Hello my lovelies!
Posting this string at the airport, on my way to Tokyo. I'm hoping some inspiration comes my way while I'm there, and I'll be finally able to finish Sculptor, and perhaps even post first chapter of another major plot arc in Constellations series - Reticulum.
Do leave a comment after reading!
Libra, Latin for "weighing scales". Also known as "balance," a point between two opposite forces that is desirable over purely one state or the other.
oOo
"Good morning."
No one greeted her in the mornings, her guards mute most of the time. Helena frowned and sighed. Bane.
It was still dark, but out on the courtyard mercenaries were sluggishly getting to the day's business. The Muslims were finishing their prayers, cooks were preparing aromatic flatbreads to be delivered to hungry men shortly, mercenaries were chatting over a smoke before changing shifts.
She twitched in her bed, peeking from under the sheets to blink owlishly Bane's way.
"What time is it?"
"It's early."
"Mhm."
If he didn't want to answer she had no way of making him. Blindly she patted her hand around the head of the bed in futile search for her glasses.
"What can I do for you?"
He didn't reply, which made her stop her exploration and squint at him without the aid of additional lenses.
Right. There were only two things he came to see her for.
She sat up, facing him and covering her yawning mouth with the back of her hand. There were rings under his eyes, and an overall fatigue radiating from his hunched posture, when he sat down heavily on the chair. A beast of a man, sprawled before her, still silently watching instead of spilling what were his intentions.
She had a pretty good guess though.
"Long night?"
"Long day," he corrected.
"So you were out again? That must be nice."
"I'd rather stay here."
"We could switch."
He huffed an amused chuckle.
"And what do you know about commanding people?"
"I could manage, I'm sure."
"Indeed?"
"You should shower."
"There is a lot of things I should and shouldn't do."
"Yeah, I know the feeling."
He grunted in agreement, rolling his head back with his eyes closed.
"Are you going to sleep in my chair?"
"Perhaps."
The duvet was warm around her shoulders when she rearranged it, keeping an eye on him. It was an interesting picture, a mercenary resting at ease in a place where he clearly didn't belong.
A suspicious thought speared through Helena's head, straightening her spine with a sudden realization.
"Have you done this before?"
"Perhaps," he said. He had to be smirking, with the way his words carried an undertone to them, his tone shifted.
"That's pretty creepy."
He rolled his head back up to look at her with hooded eyes. Nevertheless the look he gave her was as always sharp and alert.
"More than imprisoning you and keeping you close for my own amusement?"
"You don't want me to forget that?" Helena sighed. Not a day when either of them fooled themselves, it seemed.
She slid off the mattress.
"You could pretend, Bane." A shiver ran up her spine when her feet touched the cold floor. "I could play along," she tempted, enjoying how his eyes stayed at level with her breasts. "Wouldn't you like that? Your own private fantasy."
His eyebrows shot up at her last word, then he frowned and looked up at the scribe head tilted a fraction to the side.
"I think you are mistaken when it comes to the contents of my fantasies, my dear."
"I probably am," she admitted. After all, she barely knew him. "So, you're staying in this chair for the time being?"
"Perhaps."
It was too tempting not to make a show of ogling him and Helena didn't resist. She rested her hands comfortably on her hips, hitching her nightgown a bit, stretching the fabric over her thighs.
"You do look like you could make for a passable cushion."
"Indeed? Be my guest, have a test ride." He studied her with amusement, opening his arms in a welcoming gesture.
"Ride, he says," she muttered, slithering sideways onto his thighs. She didn't move to face the desk, or the mercenary, instead she leaned back to perch more comfortably against Bane's muscular body.
"Shouldn't you be working?"
"That's the beauty of our little arrangement. The schedule is not as rigid as one might think."
"Are you saying my people are lax around you?" He stroked her arms, playing with fuzz on her skin, threading his fingers with hers for a brief and subtle caress.
"Oh no, James for example never let's me stay in the bathroom longer than fifteen minutes."
"None of your guards is called James," he noted.
"Son of a bitch," she muttered. "Really?" She craned her head to look at him.
"Perhaps." Tired smirk on his face was apparent, even despite the mask.
"You're toying with me again."
"Here for my amusement," he reminded.
"And the manuscript is a labour of love, right." She sighed.
His hand stilled, fingers cupping her breasts.
"You expect a compensation?" The tone was mocking as usual, but with a strained quality to it. Was it only fatigue?
"I thought we negotiated my freedom, at the very least."
"It is a broad term, freedom. Aren't you free from obligations here?"
"All but one," she murmured, molding her back more comfortably against his chest, bracing with her palms on his thighs.
"But that is a courtesy, is it not?"
"Are you talking about the book or my fucking you?"
"This is not an obligation," he reminded, somber.
"You're right, this feels more like a mistake."
"Perhaps it is."
"You're absolutely right, Bane." She smiled saying that, not in the least inclined to stop what they were doing. That wasn't really a question. They both knew very well all points for and against their current arrangement, and undoubtedly there were more against. "You do make a passable cushion, but there is one thing not quite right."
"What is it?"
"There appears to be a lump, and it's really uncomfortable to sit on." She wiggled, pushing her ass insistently to his abdomen.
"Let me remedy that." Again, with clear mirth, even if a bit fatigued.
What did he do to strain his inhuman endurance to this point?
She didn't wonder about it further, because it was too difficult to focus with Bane's strong forearm effortlessly hitching her higher up his chest. She strained her legs to retain purchase on the supporter stretchers, while he opened his slacks. Her head fell back, and she nuzzled his masked jaw, getting a rough caress of the cold metal on her neck in return. Buckles of his wristbrace scratched slightly on the inside of her thigh, the leather itself a cool, buttery glide on her overheated skin. He pushed aside her panties, not bothering even to get rid of them his favourite way. Helena tested the tension in his muscles, gripping tightly his forearm. She smiled when flesh underneath her palms danced with strained movement as he slowly lowered her back to his pelvis. His right hand stayed splayed over her pussy, guiding his cock inside, and then keeping her clothes out of the way.
Helena mewled and sighed, not patient enough to wait for Bane to move, immediately grinding her hips in painfully slow circles. She felt him relax behind her, shifting her back with him to sit slumped in the chair, the wood cracking and groaning under their combined shifting weight. The arm holding her up loosened, and he followed the curves of her body, palming her breasts and teasing with light scratches at her neck. Up and up, until he delicately gripped her jaw and craned her head up. As if for a kiss.
She wanted nothing more then, her mouth agape, brows furrowed and throat full of moans.
He pressed hard the hand over her pussy, the pressure on her clit unrelenting, as he savored the glide of his cock in and out, all the while holding her folds apart with two fingers. She tightened, sucking in her bottom lip, straining under his heated gaze. She hooked her left arm behind his head, clawing at the back of his neck, her right hand circled over his right bicep, hard as a rock even while shifting with rhythmic movements of his palm. Her hips moved of their own accord, grinding over him, keeping his cock inside at all times. She wasn't ready to let him slide out even for a second, the shifting pressure outside as well as in enough to bring her nearly to the end.
Bane smoothed his thumb over her lips, eyes glued to her every reaction. She opened her mouth wider, inviting him in, closing her eyes when he gently slid rough pad of his digit over her tongue. He hissed when she sucked him in further, scratching with her teeth, greedy and lustful. His hips joined her movements, shifting up with urgency, speeding up already quickened pace.
He whined low in his throat, the throbbing sound Helena knew all too well already, one he made when he wanted something he couldn't get.
"Would you kiss me now if you could?" she asked breathlessly, twisting her head away, shifting her body forward to brace her hands on his knees.
Bane let her change the position, following her movements with palms circling her hips, panting heavily down her neck.
"Do not tease me," he growled, "I have no patience left for it."
He made her gasp with a forceful pull down his cock.
"But I want to feel you," she argued. "I want to know how would it be to have you filling me up everywhere, all at once."
The mask was pressed painfully to her shoulder, and he didn't answer, instead pumping her hips over his shaft with growing strength.
Helena fisted coarse fabric under her hands, trying to control the tremors coursing down her spine. Her legs slid off the support, shifting her uncontrollably lower. Bane moaned with her and hooked her knee back up, opening her wider still with a strong palm clutching underside of her thigh.
She looked on her bed with unseeing eyes, giving him everything she could, braced on him with outstretched hands. Her head fell when the climax hit her unexpectedly with a strong surge of Banes hips, her arms buckled under her weight.
She felt him shuffle his hands to support her better, moving back to pressing her to his chest with an arm across her ribcage.
He must have felt how her heart fluttered, how her breaths hitched with every spasm of her muscles around his cock.
"There will be a day when I will have you in every way I want," he promised, growling the words through clenched teeth, the mask making it sound like a threat. "I will know how you smell everywhere, I will know how does your cunt taste, how does your nipples feel on my tongue."
Helena gasped, her hands now pressed to her pussy, feeling the sawing of Bane's cock inside her. She was so wet his thighs were damp, the fabric of his slacks together with his skin. She felt every contortion in his body, pressing her closer and closer, in ever slowing and shorter bursts.
Finally he came, transferring both hands to force her hips down as he ground up. The chair creaked loudly, complaining over the force with which he pressed his body to the backrest. Helena gasped at the feeling, in unison with Bane's groan.
He panted with his head thrown back over the backrest, thumbs drawing circles on Helena's skin.
"I'm pleasantly surprised the chair pulled through."
She chuckled through still heaving breaths.
"My breakfast is probably stone cold by now."
"I'll have them bring you something fresh from the kitchens," Bane offered absentmindedly.
"No need, it's fine. I usually don't get into it before it's lukewarm anyway." With a hiss she slid off of him on unsteady legs, threw on her thin robe.
"Why?"
The question made her turn back to him from the window for a moment. Her fingers sneaked over papers strewn across the windowsill.
"There's something in the quality of the morning air here. I don't know what exactly makes it special, maybe it's the altitude we're at, or perhaps the latitude…" She raised some sketches she made to the window, frowning at the lines barely visible in the faint light. "Enough said, there's a tint in the early hours of the morning, making the air shimmer. Did you notice?"
Bane kept looking at her quizzically, as if he dozed off with his eyes open, as if he forgot a response was expected of him.
Helena brushed her hair off her face, a stubborn strand that grew too long and kept escaping her haphazard hairdo.
"I tried to get it down on paper, but it eludes me," she sighed, throwing the sketches back. "So many things keep eluding me here."
Rising her head to the sky she blinked sudden unwelcome tears away. Maybe that was the shimmer she chased. The tender moment between reality and realization, the fantasy that couldn't be, but seemed so close.
She stayed by the window when she heard click of the door being shut, and after a while watched Bane scale the courtyard back to his turret. His men greeted him, and he followed their words with something kind, because everyone he met came out with a smile and an energetic spring in their gait.
oOo
Comment responses here!
Lia, thank you so much! Getting an email with a comment is the best gift a writer cam get, and one like yours is just perfect. Hope you enjoyed this little piece as well. :)
Sxevlbtch, yeah, you guessed right, but only like half of it. ;D but yeah, you're on the right track!
Undercooked Cookie, Hell yesssssss! 😸 Here's another crumble to get you through the withdrawals. Also, I'm sometimes posting snippets on tumblr, just so you know...