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Sex with a new lover is always unpredictable.
For more than an hour Marian chased her release. Her nakedness perfumed in the musk of passion. Every fiber thrumming beneath the newness of Fenris' touch. All of his teasing and toying. Her chest whirs with the hum of anticipation. Each time, each and every time, she came so close.
So close. So very close.
She shivers out a moan but Fenris backs off.
She begs, welcoming him to enter her. He looks down at her, head tilting to the side, measuring what he should do next.
The pad of his thumb presses into her clit. Her hips jerk, backside clenching, moving up to meet his touch. He rubs circles in a ruthless rhythm until all of her is as taut as a bow string, his cock laying hot and hard against her thigh. She angles to encourage his entry. He hesitates before shifting his weight. When he thrusts into her all at once, her breath explodes.
Despite Fenris' lean, elven body, he feels huge inside her. She grinds her pelvis into him, keeping all his length within her.
This time, sweet Maker, this time she needs to come. She needs the release that sends her beyond this liminal state that stretches on from the earliest moment of arousal to the promise of limp-bodied bliss after climax ends it all. Time measured as an elongation of being alive, the tightrope tension of during, of dancing on the edge.
This time Marian is close. So close. So very close.
She all but chokes as she gasps on her next breath. The firm press of Fenris' muscular flesh. The heat of his body pressing into her. The furious slap of skin against skin, forcing out her breath until she shouts. That is when he stops.
He shifts his weight, staring down at her as the tension rings in her nerves.
This is her first time with Fenris so they lack the routines of familiar lovers. Every touch surprises her. The flick of his tongue in the wetness between her legs. The scrape of his teeth on her inner thigh. The firm press of his fingers gripping her buttocks, turning her over, lifting her hips until she's on her hands and knees. The hard press of him inside her. Her escalating moans. And then the unexpected emptiness when he suddenly pulls out. Suddenly stops.
Everything between them has reduced to a language of physical syntax and grammar. Throughout the evening his hands have positioned her, his knees open and close her legs, his lips and his tongue draw trails along the length of her body. Always him giving the commands. Never her.
Her face is buried in her pillow, blinding her to all but the sensation of heat and touch. She reaches for him, fingers glancing off firm muscle before his shaft burns fire against her palm. She curls her fingers around his cock but he pushes her hand away. Again.
Her hand drops to the mattress and he grabs her hips. She angles up to meet him, but his shaft slides against her, marking a hot trail against her swollen clit. The weight of his chest presses down on her back. He mounts her like a mating dog and bites at the side of her neck. She is close to the point of pain, and then he slides back, off her. Again.
Marian looks out from under her arm and sees him sitting on his heels near the foot of her bed.
She rolls onto her back, onto bedsheets soaked with sweat and her juices and Fenris' saliva. Everything bathed in his scent. She reaches a hand out to him, beckoning. She wants nothing else but his weight on top of her, him groaning, and all of his breath escaping in a rush when he comes.
She needs this, but again he pushes her hand away as he crawls over her body. Not once has he let her touch him. Not once has he allowed her the delight of watching him receive pleasure.
Placing his knee between her thighs, he coaxes her legs to spread wide for him. He hovers over her, propped with his hands on either side of her head, hot breath puffing against her face.
His first thrust presses off-center. Marian reaches to aim him, strokes him once to feel the slickness and heat of his cock before pressing him into her entrance.
"No," he knocks her hand away. But before she can protest, he is completely inside her. This time, he lets out an audible sigh.
No more teasing. No more sucking at her nipples until her skin pebbles in pain. Fenris is braced above her, hips working a steady rhythm that she greedily matches. A drip of sweat falls from the tip of his nose and rolls down the side of her cheek. His breath huffs, hot and close, until suddenly catching. She grasps his upper arm, feeling his muscles burn as they flex. A growl grows in the back of his throat. His eyelids lower. Finally, he's letting go.
She moves with him, rhythm quickening. His body slaps into her pelvis hard enough that he might leave a bruise. She feels him coming close. Quick, desperate grunts spill from his lips.
She wraps her legs around his hips, gripping and grinding, breath held fast in her chest, voiced in staccato shouts.
So close. They are both so close.
She grabs his back, his muscles feel sculpted from rock.
They're so close. So close. The fullness of him, the quick grinding bringing her to the sense of almost bursting. Her breath catching over and over at the edge of the same high pitched note. Oh, so close.
Her legs bind against him, ankles locking against his back. On the next thrust his cock thickens at its base, so tight, both of them hanging at the edge of orgasm, right there, right then. One more grinding thrust as she holds her breath, her head an overfull balloon wanting to burst. Her hands tingle ever so slightly with a hint of icy mana.
Fenris roars out his breath. His nostrils flare. His eyes open and narrow into something suddenly hateful.
He grabs her throat.
"If you get pregnant, I'll kill you." Mage.
His fingers dig into her neck, his heavy palm compressing her trachea.
In that moment, Marian thinks she is going to die.
.
Sex with a new lover is always unpredictable.
Marian has always taken precautions in the past. No matter what men might say to boost their pride, magic always scares them. She knew this. But she has known Fenris for three years. She knows who he is, and he has always been sweet to her, no matter what hateful words he may have said to others. Always sweet. Almost always. Often enough.
.
Marian feels each pulse of his cock as he empties into her.
She doesn't remember unhitching her legs from his waist but she must have. She lies flat on her back, limp against the surface of the mattress. One more pulse, one more grunt, and Fenris' nostrils flare. The whole time he stares off toward the far wall.
Finally he has finished. He pulls out. He turns away. His posture speaks of disgust. Tension ripples through the muscles in his shoulders. He pushes himself from the bed and takes four measured steps toward the fireplace.
What the void? But Marian doesn't utter a single sound.
She waits until he leans against the wall near the fireplace. He mops his brow with the back of his hand.
Marian forces herself to inhale and feels life creep back into her. Quiet as a mouse, she scoots herself upright, back against the headboard of her bed. She tugs at a blanket and pulls it over her chest, tucking the ends beneath her armpits, all the while avoiding touching her neck for fear of the bruises that are forming on it.
Humor has always defused tension between them in the past "Was it really that bad?" She cringes as she speaks. She sounds like a jerk.
"You mages are all alike," Fenris growls out his words. The light from the fireplace defines his taut musculature in sharp relief. The bands of lyrium curving over the bulk of his shoulders glow as his arms flex and his posture stiffens. He turns, moving like a cable winding on a crossbow. He faces her, his cock hanging heavily between his legs. She thinks she reads signs of pity in his eyes. She clutches the blanket against her chest.
"You know what you just said isn't true." Her words are a calculated risk.
"You all want the same thing — power — and you'll use any method to get it, no matter how insidious."
"That is not true."
"Didn't you just get what you want?" His muscles flex.
Marian doesn't understand. Fenris had initiated this. "That's not how I see things." Her words are cautious. "Let's try to work through this."
He raises his hand, finger shaking as he points at her. "Do not think you can ensnare me as Danarius did! I will not allow it."
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. Desire spoils everything," Fenris shouts, his lips curl into an ugly grimace.
He stands midway across the room, body coiled like a spring. Marian knows Fenris moves too quickly to be caught in a freezing spray of ice. His fist could smash through her flesh long before she pulls frost from the fade. Reason is her only option. Reason or humor. Both have worked in the past.
"Please calm yourself," she said, "Explain to me what you think we did for the last hour."
"As far as I'm concerned, we rutted," he spat. "Rutted like animals in heat. Nothing more."
Something inside her snapped. "Rutted? Is that what you think we've done? Next time, go pay for service at the Rose."
"You know I would never touch those whores," he growled. The beauty in Fenris' face disappears when he snarls, his features sharp like arrows tipped in poison.
"Why not? Go get you jollies from a professional. If you want nothing more than meaningless rutting, those ladies will take your coin."
"You cannot fathom what I want. You'll never understand. You cannot."
Marian is livid. "Why? Because I'm not squatting in a rain-soaked, roofless mansion? Because I make friends rather than set myself apart? Because I try to do something for the people of Kirkwall? Please, tell me why I cannot understand."
"You know nothing. You think mages are oppressed, but look at how you live. You have never known anything about oppression and the desperation it creates. And you can't. You never will. You'll always hold power over others, even if you are taken into the Circle."
Her hands ball into fists, shaking as she grips the blanket that covers her. "Kirkwall is not Tevinter."
He takes a heavy step toward her. "The mages in the Circle have watchers, yet you—" he jabs his finger in the air at her, "—you live freely, in luxury. You could become the most powerful mage in Hightown. How is that any different from a magister of the Imperium?"
"Are you saying that I need to be watched?"
"You will if you cannot master your own desire," he snaps.
"Is that was this is all about? Am I allowed no pleasure?"
"You will never understand." His words sound of gravel crushed under the heel of a boot.
"Yet you refuse yourself pleasure. You repeatedly deny the pleasure of my touch."
"I will never be made dependent on rewards of pleasure. Never! Never again."
Time froze. Rewound. Words from years prior replay in Marian's head. "Three years ago, you said that in me you had finally found a person of substance. Did you think you could buy protection through flattery and flirtation?"
His eyes grew wide. She's right.
"You once said that you grew fond of the fog warriors because they were free with their affections. You shared pleasures of the flesh with them, didn't you? At least, until Danarius told you to slaughter them" Her voice shakes. "Did you enjoy pleasuring Danarius? Did he ever pleasure you? How much did you enjoy his affections?"
"Shut your mouth!"
"Did you flatter Danarius? Did you flirt?"
"Stop!"
"Try as you might to compare me to Danarius, I am not your master."
The rage builds up in him all at once, blowing up into a sudden storm. He snatches a vase from the mantelpiece and cocks his arm, taking aim at her.
Marian braces, body rigid, face hardened into a mask of stone.
His arm jerks but when the vase hits it crashes into the side of her wardrobe. Smashed porcelain shards rain onto the tile floor.
Marian never flinches. Not even once.
Fenris looks away from her, his shoulders sagging as he stoops down to gather his clothes.
"All of this… It's… It's too much right now." His voice cracks. Anger runs out of him like dishwater dumped in an alley. "I remembered when… I don't know. I cannot do this."
He dresses in silence.
Still he avoids looking at her. "I cannot stay," he mumbles his words.
Marian remains silent as she watches him leave.