This was the fourth and final one-shot request for Eldarya Sin Week May 2017 on Tumblr... and still the longest one-shot to have ever hit my blog. With maybe six or seven pages dedicated to filth alone. My neck and wrists still hurt when I read it. :(

My only explanation: it stars Nevra. And this time, he's not tied to the bed-posts.

The actual prompt was (probably) meant to be short, sweet, and simple: what would happen if Nevra and the Guardian were locked into a room, and they chose to pass the time by playing Truth and Dare?

Now I never found myself in that situation before, but if sexual dares are involved with someone like Nevra, then I can't imagine that it's going to be either a short, sweet, or simple game. And the door would only be willingly locked. ;)

The Gentleman's Gamble

The key on his desk smelled like a trap.

Nevra stared down the wrought-steel eye glinting at him atop the unanswered paperwork on his desk, and for a long moment, made no move to touch it.

A single wisp of red satin ribbon was tied fetchingly around its neck, carrying the faintest lilt of jasmine and the scent of the woman who left it there for him. In invitation, jest, or most likely- knowing her- both and more.

At last, his long fingers reached down to pluck the key from the tabletop, bringing the ribbon against his nose, and he breathed in the smell of his lover. One part of his mind savored the familiar warmth it stirred through the depths of his chest, imagining this wisp of silk slipping from her hair just hours earlier as she prepared herself for bed. The other part of his mind ran through calculations.

There was a 100% chance that this 'gift' was inspired payback for that time he commissioned the spare key for her bedroom… and took his time in giving it to her. A harmless jest really, to make her jump and swear at his resourcefulness as leader of the Shadow Guard and her new boss besides, to encourage her to chase after him across HQ and threaten or bargain for the key before he—of course—bestowed it on her as a free gift for joining the barracks. The immediate fallout didn't go exactly to plan, but they seemed to have made up since the incident. Amply.

And unfortunately, despite appearances, there was exactly a 0% chance that this key would unlock a direct path to her and the bed-sheets that would bear her most intimate secrets. Because this sly gift was coming from a woman who spent the past six months toying with him: flashing that easy smile and infectious enthusiasm for fact to everyone else who made eye-contact with her, while with him, she became a princess. Coy and chary: her body drawing itself inward, legs twined and pivoted away, with only her hand offered to his questing mouth, while she propped her chin on the other and watched him knowingly, curiously, smiling sideways at a joke only she knew.

It was three months before she even let him kiss her on the mouth: permission that was initiated by her, after a shadow stayed on his face when a particularly bad series of field reports rolled into his office one afternoon. Nevra had passed the rest of the evening with a smile.

Her excuse for her reserve? She explained to him once, not long after that first surprising kiss, that the proportion of time a couple spent in conversation- actively learning about one another- always fell once they hit the bed together. And he was someone she definitely enjoyed talking to. Nevra was in the middle of contradicting her first point- that conversations and 'in-depth studies' tended to improve, both five minutes and five weeks after sex. But then she served that sucker-punch he couldn't return: one of the best ways to know a man was to see which route he'd take to expedite the 'polite acquaintances' phase.

So Nevra spent the next three months with his hands lingering politely above her hips: wining her, dining her, dancing her under the street lamps, showing her the hidden nooks around El and the peninsula, and very carefully massaging her fingers and palms, or catching her pulse with his lips, whenever she offered her hand to him again. Patient and careful in stoking her own desire for him. And through it all, as promised, they talked, their conversations roving far and wheeling away under the hours. But he always stopped them from delving too far into his past, and she always responded by withdrawing right before their light touches started to compromise her temporary vows of chastity.

Although that 'welcome home' dinner he treated her to just last night seemed a temporary shift in his favor, ending with his pants partway out the window-sill and one half of her underwear on the floor. For forty-five glorious seconds, the wine had washed away the frontlines of the battle of the sexes. Until crockery smashed to the floor when they both ended up horizontal on the table, and she came back to her old self. Laughing breathlessly and joking about starting a sobriety council as she picked up her clothes, dodging his eye and his apologies as she left his chambers like a fish through a crack in the weir.

And now this key on his desk, so soon after that memorable, disastrous dinner. There was a 75% chance that this indicated a stalemate. A new turn in their game. A change of tactics. An admission that six months of mutually pent-up frustrations could no longer be ignored.

Because lurking just beneath the white musk of jasmine on the ribbon were hints of honey, and the acrid touch of smoke. From beeswax candles, Nevra's training told him, and enough of them in one closed room to penetrate the satin of her hair-ribbon with their sweet fumes, no more than two hours ago. Whatever she had in store for him tonight… seemed to require plenty of ambient lighting.

With her, it was a good policy to presume nothing. But there was still only one option left for him tonight.

The smell of her hair, twined with jasmine and honeyed smoke, lingered on the key and through the front half of Nevra's mind as he silently crossed the dark halls of HQ to her chamber door, the slashes of sky through the windows each lit by only the dust of stars and the barest crescent moon, on the cusp of vanishing again into the murk. His instincts were singing to him that there was, in all likelihood, a snare waiting for him at the end of the hall. But even if it wasn't already hardwired into his nature to answer challenges, Nevra knew he owed her some response, some show of casual fearlessness in the face of another of her whimsical games, some gesture to prove that he was capable enough to take anything she threw his way to test his resolve for her, and enjoy it. And that he hadn't forgotten that eventful dinner either.

The satin-wrapped key turned in the lock at the end of the hall with a smug click. He grinned once in the dark; that was one tiresome possibility down.

He pushed open the door, and stepped right into a dim sea of candlelight, the lush scents of honeycomb wax and jasmine water pillowing the murk.

In five rapid-fire blinks, the vampire's gaze adjusted to the sudden, warm wash of light from the floor. Just enough to catch sight of the lone occupant of the room: seeming to float above the lambent light of candles, stretched onto her side on the sable-swathed bed just below the window casement thrown open to the summer night.

She was no longer wearing pants. Nothing at all in fact, except for a sarong wrapped loosely around her hips- the slit parted brazenly high up her naked thigh-, a bustier pulled tight over the delicate swells and peaks of her breasts, and a translucent white robe that clung to her curves like a shimmering second skin, studded with curls of tiny seed pearls. She was also wearing a knowing look.

So. That was going to be the game tonight, was it?

Nevra simply shut the door, turned the key on this side of the lock, and left it there. Then he put one hand behind his back and bowed, as if at a formal reception, his voice dropping low and dark.

"Darling, you honor me with the way you look tonight. Though I need to ask why I've been summoned here."

"Do you always have to be so suspicious, Nev?" his lady quipped, a reproachful twist to her brow.

He flashed her his pointed grin. "Considering what I've endured up to this point… can you blame me?"

The Guardian finally laughed, legs curling like a beached siren, sitting up by a fraction to free one diaphanous sleeve from under her elbow. "Seeing a little relief would be nice. I don't dress like this for the bed's benefit."

That mattress didn't know lucky it was. He couldn't remember seeing her look as ravishing as she did tonight. But even as his good eye traveled across the gentle swells and vales of her profile, Nevra knew better than to assume she was going to let him strip off that gown and unfurl the sarong from around her hips. To rip down that bustier and bury his nose into the warmth of her neck, the valley of her breasts, the dip in her navel perfumed with jasmine water, the secret cleft between her legs, without having to fight for the privilege in the last nine feet to her bed. So he straightened his back, smiled, and waited where he was by the door.

That was when he finally noticed the coin on the black satin sheets: a large drachma glinting like a splash of silver in the candlelight.

Her eyes met his again, still with that tiny, inscrutable smile he had come to know all too well. "Tonight's our six month anniversary. So what do you think of celebrating with a little game, Nev?"

He replied by spreading his arms open. "My dear, I live for whatever little games you like to cook up to frustrate me."

It was the right response, judging from the way she chuckled and beckoned him over to the bed with her hand. "Six coin tosses," she began, as he crossed to the center of her floor, striding into the ring of candlelight. "Three for each of us, alternating. Every time you fail to call my toss, you'll have to answer one of my questions truthfully. But every time you win a toss, you get to answer my challenge."

"Which would be better than the questions?"

A teasing squint to the sphinx-like smile. "I would think so." Her hand dipped, and the skin of her outer thigh and buttocks, slick with jasmine water, flashed in the half-gloom. His good eye widened, stared as in the next breath the slip of the sarong hid them again. "The same rules apply on your end, of course."

Nevra blinked, then fixed his eye back to her smile, only marginally less perilous. "Well lucky for me," he remarked wryly, his expression flat. "You've thought this out, haven't you?"

His instincts never did fail him; it was just that, sometimes, they underestimated how tight the snare would be. Tonight, for example, he had been lured into a woman's bedroom, ambushed with what sounded like a drinking game that hinged solely on chance, agreed to it before hearing the rules, and now was in danger of divulging some of his most carefully-guarded secrets… just to get a chance to touch her tonight. And his pride refused to let him walk out of this circle of fire on the floor.

For the first time in a very long time, Nevra felt like a duped teenager again. He wasn't doing much justice to his position at the helm of the Shadow Guard. One didn't get to where he was without knowing how to keep their secrets well beyond the reach of conniving little sirens like this one.

But the counteroffer he was concocting died on his lips when he saw the new look in her eyes—peeking out from just under that smile—which confirmed a calm resolve that matched his: she was not about to let him touch her, to open her body for him, until he finally skipped the banter and settled a few of the questions she had been sitting on for six months. Or at the very least, proved that he was willing to do so.

In a flash, Nevra reflected over their past half year together: a journey littered with hairpin bends and sudden gullies to take a leap of faith across. Often exciting, sometimes humbling, occasionally slipping into a strange, weightless calm as mysteries were allowed to rest on both sides… but in the end, very likely worth the effort that the two of them had made thus far. He did want her, in a way he hadn't felt for many years.

Though there were some facts about him– if he lost a toss and she chose to be imprudent with her questions– that stood a good chance of sending her flying out of this room tonight. Yet, it was a risk he needed to take. For all the jokes and mischief lacing the balmy air tonight, Nevra knew in his gut that they were now at a crossroads in their relationship. If he walked away now, he would forfeit all rights to catch those feather-light hands again and press them to his mouth, drinking in the warm scent of her skin. To hear laughter color her voice and betray the slant of her joke as it caught him again from around an unseen corner; to see her stumble and reel ungracefully, saved only by his arms, when the music on the street doubled its pace; to tweak her volatile curiosities on this world with a single remark; to hold her in the tremulous light of the fire-grate, wrapped in his arms and the folds of his scarf, when winter, statelessness, or older scars still bit into her. She would ask him to return that key—one last time, with no expression—if he chose not to answer the final doubts she wanted to be rid of above all else.

So Nevra made his mouth twitch sideways into a little smile again, and drew up the chair from the wall. Turning it to the bed and seating himself dead-center on the floor.

If this was what she wanted from him, then he would do it. Her reaction afterwards… was her responsibility. It would be best to know, as soon as possible, if matters would never work out between them.

He nodded once at the drachma, still smiling lightly. "If that's a double-headed coin in your hand, I'll be very disappointed in you, my dear."

In answer, the Guardian quirked her brows mockingly and flashed both faces of the coin to him. His natural night-vision picked up the face of the old sea god embossed on one side and the citadel's seal on the other in the dim candlelight. It was a genuine drachma. No tricks; just the whims of chance, or the machinations of fate.

Nevra leaned deeper into the chair and interlaced his fingers across his middle, sighing once for effect. "Now I've run out of objections. You can take the first toss. Tails."

The coin promptly spun in the air for a heartbeat, fell neatly in her hand, and was stamped onto her forearm. The grooves of the crystal spire of El winked in the candlelight.

With a coy smile that tilted only a corner of his lips, Nevra rose from the chair, and slowly, deliberately unwound his long scarf, his gaze locked onto hers without shame. "Luck's already on our side tonight, it seems. Now. How would you like me to service you?"

She kept her silence until the ebon scarf slipped full off the ivory curves of his shoulders, pooling onto the floor like another deep shadow. Then her fingers curled under her chin, lips pursing, as her eyes flicked to his navel, down his thighs, and back up again, almost clinically. The Guardian's voice was light as she replied: "Keep doing what you're doing.

For a fraction of a second, his jet-black eyebrows shot up. Now that was a request he didn't normally get from bed partners. Not explicitly, at least. But. If it was a strip show she wanted, a strip show she was going to get.

So he snaked the sleeves off his arms- careful not to disturb the hidden rings of senbon needles, darts, and tiny poison capsules coiled inside like the curls of springs- and flashed his audience on the bed a wry smile, his voice softening into smoke. "A strange thing: this was exactly what I had hoped to do on coming here tonight."

His belt was next: the complicated arrangement of saffron silk and metal plate, strung kunai and hidden chain. Once freed, Nevra swished and snapped it around himself like a herder's whip, for effect, hips thrusting, and the Guardian laughed. The space under his ribs warmed at once at the surfacing of that smile. And without another thought, his hand released his belt as it made that final spin overhead, letting it fly to the corner of the room, kunai clattering like hailstones against the hapless bookcase. Another high burst of laughter broke from her.

"That was dangerous," the Guardian quipped from the bed, eyes bright, a grin still twitching helpless behind one hand. "No one should ever let you take the stage."

Nevra's reply rolled off his tongue, easy as quicksilver. "I'm at least a little dangerous all the time. It's a curse that's drastically narrowed down all my possible career choices in life. Very sad." Then he turned his face away and shielded his good eye under the eave of one hand, like a thespian under shame.

She was still giggling when he slyly winked at her from between his fingers, half-turned, and shrugged off his kosode, letting it slide naturally off his right shoulder, violet silk whispering and blending onto the shadowed floor. Over his shoulder, he watched her eyes climb leisurely up the wiry length of his arms- cocked like a kite on landing-, up the limber curve of his back, crossing the span of his shoulders as they rolled again. And when they finally found his smile, he suddenly pivoted sharp, shoulders knotting as he unclasped his metal neck-guard in mid-spin and tossed it swift onto the floorboards.

Her eyebrows jumped as a ringing clatter rolled across the fire-washed floor, but Nevra held her startled gaze with his, the light in his laugh stilling her shock as he casually rose out of his throwing stance and bowed in a flourish. And at last he reached overhead and back, slowly, his shoulders and biceps knotting, the expanse of his chest stretching under his tight tunic. His fingers found the sly buttons hidden at the back of his collar, loosened them, and with a sudden, animal surge, he pulled the clinging tunic overhead and off. The Guardian was up and clapping from the bed as he dropped it to the floor and raked his hair back with one hand: posing- stretching rib and pectoral, the muscles of his abdomen- like a sculptor's model. Relishing the sudden whisper of night air and candle smoke against his bared skin, and the hunger of her eyes.

Boots, socks, and the extra daggers between joined the floor as he closed the final distance to her bed, fingers falling onto the last clasps at the front of his trousers. But Nevra waited until he was mere inches from the bed, his navel just above the height of her eyes, before he stopped, smiled enigmatically, and slowly pushed his trousers down past his hips, fingertips sliding over his pelvis and the top of his thighs. Her breath was painting the skin below his navel with the beginnings of flush as her gaze fell, like natural consequence, to the bulge of his member when it surfaced.

The casement of her eyes opened wider still as his final trappings of decency dropped piece by piece to the floor, as he freed himself with a deft turn of his hand. And he let her take in the sight of him, naked as the day, straight-backed and unashamed, for long, breathless, uncountable seconds, before his hand reached forward to gently tuck back a loose lock of hair behind her ear. The edge of his knuckle continued to travel, tracing the length of her jaw, feeling her pulse catch against his hand, before alighting under her chin, then delicately tipping it up to meet his eye again. Her breath rolled warm against the skin of his member.

"I take it it's my turn now?" Nevra asked, smiling down at her.

"By all means," she breathed faintly, and she caught his hand as it fell away from her chin, passing him the drachma warmed to the touch of skin.

"Your call?"

"Tails."

He chuckled once from the back of his throat as he flipped the coin, caught it neatly in the flat of his palm, then tipped it onto the back of his free hand. Once again, the crystal spire winked up at him; Nevra grinned. "Well, well… Luck refuses to leave us tonight, it seems."

The Guardian rose from the bed and sighed, stretching herself languorously with her arms overhead, the tops of her breasts cresting out of the low-slung bustier. "For the moment. What's your direction, dear?" For all the arch rise of her eyebrows, her lips were curling into a faint smile.

His reply didn't take him long at all. "Please yourself, in my arms. And show me exactly what you want me to do to you before the end of the night."

The pulse-quick skip of her eyebrows vanished as his knees sank into the bed, on either side of hers. And a lush laugh broke from the depths of her throat as she eased herself back onto the inky sheets between the span of his arms, his long body arched over hers like the roof of the sky. Her fingers tugged down the bustier, freeing the swell of her breasts to his covetous gaze, then tracing around the ring of one erect nipple. "I suppose," she remarked casually, her voice softening into a breathy whisper, "it wouldn't hurt to give you a few pointers…"

The backs of her fingers and nails brushed around the shivering skin of her breasts in delicate, careful circles, turning deosil, broken now and again when the tips of her thumb and forefinger alighted on a flushed nipple, pressing into it, tweaking it gently. From the back of his throat, Nevra hummed low in approval when her hands opened to cup the swells of her breasts, fingers sweeping over hardened nipples, kneading into the pressure points around the aureoles, before one hand dropped low, skipping over the bustier crumpled around her waist to stroke her navel, then disappearing lower still beneath the folds of her sarong. His hands promptly joined hers to assist: deftly slipping the knots of the skirt from around her hips and lifting its patterned folds, unwrapping her reverently to gaze upon that final secret saved for him. And there, he discovered her sly hand stroking and teasing the entrance of her womanhood, one finger slipping through the inner folds already glistening wet like a pearl.

She laughed again when his hands hooked around the back of her knees and he pushed her further up the bed, freeing her from the trap of his knees and spreading her thighs wide open. His mouth met the inside of one thigh, inches shy of her entrance, kissing her flesh slow and soft in bequest. And she obliged him by pressing the flat of three fingers against the moist folds of her womanhood and massaging herself: circling tight, her hand pulling back every moment to brush the sensitive nub at the apex of her womanhood that made her body curl and arch against the pillows, her shivering breasts rising, her face suddenly stilling, eyes flickering closed from that first warm ripple of pleasure.

When her fore and third fingers slipped into her depths, her curled hand working and pulsing vigorously against her entrance, fingers reemerging between every breath, slick with her essence, before plunging back through the quivering folds of her womanhood, Nevra could only bite back a groan. The head of his arousal rose and waxed full from the mere sight of her, so close to the entrance of her womanhood still being taken by her own hand. But he didn't dare to move from his place: bowed over her, back, hips, thighs clenched with want, sheltering her within the rigid span of his arms. This was her moment, and his challenge that she had every intention to see through.

But when that third finger joined its sisters, plunging vigorously into her sex down almost to the third knuckle, stretching the walls of her womanhood and shivering her thighs and navel with taut pleasure, Nevra decided that some rules just weren't worth following. With a choked groan, he dropped down to his elbows, curving himself tight over her body now pliant and slick from her own ministrations, his mouth burying into the crook of her neck. But when his lips met the wild timpani beat of her pulse, a fierce want ignited in his mouth that seared to the edges of his jaw; an urge to pierce that virgin skin that roiled dangerously through his blood. But Nevra brought his fangs closed- chastely- against her neck, teeth pressing flat into her pliant skin between the seal of his lips, his arousal throbbing excruciatingly against the sheets.

Below, the Guardian arched, groaned her satisfaction at the feel of him. One greedy arm enveloped his shoulders, her hand slipping through his coarse black hair to cup the back of his head as she pulled him tighter still against her, breasts imprisoned under the plane of his chest, her fingers pumping faster still into her sex. And Nevra inflamed her further, rocking them both on the mattress as his hips and sex thrust hard against the backs of her thighs, one arm curled tight below the small of her back. His mouth pressed ferocious kisses to her neck and collarbone, down again to the peaks of her breasts, up the side of her jaw, around and against those flushed, gasping lips, kisses strung close together like burning constellations against the warm span of her skin. And as she spasmed below him, hips bucking, he caught her inside the cage of his arms, under the seal of his mouth, holding her together as ecstasy burst through her and dissolved her boundaries with a cry.

The Guardian was still gasping for breath below him as he reached for the drachma abandoned on the corner of the bed, and pressed it against her sweat-slicked palm. "…You are an excruciating teacher," the vampire whispered into her hair, still curled possessive over her, lips trembling from the enticing heat of her pulse. "Could you give me a little reprieve now, and let me make my call?"

She groaned once through closed lips. "All right… What will it be, then?"

"Heads, this time." He kissed her once on the forehead, before drawing her upright against him and peeling off that ghostly gown, now wholly transparent from the dampness of her skin. His arousal pressed defiant into her thigh.

A faint ring piqued the air, and out of the corner of his eye, a fish-scale shimmer dropped in a blink into the dark cup of her palm. Another turn of her hand flipped the coin one more time onto the silken sheets stained to full midnight. This time, the head of the sea god scowled up at the lovers like thunder.

Against his shoulder, the Guardian sighed. "Damn it. Don't you ever run out of luck?"

"Never," he insisted, grinning still as he snatched another kiss from her hair, his hands rubbing teasing circles down her back. "But I am generous with it. What is your wish this time, my lady?"

There was a bright gleam in her eyes as her head rose again. One hand curled slyly around his shaft, then clenched him once with a firmness that sent white lightning coursing up his navel, arcing the small of his back. "Please yourself," she ordered, her voice dropping into liquid smoke as her grasp eased again to a feather-soft stroke. "While you're pleasing me with your mouth. You always said you're good at multi-tasking."

Nevra's hand closed over hers, keeping those slim, teasing fingers folded over his manhood as he caught her mouth in his again, then pulled away. "And sometimes," he whispered back, "it's better to be careful what you wish for." He waited for her chuckle before suddenly pressing his mouth full against her ear, his voice dropping to a rumble that rolled from the base of his throat, his hand squeezing hers authoritatively over his shaft. "Because you'll learn that you'll never come again nearly as many times as you will tonight."

Her breath struck like a taper. Without waiting for her reply, Nevra tipped her back onto the pillows, then rose tall to his knees between the splay of her thighs. The broad shoulders of his silhouette pitched her body into shadow, his gaze transfixing her to the sheets as he pumped himself openly before her: sure hands squeezing and sliding firm over the length of his shaft already moist with their sweat and the beginnings of precum. And when one hand freed itself to clamp possessively around her breast, the full length of his erection sprung hard into the air, the head swollen dark, throbbing dangerously. In the pool of his shadow, another faint gasp escaped her, her hands clenching the pillows at his rawness, his sudden dominance.

When he swooped down on her with animal suddenness, her cry of surprise punctuated the air. Nevra unlatched his mouth from her breast to shush her, low and soft, against her ear, then nipped her once on the side of the throat—front teeth only– in chastisement before continuing down her body, his hands skimming over her skin lit with flush, circling and kneading the most sensitive places of her flesh as she had shown him. And once her harried breaths strung together to a single, boneless moan, he bent low to breathe her in, cupping her breasts in the broad span of his hands and pushing them together, teasing her with the press of his nose in-between. For a dozen heartbeats, he simply savored the warmth of her skin, the salt of her sweat below the moist sweetness of jasmine, the velvet of her nipples as they stiffened again under his touch. Soon his mouth was plotting hard kisses again into the cleft and across the peaks of her flushed breasts, his hands releasing them again as his lips plotted the stretch of her navel, the delicate angles of her hipbones traced again by his tongue, and lower still to the cleft of her womanhood. With one hand, he braced her thigh open; with the other, he worked at himself rigorously, pumping himself against the back of her splayed thigh, practiced fingers squeezing and spiraling down his shaft for extra sensation.

When his tongue dipped at last through the first glistening folds at the apex of her womanhood, sliding gently through, the deep, salty taste of her filling his mouth as her musk rose thick in his nose, Nevra could only groan into her depths, back arched tight, his hips snapping forward in anticipation. From above came the answering tremor of the Guardian's laugh, high and breathless; her fingers slipped into his hair as she rolled her hips teasingly beneath him, the lips of her womanhood parting to draw his tongue further inside her. And he obliged, rolling his tongue slowly through the thick, pillowy folds of her core before rising again, circling that hard, electrifying nub half-hidden amidst the first folds that sent a shiver coursing through her thighs.

There were many, many flavors that his people could not taste. But what made them a hindrance in the kitchen and the bane of chefs had some…. invaluable trade-offs in the bedroom. For one, there was no limit to what Nevra could do to please a woman with his mouth.

His lips fused to the mouth of her sex as the length of his tongue once again plunged deep through her inner folds, drawing a surprised giggle from above. But as he moved through her in long, slow, precise licks from core to roof, her voice dissolved into a languid moan, her hips rising and falling with the strokes of his tongue. He caught her eyes through the vales and curves of her body curled above him, and smiled once in warning, before his tongue flicked through her faster, lashing through the slick, sensitive folds of her sex and teasing at her clit. At once, she jerked, laughed, hips now dancing high and helpless to give his mouth more purchase. And when his lips clamped around the apex of her womanhood and sucked hard at that nub, the Guardian keened from the pillows, her hands through his hair clenching tight, pressing him deeper- if possible- into the hallowed space between her legs.

When his hand left his member to plunge his fingers into her depths, an electric jolt rocked through her body, her breath breaking into a thick gasp. But he refused to let her recover, instead crooking his long fingers and digging them through the hot, velvety depths of her sex, his tongue still lashing her furiously, pulsing back and forth through the pliant folds of her entrance, licking up the rising flow of her essence. And when his fingers finally found that second, electrifying cluster of nerves in the wall of her womb, pressing into them as his nimble tongue swirled again around her clit, her hips suddenly snapped high, carrying him with her as the dark rang with her cries of release, her lips spasming beneath his. The tang of her essence brimmed in his mouth, overflowed, yet Nevra continued to lap her up as his hand withdrew lightning-fast from the clench of her depths and pumped with a vengeance at the pained swell of his arousal, pulling his back into spasm, his vision into a white haze. And as she continued to buck into his mouth, his hot seed struck the sheets between them, his groans muffled against her flesh, her climax stretched further by several sweet, agonizing seconds under the insistent push and stroke of his tongue.

The Guardian was swearing quietly, breathlessly with her arm over her eyes, her hair stuck damp across her forehead and neck, as Nevra finally resurfaced, cleaning himself against the tender skin of her thighs. "You… are a public menace," she managed at last, lifting her head from the sodden pillows, eyes still glazed from the bright aftershocks of pleasure.

He didn't bother to hide his grin. "Absolutely." His mouth quickly dipped, latched onto her breast and sucked at the nipple until another pitched sigh rolled through her. "Although," he breathed, as he surfaced again, his arms curled rapaciously around her waist, his lips still warm from the taste of her, "you seem to have a healthy appetite for scoundrels."

"Maybe. But I like nice men, believe it or not," she replied drolly, eyes widening once for effect, her hands automatically lacing behind his neck to twine idly through the thick black of his hair.

That raised his eyebrows. Nevra pushed himself onto his elbows and stared down at her, feeling an instinctive retort unfurl through his chest. Was she implying that she still didn't see him as a good man? Hadn't he proved—through the slow, tortuous six months of their courtship, through his ministrations now—that he intended to look after her? That her choice, her willingness to settle into the span of his arms, her decision to smile, was always at the forefront of his mind? Or was she hinting that that side of him didn't surface enough?

Now he'd be the first to admit that he loved a good game. That was why he was here to begin with tonight. But there were people in his life for whom he was willing to lay down life, limb, and the veil of secrets. That was why he was staying here at all, at the mercy of her limbs and the toss of a coin.

"I believe it's my turn again, isn't it?" Nevra remarked, changing the subject quickly, reaching for the drachma before she could see the indignation rising in his eye. "Your call?"

Her hands duly dropped away. "Tails." Not a bat of her eyelids. Her mouth still spoke of a smile.

The spin of the silver coin blurred the air. Nevra caught it in mid-drop instead of waiting for it to land in his palm, and flipped it again onto the back of his other hand. The sea god's face stared cryptically back at him.

"Things have gone a bit too easily for us tonight," he observed with a hint of dryness, tipping his hand to her slightly to show the result.

The Guardian sighed once from the pillows drenched to the color of pitch. "Well by this point, I won't say no to being less acrobatic…" She caught the bare twitch of his smile, before going on more seriously, her eyebrows rising in invitation. "Ask me whatever's on your mind."

Nevra's question hit her at his next breath. "Is it true that you still don't trust me?"

To her credit, her eyes flinched only once, but they remained on his. "That's one of the best questions I've heard yet from a naked man sitting in my room," she quipped, deadpan.

"Thank you. And it's bound to get even better from here." The dryness in his voice could match hers. "Your answer?"

She fell quiet for several heartbeats, still recumbent on the sheets, her eyes now fixed on the crook of his knee tangled through hers. The soft release of her breath marked her answer. "…It was never about you, per se. My heart says 'yes'. My body says 'yes'. But my mind says that it's good policy to be cautious. Never mind whom I'm with."

Nevra kept his face perfectly neutral, even at her attempted dodge at the last moment. Then, moving with painful precision, his expression still, he bent down and kissed her between her breasts. Then on the pulse of her neck, his nose brushing against her jaw. And finally on her forehead, his lips tasting the drops of jasmine water in her hair, mingling with the sweet musk of her sweat, feeling her twitch for the first time under his ministrations.

Slowly, he drew back, and smiled ironically at his lover. "You still have one more toss to put me on the spot tonight," he announced.

"Right." The Guardian finally rose to her elbows, her eyes quiet, and took the drachma he passed to her, weighing it in her palm. But when some seconds passed, and he still didn't make his call, a quizzical look re-entered her gaze.

"Afterwards," Nevra stated. "I'll make my call after you make the toss."

She spared him just one more look, her lips still, before flipping the coin into the air with a jerk of her thumb. When the head of the sea-god landed face-up in her palm, Nevra finally said, "Heads."

Another long moment passed in the near-dark, the candlelight wavering low to the floor, before the Guardian completed the age-old tavern maneuver: the corners of her eyes pinched tight in confusion, still staring at him, as she slowly tipped her palm and dropped the drachma heavily onto the back of her waiting hand. The face of the god turned away and the crystal spire came to the surface.

Nevra disentangled himself from her and stretched full onto his side on the bed, allowing a few inches of drenched satin to surface between them. His gaze was frank, full, and deliberate as he declared, "Ask me whatever's on your mind."

Along her neck, plastered with the damp swirls of her hair, fourteen beats of her pulse came and went before she finally asked, her voice featureless, "Just how old are you, exactly?"

For a moment, his brow puckered. Out of all the compromising things she could have asked, of all the things he did in the past she could have dug up, of all the strange fictions she could have inquired on about his kind, she only wanted to know his age? But just as that thought passed, the full weight of her query sank into his chest, like a box on the waves that suddenly revealed its cargo of lead.

This was a simple question. But it was one would lead her to the answer for why he could never settle down in El. Why he rarely lasted for more than one year—often much less—with all the women he knew here. Why it was always a never-ending carousel of new faces, new lovers, and new looks for him outside his native mountains, and not necessarily by choice. In short, this was the question that could truly estrange them, and force him to leave that satin-wrapped gift of hers on this side of the door.

At last, Nevra congratulated her in the back of his mind. And he gave his answer, keeping his voice as matter-of-fact as hers. "A hundred and sixteen this year. By our calendar."

Just like all the other times he was asked this question, her eyes widened to the whites, the rest of her face drawing a blank. He didn't try to break her silence. Eventually, there came that signature tick to the side of her nose and mouth; the return of that elfish dimple. "Honestly? You look incredible for a post-centenarian," she remarked. "By my standards."

Her hands reached forward and he duly received her, drawing her full against him, sheets whispering under the passage of their skin, the curve of her breasts and thighs falling so naturally against the plane of his body. But in the fraction of an instant before she laid her cheek on his chest again, Nevra caught the tightness around her eyes.

"That's what I've been told before," he joked, softly.

They held each other in silence as the last candles guttered out.

Through the dark that reclaimed the room, streaked by ghost-tails of dulcet smoke, Nevra turned his head along the pillows and kissed her again on her forehead. "There's still one more toss left for the night," he reminded her in a whisper. "Would you like to make your call?"

Her smile twitched against his chest. "Would it help if I can't even see a thing?"

"It wouldn't have to make a difference: I'll be the one making the toss."

"And I suppose I trust you." She laughed once, without humor, at her joke. Nevra didn't join in. At length, the Guardian declared, "I'll call whatever you don't want to see."

He had to think this over for a few moments. Then the corner of his good eye crinkled once, and he reached over, plucked the coin from the sheets past her shoulder, and flipped it, without even getting up. The drachma landed on its side on the bed-sheets, wheeled, and dropped for the final time out of reach of his hand. In the deep gloom, lit by only the vermillion-tipped tongues of the gutted candles, by the motes of starlight through the window, and the faintest blue-green glow of the ocean far in the distance, Nevra was able to make out the face of the old sea god staring blindly up at the ceiling.

"What I would like to see… is the head of the coin."

From his collarbone, her answer came automatically. "Then I call tails."

His smile was wan and forgiving as he pressed his lips into the top of her head. "You lost the toss, I'm afraid."

"Pity."

"So I have one more question for you: would you like me to go once morning arrives?"

Perhaps it was the darkness that made her bold, but when her head rose, Nevra saw shock, and panic, stretching her eyes. For a moment, she forgot that he could see her perfectly well. Though she certainly couldn't see him, he kept his own expression fixed and impassive, his heart hardening again with experience.

This was not the first time he had to ask this question. But despite the pattern of the answers, it was a courtesy he always kept for his partners.

He willed his expression to remain perfectly even as the Guardian's eyes creased with confusion, with calculation, with perplexity again. And then, they simply shut tight in finality as she gave a tiny shake of her head. Her voice held the tired ring of a laugh. "…I feel it's a bit late for you to ask me that question."

Only then did his own face give way. A good thing that humans never learnt to see in the dark.

"Unless, you want to leave…?"

Nevra answered with a crack of a smile. "Now isn't that one question past the six-tosses rule?" When her eyebrows started to knit together, he curled forward and kissed her full on the mouth to stifle her retort, still smiling.

She must have read his real answer in the shape of his lips, in the tightness of his arms around her, in the clench of his thighs woven through hers, because she didn't ask again when his mouth finally lifted, her bottom lip flushed and tender. Instead, she turned her moist lips to the dip of his collarbone, the faintest nip of her teeth on the skin there sparking a sharp pinprick of pleasure deep in his navel. Her hands dropped to his middle, rubbing teasing circles over the muscles of his abdomen, soon slipping in due course down between his thighs to grasp the burgeoning length of his arousal. And at that, he finally rolled her back onto the sheets, his hands supporting the small of her back and the inner curve of her knee, as he covered her body once more with his own.

Only once did she speak again that night. In a whisper—strained from his thickness—that broke the silence layered thick with their labored breaths. Her fingers were still folded tight and possessive around the turgid root of his member after she guided him inside.

"Just so you know," she breathed, the corners of her smile shivering in the shadow's breadth of air between her mouth and his. "That key is yours to keep. And I expect you to use it responsibly. By coming in as many nights as you're able to."

Nevra laughed breathily, all but buried inside her warmth, the fingers of his free hand laced tight through hers as the tip of his nose brushed warm against her dewy cheek. "That'll be for a long time, indeed. But you know I'll never disappoint."

FIN

Disclaimers

- Nevra's age is still very much a mystery in the game. But I like to imagine that he has between a century or two of experience under his belt: young enough to be impulsive (and sentimental) for a vampire, but old enough to give him a massive ego when dealing with his shorter-lived colleagues. Also, I couldn't resist writing some existential angst for him: maybe the bachelor lifestyle is his only real option while staying in El.

- Eldaryan vampires do have functional taste-buds, able to appreciate faery wine, human-style baked potatoes, etc. A real vampire (bat) though can't taste sweet, bitter, or umami flavors, given their seriously-restricted diets; this was what I was working off of. Though I imagine that atrophied taste-buds offers some excellent trade-offs. ;)

- It's still up to debate if Nevra has night-vision; vampires aren't restricted to nocturnal lifestyles in Eldarya. But I like to imagine that some ancestral traits from the human realm are difficult to weed out.

- We, uh, still don't really know what the currency looks like in El (beyond what the Purrekos use). So what I used instead was the old Greek drachma, which is one of the oldest minted currencies of the western hemisphere. If faeries ever borrowed coinage from humans, this could be one of them.

- Nevra does not moonlight as a porn-star or an escort. He just has a disproportionate amount of experience for an amateur. Take that any way you like. ;)

At any rate, if you enjoyed reading this piece (and even if you didn't), feel free to leave a review. I'm always open to feedback. :)