Second Language
He pulled out slowly and the sound it made was obscene and neither of them acknowledged it. She rolled off him and onto her back and they lay side by side on the silk covers that were ruined, sticky and damp, and the brazier was almost out but the room was still warm because the stone was always warm and the heat came from below and didn't care what they did on top of it.
He was still catching his breath. She was too. The ceiling was stone and there was a crack in it he hadn't noticed before, a thin line that ran from above the bed to the corner near the window. The wind outside, faint. The silk over the window moved.
She turned onto her side and put her head on his chest. Her hair spread across his skin, dark and damp at the temples. Her hand rested flat on his stomach, over the spot where her wetness had been, and her breathing was slowing against his ribs.
He put his arm around her. His hand found the back of her neck and the hair was warm and tangled there and he held it without gripping. The nail marks on his chest stung. He didn't mind.
"I speak seven languages," she said.
He waited.
"I can't say 'I need you' in any of them."
Her voice was quiet. She was talking into his chest, not looking at him.
He didn't answer.
His hand moved down her side. Along her ribs, because she was on her side and her ribs were there and his hand was tracing her. His thumb caught on something. A line. Raised. Starting below her left breast and running along the bottom of the ribcage toward her back. A scar, old and thin, the stitching precise.
He traced it without asking. The full length of it, from front to back, his thumb following the ridge.
She didn't pull away. She was quiet. Then she started talking.
"Marrakech. I was fourteen. Father had sent me to observe a meeting. I wasn't supposed to be seen. One of the bodyguards came from an angle I hadn't accounted for. Seven-inch blade. It went through my shirt and along the rib. Didn't crack the bone but it was deep enough that I could see the rib when I looked down."
"I stitched it on the transport. Twelve stitches. They were ugly. I pulled them out and redid them because I couldn't stand looking at ugly stitches."
"At fourteen."
"At fourteen."
His thumb was still on the scar. The ridge was thin and smooth under the pad of his thumb and she wasn't moving away from the touch. Her ribs expanded with each breath.
"He made the weapon," she said. "My father. He decided what I would be before I decided anything. The training, the languages, the operations. All of it was his."
She paused.
"I made the queen. The rest of it, the parts that are mine, I built. He doesn't know which parts are his and which parts are mine. I'm not sure I do either. But I know there are parts that are mine."
She was talking to his chest. Her hand was still flat on his stomach. The room was almost dark now, the last of the brazier coals a deep red that barely lit the edges of things.
He kissed the scar.
Leaned down and put his mouth on the raised line where it started below her breast. The skin was warm and the scar was smooth under his lips and she inhaled and her hand on his stomach pressed down.
He kissed along the scar's length. Slowly. His mouth tracing the same path his thumb had taken. She was still on her side and he was bending down to reach and it wasn't a comfortable angle but he didn't care because the sound she made when his mouth reached the midpoint of the scar was small and unguarded and she didn't cover it this time.
He kissed the end of the scar, near her back, and then he came back up and she was on her back now, looking up at him, and her eyes were dark and the room was dark and his hand was on the bed beside her head.
"Stay here," he said.
She looked at him.
"When it starts. Stay here. Don't go back behind the-" He stopped. She knew what he meant.
She nodded. Small.
He kissed her. Different from before. Slower. His mouth on hers and no hurry in it. His hand on the side of her face, thumb on her cheekbone, and she kissed him back and her hands went to his shoulders and pulled him down onto her and he went.
His weight on her. Her legs opening for him and his hips settling between her thighs and his cock against her, hard again, and the wetness from the first round was still there, on him, on her, on the covers beneath them. He reached between them and positioned himself and she was looking at his face and he pushed in.
Slower this time. No resistance. She was open and wet and he slid into her in one long push that ended with his hips against hers and her breath leaving in a rush and her back arching off the bed about an inch.
"Ah-"
He stayed deep. Didn't move.
He pulled back halfway and pushed in again. Slow. Watching her face.
"Stay here."
Her eyes were on his. She didn't look away.
He thrust again. Slow. All the way out, all the way in, and the wet slide of it was loud in the quiet room and her breath hitched at the bottom of each stroke and her hands were on his back and her fingers were pressing into the muscle and she was holding on.
Her jaw was tight. Her eyes reaching for the composure, for the control.
"Stay here."
Third time. Quiet. His mouth close to hers. His hips moving slow and steady and the angle was deep and each thrust pressed the base of his cock against her clit and her legs were wrapping around him and tightening.
She held his gaze. Her jaw loosened.
He kissed her. Kept moving. The pace was slow and the depth was full and her pussy was wet and hot and gripping him and each stroke drew a sound out of her that was softer than before.
"Ah- nn- ah-"
Into his mouth. Against his lips. Her legs around his hips pulling him deeper. Her hands on his back, palms flat, pressing him closer.
He gave her closer. His forearms on the bed beside her head and his chest against hers and her breasts pressed flat between them and her nipples hard against his skin and the friction of his chest against hers every time he moved. The full length of their bodies together and his cock moving inside her and the wet sounds and her breathing and his breathing.
She was building. The tightening inside her, gradual this time, her pussy gripping him in slow waves, her thighs trembling against his hips. Her breathing getting shorter. Her eyes still on his.
"Beloved."
The word cracked on the second syllable. Her voice broke on it and her eyes were wet.
He didn't stop. He kept moving, slow and deep, and her eyes stayed on his and the tears spilled over, one from each eye, running sideways into her hair, and she didn't close her eyes and she didn't wipe them and she didn't look away.
"Bruce-"
Whispered.
He pushed deep. Held. Her legs locked around him. Her pussy clenched and her back arched and her mouth opened and the sound she made was his name again, quieter, and the tears were still falling and her eyes were still open and she came looking at him.
Her pussy pulsed around his cock in long hard contractions and her thighs shaking against his hips and her hands pressing flat on his back and her mouth open against his jaw and he followed her. Buried deep, hips pressed to hers, his orgasm pulling up from the base of his spine and through his cock and into her and his forehead dropped against hers and his eyes closed and everything went quiet.
Breathing. Hers and his. The room almost dark. Still inside her.
He opened his eyes. She was looking at him. The tears had dried on her temples. Her hands were still on his back. Her eyes were dark and calm.
He pulled out. Rolled to the side. She didn't move away. She turned into him, her head finding his chest again, the same spot as before, and her hand went to his stomach and rested there and she breathed.
The room was dark. The brazier was out. The stone was still warm from below and the silk covers were beyond saving and the sword on the wall was invisible now.
Her breathing evened out. Slowed. Deepened.
She was asleep.
He'd been at this compound for weeks. He'd watched her watch every doorway she entered. He'd seen the knife she kept in her boot during training. The way she slept in her quarters with the door cracked and her hand near the pillow where a blade sat within reach.
She was asleep against his chest. The door was locked. The blade was on the rack across the room. Her hand was flat on his stomach, relaxed, fingers loose.
He lay in the dark and listened to her breathe and the stone was warm and the room smelled like jasmine and sex and the last of the brazier coals and outside the wind was still moving through the valley.
He fell asleep eventually. Her head on his chest. Her breathing slow against his ribs. The crack in the ceiling above them running from the bed to the corner near the window.