Ch.,24
Her hands had been on my back for ten minutes before they stopped being professional.
The falna update was routine by now. Face down on the couch, shirt off, the church basement dim with the single candle Hestia always lit for these. Her finger pricked, a drop of divine blood on the hieroglyphs, and the script lit up blue-white across my back while she read what the numbers said. I'd been staring at the same crack in the cushion seam for the duration and thinking about Ais's training earlier and whether my Level 2 footwork was getting sharper or whether I was just faster.
"Strength H-188," Hestia said. Her finger traced the glyph. "Endurance H-162. Dexterity G-201. Agility G-244. Magic H-155."
Five days at Level 2. Those numbers should have taken months. Liaris Freese didn't care about should.
"That's fast," I said into the cushion.
"That's insane." Her finger moved to the Agility glyph again. Traced it. Traced it again. "G-244 in five days. Bell, adventurers take a year to reach G-rank in a single stat. You're there in four of them."
"Five."
"Four. Magic is lagging." She pressed her thumb into the Agility glyph harder than the update required and her hand slid off the script and onto the bare skin beside it. Her palm rested on the muscle between my spine and my shoulder blade. She didn't move it.
"...Hestia?"
"You're different."
"Different how?"
Her other hand came down. Both palms flat on my back, on either side of the falna, pressing into the muscle. Her fingers spread. The warmth of her small hands came through, and the slight tremble in them, and the pressure shifting as she tested what was under her palms.
"Harder." She pressed. Her thumbs dug into the muscle alongside my spine. "Your back is harder. The muscles are denser. And you're warmer. Your skin is warmer than it was at Level 1."
She was right. The Level 2 body wasn't dramatically different to look at, but under the surface everything had changed. The S-rank foundation from Level 1 was baked into the tissue, every stat that had capped at 999 now living permanently in the muscle and bone. I was the same weight and the same height but the body was rebuilt from the inside out, and her hands could feel it because her hands had been on this back twice a week for three weeks and she knew what it had felt like before.
Her palms slid down. Along my lower back, below the falna, toward the waistband of my pants. The update was done. The numbers were read. She wasn't reading anymore.
"Hestia."
"Mm."
"The update's done."
"I'm being thorough."
Her voice had gone breathy. The professional tone she used for falna readings was gone and what replaced it was softer, thinner, the same voice she'd used the last time we were on this couch without clothes.
I turned over.
She was kneeling beside the couch with both hands still on me, now on my stomach, and her blue eyes were wide and her lips were parted and the falna's fading glow lit her face from below. Her black hair was loose, no twin-tails tonight, falling past her shoulders and pooling on the cushion beside my hip. The white dress was rumpled from kneeling and the blue ribbon was tied but loose, and her cheeks were flushed pink and her ears were darker, red at the tips where they poked through her hair.
Her eyes dropped to my chest. To my stomach. Lower. The outline of my cock through my pants was visible and she stared at it before she realized she was staring and her face went redder.
"I wasn't- that's not what I was-"
"Hestia."
"The update required extended contact for accuracy and I was simply being diligent about-"
I put my hand on the back of her neck, under her hair, where the skin was warm and soft, and pulled her toward me and kissed her.
She made a sound against my mouth. Small, surprised, the kind she always made when I kissed her first, like some part of her brain was still catching up to the fact that this was what they did now. Her hands came up to my jaw and held my face and she kissed me back with her whole mouth, wet and warm and tasting like the tea she'd been drinking before the update. Her breathing went ragged through her nose, fast, and her fingers were gripping my jaw hard enough to leave marks.
I pulled her onto the couch. Onto me. She straddled my lap and the dress rode up her thighs and her weight settled on me and she was light, so light, her entire body probably weighed less than the Minotaur's sword. Her hands went to my shoulders and she pulled back from the kiss and looked down at me and her pupils were blown wide and her lips were wet and swollen.
"Lili is upstairs," she whispered.
"I know."
"We can't be loud."
"I know."
"The couch-"
I kissed her again. She melted into it. Her hips shifted on my lap, grinding down, and the heat between her legs pressed against my cock through two layers of fabric and she was already warm. Already wet enough that the heat came through the cloth. She ground against me and her breath caught and her fingers dug into my shoulders and I was hard under her, straining against my pants, and the pressure of her weight on me was making it worse.
I reached up and pulled the ribbon. It came undone with a single tug, the blue fabric sliding off her body and falling to the couch. She reached down and pulled the dress over her head in one motion, graceless, urgent, the fabric catching on her hair before she yanked it free. Naked underneath. She always was under the dress.
Her breasts were right there. Full, heavy for her tiny frame, the nipples hard from the basement's cool air, and her stomach was flat and her skin was flushed pink from her chest to her ears and she was kneeling on my lap in nothing and the candlelight caught the curve of everything.
"Stop staring," she said. Her voice was thin.
"No."
Her face went redder. Her hands came up halfway, the instinct to cover herself still fighting the part of her that wanted to be looked at. She dropped them. Let me look.
I flipped her.
She gasped. My Level 2 body moved her weight like she was made of paper. One hand on her hip, one on the small of her back, and she went from on top of me to on her back on the couch in a motion that was faster than I'd planned and stronger than either of us expected. Her eyes went wide and her back hit the cushion and she was looking up at me with her black hair fanned across the worn fabric and her mouth open and her legs spread around my hips.
"That was-" she started.
"Different?"
"Yeah." Her voice was breathy and small. "That was different."
I undid my pants. She watched. Her blue eyes tracked my hands and then dropped to my cock when it came free and her tongue touched her lower lip and she shifted her hips up toward me, a movement she didn't seem aware of making.
I settled between her legs. The couch was narrow and the basement was cold and her skin was warm where it pressed against mine. I reached down and ran two fingers along her pussy. She flinched at the first touch. Wet. Already wet, just from the falna update and the kiss and being flipped. The slickness coated my fingers immediately and the heat of it was startling in the cool basement air.
I slid one finger inside her. Slow.
"'Nn-'"
Her hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes darted toward the ceiling.
I worked the finger. Slow circles inside her, curling up toward the spot I'd mapped in our last two times. Her walls clenched around my finger, tight, and the slick sound of the movement was loud in the quiet room. Her hips rocked against my hand and her eyes squeezed shut and her stomach flexed visibly with each circle.
A second finger. She bit down on her palm. The stretch made her thighs tighten around my wrist and her back lift off the cushion. I curled both fingers and pressed and her whole body arched.
"'Ah- Bell- nn- right there- please-'"
The words leaked past her fingers, muffled but audible. Her free hand grabbed the cushion edge and her knuckles went white. She was clenching around my fingers in pulses now, her wetness building with each one, and the sound of my hand working her was obscene in the silence. A wet, rhythmic noise that filled the basement.
Her face was red. She knew exactly how loud it sounded. Her hand pressed harder against her mouth.
I pulled my fingers out. She whined behind her palm, her hips chasing, and the string of wetness between my fingers and her pussy caught the candlelight before it broke. I wiped my hand on my thigh and lined up.
Her eyes opened. Fixed on where the head of my cock pressed against her. Slick from both of us. The heat of her against the tip.
"'Do it.'" Behind her hand. Muffled but clear.
I pushed in.
The entry was slow. She was tight, tighter than the last time, days of distance compressed into the stretch of her body opening around me. Her pussy stretched around me and the wet heat gripped the first inch and then the second and the friction was a slow burning drag that made my cock throb. Her mouth opened behind her palm and her eyes went unfocused as I sank deeper.
"'Oh- oh god-'"
Deeper. Past the point where she tensed. Past the point where her stomach flexed and her breath caught. All the way in, bottomed out, the head pressing against her deepest point and her whole body going rigid at the depth.
"Okay?"
"'Mm-hm.'" Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her breathing was fast through her nose, shallow, controlled. "'Move. Please.'"
I pulled back and thrust in.
The sound she made was too loud. We both froze. Her eyes flew open and she pressed her palm harder against her mouth and looked toward the ceiling, toward the stairs, toward Lili. We waited. The basement was quiet. The candle guttered once. No footsteps above.
I thrust again. Slower. She clamped her hand down and the sound came out muffled this time, a stifled "'nnn-'" that vibrated against her palm and made her ears go darker. Her hips lifted to meet me.
I found a pace. Slow and deep because anything faster would make the couch creak and anything harder would break through her hand. Long strokes that bottomed out on every push, the head hitting the back of her on each one, and the withdrawal dragging along her walls with enough friction to make her whole body clench. Her free hand was on my back, her nails pressing crescents into my skin. Her legs wrapped around my waist and locked at the ankles and pulled me into her on every stroke.
The quietness made every sound enormous. The wet slide of each thrust, louder now than at the start because she was getting wetter, each stroke slicker, easier, the friction giving way to heat and glide. The tiny stifled sounds leaking past her fingers. The creak of the couch that came with each push. Her breathing, fast through her nose, matching my pace. My own breathing, harder than I wanted it to be.
She was looking up at me. Her blue eyes open and glassy, cheeks flushed, tears forming at the corners from the effort of staying silent. Her hand clamped so hard over her mouth that her knuckles were white and her fingers were leaving marks on her own cheek. Her black hair was spread across the cushion and stuck to her neck where sweat was forming and she was so small under me that my body covered hers entirely.
I leaned down and kissed her forehead. Her eyes crinkled and a sound came out from behind her hand that was half sob and half moan and her legs pulled me deeper and the angle changed.
The change hit us both. Deeper at this angle. My weight pressing down on her, her breath compressed under me, the thrust grinding against her front wall instead of just hitting deep. Her eyes went wide.
"'There- right- nn- there-'" Behind her hand. Her hips were rocking up to meet each thrust, chasing the angle, and the wet sounds were getting louder and she knew it and her face was burning.
I put my mouth against her ear. "You're so wet."
"'Don't- don't say that- nn-'"
She clenched around me when I said it. Hard. Her whole pussy gripped and the sensation made my cock pulse and my hips snap forward with more force than I'd planned and the thrust made the couch creak and her sound leaked loud past her palm and she slapped her hand over her mouth with both hands this time, abandoning the cushion, both palms pressed flat over her lips.
The slow rhythm broke. I went faster and couldn't make myself stop. The couch creaked louder. Her stifled sounds got higher, "'nn- nn- ah- nn-'" muffled behind both palms with every push, matching the rhythm, and the wet slap of skin was audible now, the slick noise of every thrust filling the basement.
My cock ached. The tightness, the heat, the clenching, the sight of her face losing composure. I gripped her hip with my right hand. The Level 2 grip. Stronger than before, the fingers pressing into her soft skin, dimpling the flesh where I held her. She felt the difference. Her eyes went wider and a sound came out from behind her hands that neither of us could identify.
"'Bell- Bell I'm- nn-'"
Her walls were fluttering around me. Clenching in pulses that were getting tighter and faster. Her stomach was flexed hard and her toes were curled against my lower back and her whole body was winding tight.
Her left hand moved. From her mouth to the back of my neck. Fingers in my hair at the nape. Gripping.
There it was. Her hand in my hair at the nape. She did it every time and she didn't know she did it and that was how I knew she was close.
"You're close."
Her eyes met mine. Wide. Wet. The blue almost invisible behind dilated pupils. She didn't deny it. Her right hand was still clamped over her mouth, the only barrier left, and the sounds leaking past it were continuous now, "'ah- ah- ah-'" on every thrust, the rhythm of her voice matching the rhythm of my hips.
I thrust deep and held. Ground against her. The pressure at the depth made her back arch off the couch and her head tipped back and the tendons in her neck stood out. I ground harder. Pressing the head of my cock against the spot inside her that made her lose words. Her hand clamped down over her mouth with everything she had.
Her body locked. The orgasm came hard and compressed, held in by both hands and her clenched jaw, her pussy clenching around me in waves that squeezed tight enough to hurt. Her teeth sank into the meat of her own hand, right between the thumb and forefinger, biting hard enough to leave marks. Her hips stuttered against mine. Her legs shook around my waist. Her stomach went rigid and her back arched so far off the couch that only her shoulders and her head were still on the cushion.
A muffled "'mmph-'" that barely made it past her teeth and her palm, tiny and broken.
She held there. Suspended. Eyes squeezed shut, jaw locked on her hand, every muscle in her small body contracted around me. The flush spread across her chest in blotches. The tears spilled from the corners of her eyes and ran sideways into her hair. Her pussy clenched in waves, tighter, looser, tighter, each one gripping my cock hard enough that I stopped breathing.
My edge came. The clenching, the heat, her body trembling under me, the sight of her biting her own hand with tears running into her hair. I buried myself deep and came inside her with a thrust that ground her into the couch cushion. The heat of it flooded through me and she whimpered behind her palm and her body clenched once more, a final hard wave, and then she went limp.
I dropped my weight onto my forearms. My forehead against her shoulder. Her hand came off her mouth and found the back of my head, fingers threading into my hair, pressing me against her neck. Her breathing was ragged against my ear. Her heartbeat hammered through her chest into mine. Her body was still clenching around me in fading pulses, small twitches.
We stayed there. The couch was too narrow and my legs were half off the edge and the basement air was cold on my back where sweat was cooling and the candle had burned down to a stub and neither of us moved. Her skin was hot everywhere we touched and cool everywhere we didn't. She smelled like sweat and the soap she used and the faint metal smell the falna always left behind.
The falna pulsed. Once. Blue-white, bright enough to throw shadows on the wall, then fading. Excelia registering. The loop closing.
Her laugh was small and breathless against my ear.
"Your numbers are going to be insane tomorrow."
I lifted my head. She was lying there with her hair everywhere and her eyes glassy and her right hand red where she'd bitten it, teeth marks visible in the skin between her thumb and forefinger. Two angry crescents, deep enough that they'd still be there in the morning. She was smiling. The tired, wrecked, satisfied smile of a woman who'd just come while trying not to wake the roommate and mostly succeeded.
I took her hand. Turned it. Looked at the bite marks.
"Missed me," I said.
She blinked. Then she blushed, the pink flooding back into cheeks that hadn't finished being red from the first time, and she snatched her hand back.
"I wasn't- that's not- I bit myself because I couldn't-" She stopped. Covered her face with both hands. "Stop looking at me."
"So are you," I said.
She spread her fingers just enough to peek through with one eye. "What?"
"You said my numbers are insane. So are you."
The peek turned into a stare. Her hands came down from her face, slowly, and she looked up at me with her blue eyes wet and warm and her bitten hand pressed against her chest and the bite marks red against her pale skin.
"Bell."
"Yeah?"
"Stay."
I lowered myself back down. She pulled my head against her neck and her fingers moved slow through my hair and the falna dimmed and the candle guttered and upstairs, Lili's cot didn't creak.