Hey guys, sorry it's taken so long. We adopted a couple of kittens and things have been a little hectic, since one of them has a cold. As I write, my sick little girl is curled up on my chest, so I guess she can be the mascot of this chapter.
Thank you all so much for the follows, faves and reviews. I really cannot even begin to tell you how much they mean to me, and how they keep me going with these stories.
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Ahlia sat down heavily at the table outside her room. She had found, and blackmailed, a very attractive thief to pretend to be her lover. The crisis was adverted, and everything would be fine. After her mother came, saw Brynjolf and left, her life would go back to normal. The man in question had come up the stairs behind her and sat down across from her, quietly. Jordis had left some bread and apples out for her for supper, along with the stew downstairs that she had forgotten in her haste to leave the kitchen. She eyed him across the table. In the light of the lit candles and lanterns of her home, she could see now that his hair was a dark auburn, and his eyes a deep green. The man made her feel claustrophobic somehow. She felt ridiculous. She had faced down dragons, but a handsome man managed to make her nervous.
Brynjolf picked up one of the apples off the table, and tossed it casually back and forth between his hands while he studied her. "So how easily do you think this will be to pull off?"
"Fooling my mother?" Ahlia asked, reaching out to pick up an apple of her own. He nodded. "Not very. She's quite smart, and very…tenacious when money is involved. If she thinks this isn't real, she'll just push her choice on me. Whether she believes we're together or not, she's going to do everything she can to drive you off. "
"Why don't you just tell her no?" he asked.
"I can't. It's complicated, but in the nobility of our culture, she has the authority to make me marry whoever she chooses, unless I'm either already married, or I can convince her not to," Ahlia grumbled.
"Well, I guess in that case, we should probably practice," Brynjolf said, feigning disinterest.
Ahlia's head snapped around to him, her own apple falling onto the table with a clatter. "Excuse me?"
He chuckled. "If we're going to convince anyone that we're lovers, we have to know each other pretty well, right? And we have to be comfortable with each other."
"I can act comfortable," she argued.
Brynjolf raised one eyebrow at her, smirking. "Like you are now, right?" He motioned with one hand to her ridged posture, and flushed face.
"Fuck off," she snarled. He laughed heartily.
"Come on, lass. Surely you're not afraid of being touched by a man, right, Dragonborn?"
Ahlia scrunched her eyes closed, trying desperately to ignore the logic in his statements. Why hadn't she thought of that earlier? The truth was she hadn't been with a man since she was a girl back in High Rock. They had both been inexperienced, and it hadn't been the greatest night of her life. It only had gotten worse when the boy, who she had fallen in love with like girls coming of age were prone to do, had left in the morning, wanting nothing more from her than a fumbling night together.
She was pulled from her thoughts by a light tap on her arm. Brynjolf held her discarded apple out to her. "Let's start with getting to know each other, and work on being physically comfortable later, lass."
"Have you ever done anything like this before?" she asked, trying not to show how anxious and sheepish she felt.
"I can honestly say I've never posed as someone's lover before."
Ahlia smiled a little. "Tell me about yourself, then."
He leaned back in his chair and bit into his apple. "I'm a thief. I work for the Thieves Guild in Riften. I enjoy stealing things."
Ahlia couldn't help but laugh at him, and he grinned in return. "Well, I can hardly tell my mother that, can I?"
"Hm, I own a stall in the market in Riften, specializing in exotic goods," he offered.
"Are they fakes?"
"Of course they are."
"Of course they are," she echoed with a soft laugh.
They spent the next several hours trading stories from their individual adventures. Brynjolf told her about some of his more exciting heists, including the time he escaped the Windhelm prisons just to prove he could. Ahlia told him about hunting dragons, and her penchant for treasure hunting in old temples. At some point during the evening, Brynjolf got them stew from the kitchen, removing the pot from the fire so it wouldn't burn. He explained to her the guild's current streak of bad luck, and how he was hoping his current target would prove that it was just that: bad luck, not some kind of curse.
"Of course," he said, running a hand through his hair, "I need to get the item before I can use it to prove there's no curse."
"What are you going after exactly?" Ahlia asked, taking a drink of mead from her tankard.
Brynjolf took a long drink of his own before he answered. "A circlet that once belonged to High King Torygg."
Ahlia whistled lowly. "No wonder they're so upset."
He hummed quietly. Draining the last of his tankard, he sat forward. "Well, lass, I think we've come to know each other a little better. I think it may be time to work on the second part of your plan." Ahlia's stomach knotted. Her anxiety must have shown on her face because Brynjolf laughed. "Come on, I'm not going to hurt you. You think I'm going to throw away the kind of help the Dragonborn can give me?"
Ahlia made a face, and scrunched her eyes shut. She still barely knew him, and was nervous. Thoughts of her mother, and what kind of horrible person she had brought for her made the Dragonborn force herself out of her chair. She took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted was to practice being intimate with him so close to her bedroom. It was an irrational thought, perhaps, but it was suddenly very important that they get away from her room. "I'll show you where you'll be staying, we can practice down there if you want," she said.
Brynjolf watched her walk stiffly toward the stairs with a amused smile. "If that's what you want."
He followed her down the stone staircase, smirking the whole time. At the bottom of the stairs, he reached out and caught a hold of Ahlia's arm, pulling her back against his broad chest. She tensed, wrenching her arm back to rake her nails across his eyes. He caught her arm, and crushed it to her side. He was too strong for her. "Easy, lass," he murmured, his lips close to her ear.
"What are you doing?" she hissed.
"Just practicing," he answered quietly.
The woman made an irritated noise, her stomach twisting nervously. Brynjolf chuckled lowly. He ran his hand up her arm, rubbing his thumb over her shoulder, before running his hand down again. His larger frame seemed to dwarf hers. She had never felt so small. It rather frightened her how soothing his warm embrace was. Brynjolf traced his fingers over her shoulder. She could feel his warm breath against her neck. She squirmed, the intimacy getting to be a little too much for her.
Brynjolf released her, and tilted his head to one side, the corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk. "What are you going to do when we have to kiss, lass?"
Her cheeks were warm as she turned to face him."Kiss?" she echoed.
"Aye. That is what lovers do, after all."
Ahlia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Divines help me."
Brynjolf chuckled quietly and reached out to place a hand on her shoulder. "This was your plan, but we'll take it slow."
She was quiet for a long moment, watching him through the flickering dark of the basement hallway. He seemed sincere, and that kindness both surprised and touched her. She really didn't know how to handle this man. She settled for a safe shield of sarcasm. "A thief and a gentleman? I must have gotten very lucky."
The red head gave her a wolfish grin. "You have no idea, lass."
Ahlia blushed darkly, and spun away from him. "You can stay down here for the night, just don't mess with my alchemy equipment." She motioned to an open room to the right, flanked by a few mannequins decked out in some of her old armor. There were a few racks of old weapons, as well, but the room was mostly empty. The alchemy room was across from it, and had a large circular fire pit in the center that threw light into the armory. "I'll bring you some blankets and things to sleep on."
Brynjolf was looking around the corner of the alchemy room, taking in the door on the far side that led out to the street, before looking around the armory. "What, I don't get to stay with you?"
"No," she said flatly. There was only so much trouble he could get into down there, so Ahlia left him, heading back up to Jordis' room where there were extra blankets and furs. She couldn't help but think about what Brynjolf had said about having to kiss. Would such a thing really be so b ad?he was attractive and charming.
"I doubt I'd be very good at it," she muttered, piling all of the blankets into her arms. Balancing carefully, she added a few furs to the growing pile. It took some effort to juggle them all and bring them back down the stone staircase. She reached the bottom step, chewing on her lip as she continued to think about it.
"So about that -" Several of the blankets were taken out of her arms, and she looked up a little startled. She hadn't expected Brynjolf to be waiting for her. He raised an eyebrow, but the corner of his mouth was quirked upward in a knowing smile.
"About what?"
"Never mind."
Smirking to himself, Brynjolf placed the blankets he was holding on the floor, then took the rest from Ahlia. "I think I can handle this myself, lass." He leaned down and pressed a light kiss on the top of her head before disappearing into the armory.
