"You know what they say, don't you, kitten?"

"Oh, dear. Here comes all the marital advice I didn't ask for." Helen smiled and leaned in towards the pirate. At least whatever she had to say would certainly be more entertaining and more honest than all the other well-wishers, and she was grateful that the guests were starting to thin out so she could truly sit back and enjoy her wedding feast with her friends. "What do they say?"

"There's nothing under the kilt."

"Excuse me?"

Isabella nuzzled her cheek as she whispered. "The saying goes, 'What's worn under the kilt? Nothing, everything's in good working order.' I think it's time you went and made sure your prince is up to the task of keeping traditions going, dove." Helen had to giggle. "Go on, then, I'll get Varric to tell the story of how you met. That'll give you plenty of time." The Rivaini got up and made it over to the dwarf, and Varric's eyes widened as she whispered her plan into his ear. Helen slinked across the room to her husband, her ears tinged pink with excitement.

"In honor of this fine occasion, let me regale you with the story of how this love began."

"Maker, what is Varric doing?" Sebastian took another sip of wine from his goblet. "Is this such a good idea?"

"Don't worry, love. It'll be a fun time, and a long story." She wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled as she looked at him, hoping that he'd pick up on her hint.

Sebastian had no problems understanding her. He drained his wine and set the goblet down on a nearby table and firmly returned her embrace, and started rocking her in a slow, soft sway, moving them to a song that no one else could hear. He slowly led her to the door to the library, grateful for Varric's sensational storytelling and commanding presence distracting the crowd away from them.

No sooner did Helen close the door behind them did he pull her lips up to meet his and kiss her feverishly, moaning in relief. One of his hands reached up to pull the heather out of her hair while the other gripped her tightly around her waist, and he pressed her towards the wall. She sighed into his mouth, and he ran his tongue along her lips seconds before he delved into her mouth, tasting the wine and honeyed cake on her tongue.

"At long last, Helen, you are mine."

She was warm, even warmer than he thought, and he felt like he would melt if he was pressed against her for too long, but he was so intoxicated by her that he didn't want to leave, ever. When he did break the kiss to gasp for air Helen was running her fingers along the other flap of his kilt, snaking her hand into the crossover between the waist buckles, feeling for the other hem, and her fingers were so close to his hardening pride that Sebastian paused to relish in the feeling.

"There really isn't anything underneath, is there?" Her chuckle was warm and low and it felt like a purr against his lips as he kissed her again.

"Just me, wife. And," he groaned, his knees almost buckling at the sensation of her soft fingers finding him, wrapping around him, "and you have all of me." Sebastian kissed the spot right on her neck right below her earlobe and breathed deeply to savor the smell of heather. He started to slowly thrust into the ring of her fingers, but he wanted more. In between small licks of her sweet skin, he murmured, "Take out the pin, wife, and I am yours."

"Ha. I thought you were mine once we were at the Chantry steps." She let him go and grabbed the bottom hem of the kilt, removed the stick pin that held the flap in place and tucked the silver piece into his sporran before she went back for him.

"Nay, sweetling, I was yours the moment we met." He went back to her soft, warm lips for another long kiss before bending at the waist to trace the low round neckline of her dress with his mouth, nibbling on her exposed shoulders and exploring the dip in her clavicle with his tongue. "I was just too stubborn to admit it." He groaned when Helen sought to just tease his cock with the occasional stroke and light caresses. He needed more. Sebastian wrenched himself away from the warmth of his bride's hands and knelt down to reach under her dress, snaking his hands up her calves and thighs and hooking his thumbs at the sides of her smallclothes. He had to resist the urge to tear them off of her, and relished in her soft skin as he gently pulled them down to her ankles and helped her step out of them. Helen's legs seemed to go on forever and he was glad to hear her sigh at his touch.

He reached back up to brush his fingers against her curls, and Helen's sigh collapsed into a gasp at the feeling of his calloused fingertips caressing her sex. Just as her knees started to buckle, Sebastian stood back up to pin her against the wall with his hips right as he slid a finger into her, feeling her wet and hearing her whimper. The strongest and most beautiful woman he ever met, the woman who was now his wife, an incredible force of nature, now quivering in front of him at his slightest touch.

His wife.

Sebastian pulled his fingers away from her wetness, and her gray eyes looked at him in confusion.

"Love, perhaps we should wait."

Helen balked in frustration and disbelief. "You're joking. You. Are joking."

Her chest was still heaving and it drove her husband mad, his erection still strong and yearning for her touch again. But he couldn't. "This is too fast." Helen stomped her foot and tried to interrupt, but he kept on before she could utter a word. "We're married, love. Our union should be consummated in our bed with all the time in the world, not against the wall behind the closed door at our feast like some ill-fated tryst."

She groaned and buried her face in her hand. She knew he was right - but she had ached for him for years and didn't want to wait a moment longer. She took a deep breath, and shook her with a small smile. "You'll pay for this, Vael." She hadn't called him by his family name for a while, not since she was livid from losing to him in a spar. But she was still smiling.

Sebastian sighed and bent down to kiss her in apology. "I'm so sorry, love. But I would do right by you. Just a while longer and I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

"I'm sure you will, husband. I'll keep a ledger," Helen smiled and smoothed down her skirts before she opened the door and returned to the table. Sebastian thumped his head lightly against the wall and focused on clearing his head, willing himself to calm down so his arousal would fall to a simmer.

But once he finally regained his composure and looked down to see the discarded wreath of heather and her white silk smalls tangled in it on the floor, he lost it all over again.

Varric was on the last strands of his storyweaving when Sebastian made it back to the main room and took the chair next to his wife, who was leaning back and oddly relaxed as she sipped at a goblet of wine. But from the calm expression on her face and Isabella's scowl, Sebastian knew he had to win her back. He took her hand in his and kissed her knuckle, her palm and her wrist before cradling his face with it, and it won him her attention. There was a small glint in her eyes and a small smirk starting on one side of her mouth that brinked on mischevious, but then she took back her hand and turned to join the remaining guests in applauding the dwarven storyteller. Aveline stood up, blaming an early work day for her departure, gently tugging at Donnic's sleeve and hinting for him to do the same.

"Oh, do stay for one more," Helen cooed. "Varric, tell the one with the proposal." Sebastian looked at her in quiet disbelief. She never asked for his embellished stories, and he thought they both wanted their guests gone sooner rather than later. Helen's gray eyes flickered over to him for a split second before focusing on Fenris. "Is there any more wine?"

The elf found a few bottles that were half full and refilled her proffered goblet, and Sebastian found himself wish everyone gone. But Varric always answered calls for a story, and started spinning almost immediately, and so the frustrated groom took a long pull of his wine and slumped back into his chair, impatiently bouncing his right leg under the tablecloth.

When he felt his bride's fingertips grazing his kneecap, however, he stopped bouncing.

Sebastian shot a look at her, but she would not match his gaze, focusing instead on the almost completely fictional story and smiling. But under the table her hand unwrapped him from under his kilt and crept higher, lazily tracing a line up his bare thigh. The higher it went, the more feverish he got, and when she wrapped her fingers around him again, he bit his tongue to stifle a whimper and stared into his goblet, resisting the urge to jump to his feet and throw her onto the table and tear her skirts apart.

Helen tightened her grip as Varric finally placed his protagonists in the Chantry. Sebastian could have reached out and grabbed Varric by the hair to twist his neck so he could stop waxing poetic on the flicker of the candles and the sun gleaming through stained glass to play on the white of his armor. This story was taking far too long and Sebastian found himself waiting for an appropriate pause to stop the madness and send everyone home, but there was no stopping the storyteller.

He twisted the hem of the tablecloth in one of his hands. He realized Helen's plan now: in retaliation for his pause earlier, she teased him to nearly the edge of his patience, and just when he thought he would start thrusting into her hand again so he could finally find release, she slowed her pace to a languid crawl and Sebastian's nostrils flared as he fought to keep still.

Isabella knew this look all too well, and when she met his gaze and winked before innocently asking Varric about the colors of Helen's loving eyes, Sebastian stared daggers into her. He just. Wanted. Them. Gone. His goblet empty and the wine gone, he could feel the last strands of his self-control begin to fray.

Twenty steps to the door to lock it. Twenty to go back and grab Helen and hoist her over his shoulder. Ten steps to the impossibly long flight of stairs, five to the bedroom door. Ten steps to the bed. He could do it in a minute. Tradition and propriety be damned to the Void he should have claimed her earlier, then he wouldn't be boiling and burning over the years of waiting while trying to sit calmly at his table and curse his friends for their unknown crime of staying to enjoy their wedding.

Varric's narrative drew to teasing now, and Sebastian suspected he knew Helen's intentions to torture him. "But the Rivaini would not hear of it, oh, no. She tossed her raven black hair back and stood up for the Champion's lust, and-"

"I think we've heard quite enough, Varric." Helen was tracing slow but firm circles around his engorged head, and Sebastian firmly planted his hands palms down on the table, arms wide and eyes closed, and trying hard to keep a steady breath.

Aveline and Donnic scrambled to their feet and hastily excused themselves.

"But I was just getting to the best part, ser. Surely you wouldn't want the story to end prematurely."

"You tell a magnificent story, Varric," his nostrils were flared and he strained to keep the last of his manners in tact, ignoring the huge grin on the faces of his fellow rogues as they watched him. "But we all know how it ends, don't we?"

Fenris quietly suggested that Bodahn, Sandal and Orana help him with clearing the last of the empty bottles from the table and bid the couple goodnight with a silent nod.

"But your lady requested it of me, I would have her satisfied."

"Goodnight, Ser Tethras." Sebastian bared his gritted teeth and glared at him.

Isabella's chuckle died. "Merrill, darling. Let's see you home, hm?" She tugged at Varric's coattail. "And you can finally return that ball of twine to its rightful owner."

The groom did not get up to lock the door behind them, but turned slowly to his bride, who had the smirk of a cat that ate the pigeon.

"You insufferable woman. I should take you right here on the table."

"That's such a terrible thing to say to your wife, husband, and in complete hypocrisy of your earlier actions." She squeezed to punctuate her contempt.

"Aye, and I've paid for that."

"Your penance has barely begun, Vael."

"I beg to differ, Hawke" he grunted as he crushed his lips against hers, yanking her hand away from his cock and pulling her to him as he rose. "Vex me further, wife, and I'll have you beg instead."

Helen raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?" But before she could reach for him again through his tented kilt Sebastian bent down to scoop her up in his arms and made swift work of the stairs.

"You are my love forever, wife," he kissed her as he kicked the bedroom door shut behind them. "But you will be the death of my patience."

Helen's feet barely touched the ground when Sebastian reached for the short blade tucked in his sock and cut through the lacings of her bodice, ripping through the silk ribbons like water.