Disclaimer: I do not own The Borgias or any of these characters. I haven't done fanfiction in a long time so please don't expect this to be too good. Thanks ;)

Lucrezia could not stop her mind from wondering to Cesare's words. What they had meant, the fire in his eyes as he said them and the way that his lips had come down upon her as if to confirm what had already been implied.

It was wrong, she knew. Cesare was her brother. He was her most beloved brother. There was no one she trusted more than him. And she had seen him as only her brother her whole life.

How had it happened? When had such conversations come to mean so much more than what was on the surface? Lucrezia touched her bottom lip, the one that had touched his, thinking back to that encounter...

Flashback

She stepped into the armory with a sense of grace that did not seem suited for such a hardened place. "You are off to negotiate my dowry, Brother?" Lucrezia felt her hands shake with anticipation. "With his uncle?" she spit it out like it was poison.

Cesare acknowledged her and then looked back to the wall in front of him, as if he could not bear to hold her gaze. "The king of Naples, yes." He grumbled out as the servants worked to fit his new, golden armor.

Beginning to falter, she rested her hand on the table to hold herself up. "So," she barely kept her voice from shaking, "must I trade one love for another?" She managed to look up to see him already looking back at her.

Don't you dare look away, she thought bitterly, not now.

He stiffened upon meeting her gaze. "Leave us." He growled.

The servants hurried off without hesitation. "My lord," one whispered, barely audibly as he left the room.

Cesare took a step closer to her. "Do you mean me, for him?" Nerves grew in his stomach as he spoke. It was wrong to wish more of her than what they already had. They were closer than any one else in their family. Some might speculate that they were too close. Cesare had begun to wonder the same, as he felt his heart skip a beat when he thought that she may feel the same.

A brief and small smile graced her lovely lips and she stepped directly in front of him, placing her hand on his breast plate.

She locked eyes with him once again and grinned. "That too." loving the way she could feel his chest tighten at her words.

He looked away from her and stared straight ahead as she began removing his armor. "Then what do you mean?"

Lucrezia held her breath for a moment. "I mean my son, Giovanni. His… presence in Naples might be unwelcome." She took his shoulder piece and sat it on the shelf on the far wall of the room.

"Ah, I could have seen that coming." Cesare sighed deeply. Yet another problem that had fallen to him to sort out. He did want to give Giovanni a good life. And he wanted nothing more than for Lucrezia to be happy but this would cause many problems and they both knew it.

She looked at him for a moment, baffled by his attitude and then sauntered over to him, beginning to remove his other shoulder piece.

"The king of Naples feels that one cannot carry into one marriage, baggage from the last." She huffed as she roughly pulled off the armor.

"Is your son baggage to you?" Cesare gave her a questioning look which she countered with defensiveness.

"No," she answered quickly. "He is the light of my life." Giving him an earnest look.

He knew too well, how much Lucrezia's child meant to her. She had proven that time and time again.

"Well, you could insist." He spoke, hoping to sooth her worries in any way he could.

"I will." She nodded. "As must you." She stepped away again to set the other shoulder piece on the shelf. "But… you must make the case for the son of a stable boy in a royal household."

Just as she turned back around Cesare grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him. "Listen. You are Lucrezia Borgia. You are scandal of Italy."

She puffed out a small laugh. "You are also the envy of Italy, and soon to be a princess of Aragon." He stared at her, burning holes through her, but she couldn't look away.

He let go of her hand as his nostrils flared. "Whoever gets in the way of your happiness will meet my wrath."

Cesare stepped closer and grabbed her chin lightly. She began to breathe heavily despite her every effort to keep her chest from heaving.

His eyes were like the sun, blinding, intense but she couldn't look away. They grew darker as he spoke. "We are the unholy family." He groaned out lowly.

Heat rushed to her center as his hot gaze fell on her lips. He knew he shouldn't but at that moment, her bright eyes boring into him, his heart swelling at the sight of her, he couldn't resist.

He grazed his lips across hers, nudging at her mouth with his own. Pulling away from her with a sigh, he watched her eyes open slowly, as if she could not leave that feeling behind just yet.

"Let him know that." He gave her chin a little affectionate touch and she steadied herself with a great deal of trouble.

So here she sat, naked on her bed, waiting for the dress maker to come and fit her wedding gown. And all she could think about was Cesare and how he loved to toy with her.

He had avoided her since that day however. Possibly because he was ashamed by the way that he had acted. She wished that it was not thus. He was the only one who could comfort her. The only one she felt safe with.

There were three knocks on her door. She looked up from her hands suddenly.

"Lucrezia." A muffled voice sounded outside the door to her bedroom but she knew it well.

"Is that my brother?" her heart raced.

"Yes." She heard him say.

Her body shuddered. "Brother who loves me?"

"The same." He said in his deep, gruff voice.

She grinned evilly then. He was not the only one who could play games. And she was very lonely as of late. Perhaps God himself had sent Cesare to be her solace on this afternoon. And who was she to refuse a gift from God?

She looked over her naked body and adjusted herself so that the skirts of the large dress she was clutching covered the naughtiest parts of her. "Come in then, see my wedding gown." She said.

He opened the door and stepped in, freezing when he saw her. She smiled at him but he couldn't see it, he was busy looking elsewhere.

Stiffening, he felt heat drip slowly to his member, despite himself. "God-", He looked away, "uhm…" he turned around as if to leave but he hesitated for just a moment and Lucrezia caught onto it.

"Come closer, Brother." He turned to her slowly and met her eyes, wishing with all his might that he had not seen her like this and wishing even more that he had not felt the grasp of undeniable lust in the same moment.

"My gown," she felt the material, "Do you approve?" she purred, raising her eyebrow and looking at him. She would win this game if it was the last thing she did.

He nodded, his eyes glazing over. "Gold is, uh- divine." He looked away from her again and at the door, hesitating for a moment and then closing it behind him, unsure and vulnerable for what was perhaps the first time in his life.

He turned back around, unable to help his gaze from reaching over the expanse of her. Then feeling guilty promptly after. "I-I-I should leave, Sis." He pointed helplessly at the door.

"Why?" She caught his gaze and would not let it go. "Am I ugly, Brother?" she gave him an amused look.

He gave her a heated one. "The man who makes that claim will lose his tongue."

She smiled at that, knowing that she already had him where she wanted him. He watched her every movement, captured in her grace and her beauty. She raised her leg and he watched attentively.

"My foot. It is ungainly." She held back a laugh at his dumbfounded expression. "Too large perhaps-"

He cut her off, "Your foot is beautiful." He huffed, clearly lost and confused.

She sat up slightly. "But you can't tell from there. Feel it."

Cesare's eyes darted around the room as if looking for some hint that this was all a jest, a laugh at his expense. But he found nothing. As far as he could tell, his dear sister, Lucrezia was asking him to touch her. And how could he refuse, when all he ever wished for was her happiness?

So he stepped forward slowly and hesitated before her. They looked at each other and he grasped her foot gently. "Is this a game?" he asked her as he stoked her foot with the back of his hand.

"It is a game of want, and wanting." She gasped out, wishing that he would touch her somewhere else of his own accord. Perhaps he would need some further urging on that front.

"The toes are… splayed… a little." She watched him as she spoke. "God has made better feet, I am sure."

He shook his head. "Not that I have found."

She laughed a little and smiled at him. "You are a connoisseur of feet?"

"Yes," he laughed, "and I have found none better."

She straightened again. "My calf," she spoke and his hand moved to her leg, making her tighten with exhilaration. Perhaps she would win him over yet. "Is it elegant?" She sucked in a breath. "Is it smooth?"

He let go and stepped away, guilty again. How she had managed to get him here, in this state, was beyond him. It had become very clear that she had control over him that neither of them had discovered until this moment.

"What is this game, Sis?" he asked again, hoping this time he would get a real answer, rather than riddles.

She sighed and readjusted herself on the bed, lying on her side, facing him. Propping herself up with her elbow, she spoke. "My betrothed… will not bed me. He will not touch me." She laughed humorlessly, looking down to her dress, still beside her on the bed. "He is a virgin."

Cesare marveled at her beauty, eyes wondering from her face to her breasts, to her hips, her legs and all the way back up, feeling like he might explode, regretting his decision to ask her about the game they had been playing. The answer had not been what he was prepared for.

"You have the means to… change that history, I am sure." He grumbled, jealous perhaps, but he would never admit it.

She stared at him, eyes bright and expecting. "Are you sure?" She grinned, reaching for him and grabbing his shirt, pulling him onto the bed with her, "that this body has… the necessary charms?"

"I am certain." He caught her eyes with his own hotly, unable to look anywhere else with the sound of her voice purring in his ears. He had no idea how badly he needed her until now, and how remorseful it made him to think of her in such ways.

Lucrezia touched his shirt, playing with the fabric. "He has made a vow to Saint Agnes, patron saint of purity, to remain chaste until married."

She looked at Cesare's lips, wanting very badly to take them in her own.

"Unwise…" he speculated, trying with all his might to keep from touching her. But he could feel himself giving in. And he didn't know if he minded it anymore.

Running her fingers through Cesare's hair, she grabbed his face with her hand, tears welling up in her beautiful, bright eyes. "I am a Borgia… And I feel unloved." Her voice faltered a little as she could no longer fight off the tears.

"Positively foolish…" he mumbled, unable to feel anything but her fingers on his throat, choking and caressing him in sickening unison. His gaze once again fell to her porcelain skin, the smooth expanse of her.

She followed his gaze, heart swelling with hope. Kiss me, kiss me… she thought over and over.

"You look but don't touch." A single tear fell from her eye. She couldn't wait for him any longer. Her heart would surely break free of her ribcage if it grew any bigger.

He drew closer to her, their breaths coming together to dance between them. Her lips begged him for release. And just as their eyes closed and their lips touched a harsh knock sounded at the door. He scampered away from her and soon he was so far away it was as if it had never happened.

"Ugh," she groaned in despair. Regaining herself, smiling a fake smile for his sake as she rolled over onto her stomach.

He looked alarmingly like he had seen a ghost, holding his arms out to steady himself, his heart racing to catch up with his mind which had suddenly decided to stop working correctly.

She pointed half-heartedly at the door. "That will be the dress makers to fit my wedding dress." He nodded like he understood what she was saying but he certainly did not. His mind was stuck on her lips, her skin so soft and delicate.

She looked at him, grinning a little, unable to help it. He was speechless, still gazing lustfully at her body.

"You must leave us, Brother. For delicacy sake." She grinned even wider when he stared off at her, not moving, seemingly entranced.

He sucked in a breath and re-entered reality with a jolt. "Yes, of course…" he quickly turned to leave, opening the door as she watched him.

Turning to her one last time as he shut the door, he gave her a look of question and confusion.

Lucrezia had been staring at the wedding placements for so long she had begun to doubt that she knew what she was looking at. So many important lords and ladies to map across the great chess game that was her latest marriage. How was she to know how or where the pieces moved?

She thought of Cesare. She had only seen him once since his return from Naples and that was when he had told her that the king would not allow her son to join her there. She had been angry then, and she now regretted how she had lashed out at him.

Flashback

"Am I so hard to love?" she had said. A rhetorical question but Cesare had answered all the same.

"No. No, my love." He grabbed her, turning her around to look at him.

"Rome is the peak of the world. And we are at its pinnacle." She spoke bitterly, tears threatening to fall as she turned her back to him. "And still no matter w-which way I turn, I still can't seem to find that which will make me truly happy." She almost yelled.

She turned on him then, as if to accuse him. "Why can I not be happy?"

He spoke before she could think of anything else, holding her again, like he knew exactly what she needed. "I will make you happy." He whispered it, perhaps afraid that if spoken too loudly it would float into the air and be heard by those who would see it as scandal. "I promise." He swallowed the lump in his throat, forcing away the strong urge to reach down and kiss her deeply. Tell her he loved her and that no one else would ever be enough for him.

Her tears fell now, refusing to be held back any longer. But he held her as she rested her forehead on his chin. He held her, wishing that he could do more than this for her. Wishing that he could be the one to deliver her all of the happiness she so desired and deserved.

"My lord," she heard a servant speak behind her, but she did not turn around. She knew who it must have been when he tapped her earring with his finger playfully.

"I placed you here, as you see." She pointed at the paper with his name on it. 'Cesare Borgia', it read, in cursive writing. "At my side." And there her name was on another paper, directly next to it, 'Lucrezia Borgia'.

Her throat began to constrict, heart hurting. "I see it." He said behind her..

She thought for a moment, unsure of whether to speak or not. "Are you?" Lucrezia turned around to face him.

He looked surprised for a moment to see tears in her eyes. Surprised that she would ask him such things, as if he would be anywhere else. "Wha- of course. At your side?" He drew in a short breath, locking eyes with her.

He continued, "Whatever happens, France, Spain, Naples. They can crumble to dust for all I care." She smiled brightly. "As long as you…" he trailed off, looking at her lips. And this time, the beast in him would be calmed. She found her gaze on his lips as well.

And before she knew it he was kissing her, her back pressed against the board, his lips so soft and so rough all at once. Her mind overwhelmed with lust and love and affection greater than any other she had experienced before.

She moaned into his mouth and he cradled the back of her head as she grabbed onto his shoulders, finding herself unable to rebuke him.

His world shuddered as he melded his lips to hers, feeling kingdoms rise and fall, Gods worshiped and forsaken all in the seconds that he held her there. A glorious joining of souls that had long been parted. But then came the guilt.

His eyes opened to see hers still closed and he ripped himself away from her before he lost the will to. He shook his head several times, coming back to reality. "Forgive me." He begged.

She huffed out a breath and sucked in another, finding it difficult to breathe the air which had suddenly become very thick. Tears sprang up again at the sudden feeling of rejection. He would go to France, find himself a bride and leave her again. She knew this all too well and it stung. How it stung to watch him cast her off now. Now, when she needed him most.

He glanced at her and then looked away immediately. He couldn't stand seeing tears that he had caused. He stomped out of the room as quickly as he could without running, leaving her alone with a flood of heartache and affection to drown her.

So, there had been a wedding. And there had been yet another rejection directly proceeding it. Alfonso had left Lucrezia, unwilling to bed her still, despite their being married.

And why would he have wanted to? He had figured out finally that their marriage, regardless of whether or not he loved her, was a political, a strategic maneuver on a very large chess game. A gambit that Alfonso had yet to understand until that night.

But he had understood, hadn't he? That he was nothing more than a chess piece, just like all the rest of them. The only difference was that no one quite knew where he stood on the board.

Lucrezia knew where Cesare stood, however. He was perhaps the only one who was at her side, regardless of where the other pieces moved. Her only hope was that he would remain there.

And yet, despite his promise to make her happy, she felt only grief. Only loneliness, even more than before. And where could she go? Who could she find solace in other than the one person who was forbidden her? Yet still, for all this scandal and impropriety, he was the only one who she wanted right then. He was the one whose touch would soothe her wounds.

When she reached Cesare's room, she quietly undressed herself and crawled into his bed touching his bare shoulder lightly and drawing back his blankets to find him naked. He woke suddenly and turned on her, covering his groin as best he could.

He met her eyes, dumbfounded and still waking. "What on God's Earth?" he sat up staring at her as she began to remove her night dress.

"Am I so hard to love?" she asked him softly. Rhetorical still, just as the first time she had asked. This time he did not answer. He couldn't help but look at her breasts as she removed the last piece of material hiding them from sight.

He shook his head in disbelief, begging her with his eyes to stop now, while he still had his wits about him. "N-no, Lucrezia, you cannot-"

"But I must." She grabbed his hands in her own and placed them on her breasts, holding them there. "Only a Borgia, it seems, can truly love a Borgia." She hesitated for a moment, her hand hovering over his throat before she placed it there, caressing him.

"They already whisper it of us, throughout the whole of Italy." She said, holding his gaze as he struggled to look away but found it impossible. "Why deny ourselves the pleasure of which we are already accused?" she stroked his cheek.

She couldn't wait for him to make the first move any longer. Lucrezia leaned in to kiss him and he pulled back. "Your husband…" he denied her still, when all he wanted to do was feel her. His manhood had already given up any chance of denying her. He would soon follow.

She grabbed his face with both her hands and smiled at him. "You will be my husband. Tonight." A tear fell from her freckled cheek.

They simply stared at each other for a few moments, his eyes like flames, licking her skin, burning her perhaps, but she couldn't feel it anymore. She only knew that she had waited a lifetime to see someone look at her the way he was in that moment and she loved him for it.

Lucrezia leaned in once again, slowly, so not to scare him off. He knew now that refusing her would only bring them both suffering. And he didn't want to refuse her anymore. She pulled back to re-position herself and he pushed forward to meet her mouth again.

Straddling him, she pushed him into her, feeling him deeper than anyone had ever been before. She slowly rocked her hips on his member, savoring the feeling of him inside of her. He kissed her finally, like he had always longed to. Not lightly like the first time, not harshly like the day she had inquired about his allegiance to her. He just kissed her, profoundly and affectionately.

Her breathing became uneven and heavy. She took handfuls of his hair, mouthfuls of his lips. His tongue brushed against her lips, his hips moving to meet hers as she tightened around him.

She leaned back and Cesare kissed down her chest, caressing the soft skin of her breast. Lucrezia could have done this exact thing a thousand times with a thousand men and it would never have meant what this meant. It would never satisfy her like this did. It would never make her as happy as this did, as Cesare did.

He moaned into her skin, moving faster, falling into a rhythm, both their hearts racing and pounding and breaking at the thought that the moment would ever have to end. They pulled away to stare hotly at one another.

Lucrezia leaned closer to kiss him again, pulling back to smile at him, and he smiled too, both happy for the first time in quite a long time. And how could that be so wrong? She bit his bottom lip softly, soothing it with her tongue and they both found release, gasping as she constricted around his member, muffling each other's moans of ecstasy in open mouthed kisses.

Cesare's head fell back to rest against the headboard, Lucrezia's head resting on his chest. He was still inside her, and neither dared to move, lest the moment be shattered into shards that would cut them while they slept.

So he wrapped his arms around her, running his fingers through her hair, and she held him close, knowing that as soon as she let go, he would be someone else's to embrace.

~Bailee