The knock on his office door should have been enough warning: she was the only one who knocked that way.

"Come in," Cullen said, and when she walked in, he felt his entire body tighten up. He'd always been aware of her physical presence, even well before this other, strange, silent relationship started. Now he was almost painfully aware of where she was all the time, and when it was just the two of them in a room he could not concentrate on anything else.

She had changed her clothes since the War Room meeting that morning: then she had been in the clothes she used for sparring practice, but now she wore her blue Inquisitor's tunic, which he thought always really complemented her coloring.

Who was he kidding. He thought everything made her look even more beautiful.

Usually she sauntered, her hips swinging freely. But as she moved across the floor of his office, he noticed there was something wrong with her: she took smaller steps and had a more pained expression.

Had he done that to her? He couldn't think of anything they'd done last night that would have hurt that badly.

"I received…a letter…from my agent…in the Western Approach." She was having trouble getting the words out. "I'll need…" She lost her train of thought after those words.

So did he, to be honest. She had trained him really, really well.

"I'll need to head back there soon," she said, the words tumbling out in a rush.

She could have sent him a note with that information. It was, after all, not his decision where she went on Inquisition business. She came all the way to his office for his reason.

"All right," he said. He leaned back in his chair and studied her. "Anything else you require?"

"Yes," she breathed.

He waited. She liked him to make her wait.

"Well, you had better lock the doors, hadn't you? Wouldn't want anyone to find you at the wrong time, now would we," he said.

She whimpered and sometimes he thought she did want someone to catch them fucking. Half the time when he was with her he was so out of his own mind he had no idea if someone had ever walked in on them or not. He knew there were rumors floating around, but there had been before the first time she'd ever come to him and surprised the hell out of him by dropping to her knees. And Maker knew every day he heard new and interesting rumors about her and half the army — all of them completely untrue, and yes, he knew that for a fact.

"Get a move on," he told her, pointing at the side door.

She moved with her stiff, jerky gait over to the door he'd pointed at, then slowly to the door that led back to the main keep through the Library Tower, and then to the last door on the side.

Watching her prepare the room was all it took to get him hard, he noticed. He picked up everything on his desk and stuffed it in the drawer. No use losing the day's work simply because the Inquisitor needed him to service her.

After she shot the third bolt, she leaned against the door. Whatever was making her walk strangely was making it difficult for her to breathe as well.

"Get over here," he ordered her.

She returned to his desk, moving with that uneven step. "When I was in…the Graves…with Bull…I asked him a couple of questions."

Oh, Maker, Cullen thought. He could just imagine the topics some of those conversations got into.

"About how he…you know…with Dorian." She stood between his knees and the drawers of his desk and she leaned back — then sprang up again, standing upright. "And I said, I don't think I'm built for that."

The first time the Inquisitor had asked him to do that to her, he had said I don't think that will work. What he had meant was: I don't want to do that to you. He knew plenty of couples who did it just fine — you couldn't live in close quarters with a bunch of randy twenty-year-old Templars and not know what they could get done if they really set their minds and cocks to the problem.

But she didn't like it when he said no. She was going to keep asking until she didn't give him any choice but to say yes.

Of course, he begged her over and over for one thing, and one thing only, and every time she said, No. Not yet. I can't handle that with you.

Yes, Maker forbid your lover actually say out loud he loves you.

"What did he tell you?" Cullen asked her. He reached out and stroked the inside of her thigh.

She braced herself against the edge of his desk with her arms. "He told me…there were…things you could use to get ready for it."

He bit his lip. That would explain why she was walking so strangely, he thought.

"Show me," he said.

The Inquisitor pushed down the sides of her loose fitting trousers — no wonder she'd changed clothes, he thought — and turned around.

Oh yes, she had definitely prepared herself, he thought. Some sort of highly polished artificial cock spread her back door wide, with the oils she'd used to ease it in making the entire area glossy and wet.

"Oh, I see," he said, drawing his finger down one of her perfectly rounded and firm arse cheeks.

Her hips thrust against the desk.

The backs of her thighs were still slightly irritated, he noticed, from when he used the strap on her. He let his finger slide through the oils and down the back of her leg. "Are you using the ointment I gave you?" he asked.

"Yes…yes," she said.

The first time he used the belt on her legs, she didn't. She said she liked the way it felt when her skin and her muscles hurt the next day. He could tell it would leave scars and he told her, "I won't do it again if you won't follow orders." The only way to get what he wanted, evidently. The only way to show her he cared at all about her was to order her to take care of herself.

He brought his finger back up between her legs, up to her vulva, which was incredibly wet. He rubbed her there, humming, as though he were just idly touching her, and her hips jerked uncontrollably back and forth as she pressed against him. Then he forced himself to drag his hand back to her arse, to what she was presenting him with there.

"You want this?" he said, running his hand up and down the smooth skin.

"Yes, please, ser," she begged.

He moved his hand back between her legs. "If I went here, imagine how full you'd feel. You'd be well and truly stuffed then, wouldn't you?"

"Please," she said.

Wait. Had she changed her mind about —

"Please don't," she said, sobbing.

No. Of course not. These interludes were never about what he wanted, were they.

"All right," he said, taking his hand out. "Get me nice and ready for you."

She stepped out of her trousers and scooted them back toward his chair for her to kneel on. Without a word, she reached up and undid the top of his trousers, pushing them down around his hips and letting his cock spring free. For a few seconds she just gazed at his cock, her hand grasping the base of it, and then she looked up at him. Waiting.

The way she looked up at him before she moved forward threatened to completely do him in.

"Get to work," he said.

She bent forward and began sucking his cock enthusiastically. Like it was all she ever wanted in her mouth. The combination of her tongue and her lips and the suction…

He was reminded of the day she'd come to his office and spent the entire day under his desk. All day long people had walked in and asked, Have you seen the Inquisitor around? No, he'd said, and that was the cue for her to take him into her mouth again. He lost track of how many times she brought him off that day.

He reached down and pulled on her hair to yank her head back. "You do that so well," he told her. "We'd better stop, or this is going to be over before we get to you. Stand up and turn around."

Her lips were puffy and covered with spit and she stood up and turned around.

She always did what he told her, because that was how it worked: she came to him and let him do anything she wanted him to. Except the one thing he wanted to do, which was hold her in his arms and tell her he loved her and make love to her the way he was pretty sure a man and woman were supposed to, at least most of the time. No, she wanted everything but that. That can wait, she told him. That can wait until this war is over.

One or both of them were going to be dead by the time this war was over, he thought.

Every time he told himself, I can't do this to her one more time, she came to him with another request, like the strap, or the time she stopped him before he left the War Room and sucked his cock as he leaned against the door, or even the time she'd let him tie her up in her bed. She let him tie her up, but if he moved on top of her to make love to her the way he wanted, she would have ended things between them right there and then. He knew that. So he'd spent hours teasing her, instead, with his mouth.

She leaned over the desk and he reached down to remove the object from her arse. It was thick and hard and covered with oils, but he still had to tug at the ring on the end to get it to come out. He dropped it on the ground, on her trousers.

"This might hurt," he said.

"I know," she told him.

He closed his eyes — why did she do this to him — and lined himself up with the opening. He grit his teeth and pushed in. The Inquisitor's intake of breath told him everything he needed to know about how it felt for her.

"I thought I was ready," she said. "You're much bigger than that thing is."

He stopped and waited for her to nod. When she did, he pushed in further until she made a noise, and then he waited for permission to continue. Until he was all the way in and he could feel her legs trembling underneath him. She was so tight around him, he thought he might die from the sensation. His own hand had never been this tight around his cock.

I don't want to do this you, he thought.

"Okay," she breathed.

He began to pull out, slowly, until she started to whine from the lack of him, and then he pushed in again. He put one hand over hers on the desk to steady himself and reached the other around to her front, pushing his middle finger between her folds.

She tossed her head and gasped as he began fucking her harder and harder. "Please," she begged.

Please? Please what? What the hell else did she want from him? he thought as he pumped into her, over and over.

Her climax took her suddenly and it took her hard and he felt her clench around his cock like a vise. Only when she had crested did he let himself come inside of her, feeling like he was losing himself at the same time he was climaxing harder than he had in his entire life.

It was the first time he'd come inside of her, he thought. Except for her mouth. Usually it was her mouth. The time he'd tied her up and teased her hours with his mouth, she begged him to come on her tits. One memorable evening, she used her hand and then bent forward to catch him on her hair.

I'm not fucking anyone else, she had told him. I just…can't do that. What you want. Not yet.

I know, he said.

He took out his handkerchief and wedged it between her arse cheeks to keep his seed from spilling out. "Get yourself cleaned up," he told her.

What were the laundresses going to think when the handkerchief with the distinctive CR initials ended up in the Inquisitor's laundry? He didn't even want to think about it.

He kicked the thing on the ground. "Don't forget this," he said.

She kissed him before she left. She always did.

~ O ~

He laid his head down on his desk and felt the cool wood on his skin. He couldn't move. He had no idea how long he sat there, unable to move.

No more work was getting done today, that was for certain. The only thing for him to do now was get a hold of himself.

Cullen went to his loft, stripped and washed himself off. He didn't want to wear those clothes now. If clothes made the man, what did what he was wearing when she came in make him? Not that he had that many changes of clothes to choose from — everything he owned he now associated with one of the Inquisitor's requests.

At the Herald's Rest he took a table in the dark corner, away from the singing and the drinking and the raucous laughter. He wanted to be alone, but when he was holed up in his office his thoughts got too dark.

Cabot sent over his usual dinner of mutton stew, half a loaf of rye bread, and a tankard of ale. The serving girl delivered them with a smile and the kind of wink he'd finally — finally — realized meant she was willing to meet him in the dark corner behind the tavern.

There wasn't a chance of that happening. Even if he'd had the slightest interest in her, after that afternoon in his office he was physically too spent to do anything about it.

Of course, as he looked at her he found himself wondering: I wonder if she likes being spanked?

Before the Inquisitor taught him to spank her, hard, and showed him how it brought her off, hard, he never laid a hand on a woman in his life except in self-defense. Oh, perfect: now he was doomed to picture every woman he talked to bent over, crying, and needy, with his handprints on their skin.

"A large glass of water as well, if you please," he said. Early on the Inquisitor's games taught him he had better replenish his fluids frequently. He had no idea when she was going to request his presence next.

The large glass of water arrived and he muttered a quick thanks rather than make eye contact again. If the server told everyone about how she'd had to deal with the grouchy, unapproachable Commander who thought he was too good for the likes of her, he was fine with that.

The idea made him smile. How much of his life had he spent pathetically tongue-tied around women, completely unsure how to approach them? And now he wanted them to stay away. Well, all except the one who kept coming to him. And what she asked him to do to her was beginning to kill him inside.

He drained the glass of water in one swallow before the server had even left the table. He pushed it toward her and requested another.

Maybe he should suggest to the Inquisitor she get someone else to help her out from time to time. No, he'd have to order her to do it. Blackwall could probably fit the bill — Cullen's stomach clenched at the thought of anyone else touching her body, even as he felt sick at the idea of going along with another one of her scenarios. And to be honest, he had no idea how the Inquisitor might react to his suggestion. Maybe if he told her to go fuck Blackwall, the next night it would be the three of them in her room, and she'd ask him to do to the Warden what he'd been doing to her.

He'd hate her for it.

But he'd do it.

"She comes to you because she trusts you," said a voice from over his shoulder.

Oh no. He couldn't deal with the spirit boy. Not tonight. Not with the mood he was in.

"Go away, Cole," he said, his teeth clenched.

"She asks you to do those things because you shine so brightly for her. Well, that's how she says it to herself."

"Cole, don't tell me what's going through anyone else's mind. It's not… polite."

"You have to know," Cole said. "She doesn't want anyone else. Only you."

He snorted. "Lucky me."

"She asks you to do those things because it makes her feel free."

Free. That was not a word he would apply to how this sick, secret relationship made him feel.

"It's not sick, don't think that," Cole said.

"Leave me alone," he demanded.

"She doesn't let you do the thing you want because she's afraid of what it would mean."

He closed his eyes. The one thing he wanted — the only thing he wanted — was to make love to her gently, while telling her how much he adored her.

The only thing she refused him was her quim. Except with his mouth. He could have her any way possible, except the one he was desperate for.

Her quim, and him telling her how much he loved her.

"She doesn't know how to handle it either."

He leaned across the table to the boy in the floppy hat. "If you happen to whisper in her ear, be sure to tell her he's confused as to how else he's supposed to treat her. If she wants anything else, she should probably mention that soon."

Cole bowed his head. And then he was gone.

The serving girl came by with another glass of water for him and delivered with a rather haughty look. He couldn't have asked for a clearer antithesis to the Inquisitor: this woman was petite, long blonde hair, with generous breasts and a wide mouth. Her mouth pursed in a moue, clearly indicating she didn't think much of his manners.

Still, the glances she gave him made it clear she'd fuck him in a heartbeat, though.

Would it turn the Inquisitor on to know he'd fucked another woman behind the tavern? he wondered.

He didn't really fancy losing his virginity while standing up in the mud outside the Herald's Rest. He startled himself and the couple at the next table by laughing out loud. Laughing at his stupid, antiquated notions about sex and virginity and the rest of it. He'd fucked the Inquisitor in the arse today until she'd screamed and writhed underneath him and still he wondered how sex was supposed to feel with someone he cared about. Because what they did together didn't feel particularly freeing to him. It made him feel more helpless and more bound to her.

He glanced at the server as she dealt with another table. How would the Inquisitor react to knowing he'd had another woman? Especially without her permission?

It ought to make her mad.

Instead, she'd probably start to climax as he described it. He could actually picture her face as he whispered the words.

He could make up a story — except no, he couldn't: making up stories was what Varric did. And the extent of his sexual experience so far was a few kisses years ago and everything he'd done with the Inquisitor over the past few months. He was sure she'd had plenty of details about how ridiculously celibate the ex-Templar had been. She'd know in a heartbeat if he was just making something up.

He smiled to himself. Beyond whether or not he claimed something was true, the rumor mill around Skyhold would confirm the story overnight. Word would spread quickly if the Commander had started taking advantage of the opportunities women around Skyhold offered him.

If he did that, it would probably surprise more than a few people, frankly. But he only cared about the reaction one of them might have.

The serving girl wiped off the table next to his, thrusting out her behind toward him, every so often glancing over her shoulder.

How would the Inquisitor react? Anger? Would she break things off between them because she hadn't given him permission?

Well, she didn't give him permission to do very many things.

Perhaps she might worry she was on the verge of losing her favorite toy. And maybe, just maybe, that might push her into allowing him to have a say in what the two of them had together. Instead of leaving him at her mercy all the time.

His greatest fear was that she would end it all between them. He would never touch her again, he would never tell her he loved her, he would never hear her say anything like that to him. But maybe…maybe if she walked away from him, that was for the best.

And maybe she wouldn't.

He knew it was cruel, but, Maker, the idea of her being desperate for his attention the way he was for her did something to him. Maker, the very idea of it was making him half hard. He thought it would take his body a day to recover from what he'd done in his office that afternoon, and already his cock was ready for another round.

"Is there anything else you want, ser?" the serving girl asked. With that wide mouth of hers. Did different women suck cock in different ways? he wondered.

It would drive the Inquisitor crazy to know he'd had someone else. Especially when she would leave for the Western Approach in a few days and be gone for two weeks.

A scant fortnight apart. When they'd already been engaged in this crazy, unspeakable affair for…how many months now?

What he and the Inquisitor had been doing couldn't go on the way it had been. If he wanted things to change, he had to change them. Now.

He crooked his finger at the serving girl, beckoning for her to lean down.

Then he whispered in her ear exactly what he wanted to do to her.