The Warden's offer stunned Leliana, but a woman as skilled in subterfuge and performance as she was never stayed immobilized for long. She recovered, reaching up to slick the hair back from her face causing it to cling damply to her scalp. The whole situation quite reminded her of a song, but she just couldn't seem to summon the words to mind. That's just life for you she mused, one long song and all the words keep getting forgotten.
Without further delay, for fear the offer might be retracted or some sort of sarcastic joke that she had failed to identify, Leliana stepped up behind the elf woman and reached out to run her palm down her spine. Her skin was slick with water and smooth, like running a piece of fine silk through her hand. She noticed that the path of her hand had caused a trail of goosebumps to rise on the Warden's back.
"You're so beautiful," she murmured, not even realizing she had vocalized the thought until it had escaped her lips. Too late to take it back now.
The Warden leaned back until she Leliana's breasts grazed her muscular shoulder blades. "You're not so bad looking yourself," she said, punctuating her comment with a low, seductive laugh.
It felt so damn good for Leliana to be near her, to hear her talk to her, to be compliment. She slipped her hands around the Warden's waist as she dipped her head to kiss the luscious curve where the elf's chiseled shoulder met her neck, brushing past her scars. An intoxication sensation swept up from Leliana's lips through all of the nerves in her body to her brain, which quickly fogged over as a result. How was this happening? Why wasn't the Warden….Alexa….why wasn't Alexa stopping her?
Alexa murmured something, tilting her head to expose more of her neck to Leliana's warm mouth. That's a good sign. Leliana couldn't remember the last time she had held a beautiful woman in her arms, but she could still remember the moves to make.
"That's nice," Alexa nearly moaned. She reached down to cover Leliana's hands at her hips with her own, then slowly she drew them up over the flat plane of her taut stomach to her breasts. "That's better."
Taking that as a pretty clear signal to advance, Leliana licked her way up the column of Alexa's neck to the edge of her jaw. She kissed it delicately along the curve until her mouth met the elf's delectable earlobe. The elf leaned back further against her with a sigh. The bard nipped her earlobe gently, then let her tongue trace the elongated shell of her ear. She was so soft. For a woman that had known such pain, that had lived such a hard life, she was so remarkably soft to the touch.
"I'm going to drown. I don't think I can stand any longer. Lucky girl like you just has to stand back and fire your little arrows. Some of us have to stab things," Alexa groaned. It was visibly difficult for her to pull away from Leliana, a fact which did not pass the bard without notice. She straightened up and dove under the water before Leliana could protest.
When she surfaced she was further downstream and close to the shore. Now that she mentioned it, Leliana noticed that the Warden,( it was so hard to think of her as Alexa now that the spell that seemed to be powering her was broken by the physical distance between them) looked tired. The shadows thrown across her features by the moonlight made her look drawn. The battle with the contingent of hurlocks on the road from Lake Calenhad toward the foot of the Frostback mountains, their next destination, had been a difficult one. Zevran had slipped in a puddle of darkspawn gore and managed to gouge his bicep with his own dagger-blade. It had necessitated a rather daring maneuver on Alexa's part to save him from an impending beheading by the Hurlock he had just failed to stab. Wynne had been knocked out from behind by an emissary at the beginning of the ambush, leaving the rest to fend for themselves without her usual healing magic. The heat coursing through Leliana's veins didn't fade, but it was tempered by tenderness. What she would give to just get to hold the Warden while she slept, even if she didn't get to touch her the way her fingers ached to. Her presence alone made Leliana feel safe.
Alexa walked out of the stream, water sheeting off of her. With her hair slicked away from her face and down her back, her pointy ears were prominent – she looked something like a nymph. The thought forced Leliana to smile as she headed in toward the beach. Alexa would probably find the idea equally amusing, for different reasons.
***
Everything about Leliana's caresses suited Alexa perfectly. The bard seemed to have a direct psychic connection with the part of her brain that controlled all the best kinds of sensations. Part of her body was definitely in the groove, but the parts of her body that kept her upright were burning from the day's exertion. Regrettably, she was forced to pull away before she collapsed entirely. It would have been an unconscionable show of weakness to have to be pulled out of the water by her potential lover.
The small bar of sand that separated the stream from the steep pile of rocks was a welcoming spot for a rest. Moonlight reflected dazzlingly off the quartz granules that mixed with the less sparkly sand. A slice of heaven just for me. A little selfishness could go a long way.
She dropped onto her back on the beach closing her eyes and relaxing all of her muscles, still naked and little concerned with the way the sand stuck to her damp skin. The last heat of the day remained trapped in the white grains warming her back. Leliana's arrival seemed to be taking much longer then she had expected. Hesitantly, she opened one eye just enough to catch the outline of the other woman at the edge of the water.
***
The elf woman wriggled sensuously into the warm sand; her back arched and her breasts with their tantalizingly hardened nipples thrust up toward the sky. Her eyelashes were long and surprisingly feminine, so that when she closed her eyes they gave her face a soft, vulnerable cast. Leliana could only assume that she was unaware of what an erotic display she was providing. The bard was very aware – aware from her brain which currently housed her overheated imagination down to the juncture of her thighs.
"You're—" her voice trailed off, anything she could say would be so inadequate for the feelings that were rushing through her – lust, tenderness, an almost desperate desire for Alexa to reciprocate her overwhelming desire.
"So very tired," Alexa finished the sentence for her. "You are amazing. I can only imagine what you'll do to me next, but I'm so damn tired." She reached a hand out toward the bard, opening one eye again to peer up at her. "Lay next to me for a minute, just so I can catch my breath?"