Ch.9
Her mouth was soft and she didn't know what to do with it.
The kiss started wrong. She was pressing too hard, her lips sealed shut, her whole body rigid on top of me. She'd been a goddess for millennia and she'd never kissed anyone and her technique was forehead-against-a-wall energy, all pressure and no movement. Her hands were flat on my chest and her fingers were digging in and she was trying so hard it was almost painful.
I put my hand on her jaw. Tilted her chin down. Eased the pressure until her lips loosened, soft and giving.
"Slow," I said against her mouth. "Like this."
I kissed her slow. Soft. Her upper lip between mine, then her lower, then both. She made a sound, a small strangled "mm" at the back of her throat, and her fingers uncurled on my chest and her mouth opened and she started kissing me back.
She learned fast. Goddess-level learning curve, apparently. Within a minute she'd figured out the rhythm, her lips moving with mine, her hand sliding from my chest to my shoulder. She tasted like the water she'd given me earlier and the salt from her own tears, and when I ran my tongue along her lower lip she gasped and pulled back an inch and stared at me with her blue eyes wide.
"That's-"
"Normal." I pulled her back. "Keep going."
She kept going. Her mouth opened wider and my tongue found hers and she made a sound that went straight through me. A whimper. High and thin and surprised. Her hand gripped my shoulder and her hips shifted on my waist and the friction of that shift, her weight settling against me through two layers of fabric, hit me low in the stomach. I was getting hard. She hadn't noticed yet but she would. She was sitting right on top of where it was going to be obvious.
The kiss went from learning to wanting. Her hips rolled again and this time she felt it. She froze. Pulled back. Looked down between us, then up at my face. Her cheeks went darker.
"Is that-"
"Yeah."
"Because of-"
"Because of you. Yeah."
She kissed me again. Harder this time, less careful, her hands sliding up into my hair. Her hips pressed down against me and I groaned into her mouth and her fingers tightened in my hair like the sound was a thing she wanted to keep.
I sat up. She was in my lap now, her knees still on either side of my hips, and the change in angle put her face above mine. She broke the kiss to look down at me and her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wet and she was breathing hard through parted lips.
"I don't-" She swallowed. "I've never-"
"I know."
"Bell, I've never done any of this."
"I know." I put my hands on her waist. Through the thin fabric of her dress, the heat of her skin was immediate. My thumbs sat on either side of her stomach, and she was so small that my fingers nearly met at her spine. "We can stop."
"No." Fast. The word came out before I finished the sentence. Her ears went red. "I mean. I don't want to stop. I want-" She looked down at my hands on her waist. Back up at my face. "I want you to show me."
The ribbon was the problem.
It wound around her torso under her chest, blue and wide, and I couldn't figure out how it was attached. I tried the left side, found nothing, tried the right, found a clasp hidden under a fold of fabric. She watched me work it with an expression caught between embarrassment and the urge to laugh.
"It comes off from the-"
"I've almost got it."
"You really don't."
She reached behind her and did a thing with her hands and the ribbon came loose and fell between us, coiling on my stomach. The dress followed. She grabbed the hem and pulled it over her head in one motion, leaving her in nothing but the ribbon pooled on my lap and her hair ornaments catching the candlelight.
She was small. I knew that. I'd held her, carried her, felt her against my chest. But seeing her was different. Her waist narrow enough that my hands could nearly circle it. Pale skin, flushed pink from the collar down. Her breasts were full and round on a frame that was otherwise petite, and they moved when she breathed. Nipples pink and hard in the cool basement air, her chest rising and falling fast. She was looking at my face to see what I saw and when she saw me looking she crossed her arms over her chest.
"Don't."
I reached up and took her wrists. Gently. Moved her arms to her sides.
"Don't hide," I said.
Her chin trembled. She let me hold her wrists away from her body and she sat there, bare, in my lap, and her eyes were wet and her chest was rising and falling fast. I was hard against the inside of her thigh and she could feel it and her face was red and she wasn't pulling away.
"You're beautiful," I said.
"Bell-"
"Come here."
I pulled her against me. Her chest pressed flat against mine, skin to skin, and the heat of her was everywhere. The cool basement air on my back, the furnace of her body against my front. Her nipples hard against my chest. Her arms went around my neck and her face buried in my shoulder and she held on like if she let go I'd disappear.
I kissed her neck. The skin below her ear, where her pulse was hammering. She tipped her head back and her breath caught through her nose, still trying to control it, and I kissed lower, along her jaw, down the line of her throat. Her fingers tightened in my hair.
"'Ah-'"
Soft. Almost nothing. The first sound she'd made that wasn't a word. I chased it. Kissed the spot again, the hollow below her ear, and she made it again, louder.
I laid her back on the couch. She went without resistance, her hair fanning out on the cushion, her arms falling to her sides. She was looking up at me and her eyes were too wide and too wet and she was shaking. Her whole body, a fine tremor that ran through her from her shoulders to her hips.
"Tell me if you want to stop," I said.
"I don't want to stop. Please don't stop."
I kissed her collarbone. The hollow of her throat. Between her breasts, the skin there hotter than the rest of her. She arched up when my lips touched her left breast, a sharp quick bow of her spine, and her hand found the back of my head and pressed me closer.
I took her nipple in my mouth. She gasped, loud, and then bit her lip to muffle it. I circled it with my tongue and her hips came off the couch and pressed against my stomach. She was warm through the thin fabric of her underwear. Wet.
"'Nn- Bell- that's-'"
I moved to the other one. Slower. Sucked, and her hand tightened in my hair and pulled, reflexive, and every exhale had a sound in it now, small and high, getting louder, her breath coming through her mouth because her nose couldn't keep up. I kissed down from her breast to her stomach. Her abs clenched under my lips. I kissed below her navel and she grabbed my shoulders with both hands.
"Wait- I- Bell, I'm-"
"You're fine." I kissed her hip bone. She shuddered, her whole body twitching. "You're doing fine."
"I'm not- I've never been- nobody's ever-"
I looked up at her. She was propped on her elbows, face red, hair tangled, eyes wide. Her chest was heaving and she was gripping my shoulders hard enough that her knuckles were white and her nipples were still hard and wet from my mouth and she looked wrecked and I hadn't even gotten her underwear off.
"I know," I said. "That's why I'm going slow."
She lay back down. Her hands released my shoulders and found the cushion and gripped.
I pulled her underwear down her legs. She lifted her hips to help and then immediately tried to close her thighs and then forced them apart and put her forearm over her eyes.
I kissed her inner thigh, where the skin was softest. She jerked. I kissed the other thigh. She jerked again, harder.
I settled between her legs. She was wet, glistening in the candlelight. I pressed my mouth against her and her whole body went rigid, every muscle locking, and the sound she made hit the basement ceiling.
"'Ah-! Bell- that- you can't-'"
I licked her clit. Slow. She screamed into her arm.
I kept going. Slow, deliberate, learning. A flat stroke made her hips buck. Circling made her whine. Direct pressure on her clit made her thighs clamp around my head and her hand find my hair and pull. I went with the pulling. She tasted like salt and warmth and her hips were grinding against my mouth now, moving on their own, and I was so hard it hurt, pressed against the couch, aching.
"'Right- right there- don't- don't stop-'"
Her voice was breaking. Every sound was new to her, arriving for the first time, and she couldn't believe she was making them. Her face was turned to the side and her forearm was over her eyes and her free hand was in my hair, gripping, and her thighs were shaking against my cheeks and she was wet and getting wetter and the sounds of my mouth on her were obscene in the quiet basement.
I worked her clit with my tongue, slow circles tightening, and her hips started rolling harder, grinding against me, and her sounds went from words to pieces of words to just breath.
I pulled back before she came. She made a sound of protest, sharp, frustrated, and when I climbed up her body she reached for my pants.
"Off. Bell, take them off, please-"
I helped her with the belt. Her hands were shaking too badly to work the clasp. I stripped my pants off and kicked them to the floor and then I was naked above her and she looked down and her eyes went wide and she swallowed.
"It's... you're..."
"It'll be fine."
"It's going to fit?"
"It'll fit."
Her hand reached out. Touched me. Fingers wrapping around my cock, tentative, her grip too light and uncertain, and the touch of her hand after being that hard for that long made my breath catch. She looked up at my face when she heard it, and her eyes changed. She squeezed, slightly harder, and watched my jaw tighten. For one second the power was hers and she knew it.
"Okay," she whispered. Let go. Lay back. Opened her legs.
I positioned myself between her thighs. The head of my cock pressed against her and she was so wet I slid against her, the shaft dragging across her clit, and she gasped and her hips bucked and we both hissed. I lined up again. Held there. The heat of her against the tip, slick and swollen.
I looked at her face. Her eyes were locked on mine and she was breathing through her mouth and her hands were on my arms.
I pushed in. Slowly. An inch, and she gasped and her fingernails dug into my biceps. She was tight. Tight in a way that made my vision narrow, her body gripping me, resisting and opening at the same time. Another inch. Her back arched and her mouth fell open.
"'Nn- ah- Bell-'"
I stopped. She was clenching around me, her whole body rigid, her eyes squeezed shut and her breathing ragged. The effort of not moving, of holding still inside that heat and that grip, sat in my arms and my jaw.
"Look at me," I said.
She opened her eyes. Wet. Blue. Focused on my face like I was the only thing keeping her here.
"Tell me when."
She nodded. Her jaw was tight and her hands were gripping my arms and she took a breath, another, and the tension in her body eased one degree at a time. Her grip loosened. She shifted her hips and her breath caught and the shift changed the angle and she was warmer, wetter, opening around me. She nodded again.
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay."
I pushed deeper. Her body adjusted, her mouth opening in a silent gasp. When I was all the way inside her she went still and for a second neither of us moved. She was warm. Warmer than her hands on my back, warmer than the Knife. Warm and tight and alive and her pulse was there, fast and hard, through where we were connected. The wet heat of her around every inch of me. The basement was quiet and I was inside a goddess and neither of us was breathing.
"Move," she said. Barely a whisper. "Please."
I pulled back. The drag of her body against mine, the friction, the way she gripped on the outstroke. I pushed in. She gasped. Her legs came up and wrapped around my waist, crossing at the ankles, pulling me deeper. She was so small under me. Her head fit in the space between my shoulder and the cushion. Her whole body was bracketed by mine.
Slow. Deep. Her eyes on mine the whole time. She kept trying to look away, her cheeks burning, and I kept tilting her chin back, holding the eye contact.
"'Ah- ah- Bell-'"
Soft sounds on each thrust, rhythmic, matching my pace. Her body learning the rhythm without her deciding to. I pulled back and pushed in deeper and her mouth opened wider and the sound was louder and I did it again because I wanted to hear it again. She made it again. Louder.
Her hips started moving with mine. Small rolls, clumsy, figuring out the timing. Her hands went from my arms to my back and her nails dragged lines down my spine. The sweat was starting between us, her chest slick against mine on each thrust, the sound of skin against skin joining her gasps.
"I can feel you," I said. Matter of fact. She clenched around me and her face went scarlet.
"Don't- don't say-"
"Every time you tighten." I thrust deep. She clenched again, involuntary, and the grip of her around me was blinding. "There."
"'Nn- Bell- you can't just-'"
I could. I thrust deeper and she arched and the sound she made was louder, sharper, and she bit her lip. Blood beaded on her lower lip and I kissed it off her and tasted copper and her hips ground up against mine.
"Don't muffle it," I said.
"The neighbors-"
"We're underground. There are no neighbors."
She let the lip go. "'Ahhh-'" The sound started low in her chest and climbed, unfiltered, and her whole body tightened around me and her eyes went unfocused. Her hand found my hair. Gripped. Her fingers winding into it, pulling, and I knew what the grip meant even though this was the first time.
Faster. Her legs tightened. Her nails dug deeper. The couch was shifting under us and the wet sounds were louder now, obscene, every thrust audible, and she was soaking and the heat between us was unbearable and sweat was dripping from my chest onto hers. She was saying my name between sounds that weren't words anymore.
"'Bell- Bell- I'm- I can't- I-'"
Her hand tightened in my hair. Her thighs trembled against my sides. Her body was clenching in waves around me, rhythmic, involuntary, and her back arched off the cushion and her eyes rolled up. I slid my hand under her lower back and held her against me and thrust deep and held there and she shattered.
She came hard. Her whole body seized, her legs locked around me, her nails buried in my back. She bit my shoulder. Her teeth sank in and the pain mixed with everything else and she was shaking and clenching so tight around me I couldn't move. The bite, her body locked around me, the sound she was making into my skin, the pulse of her coming, wave after wave, squeezing.
I came. Buried deep inside her, her teeth in my shoulder, her legs pulling me in, and the heat of it was everywhere and I couldn't think and she was still coming around me, still clenching, still holding on with everything she had.
Quiet.
Her teeth released my shoulder. The bite mark stung. She was trembling under me, her whole body vibrating with aftershock, her arms still locked around my neck. Her breathing was fast and ragged in my ear. Her heart was going so hard it came through her chest into mine.
I held still. Let the weight settle. My arms ached and my shoulder was throbbing from the fight and from the bite and I didn't care. Her legs slowly unlocked from my waist and fell to either side but her arms stayed tight around my neck and her face stayed buried in my shoulder where she'd bitten me.
"Hestia."
A small sound. Maybe a word. Maybe a sob. Hard to tell.
"You okay?"
She pulled her face out of my shoulder. Looked at me. Her eyes were wet and red and her cheeks were flushed and her lips were swollen and there was a smear of blood at the corner of her mouth from where she'd bitten her lip and a deeper mark on her lower lip where she'd drawn blood. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and her neck with sweat, the ornaments long gone.
She smiled. Shaky, uneven, real.
"I'm okay," she said. Her voice was wrecked. "I'm- yes. I'm okay."
I pulled out slowly. She winced, a sharp intake of breath, and her hand found mine and squeezed. The wet heat of her on my cock in the cool air, the emptiness between us sudden and loud. I rolled onto my side next to her on the couch, and it was barely wide enough for both of us, and she immediately turned and pressed her entire body against mine, her face against my chest, her arms around my waist, every inch of her touching every inch of me that she could reach. I was still slick with her and she was still slick with both of us and neither of us cared.
She didn't let go.
The basement was dark. The candle had burned low, a stub of wax in a puddle of liquid, the flame guttering. The moth was gone. The only light was the candle and a faint blue glow from my back where the Falna script was lit up, dim and steady, the hieroglyphs pulsing through the dark.
The Falna was glowing.
It had never done that before. The warmth was there, the usual residual heat from a recent update, but the glow was new. Blue light, pulsing faintly, casting her face in cool light where she was pressed against my chest.
She noticed. Her hand traced one of the glowing lines on my back, her finger following a hieroglyph, and her eyes went wide.
"Bell." Her voice was hoarse. "Your Falna."
"I see it."
"That's- that shouldn't- the excelia from-" She pressed her face into my chest. "Oh."
Liaris Freese. Feeding on the strongest emotion it had ever tasted. The Falna couldn't contain the excelia quietly.
She pulled back. Looked up at me. Her blue eyes were lit by the glow from my back, and she was smiling, and she was crying, and both were happening at the same time and she didn't seem to care.
"I've wanted to do that since the first night," she whispered. "Since you came home covered in blood and drank bad tea and didn't ask why I was staring."
I put my hand on the back of her head. Her hair was tangled and damp and softer than anything. She pressed into my palm.
"Stay," she said. "Don't move. Just stay."
I stayed.
The Falna glowed and the candle guttered and she held on and I held on and the church basement was warm and dark and quiet.