Warnings: Adultery; Light Bondage; Sexual Content.

Notes: This fic has been censored in order to comply with the policies of this site. The uncensored version is available on AO3. This is for flypretties/aramises, who gave me the prompt: "I want Aramis to be tied up I literally do not care who does it."

Royal Privilege

Aramis waited in the queen's private garden, beneath the balcony that led to her suite. He did not know why or how, but she had somehow contrived to have him assigned to her personal guard and given a post where he might easily enter her rooms unobserved. His loins already tingled with anticipation, though he refused to allow himself to speculate as to why she wanted to see him on this night.

All the same, it was only a soldier's discipline that kept him from squirming in place, his skin overly sensitized so that the rasp of linen across his chest made sparks shoot through his nerve endings. Whether the queen wanted his touch or merely his companionship, the thought of either made the moon seem brighter, the air heavier in his lungs, so much so that his shoulders heaved with the effort of breathing. He was always thus before a conquest of any kind, be it of love or war. Though he had to admit, he much preferred it when any impaling was done with the sword of flesh between his legs, rather than the one of steel he wore on his hip.

A handkerchief floated down from the balcony to land on his shoulder as lightly as a dove, and Aramis looked up to see her Majesty smiling down on him. He smiled back, reaching up with one finger to tilt his hat back so that it wouldn't shadow his face. Plucking the handkerchief from its resting place, her brought it to his face, inhaling the scent of the queen's perfume, his eyes sinking closed as he reveled in it.

The queen disappeared, but returned a moment later with what looked like the long reins of a carriage in her hands. Securing one end to the stone railing of the balcony, she tossed the length of them over to dangle against the wall. Aramis stifled a laugh, arranged his weapons so that they would not give him away by any sound of clanking metal, and, reciting to himself the tale of Persinette[i], climbed up to meet his lady.

Once he had pulled himself over the balcony railing to stand before her, he removed his hat and offered her a low bow, waiting to see what she expected of him. It would not do to kiss her hand or touch her cheek, only to have her be frightened by him. He was a great lover of women, and not just their bodies. As much as he desired the queen's favors, he wanted her friendship more.

"Rise, Aramis," her Majesty said, voice breathy, "the bravest of the Musketeers."

Aramis did as she commanded, seeing nervousness in her face when he looked up. That was the last thing he wished for, so he gave a saucy wink and said, "Only among the bravest, your Majesty."

She smiled at his reference to the last time they'd spoken. "The bravest indeed, to secret yourself into the chambers of your queen without chaperone or witness to save us if we are discovered. And you have not even asked what I want."

Aramis brought his fingers up to touch the cross about his neck. The queen – Anne, as he sometimes called her in the privacy of his thoughts – had given it to him, and he wished her to see that he still wore it. He pressed the metal, warm from his skin, to his lips, his eyes on Anne's. In that moment, they were the only two who existed in all the world.

"I do not need to ask," he said into the hush of the night. "It is enough that you called for me."

At this the queen blushed, growing more flustered. She did not wring her hands or fidget, but Aramis got the sense that she wanted to.

"I would have you ask, for I cannot bear to simply say it," she told him, her eyes on his boots. Aramis nearly took her into his arms then, moved by her obvious plight, but restrained himself. He well knew the effect an embrace could have on one desperate for affection, and he and Anne were dancing together along a precipice. He would not coerce her to plunge over the edge with him. It was a decision she must make for herself.

So he said only, "What would you have of me?"

Something seemed to break inside her then, some wall of strength buckling under the weight of her crown, and she gave a sudden wretched sob, her shoulders slumping and her face crumpling, her hands coming up to stifle her noise. Aramis was spurred into motion, his concerns about touching her before she specifically invited it gone as he sought to comfort her. She buried her face in his chest, and Aramis wrapped his arms around her, stroking her back and whispering nonsense into her hair.

She clung to him, and Aramis wondered when she was last allowed to be simply a woman, not a queen. Had the king ever held her and let her cry?

"Let it all out, mi reina, bellezita,[ii]" he murmured, mixing his French and Spanish as his mother used to when she tended his childhood hurts.

At that, the queen's head snapped up, eyes wide. Even with a tear stained face, she was still regal, possessed of a quiet nobility that could not be taught. She was born to rule, born to inspire the courage of men, and if this were an earlier time Aramis would kneel and pledge himself as her knight, a sword always raised in her defense and a tongue always poised to sing her praises.

He did not love her yet, but oh how he could. How he wanted to.

"You speak Spanish?" the queen said to him in that very language. He nodded, and that brought on a fresh spate of tears, though these were quieter. Softer. Tears that spoke of relief rather than burden. "It has been so long since I heard my mother tongue. Not since my Spanish ladies were sent away."

"Why did you send away your ladies, if you miss Spain so?"

Anne sighed, shifting her weight so that she could look up at him. "I did not send them away. It was the Cardinal. He thought that if I was more French that Louis would… would be more interested in begetting an heir."

Aramis frowned. "The king is not… interested? I fail to see how that could be. You are beautiful, mi reina."

Anne favored him with a wistful smile, her expression fond as she spoke of the king. Fond and sad. "I suspect that it is not I he finds fault with, but the entirety of my gender. I often wish he would take one of the young lords he fawns over to his bed. I believe we would both be happier. But he will not. Like me, he does not dare to take what he wants."

Aramis stilled, his thoughts turning to Marsac.

Anne pulled away from him. "I have disgusted you."

"No," he hastened to reassure her, shaking himself. "I was surprised to hear such things spoken of so openly, that is all." Deliberately, he changed the subject, seeking to lighten the mood. "If her Majesty misses Spain, I will be happy to speak Spanish with her Majesty whenever her Majesty wishes. If it would give her Majesty pleasure."

Closing the distance between them, Aramis pulled his left glove off with his teeth and wiped the tears from the queen's cheeks with his newly bared fingers. She leaned into the touch, laying her own smaller hand over his. A sweet, sharp feeling swelled in his breast, making him tender. Making him wish that he could do for the queen what he had done for Agnes and Henri – take her away from this life, give her something simpler. Better.

"Ana. I would have you call me Ana when we are alone. Let us just be Ana and Aramis. And I suspect there are a great many things you could do to give me pleasure."

Ana's cheeks reddened almost immediately after she spoke, her eyes widening as if she herself could not believe those words had come from her lips. But she did not falter. Instead she stepped back into Aramis' arms, her hands fluttering delicately about his shoulders. She touched his baldric, then the buttons of his coat, her lips twitching. "I have never… that is, the king is the only man I have ever known. I'm not sure how to…"

Aramis cupped her cheeks, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. She went rigid, and then almost immediately relaxed, her whole body seeming to sigh. "Shhhh, I've got you," he said against her mouth, reverting to French out of reflex.

She giggled. "So you have," she answered in French. Timidly at first, and then more deliberately, she turned her face up, bracing her hands on his shoulders and rising onto her toes to claim a kiss. Aramis let her lead, keeping his lips closed until she parted her own. When she did part them, rather clumsily sliding her tongue into his mouth, he took over, showing her by example how to stroke and breathe and suck, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth to bite at it and then soothing the sting with small lingering licks.

She moaned, pushing even closer to him, hands scrabbling for purchase on the leather of his spaulders[iii], and jerked when she felt the hardness of his arousal through their clothes, as if in surprise. Perhaps the king's disinterest affected things in that regard.

Aramis had no such problem. From the moment he'd pulled himself onto the balcony, he had been exerting himself to keep his excitement from becoming too obvious and overwhelming his reason. That they were still standing on the balcony, where any passerby might look up and see them, made it all the better. The edge of danger sent a thrill down his spine that had his cock straining in his breeches. And yet, when he regaled Porthos with this tale upon the morrow – leaving out anything a gentleman ought not tell, of course – Porthos would likely scold him for his imprudence.

Aramis broke the kiss, moving to drag his beard lightly across Ana's cheek and down her neck. He had to be careful not to mark her where any might see. It would raise too many questions. "Perhaps we should move to somewhere more discreet, mi reina?"

She froze, perhaps realizing what she was doing and where. Or perhaps it was that he called her queen, reminding her that she was not just Ana as she had asked to be, but the Queen Consort of France, Infata of Spain, and Archduchess of Austria, and she was about to commit adultery with a lowborn Musketeer.

"Ana," Aramis said, speaking in Spanish once more since she found it so soothing. "We need not do anything you do not wish. I have been called an excellent lover by many, and that is because I strive to be. You must never be afraid to tell me what you want. Even if what you want is for me to leave."

She shook her head at that. "I want you to stay. I merely lost my courage for a moment. In many ways this feels like… it's silly, but it feels as if I am a bride all over again. You are very different from the king."

Aramis stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. "I shall take that as a compliment."

"Come," Ana said with an air of regal command, after visibly bracing herself. "We shall retire to my bedchamber."

"A moment, mi Ana," Aramis stroked her arms. "You're still nervous, and you won't enjoy yourself that way. I have an idea of a way to make things easier, if you like."

She looked into his face, and after only a few seconds she was nodding. "Yes, Aramis. I trust you."

He grinned and went to the balcony railing, retrieving the carriage reins he had used to climb up, idly wondering how Ana had managed to hide them in her chambers. "That's good. But for this, I will be the one placing my trust in you."

With that, he held out his hand. Ana took it and led him to her bed.

-l-

Unsurprisingly, the bed was lush and big enough for six people to lie side by side without touching. Aramis paid little attention to the other furnishings. He was busy being pleased that the bed boasted four sturdy posts, and went immediately to work with the carriage reins, fastening one to each of the bedposts at the head of the bed, glad that they were long enough that he would be able to lie in the middle.

Ana watched with open curiosity, but did not move to stop him or ask what he was doing. It fell on Aramis then, to keep conversation flowing between them. He was beginning to get the impression that, queen or not, Ana did not get very many of the things she wanted, so much so that she had gotten out of the habit of asking.

"I'm going to undress now," he told her. "You can watch if you like. If you don't want to watch, or you would rather I kept my clothes on, please tell me."

Seeming unable to speak, she shook her head, her tongue coming out to wet her lips and her hands clutching at her skirts in a way that would wrinkle the brocade. Aramis smirked at that and took off his hat, casting about and deciding to lay it upon the chaise lounge in the corner of the room. It was swiftly followed by his cloak, boots, weapons, spaulders, doublet, and shirt. He pulled his trousers and braies[iv] down without fanfare, his cock springing free in a rush that made him dizzy. Then he grasped the carriage reins that he had fashioned into restraints, and knotted one around each of his wrists.

"You will have to come pull them tight," he said to Ana, forgetting to speak in Spanish in his eagerness.

"Pull them tight?" she asked, moving toward the bed.

She was still fully clothed while Aramis wore nothing but the cross she had given him and a smile, and something in him practically purred at that circumstance. If he was more given to self-reflection, he might consider that he sought out women of higher station because on some level he enjoyed the imbalance of power. Or perhaps he enjoyed that for all their power in the outside world, in his bed they cried his name and begged for release.

But at the moment all he was thinking of was the curve of Ana's lips, and the sweetness of her breast hanging before his face as she leaned over him.

"We will bind my hands so that I may not move. You will be in control, mi Ana. I may only touch you when you allow it. You will only touch me when you want to."

Ana blushed from the roots of her hair to the tops of her breasts, and for a moment Aramis thought he had pushed too far too fast. That, in seeking to offer her control and make her feel safe with him, he had repulsed her with his more unorthodox desires. But then she let out a quiet moan and pulled the right restraint tight, though not tight enough.

"Tighter," Aramis instructed, and Ana obliged him, pulling at the looping knots he had made until his arms were pulled out towards the bedposts and he could feel the bite of the leather when he tried to move them. It was not uncomfortable, just enough of a sting to let him know that he was well and truly trapped. If he struggled, he could no doubt break free, but he was not going to struggle.

"What now?" Ana asked, appearing at once innocent and debauched, her hair falling from its pins to spill around her face, her tiara askew.

Aramis met her eyes and said, "Whatever you like."

Her breath caught. "What if I do something you don't like?"

Aramis smiled and relaxed into the bed. "I trust that you will stop if I tell you."

Ana kissed him.

"I don't know what to do, I want so many things," she confessed, her breath in his ear making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"May I suggest something that I would like?"

She smiled against his throat. "Tell me."

"Undress. Let me watch you. Let me see how beautiful you are."

She buried her face in his chest, hands pressed to her cheeks, and her skirts just barely brushed at Aramis' thighs, making him moan. Ana looked up at the sound, and bit at her lip. "I have never seen a naked man before. And I have never been naked before one. The French don't consider it proper for their royals to undress completely, even to bathe."

Aramis would have clutched her to him at that admission if he had not been bound. As it was he turned his face, nuzzling her hand. She stroked her fingers through his hair, satisfying some part deep inside him that had long ago been wounded. "It is a good thing then, that I am not royal. And right here, right now, neither are you. We are Ana and Aramis."

She smiled, and it was dazzling in its brilliance. If he had not already been infatuated, Ana could have claimed his heart with that smile alone.

She stood and started undressing, defiantly pulling at laces and hairpins, tossing garments that cost more pistoles than Aramis would ever see in his lifetime into a careless heap on the floor. She maintained eye contact with him all through the act, even when she hesitated at removing her chemise, the last thing standing between her skin and open air. There was a spark of fire in her eye now, years of unspent passion that she was going to unleash upon Aramis.

At last, she grasped the hem of the silk garment and pulled it off over her head, sending it careening into the pile that contained her jewels and gown with the flick of one wrist. Then she stood before him, hair flowing unchecked over her shoulders, down her back, miles of creamy white skin on display.

Her bosom was full and of a size to fill each of his palms. Her belly was soft and round and had to it a hint of the ripeness of motherhood, making Aramis ache with want. Her hips were wide and her thighs muscled from riding on horseback.

Letting his eyes flow downward, Aramis saw shapely calves and delicate ankles, and when she turned was treated to the firm swell of her buttocks. But it was to her face that his vision kept returning, to the naked fear there that perhaps it wasn't that Louis did not care for the fairer sex. Perhaps there was some fault with her.

"Beautiful," Aramis breathed. "Thank you," he said.

Ana flushed again, and this time it was with desire. "What are you thanking me for?"

"For letting me see you."

"Oh, Aramis. Always so gallant." With that, she came to rest beside him, stretching out her body along his side.

[scene redacted]

-l-

Ana did not untie him immediately afterwards, and Aramis did not ask her to. Instead, she curled up along his side with her head on his shoulder, and he nuzzled her hair, dropping little kisses on her temple when the mood struck him. They rested peacefully together for a time, Ana so quiet and still that Aramis was certain she must be asleep. It was just when he was contemplating how to free himself and resume his post without disturbing her that she spoke.

"Gracias," she said, perhaps sensing, as he did, that Spanish was to be the language of their love, a language in which they never lied. "I have never felt wanted before. By anyone."

He pressed his nose into her cheek, turning her face up so that he could give her a deep, lingering kiss. "It was my privilege."

She laughed, that smile that could inspire a man to fight a hopeless battle making another appearance. "No," she said, her lips a hair's breadth from his. "The privilege is mine."

[i] Persinette was a French story by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force which was later adapted into Rapunzel by The Brothers Grimm. I did fudge the dates a little though, as The Musketeers show is set in 1630 and Persinette wasn't published until 1698.

[ii] "Let it all out, my queen, little beauty."

[iii] The proper French term for the leather shoulder armor the Musketeers wear on the show.

[iv] A loincloth like garment that men wore as underwear in this time period.

[v] "Ana, Ana, may I? Please, my queen, little beauty, lover, my lover, let me, let me, please – "

[vi] Posting is a horseback riding technique where the rider surges up and down on the horse to absorb the shock of the horse's movement. Historically, Anne was a good equestrian so….