "If you can."
They don't talk much after that. He kisses her, again and again, rolling her onto her back. She's touching him, running her hands up his chest, tangling her legs in the sheets. She makes these soft sounds, little moans and gasps, while Coll is moving over her. The light in the bathroom is off again; there's still just the full moon. Iris pulls him close, stroking their chests together.
A few minutes ago she started thinking about what comes next. What comes after. She started thinking about leaving this room, this inn, walking out the front door with her little purse and her cardigan. She started wondering. And so she started kissing him, nuzzling him, pleased and tickled that he responded so quickly. She doesn't think about it now -- even better, she doesn't think at all.
Coll is delightfully, delightedly, touching her cunt. Iris closes her eyes, tipping her head back, exhaling a long sigh. "Put your finger in me," she whispers to him. "Tease me." Which he already is. This is teasing. This is torturous, the way he strokes his nice, very hard cock against her smooth thigh at the same time that he's stroking his fingers over her pussy. She arches a little, her slick coating his fingertips. This is teasing. This is almost too much.
Coll MacCullochTruth is, Coll has been avoiding those very thoughts since -- well, since before they came up here. Sometimes they break through in flashes and flickers, and every time,
truth is,
it hurts a little to think about. What comes next. What comes after. What happens when they walk out that door, together or separately. What world they might find themselves in then, and how he might never see her again, when right here and now he's so close to her, it's like he's known her forever, it's like he's one of her boys, one of those young earnest ones who save up for her, who maybe dream they're maybe in love with her, who maybe think about maybe taking her away from ... whatever. Themselves. As though she needed saving.
So they don't think about it. They roll around in bed. He gets on top and she folds her legs around him or simply lets them fall apart. He teases her, strokes her, she arches. He kisses her -- it just keeps happening -- as she's telling him what to do, and he does it, and he gasps against her mouth at how wet she is, how hot, how smooth and slick and how tightly she grips his finger.
"God, ye're a passionate one," he mutters, and thank you for stating the obvious Coll, because she is: she is. He kisses her neck as she arches. He kisses his way down to her breasts, and now, finally, he is giving those very nice breasts of hers some very nice attention, lapping and licking at her nipples so slowly while he works her off on his fingers, while he strokes himself so slow and steady against her thigh.
Iris DahlstromThat makes her laugh. Softly, gaspingly, but with her eyes opening and finding his for a moment. She smiles at him. And they kiss again, and she's smiling as she does and it's warm, so warm, the way she wraps herself around him, moaning into his mouth when he slides his finger into her, starts moving it, slides another one in shortly thereafter, making her moan again. She doesn't have any more marching orders for him, just those noises she makes when he starts licking her breasts, when he rubs himself against her leg.
When she can't bear it anymore -- and it isn't long, to be honest, before she simply can't stand it another moment -- Iris reaches for him. She takes his wrist in her hand, sliding his fingers out of her, drawing them up to her mouth. Eyes closed, body golden-white in the moonlight filtering in the window, she slowly, savoringly licks herself off his fingers, letting her tongue soften and slide against his skin. It takes her a long time before she draws them in, sucks on them.
Is sucking on them, when she reaches down and touches his cock, running her caress up and down, slowly jerking him off. Her eyes open again when she lets his fingers slip from her mouth.
"Fuck me, Coll," she whispers.
Coll MacCullochHe can count on one hand the times he's heard her say his name. The way she says it this time -- that voice, those words, his fingers still wet and warm from her mouth and her pussy -- god, it's something akin to a religious experience. Coll tries to cheat fate. He tries to bargain a little: maybe, maybe, maybe he can remember this, too. This, and the way she smelled when she first swept her hair aside and showed him the clasp on her pearls. That, and the way she smells now,
hot and fucked once already,
warm and welcoming with her hand guiding him in.
--
He fucks her. But not before he kisses her. Kisses that mouth that had sucked his fingers tinglingly, mindblowingly clean. Kisses her with his fingers still trailing over her lips, then smoothing over her jaw. Kisses her while she strokes him so slowly, so smoothly, while the muscles in his flanks quiver with anticipation, while his cock pulses and jumps in her hand like it, too, can't wait. Cannot wait.
He reaches down as that kiss levels off, tapers away. He does, in fact, take himself in hand -- his fingers brushing over hers, the two of them aligning him to her. His head drops as he pushes into her. His mouth falls against her collarbones, against her sternum. He pants harsh and hot over her breasts on that first firm slide, and he wraps his arms around her. Not nearly so flagrant a fuck, this one: hidden under the covers, bodies close, the two of them coupling in slow, deep flexes and squeezes. There is room, and there is time, to kiss again and again, and so he does,
murmuring, moaning into her mouth, gasping, groaning against her throat.
Iris DahlstromThis is more the way that near-strangers might fuck. Lights off. Under the covers. Touching each other, kissing, and first he's stroking her, getting her wet and ready for him, before he ever pushes inside of her body. A little slower, deeper and firmer. Not talking quite so much. Not hollering, not making such a racket. Not fucking in the middle of the room, standing up, nailing against the dresser and the mirror. Some of that lightheadedness has gone out of it.
Iris keeps kissing him, slowly, deeply. She puts her hands on his face, arching a little to take him, wrapping her legs tight around his body. She keeps murmuring to him: so good, that's it and the like. It hardly matters. What matters is the deep sea motion of their bodies rolling together, and the way they touch, and the way they keep kissing. She likes him. Just... likes him, as a person and as a lover.
This time it's slow. This time it's a little more controlled. But it's no less intense. She comes first this time, clutching at his sides, whimpering into his shoulder, begging him in half-spoken words don't stop, don't stop, don'tstopdon'tstop before she goes so very still, before electricity holds her seemingly aloft in the air, even though her back is firmly on the bed. She comes harder this time, strangely, longer, turning her head on the pillows, crying out as it takes hold of her. Her skin is flushed pink. It stays that way, make her all rose and gold, even as it starts to let her back down.
Coll MacCullochStrange, 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.
Their interpretations are of course colored by their experiences. And it says something about Iris, about her warm, about her intimacy, and perhaps also about the walls she necessarily put up, and the not-quite-impervious nature of those walls, that this reads as the way she might take a near-stranger to bed. It says something about Coll, too, about his spontaneity and his boldness, and perhaps also about how easily he breaks through the barriers wiser men would leave in place, that this reads as something
more
than the way near-strangers might fuck.
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.
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