"Aramis… Aramis…" He placed his hand gently on the bare shoulder of the young woman who was lying next to him. She was on her side, her back turned to him. Her body glistened with sweat. Although he couldn't see her face well through the voluminous hair that fell onto it, he could swear that the moisture on her face was not from sweat but also from tears.

She didn't move. For the most part, the musketeer was physically drained. She also felt a sense of satisfaction that was akin to a long day of successful training. But there were other thoughts racing in her head.

In the moment when he had left her in the room, after he had kissed her, she could feel her senses lit on fire. A fire that felt so inescapable that the only way to put it out was to give in to it; and she had been desperate to have him give in to it as well. It wasn't that she had simply wanted to "try" things out. She wanted to see him at his rawest. She wanted him to disarm her, to engage with her, to fight her, to possess her, to love her. She wanted it all, every part of him. Had she bargained for more than she could handle?

And yet… she shivered at the memory of how he had handled her. How he had trapped her, held her in place, the way he commanded her and ordered her. Good God, was it so wrong to have liked it? He was in control but completely out of it at the same time. She felt utter satisfaction in knowing that she had broken him down, that she had managed to seduce him and that her mere presence was powerful enough to make him lose himself and his sense of morality entirely. However, as she lay there, the question burned in her mind: Had he just made love to her? Or had he simply decided that her rejection of him merited some kind of punishment and that was all there is to it?

She felt a pair of large hands encircle her face and turn her around. She stared at him absently.

"Aramis… pardonnez-moi… pardonnez-moi," His eyes were filled with remorse, as he covered her face, her eyes and her lips with urgent tender kisses.

"I beg you, please forgive me. I was nothing but a bastard…" his voice almost broke.

He kissed her again and buried his head in the groove of her neck as he held her to him tightly.

Jean-Armand de Treville was a man of composure, of self-discipline, who kept the enjoyment of pleasures in life to a minimum. He had a high threshold for pleasure to begin with and it was precisely due to this that he had stopped frequenting women.

His taste in the bedroom was…unique. He preferred to exercise the same calculated coldness and dominance in the bedroom as he did in real life. He was also not a man capable of relinquishing control in any aspect of his life. As such, he did not see the point in performing simple acts in bed simply for pleasure. He had done it, in the past, to please his mistresses. But he quickly became bored and abandoned the idea. There was only ever one woman who had shared his perverted tastes and even thrived on them. However, she was not a personality he could suffer for more than a minute outside of the bedroom. The fact that she had also come up with a nickname and spread it around certainly contributed to the demise of that relationship.

Then on day, an unexpected person showed up on his doorstep. Little did the Captain of the Musketeers know at the time that Renée d'Herblay would become the only woman he could stand to be around, nay wanted to be around.

From the very beginning, she had challenged him. He had accepted her challenge of him and of the societal norms she was breaking. When someone plays such a dangerous game as gambling with their very life for a just cause, as Renee had done, it forces the respect of others. It would then become shameful not to accept her and not to acknowledge her.

He had suspicions whether someone as passionate and driven as her would survive long enough in a militaristic regiment. Not because she couldn't handle herself or defend herself. But how will someone so rogue be content with the hierarchy of order and absolute obedience? What if her grief made her unhinged and she herself would spill her own secret as a rebellion, thereby taking him and the regiment down with her? Women, and especially emotional women, could not be trusted. They belonged in a convent.

But still, he took the risk. And she never let him down. In fact, for the most of the last six years, he himself had started to think of her as a man most of the time. It was only recently, after Belle-Isle, after her mission was concluded that he remembered Renee. But when he looked at Aramis, there were no more traces of the young headstrong girl from six years ago. In her place was someone who had had a mission, who came up with a strategy and followed it through thick and thin. In the eyes of the musketeer before him, he saw Aramis, the interim Captain of the Musketeers. He saw himself.

She had become his equal.

Hence, without her knowledge, the complete transformation of Renee into Aramis had made her the only woman in the world that Captain Jean-Armand de Treville could ever see himself married to.

And so, he revisited his proposal, this time with intention of winning her, not getting her out of the way as he had thought to do six years ago.

Throughout the trial, however, Treville had been wary. He had been wary of scaring her, of losing control, of showing her this side of him and having her revolt. While before, Treville had nothing to prove to a sixteen-year old provincial girl, he now had everything to prove to this femme-musketeer. He thus kept himself under tight control. He had even promised himself that, should she agree to marry him, he was willing to forsake his own pleasures in bed to please her, in whichever way she had wanted.

It was all he could to walk away from her when they kissed. But then… oh but then… he could feel his member pulsating with pleasure as he remembered how she stood in the hallway, bold and proud, letting that dress fall to the ground and revealing her spectacular nudity to him. And on top of that, she had challenged him and he perceived it as an invitation.

To hell with it! Yes, he wanted her. He craved the idea of dominating her, of shaping her into the wife he wanted just as he shaped her into a musketeer. He could not resist. The more they got into it, the less he was able to resist. Oh, and the memory of the obscene sounds she had made!

Had he gone too far?

Yes, his musketeer was strong and capable. But she was also terribly lacking in experience. Why couldn't he just make love to her normally? Ah, but he wanted to show her: this is what it would be like to become his wife, his partner in life and in bed.

In any case, it was a lost cause now. She was not responding to him. She had rejected him. Twice. And why shouldn't she?

"Aramis…" he begged her.

Finally, she turned around to face him, plunging her deep azure eyes into his. The color and the void expression in her eyes almost took his breath away.

She didn't know what to say: I feel like a whore. But I enjoyed it. I liked how you fucked me. I didn't know pain could be pleasurable. I liked how you humiliated me. It made me come. What does that say about me? Is this love? It can't be… with Francois, it was always sweet, passionate, respectful.

She watched him with her eyes half closing as he kissed her hands tenderly and stroked her face, removing the moist locks of hair that were sticking to her face. He then covered them both with the sheets and held her tightly in his arms, whispering words of affection. She couldn't explain it, but it felt good, it felt safe. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

….

When she woke up, a faint orange hue bathed the room. The bed next to her was empty and her heart sank for a minute before she saw his profile elegantly sitting in an armchair by the bed, reading a book in the light of the candle. She stared at him for a few minutes, admiring his focus and concentration and the way his brow furrowed. She couldn't help but smile; he was adorable.

She wrapped the sheets around her nude body and moved over to him. Sensing her movement, he put his book down and welcomed her in his arms as she sat on his lap. She stroked his cheek and, to his surprise, planted a kiss on his lips.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she spoke softly, as she stroked his hair away from his face. He relished in her sweet touch, closing his eyes momentarily to enjoy it.

He exhaled, "I didn't think it would come to this. I didn't think you could ever want me to begin with but then once we started, I couldn't help it…" he looked away in shame.

"It worries me to think that, had I married you without knowing, this would have become imposed on me…"

"Do you despise me?"

"No."

Silence.

"Did you hate it?"

More silence.

Finally, she smiled faintly, "No… But," she paused, "I would have liked to know before so I would have been more... prepared."

"You're right, forgive me."

"In any case, I have always had suspicions of your perverted tendencies."

"Oh?"

She smiled and rose, pulling him back to bed.

"Maybe we can agree on a code-word next time?"

"A code-word?"

"Like a safety mechanism?"

"That sounds…strategic!"

"In the meantime, you admit that I caused you to lose control?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"So, then it looks like I won our duel."

Treville chuckled as he placed himself gently on top of his musketeer.

"You're incredible, you know!"

"I think you owe me a reward."

"Oh?"

"In fact, I think maybe I'd like to be the one dominating you sometimes…"

"Well, I don't know how I would feel about this…" he caressed her nude chest absent-mindedly.

"Let's find out, shall we?" she winked at him.

It all happened quickly. She grabbed a handful of his hair and, with all her force, she shoved his head to her crotch, where she opened her legs to receive him.

His first thought mirrored the one he had had when she stood in the hallway, calling him by his name only and demanding his attention: How dare she?

His second thought – while not originating in his brain - also mirrored the one he had had before: But how can I resist her?

As he touched her tongue to her sex and began to devour her lustfully, he realized: he could never dominate her. Any dominance over her was simply an illusion that only she could orchestrate, nothing more. In the end, he was hopelessly devoted to her. He would give his life to her and if she was ready to indulge him then by God, he will indulge her in every way possible. He knew that there was no purpose in resisting her anymore. She had won. She had conquered him, so he set to his task and was terribly pleased to once again hear her moan, taste her fluids. Good God! What was he even complaining about?!

When she came, she pulled him up to her and they interlocked passionately.

"Make love to me," she demanded.

He understood. She was ready to indulge him, yes, but she also wanted to feel his love and affection for her. The very things he had deprived her of throughout their trial.

Jean-Armand de Treville had made love to many women in the past, but he had never made love. He watched her underneath him as she moaned and sighed with every thrust. He felt her breath on his face, her eyes half-closed, her hair becoming moist. This was no woman.

This was Renée, his Renée, his prodigy, his secret, his wife. His thrusts were no longer calculated, he went and came inside of her freely, like a stormy wave on the edge of a cliff. With every thrust, a new wave of moans escaped his lover and she held on to him tighter, almost digging her fingernails into him. She wrapped her legs tighter around him, drawing him in deeper – the sensation made him groan with pleasure. How right it felt! He increased the intensity until, with one last moan from her, which he was sure was heard violently around the house, he exploded inside of her.

Sweaty and clammy, he collapsed on top of her and she wrapped her arms around him.

"Je vous aime," he whispered as he buried himself in her chest.