She trusted Leliana explicitly. That was probably the only reason she agreed to her harebrained ploy anyway. Chantal had first watch with Morrigan. When they were relieved by Leliana and Zevran, Morrigan retreated to the farthest edge of the camp, as she did every night. Everyone else was dead asleep.
"Well, goodnight then!" She felt awkward and nervous, tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear. Leliana had Trout's head in her lap and was cooing to him, scratching him behind the ears just the way he liked. "C'mon Trout."
Trout whined, lifting his nose towards Leliana. "Let him stay! He is such a handsome puppy, yes?" Leliana continued on naturally. As if it hadn't been rehearsed six or seven times during their march to Redcliffe. They were halfway there and Chantal had finally decided waiting for a real bed wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Zevran didn't know it yet, but if all proceeded as planned he would not be taking his watch tonight. "Ah, to think I would someday be jealous of a mabari." Zevran sighed, leaning back against the tree trunk he stood beside. "Fawned over by two beautiful women? You have it made, my friend."
Trout barked as if in agreement, wagging his tail. Leliana giggled. "Fine, but I expect you to help keep watch, Ser Trout." Chantal huffed, placing her hands on her slim hips. Trout barked again in delight and Chantal smiled, affectionately, scratching him behind the ear before trudging off to her tent. Set up, unusually, almost as far from the others as Morrigan's. It had drawn some comments from Alistair, but she didn't believe he'd guessed her true purpose.
She entered her own tent and lit the lantern with fumbling fingers. A stray spark drifted perilously close to the canvas and she slapped it out with an oath. What in the Maker's name was she doing? Wynne would be devastated when she found out she'd succumbed to these… urges and invited the lewd assassin back to her bedroll.
There was still time to change her mind, all she needed to do was…
"Oh! Chantal…" Leliana tutted loudly from her post. "I was admiring her ring and she left it here. Would you be a dear and return it to her?"
Chantal clasped her bare finger nervously. It was the ring Enchanter Irving gave her the day she passed her harrowing. She'd worn it religiously since, her last link to the person she was before.
"For you, my lovely little bard, of course!" Zevran declared.
Chantal flushed. How could she be so foolish! Zevran flirted shamelessly with everyone, even Wynne. She was hold enough to be his grandmother, for Andraste's sake! She should turn right around, march out into camp, meet Zevran halfway and reclaim her ring. She would just make Leliana see that she had changed her mind…
Against her will, her mind conjured the image of Zevran staring at her with such naked appreciation, his blades unsheathed. Looking like the very image of an ancient elven god, powerful and dangerous and….
"Warden!" Zevran called cheerfully. "Are you indecent? I've come to return your missing jewelry, but if you are undressed I can certainly come in regardless."
"Come in!" She squeaked, flushing even brighter as the flap of her tent twitched open and Zevran ducked through. Chantal was kneeling on her bedroll, one hand pressed to her stomach to quell her rising nerves, the other pressed in a closed fist to her mouth. Zevran feigned disappointment.
"Ah, decent it is. Such a pity." He sighed, crouching low in an elegant bow and holding out her ring in the center of his palm. "This ring does your beauty no justice, mi belleza. You should be decked in sapphires and rubies."
"Impractical for fighting darkspawn." Chantal plucked the ring from his hand, unable to prevent the pads of her fingers brushing against his warm, calloused palm. In the enclosed space, she could smell him. Something foreign and spicy that made her mouth water, leather, the clean tang of sweat and something underneath that was completely and uniquely Zevran.
As if he noticed the effect he had on her, he captured her fingers lightly in his and brought them to his lips, lightly brushing against them in something that was not nearly chaste enough to appease Wynne. It sent all the blood in her brain rushing downwards.
"I had hoped to see you with your hair down." He said forlornly. "I entertain such pleasant thoughts of your hair loose, ruffled."
She reached her other hand towards one of the plaits hanging down by her ear, it's twin on the other side dangling too close to the hand captured by his. Slowly, she tugged the tie loose, drew her free fingers through it to cast the waves free of their braid. There was a spark in Zevran's eyes that was quickly becoming an inferno. Chantal could hardly believe she had created it, even though conjuring flame was as mindless to her as breathing.
"Have you set out to tempt me, Warden? It is cruel to do so and send me back out into the night." Zevran warned wolfishly. Her fingers, still at his lips, received a gentle nip from his white teeth.
"Yes." She admitted with a blush. "I… I thought you could show me that Antivan massage you were talking about?"
Her voice sounded far too high for her ears, but Zevran's eyes continued to grow darker as he leaned in, his free hand tugging the other tie gently from her braided hair, ruffling that side as well until it matched the other. Slowly, his hand ran through her dark waves, gentle and soothing.
"Have you ever been kissed, pequeña bruja?" He murmured, letting his thumb drift down over her cheekbone, moving towards the object of his discussion. Helplessly, she let her tongue dart out to wet them. His eyes fixed on the little gesture like a falcon on a rabbit.
"No." She admitted. "No, I…I haven't done anything. But I want to. I'm…" She was dying. " I don't want to die a virgin."
Zevran laughed, the sound breathless and as warm as the ale Oghren and Wynne drank. "That, little witch, would be a tragedy. You should be given every ounce of pleasure your body can crave. I would be honored, my warden, to show you the ways of the flesh."
She felt brave and reckless, reaching out to lay her free hand on his shoulder. She had to be imagining it, but he felt as if he was on fire. The heat was unbearable and made her knees weak.
Swooning, the romance novels called it. Chantal Amell, slayer of darkspawn, prodigal daughter of the circle, one of the last two Grey Wardens in Ferelden, was swooning.
She let her hand drift down his shoulder, over his bicep. She'd seen him shirtless before. Zevran lacked any modesty at all and bathing in the wilderness was often a communal experience. She had never allowed the luxury of allowing herself to stare unabashedly like she wanted to.
"Turn around." He instructed gently, letting go of her hand and pulling away from her roaming fingers. Chantal fought the urge to stamp her foot like a child denied. She didn't want to turn around, she wanted to see him, wanted to…
He laughed, reading her thoughts plainly in her face. "I thought to start with that Antivan massage I offered, the one that made you blush so deliciously, yes?" The reminder of their innuendo laden conversation made her face feel hot. "The one I told you that you would beg for, someday. I do so love being right. But if you feel as if you are impatient..."
She turned abruptly, feeling outmaneuvered and very much caught out. Almost immediately, Zevran's arms circled her waist and pulled her flush against his chest. The palms of his hands rested just above the waistband of her breeches, a teasing light pressure that made her want to arch into him. His breath was on her ear, his words causing more dark heat to pool in her core. "I want to take your shirt off, my dear Warden. I want to lay you out on your bedroll and touch every inch of your skin. I want to make you forget all of your cares, my little bird. Si?"
The noise she made was an obvious whimper, one that made him laugh again as he began to brush his lips lightly down the curve of her ear, the line of her jaw. "Zev…" His name in her mouth was a broken plea.
He moaned against her neck and Chantal melted. He nudged her slowly towards the bed roll, laying her flat on her back. Then his hands were sliding up under her linen shirt, calloused palms on the flushed skin of her stomach and she shuddered.
"Do not be nervous." He cooed, fingers caressing her ribs as he inched the shirt higher and higher.
"I'm not." She bit her lip, clutching at her bedroll with her hands. "I just… I don't know what to do." With her hands, her face, the tingly feeling spreading wherever his fingers traced patterns.
"Lift yourself up a bit." Zevran instructed. "Let me get rid of this exquisite wrapping, hm? I wish to behold the more beautiful woman beneath."
She laughed, she couldn't help herself. The exquisite wrapping he referred to was nothing more than a thin linen shirt, pinched from the pack of a trio of bandits that had gotten in her way. She was pretty sure it had been a man's shirt, perhaps a boy's, because it was far too long. "This shirt is nothing near exquisite." She murmured as she arched beneath him, allowed him to pull the shirt free of her skin, over her head.
"It is not any longer." He said simply, tossing it to the side. "It is only exquisite when it adorns you."
She blushed so vividly pink that he chuckled breathlessly again, his hands tracing the bandeau strap across her ribs, but making no move to undo it. Instead, he swiped her hair free of her shoulders and leaned down over her "Now, allow me to show you the skills I have learned that I am only too happy to put at your disposal."
He leaned in closer, his weight pressing down on her gently, his breath hot at her ear again. She could feel his smirk. "Unless dear Leliana is expecting me back, no?"
"She's not." Chantal admitted breathlessly.
She felt his teeth nip at the curve of her ear and the sensation made her gasp, clutch the bedroll tighter. "Little minx." He growled approvingly.
Then his lips were poised above hers, his breath hot against her mouth. A part of her wanted the moment, an endless swell of anticipation as sweet as wine, to last forever. Just her and Zevran, suspended in a single second of bliss, untouched by blight, lonely childhoods, pain, and sadness.
Then he brought his lips to her and she immediately changed her mind. Kissing Zevran, that's what she wanted to last forever. Her arms moved on their own, wrapping around his neck as he pressed against her demandingly. She opened her mouth under his assault, flying a white flag of surrender as his talented, wicked tongue tangled with hers. She felt clumsy in comparison, but Zevran moaned into her mouth as she tentatively touched his tongue with hers.
She tried to follow him as he pulled back, his eyes dark with lust. She chased his lips with a whimper, allowing her fingers to tangle in his golden hair. "Me has embrujado." He whispered, nipping lightly at her bottom lip. "Cuerpo y alma."
She had no idea what he was saying, but she wasn't quite sure she wanted him to stop either. Her hands tugged weakly at the shirt around his neck, tugging it with growing frustration. She wanted to feel his warm velvet heat against her skin, and his damn shirt…
It was gone in a flash, as if she'd magicked it away, and then his chest was against hers again, sliding smoothly against her skin as his strong arm tugged her close to him, capturing her lips in another devastating kiss that left her battered, breathless, and positively keening for more.
Something inside her woke up, something as primal as the mana lurking beneath her skin. Something that knew exactly what to do with all that smooth skin, soft and hard sinewy muscle underneath. Zevran, lean compact, but strong enough to easily slam his daggers through the weak point in an enemy's armor.
Her hands traveled over the planes of his chest, down his arms, nails scratching lightly down his back which caused him to hiss and nip at her lower lip again. She arched up into him, touching her hips to his, feeling something hard and growing under his breeches, something to match the molten heat inside her.
She didn't realize he'd managed to unlace her simple bustier until his free hand cradled one of her breasts and she jerked back with a mewl of surprise when his calloused thumb rubbed over the hard point of her nipple.
He smirked, utterly satisfied with himself as she arched again off the bedroll, pressing her chest more firmly into his hands. Leaning back as she was, she could get a better look at him, the tan skin peppered with thin white scars that she felt under her roaming hands, the black ink spanning across his rippling muscles, accentuating and highlighting them.
He thought she was breathtaking? Maker's breath, he was a work of art. She'd heard stories of Elven gods who once, supposedly, prowled Thedas. He was a perfect model of what they should have looked like, proud and wild.
Her thumb drifted over a longer scar and she felt offended that anyone dared mar a body so exquisite. Then he gently pinched her nipple and the moan that fell from her mouth was enough to make her blush.
"So sensitive, little temptress." He teased, turning his attention to the neglected breast. He brought his wicked mouth down to that one, engulfing her sensitive nipple in his mouth and Maker, nobody ever said it felt this good. She whimpered, rocking her hips against the strong length of his thigh.
If she thought he'd let her off easy, she was wrong. He alternated between gentle licks, nips, caresses, pinches, until she was canting his name, begging him to stop, begging him to never stop. When she thought she was going to start screaming, and Maker help her if she started because she didn't think she'd be able to stop, one of his clever hands trailed a path down to her breeches and slipped between her skin and the thin cotton.
She rose into him like the ocean to the shore and he groaned as he found her scalding hot, wet and needy. Then he touched that little nub of pleasure, the one she'd stroked while thinking of him more times than she could count in her little tent, but it hadn't felt like that. His touch felt like lightning, like her own magic at his fingertips. She cried out as he circled her pearl slowly, clutching his shoulders like he was a rock in a storm.
"Look at me." Zevran commanded, using her other hand to tip her chin back until she met his eyes. She could see herself reflected back, lips kiss swollen and face flushed, dark hair a halo around her head. "I want you to look at me, Chantal, while I pleasure you. Can you do that?"
Anything, anything he wanted. Anything he asked. As long as he never stopped. He'd removed his finger, pulled down her breeches in one smooth motion. Then his calloused fingers, rough and insistent, were teasing her, slipping into her tight channel.
He was going to kill her. She wasn't sure if this was his assassination plan the whole time, but if it was, Chantal couldn't find it in herself to complain. Still, she kept her eyes on his face as he strummed her clit, pushing her closer to the abyss.
The fall was nothing like she'd ever felt, a free fall off a cliff, her scream captured by his mouth as he stroked her through the first shattering orgasm until she collapsed, clinging onto him like the sole survivor of a shipwreck. "Zevran, Zevran…" She moaned.
"I suspect you are as hedonistic as me, Chantal." He purred, slowly slicking his fingers into her fluttering sheath. "Perhaps more so! You strike me as a prodigy."
The fire inside her had dimmed, but it certainly hadn't abated. He was undoing the laces of his breeches with his other hand. He removed his fingers from her only long enough to tug them and his boots free before crawling back between her thighs, licking her juices from his fingers with a relish.
His manhood bobbed proudly, larger than she thought it would be, curved with a gleaming drop of leaking fluid at the tip. A small voice inside her reminded her, loudly, that she hadn't actually done this before.
"Will it hurt?" She asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. No matter what, she'd been stabbed my a damn darkspawn sword not two weeks ago, and it couldn't be that bad.
"It depends, my dear, on how you are made." Zevran took his cock in his hand, slowly sliding it up and down her cleft, gathering her moisture and tickling her swollen clit. "Some women hardly feel a thing. Some feel a bit more. It helps if you are adequately prepared."
"Am I?" Chantal asked breathlessly as the fire began to roar into an inferno. She felt sparks at her fingertips and had to reign her turbulent mana back in. Zevran grinned.
"More than ready, I think." He challenged. "You are a natural."
Before she could say another word, his erect manhood was sliding home inside her, spreading her obscenely open, pulsing with his heartbeat in the deepest core of herself. She waited for pain, for the feel of something ripping, but all she felt instead was a fluttering of unused muscles, a strong urge to clutch down on the intruder and…
Zevran moved inside her and her eyes rolled up in her head, arching her back to press every inch of bare flesh against his. "Again." She demanded, bringing his lips back to hers.
His grin against her lips tasted absolutely sinful. "As you wish, Chantal."
She'd heard the term "well-fucked" before, but had no idea what it meant. She understood in the morning when every inch of her felt like she'd fallen down a cliff, her sore muscles protesting the smallest movement, encouraging her to stay right where she was.
She felt warm, glowing in the weak light pouring through the tent canvas. Zevran's chest under her cheek, his hot breath in her hair. He groaned as she moved sleepily towards the tent flap.
"Mi amor." He croaked sleepily, rubbing his eyes blearily, "must we leave so soon?"
They needed to get to Redcliffe. Chantal smiled down at Zevran. "Yes, but… if you want we can do this again."
"Again?" He chuckled. "Little minx. As if I was done with you yet."
The promise made her knees weak. What more could there possibly be to learn? He'd had her so many times, spilled inside her twice, kissed every inch of her skin and licked their combined fluids from the space between her legs.
A part of her, a wicked and sinful part she was sure, smirked in delight. "I wasn't done with you either." Chantal blushed as the boldness tripped from her tongue.
Zevran fully opened his dark eyes, fixed them on her with an unfathomable expression. "I would wait to see what the rest of our traveling companions think of that first, si? I do not imagine Alistair or Morrigan will be pleased. We were not… quiet, last night."
Chantal blushed even more furiously, tugging her wrinkled shirt over her head. "So?" She asked, dropping her eyes to the ground. "I don't care what they think. I want… I want to do this again. I like you, you make me laugh, and last night…" She trailed off.
It had been the best night of her life, but she was afraid to say so. Afraid admitting it would break the spell. "I had fun, didn't you? Leliana said it was fine if we both had fun and we both wanted to."
"I feel as if I owe Leliana a bottle of wine." Zevran levered himself up, bare chested and glorious in her tent. "My warden, I continue to be your man, as long as you desire me."
"Good." Chantal nodded in satisfaction, tugging her breeches up her thighs. "Now, I need to go wash up."
She stepped out into the bright light recklessly, boldly. Immediately, everyone turned to gawk. Chantal wondered, momentarily, if she had forgotten to put a shirt on after all, but no, she was dressed.
"Maker's breath, did you even get any sleep?" Alistair asked in wonder.
"We certainly did not." Morrigan snapped.
"Thought the grey warden stamina was a myth. Guess I was… myth-taken." Oghren chortled into his ale. Wynne continued to glare at her in stony silence.
"Was this really the time, child?" She asked reprovingly.
Chantal tossed her lose hair back over her shoulder, placed her hands on her hips, and returned Wynne's glare levely.
"I am not a child." Chantal stated firmly.
"Certainly not any longer by the sounds of it." Leliana giggled.
Wynne crossed her own arms over her chest and continued to stare Chantal down. "You have a quest, a purpose, and…"
"I'm doing it!" Chantal protested. "I'm doing everything anyone ever asked of me, and I'm also going to continue to do whatever I like in the privacy of my own tent. So if anyone else has anything to say, I suggest they sod off."
Sten grunted and shook his head, but it was Shale the had the last word.
"I thought the sounds the painted elf and the warden made were effective at keeping away birds." Shale nodded in satisfaction. "I approve."