"Oranges and Honey"
The Inquisitor is crossing through the library when Dorian blocks her path.
"Evelyn! Just the representative of the human-turned-deity I wanted to see. Where are you off to in such a hurry? Perhaps to moon after to a certain golden-haired lion of Skyhold on the pretense of checking up on the status of the troops? Or going to spend another few minutes 'secretly' kissing on the battlements?"
Her eyes roll. "We are going to discuss strategy for the Winter Palace. And another crack like that, Dorian, and I won't be taking you with me."
He gasps. "But you know how much I love intrigue, poison, and wretched hors d'oeuvres! In any case, I was going to ask you a favor which will have you headed to his tower."
"Of course," she sighs, though her hand stays where it rests on the iron door pull.
"I've lent the commander a book on Tevinter military strategy, but I forgot that I had promised to let Iron Bull have it first. Something about looking for new ways to punish the Chargers, and 'stupid 'vints' literature being punishment enough if the tactics aren't sound. Can you retrieve it for me?"
"Will do," Evelyn replies, and when she turns to leave she doesn't catch the mage's smile.
Cullen isn't at his desk, but she hears movement in the loft overhead.
She crests the ladder, stands and calls, "Cullen?" but the commander of her forces doesn't hear.
He doesn't hear, because he is in a large copper bathing tub. His naked knees rise above the lip, and his head is below the water's surface.
Oh, Dorian is going to pay.
Cullen sits up, and she marks how the water sluices off the planes of his chest, how the droplets clinging to his tawny hair and standing out on the broad expanse of his shoulders catch the candlelight. She counts the scars that she has glimpsed before – what looks like a healed burn on his shoulder, a slice across his pectoral - and she wants to taste. The thought arcs like lightning across her eyes and her cheeks flame.
She should leave, she should speak, or perhaps just throw herself out the nearest window (surely she'd survive, with as many mages as there are in Skyhold), but she won't, can't, - doesn't want to, the voice in her head crows. It sounds suspiciously like Dorian.
Cullen curls forward in the water, and the muscles beneath the pale expanse of his back shift, bunching and relaxing as he exhales. From where she stands, veiled in the darkness, she hears more than sees him dip a hand beneath the rim of the tub, and the water laps against the copper siding.
His arm begins to move – she can see the muscle of his bicep flex and the water splashes, the rhythm echoing the blood thrumming in her veins, and Evelyn presses her fingers to her throat as Cullen sighs…
He sighs her name.
Cullen sighs her name.
"Evelyn…"
And with sudden and complete certainty she knows what his hand is doing beneath the water's surface, and she licks her lips without intending to as his shoulders flex and his arm moves quicker.
Sweat beads at Cullen's forehead and breath streams between his parted lips and she wants, she needs –
She takes a step and she can't, she must-
She breathes, "Cullen."
He stands faster than her blink and turns, eyes wild as they alight on the dagger on his night stand as she takes another step towards him, hands open, palms upturned.
"Inquisitor! I – Oh, Maker's Breath, I – what are you-"
Despite herself, despite the flush that is creeping up his broad chest and answering in her cheeks, Evelyn doesn't look away. She steps further towards him, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. He crosses his arms in front of him, in front of what the water had covered when sitting, and she marks how the golden hair at his chest deepens to honey as it descends to his hips and further, how dark it is against his hands covering him from her gaze.
She can't help the way that her lips part with desire at the thought of what lies behind his sword-calloused palms, can't stop her tongue from darting out to wet her lower lip.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, "I should have knocked, Dorian wanted me to ask…I didn't know you were, well, and I just…"
Evelyn is close enough to him now to feel the heat rolling off of his skin, to count the freckles scattered across the span of his shoulders, to twine a burnished golden curl around her finger. She doesn't. Instead, she stops a hair's breadth from his lips, from the scar that she finds so despairingly, achingly alluring, and she whispers, "Tell me to go. Tell me to go and I shall."
His amber eyes are blown wide and glittering hard in the flickering light and she can barely breathe. Cullen cares for her, but this is his space, and he is vulnerable, and she can't be sure if she has overstepped a boundary.
She takes another step towards him where he stands, steam twining up from the tub and off of his skin. But then, taking his silence for an answer, Evelyn turns back towards the ladder, about to step away when one of his rough, strong hands closes around her wrist.
"Don't go."
And then she is turned, spun hard and fast, facing him and he is kissing her and she is kissing him and her fingers twine in his damp, golden hair as she presses her lips to his cheek, his jaw, his neck. Dorian's errand completely forgotten, she licks the scar on his chest and it tastes warm and faintly of the salt of his skin. His hands, his big hands, are at her shoulder blades, pressing her closer to his body.
"You have me at a disadvantage," he murmurs, and the timbre of his voice reverberates through her bones.
"Yes," she says, pressing the briefest of kisses to his chest before stepping away.
"I didn't mean to…interrupt…you," she whispers, before walking over to the nightstand beside his bed. On the worn wood sits a fat beeswax candle, a few pieces of loose change, and a book. She hears him sink back into the water behind her, hears his body shifting as he settles against the edge of the copper tub.
Thumbing through the worn pages, Evelyn marks the underlined words, the creases on the parchment.
"Chantry prayers?"
"I have trouble sleeping."
"The Lyrium?"
"Sometimes," he replies, and she lets the red leather front piece fall shut, her fingertips tracing the golden flames embossed on the cover. Then Evelyn plucks up a glass of red wine, dark as blood, where it sits on the table.
She takes a long draught before kneeling at the edge of the tub, proffering the silver goblet.
Cullen's delectable lips part, and he takes a gulp of the claret liquid, and when two drops stand on his lower lip she leans in, breathless, to taste them, and his breath gusts through his nose in something almost resembling a sigh. His mouth on hers is hot, and the fingers of her free hand curl around the back of his skull.
"You know," he says against her mouth, "this isn't how I intended this to go."
"This?"
He kisses her cheek, her nose, the other cheek, and his voice drips in dark honey, "me being around you, without any clothes."
Evelyn smiles.
"The bubbles are keeping you decent. May I, I mean, if it is alright….it's very distracting, what you're doing."
"Hmm?" Cullen's lips still against the place where her shoulder meets her neck, and it is only then that Evelyn recovers her faculties sufficiently to notice that one of his hands, hot and damp even through the worn leather of her jerkin, is resting at the base of her spine.
She smiles.
"Hands off."
After setting down the goblet, she picks up the bar of soap from beside the tub, lathering it between her palms, and the bright, sharp scent of orange peel mingles together with the aroma of honey and beeswax. Her hands glide over the broad expanse of his shoulders, briefly up the corded column of his neck.
Evelyn traces the hard line of his bicep, the bony knob of his elbow and the strong tendons of his forearms with her fingers, spreading the soap beneath her hands. Reaching his wrist, she presses a kiss to the scarred, rough skin of his palm, where her own glows green with the Mark, before she twines her fingers between his thicker, stronger ones.
Cullen's voice rumbles slightly. "You know, I don't think anyone's washed me since..."
"My parents have a lovely bathing chamber in their quarters at our summer home in Orlais," she murmurs, taking up the soap again, and Cullen stills, sips again at the wine.
"It's Tevinter marble, a lovely cream color, and the bath is built into the floor. Big enough for four to fit comfortably. When the sun is setting, the whole room is filled with golden light, and you can smell the lemon trees in the courtyard outside…"
She soaps the other arm.
"Well, Melisende, my nurse, used to put me and my sisters in all at once, to save on the washing, and we would fight over who got to pick the scent for the bubbles. Cosette likes gardenia, but I think it smells like old ladies. Tatiana's favorite is roses – my father fancies himself a gardener, and he had Fereldan roses imported before the Blight. He sent some to King Alistair on the occasion of his marriage, actually- Marie prefers lavender."
Cullen turns within the warmth of the water, and Evelyn's eyes are far away and misty as her fingers knead the ridges of his palm.
He curls his digits around hers and draws her closer to him, until she is leaning over the edge of the tub, and a tendril of hair comes loose from her bun and curls in the damp air.
"Well I, for one, am glad that you aren't in Ostwick any more, delightful bathing chamber or no," he murmurs, lifting a hand to tuck the curling auburn lock back behind the pale shell of her ear. Then she licks her bottom lip and he is unable to keep himself from pressing his mouth to hers.
Her lips curve against his in a smile and she whispers, "This bathing chamber is proving to be pretty delightful, too. This view is much better than my sisters bickering over whether the water is hot enough."
Her tongue darts out to flick his and she tastes like wine. Cullen's teeth edge along her lower lip, and she breathes high and tight when his hands grip her shoulders.
And Evelyn stands, plucks up the goblet, and walks over to his bed, hips swaying as she casts a plaintive eye over her shoulder.
"Join me?"
Cullen stands and turns away, toweling himself off, picking up his linen trousers from the floor to tie them loosely around his waist.
She sits on the bed and when his weight joins hers, the mattress dips. Evelyn offers him the cup again, and Cullen's lips part as she lifts it to his mouth. The dry, spicy liquid blooms on his tongue and when he swallows Evelyn's eyes dart to the movement of his Adam's apple as it bobs in his throat. She draws the cup to her own lips, takes a draught, and when she places it back on the nightstand a few dark drops stand out on her lush mouth.
He sucks her lower lip into his own mouth, and then her fingers curl in his damp hair and his skin is so warm and soft and it smells like oranges and honey and leather. Evelyn lets her body go limp, and her weight draws them both back into the billowing sheets and quilts. Cullen's mouth on hers is hot and she is so pliant and yielding, and despite herself her knees come up to press alongside his narrow hips.
Evelyn's tongue is in his mouth and Cullen's head is swimming, and her hands which can kill are gentle as she presses his head down harder, holding him to her as if he might leave, as if he would ever want to.
"I think I owe you for your care this evening," he murmurs against the corner of her lips, against her pale throat.
Her fingers loosen in his golden hair, allowing him to prop himself up on his elbows. Taking a button between his thumb and forefinger, Cullen whispers, "May I?"
She swallows, hard, and the palest hint of fear in her eyes makes him even more desperate to treat her with care, with gentleness, to be the man that she deserves.
"Yes," she whispers, a flush creeping above her shirt, and he kisses her, gently at first, lips sealing over hers, and he coaxes her mouth apart gently, teeth nipping, tongue pressing, until she is responding anew, until the fires of her daring are stoked again. His fingertips graze the soft plane of her stomach as the buttons give way beneath his hands while her own splay against his heated flesh.
The last button parts and the seam of her shirt blooms to reveal her skin, normally pale, rosy and flushed. Evelyn's eyes are bright in the waning sunlight and Cullen's voice chokes when he sits up to admire the way she lies against his bed, the way her loosened hair makes shining arcs among his pillows.
"Maker, Evelyn, you are so lovely…what great good have I done to have someone so beautiful as you?"
She sits up between his legs, kissing the dark trail of hair rising above his trousers, and higher, just above his belly button, and again, and again, drawing her legs through his thighs until she is kneeling on the blankets as he is, her hands gripping his arms. She trembles a little when his lips part at the base of her throat. His tongue laves her skin and she gasps when his hands slip beneath her shirt and down-
And the door opens below with a wham and Cullen stills.
"Commander, it's fifteen past! Are you planning on attending our meeting on Halamshiral?"
Cullen sighs and his breath gusts hot against the curve of her neck.
"Duty calls," he whispers.
He presses a kiss to where Evelyn's pulse flutters beneath her skin before calling down, "I apologize, Leliana. Time got away from me; I'll join you in a few moments."
"It's quite alright. The Inquisitor is running late as well, so Josie's off fetching her. I will see you shortly."
When the heavy tower door closes, Evelyn kisses Cullen again, softly.
"After the ball," he murmurs as he draws his hand from the curve of her rear to rest at her waist. "After Halamshiral, when you come to me again, here, I will lock the door, for days if you like, and I will give you all that you deserve, dearest. All of me."
Evelyn drags her nails lightly up the ridges of his abdomen, against the coarse gold hair across his chest, up the column of his neck, and she lets her fingertips trace the edges of his lips, the scar that she has dreamed of tasting so many times. Evelyn tries not to sigh when his hands leave her skin; he is moving away from where she can feel the heat of him, away from the place where she wants, needs…something she can't name.
"Of course, Cullen, yes."
He draws away from her, and his big, rough hands begin to fasten up the buttons of her shirt, until the red mark of his mouth is hidden behind the soft leather, and he fights the urge to say, "damn the meeting" at the scent of his soap mingled with her perfume. When he puts the last button at her throat through the loop, she kisses him soundly and he sighs, "Maker, I hope our business at Halamshiral goes quickly…"
After the council adjourns, Evelyn stalks into the library. The people in the room scatter like unsettled birds at the light of battle in her eyes. Rounding a corner, she snatches a book from Dorian's hands.
"You ass, did you know that –"
His perfectly waxed mustache lifts as he grins.
"Of course, dear. A bath every other day, before dinner. The commander is nothing if not a man of habit. You may have been willing to moon after the man forever, and he after you, but it's just so boring. Well, boring if that's allthat's happening, and he's much too honorable to move things forward on his own. I thought I'd give you a…push, if you will."
"There never was a Tevinter tactics book, was there?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Darling, we've many books on the subject, but do you really think Iron Bull reads?"
Evelyn's lips are stilltingling. She can't even pretend to be angry.
I hope you enjoyed! Reviews make me happy. :)