Ch.18
Hestia's finger stopped moving on my back.
I was face-down on the couch, shirt off, the Falna warm under her touch. She was in her usual position, knees on either side of my hips, her weight settled on my lower back. The candle on the side table had burned down to a stub. Across the room, Lili's cot creaked once as she turned over in her sleep.
Hestia had been tracing for a while. Longer than usual. Her breathing had gone uneven partway through, and now her finger had stopped entirely.
"Bell."
"Yeah?"
"Your Agility is S-982."
I didn't move.
"Your Strength is S-901. Endurance S-877. Dexterity S-934. Magic A-812."
She read the numbers in the flat, careful voice she used when the Falna was telling her things she didn't want to believe. But this time the flatness was cracking. It was in how she said the letters. S. S. S. S. A.
"That's..." She put both palms flat on my back. "Bell, you've been adventuring for five weeks."
"I know."
"No adventurer in Orario's history has reached S-rank at Level 1 in five weeks. The previous record was Ais Wallenstein and she took a year." Her palms pressed harder. Her thighs tightened against my sides. "This isn't Liaris Freese alone. The skill accelerates growth, but it accelerates based on emotional intensity. These numbers..." She trailed off.
I rolled over under her.
She was sitting on my hips, her hands now on my chest, her blue eyes wide, her black hair tangled from the evening. The blue ribbon was loose. The white dress had ridden up from straddling me and her bare thighs were pressed against my sides, warm against the cool air of the basement.
"Something else is happening," she said. Her voice was quiet. Her cheeks had color in them and she wasn't meeting my eyes. "The biggest spike in your growth happened after..." She stopped. Bit her lower lip.
After our first night. She didn't say it. She didn't have to.
"Want to test the theory?"
Her eyes came to mine. Wide. Blue. The flush deepened from her cheeks down her neck. Her mouth opened and closed. Her fingers curled against my chest, nails pressing into skin. She was sitting on me and I was shirtless and her weight was on my hips and she'd been reading numbers that proved what we both already knew, and I was getting hard under her and there was no way she couldn't feel it through the thin fabric of her dress.
Her hips shifted. A tiny motion. She ground down against the hardness under her. Her breath caught. Her eyes widened at what she felt and she looked away, flush spreading to her ears.
Then she grabbed my jaw with both hands and pulled my face up and kissed me.
It was clumsy and hard and her teeth caught my lower lip and she made a frustrated sound against my mouth because the angle was wrong from above and she adjusted, tilted her head, and her lips found the right position and she kissed me like she'd been thinking about this for a week and had run out of reasons to wait.
I let her lead.
Her hands went from my jaw to my shoulders, gripping, pulling herself down against me. Her hips shifted on mine and she could feel me fully hard now, pressing up against her through the dress, and a sound came out of her, a small strangled "mm" in the back of her throat that she tried to swallow. She ground down against it. Her dress was bunched around her waist and her bare thighs squeezed my sides. She was kissing me with a desperation that was all Hestia. No technique. All want.
She pulled back. Breathing hard through her mouth now, short pulls of air. Her lips were red and wet and her eyes were glazed and her hands were shaking on my shoulders.
She reached down and grabbed the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head.
It caught on her arms and she yanked it free and tossed it off the couch without looking. The blue ribbon tangled and she grabbed it and ripped it loose, the ornaments clinking on the stone floor. She was bare. Her skin flushed from her chest to her navel in the candlelight, her breasts full and heavy for her small frame, nipples hard from the cool air of the basement.
She looked down at me looking at her. Her flush went darker. She crossed her arms over her chest, then uncrossed them. Her hands didn't know where to go.
"Don't stare."
"You're on top of me naked. I'm going to stare."
"Bell-"
I put my hands on her waist. Her skin was warm under my palms, warmer than the basement air, and she flinched at the temperature difference. My hands were cool from the stone floor. She inhaled sharply when my thumbs traced the curve of her hips, following the line where her waist met her thighs.
"You're beautiful," I said.
Her mouth clamped shut. Her eyes went glassy and she pressed her palms flat on my chest and pushed me down when I tried to sit up.
"Stay." One word. The same word I'd given Lili. "Stay there."
I stayed.
She reached between us. Her hand found my waistband and pulled, and I lifted my hips to help and she tugged my pants down with small, urgent hands. My cock came free, hard, and she looked at it. Her grip was firmer than last time when her fingers wrapped around the base. She squeezed once, watching my face, and her bottom lip went between her teeth when she saw my jaw tighten.
She rose up on her knees. Positioned herself over me. The head of my cock pressed against her and she was already wet, slick enough that the contact made a soft sound in the quiet room. She paused there. Her thighs trembling. Her breath held.
She sank down.
Slowly. Her eyes closed and her mouth fell open and the sound she made was barely audible, a thin exhale through parted lips. She was tight, the stretch visible in how her brow creased, and she took me inch by inch with her hands braced on my chest. The first inch had resistance. The second less. Then her body opened around me and the wet heat enclosed me in a slow slide that made my fingers dig into her hips.
She bottomed out. Sat there. Full.
"'Okay,'" she breathed. Her eyes were still closed. "'Okay.'"
She opened her eyes. Looked down at me. Her face was flushed and her mouth was slightly open and she was breathing through her mouth in shallow pulls. She was adjusting to the fullness, her inner muscles clenching and relaxing in pulses around me.
She moved.
Her hips rolled. Forward and back, a grinding arc that dragged her clit against me on every pass. Slow. Deliberate. She'd learned this. Last time she'd bounced and lost the angle. This time the motion was a rolling grind that kept me deep inside and put pressure exactly where she wanted it.
"'Ah-'"
The sound escaped before she caught it. Her jaw clamped. Her eyes darted toward Lili's cot across the room. In the dark, Lili's blanket was a still shape. Hestia's throat worked as she swallowed.
She rolled again. Harder. The wet sound of the grind was audible in the quiet basement and her face went red. The slick, soft noise of her pussy sliding against me on every pass.
I gripped her hips. My thumbs pressed into the soft hollow below her hip bones. She was small enough that my fingers nearly met on her back. I pulled her forward on the next grind and her breath hitched and her eyes squeezed shut and she went faster.
"You're so wet," I said.
Her whole body flushed. Down her neck, across her chest, the color visible in the candlelight. She tried to glare at me. "'Don't- don't say th- ah-'" The sound cut through whatever she was going to say.
"'Ah- ah-'"
She was trying to keep quiet. Her jaw was tight between the sounds and her lips pressed together and she kept catching herself being loud and clamping down. Then the next roll of her hips would force another sound out of her and the cycle would restart. Lili was across the room. Lili was asleep. Hestia knew this and was trying to stay quiet and failing because her body was ahead of her composure.
Her hair fell forward. Black, tangled, it curtained around both our faces and the world shrank to the space between us. Her forehead was close to mine and her eyes were half-open, dark, the blue barely visible behind dilated pupils. Her breath was on my mouth. Hot. Faster now, matching the rhythm of her hips.
She leaned forward. The angle changed. She was grinding along the full length of me now, her body pressed close, her breasts sliding against my chest with the thin layer of sweat forming between us. The motion was tighter. Each roll took me deep and dragged her clit against me and the wet sounds got louder and she couldn't stop them.
"'Nn- nn- ah-'"
The sounds were coming on every grind now. She'd given up on catching them. "'Ah- ah- ah-'" Each one matched the rhythm of her hips, and between them the wet noise of her pussy was filling the quiet basement. The couch cushion creaked under us on every stroke.
Her face was wrecked. Mouth open, brow creased. Eyes unfocused. She was trying to hold onto the rhythm she'd set but her hips were speeding up without permission, chasing the pressure, and her breathing was ragged and loud.
"Look at me," I said.
She opened her eyes. Met mine. Her bottom lip trembled. Her eyes were wet at the corners. She was looking at me while she rode my cock and the eye contact made her aware of every sound she was making, every motion, her own face.
"'Bell- I can't- she'll hear-'"
"Let me hear you."
"'I'm- ah- I'm trying to- nn-'"
I sat up. Pulled her against me, chest to chest. She made a surprised sound and her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms went around my neck and she was clinging to me, pressed against me everywhere. The position change drove me deeper. She gasped. Her nails bit into my shoulders.
My hands gripped her hips. I thrust up into her.
Her face buried itself in my shoulder. The sound she made vibrated against my skin, muffled by my collarbone, hot breath and broken noise. The rhythm changed. She was grinding down as I pushed up. The friction was devastating from this angle. Her pussy was clenching around me on every downstroke in pulses that went through my spine and my grip on her hips tightened and I pulled her down harder.
Her sounds were getting louder even through my shoulder. Small and strangled and bitten off against my skin. Each thrust drew one out of her that she tried to catch and couldn't.
"'Ah- ah- Bell-'"
I thrust harder. Her grip on my neck went tight. Her hips lost their rhythm. The grinding went erratic, desperate, her body chasing the edge. Her thighs trembled around my waist. The sweat between us made her slide against my chest on every motion. Her breathing was gone, replaced by short gasps that were getting louder.
"'I'm- I'm going to- Bell please- ah-'"
Her left hand moved. From my shoulder to the back of my neck. Her fingers found the hair at my nape and gripped. Tight. She pulled herself against me and her hips ground down in a desperate arc. The clenching around me went rhythmic and fast, her whole body tightening.
I gripped her hips. Pulled her down as I thrust up. Hard.
She came.
Her teeth sank into my collarbone. The sound that came out of her was muffled by the bite but not enough, cracking in the middle, my name somewhere in it, broken across two syllables and a noise that wasn't a word. Her body seized. Her pussy clenched around me in waves that were tight enough that I couldn't move, just held inside her while she shook. Her arms locked around my neck. Her legs locked around my waist. Her fingers in my hair pulled hard enough to hurt and her teeth were in my collarbone and her hips were still moving, grinding through the orgasm in small involuntary arcs. My own edge hit. The clenching around me, the heat, the pressure of her entire body locked against mine. I came inside her with her teeth on my collarbone and her body seizing around me and the hot pulse of it between us.
She twitched. Twice. Three times. Small involuntary contractions, her body aftershocking against mine. Her teeth let go of my collarbone. She licked the mark she'd left and her tongue was hot.
We sat there.
Breathing. Her forehead against my shoulder, her arms still around my neck, her body still twitching. My arms around her waist. The room was dark. The candle had burned out at some point and the only light was the blue-white glow from the Falna on my back, brighter than before, pulsing gently with a rhythm that matched my heartbeat.
Her body was radiating heat. Where our skin pressed together was slick with sweat. Between her thighs, where we were still connected, the wet warmth of both of us, the cum and the slick. Her breathing was ragged, slowing. The first full breath she took expanded her ribs against my chest.
Across the room, Lili's cot was silent. Whether she was asleep or not was a question I wasn't going to answer right now.
Hestia lifted her head from my shoulder. Her eyes were unfocused and her hair was stuck to her face with sweat and there were tears at the corners of her eyes and a red mark on her lower lip where she'd bitten it.
"The theory," she said. Her voice was wrecked. "I think it's confirmed."
I looked at my shoulder. Her teeth had left a crescent of indentations on my collarbone, deeper than last time, already darkening. Right where my shirt collar sat.
"Your data collection methods are very thorough."
She punched my arm. Weakly. Then she leaned into my chest and her body relaxed against me and she was warm and small and still connected to me and the Falna on my back was glowing and we sat in the dark together.
Her fingers traced idle patterns on the back of my neck. Slow. The same spot where she'd gripped.
"Bell?"
"Yeah?"
"That's not why I want to do it. The stats. That's not why."
"I know."
She pressed her face harder into my chest. Her arms tightened around my waist. The Falna glowed softly on my back, pulsing in the dark.
I held on back.