Isabela had a good head for details. She knew this, knew it the first time she had challenged an uppity Highever lord to a duel she knew she would lose, simply so she could see—and replicate, the next time—a particularly good piece of footwork.
The best parts of Varric's tales were hers as much as his. Sex was a rough-sweet-silly-intense-wet-hard-fierce-soft-mad glorious thing, and a part of her liked to take note of the best feelings, the right touches on herself or others. But there was something about Merrill—about her friend here, teasing her and laughing and unafraid both in her awe ("Ooh, yes. That's rather lovely, isn't it?" The elf's head tilted to the side as she had Isabela naked, on her back, pressing one hand down gently on her belly as she curled up three fingers inside her, stretching and sure and deep enough to have Isabela rocking against them. "You're just dripping all down my wrist…") and her desires that made Isabela's head spin.
(That same hand, wetness gleaming there in the lamplight, Isabela spent and shaking and aching just a little—there had been four fingers, in the end, with promises of more if she was good, and-and-and-and Andraste's screaming tits—"You lick that all up now, lethallan. And then I want you touch me.")
Merrill, holding her close, hands tangling in her hair as she arched against Isabela's tongue, and not blushing when the pirate looked up, one eyebrow raised briefly as she made easy, lavicious show of running her tongue around one nipple. No, she grinned back, breath hitching but her hands still sure and tugging, taking Isabela's own and placing it between their bodies. She brought herself off with (with and on and through and…fucking hell, it was easier to lose herself in sensations than in where the mad tangle of prepositions that small, observant part of her brain found itself. ) She used Isabela's hand, and the wantonness of it made the other woman shudder, body loose against Merrill's, letting herself be held. She felt every movement: both their hands drenched now. Both sets of fingers fast and urgent, clit hard and straining; the salt-sweet-bitter taste of her skin clean on Isabela's lips as she laved one nipple; left gentle, sucking bites over her small, sensititve breasts. The taste of almond oil and sex, her legs tight about Merrill's slight body and the complete concentration Merrill gave, eyes locked on Isabela's as she came, the stream of endearments and observations and encouragements cut off, face flushed and pupils blown.
Isabela kissed her. Her mouth, her cheeks. The tip of her nose. Watched the colours change in her face, felt the slow relaxation of muscles and the tickle of that dark, soft hair as the elf rested her head on her friend's shoulder.
"That was beautiful, kitten."
A small laugh. "I know what I want, lethallan," she said. "I know I can't always get it, mind—"
"—oh, you got me, no fear."
Lips, firm and brief and sweet against hers. "Hush. What I'm saying is that I am strong enough. I can go and get lost in this filthy, mad city and get home again, even if I did use string for two years. I can use my blood in my magic and it's still clean, and the Fade knows it. No spirit has taken me. They're not going to. I can let them all laugh at me, and I can—" she broke off, a blush colouring her cheeks.
Isabela smiled, slow and secret. "Be really good in bed?"
"That, too!" She laughed again, very soft. "But I can also say goodbye now, if you want to. If you need to. I know you want your ship, and you gave up a lot, even if it was right. Doesn't really matter that it was right, does it?" She raised one hand, placing it just above Isabela's breast, flat against the warm skin there. "Not sometimes. Not here. So…I can say goodbye, but only because you let me say it. All Hawke's people are mine, now, but you…I think you're my best friend."
"Kitten," said the pirate, slow and hoarse. "That's just giving me reasons to stay."
Merrill smiled. Sunshine. "That would also be very nice."