"Please... tell me. What's so special about this desk?"
The Inquisitor closed her eyes and swallowed hard, as if blocking Cullen out of her sight would help her resist him.
"I- I shouldn't, Cullen... I shouldn't tell you..."
He moved his hands to her hips and her eyes shot open at the contact. He could see the fire there still, and how she was fighting not to give in to the temptation of telling him exactly what she was thinking about.
"Please, what harm could it do? Please, Lily."
She flinched at his words and pushed herself off the desk and away from him. She took a few steps before she turned to look at him again with an expression of ill-concealed sadness.
"You never call me that."
Cullen felt a stab of disappointment. Had he really misread the situation so terribly? "I'm sorry, I just assumed from your reactions that we were at least on a first name basis, my Lady."
She smiled but it was still a sad smile. "We were, I mean we are. But you called me something else, something that almost only you called me. It's what I asked you to call me when you wouldn't stop with the 'my Lady'-nonsense." She smiled fondly at the memory before she continued. "I've never once heard you call me by my given first name."
Cullen decided right then and there what to do, determined not to let the moment be ruined. He walked over to her quickly and stood as close as he dared, not wanting to scare her away again.
"I'm sorry I don't remember. The truth is, maybe I never will. Or maybe I'll wake up one day and it has all come back to me. All I know is that I can't stop thinking about you. Not for a moment. I don't know what our relationship was like before but I can't imagine I didn't feel like this then. The sight of you takes my breath away completely, and when you talk I hear nothing else. When you look at me... Maker, help me."
She looked at him with eyes so adoring, he knew this was the right thing to do.
"So how about this, my Lady? We make new memories. There's no point living in the past anyway, is there?"
"I... You're right, of course. I'm sorry too, Cullen, it must have seemed like I only thought of what's been instead of living in the present, being here with... with you."
He grabbed her hand and held it between both of his own, savouring the heat from her skin as well as the relief when she didn't pull away. "So please, my Lady, what should I call you if not Lily?"
She smiled again and it was the most beautiful sight Cullen had ever laid his eyes on.
"You can call me Trev."
"Alright then, Trev." He tried the name out in his mouth and it felt good, familiar even. It felt right. "Do you have time for a walk, maybe? We can get to know each other a little better, perhaps?"
She nodded eagerly. "I'd love that."
He smiled so wide she must have been able to see every tooth in his mouth but he didn't care. He just felt happy. He offered his arm to her which she took and began to walk towards one of the doors leading out to the battlements. When they passed the desk, he slowed down.
"Are you sure you don't want to tell me about the desk?"
She smiled, her eyes full of mischief. "I don't think so, Cullen." She leaned in close to his face and bit her lower lip. "Although I might show you, soon enough. The good doctor only warned me about talking and nothing else." She looked very pleased with herself and Cullen's eyebrows raised as he wondered what in Thedas she meant by that. Of course, he did have some idea of what it might be, but surely it could be nothing as dirty as that.
Could it?
"And then, she went running off, screaming as if someone had set her skirts on fire. I was quite proud of myself, I was only fourteen years old you know. It served her right, the old bat. Although Father was quite cross with me."
Cullen laughed as Trev finished the tale from her childhood. The sky was darkening already, night almost upon them. They had spent all day together, time had went by so quickly in her company. They had laughed and shared stories and memories from before the Inquisiton. Cullen had listened attentively to everything Trev had told him, fascinated by her personality. She was both regal and elegant as well as witty, fast and quite foul-mouthed when she felt like it. And he was utterly enchanted by her. The way she touched him without thinking about it wasn't exactly easy to ignore, either. A hand on his shoulder here, a brush of their legs there. Each time, he felt it as intensely as if she burned him but it was filled with pleasure instead of pain.
The last remnants of daylights finally disappeared and Trev shivered a little in the cool, crisp autumn air. Cullen immediately unfastened the clasp to his cloak and swept it around her shoulders.
She looked at him, suddenly quiet, and smiled that irresistable one-sided smile that made his heart beat a thousand times faster. She put her hand against his chest. "Thank you, that's very thoughtful. You know, I find myself wishing that this night would never end. But unfortunately, I have a full scheduele tomorrow... I wish I didn't have to go. I would rather spend every minute with you."
Her words did nothing at all to slow his heart rate and a jolt of pleasure went through him when he realized what she was actually saying. She didn't want anything more than to be with him. He almost shook his head in disbelief as he wondered what he'd ever done to deserve this godess-like woman's affections.
"I wish the same, believe me," he murmured and her smile widened as she heard him. "Maybe it's time for me to make some use of myself as well. I know I'm not properly up to speed with everything here yet so I understand that you can't just simply reinstate me as Commander yet. But what if I tail Cassandra for the next few weeks, or for as long of a period as you find acceptable? I can re-learn from her, and I am still quite handy with a sword and training of soldiers, you know."
"I'm sure you are, Cullen. And of course, that's actually a great idea if you feel up to it."
"Perfect. And I get to see you more every day, my Lady Inquisitor."
She rolled her eyes at his overly formal use of her title but it seemed she caught the humorous gleam in his eye as she snorted and shook her head, unable to keep a smile from her face. He pulled her hand up to his mouth and kissed it gently while keeping eye contact with her the whole time. She let out a little noise of pleasure and it was all he could do not to just drag her to him and kiss her lips. She was so, so tempting with her smile, her full, slightly parted lips, her glowing eyes, intense like the Maker knows what...
"Cullen? Did you hear me?"
"Huh?" She had said something but he'd been to busy staring at her mouth to notice. She just laughed softly and inclined her head towards the stairs. "Walk me to my quarters?"
"With pleasure." He offered his arm and she took it, pressing close to him while they walked. A little too close maybe as Cullen barely remembered how to put one foot in front of the other while he felt her body against his. Somehow, they managed to walk all the way to the throne room and past the guards. She opened the door and he followed her inside and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. When the door closed behind them, he could feel an immediate change of atmosphere between them. Suddenly, they were completely alone, no guards, no couriers or sentries milling about around them.
She spoke first. "I, uhm... this is me, I guess."
Cullen cleared his throat and cursed the butterflies whirling around in his stomach, making him nervous like a little chantry boy. "So it is. I..." He didn't have time to finish the sentence before she reached up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. His skin burned where her lips had met him, desire rising up in him faster than he'd ever thought possible.
Get a hold of yourself, it was only a peck on the cheek, as goodnight. I should go...
But she didn't pull back. She hovered near him, her lips only an inch away from his face, and he didn't move either. He couldn't with her so close. Her breathing was heavy now, and she stared at him, her eyes dark. They roamed over his face, between his eyes to where she'd just kissed him, to his lips... Maker, she was really staring at them.
His breathing hitched as he realized he barely had to move to kiss her. The distance between their lips was closing rapidly and before he knew it, he pressed his agains hers. They were just as soft as he'd imagined and he couldn't help a moan escaping him when she parted her lips and let him taste her.
She gripped his sides with her hands and crushed herself against him and his back met the door with a crash as the kiss intensified. She was battling with his tongue for dominance and his knees almost gave way when she moaned and he felt her body against his chest, against his groin. She felt so unbelievably good and he lost control over himself, desperate to touch her. His hand went to her ass and he squeezed it while his other hand snaked its way inside her jacket. She responded by moaning even louder, her sounds of pleasure making him so hard he was sure she could feel it through his pants. When he found her breast she hissed through her teeth and whispered: "Fuck," and it drove him insane to hear her like that. He just had to have her, here against the door, the floor, the stairs, it didn't fucking matter. He needed to be inside her...
There was a loud bang on the door. "Inquisitor? I heard something crash against your door, are you alright?"
Cullen groaned in disbelief and Trev uttered a series of curses that would have made him blush only a few years back. She had her forehead against his chest, trying to calm her breathing while he did the same.
"Fucking guards, always attentive when you don't fucking need them to be and never the other way around," she muttered, and Cullen couldn't help but to chuckle at her expression.
"I'm fine! Just dropped something," she yelled through the door before she turned her eyes to Cullen again who was still laughing. "Oh, you find it funny, do you? Shall I tell you what I would have let you do to me if we hadn't been interrupted?" Cullen stopped laughing and swallowed hard while she reached up to him and whispered a series of sentences in his ear, his eyes widening with every word. She reached out and opened the door behind him as she spoke the last words and playfully pushed him out into the throne room. "Oh well, another time, perhaps." She sported a wicked grin on her face and blew him a kiss before she turned and started walking up the stairs.
Cullen was left stunned outside and stared after her. "W-we can do that now, Trev! Hey!"
He heard her chuckle all the way up the stairs. A guard closed the door in front of Cullen and looked at him with an uncertain expression. "Did I, uhm... Interrupt something, Commander?"
Cullen snapped his attention to the guard who shrank back against the wall under his furious gaze. "You? You again? I know you, you were a courier before, correct? What in the Fade are you doing here, guarding doors?"
"I-I-I'm so sorry, Commander! You, uhmm... You demoted me a year ago. I-I, uhm... sort of interrupted you and the Inquisitor on the battlements."
"That was you? Well, you have a really bad fucking timing, you k... wait... I remember you. I wanted to throw you off the side of the keep! You were lucky I only demoted you!"
The guard looked like he was about to soil himself but then Cullen put his arms around him and lifted him off the ground in a bear hug, laughing and probably scaring the wits out of the poor man with his wierd behaviour.
"I could kiss you! Ha!" Cullen sat him down on the ground again and walked away, light on his step all the way back to his temporary sleeping quarters. He didn't remember everything but he remembered that man and his infuriating timing. And he remembered kissing Trev, intensely, almost fucking her right there, before that idiot interrupted. He knew it had been a long time since he'd last seen her before that moment.
This was serious progress.
He didn't see how bad the guard left outside Trev's door was shaking, or how one of the other guards came up to him. "What in the Maker's name did you do this time?"
A/N: In this story, Cullen and Trevelyan didn't have sex on the desk the first time but they did test out its sturdiness several times, although not depicted in the story (yet). Also, their first kiss wasn't on the battlements but they were interrupted there in the same manner as in the first kiss-scene from the game.