Quinn awoke to the sun streaming through the window behind the bed, and the first thing she noticed was that she was sleeping on a soft surface, and that she wasn't bitterly cold.
The second thing she noticed, was the vague sensation that she was not alone in the bed.
Her eyes flicked open, aware of the warm, heavy weight of a body behind her, and as her mind emerged from the fog of sleep she realized that she was on her stomach, peering at one of Skyhold's stone walls.
Slowly the events of the previous night came flooding back.
Feeling instantly awake, she turned over and looked to the side of the bed where Cullen was.
He laying on his side with his head on his arm, looking at her quietly.
"Good morning," he said to her, his face slowly spreading into his half smile.
"Cullen." she said, feeling very relieved to see him looking so perfectly normal.
She relaxed back into her pillow. And then reached a hand out for his face, caressing his cheek with the back of her hand again, just as she had the previous night when she she had gotten no response whatsoever.
"Last night you were… in quite a scary state, Cullen." she said. "It is from the lyrium? Or lack of, I guess?" she asked.
His expression softened and he nodded.
"I had no idea it got that bad."
"It's happened a few times recently, on days that I really push myself." he said.
Still feeling tired, Quinn positioned herself so that her face was level with his.
"The last two nights I have waited up. Hoping you'd return. The last few days were pretty tense. Lisette found me and was a bit of a nuisance, causing a scene and embarrassing me while I was trying to assist guests with their departure. And there were some other problems, stupid things. I was stressed. Tired."
"Oh Cullen." Quinn said, though she felt fury rising. Lisette should be glad she was gone.
"I take it your trip was unsuccessful?" he asked.
"Yes, it was five of the longest, coldest days of my life" she said. "Remind me never to become a mountaineer." she sighed and nestled down into the warmth of the bed. "But I got your rose. Thank you." she said smiling. She paused.
"Cullen, last night…" she began, but not really sure how to finish it. "Could you hear me talking to you? Did you know what was happening?"
He furrowed his brows while he thought about it. "I did know something that was happening, but, when the headache is that bad, it's like… it's like my brain is frozen. All my senses are overpowered by this searing pain. I can't quite process anything and when I can it is very slowly. It's difficult to describe." he said.
Realizing they were together in the same bed, under the same covers, she scooted closer to him, and felt everything get much warmer.
"It was frightening. I hope I helped you. I didn't know what to do," she reached a hand out for him under the blankets. She found his chest, and he reached out to her in return, clasping her hands and welcoming her into his arms.
"It's over now. Everything is okay." he said, and she felt herself moving in closer and closer, until he was holding her tight in his arms. "You are home." he said, his voice sounding sleepy.
She melted down into his embrace and let her eyes close. She gave a contented sigh, happy to be warm and in his arms again.
Quinn woke again slowly, feeling the sluggish movement of limbs entangling themselves into one another. She was sure a few of those limbs must belong to her, but telling which those were was a more difficult matter. As soon as she sensed the warm, woodsy scented body beside her, parts of her had begun to wake on their own. Her hands and legs were exploring him almost without her brain's involvement at all, and he too was moving parts around and over her.
When awareness of the situation did finally kick in, she noticed that the shafts of light at the window were streaming from a completely different angle. They must have slept for a time, and now they had gone beyond mere embracing, and were writhing together. She was particularly awake in the region between her legs, which was pulsating and buzzing with a very pleasant and unignorable arousal.
Carefully, she turned herself around in the bed so that she was facing Cullen. His eyelids were still heavy with sleep, but he was gazing dreamily at her from beneath them, and reached a hand up to smooth her hair out of her face.
Together they moved in for a kiss, their lips and tongues meeting slowly and deliberately. She searched in his mouth, feeling his teeth and the warm softness of his lips. She pulled him to her, raking her fingers across his back and up toward his neck.
Wanting to get closer to his irresistible scent, her fingers found the buttons at the top of his shirt, and began to clumsily undo them. When they were mostly undone, she ran her hands over the soft fuzzy curves of his chest, and down the firm but flat stomach to the place where the hair thickened a little just above the waist of his pants.
He exhaled heavily out his nose, his mouth still on hers, and with one hand he reached behind his head and pulled the half unbuttoned shirt right off. They had to break the kiss to pull it all the way off, but she found his mouth waiting as eagerly as hers was to pick right back up.
With his arms and chest now bare, and the entwining of their limbs causing a delicious trill to sound through her body, she felt herself slipping away into complete physical abandon. His neck and chest were fragrant with his delicious scent, and the bare skin against her was enticingly warm and smooth.
Suddenly she felt constrained by her own clothes, feeling that they were barriers to being as close to him as she needed to be, She needed to get them off of her. She knew what this was moving towards, and she had no desire now to stop it.
She recalled the decision not to give into him, and to her own desire, the night before she left on the trip, and she also recalled the regret that caused on those cold nights alone where her body against his was the only thing she could think about. And then there was Cullen's frightening state last night. Lyrium withdrawal had killed people, that was well known. No one had any idea what continuing to abstain would really do, whether Cullen could endure the consequences forever. But the thought of death, or even just madness, and Cullen in the same sentence changed everything. It made her time with him feel so limited. Besides they had waited quite some time already, for whatever benefit that awarded them. They had known each other for over a year.
And then there was the agonizing fact of his pain. Death or no death, he was suffering, albeit in spurts and waves. But imagining what he could have been going through made her want to give him so much pleasure that it would balance out all the hours that he spent crumpled into a ball, waiting for the headaches to pass.
So now she felt no hesitation. She felt only the urgency, the need for him.
Her fingers found the buttons to her own tunic, and she made quick work of of slipping off her own shirt. His hands found her instantly, running up her sides and then almost tentatively around her breast. He cupped her round flesh with his palm, sliding his thumb tenderly over her nipple, causing goosebumps to pop up all over her arms. He almost groaned as he gave her a little restrained squeeze.
She was pulling down on him, feeling more and more of his weight settle upon her, feeling desperate to get as much of herself in contact with him as possible. She relaxed her thighs and opened up, finding the root of her torso coming right up to the firm stirring between his legs. She wrapped a leg around him and pulled at him with it, biting at his shoulder gently as they writhed. And when she felt the hard piece of him finally push fully up against her, an intense bolt of pleasure shot itself through her gut, traveling up her spine and to the base of her skull, causing her to cry out into his kiss.
She immediately went for the buttons of his pants, and he went for hers, while they continued to move together in a slow, sensual rhythm. Soon they were both kicking their pants down their legs and into the foot of the bed.
She guided him back down to her, and the impressive length of him found its spot between her legs right away. He filled her up with a slow motion and she cried out again as it he against the walls inside her, sending resounding waves of need rippling outward.
His mouth was open on her neck, trying to devour her skin as he moved into and out of her. She became all hands, roaming around his body, finding every muscle under his skin and climbing up the vertebrae of his back. She felt so immersed in an uncontrollable sea of sweet sensations that she wanted to cry.
The waves of pleasure got higher and higher until she felt it was about to crest, and she noticed him clutching more tightly, tensing his body above her, practically slamming into her with the entirety of weight.
They went over the edge together, gasping and seething; each trying to absorb the other's body into their own however possible. He shook and tensed with his release, and the sounds of him crying out pushed her immediately into a second orgasm, which suspended itself and her into dreamlike state where she was pushed completely out of her mind and into the air above them. She heard heavy, labored breathing and realized it was her own. Cullen had not stopped even though she felt him grow softer, clearly trying to aid her to completion. And then her body was flooded with cascading waves of bliss, pushing her and pulling her, spreading over her from her fingertips to her scalp, to her toes. Her spirit and body tumbled back to earth, back into the bed.
They didn't move for several minutes as they tried to catch their breath, hearts pounding side by side.
She brought her arms up above his shoulders and held him around his neck, the fingers of one hand sliding through his hair. She kissed at the stubbly flesh below his jaw and reveled in the delectable skin that her face fell against.
They lay there in recovery for a while, and then Cullen slid off her and was back on his side, but still right up against her.
Quinn turned with him, keeping her legs wrapped around him as much as she could, keeping together belly to belly.
She opened her eyes to see him smiling down at her, his blonde hair tousled and sticking out adorably at all angles. The sharp, symmetrical lines of his face looked as relaxed and blissful as she had ever seen. When her cheeks began to ache a little bit, she realized that she was smiling too.
A part of her still felt disconnected, still buzzing from the ecstatic heights she had just scaled. It had all happened so quickly, the culmination of a week's worth of wanting.
His face came into hers and she kissed his lips again. They seemed to just get better the longer she kissed them, she thought. They were red and looked plump from use, and had a delicious and irresistible curl to them. Somehow the scar that cut down into it made them seem even more perfect, because they were so uniquely his. As amazing as what they had just done was, the magic contained in his lips was in a category of its own.
Feeling completely parched, and still a little out of it, Quinn got up out of bed and walked naked to the desk, grabbed the empty mug that sat empty on the surface and dipped it into the cask of water. She drank deeply, feeling a thirst unlike any she had felt before. She filled it a second time and drank ravenously, feeling rivulets of water begin to run down her chin and over her breasts.
She finished and felt satiated, and then walked a full mug of water to Cullen.
He broke his almost predatory stare at her body to empty the mug in several gulps. She walked it back over, refilled and it came back to hand it to him a second time. When he was done, he practically slammed it down on the table beside the bed, and then grabbed her by the waist, tossing her on the bed and climbing over her in a swift move that was completed in the blink of an eye.
"You." he said in what sounded almost like a growl, which relit the fire in her that only just barely died. "I must have you again." he said and she felt that he was hard again. He inserted a knee between her legs and smoothly slid one of her thighs open wide at the same time that he brought himself down onto her. The smooth motion was executed so well and she gasped at the intense pleasure that shot through her.
"You're pretty good at this." she said. Apparently all his stammering and bashfulness completely disappeared once he knew exactly what he wanted. His eyes looked darker than ever, despite the fire that was burning behind them.
He drove down into her again, burying himself to the hilt and holding it there, grinding it up into her. And again their mouths were on each other. She couldn't seem to taste enough of him no matter how much she tried to devour him. She mouthed at neck, his collarbones, his earlobes, and then back up to claim his lips in another deep kiss.
All the while he was sliding in and out of her, working up a momentum that was taking her to yet another peak. She wanted him deeper, and deeper.
Taking control, she rolled him off of her and sat up, trying to keep her lips on his. He obeyed the prodding of her hands and fell onto his back. She swung a leg over him, and positioned herself on top. His hands found her breasts and squeezed them while rolling the tip of her nipple between his fingers.
Quinn moved back, letting him back into position within her and began to slide herself along the length of him, following the urging of that pleasure center deep within.
His head rolled back and forth as he cried out with her motions, and soon she found herself crying out too. It only took moments before she was quaking with another orgasm, her body completely wracked with wave after wave of intense and unstoppable ecstasy.
Then he had sat upright, arms encircling her once again, his heaving chest against her and his mouth at her mouth again. His arms wrapped around her and she repositioned herself, letting him find a more agreeable spot for his legs. She crushed him against her, pulling him in with the all the strength she could muster.
They now had full access to each other from the waist up, and they let their arms pull and explore every inch of the other. Cullen ran a heavy hand up the center of her back until it was threaded through her hair and cupping the back of her skull. He gripped her lightly by the roots and held her face steady before him, looking deep into her eyes as they both continued to thrust and to move together.
She watched his face as he got closer and closer to his orgasm, as his eyes got glassy and hooded, looking darker and darker.
Pulling her head back, he kissed her open mouthed all over and down her neck, hands pawing at her back, finding their way back to her breasts, and then her face as his mouth found her mouth again. She was clinging to him with all four limbs, holding herself securely to him and using her flesh as her eyes. She felt the sinewy strength of his muscles that rose and fell in all the right places. She felt the undulating hills of his back and strong shoulders, the way everything tensed up and hardened when he pulled at her. It wasn't long before his movements began to work on her yet again and she was riding another wave up, over their heads, catapulting her into the heavens. She heard herself and him on the bed below, making sounds of anguish, but knowing it was anything but.
They were both seized by an almost simultaneous release, their bodies clamped together one final time, each of them exhausting their last reserves of energy as they pressed themselves desperately together.
He fell back on the bed almost immediately after, and his arms remaining around her like a vise brought her down along with him.
She adjusted her hips and settled into the soft nest of hair on his chest. Breathing it in and closing her eyes, she tried to take in every possible sensation, and letting the afterglow of her orgasms push out all tension and worry from her mind.
She listened to the sound of his lungs filling with air and exhaling, and she felt herself beaming with the feeling that these were the most precious and important lungs she had ever heard. It was a strange thought, but her mind was wide open now, letting any thought roll in and out on its own volition. She thought about how she was already beginning to feel that she loved him. She had begun to feel so deeply connected to him at the ceremony, as they spoke to each other with only their eyes. And then she had to leave, and that distance only cemented in her conviction that Cullen was not just the man for her then, but the only man for her, ever. If he would have her, then she didn't want them ever to be apart again.
Those words were almost on the tip of her tongue, but she managed to rein it in. Instead of speaking, she began covering the beautiful flesh below her with kisses. She kissed all over the rising curves of his muscles and shoulders, then found her way across his collarbones, to the hollow at the base of his throat. She kissed up his neck, feeling him swallow as she ascended up to his chin. And then to his lips again. Her own lips felt slightly swollen and bruised from overuse. She left one last lingering kiss and then pulled back so she could look into his eyes.
"Is anyone expecting you today?" she asked him.
"No." he said in almost a whisper. "And even if they were, I don't care."
She rolled off him and fell onto her back at his side. He turned to face her and propped his head up with his arm. With his other hand, he began tracing light lines all over her shoulders, neck and breasts.
She looked up into his face, still partly in disbelief that everything was real.
"You are so beautiful, it almost hurts to look at you." she said to him, as her eyes tried to make sense of the astoundingly gorgeous face before her. She especially loved the new flush of pink in his cheeks, a remnant of their exertion. And she loved the long wispy eyelashes that lined his honeyed eyes.
He let out a little laugh, revealing perfectly straight and even teeth.
"I believe that is what I should be saying to you." he said, "because it is true."
His fingers continued to explore, their touch so light that the tickle caused her nipples to harden. He noticed and trailed his finger along her breast and then circled the firm tips. She exhaled.
Without warning, her stomach let loose a long growl, causing them both to laugh.
"I'm sorry. I'm a little hungry." she said.
"I'll bet you are, did you eat anything after you came in last night?" he asked.
"No, food was the least of my concern last night." She shook her head, once again recalling the vision of his face wincing with pain. His eyes softened and he caressed her hair, wordlessly comforting her.
"Well, then we should probably get you some food." he said softly.
They dressed shyly in front of each other, as though they hadn't just spent the morning intimately exploring each other's bodies.
After he finished buttoning up his tunic, he came to stand in front of her, his little half-smile on his face. He leaned down and placed a quick, light kiss on the tip of her nose.
She smiled back at him.
"So, breakfast… or lunch, or whatever. And then perhaps a bath?" he suggested.
"That sounds lovely." she responded.
They walked hand in hand to his office, where he put away the papers left out on his desk, and then leaned down to scribble a little note.
He locked the office doors, and on the way out, tacked a little note to the outside of his main door that read:
"The Commander is taking a day off. Try again tomorrow. - CSR"