Thanks to everyone who's read this so far. Just a quick note to point out that this chapter is NSFW.
Chapter Four: Ride
The moment the Iron Bull heard footsteps approaching the Inquisitor's bedchamber, he straightened his spine and fixed his gaze on the door. He'd been waiting there for longer than he'd care to admit and didn't want that to seem obvious the moment she saw him.
Thankfully she had her face buried in one of Leliana's reports as she made her way into the room, and didn't spot him at all at first. He couldn't help but grin. He doubted it was easy to catch Rosalie with her guard down. The little gasp she gave as she saw the giant Qunari perched on her bed was delicious.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut in before she had the chance to utter one word. "So, listen. I've caught the hints. I get what you're saying. You want to ride the Bull."
In truth, he wasn't sure if she genuinely wanted that or if she'd just been playing games with him since they'd met. More importantly, he was fairly sure Rosalie wasn't sure either. There had been moments where he'd been convinced her flirting had been a means of deflection, just as there had been other times where she seemed to show him a side few others got to see. He couldn't deny that side fascinated him. Whatever the answer, confronting her seemed a good way to find out. He didn't know all that much about bards, but given those ridiculous masks they wore and the way they danced around a subject, he was pretty sure they didn't usually have to deal with things being put so bluntly.
Rising to his feet, he continued. "Can't say I blame you. But I'm not sure you know what you're asking." He walked towards her as he spoke so that he was towering over her by the time he growled, "Not sure you're ready for it."
If she was surprised, she was good at hiding it. He could tell the sultry gaze she returned as she looked up at him was something she'd been trained to do. Eyes half-lidded, lips slightly pouted and a just-so look that managed to appear demure yet also communicate a desire to tackle him and rip his clothes off. "Oh, I'm ready for it," she assured him.
"See, you say that, but you really don't know what that means." Or more accurately, he worried she was only saying that to tell him what he wanted to hear. He knew it was important to pay close attention and discern the difference.
"So why don't you show me?" she purred seductively.
The words had barely left her mouth before he lifted both of her hands above her head and pressed her into the wall behind her. Her response was to gasp suddenly, but he didn't miss the way the corners of her mouth quirked upwards as she did.
"Last chance," he teased in a low voice, the words rumbling his chest as he spoke them. He felt her arms struggling to free themselves from the Qunari hands pinning her wrists to the wall, but it seemed like it was more to test his strength than out of any true desire to escape, judging by the lack of fear in her expression.
"Won't you please stay?" she asked.
For a moment, he simply regarded her, a soft smile playing on his lips. There was something sincere in her eyes as she looked up at him, something he'd never seen before, something especially intriguing. He'd expected her to back down by this point, to push him away with some phoney excuse and to go back to keeping him at arm's length most of the time. But this… this wasn't an attempt to distract him with feminine wiles. She wanted this. And Fade yeah, he wanted it too.
He answered by snaking one arm around her waist, hefting her up and carrying her over to the bed. It would be interesting to see what she made of what he had in mind.
There was a slow, thorough kiss as she was carried to the bed. One that stole her breath, the heat of it leaving her robbed of all thought. Her clothes were tugged away layer by layer by questing hands intent on fondling and teasing every inch of her until the world was hazy. Every time she reached out to try to remove something of his in response, she found herself distracted away from the endeavour, and it quickly became clear that he wasn't willing to let her take control.
She soon found herself naked, lying face down on the mattress, her long dark hair loose and one of Iron Bull's hands holding her wrists together behind her back. He leaned in with just enough of his weight to keep her pinned down. It was frightening, but a good kind of frightening, the sort that made her stomach tingle with nerves and made her sensitive to even the slightest touch as she wondered what he'd do next.
Iron Bull took his sweet time. His free hand traced patterns over her inner thighs, drawing tantalizingly close to where she really wanted them, but never seeming to actually get there.
All of this slow fondling had been quite a surprise, especially considering he'd told her to let him know if she wanted him to slow down or to stop. She'd expected something hard and fast. Barbaric even, considering the way she'd seen him act on the battlefield. Something to get her mind off things for a short while and leave her exhausted enough for a good sleep afterwards. She hadn't expected him to tease her, to make the itch worse before he scratched it. Maker, she hoped he was going to scratch it. She wasn't sure she could take him leaving her this way.
As he parted her thighs a little more and his fingers began to tease her lower lips, she affected a loud moan to encourage him.
His response was a sharp slap to her backside that made her gasp. Not painful, but a shock nonetheless.
"You're performing," Iron Bull chided. He shifted on the bed and she felt him lean down and kiss her shoulder before murmuring, "I don't want a performance. Performances are for out there, for when you have to be the one in charge. In here, if you make a noise you don't mean, I won't be able to tell what you need. And what I want…" His hand tangled in her hair, then gave a firm tug that yanked up her head so that his breath fell on her ear as his voice dropped to a whisper, "...Is to give you what you need."
She closed her eyes as a shiver travelled the length of her spine.
"Sound good?" he asked, still not letting go of her hair.
Rosalie had just enough leverage to meet his gaze momentarily and nod.
What followed was a torturous little game where Iron Bull stroked and teased, awakening nerves in parts of her body she hadn't even realized were sensitive. He took his time, and though she couldn't see him, she could tell he was enjoying making her wait for it. Every now and again his wandering fingers returned to the junction between her legs to tease at her entrance or to trace lazy circles around her pearl.
Inevitably, Rosalie would make one of the noises she'd been trained to make whenever a man - or woman, not all her marks had been men - touched her intimately. It was a difficult habit to break, and she wasn't sure how he always seemed to know the difference between her unconscious whimpers and the squeals of pleasure she made on purpose, but somehow he always did.
Inevitably when she did perform, as he'd put it, Iron Bull would punish her by starting the painfully slow process over again from the start, his hands returning to somewhere that should have been innocuous like the skin behind her ear or the crook of her elbow, and finding new ways to make her tingle with pleasure. The way she looked over her shoulder at him with wide, pleading eyes, silently begging him to cease the game and simply take her seemed to amuse him, but he didn't give in to it. It was all so very different to anything Rosalie had experienced before, and she found it utterly delicious.
There finally came a point where Rosalie bit down on her bottom lip and held the little moan she felt she should make at bay. That was when Bull chose to reward her with his fingers. One slipped inside her so suddenly it made her gasp. All the same, she was so slick with anticipation by that point, it felt wonderful.
All his teasing had left her so sensitive to his touch that when that finger began to slide in and out, and his thumb began to dance around her nub, she could feel that she was already close to dying a little death, as the Orlesians would say. In fact, barely a minute passed before she felt her face flush and her thighs begin to quiver in that telltale manner.
Hearing Bull urging her on in a gentle voice was what pushed her over the edge. "That's it…" he murmured.
It rolled through the core of her in waves, making her moan breathily as her eyes clamped shut. Bull eased off just slightly, letting her ride the sensation for as long as it lasted.
When she fell limp on the bed, though, he didn't let her rest. She felt the mattress shift as he moved to sit at the edge, and then he urged her to roll onto her back with a tug of her arm.
Rosalie grinned up at him, certain he'd find the rosy hue of her cheeks and the mess he'd made of her hair amusing. It was only then that she realized that he was naked as well, though she wasn't sure when he'd stripped.
"Don't tell me you've had enough already, boss," he teased, a smile playing on his lips. His breath betrayed him though. She could hear that it was faster, heavier than it should have been.
"Maker, I hope not," she answered.
She vaguely recalled feeling nervous about Bull's size before now, but as she let him lift her into his lap so that she straddled him, she was too dizzy feeling the strong aftershocks of her orgasm to fret over that. His hands gripped her hips tightly and lowered her onto him at a torturously slow pace.
Feeling almost overwhelmed by the sensation of him filling her, her head instinctively tilted back and she closed her eyes as she adjusted to the size of him. It wasn't until he cupped her face and urged her to look at him that she felt her breath catch in her throat. His expression was actually tender, the look in his eye speaking of… Well, she wasn't sure yet… but she'd had just sex before, and her partners had never looked at her like that.
He pressed a kiss to her lips then murmured, "You can grab the horns if you want. Most humans get a kick out of that."
Rosalie smiled, and couldn't resist saying something she knew would make his chest rumble with one of those excitable growls. "You'd need to give me a reason to grab hold of something first," she teased.
His eyes darkened as he responded exactly as she'd predicted: with a growl of, "Can do."
The hours after that were all a blur of pleasure. She remembered large hands gripping her hips tightly enough to blemish her pale skin as he bounced her up and down. She remembered being taken against the wall and being bent over the desk. She remembered being reminded constantly that it was within her power to stop it with a word if it was more than she could bear, but never feeling that it was.
After they were both sated to exhaustion, Rosalie lay on her side, absently tracing her fingers along the scars over Bull's arms and chest. If the situation were different, she might have asked for the stories behind them, but she found herself unusually silent just then, words not offering themselves up to be spoken.
For a while she felt herself drift into a light doze, waking again every minute or so, blinking slowly and staring up at the lit candles in the sconce above the nightstand. Eventually, she noticed him get up and cross the room. She didn't know if he was finding his clothes so he could get ready to leave or something different, and all she could bring herself to do by that point was stare blankly up at the ceiling.
When he returned shortly after, he was carrying a damp washcloth and a glass of water. In the next moment her back was propped up against his chest as he held a glass of water to her lips and helped her to drink. A good thing too, considering she didn't think she even had the energy to do that for herself just then.
He then used the cloth to wash the sweat from her exhausted body. It trailed all the way up her arm, pausing at her wrist, and she experienced an odd shiver as Iron Bull's thumb traced a slow circle around the glowing green mark on her palm. His gaze met hers and she suddenly found that her heart was racing once more as the mark began to glow.
She swallowed harshly, balling up her fist and abruptly sitting up. "I need to-"
Bull pressed a finger to her lips. "You need to rest," he told her firmly.
There was no denying that. She doubted her legs would have been willing to support her weight even if she had found the strength to rise from the bed. "Why do I get the impression it was your intention all along to leave me so exhausted?" she asked, her voice hoarse from pleasured cries.
He smiled. "Because you're intuitive."
Bull couldn't help but feel proud as he let himself out of Rosalie's quarters. Last he'd seen, she was sleeping soundly. He had a feeling she hadn't had a full night of sleep in quite a while. When he got downstairs he'd order breakfast for her, something hearty that would give her strength for whatever the following day demanded. Then he'd give her some space in case she needed it; things had gotten a bit intense in there, after all.
As he shut the door behind him, he saw Leliana draw to a halt at the top of the staircase. Like Rosalie, she controlled her expressions better than most humans, but he could tell that she was more surprised to see him than he was to see her. Then again, Bull just had that kind of effect on people.
The spymaster took a moment to size him up. He sensed she was dying to ask him what he'd been up to in there, but they both knew she wouldn't. "Is the Inquisitor inside?" she asked, looking past him to focus on the door behind. "I have some information that may be-"
"No." Bull interrupted, holding a hand up to bar her way. He couldn't entirely keep a straight face as he added, "Let her rest."
At that, he began to make his way down the stairs. It wasn't quite what he'd expected when Leliana followed after him.
"Hmmm, after the juicy details? Maybe a little curious yourself?" he teased.
"The only thing I'm curious about is who Rosalie is working for," Leliana countered. The way she said Rosalie's name made it sound like she wasn't convinced even that was real.
"The Inquisition, of course. You think anyone could get tossed about by that darkspawn god... thing... and not come out of it wanting to take him down a peg or two? She's on the same side you are. Trust me."
"It's a little odd, no? To introduce yourself as a spy, then ask us to trust you," she countered. "I think it would be safer for all of us if I didn't."
Bull doubted there was much point in explaining to her that the Qunari wanted nothing to do with him anymore. His loyalty was to his Chargers and to Rosalie, and to stopping that Corypheus asshole. The less he thought about the Ben-Hassrath the better, not that he could really stop himself. While he doubted they were going to send another hit his way, someone with their guard down was always easier to kill, so he did what he could to stay alert all the same.
"Look... Whatever she was before, she never asked for a big green mark on her hand that can fix holes in the sky. She's done everything that's been asked of her since you guys pulled her from the rubble. Maybe you could cut her a little slack." He shrugged. "Or you could stop barking after the Trevelyans and see if any of your old contacts in Orlais might be able to identify her. That's a thought."
"Then you're saying she is a bard?"
"I'm saying she's the Inquisitor. And she might be better at it if she's not waiting for you to stick a knife in her back. And if you let her rest for now. Thedas will still be there in the morning."
Leliana sighed, but to Bull's credit, she did walk off towards the rookery at a hurried pace, so that was something. You're welcome, Boss.