Chapter 3: The Soldier
The hot spring lapped at the stone in tongues of lead and fire as Sofimon pulled them to a stop on the penultimate step of the stairs. And with the smile of a satisfied woman, she gently pressed Valkyon back against the wall.
He blinked once in surprise, but said nothing, offered no resistance as her hands swept the ends of his long, ivory hair from his shoulders, then traced him by the hard curves of his upper arms, the shape of his pectorals, the ridges of his ribs and stomach that shuddered under the sweep of her questing fingers. His amber-bright eyes continued to watch her, opened wide and deep.
It was the look, Sofimon realized in a heartbeat, of a not-entirely innocent young man who spent years promoting a different face entirely. Not from reserve per se, but from shyness. From an ironclad skepticism in the idea that there were those who wanted him deeply. It was safer to assume otherwise than to hope.
Her hands swept up again to the buckle of his short cuirass, snapped it open with a low click to part his doubts and that jagged sheaf of black leather saddling his skin. And when her palms slipped inside, cupping the stiff, velvety buds of his nipples, the bass weight of his breath drew taut in his chest. Valkyon swallowed, the muscles of his bronzed throat rolling in the deep shadows thrown up from her lantern at their feet. His great hands finally came up, caught her by her elbows.
"This isn't necessary," he breathed, his voice reduced to a low husk. "It'll be faster if I take care of my own clothes."
Sofimon glanced down at his grip, reduced to no more than a gentle pressure around her arms, then up at the wire-tautness of his biceps. And she smiled at him. "Maybe I'll take a while," she admitted, with a light chuckle. Her forefinger traced the line of his breastbone. "But after all this time, I want to learn how to buckle you out of all that armor."
His answer was short and concise. "…Ah," he remarked slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. Even as blush began to darken the skin of his neck, marching up past the angles of his jaw. His callused, square-tipped fingers uncurled and fell away. And Sofimon cupped the side of his jaw, pressing a slow kiss on the pulse on his neck as it leapt and shuddered under her lips. Then another one, butterfly-soft, in the dip of his collarbone, as she fully pulled his cuirass apart and pressed her nakedness against the furnace warmth of his body, relishing the weight of his arms as they finally, shyly, folded around her.
"I'm sorry though for not leaving any clothes for you to work with," she joked from the hollow of his neck, rising to the balls of her feet. Teasing him with the roll of her navel and the tautness of her nipples brushing against his skin, an answering warmth blooming through her breasts.
Valkyon kept his stillness. Then he raised one hand from the small of her back, and with militant deliberateness, plucked the last violets out of her damp hair. And with equal precision, he flicked them one-by-one into the white-flecked stream that coursed behind her, beginning its long tumble down to the ravine floor.
Her laughter finally brought his smile to the surface.
In the murky light of dusk, with sooty clouds chasing the last of the cinnabar sunlight west, Sofimon slowly eased her captain out of his armor. Operating partly by touch, partly by the cues from his hands and the obliging shifts of his body, she unbuckled pauldron and couter, cuisse and greaves, dropped his heavy cuirass onto the stones and stripped his scuffed black vambraces from his forearms, slipped his feet out of their steel-plated boots and pressed a kiss into the inside of his muscular thigh that sparked another low shudder from his core, his knees tensing, his strong fingers curling deep into the wet mane of her hair that pulled an answering sigh from her.
Emboldened, she half-rose from her knees, pressing delicate kisses up the firm valley of his navel as her hands skimmed the backs of his thighs, cupping the firmness of his buttocks through his trousers, her eyes never once leaving his. And she couldn't resist smiling as a fresh wave of flush spilled down from his neck to the base of his navel. Those steady, sun-touched eyes for the first time flicked away from her and closed as his thighs and hips shivered, thrust forward to her, the hard bulge of his arousal already growing as the softest of groans escaped his chest.
Valkyon may not bat an eyelid on walking in on a naked woman in a hot-spring. Or vice versa. But at being touched sensually, at being undressed not in a utilitarian way but with love, at being spoiled, the hardened commander's shell fell away from him. And she could see the boy that he once was, long ago.
Now who could blame her for wanting to know what he was like, back when he first knew a woman? At this point, any finger-wagging from above would just be cruel.
The chain clasps of his belt rattled free in surrender, clattering and skittering down the steps almost to the water. Her mouth pulled his lips open, and filled them as the shadow's breadth of air between snapped with the sound of the last buttons of his trousers giving way. The broad span of his hands cupped the back of her head, held her there and adored her even as Sofimon pushed the hem of his pants down, just enough for her to fold her questing fingers around the thickness of his manhood. And she slid his hard shaft through the tight curve of her palm still moist with spring water. Pumping him until his muffled groan shivered hard through him and into her like a plucked bass string, his body curling forward, knees seizing, arms descending to clench tight around her with a ferocious hunger that made dampness spring fresh between her legs.
Only then did she pull away, and only just. "Why don't you follow me down to where we could be a little more comfortable?" she whispered against his mouth, softening the stroke of her hand into a feather-light caress up the length of his turgid manhood.
"Lead the way," came his answer, his breath gusting hot against the skin of her cheek, his eyes opening again by a crack, now dark with want.
His trousers and smallclothes joined the pieces of his armor, lying at ease across the basalt steps. The ewer swung into her hand, the ball of soap inside rolling faintly to the cadence of her laughter as she took him by his hand and guided him into the spring. Like an approving audience, the hidden naiad she found on the mural flashed through her mind, arching eagerly from the riverbed for her sleepy-eyed youth on the bank.
Sofimon was still grinning as she re-entered the spring, walking backwards into the intense, welcome warmth that slipped up around her thighs and hips, when Valkyon's hand snagged in hers. His thighs clenched once, knees bending by a fraction of an inch as he sank one leg into the roiling heat of the captured stream and stopped. Her grin faded; she wondered for a beat if the water might be a touch too warm for his taste. But even as that thought surfaced, the tension suddenly spilled from him in an easy, voiceless sigh. The wire-tautness in his arms dissolved joint-by-joint; his broad hand in hers slackened. And the last of her concerns were banished with his telltale glimmer of a smile as he stepped off the stairs to join her in the spring, wading boldly into the simmering, iron-laced waters that closed around his waist.
He was still smiling as his arms curled into place around her waist. "You might have a point in choosing to skip catalogue work for this place," he remarked, coppery skin now flushed bright in the lamplight.
"I was not skipping work!" Sofimon retorted automatically. The image of Kero alone at their campsite flashed guiltily through her mind's eye; she slapped her captain's chest with spring water. "The painting of the pool is there in my satchel if you really want to see it, sir. You were the one who took your sweet time to get here."
"Never walk into a trap unprepared. That's my motto." He was grinning now.
More distractions, it seemed. In answer, she smoothed out her scowl, propped her ewer on top of the bench behind him, and snaked her arms around the broad span of his shoulders. Her smile silenced him. "Now when have I ever ensnared you in something you didn't enjoy in the end?" she asked, mildly. "I'm hurt when you say you don't trust me."
And fast as a fish in the current, she leapt out of the spring, her thighs snapping tight around his waist, her sex pressed flush against the skin of his navel as her lips sealed his mouth shut against his dry quips. Valkyon staggered once, then held his ground, taking her weight in powerful arms that locked determinedly below the curves of her thighs and buttocks, the sound of his surprise muffled, and then dissolved into a low moan as her mouth and the roll of her sex against him worked him breathless.
Her lips were slick from the taste of him when she let him surface, pushing his damp hair back from his ears and temples. She cupped his flushed face in her hands as she pecked him one more time, soft and chaste, on the mouth. Like an apology. "Let's assume, for tonight, that you are in entirely-safe hands. That I want to treat you. Would you sit down then, and let me prove it?"
"If you like," he breathed, succinct as ever. But there was a new glow in his eyes; a new warmth in the timber of his voice and in the certainty of his hands braced under her thighs as he slowly sank into the submerged bench, pulling her onto his lap.
Sofimon would be lying if she said that she hadn't imagined bathing him before. Many times. It was just her luck that she had a captain who—at the end of each intensive spar under the midmorning sun—liked to strip to his waist and upend a bucket of cold well water over himself, dusky nipples rising erect as chill water chased sweat down his skin. Mercifully ignoring her as she stood by on the sparring grounds and imagined that it was her fingers slipping deep into the snowy mane of his hair, slicking water down his neck and over his bronzed skin still aglow from the heat of their exertions.
So tonight, she made sure to take her time. To relish the breadth of his back between her thighs as she maneuvered herself onto the benchtop behind him, his head level to her stomach. To trace the pale nicks standing out against the skin of his shoulders; scars she still didn't know the stories for. To slowly stream warm spring water from the ewer onto the crown of his head, his eyes shielded under the eave of her palm. And when her soap-lathered hands sank deep through the mane of his hair, massaging his scalp in firm, even circles from hairline to temple to dome, tracing the invisible network of pressure points under his skin with fingers slicked with rose oil, she was rewarded with a full sigh that welled up from the depths of his chest. Valkyon sank far into the splay of her thighs, eyes shuddering closed, all tension suddenly uncorked from his spine and spilling out from him. At the sight of his face, at the rich timber of his sigh, Sofimon wrapped her legs tighter around him, the flesh of her inner thighs and her womanhood already warm, pliant, and throbbing with need from the heat of the spring, eager to take in the shape of him.
If she had to guess, this was his first time letting another person wash his hair for him. And judging from his bonelessness now, this wasn't about to be his last.
She curled herself forward to kiss him—upside down– between his eyes, his forehead slicked with lather, the smell of rose oil mellowing out the heavy musk of his hair. Her soap-slicked fingers spiraled slowly down the sides of his face, tracing the pressure points from temple to ear to jaw.
"So… I take it the spring is agreeing with you, Captain?" she asked, teasingly. One finger slipped slyly, for a beat, around the edges of his lush lips. The barest quiver, and they flexed into a smile.
"Maybe this isn't such a bad place to spend the evening," Valkyon concurred lightly. His eyes remained closed, the back of his head lolling against her open thigh.
"Well I'm glad you think so too." Sofimon reached for the sea sponge, lathered it into a pale cherry foam, and traced it around the valley of his neck, down the plane of his chest and abdomen, into the deep nooks under his arms. "Because I couldn't help but think of you when Kero and I stumbled upon this place."
A feather-light kiss against the whorl of his ear, and then she bent far forward, her free hand sliding over the foam slicked along his chest and stomach in the wake of the sponge. Her fingers massaged the lather deeper into his naked skin in firm, teasing circles that spiraled from north to south; the topography of his body- the ridges of rib and fired-bronze muscle, and the stubborn groves of his scars- made plain to every slick sweep of her hand.
"And why is that?" he asked softly, his eyes still closed, his whisper by her ear just barely coiled with need as she mapped the contours of his torso. His back arched up, the length of his body stretching to give her hand more purchase below; his hand closed possessively around her knee.
"Because I've been searching high and low for months for the perfect place to see you like this." Her free hand dipped lower still, kneading the firm flesh of his abdomen below his navel, just as her sponge swept up again, its stiff whorls delicately tracing around the mocha-dark ring of his nipple.
The effect was electric: Valkyon's back curled tight into the splay of her thighs, muscles tensing, a hoarse gasp escaping halfway from his lips, then breaking in two when his mouth sealed shut again. Just below the water darkened with dusk, the head of his arousal rose, long and defiant. The ocher-tinged knuckles of his hand braced hard over her knee.
Between her giggles, she peppered the side of his jaw with quick kisses a shadow's breadth apart, holding him close and soothing him until that bright spasm of desire simmered down to a new glow in his skin. "Granted… any place will do if I can see you arch like that. But, call me impractical if you like, I want to know you in a place that's… more memorable than the showers in the barracks. Somewhere far away from home and the mission roster that runs our lives; a hidden nook in this world that only we can know, and which won't vacate our memories for a very long time afterwards. In short, I want this to be a moment that can never be replaced. About as much as that moment when I first ran into you. Literally."
"…I see." His gold-gilt eyes were wide awake when they found hers again. And then his free hand rose, dripping from the spring. With careful, painstaking purpose, he pushed back the loose locks of her hair, and cradled the back of her head inside the warm cup of his palm. His mouth parted, lingered in silence for a long moment, and then twitched along both sides by fractions of an inch. And held there. His gaze never so much as flickered from hers. "…If I made your period of service over the past year awkward, Sofi, then I apologize."
And here, perhaps, was the purpose to her year-long quest. If she hadn't worked at him patiently for this long, if she hadn't studied him, and learnt to read the nuances in the lines of his smile, in the flicker of those sun-flecked eyes, in the rhythm rolling under the words he chose and the movements he made, then she would have missed what he meant to say right now. And perhaps would have written it off as another of his trademark pithy quips. Or a very literal apology.
It just wasn't Valkyon's way to say out-loud "I love you as well". One had to search for it in the subtleties.
"'Awkward' is the last word I'd use to describe it, meu amor," Sofimon answered. And she bent herself lower to meet his mouth, upside-down.
His arms opened to welcome her as she finally slipped off the benchtop to straddle his lap, bundling her flush against his chest still slippery with suds, his head bowing—almost reverent– to taste her breasts for the first time. Once again, her fingers delved deep into his hair in answer, slicking back the rosy lather to keep it from slipping into his eyes, cradling his head in her hands as he ministered to her as a woman.
Her little cries punctuated the deepening twilight at every hungry knead of his mouth over the buds of her breasts, every warm, liquid swirl of his tongue around her nipples throbbing with fire, every tender print of his lips against the curves and the valley of her breasts until she could bear his ministrations no longer, and pulled him up again to catch those full, perilous lips in hers. The water lapped high around her breasts as she ground deeper still into his lap, ensnaring his waist in the fold of her thighs, the solid girth of his member a tantalizing firmness against the lips of her sex as she rocked herself in bold, curving thrusts over the shape of his manhood, teasing the nub of her clit.
Like a musician meeting his instrument, Valkyon's broad hands played across the curve of her back: sweeping firm down the line of her spine, pressing into the triangle of her tailbone, cupping and kneading her deep in the curve of her buttocks; once again finding all those sweet spots in her flesh that made her arc and shiver anew from her core, her moist breath shuddering his name against the skin of his mouth, her skin slipping enticingly against his chest smoothed with lather and foam. And it was only when her eyes shivered open again that she noticed the sly tilt to his little smile: a confession that maybe, just maybe, he knew how much she enjoyed his post-spar massages even then.
Well, well. Tonight was a night made for surprises.
Sofimon laughed at his cheekiness, her clit still pulsing to a beat that left her breathless, and cupped his chin in her hands, drawing him forward into the lightest of kisses. Her mouth barely closed over the plumpness of his bottom lip before she drew away, watching him blink twice in confusion before her next kiss alighted whisper-soft on the corner of his lantern jaw, and trailed up inch-by-inch to his ear until a low laugh finally broke through him, lighting the chambers of her chest.
He was still lolling back, eyes closed in the gentle, cloud-light haze her mouth left him in, anticipating more, when Sofimon reached for the cake of soap behind him, pinched off a sliver that curled in her fingers like a waxen rose petal, and ducked it underwater between his legs. And she lathered the length of his member in fast, vigorous strokes that made his knees jerk below her, his tawny eyes snatching open in surprise, his hands squeezing her buttocks hard as his manhood swelled to full attention in her hands, and the deepest groan yet broke full from his lips, the mere sound of his arousal springing an answering wetness between her legs.
Passion rolled in feverish embers through her belly as she fused her lips to the underside of his jaw, then broke off to trail hard kisses down the length of his muscular neck, catching the thunder of his pulse and echoing his name in between each print of her mouth. Her lover's hands engulfed her hips, holding on for all that was dear as her knees dug into the bench, and she rose, and her hand finally guided him inside.
His thickness caught her breath, sending a long shudder reverberating through her stomach, rolling her shoulders forward into the tight fold of his arms and anchoring her trembling mouth to the thick, timpani beat of his pulse once again as his slicked sex stretched the walls of her womanhood wide; a sweet ache that turned her bones translucent. The night thinned into a sharp tremor that filled an immeasurable stretch of time, the heat of his breath mixing with hers, the strength of his hands guiding her hips home, until she felt herself sinking down to his hilt. And then the cinder-burn through her bones fell away, melting into a deep, lambent pleasure that lit every pore of her skin as his length and fullness opened up her depths. Her thighs and clit quivered over the taut space where they were joined as she folded herself deeper into his embrace, tensions spent, his breath mixing hot into her hair as the last rumble of his groan thrummed through his chest and into hers.
They had only just begun, but she groaned his name anyhow into the skin of his throat, fingernails biting into his broad shoulders. Valkyon answered with his lips plotting her hairline and the curves of her eyebrows, his words breathless: "…Are you all right, Sofi?"
"What a question…" She folded her arms tighter around his shoulders, her eyes still seared shut from his entrance, and peppered the moist skin around his lips with the shape of her smile as she rocked slowly on top of him. Her thighs hooked high around the breadth of his chest, parting herself further for his member to thrust slow, careful, and sweet into her, shuddering her breath with every atom's breadth of movement. The scant air between them filled with the sweet, pillowy murk of crushed rose, the heat of his breath, the tang of iron and steam from the water as his hands braced her hips and the small of her back to follow the rhythm of her passion.
Around and in-between, the spring splashed coyly to their rhythm, its heat second only to the searing warmth of him driving into her core millimeter by millimeter, then centimeter by centimeter, and longer still as the walls of her womanhood pulsed and slicked wetter with need around his firmness, and her groans stretched longer, welcoming him to plunge deeper, emboldening him. The first sparks of pleasure deep in her core thickened into a split-instant golden storm each time his hands pressed into the curves of her buttocks, each time they glided quick up and down the arch of her back, each time he breathed the double-syllable of her name into the pulse on her neck as they rocked together- her body splayed open to catch the rhythmic rising of his sex, then folding forward to sink him deeper still into her being.
And when Valkyon's furthest thrust yet suddenly struck that sweet spot inside her, seizing her back into an electric arc and shocking her eyes wide open, his name on her lips, she finally met his gaze again, and realized he hadn't once closed his eyes. He had been watching her from the moment she crested the first waves of pain-tinged-pleasure: studying her, savoring every spasm of pleasure that crossed her expression, with that patient, painstaking, open attention that was unmistakably him.
Warmth burst sudden through her breast and her mouth reached for his with new hunger. Catching his lips as her legs uncurled against the enameled bench and propelled her up along his shaft, then driving her down again just as his hips rolled forward, their passions meeting in an incandescent burst inside her that made her cry out against his lips and clench tight around him. But she didn't close her eyes this time.
Instead she held that golden gaze in hers as her hips bucked double-pace into his lap, spearing herself breathless, her hands raking deep into the moist tangle of his hair. She held on even as he braced her hips inside those great hands and lent her his strength, bouncing her over the spread of his thighs, thrusting up to her in ever-faster strokes that pierced bright through her being. His pupils dilated in the half-dark just a breath away from hers as each pulse-quick thrust from him sparked and collected an electric tremor through every one of her limbs, through every fiber in her spine, jerking and contorting her with pleasure inside the cradle of his body.
And when her hips curled deep against him, thighs locking hard around his chest and quivering in the advent of a storm, Sofimon's hands clenched tight through his hair, pulled helplessly as the first wave of her release broke over her. And with a thunderous groan that shook him from throat to navel, Valkyon answered by seizing her thighs around him and rising explosively from the water. Bearing them both out of the spring to thrust full into her with tempest-fast snaps of his hips that jolted her in midair, casting her up between earth and sky and water, then catching her with an ecstatic gasp upon his spear over and again, until each brilliant jolt of light lancing through her bled together into a constant white that crashed in a tumult over her senses and broke the barriers of her being, wiping out even those searing amber eyes from her vision as the world around them split silent once more into the formless blaze of creation.
...By the way, it's not over yet. One more chapter awaits, with more discoveries- and consequences- for these two lovers.