A/N: To those of you who have left anonymous reviews: thank you so much for your kind words! Now, here we go…
Chapter 36
He melted, like the sunset into the horizon, into my arms. His kiss was the radiance of summer and when he opened his mouth to allow me to taste him fully, I was sure I was blinded by it. The softness of him, the richness and the fullness of his kiss, brought my hands yet again into his hair and I cupped the back of his head to angle it so that I might taste his depths.
His hands came to my waist and he gripped me more fiercely than he had ever done before. His hold on me managed to ground me as I gradually lost my sense of direction. For he found my tongue, and his own one slid against it, and I thought I gave up breathing altogether.
But I discovered, when the kiss eventually ended, that I still breathed, and heavily so, and Legolas appeared similarly affected. He looked down to where his hands lay on my waist and then up again, and his eyes were darkened like the evening sky above us when they met mine.
"My lord..." He swallowed.
I nodded, for I knew what he desired though he did not dare to word it.
"Yes," I said, and to my own ears I sounded hoarse.
He frowned then, briefly, and concern flashed in his face. His lips parted but he did not speak.
So instead I dipped my head and found his ear with my mouth. I kissed the pointed peak of it and exhaled against it, and his shudder raced through me, too.
"Show me," I murmured.
I barely felt his hands on my form now and nor my feet on the stone. For a heartbeat he did nothing but then he turned his head and found my mouth again with his, and if I thought our previous kisses had been glorious, this one was overwhelming.
His hands moved as well, and he slid his palms up my back. His hold on me strengthened and an edge of expectation was suddenly in the way he stood against me. He caught my tongue and sucked on it and it drove every thought from my mind. I knew only the yearning in him, the silken flow of his hair through my fingers, and the deep wet warmth of his mouth.
When we next parted, he rested his forehead against mine and his breathing came shallow and quick. He laughed, suddenly: a breathy, nervous sound.
"I do not know where to begin."
I smiled. "Have we not already begun?"
"Aye..." He secured his hold on me. "Perhaps. You are right."
"I am very wise – I am the Lord of Rivendell," I said.
This made him laugh again. But he drew back just a fraction and when he looked at me, he was serious.
"I know," he said. "How I know."
I slipped one hand from his hair and stroked his cheek instead. "Pretend I am any other elf," I suggested softly, seeking to make him smile again.
But he shook his head, even as I held him. "I could never. For it is..." And under my touch his skin warmed and there blossomed in his cheek a sweet rosy hue. "For it is the Lord of the Valley whom I love," he said quietly.
"As he loves you," I said, as I slid my fingertips to his chin and tilted it up slightly. "As I love you."
My gaze fell to his lips and they were deliciously reddened still. I brushed the pad of my thumb over his lower lip.
"Will you please not show me?"
Then fire came into his eyes. "Are you sure?"
I replaced my thumb with my mouth and we shared a new kiss, not as bold, but longer.
"Else I would not ask," I told him, when it was over.
He nodded. "I will lead you as far as you will go. But…"
He faltered and for a moment stood only breathing. Then his gaze flickered over my face and when he next spoke, he sounded almost embarrassed:
"We will need oil… or some such liquid. And there must be some preparation." His eyes fell from my face entirely. "I can do it, my lord… You would not need to–"
"Legolas…" I cut across him gently, "I want it."
I resumed my hold on him in the hopes that it might give him courage. The truth was that I for once knew very little of what I was asking to be shown, but I desired it all the same.
"Perhaps…" I said, careful to keep my voice down, "it would be easier if you entered me?"
But at this he gave a vigorous shake of his head. "No!" he said, at once. "No, I could not."
I tried to catch his eye but he would not look at me. "Why is that?"
Then suddenly his arms flew around my shoulders and he pressed himself close to me. I accepted him into my arms more than willingly and felt his breath in my hair.
"I could not," he repeated, but it was a whisper now. "For I have never desired to take, but only to be taken."
I shuddered at his words, at the way he offered himself to me. Overcome I was with images and visions of what it would be like to sink into him and feel his body accepting me. The world swam before my eyes as I realised I had only to lead him to my bedchamber to find out what indeed such a union would be like.
My hands drifted to his hips and I urged him to look at me again. There was colour still, high on his cheeks.
"Shall I take you, then?" I murmured, and I marvelled at hearing myself speak so. "Is that your desire?"
"Aye," he said, on an exhale.
And there, in that moment and in the face of his anxiety, I found a smile.
"We are lucky that we are in the house of a healer," I said. "For there are plenty of oils and salves here."
His laugh was shaky.
"Come," I suggested. "Let us go inside."
We left the night sky behind as I guided Legolas into the house and through to my bedchamber. There I left also him for a moment to find what we needed and I returned with a small phial of oil normally used for rubbing into bruises and sore muscles. Throughout the years, and especially so in the fostering of the children of the chieftains of the Dúnedain, I had discovered that keeping a store of such treatments was not in vain.
I placed the phial on the bedside table but made no remark for I had no wish to make Legolas any more uneasy. For already he stood by the bed, looking as though he were wondering if he ought not retire to his own chambers. Therefore, before I pulled off my formal robe, I went to him.
Our eyes met and his smile was weak. I reached out to him with both my heart and mind and sensed apprehension mingled with his longing.
"I want this," I assured him quietly, "though readily I admit that I do not know exactly what it is."
It took him a while to answer and when he did, his voice came like a thread of a wary wind.
"I fear," said he, "that if I give myself to you, my lord, I will never be myself again. For I would gladly give everything that I am and bid you keep it."
Some of his hair had come loose from his braids and now I fastened the fair strands behind his ear.
"You are yourself," I said, "and always will be." With my fingertips, I followed the curve of his ear until I felt a tremor pass through him. "But if you would commit yourself to a life here, with me, then truly I am blessed."
It was not exactly an offer of marriage though I was now drawing close. He was well within reason to question my meaning but he did not. Instead, his eyes sought mine and I felt his heart beat within me.
"I am here, with you," he said.
And I did not ask him what he meant by that but only slid my hand to his neck and then his mouth was on mine. The world changed when he kissed me. His lips parted and his tongue begged entrance to my mouth and I opened up at once.
Sooner than I had expected his hands began to wander, emboldened perhaps by my words. He found the fastenings of my robe and he fingered them. I broke the kiss, then, and nudged his head to the side so that I could kiss my way down his throat. His breath became a satisfied moan and I felt the fabric give way under his hands and soon he was pushing my robe off my shoulders, and I let it fall.
He mapped my upper arms and my back with his palms, and there was in his touch now a force which I had not known in him before. There was anticipation, all of a sudden, and determination in him, and I swallowed as I felt my own flesh stir at the way he explored me. I opened my mouth on his throat and felt the light in him shimmer just under the surface; and I kissed him there and maybe even marked him.
When his hands wandered underneath my shirt I heard my own moan wrap around him and I knew I wanted more of him. Therefore, I brought my own hands to the laces of his tunic and set to work even as I found his mouth again. It proved a challenge and the kiss had to be abandoned. But when I had pulled back and looked into his face again I was glad it was so. For his eyes were midnight and his lips reddened and parted and I read in him all that he wanted of me that night. Air stumbled in my throat and I felt the warmth that lay around my spine turn restless.
"We are…" I said, with a rough voice that I was sure was not my own, "going to have to talk about these. Later." I gave the laces a small tug but the knots were stubborn and would not come undone.
His grin was dazed. His hands lay upon my waist and the heat in him was drenching my skin.
"Try again, my lord," he suggested, and his voice was deliciously raspy.
"I will tear it," I warned him.
Then he slid his hands further down and they came to my hips and he rocked me forwards. My breath was driven from me as our groins came together briefly, but long enough for me to discover that he had hardened.
"Do it," he whispered.
But I managed without destroying the fabric. Finally, his tunic and his shirt fell to join my robe on the floor and never had I cared less for any garments. I pulled off my own shirt after that and Legolas' skin against my own as he moved into my arms was sun-warmed silk. It was then that he rubbed himself against me and I buried my face in his golden hair and groaned. For he had woken in me a searing lust and it became an itching fire in my breast that rose up through my body to crowd my throat. My hands came to his hips and I angled them, bringing him closer still, until I could feel his hardness flush against my own. In that hour I wanted nothing less than to possess him and the hunger that claimed me was frightening. But Legolas' breath was a whimper against my throat and he pressed ever closer and my hands came to cup his backside, and it was not enough.
TBC
