Author's Note: This one is NSFW, so please don't read if that's not your thing. This was written before The Warden-Enchantress and the Wyvern, and can be read as a stand-alone.
Loghain found it ironic that out of the many moments comprising his fall from grace, the Warden-Commander's warning about the Joining was one of those that stuck out most. You'll learn what hunger is, the mage had told him, torchlight gleaming in her beaten-silver eyes. He'd scoffed at her then—he remembered hunger all too well from his youth. Unfortunately, her words had been accurate. Prior to surviving the Joining, he'd have been mortified at how much he'd eaten a short while ago—especially since he was still hungry. Missing a meal had become tantamount to torture—
Which made it concerning that the Warden-Commander had not come down to dinner.
Questioning the seneschal had revealed that the servants hadn't been asked to take a tray to the Warden-Commander's office.
Something was amiss.
Leave it, Loghain thought gruffly as he washed away the accumulation of sweat and grime from the day's drills. As he toweled off and pulled on worn clothes, the flickers of concern rattled into full-fledged unease. Muttering a curse, the former teryn stomped his feet into boots and strode from his quarters.
He could sense her now, months past his Joining and the death of the Archdemon. Compared to the newer Wardens, who registered as a sort of fuzzy smudge in his mind's eye, she was a storm of sharp edges. The tug of her presence in their shared taint led him deeper into the drafty halls of the Vigil, up an interminable number of stairs, and to the door of the Warden-Commander's quarters. Every stride saw unease morph further into irritation that he refused to examine too closely…or at all. When he reached her door, he didn't knock so much as bang on it with a tightly clenched fist, scowling fiercely all the while.
"Warden-Commander," Loghain called through the door brusquely. Several seconds of silence passed, and irritation faded in favor of alarm. "Selestra?"
Loghain stared at the door, brow furrowing, as the silence continued. He reached for the latch, half expecting to have wards either shock him or send him hurtling to the opposite side of the corridor. Instead, he found the door was unwarded and unlocked. He'd been too long a soldier, and old habits only died when old warriors did—the blade hidden in his boot was in his hand as he slowly eased the door open.
A faint clink preceded a louder, hollow clunk, and Loghain looked down to find an empty bottle rolling away. He slipped through the door and nudged it closed, still gripping the hilt of his dagger. After giving his vision a moment to adjust to the near-darkness of the Warden-Commander's unlit parlor, he quietly moved toward her study. There were more empty bottles on the massive desk, which was unusual, but Loghain was more concerned with the pieces of armor that had been dropped in a haphazard trail toward the bedroom. He'd have sworn the mage didn't have a careless bone in her body, but it appeared she'd discarded her gear in something of a hurry—
Loghain froze, grip tightening around the hilt of his dagger. Perhaps she was entertaining a lover…The bone handle of his blade dug painfully into his fingers as he gritted his teeth against a wave of something so strong that it coated the back of his tongue with bitterness.
I'm a fool that sees assassins in every shadow, he seethed to himself as he forcibly sheathed the dagger in its hiding place. I should leave her to…whatever she's doing.
Yet as he straightened, his boots remained stubbornly planted on the threadbare carpet. Loghain could sense the mage Warden-Commander within her bedchamber, and blamed the tug coming through the darkspawn poison in his veins for his inability to quit her apartments. As he stewed and refused to acknowledge any other motivations for glowering at her door, a faint sound reached him—a glassy tapping. The unmistakable sound of a cork being pulled from a bottle followed.
A glance at her desk and a quick count of the empty glass bottles ended his paralysis. Long strides carried him to the Warden-Commander's bedroom door, and he rapped his knuckles sharply against the wood before he could give the decision too much thought. The Grey Wardens had an unfortunate resistance to alcohol that made it challenging to get drunk…but that was a rather alarming number of empties for someone that usually didn't drink at all, Grey Warden resistance aside.
"Warden-Commander," Loghain said firmly through the door. His next attempt was gruff with exasperation. "Selestra, are you well?"
"Enter," came the husky response.
Loghain wasn't sure what he'd expected to see when he obeyed and stepped into her sanctum, but it certainly wasn't what greeted him. He gawped in silence for a split second before desperately averting his gaze. Blood rushed south in a blaze of lust that had become entirely too familiar—for Wardens, "hunger" had multiple meanings, he'd found. The Joining had reverted his libido to that of a lad who'd just discovered that a certain appendage was good for more than taking a whiz while standing, subsequently leading to an infuriating lack of control when he was alone. He couldn't, however, blame the taint for the singular focus of his wants. Whatever the reason, Loghain Mac Tir had always possessed a weakness for women who could break him.
Selestra Amell stood before a full-length mirror in a heavily carved frame, clutching the neck of a bottle in one hand and wearing nothing but her skin. The single lit lamp cast her in a soft, golden glow. Shining night-dark hair fell in unbound chaos down her back, the ends brushing just above the full curve of her ass. She was a mouth-watering combination of toned muscle and lush curves. The story of the trials she had endured during the Blight were written over ivory skin in marks of silvery white, fading pink, and angry red. Her beaten-silver gaze was on her reflection, but unfocused as if she were staring inward. The full, tempting mouth was set in an impassive line, giving her lovely face a slightly grim cast.
Until the Calling came for him—and perhaps even then—Loghain would have that momentary glimpse of her carved into his mind. He'd see her like this, a fantasy pressed into the backs of his eyelids, every time he sought relief with his fist.
A splash of red fabric on the end of the large, neatly made bed caught his eye. Loghain moved stiffly to snatch the robe, teeth gritted against the friction of too-tight clothing over hardened, heated flesh. Jerky, impatient motions snapped the silky cloth open, turning it until collar and sleeves had been located. With his gaze still carefully turned from the mage's form and reflection, Loghain stalked toward her, robe held open and in front of him like a shield.
Despite everything he'd done in attempting to fulfill his duties to Ferelden, there were some lines he wouldn't cross. It didn't matter how much he desired her, Loghain wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity to stare. The manner of his mother's death had carved conviction deep into his soul that a woman's consent was a sacred thing. He'd have an explanation for the Warden-Commander's attempt to single-handedly drain the Vigil's wine cellar—but not before ensuring she wasn't at a disadvantage for the discussion.
He was also firmly ignoring the relief still pulsing through him that she'd not had…company.
"Bottle," he demanded, freeing one hand briefly from gauzy red silk to take said bottle. She tugged it away with a slight sound of protest, and Loghain met her gaze in the mirror. "You're soused enough. Give me the bottle."
"I'm entirely too sober," Selestra answered irritably, holding his gaze with scowling displeasure.
Loghain might have been convinced by the clear speech and her easy balance…if she hadn't been standing there without a stitch on while staring at him belligerently. When he scoffed and wrapped calloused fingers around the bottle, she allowed him to pull it from her grasp. He set the mostly full bottle on a nearby table with a thump, and then used both hands to hold the robe open.
"Arms," he instructed in a tone that left no room for argument. Loghain studiously focused on the backs of his fingers to keep from watching the movement reflected in the mirror, mildly surprised by Selestra's compliance. One sleeve tugged from his grasp, followed by the other. He listened to the soft rustle of fabric for a moment before lifting his gaze to the mirror. That proved a mistake; he could see through the red silk, for the most part. Her form was both obscured and emphasized, and he—
Swallowing, Loghain turned his eyes toward the darkened ceiling, took a deep breath, and started mentally listing horrible things to kill his arousal. Gore, darkspawn, gangrene crawling with maggots, Loghain thought desperately. Dysentery. Orlesians…formal dinners with Eamon and Isolde…
When he turned his gaze back down, he kept it carefully confined to the Warden-Commander's reflected gaze. Selestra's silver eyes were trained on the mirror, but Loghain didn't think she really saw their reflections. Deft fingers tied the sash of the robe in a knot, holding the thing closed around her, and she surprised him by speaking.
"I know why there aren't many female Grey Wardens," Selestra announced.
Loghain blinked, brow furrowing in puzzlement.
"I think I knew, but then I read the letter and I realized I knew," she rambled with a tipsy lack of eloquence, tugging her thick hair free from her robe and tossing it over her shoulder. He was standing close enough that the long strands swiped across his chest before settling into a fall down her back.
"What letter?" Loghain queried as she fell silent.
"The First Warden's letter," Selestra replied, reflected gaze focusing on his. "I'm not supposed to answer the Calling, I'm just supposed to die. Wouldn't die in the Deep Roads."
Standing so close to her changed the way Loghain sensed her through the taint. It almost seemed as if he could feel an undertone of emotion in the shifting, sharp edges—agitation that bordered on panic. Coupled with his confusion and growing unease at her words, the sensation did much to cool the lingering heat in his veins. That was about the only positive he found in it.
"You told me all Grey Wardens answer the Calling in the Deep Roads," Loghain rumbled, staring into her reflected eyes with his own narrowed to angry slits.
"I can use a blade, or there's a recipe for a poison—"
Fear stabbed through him at the thought she possibly meant to suicide, blinding and breathtakingly sharp. Loghain closed the distance that remained between them, stopping a breath away from her back and nearly reaching for her shoulders in preparation to shake some sense into her.
"—that would make it look like I died in my sleep, but I can't go to the Deep Roads when I hear the Calling," she continued, words coming faster and the agitation roiling through the taint shifting to full-blown panic. Silver eyes filled with tears, which did nothing to alleviate Loghain's concern. He'd seen her angry and watched her unleash magic while fighting that made her seem like the Maker's wrath made flesh, but he'd never seen her terrified.
"I can still hear them thrashing in their pit," Selestra murmured, voice hitching and eyes going unfocused. "I can't stop seeing them. I can't—I won't allow it to happen to me! I feel it sliding in my veins," she said as tears rolled down her face. "Waiting to make me a monster that forever breeds more monsters."
"Brood mothers were once women? They aren't just spawned that way?" Loghain asked as understanding dawned, gruff voice colored with an uncharacteristic note of horror. He'd seen one, once, and had lost the contents of his stomach after they'd killed it. He still saw the creature in his nightmares, sometimes.
"The darkspawn kill the men and capture the women, even if the women are Grey Wardens," Selestra confirmed, clearing her throat and swiping tears away. Loghain watched as she blinked at her reflection, then tugged the gauzy silk closer around her while a flush tinted her cheeks. The taint in her veins was already burning off the alcohol—and no amount of adjusting that translucent red frippery would make it modest. Loghain was distracted enough by what she'd told him that her flush and embarrassed movements registered only dimly.
Though taciturn by nature, Loghain was rarely rendered speechless—yet he had nothing to say in the face of the fate awaiting a woman captured by darkspawn. He wondered if studying her reflection had only exaggerated her panic—if she'd started seeing her petite, curvy form morphing into a mountain of flabby, tentacled flesh surrounded by freshly spawned, monstrous "children." He didn't have words, other than the vague notion he'd have wanted to get shit-faced, too, had he been in her place.
"I've a few years yet to worry about the Calling." Selestra's voice was calmer, though Loghain still felt her turmoil through the taint. "But capture by these Maker-damned talking darkspawn will likely mean the same thing. Loghain…it's possible I would pass my connection to the Fade to…to them."
That thought sent tendrils of ice through his veins and a twist of nausea through his gut, for he rather suspected she was one of the most powerful mages in Thedas. When she blinked and looked away, trying to master herself, Loghain found himself wrapping battle-worn hands around her upper arms as speech returned.
"You'll not get captured. You've power enough to flatten the Vigil, and we both know you'd do it before allowing yourself to be dragged away," he reminded her. Selestra shivered slightly as he slowly slid his hands up and down her silk covered arms, thumbs working in soothing circles. "And I promise you this—no matter where I am when I hear the Calling, I will come for you, Selestra. We'll go together, and when the end comes…I will make yours painless and quick."
Selestra's silver eyes met his in the mirror once more, and her lips parted slightly in surprise. Loghain's eyes flicked down to her mouth, then back up to her reflected gaze. When she finally spoke, her husky voice had a soft undertone of emotion that made heat curl through him. "You would do that for me?"
Loghain stared back at her, an undeniable flare of protectiveness sliding through him. They had too much in common, in some ways—both shouldering duties and bearing necessary choices on the strength of their wills, while slowly fracturing from the weight of those burdens. Neither of them feared death, for they carried the certainty in their souls of things—of fates—far worse. The truth escaped him before he could stop it.
"I will do anything you ask—and likely many things you'd never request."
Through the fingers still circling her upper arms, Loghain felt tension drain from her. The flush across her reflected face only deepened, however, much to his bewilderment. "What if I asked you to help me forget?" She snagged the corner of her lower lip in her teeth for a moment, then continued, voice a bit huskier than normal. "Would you touch me, Loghain?"
His hands went still around her arms as he stared at her reflection in dumbfounded silence. He was already touching her, and the flush on her face was creeping down her throat toward the cleavage he'd been trying not to ogle—Loghain knew what she meant, but couldn't quite believe it was a serious question.
"You want me to—I've three decades on you if I've a day," Loghain rasped as desire spiked through him, urgent and molten.
Selestra's eyes widened, and Loghain saw mortification flash in her gaze. "I never meant I would require you to," she blurted, going rigid and trying to pull from his grasp. "I shouldn't have—you don't want—"
The sound that emerged from Loghain's throat was somewhere between a scoff and a growl. His grip on her arms tightened enough to prevent her withdrawal, and her gaze snapped back to his in the mirror. Certain he had her attention, Loghain loosened his hold and caressed slowly down her arms. Blunt fingertips trailed away from her wrists to find the silk at her hips. He traced light circles against the fabric for a moment before firmly grasping her hips and pulling her into him. She was searing heat and softness, a maddening full-body caress that sent his pulse racing. Loghain heard Selestra inhale sharply as he held her pressed against the undeniable evidence of his willingness.
"Are you daft? How could I not want you? You do this to me, no matter how many times I tell myself I can't have you," Loghain grated as he rocked his hips forward, burning gaze still holding her reflected one. Selestra gasped, sending another zing of arousal through him, and caught her bottom lip in her teeth as her eyes darkened. "If you're truly asking—Andraste help us, I don't have the will to deny you."
"Loghain." She breathed his name on a sigh and shifted against him—a curious, teasing rub of softness against his hardened length. Loghain bit back a groan as he closed his eyes and turned his face down into her hair. A sweet scent of soap and woman wrapped him as his cock twitched against her.
"Are you certain this is what you want? I will not be content with only one night in your bed," Loghain warned, sliding one hand from her hip to splay possessively over her flat belly and meeting her gaze in the mirror. Shifting slightly to press his mouth closer to her ear, he murmured, "Command me to go, Selestra—or tell me exactly what you want from me. I need to hear you say it."
"I want you, Loghain Mac Tir. I want to feel your hands and mouth on me. I want you moving inside me until I can't feel anything but you," Selestra answered in a throaty murmur, face flushing again. She shivered as he made an involuntary sound of want against her neck. Selestra gripped his forearm, then stroked down to press his hand more firmly against her. The silver gaze reflected at Loghain glinted with passion and a will that equaled—or perhaps even surpassed—his own. "Must I beg?"
"Perhaps not tonight," Loghain rasped, the fractured remains of his defenses swept away by her huskily voiced desires. He lifted the hand still grasping Selestra's hip and hooked his fingers into the curtain of her hair, shifting it aside and then forward over her shoulder. Turning his face slightly, he brushed his mouth along the shell of her ear and paused, hovering a whisper away from the satiny skin of her neck. "But make no mistake—before you and I are done, I'll have you on your knees and at your wits' end with want. I'll ruin you for any touch but mine."
Any answer Selestra wanted to give was lost as Loghain hungrily sealed his mouth to the sensitive spot below her ear. As she gasped and squirmed against him, he nipped and licked a path down her neck toward her shoulder. The taste of her skin and the faint, breathless noises he was pulling from her sent a jolt down his spine and made his already aching cock even harder. Loghain caressed a broad palm up her throat and brushed her jaw with the pad of his thumb, then lifted his head enough to meet her reflected gaze. A tug on her robe bared her shoulder to him, and he teasingly skimmed his lips along her skin until he came back to the join of her neck and shoulder. Loghain marked her with a bruising kiss—teeth, tongue, and searing suction—and Selestra arched against him with a moan.
It felt a bit like madness, this shattered restraint and surrender to raging desire. As Loghain gently stroked rough fingertips from Selestra's throat to her jaw and turned her face toward his, it felt dangerously like tenderness. With the teasing rasp of her graceful fingers against his stubbled cheek and the warmth in her silver eyes, it felt like something he would assault the Black City to keep.
When Loghain moved to claim her mouth, she met him halfway. Slow, sensual exploration rapidly turned to a demanding dance of mouths and tongues. Awareness narrowed to the press of her body against his, the wet heat of her mouth, and velvet strokes of her tongue as Loghain caged her in his arms and traced her curves with eager hands. For several breathless moments there were no darkspawn, no impending threats…no pasts littered with loss and devastating missteps. Selestra caught his lower lip with her teeth and nipped him as they parted to drag in air, making Loghain groan as his cock jerked against her.
"Watch," Loghain murmured against Selestra's kiss-swollen mouth before stealing another taste of her. They were both breathing harshly when he lifted his head, and Selestra gave an inarticulate protest at his withdrawal that tugged his mouth into a smug smirk. With a brush of a thumb against her chin, he turned her face back to the mirror. "Watch as I touch you, Selestra," he ordered, voice low and rough.
As Selestra met his gaze in the mirror, Loghain traced his fingertips down her throat in an agonizingly slow, whisper-faint caress. He could feel—and see—her skin prickling in response and her pulse fluttering rapidly under his touch. He wasn't certain which of them he was tormenting most—Selestra was biting her lip and breathing quickly, silver eyes tracking his stroking fingers. Each quickened breath drew translucent red silk taut over full breasts, and he devoured the sight as his heartbeat thundered in his ears. As he paused at the hollow of her throat to draw slow circles with a fingertip, Loghain found himself confessing truths he'd tried rather desperately to avoid.
"I couldn't stop watching you, even at Ostagar," he murmured into her hair. Selestra's breathing hitched, either at his words or the feel of his fingers following a graceful clavicle. He nudged the edge of the silk aside, then started tracing back along her collarbone to the hollow of her throat. "I fought to ignore you and those clever, blade-sharp eyes—only to see you in that ridiculous Chantry-marked robe when my eyes closed at night."
Selestra gave a wordless murmur of surprise, silver eyes sharpening with incredulity. "You—my mage robes? My very ugly, very orange mage robes?"
Rather than answering immediately, Loghain hummed in amused agreement as he leisurely ran his fingers in a teasing line from the hollow of her throat, down between her breasts, and to the edge of the silk covering her. Turning his face slightly to catch her earlobe in his teeth, he slid his other hand upward from her belly in languid exploration. The sound she made and her restless shifting against him as he nipped her pulled an answering rumble from deep in his chest. With a couple of fingertips from both hands resting lightly between the swells of her breasts, Loghain caught her gaze with his own.
"That damn robe clung to you like a lover, mapping a route over you that I have long ached to follow," he finally confessed roughly. Loghain's deep voice was filled with gravel, as if the admissions of want were being scraped out of him.
"I've imagined travelling that path with my hands many times," he continued, beginning to move the fingers paused against her chest. Dragging his hands apart, Loghain etched the remembered route in delicate arcs over the swells of her breasts before trailing around the sides. His caresses firmed as the arcing trail followed the warm, lushly curved underside of each breast. When Selestra responded with a low moan, he couldn't resist scraping his stubbled jaw down her neck and cupping her generous tits in his hands. Her head tilted back as she arched and shivered with another sound of pleasure, pushing into his hands as he stroked and massaged. Loghain's hips moved of their own volition against Selestra's backside as he tormented her by circling closer to the tightly budded peaks thrust against red silk, only to slide his hands away and flatten them below her breasts.
Selestra's soft keen of protest drew a brief, but very predatory, grin from Loghain as he met her heavily lidded gaze.
"I've wondered how your skin would taste as I traced those lines with my tongue," Loghain rasped, shifting his hands to mold around her sides, fingers splayed wide. Selestra trembled under his hands as he followed the contours of her sides, the dip of her waist, and finally paused at the flare of her hips. His grip tightened on her for a moment, then he began inching his hands around her hips and low across her belly, marking where her mage robes had belted. One hand stilled as Loghain pressed the other palm to mark where the Chantry-marked buckle had been—over her womb. He rubbed a slow circle there for a moment, eyes on hers, his breathing heavy.
"No doubt the Chantry would call it blasphemy—this endless ache to bury myself inside you," he grated as his touch trailed lower. He brushed the dark triangle taunting him through a veil of red silk with questing fingertips, then cupped her sex with his hand. Wet heat and fabric slid against his palm as Selestra rolled her hips, and Loghain groaned into a hard, open-mouthed kiss below her ear.
"Please," Selestra whispered hoarsely as he pulled his hand away. "Loghain."
Need made his hands clumsy as he reached for the knotted sash tying the silk about her. Mumbling an oath, Loghain shifted and looked down at his uncooperative fingers over her shoulder—as if not using the mirror to guide his efforts would magically restore his dexterity. Selestra promptly took advantage of the change in his posture to nip lightly at his jaw. Each scrape of her teeth and flick of her tongue against his skin frayed his patience and control a little further, until he gave up on untying the knot with a low snarl. He turned to meet her mouth with his, and felt her fingers tangle in his hair as he aggressively chased her tongue with his own.
When their mouths parted, Loghain wrapped a hand around Selestra's wrist and tugged her fingers free from his hair. He straightened, letting go of her wrist and using a finger against her jaw as a prompt to return her attention to the mirror. "I'm not done with you yet," he growled. "Eyes on the mirror, Selestra—unless you want me to stop."
Silver eyes narrowed mutinously at him in the mirror. Loghain didn't give her the opportunity to test him—once her reflected gaze met his, he wrapped his hands around the silk sash and ripped it. The tension was still easing from the silk around her as he impatiently fisted his hands in the fabric at her hips, forcefully yanking it aside.
"You bested me at the Landsmeet," he murmured as he found her bare hips with greedy hands. "And I found myself fascinated with you—by the grace, deviousness, and determination that put me on my knees and placed my life in your hands."
Loghain rubbed the pad of his thumb over a brutal mark carved deeply into her hip in achingly gentle reverence as his gaze roved her partially bared form. A rumbling groan tore from him as his hands moved from her hips, desperate to map what he saw. His hungry touch drifted over each of the scars he could see, blunt fingertips writing unspoken truth into her skin as he slowly explored her. Selestra had gone pliant against him, watching his hands stroke upward with lust-glazed eyes and parted lips.
"At every turn, you exceeded my wildest expectations—you were, and are, more than I dared hope. From the first, you were better to me than I deserved—don't deny it," Loghain whispered against her ear as she started to protest. He held her gaze in the mirror as his hands slipped under the silk still covering her breasts, palming their fullness and going still except for tantalizing strokes of his thumbs.
"You bewitched me without ever casting a spell," Loghain continued. "I want you far beyond sense, shame, or decency—I could no longer deny it the first time you pried me out of my armor to mend me. With as much time as I spent huddled in my bedroll with my cock in my fist, it's a thousand wonders you never caught me. Did you truly never suspect?"
Selestra shook her head as she ran her hands up his corded forearms to grip his wrists. Much to Loghain's amusement, she tried to urge his touch higher, frustration evident in her burning eyes, the roughness of her breathing, and rub of her shapely arse against his groin. He rewarded her by easing the caresses of his thumbs to maddening slowness. "Infuriating tease," she snarled breathlessly.
"Warden-Enchantress," Loghain returned in a dark purr, rendering the endearment part curse. He saw realization flare in Selestra's eyes as she inhaled sharply and met his reflected gaze—the "title" was one he'd used well over a year ago in the encampment at Ostagar. A muscle ticked in his jaw at how close to the truth the slip of his tongue took them, and he expertly massaged her breasts and flicked his thumbs over the tight peaks to distract her. That sharp inhalation of hers turned into a strangled gasp for more.
Selestra dug her fingers into his arms as he gave her what she wanted. His touch roughened in response to her restless squirming and moans as he kneaded her tits and tugged at her nipples. Grinding his hips against her, Loghain dropped his mouth to the mark he'd left between her neck and shoulder, lips barely brushing her skin. With a ragged whisper of her name, he sucked the spot he'd marked her and pinched the buds crowning her breasts. She twisted against him with a sharp cry of pleasure, her head falling back against his collarbone and her eyes closing, and Loghain was abruptly done playing.
A guttural growl escaped him as he tangled his fingers in the red silk and dragged it off her shoulders and down her arms. Selestra assisted his efforts, pulling her arms free as her gaze met his in the mirror. Loghain wadded the silk into a bundle and flung it away. As the red flutter faded into the darkness encircling them, he raked blazing eyes down her body and reached for her hips. He yanked her to him, running possessive hands in a long stroke from her hips up to her breasts as need burned through his veins.
"Look how well you fill my hands," Loghain rasped as he squeezed her tits. With one hand still teasing a breast, he skimmed the other down her belly toward the juncture of her thighs. Pausing with his fingertips just above the dark curls, Loghain gave Selestra a long, heated look. She bit her lip against a whine as her hips pressed forward, seeking his fingers where she ached. "Whenever you see your reflection from now until you die, the only monster you'll see or feel is me," Loghain swore.
With that vow, he parted her soaked folds, rumbling faintly in approval as the scent of her arousal grew stronger. Loghain wrapped his other arm around Selestra to hold her still against him as her hips bucked in response to his petting. He slicked her wetness over her clit, then circled it lazily before stroking along her entrance.
"Loghain, please," Selestra panted, eyes flicking from his fingers to his gaze and back again.
"Do you fondle those lovely tits when you pleasure yourself? Show me," he commanded. She'd filled his hands, but she overflowed her own when she complied. Loghain stared raptly at her kneading her breasts while he stroked her with slick fingers. He flicked her clit before penetrating her with a single finger, breathing a curse into her hair as he caressed her.
Selestra bucked and gasped his name, and Loghain gritted his teeth as pleasurable friction from her movement wore at his restraint. He stroked into her for a few moments before sliding a second finger inside her. She was tight around his fingers, and he knew she was close—Maker, he needed those warm, fluttering squeezes around his straining cock before he lost what was left of his mind. With a low growl, Loghain pulled both wet fingers from her sheath, then thrust back in with three. Selestra rode his hand as he stretched her, making his cock jerk with every sound and every moan of his name. He curled his fingers to hit the sensitive spot hidden inside her, and Selestra thrashed in his hold, sobbing his name as she clamped around his fingers like a silken vise. Selestra coming undone was the most erotic thing he'd ever seen, but Loghain held on to his fraying control long enough prolong her release with a few more strokes of his fingers.
Selestra was still twitching when he gripped her about the waist and turned her to face him. Loghain pulled her tightly against him, running his hands down from her waist to grab her ass. He dipped his head and traced the tip of his tongue between her parted lips, coaxing her open, and she came up on her toes to seal her mouth to his in a devouring kiss. As he tugged her lower lip with his teeth, Selestra's hands tunneled into his hair, pulling it from the queue at his nape. The light scrape of her nails along his scalp and her fingers sifting through his hair sent a shudder of sensation rippling down his spine and over his skin. Loghain tore his mouth from hers with a growl, and yanked her off her feet and into his arms before stalking toward her bed.
A silvery-green glow flickered around Selestra's graceful fingers as she flipped the bedding aside with her magic, and Loghain lowered her to the sheets. He was already yanking his shirt over his head as he straightened. Boots were kicked off with enough force that his dagger clattered out of its sheath and skittered across the floor. When his clothes were scattered on the floor, Loghain found Selestra watching him with hungry eyes.
After all the staring he'd done, it only seemed fair to let her look as he stepped closer to the bed. His skin prickled as her beaten-silver gaze raked over him, tracing muscle and scars. Loghain shamelessly stared back at her, silently savoring the sight of her arousal-flushed skin marked with faint signs of his touch. Selestra bit her lip when her gaze stopped on his cock, then pressed her thighs together and shifted restlessly as Loghain wrapped still-slick fingers around his shaft and stroked down to the base.
"Loghain," Selestra murmured, hands tangling in the sheets as her knees parted in invitation. The note of breathless command infused in his name and the glimpse of her slick center had him braced over her on one arm in less than a heartbeat.
Loghain gripped the back of her calf with his other hand, wordlessly guiding her to hook her leg over his hip as the broad head of his cock nudged her entrance. Skimming that hand from her leg up to her breast, he lowered his head and swirled his tongue around the tight peak before sucking it into his mouth. He felt her hands brush over his ribs as her arms came around him, felt the bite of nails as she dug fingers into his shoulders and back and writhed under him with a gasp. With a deep groan, he shifted to brace his weight on both forearms and brushed his mouth across hers, then met her gaze.
Those blade-sharp eyes were dark with desire, filled with trust and affection he knew he didn't deserve. Those eyes were his undoing.
"I don't want to hurt you," Loghain rasped, voice hoarse with a sudden surge of emotion.
"Hold back, and I'll never forgive you," Selestra whispered, knowing silver eyes filling with challenge. She framed his face with her hands, tenderly tracing his harsh features. "I want you."
Whatever the reason, Loghain had always possessed a weakness for women who could break him. Selestra had gradually fractured the layers of armor around him—shattering walls of duty, resentment, anger, and grief—to find a man even he'd forgotten. Surly demeanor and relentless dedication to duty had kept others at a safe distance and kept the intensity that raged in his soul hidden. He heard as many layers of meaning in her answer as he'd offered her in simple words—and he didn't hold back.
She moaned as he kissed her roughly, curling his tongue into the hollows of her mouth as both echo and promise of release. Mouths parted, and Loghain filled her with a single, hard thrust. He dropped his forehead to hers for a moment as she tightened her legs around his waist, giving her a moment to adjust. As she explored the taut muscles of his shoulders and back, Loghain lifted his head and lost himself in silver eyes. Holding her gaze, he began to move.
The taint sang in his veins as Selestra met his thrusts, urging him on with nails pricking his skin and heels digging into his backside. He could feel a heady blend of lust and rising ecstasy pulsing through the taint—every sensation made stronger by the feel of her pleasure alongside his own. As her head tilted back and her hair flowed over one of his forearms in a dark river, Loghain skimmed the side of his face along her neck in a whispering scrape of stubble. When he shifted his weight to take her more forcefully, she started chanting his name as she clenched around him. He could hear her echoed in the wild surges of the taint, as if she were whispering in his ear and in his mind.
They rode the fine edge between need and completion, lost in the slide of sweat-slicked skin and ragged gasping. It was almost too much—the sounds of their flesh meeting, their mingled scents of arousal, her hands urgently clutching at the flexing muscles in his back. For as long and deeply as Loghain had desired her, it wasn't—never would be—enough. With a low, strangled growl, he angled his hips to deepen his thrusts, and felt Selestra tighten around him as her body bowed upward.
All I feel is you. The whisper unfurled through their shared taint, the brush of her voice unexpected and intimate. Loghain shuddered against her and pressed his face into her neck, breathing her in as if he could keep a piece of her by doing so.
I wanted a line, clearly drawn, that I could defend. You are my line, he answered through a haze of passion.
Selestra convulsed around him with a cry, slick walls squeezing his cock as he thrust through the spasms. He withdrew almost completely and held for a moment, before snapping his hips and ramming home. Her nails scored his back as she keened his name and clenched around him again, gripping him even more tightly and writhing under him. Loghain was panting harshly, his thrusts quick and shallow, when he felt her teeth against the thick slope of muscle atop his shoulder. She bit him, and Loghain roared her name, detonating like the explosives they'd been using to seal breaches to the Vigil.
Where there had been two distinct presences in the taint, had anyone been close enough to sense them, there was only one. Loghain felt sharp edges settling into place among his jagged shards, an entwining of sensation and emotion that emulated the tangle of their bodies. For either an eternity or a blink, they were suspended within their shared storm, breathless and complete.
Slow ripples of pleasure and deep contentment were still humming between them in the taint when Loghain could finally move again. Realizing that he was pressing Selestra into the mattress with his full weight, he brushed a lazy kiss against her temple and started to pull away. She growled at him, tightening her legs around him as her stroking hands stilled on his back. Loghain couldn't help the warm, somewhat rusty laugh that escaped him as he shifted enough so that he could look down at her. She stared up at him with narrowed eyes, but her mouth slowly curved upward in rueful mirth. When he obediently remained where he was, Selestra's hands resumed wandering. Loghain gave a low, contented hum and buried his face in her hair as her fingers drew idle patterns over him.
"Am I?" Selestra asked a couple of minutes later in a hesitant murmur. Loghain tensed, then lifted his head to meet her gaze and quirk a questioning brow at her. "Your line," she clarified, eyes searching his.
"You heard that," he breathed in surprise. She nodded, and Loghain studied her in silence as he considered how best to answer. He cupped her cheek in his palm, idly dragging the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. Much to his surprise, he felt no shame at the realization his fingers were trembling. "What would you have me say, when any answer I give will hurt you?"
"The truth." The response was soft, the blade-sharp eyes patient.
"Yes, you are." Loghain scoffed harshly and looked away, unwilling to let her see the depth of feeling seething inside him. "And I can offer you nothing more than stolen moments, trouble, and heartbreak. Weisshaupt will force me to Montsimmard in the end, Selestra. This is…unwise, and likely to end poorly."
Selestra tangled her fingers in his hair, guiding his mouth down to hers for a kiss that quickly became rough and ravenous. Loghain growled when she broke away from his mouth with a gasp.
"You've always been a man to take risks, have you not? Stay, and leave Weisshaupt to me." Her expression turned wry. "You've had my heart in your fist for months, Loghain. It makes me rather…disinclined to let the First Warden send you anywhere."
Maker help them both, because Loghain only had one answer to that. He claimed her mouth, heart pounding fiercely with elation at her confession, and felt Selestra pull him more tightly to her. Unwise or not, she was his line, and he was hers for as long as she'd have him. Long into the night, he seared promises into her skin with his touch, and morning found them twined around each other as if it were impossible to let go.