Chapter 55: The Scholar’s Pace
The walk back to The Stag & Ember passed in a frantic, freezing blur. Mina did not feel the biting winter wind sweeping off the slate roofs of the merchant district; she was entirely consumed by the heavy, radiating heat of Callis’s hand resting firmly against the small of her back.
They bypassed the crowded taproom entirely, slipping through the private rear entrance and ascending the narrow, creaking staircase to the second floor.
Callis pushed open the heavy timber door to Room Four. He ushered her inside, his broad shoulders clearing the threshold, and firmly slid the iron deadbolt into place. The sharp, metallic clack echoed in the small, drafty space, sealing them off from the noise of the tavern and the brutal reality of Hartsgate.
Mina stood near the edge of the narrow cot, clutching the velvet-lined box containing her new drafting pen against her chest like a physical shield. Her breathing was shallow and erratic, her chest rising and falling heavily against the tight wool of her high-collared bodice.
Callis did not rush her. He stepped forward, his movements slow and deliberate, projecting a calm, grounded authority. He gently took the wooden box from her trembling fingers, setting it safely on the cracked washbasin table.
"You asked for a closed door, Mina," Callis murmured, his voice dropping into a low, soothing vibration. He reached out, his calloused hands resting lightly on her waist. "You asked for a bed, away from the eyes of the council. We are completely alone."
"I know," Mina breathed, her dark eyes wide behind her wire-rimmed lenses. "I am just... I am overwhelmed, Callis. The men at the academy made me feel like an object to be hidden. Yselle and Mara stripped that away, but they were so incredibly fast. They were like a storm."
Callis smiled, a soft, deeply understanding expression that crinkled the corners of his grey-blue eyes. He reached up, his fingers deftly managing the heavy brass buttons of her wool bodice.
"The women of this hearth are forces of nature, Mina. They forge iron and command the working lanes, and they take their pleasure with the exact same relentless force," Callis agreed softly, parting the heavy wool and the white linen beneath it.
The soft, unapologetic curves of her chest spilled free into the cool air of the room. Callis did not grab her with crude, tavern urgency. He simply looked at her with a profound, quiet reverence.
He helped her step out of her pleated skirt and her damp undergarments, letting the fabric pool on the floorboards, until she stood completely bare in the dim light. Callis stripped off his own fine wool tunic and trousers, revealing the lean, bruised musculature of his torso and the heavy, violently hard erection jutting from his dark hair.
Mina’s breath hitched as she looked at him. This was the same weapon that had left the sugar merchant's wife weeping and ruined the matrons in the thermal pool, and now it was entirely focused on her.
Callis gently guided her backward until her knees hit the edge of the lumpy straw mattress. She sat down, leaning back against the pillows as he followed her down, bracketing her plush, wide hips with his knees.
He hovered over her, his forearms bearing his weight so as not to crush her.
"This is your first time with me, Mina," Callis whispered, his dark eyes locking onto hers with absolute, unwavering respect. "I am not Yselle, and I am not Mara. Tell me exactly how you want this to happen."
Mina swallowed hard, her heart hammering against her ribs. The fact that a man so tempered by the frontier was pausing, rigid with his own desperate arousal, simply to ask for her explicit direction completely melted the last of her academic defenses.
"Slow," Mina pleaded, her voice a fragile, honest whisper. She reached up, her small hands resting nervously against his scarred biceps. "They broke me open, but it was a blinding blur. I want to feel you, Callis. I want to feel every single inch of you. I want it to be agonizingly slow."
"Slow," Callis promised, his voice a dark, velvety rumble.
He lowered his hips, positioning the blunt, weeping head of his cock directly at her slick, pink entrance. She was already dripping, the natural, heavy lubrication of her arousal coating her thighs.
He drove his hips forward, initiating the connection with a slow, agonizingly deliberate glide.
Mina gasped, her spine bowing off the mattress as his thick girth parted her tight, wet folds. Yselle had breached her on the workbench, but the searing, pulsing heat of Callis’s actual flesh was entirely different. He filled her millimeter by millimeter, the slow pace allowing her internal walls to map the heavy veins and the blunt ridge of his shaft.
"Gods, you are so perfectly tight," Callis groaned, burying himself to the absolute hilt until his lean pelvis rested flush against her plush mound.
He kept his word. He did not snap his hips back for a violent, driving sprint. He established a deep, rolling, grinding rhythm, pulling back just enough to let the cool air touch his slick shaft before sinking back into her velvet depths with a soft, resonant squelch.
As he set the slow, inescapable pace, Callis lowered his chest. He brought his large, calloused hands up to gently cradle her breasts. He kneaded the soft flesh with a slow, starving devotion, pushing the pale mounds together to create a deep valley of skin, and buried his face directly into her cleavage.
Mina let out a high, continuous keen, her fingers tangling desperately into his dark hair.
The men at her academy had treated her shape as a joke or a shameful distraction. Callis looked at her like a man completely captivated. He wasn't mocking her. He wasn't using her for quick relief. He genuinely, profoundly loved this part of her.
He dragged his open mouth back and forth across her skin, humming in pure appreciation. The slow pace entirely dismantled her scholar's mind. She couldn't think. She could only feel his breath against her neck, his dark eyes locked onto hers, and the agonizing, gentle stretch of his hips rolling against her. Her wire-rimmed glasses slipped completely askew, resting crookedly against her flushed cheeks, but she didn't care enough to fix them.
"You feel amazing, Mina," Callis praised roughly, his thumb rolling over her nipple as he ground his pubic bone deeply against her swollen clitoris.
"Callis," Mina whimpered, her head thrashing against the pillows.
The slow pace denied her the quick, violent release of the kitchen. Instead, it built a heavy, pooling pressure deep in her lower belly. Her internal walls began to flutter, clamping down around his slow-moving shaft with tight, desperate pulses. She was leaking heavily, the slick fluids pooling on the sheets beneath them.
As the friction built, she felt his muscles suddenly lock. She felt the heavy, rigid pulse building at the base of his shaft as his breathing turned jagged. Her academic filter completely dissolved in the haze of pleasure, replaced by the sheer, filthy curiosity Yselle had unlocked inside her.
"Callis," Mina gasped, her voice ringing out entirely too loud in the quiet room. "I want to taste it again. Give me more of your cock juice. Please, put it in my mouth."
Callis let out a raw, hoarse groan, his restraint completely snapping at the eager, incredibly lewd demand. He pulled his hips back, his slick shaft sliding free of her core with a soft pop. He shifted his weight, kneeling over her chest as Mina eagerly tilted her head back against the pillows and parted her lips.
He gripped his own shaft, stroking himself rapidly as the alchemical fire and her absolute, unashamed devotion pushed him over the edge.
He pumped thick, scalding ropes of his seed directly into her waiting mouth. Mina swallowed eagerly, her throat working to consume the heavy volume, humming her approval as she tasted the hot, salty proof of his release.
He collapsed forward, his full weight pressing her gently into the mattress as he buried his face in the soft, vanilla-scented crook of her neck.
Mina wrapped her arms tightly around his broad, bruised shoulders, a messy, radiant smile spreading across her face. She felt thoroughly claimed, cherished, and anchored to the physical world in a way her books could never replicate.
Callis turned his head, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to her flushed cheek as their heartbeats slowly decelerated in the quiet, drafty room.
"You belong to the hearth now, Mina," Callis murmured into the quiet room, his heavy hands still resting protectively over the soft swell of her breasts. "And no spell-weaver in the provinces will ever be allowed to make you feel ashamed of this again."