Title: Lessons

Prompt: first time Nathaniel/f!Cousland, from dragonage_kink

Originally Written: 10/11/10

Notes: De-anoning from my first (and so far, only) kmeme fill. I've never played Awakenings, and I fudged the ages a bit for the kmeme rules.

first time, here we go!

Elissa Cousland was gorgeous.

Long blonde hair—her grandmother's color—cascaded in ripples down her back, framing a heart-shaped face with just enough plump to round the rosy apples of her cheeks. Her blue eyes brightened when her pink lips curved—her curves, even when she was sixteen, breasts straining against her bodice (she insisted on binding it too tightly, even when she wasn't wearing armor), her hips swaying despite her military stride—it was a wonder, Nathaniel often thought, that any work got done in Highever Castle, with such a distraction wandering its halls.

What few people realized about Elissa, however, was that she was a rational beauty. She had a head for hard facts and scientific inquiry and a face for attracting assistants, and that was why Nathaniel found himself shivering in the dark damp of the secret passage behind the larder, stark naked.

"Now," Elissa said, holding her candle closer to the book she held in one hand, "it says you are supposed to...rip my bodice? Oh, that won't do," she said, looking down at her expensive gown. Nathaniel saw only the line of her cleavage. "Mother will notice if I ruin this one."

"I still don't believe it says I'm supposed to take my clothing off first," he said in a whine completely unreasonable for a man of nineteen years who'd allegedly bedded fifty women. "Don't the heroes usually catch the woman by surprise?"

"Oh no," she said, so firmly he knew she was lying, "you're doing just fine. Just keep—" she glanced from the book to him and bit her lip and his blood did a confused dance in his veins, rushing from his head to his cock and then back to his face as his manly bits shriveled and he blushed from embarrassment "—well, carry on."

"With the bodice-ripping?"

"No," she said, frowning and looking down at her cleavage again (and there went the blood, laughing as it fled his cheeks), "I suppose I'll do that myself."

"I'll hold them," he said, reaching out as she moved to set down the book and the candle. She allowed him the light, but insisted on leaving the book on the dank floor, face-down and open to the page she'd been reading. He thought it was unusual for the bookish warrior to mistreat the written word in such a fashion, but then she started toying with her ribbons and coherent thought abandoned him.

He ached, watching her slow shy movements, wanting to grasp her hands and help her as she tugged at the knot, teasing the ribbons out of the criss-cross lacing—something, it didn't matter, because after a moment it came loose and her dress fell from her shoulders and she said, "Er—could you unlace my corset? Only it's behind me, and I can't reach, but you musn't do anything else."

"Of course," he said, and she turned around, pulling her hair over her shoulder and exposing the back of her neck along with her laces. He set the candle on the ground and refrained from doing any number of things that came to his mind—kissing the nape of her neck, burying his nose in her hair, pushing her back into the wall and lifting her skirts and having her that way—and stayed a respectful distance away, his dexterous fingers making short work of the knots restraining her figure. The corset came away in his hands, and she turned back to him. The candlelight threw long shadows across her face, but the familiar gleam of inquisitiveness still shone in her eyes, and he felt himself smiling.

"Well," she said, standing before him in a shift that fell freely around her form, hiding its shape, "there's an important piece of information I need to know, before we continue."

"Yes?" he said, not exactly aroused—apparently knowing she was looking was keeping him from keeping it up for more than a moment—but certainly still...interested.

"Yes," she said, bending over to pick up the book—his fingers itched—and she busied herself scanning the page to find her spot, hiding her face as she said, "Do you find me attractive?"

"Yes," he said.

"Truly?"

"Yes."

"Attractive enough to—"

"Elissa," he said, "I'm fairly certain they don't talk this much in that novel."

She finally looked up and said in a rush, her cheeks red, her eyes wide, "It's crucial to know, because in the books the man always thinks the woman is the most perfect woman he's ever seen, and I'm not perfect but the books all say this is worth it and I want to find out if it's worth it but if I'm not perfect I don't know if it will work and I think you're the most handsome man I've ever met which is exactly right on my end but I don't think I can do this if you don't think I'm at least pretty and I—"

The wall of sound momentarily stunned him, and as her words crashed around him he saw the downturn of her lip and the puff of warm air from between her lips turn to mist in the cool air of the passage and her bright eyes uncertain and he was stepping, no, running to her, pushing her into the wall with his body hard enough to rob her of the breath to speak; his hands trapped her wrists against the wall, and as he worked a knee between her thighs he pressed his lips to her ear and said, you are the most perfect woman I have ever met.

"Oh," she said, weak, "but you haven't met everyone—"

"Elissa," and her name came like a prayer as he turned his head and her hair tickled his nose, "I don't care about that."

"You care about everything," she said, without much conviction, as he started kissing her ear, her jaw, pressing his lips into her skin and feeling its warm give. Her moan was surprised, and she twisted beneath him, the book falling from her slackened grip with an unheeded thump, "your father and your family glory and the fact that they're throwing a party for your departure when you specifically said you'd rather leave under the cover of darkness with nary a word—"

He stopped kissing her, pulled back to look at her face. She bit her lip, and thumped her hands against the wall; he loosened his grip on her wrists and said, "How do you know that?"

"Delilah told me," she said, and then she cupped his face in her hands—a surprise—and kissed him, her lips soft and sweet and gentle and carrying a taste of—he froze, and she drew back and said, "I didn't want you to leave without saying goodbye."

"This isn't goodbye," he said, standing with his hands settled in the curve of her waist and one naked leg drawing her shift taut across her thighs, her breasts brushing his chest with only a thin layer of cotton separating her skin from his.

"No," she said, "this is—" and she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him close and whispered words in his ear, words which would haunt him in the years to come, juxtaposing stories of a murderous Grey Warden with the soft-strong-perfect young woman holding him and stroking his hair. His fingers dug into her waist, thumbs pressing against her belly to the hard muscle beneath, and he thought for a moment that he was actually content.

She seemed to sense this; she drew back, and then wormed her hands up between them and pushed against his chest. He stumbled back, and she bent once more and retrieved her book and said, "Now, it says here you're supposed to rip my shift as well."

"Does it," he said.

"Yes," she said, nodding, "and then you are to...fondle? my breasts." She looked up at him, puzzled. "Do you know what that means?"

"Oh, yes," he said.

"And you know what to do after?"

Even if fifty had really been one, and even if that one had been interrupted by Thomas coming by the stables when he had been specifically told not to—"I have a fair idea," he said, figuring the rest would follow.

"Well, then," she said, tossing the book aside, far from the candle's glow, smiling a beautiful smile and holding her arms wide, "teach me."