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16. Méara Cwén
Out of breath and thoroughly exhausted, and yet strangely at the height of their spirits, the happy couple returned to the city fortress of Edoras and to the stables within. Passing through the gates, Éomer had jumped down from the horse to lead it along to the stables, leaving her alone on the mighty steed – she was sure it was meant as a kindness for the horse, to have the faithful beast at last relieved off much of its burden, to give it some rest. Though she could not deny that the smile on his lips, a smile she was sure he wasn't even aware of, spoke more of this gesture, his insistence of having her stay up on that horse, with him leading her along as though she were a lady fair back in the South and he her devout lover, reverent in his service to her. Or perhaps he simply enjoyed this image of her so much he dared not part with it too soon, that image of her on top of that horse, as though she were a true horse-queen, born and bred.
Lothíriel smiled at that thought, a smile she was more than aware of because it was an honest one. In her years as a lady at court she had learned many a different variety of smiles, different for all manner of occasions and acquaintances; she had learnt to alter the meanings of her facial expressions by the merest fraction of a shift of her lips, a flash of white teeth or the thinning of her mouth to a line sharp as steel – she knew her smile to be a fine weapon and with it she had fought many a battle and destroyed many a foe. But such a fine weapon also came with a hefty price, and she had paid dearly for it; because while pretence and manipulation came easy upon her lips, the truth so often did not – she had painted her face with false emotions for so long, forbidden her heart with an iron grip to indulge in true feelings, that she wondered if she were even capable of opening herself up enough anymore to feel any such true feelings.
Perhaps, she mused, that was only for the better: despite all the kindness she had received, she had no delusions about the nature of this marriage – she had started out as the brokering pawn in a political alliance, and for better or worse, she could expect little more. Even if love could blossom, it would be a fickle bloom at best, and the next frost of consequence and bitter reality would have it wither. If she bore him no child, love would mean little in the face of the ramifications for her and this marriage. So, would it not be better to not allow love to blossom at all? To spare herself and him the pain it would bring to realise that shy love could not conquer the expectations of their station or the bitterness disappointment would breed between them? Was it not better to deny herself, rather than to try and hope and fail and break?
And yet, as she watched him lead the horse up to the stables, a king dressed in nothing but the simple clothes of a simple man, content with himself and the world, she felt her resolve weaken, her walls shifting, her heart melting. Often she had mocked the green love that the bards sang of while secretly yearning for it, a habit born out of bitterness no doubt, a necessary impulse to paint the pain of unanswered desires with cool and logical colours. It had made it easier back then, telling herself that she did not want what she so obviously wanted, but it had not changed her heart's foolish desire, and even as she fought to deny it now, she did long for it here and now – to be loved by him and to love him in return. Not because he was a king and she was a queen, not because he was her husband and she as his wife was to bear him a child, but because they were a man and woman free to love each other for only their own sakes.
It was a dangerous thought and an even more foolish wish, a longing that could lead to more than just heart break, and yet she felt no fear – and it was not only because it were his hands holding the reins, hands that neither shook nor hesitated. Yes, indeed, much had changed ever since she had galloped across the plains of the Mark with him. She felt almost as though she were a new person, with new courage and new strength, and yet she felt as though she were still the same woman, with the same desires and the same hopes. The only question was now whether her new-found bravery would give her the strength to acknowledge old dreams and fulfil old longings?
The sound of someone clearing his throat pulled her out of her thoughts and Lothíriel looked about perplexed, but instead of greenery and houses she found nothing but straw and wood and the interior of the stables. Blushing in the reddest of reds, the queen lowered her eyes, feeling rather embarrassed at her own mindless unawareness, like some loose little lassie lost in dallying daydreaming, and catching sight of the barely suppressed grin of her king and husband standing next to the horse he tad just tied down in its box surely did not help alleviate her feelings of abashment. Could it really be that she had wasted the whole journey back sunk in thoughts of things that could and could not be?
Gritting her teeth whilst chiding herself for her carelessness, Lothíriel tried to ignore the smug smile of her husband's face and instead focused on the task ahead: getting off that bloody beast! However, that proved to be a rather precarious business, because not only had it been years since she had been allowed to ride astride but she had also never dismounted a horse on her own before, at least not without the help of a mounting block. Of course, she knew she could get off quite simply by merely raising herself in the saddle, swinging her right leg off the rear end and easily allow her weight to do the rest, but then again, that certain amount of flashing skirts would have been even considered outrageous back then before she had been deemed a lady, and now it would certainly be considered scandalous.
But lo and behold! Already there he was again, her king, her husband, her knight in shining armour, holding out his hands, ready to catch her lest she fell, ready to take her into his arms, ready to offer the help she would be too embarrassed to ask for. She smiled at that gesture, and rare as it was, it was an honest smile. Letting go of the saddle horn, Lothíriel turned to Éomer, and her hands sheepishly gripped his shoulders, torn between her need for support and her reluctance to be a burden, her fear even of being left to fall, ending up betrayed by her own trust. But she had no need to fear the fall or the lesson of misplaced trust, for her king and husband held on to her with steadfast surety, his large hands spanning her waist, his arms a net designed to catch her, and as she relinquished her resistance, she allowed her trust in him to make her pliable and with a sigh she allowed him to pull her off the horse with unimaginable ease.
Down she went, her arms holding on to him, his arms holding on to her, and then she was off the steed and back on the ground; but her legs, worn out from the ride, unused to the rough activity, trembled and gave out underneath her and just like that she was in his arms. He pulled her flush against him, and the shock of it, the suddenness of the movement, the way her body collided with his, it knocked the air straight out of her, and in her surprise her arms held on to him for dear life. Steadying herself in his embrace, Lothíriel looked up then, gasping for air, and as much as she trembled now, so did he stand still – unmoving, unflinching, unyielding, and his eyes studied her gaze with a quiet intensity.
She could feel it then, that something simmering between them, a feeling, old and new at the same time, just there, simmering right beneath the surface, clawing for release. She might have dismissed it as the adrenaline-fuelled reaction to her near fall, but no, there was no denying the closeness between them – for they were close, as close as they had not been in weeks, and it sent sparks of electricity sizzling in the air between them. There was much and more between them in that moment: her gratitude, her joy, her happiness, but also her affection for him and his affection for her, and his hunger for the love she could bare. There were the weeks and weeks of innocent touches between them, weeks and weeks of fleeting kisses, cheeks that burned with gentle pecks, lips that thirsted for hungry kisses, and bodies that hungered for deeper embraces. Yes, there was so much between them, and yet, in that moment, then and there in the stables, there was nothing, nothing between them – nothing except they themselves.
'My Queen.'
The words came out with a deep broken whisper, and there was something warm and dark in his gaze, and though she was sure to have seen it burn in those eyes a thousand times before, this time the look in his eyes made her catch her breath, and it was not out of fear, it was excitement; and though like the surface of the sea, she appeared calm and steady, below the waves the torrents tore at her walls and crashed against her rock-steady composure. The newness of her emotion made her shiver; she had never sailed this course before, but she wanted more, although she had no inkling of what this more entailed. But she wanted it, craved it, welcomed it – and with it, she welcomed him.
Éomer sensed the shift in her and held his breath as he held her gaze, taken aback by the look on her face, the emotion that shone in her eyes, and he would have been confused by what he saw in her features, had he himself not known this feeling so very well, so very intimately, painfully: it was desire, lust, simple, raw need. The realisation of it roused him to passion and made him wary of it at the same time, for as much as he had longed to see that same hunger in her eyes that had clawed at him more often than not, he did not entirely trust it to last. Her eyes were deep pools of blue, burning with desire at the surface perhaps, but, he mused, no one knew what lay beneath that in the dark depths, and whatever desire she might feel now, it might as easily give way to the old fears he had seen so often in her gaze, and even just the thought of it made something in his chest constrict almost painfully.
And yet she was looking at him, not looking away as she so often had done, not shying away, not retreating, not distancing; she was still here with him, right there in his arms, and she still looked at him with eyes that invited him. And then her eyes wandered, slowly, languorously, taking their time as they flickered from his gaze to his lips, and for a moment she kept her gaze fixed upon it, her features showing so clearly what her mind was only just processing, and when she bit her bottom lip, swallowing hard, she looked up, and with eyes wide, she finally understood what she craved, and so did he.
Now it was his turn to deliver; before, he could have dismissed it, her insecurity enough reason and excuse not to press forward, but now there was no such simple escape – the expectation, the need in her eyes compelling him to deliver on it. And thus it was that he found himself leaning forward, slowly, carefully, his head angling down as she lifted hers to meet him, and after a moment of waiting for a protest or retreat that never came he pressed his mouth onto her trembling lips at last.
It was nothing but a chaste touch of two lips, but it was their first kiss after the wedding ceremony, and it was the first touch of passion in weeks, and indeed it was the first touch of desire shared by both of them in equal measure, and that made it all the more potent. But kiss or not, Éomer knew it to be a test; a test designed to experiment on this feeling between them, and he was the first one to retreat, equally hesitant and eager to gauge her reaction, fully expecting the old barriers of distance and fear to have returned, but to his surprise he found that it was not so.
She was still there, chin lifted up towards him, eyes hooded, darkened, hovering on the precipice of her new-found desire, waiting for him, waiting for them to fall together. And thus, swallowing hard, he moved forward again, pressing his lips upon hers once more, still careful but with more urgency this time, and it was only supposed be that, another simple kiss, another simple, cautious exploration of this desire between them, but just as he willed himself to move back again and to break off the kiss, she came after him to chase his lips for more, and he was undone.
Lothíriel felt the new urgency of his kiss, the trembling of his lips against hers, and for a moment that thought confused and amused alike, that a mighty warrior such as him would tremble in the arms of a weak maiden such as her, but then the thought was gone and she was all his again. It took her only moments to learn how to respond to him, and with a sigh her lips parted against his, opening up to him, welcoming him, and as her arms locked in the back of his neck, so did his arms come around her middle, holding her there tightly, keeping her close, pulling her even closer.
With every move and touch of lips and tongues the kiss grew more and more intense, leaving them breathless; a heat began to cloud her mind, a heaviness seemed to settle in her very bones, keeping her tethered to him, and it was thus that she hardly noticed that their feet began to move of their own volition – no, of his volition. It was only when her back met the wall of the stables that she realised that he had moved them further and further into a dark corner of the horse's box – and for a moment their lips broke apart and their eyes met again.
His eyes were almost black now, the sea of green had made way to a grass steppe at night, and wild, feral winds stormed across it; the sight made her heart beat faster, and it thrilled her with fear and excitement in almost equal measure, anticipating his next kiss – but that kiss never came. Instead he came closer, so close she could feel the hardness of his body press against her tightly, the heat of his flesh burning against her. She could not breathe, and she was unsure whether it was the closeness of their bodies or his gaze that stole her breath away but it became ever more unbearable – a heady feeling built up inside her, between them, making her feel ready to explode. And yet no sound of protest crossed her lips, no movement of defence stirred her limbs, instead she found herself reacting to him in a way she had not known before: an unknown heat pooled deep down in her belly, and it made her feel weightless and heavy at the same time.
Slowly she felt his hands move away from her waist, lower and lower, and the rest of his body moved with his hands, down, closer to her, until their faces were close enough for their noses to meet. But he would not kiss her again, he only stared at her and there was such hunger in his eyes, his gaze burrowing right through her, into the depths of her very soul, and whatever he found there, seemed to be what he had been looking for all along. She felt his hands then, those large paws, cupping her arse, and the rough nature of that touch was as unfamiliar as it was thrilling, and it made her gasp for air, before he was lifting her up, and instinctively, as her feet left the ground, her legs came around him, seeking something, anything, to hold on to, but there was only him.
And there she was, trapped between man and wall, and she was caught between the crashing waves of their desires. She was breathing hard now, almost panting, growing heady from the breathlessness, and yet her king, breathing heavily too, sought her lips for more, as though to steal the very breath from her mouth, and all she could do was try and keep up with him. The kisses now were not chaste any longer nor were they passionate, except if one were to think of passion as a form of hunger, feral and desperate and overwhelmingly devouring – his mouth on hers grew sloppy, imprecise and wild, and it became harder and harder for her to respond in kind, her feelings of passion marred with her thoughts of reason.
A true lady never forgets her proper manners. Her sister-in-law's cheeky grin as she talked of a woman's pleasure. Your husband is your king, and your king is your husband. Her father's cruel smile, full of pride, full of certainty that she would do what she was tasked to do. What do you think? Do the horselords fuck their ladies like their stallions mount their mares? Her Gondorian handmaidens sniggering coldly behind her back. How could we ever expect a Southern lady to understand? A people who would never fully, truly accept her, the stranger princess from the treacherous South. Rise with the tides. Her father, after the war, cruelly reminding her of the heartless, unjust nature of the world. What good does a mare unfit for breeding? The certainty that what little value she had lay in between her thighs alone. A city afire, a horse aflame, a deathly struggle, a crazed sound of desperate whinnying, the stench of burned flesh, hands that fought with tears and pleas, drunken laughter that barely masked the cruel lust within. The memory of war running her down, again and again and again …
It was too much, simply too much – the heat, the closeness, the hardness, the tightness, the thoughts, the feelings, the memories, the fears, the desires; it all became embroiled in her head, tearing her consciousness from one extreme to the other, slowly overwhelming her. Breaking free of the kiss, gasping for air, her eyes snapped open, as she tried to anchor herself in this moment again, as she tried to regain the pleasant sensations she had experienced just a few moments ago, as she tried to recall the heated desires that had swept her away just a few seconds ago, but it had all turned to ice now, overridden by other, more sombre thoughts and feelings.
And perhaps she had thought that her husband and king would sense the shift in her, perhaps she had thought that he would react, perhaps she had thought that he would stop, that he would care, but perhaps she had simply expected too much? That he would notice and understand and act, rather than interpret the signs of her body language in the narrow-minded way he had been taught to see it: the tensing of her body, the goosebumps on her skin, the laboured breathing – indeed, had it been too much to expect him to grasp the difference, and to adapt to it? He had changed so much over the last few weeks, had become kinder, warmer, closer to her – so yes, she thought bitterly, perhaps she had thought that he would change in this regard too. But perhaps he hadn't, perhaps he was still a man and he was still a king and he was still her husband – so how could she deny him, even if, in her heart, she knew this wasn't right, neither the time nor the place nor the feeling?
Her husband and king knew nothing of her inner conflict, he didn't sense the questions and thoughts and fears she was struggling with, for he was still enthralled in the passions that had gripped her not so long ago, and where she thought, he felt. When she had broken free from the kiss, he hadn't let that deter him, his mouth, still hungering for more, simply moving on, and with lips and teeth he had scarred her flesh: her neck his marked territory, his hot breath branding her as his. And his hands roamed free; first, they had only held her close to him, and when he had cornered her with his body, keeping her in place, keeping her close against him, his hands had full rein to touch and explore and lay claim to her. His hands seemed to be everywhere at once: at her back, pulling her towards him, leaving no space between them; at her front, feverish fingers brushing the tips of her breasts with more than just the promise of passionate urgency; at her arse, pulling her hard against him, making her feel that part of him that lusted for her as he rubbed up against her; on her thighs, rough fingers edging under her skirts, drawing closer to the finish line of her woollen stockings and then beyond.
She wasn't sure exactly what it was that made her snap out of her numb, passive state – the way his hips bucked into her, like a crazed stallion in heat, or the way his whole body seemed to press her into the hard wood behind her, chafing her back raw, or the way his trembling fingertips hunted for that secret garden his majesty had not graced for over a month now? But no matter what it was, it was enough to pull her consciousness back to reality and to propel her into action.
With a strength she had not known she possessed, she pushed him away and to her shocked, infinite surprise, he yielded. All of the sudden, the heat was gone and with it the steadiness of their embrace; she felt her feet returning to the grounds of reality and she had to grip the wall of the stables with both hands to keep her weak knees from buckling in, and, in the end, it was all that really kept her from sinking to the ground when she saw him there, watching her with eyes still dazed by lust but clearing with confusion and even hurt and anger. Cold realisation iced down her back as she came to grips with the reality that she had just denied her husband his every right, had just refused a king his kingly right, had just rejected a seasoned warrior, capable of deeds of great violence. It was too much. Too much. Had she gone too far? What would he do now?
For a moment there Éomer did feel anger swell in him, ready to snap at her, to force her to explain herself but when he beheld her all his anger and his words died on his lips: there she was, wide-eyed, speechless, heavily breathing, dishevelled hair and disarrayed clothes, lips swollen from his wild kissing. She seemed utterly shocked and confused at his passion, and her own, and Éomer realised once more how very young and innocent she truly was. It was then that he became aware of his own state: his heavy breathing, the dirt on his hands, the dust on his clothes, the stench of the stables on him, and the sight of a very needy and very obvious erection painfully reminding him of what they had been doing, of what he had been doing, of what he had almost been doing.
Looking up he saw her staring at him, staring, but not seeing, her eyes blind to anything other than what she saw in her mind's eye, replaying the images and motions and sensations of just a few moments ago. She is frightened, was all he could think and in that moment he could have smashed his fool's head against one of the stables' wooden beams. All his efforts, all his good intentions, all his work tossed into the wind; weeks and weeks of self-imposed restraint, patience and respectful distance thrown into the gutter in the blink of an eye, and for what? The lusty impatience of a king out of control, crazed like a stallion in heat? With a growl deep in his throat he cursed, quite aware of the way she flinched at that sound, and seeing her react in fear was enough to snap him out of his own self-pity and self-loathing. She had responded to him, hadn't she?, he thought hopefully then, like a man desperate to see the good with the bad; yes, at first, she had responded to him, which meant that at least a part of her must have craved for him the way he had craved for her, or so he told himself.
'Lothíriel, listen … let me explain … ', he started in a sudden moment of regret, his hands held up in a non-threatening gesture, trying to calm her down as she slowly edged out from her trap in the corner, wishing to explain his actions, wishing to make her understand, but by then she had already turned on her heels and hastened back up to Meduseld, fleeing to the seclusion of the Golden Hall, and leaving her king and husband behind, alone with his thoughts and his guilt.
With a contented sigh, Lothíriel closed her eyes and sank deeper into the bathtub, allowing the steaming water to enclose her almost fully, allowing the heat to ease the tension in her sore muscles, so unused to the unfamiliar physical exertion of riding. She smiled, humming softly to her herself, not so much any melody in particular but simply a sounding manifestation of a vague feeling of ease and comfort. She could feel it then, the almost supernaturally relaxing effect the water had on her, but then again, as legends would have it, she was a creature of the sea as the sea was in her blood and water was her element after all, so it was only to be expected.
But she knew even the calming, relaxing effect the water had on her would not do her much good in soothing the troubling thoughts and feelings that were still running amok in her mind. Opening her eyes for a moment, her gaze flitted over to the big four-poster bed, the neatly folded blankets belying the non-regal acts that had happened there, or rather, coldly stating the lack of regal duties that were supposed to be happening there. Her eyes squeezed shut and she hissed, almost as if in pain, and indeed she worked painfully hard to try and make sense of the confusing feelings inside her head.
On the one hand, this had been one of the happiest days of her life, and the gratitude she felt towards him was almost overwhelming. After months of fear and echoing trauma, she had learned to trust again, to allow herself to fall and yet to feel safe; after years of drilled-in etiquette, of having to wear a mask for the world, she had dared to let it slip, to allow herself to breathe and to be free, and yet to feel accepted and respected. And just thinking back on it now, she could feel tears stinging her eyes, but she would not begrudge herself those tears, because for once they were not tears of sorrow but tears of joy.
On the other hand, however, she had felt all that happiness tainted with shame and regret, and the cold realisation that as she had believed herself free to fall, he had caught her in his grip again, making her retreat into her old patterns of submission rather than permission, to be a wife rather than a woman. She was sure, had he persisted in his rights as her husband back there, she would have yielded to him, not gladly but dutifully; too overwhelmed to recall her new sister's stance on a woman's pleasure, too well-trained and too traumatised to demand consideration for herself, too disillusioned to feel more than just the satisfaction of his lust. Weeks and weeks of a slowly-built trust gone – for all her overwhelmed shock and frozen state of mind, it might as well have been her wedding night all over again.
With another sigh she opened her eyes again, and again she focused on the canopy bed, but this time her gaze didn't settle on the big looming empty space of the bed or the dark green linen curtains overshadowing it or the suggestive imagery carved into the wooden board, just visible underneath the propped up cushions. Instead, it settled on a little stack of books, bound together by a ribbon of green and white colour, and she felt her heart melt at the sight, and she knew in that moment that not all fires burned to consume, some burned to warm the soul, and some burned to connect, so that two could become one.
Yes, his rash actions had shocked her and she had not known what to do or how to react, but at the same time she recalled that, at the beginning, she had liked it. She had wanted to be held, she had wanted to be kissed, but more than that, she had wanted to kiss, she had wanted to touch, she had wanted to explore the sensation that was coiling in her guts. Yes, she had liked the beginnings of it, more than liked it even, and no matter what came after it, she would not deny herself the joy she had experienced at first. And yet, somehow, that didn't magically make this whole mess any easier, rather on the contrary, it became even more twisted.
She was torn, that's what it felt like, simply torn. One part of her felt ashamed of having denied her husband, while another part of her felt that it had been just too much intimacy to bear and she had not known any other way to react but to try and flee the situation. And then there was that little voice in her head that bravely whispered that she had indeed felt pleasure at her husband's touch and that it was not so much a regretting of having denied her husband that pained her but rather a regretting of having denied herself the possibility of pleasure at her husband's own hands.
Of course, that didn't mean that his behaviour back there hadn't disturbed her, but thinking back on it now, she didn't recall fear, only a sense of overwhelming new sensations that scared her only insofar that she didn't yet understand them. At no time had she not felt safe in his care, only she wasn't sure whether he really would have had a care for her and her needs, especially because she herself did not yet understand what those needs really were, and Lothíriel remembered well her new sister's words about her brother's inexperience with women who were inexperienced. Could it be that in this he was just as unsure as she was? Could it be that his seemingly overzealous actions were nothing but a result of his insecurity, a reaction of his desperate need taking desperate measures that led to desperate outcomes? Could it be that this was as new to him as it was to her? And if she could learn to trust him in this, could he not learn to trust her in this as well?
A sudden draught of air startled her and she was torn out of her thoughts, and turning around half-way to see the source of the disturbance, her gaze was met with that of her husband's. Éomer stood there in all his worn-out glory: the dirty, rumpled riding clothes glued to his form like a snake's shed skin, the smell of horse and sweat clinging to him like a vague memory of something more, echoing to her the ramifications of the incident from before. And for a moment there, she was too lost in the nature of his gaze to consider anything else: the dark shades of the green of his eyes, the way they tightened, the way they zeroed in on her – it made her wonder what she could have done now to cause his anger, nay, his hatred, and it made her breath hitch as something strange constricted painfully in her chest. Oh, she could think of one reason, for sure.
But then she saw his eyes wander and his gaze linger there, and then, just as she realised that it wasn't anger blackening his eyes, she became aware again of her state of undress. With a gasp and a cry of shame (that, honestly, reminded her of one those squealing, squeaking water mammals from the sea), she sat up bolt right and pulled her knees against her chest, crossing her arms in front of her, and covering herself up as best she could, given that she was a stark-naked woman in a bathtub filled with crystal-clear water.
At that Éomer smiled and the expression of the brooding warrior with lust in his eyes vanished, replaced by no little amount of amusement as he made a sound somewhere between a snort and a sigh, shaking his head as he descended the few stairs down to the bed, chuckling as he went. It was astounding to him that even after all this time – after all the times he had seen her naked – she still blushed to let him see her like this. But perhaps, he thought, sobering, it wasn't her own nakedness that disturbed her in that moment, but rather the memory of how easily such a thing could rouse him to passion, and how reckless he could be once those passions were roused.
His smiled faded into bitterness as images of the incident in the stables came back to him, and again shame and regret came with it. He knew he hadn't just stayed behind in the stables to dust off his horse and to unsaddle and unbridle it – he had stayed behind to cool off from the heat of what had happened between them, or rather, what could have happened between them, and also to clear his mind. The first part had been easy, he mused, as he looked down sheepishly while taking off the sword belt along with his sword, putting it away on the bedside table, making sure that absolutely no obvious evidence of his passions from before could be seen rising up. The second part, however, well, let's just say, he was still figuring that out, and right now, he was more or less making it up as he went along.
She had responded to him.
She had kissed him back, held on to him, moved with him. Yes, at first, she had responded to him – which meant that at least a part of her (and he did not know how strong that part of her was) did not reject his advances, quite on the contrary, a part of her had craved them, and yet it must have been something in the nature of his advances too that had scared her off. Had it been the way he moved, the way he held on to her, the way he grabbed her? With any of the other women he had been with before, it had been enough, or at least, that's what it had felt like; any other woman he had known intimately had surrendered so easily and with such ease – but not her, never her. It was then that he remembered his sister's wise words, words that had mortified him not so many weeks ago, words that had pained him, confused him, provoked him, and yet, now they intrigued him.
Pleasure is in more than just a touch; pleasure is in a feeling – a feeling of freedom, a feeling of confidence, a feeling of trust.
'My Lord, what are you doing?'
The question pulled him out of his increasingly confusing thoughts and jolted him back into reality. Turning around to look at her, he now stood between the bed and the bathtub, and his queen was looking at him with wide, perplexed eyes, and he understood at once the reason for her obvious shock. While lost in thoughts, Éomer had managed to take off his belt and his short-sleeved tunic, and now he was already in the process of reaching for the hem of his long-sleeved shirt. For a moment there he halted, unsure whether or not to proceed, but then again, it had been a very long and very exhausting morning, and the ride itself had been the least of it, and anyway, it would do neither of them any good to simply retreat back into the safe, little shells they had carved out for themselves. So that left only one way to go: onward.
'Taking my clothes off.', he said with that dry, matter-of-factly tone you would expect from a man of his smug confidence, but then again, what else could he have said in response to such an obvious question with such an obvious answer?
'Yes, I can see that.', she spoke then, after a long pause, as though she was still deciphering whether or not he was making a jest of her, and she spoke with no little amount of annoyance, and she would have rolled her eyes at his answer, had her eyes not been distracted by the play of muscles that was flaunted on his broad chest as he pulled his shirt over his head, 'I just don't quite understand why now, and why here?'
Éomer couldn't help it, he had to smile at that; that strenuous effort she made to conceal her very obvious annoyance and very obvious distraction with barely veiled politeness. He had seen the look in her eyes change; he had seen it before, down in the stables, and he had wanted to see it again, even if that meant having to bare it all. Éomer chuckled under his breath, managing to disguise it as having to clear his throat – he wouldn't laugh at the situation as there was nothing to laugh about: fair is fair, after all, he had seen all of her, perhaps, it was time that he should let her see all of him?
'Well, I'm going to take a bath. A king in his own kingdom should be at least granted this simple joy, should he not?'
'Of course, my Lord, b-but … but the point is ...', she began hesitantly, struggling with the limitations of her social upbringing as she dared to object to his logic, albeit royally politely. But then again, her struggles might also have been brought on by something else, as she was very obviously distracted again when he took off his boots while sitting on the edge of the bathtub: his broad shoulders exposed to her, hard muscles dancing under tender skin. Her hands burned from the wish to reach out and touch him, so she pushed them down into the water, forming fists so tight her nails buried themselves deep into the flesh of her palms, doing everything, anything, to keep her composure. She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on how to form the words in her mouth as she positively pressed them out through her teeth, 'I am having a bath right now.'
At that he chuckled quietly again and it was a sound that came from somewhere deep within his throat. Rising up he simply threw his boots away before he turned around to her and slowly leaned forward, closer and closer, until their faces were mere inches apart and his hands gripping the rim of the bathtub was all that kept him from jumping into the tub and kept her from pulling him in. Her lord and husband was smiling but it was a grim smile and it couldn't distract her from the burning expression in his eyes; it made her shiver as he spoke low under his breath, 'We are quite the observer, aren't we?'
Holding her breath, she dared not to move lest the fragile balance between them was tipped, having the tension explode, throwing them into chaos, and perhaps, she thought that if neither of the moved, if neither of them made a choice, then nothing would happen and all would be as it as was, and all would be well. But, of course, she had set her hopes high and without considering her husband and king, and Éomer Horse-Lord had no intention of putting off making a choice any longer; he had made his choice already, and now he decided it was to be her turn. Pushing himself off the rim of the bathtub, he simply leaned up again and with a single, swift movement he pushed down his breeches, and then he stood there before her in all his naked glory. For a moment only her eyes widened and then she slid down slowly, deeper and deeper into the tub, sinking beneath the surface of the water until merely half of her face could be seen – but she did not look away, and he gave her credit for that.
For a moment, he didn't move, forcing himself instead to stand still, even though he already felt the urge tugging at him to cover up and to escape her gaze. Usually, he would not have minded to be seen by her, after all, she had seen him naked often enough when they had shared a bed and he was not a man of shy nature, but there was a profound difference between the furtive glances taken in between the doings of their bodies and this blatant display of his whole self. And yet, he remained still, right then and there as he was. He wanted her to see all of him, allowing her gaze to linger, her eyes to wander, giving her all the time she needed to take him all in, submitting all the power in this relationship in this moment to her, surrendering himself to her fully.
And indeed, at the sight of him her eyes changed, darkened, tightened, and then they wandered, slowly, carefully, taking him all in, drinking in the broadness of his shoulders, the hard muscles of his chest, the curved line of his hips, and lower still. And there her eyes lingered for a moment, as it would seem to make sense of what she was faced with, and judging by her expression she must have never before looked upon a naked man, at least never so brazenly or for such a long time, for apprehension made way to curiosity and beyond that, fascination. Her mouth opened then, as if to say something, as if to bombard him with question after question she most definitely must have had, but then her teeth snapped shut again and she looked up with a sheepish look on her face and a deep red flush on her cheeks.
In that moment Éomer realised one thing, something he had not seen before, but he saw it now and he swallowed hard at that image – red cheeked, biting lips, big eyes looking up at him – and he knew that for all her calm and collected composure, her perfect poise, there was an uncertainty behind it. He knew that his wife might have been told all there was to know about reproduction and intercourse, but she knew nothing of pleasure and even less of lust or even love – for all her accomplishments as a woman, in this regard she was little more than a girl. He would have laughed at the irony of the statement, but there was nothing to laugh about here; in the act of love she was as innocent as he was in the feeling of love. But, he thought, remembering his sister's adamant advice, if he could learn to love, then she could learn to trust as well, and perhaps, even learn to love in return – all it needed was the patience of a soul as willing to learn as she was, to help her learn and encourage her thirst for knowledge, her thirst for more.
Éomer made but one step towards her then but it was all it took to have her flinch almost violently, and just like that she was back to sitting clenched-up in the bathtub, knees pulled up, arms around herself, shielding herself, body tense and on high alert. She watched him with dark eyes then, full of wariness and perhaps quite another emotion, as he rounded the bathtub with slow, deliberate steps, and she sensed more than she actually saw as he sat down on a stool next to bathtub, with her back towards him and him out of her sight. Usually, this would have made her most uncomfortable, being fully seen by him but not able to fully see him, but not now, and even though she could not deny the old feeling of alarm creeping up her neck it was almost entirely drenched out by some intense curiosity, the sheer need to know what might happen if she just so let it happen.
Blind to his movements and blind to his intentions, she had only her other senses to tell her what would happen, what he would do, and so she simply waited and listened. She heard the scraping of the chair leg as he moved forward, felt the commotion of the water as he broke the surface, and when he dipped his hand into the warm bathwater to let it trickle onto her back, slowly, oh so slowly, she at last gave up the sigh she had not known she had held and let go of the old fears she still harboured. She wanted to be free, so she had to let herself be free.
Drip by drip and drizzle by drizzle her king poured the water over her, soaking her skin, soaking her hair, washing the stench of the stables off of her. His hands wove themselves into her raven her, fingers combing through her long tresses, massaging her scalp, and with a hum and a sigh she sank back, her whole body relaxing under his careful touch as he washed her with the reverence of a worshipper. Her eyes closed as she allowed herself to simply enjoy his treatment of her; hands and fingers and palms that wandered from her hair to her shoulders and arms, kneading away the tension of hours of hard riding and a stiff saddle. Normally, she would have been scandalised by this, but she was too exhausted, too much in need of relaxation to care – why, she had been too tired even and too impatient to put on a bathing shirt, but right now that slight of bathing etiquette seemed to be paying off nicely enough.
She floated off into a momentum of bliss, her senses clouded, and thus it took her quite a while to realise that he was actually talking to her in soft, quiet words, and the buzzing sound of syllables blending into each other became a woven tapestry of sound that enveloped her fully and completely. For a moment only, time and the world itself seemed at a standstill, neither past nor future seemed to matter, and all the pain and all the questions were past caring; in that moment, she was truly free. It was only when he ceded his clever touches that she slowly awakened out of her haze, and still dizzy from relaxation, she saw him naked and speaking as he crouched before the tub, and even on his knees he seemed to tower above her, she mused with some annoyance, and yet his words could not have been more humbling, his mischievous smile of before gone.
'I know you're unhappy, Lothíriel.', he simply stated as though it were the easiest thing in the world, as though it didn't have the carefully structured walls of her pretence come crashing down, 'Ever since you got here, you have been unhappy, alone, afraid'.
And then he paused, as though he seemed to be searching for the right words to speak, and this would have been the chance for her speak, to object, but she was too ashamed to meet his gaze, too poised, too composed, and anyway, she was too tired to pretend any longer that she was content and happy when really she was nothing but lost. But then again, that wasn't entirely true anymore, was it? It was true, the last few weeks had slowly but surely crept up on her and again and again she had found herself smiling, laughing, genuinely enjoying herself, but she was still too caught up in the vice-like grip of her indoctrinated manners to reveal that she had been happy, even if only for a short while.
'I know this marriage wasn't your idea. It's a sad thing that in our world women seldom have the freedom to choose their own husbands.', he stopped for a second and his mouth split into a grim smile, his green eyes gleaming with good-natured humour, as though remembering a jest someone had played on him once, something that had annoyed him before but only amused him now, 'But – you might be surprised to hear – men, too, seldom choose their wives for non-practical reasons. So it was for me, as it was for you.', he paused again, and this time he looked her directly in the eye, intent on capturing her reaction she so desperately sought to hide, 'I didn't love you when I married you. You didn't love me when you married me.'
He had expected a show of objection there, an insistence on the contrary, anything to appease the offended manly man she no doubt tended to see him as – but, credit where credit is due, she remained silent. That was not to say that she did not react – her lips, though they sought to remain firmly shut, did open for a moment as though to speak, and her eyes grew large and wide the second she realised at last that he had seen right through her. He smiled at the image of that realisation sinking in, but only for a moment, and then he spoke once more, his tone observational again, 'But still, I had no need to leave my home and all I loved and knew behind. You, however, found yourself a stranger in a strange land.'
And then he was looking at her again, always looking, always seeing, and she didn't need to look up to know it to be true; she knew because she could sense his intense gaze upon her, that gaze that managed to pierce all the walls she had built up around herself, 'I realised I have given very little though to what you must have been going through all those months. No, truly, you could not have been very happy, and I confess that I had no small part in that. But, Lothíriel, trust me when I tell you this', and here he made a pregnant pause and used it well to stretch his hand out to her and raise her shyly lowered chin with his fingers, to have her look at him, really look at him, and verily, she could see the sincerity in his gaze as he continued, and the conviction with which he spoke shook her to the very core, 'I do want to make you happy, truly – and not just as a wife, but as a woman also.'
And then he released her again, pulling his hand back as though burned by the touch, and she looked away just as quickly, too overcome by conflicting emotions and contrary needs to meet his pleading gaze any longer. She needed space to really, truly comprehend the meaning of his vow; she needed to think and not think at the same time. All the while, she could feel that her own frustration, her own insecurity, her own uncertainty was passing on to him as well: gone was the conviction from before, gone the confidence of the warrior incarnate, instead he was nothing but a man asking for the woman he loved to love him in return, and one could just hear that desperate longing in his tone, that hesitancy shaking in his voice, 'If that is what you wish – if you would have me.'
For a moment, she was quite surprised and overwhelmed by his speech and at first she was unsure what it truly was that she wanted or what it was that she should do, but then, ever so slow and small a movement, she nodded – no more, no less. And she was not sure what she had expected to happen then – perhaps that he would lean forward and capture her in a rushed, triumphant kiss or that his lips would spread in that happy smile she so seldom had the privilege to see. But he did none of these things, he only imitated her own gesture and nodded, almost absent-mindedly, and as the stark silence stretched out between them, she came to realise that he was actually waiting for her to make the first move, to give him a sign of what she wanted him to do – or not; and it only dawned on her now how great the power truly was that he had handed over to her. For not only did he give her the power to take control of herself but, in the same breath, of him as well.
At first, she was simply too stunned by the sheer unfamiliarity of it, this strange, new feeling of power filling her, rattling her. All her life she had been princess, daughter, wife – she had never truly been in control – and now that she was, she felt unsure of what to do or how to proceed. She knew she wanted to touch and to be touched in return, but she had never learned the rules of love, all the intricate stratagems of advance unknown to her. And so all she had was the impulse of curiosity to guide her, the instinctual drive to explore, to experience, to discover, and thus, leaving all known rules and manners of propriety behind, she followed her own heart and desires into the unknown.
Nervously and self-consciously she made eye contact then, her gaze desperate and shy at the same time, trying to signal her wishes in silence, for she was too mortified yet to utter them out loud. But her king, his eyes intent on her, did not mistake her meaning. Slowly, he dove his hands into the steaming bath water and, following the silent guidance of her gaze, he began to pour water onto the leg she stretched out towards him. She did not look at him as began to wash her; her face red and hot, and she was not just blushing from the heat of the steaming bath water.
His fingertips, roughened from a life of riding and fighting, were at first only stroking her skin with careful touch, moving up and down her calf, slowly and with patient dedication, but soon the movements of his hands changed and he started to massage her calf and with every touch he claimed more of her skin. Until now she had been careful to avoid his gaze, though she was more than conscious of his eyes on her, but now, with his hands so teasingly kneading away the tension from her muscles, and with a pleasure made of pain rippling all the way up her spine, she felt her head sink back against the edge of the tub and, automatically, her eyes locked with his.
There was an intensity in his gaze that made her catch her breath, and feeling herself melt away under his hands, she could not help those little sounds of surprised pleasure escape her lips. And with his ears drinking in her pleased reaction, his gaze grew all the more intense. And though this intensity was almost too much to bear, she found herself unable to look away again. True, she had always taken an almost shameful pleasure in watching him, and now she didn't even mind being confronted with his watching her in return. It was almost as if a reckless glee had overtaken her usually shy and composed self, and in her stead another woman stood that felt not compelled any longer by any false sense of modesty or shame.
Perhaps it was only the very nature of this situation, so unfamiliar to the conventional institution of marriage as she had come to know it; none of the restrictive codes of marital conduct appeared to exist here between them. Here and now they seemed to be more than mere husband and wife, but a man and a woman connected by something far deeper than the bonds of marriage; a connection made up of mutual attraction, strengthened by deep-seated respect and tentative trust, fuelled by curiosity and desire. And despite the many times that they had shared a bed, that he had been with her and she with him, that their eyes had watched the other, this moment here felt as though it were the very first time they came together, and it felt far more intimate than anything else that had passed between them. It felt as though they were discovering each other anew, but still it was more than that. She was discovering herself, discovering her body's strange reactions – the way her senses spiked at the lightest touch, the thin hairs in her neck that rose in anticipation, her heartbeat that quickened in response. She felt a wave of constant excitement shaking her as the myriads of new sensations washed over her.
She had never felt this way before, and never could she have imagined that anyone could ever feel this way, and yet here she was – blushing, panting, sighing; welcoming her husband-stranger as the lover she had never known, that she had never even dared to imagine. With this, here and now, there was a wholly new layer of intimacy to their relationship – where before there had been gentle, controlled advances, made of careful curiosity and budding affection, there was now a desire and will of exploration, bereft of all control, and where before she would have been scandalised and scared, she now felt only excited and thrilled.
And thus it was that she found herself meeting her husband's dark gaze head-on, watching him with an intensity, burning, the least to match his own, if not more. For where he had had years and leave to explore and understand his desires, to come into his own with his passions, she had had to keep herself in control, to behave as a model of modesty, to be conceived as a person of title, not as a person of body. She had never had the chance to learn and to explore, and thus all those emotions and steps of awakening sensuality crashed down on her now, those feelings of power, of anticipation, of fear, of excitement, of curiosity and desire. She was awash in a torrent of sensations and giving up all sensible thoughts, she gave herself with wild abandon over to those sensations, and to him.
Her eyes, darker than the deepest blue of the sea, looked at him with a gaze he had never seen in her before and it made him shiver with arousal and his hand began to tremble on her soft flesh – but then, lo and behold, there she was, his Queen, keeping him steady, and leading him onto that new path they both wished to tread as equals. With determined steadiness she placed her hand on his and slowly moved him higher up, ever higher, until his hand vanished into the hot bathwater, not to be seen again. He met her gaze again then, to make sure that this was what she wanted and her eyes, so blue they seemed black, stared back at him without hesitation, and he swallowed hard as she nodded slowly.
Higher and higher his hand went, across her knee, higher, even higher, onto her thigh, and even further up, and ever he was watching her expression, to reassure himself of her consent. He could feel her shiver beneath his touch, hear her breathing go shallow, and though he had little experience with such pleasures, he knew he was on the right track here. All of the sudden then she cried out and he stopped dead.
'Did I hurt you?'
'No!', she answered quickly, perhaps too quickly, and he smiled again for the first time, realising that he was not the only one who had little experience with such pleasures. Slowly she settled down again and swallowing hard he could see a small, confused smile forming around her lips as though she began to understand her cause of shock. He met her gaze and again awaiting her to set the pace, she nodded slowly and then his hand went back below the surface; and this time there was no cry of shock or insecurity, and though she trembled at his touch, it was not out of fear.
Soon her breathing went shallow again and under it small, delicate sounds escaped; her hands gripped the rim of the bathtub, so tightly her knuckles turned white, so tightly her nails raked across the wood. Her head felt too hot and too heavy and fell back against the back of the bathtub; her eyes closed of their own accord. Soon enough those delicious sounds turned to sighs and moans and little cries, and in another life she would have been shocked at her behaviour, but here and now she spared little thought to that as she had no thoughts left to think. She could not think, could not talk – she could only feel, and feel she did.
Lothíriel felt as though a fire made of pleasure and pain had been ignited in the centre of her very being; she wound herself in the bathtub, splattering water all over the floor, trying to escape the delicious sensations that his fingers gave her, sensations of such pleasure she could hardly bear it but still craved for it, and the sensations grew ever more until she believed she could not take it any longer. And ever did that vague edge of some momentum linger at the back of her consciousness, and yet it always slipped away. And then – nothingness; blissful, sudden release, a waterfall of pleasure drowning her, torrents of sensations ripping at her, shaking her, making her cry and shiver, once, twice, at the peak of her pleasure.
When she managed to open her eyes again, she opened them to a new world: the world around her seemed awash in new sensations and she seemed acutely sensitive to them. The wood of the bathtub offered an enticing new roughness that caused a delicious friction under her skin. The water pooling all around her seemed to especially kiss her most sensitive skin. The sounds in her ears were a throbbing but titillating staccato and she realised it were the frantic beats of her very own heart, and the air, even the air was full of such smell, darkly sweet and rich, that it made her mouth water in excitement. And then she became aware of another sound, that of laboured breathing, but it was not her own.
Lothíriel slowly lifted her head and was faced with the sight of her husband who was now also her lover. The man crouching before the bathtub had his eyes closed, trying to control his heavy breathing, and when he opened his eyes to meets hers, she could see the same desire in his gaze that racked her. She saw that he wanted her, and what surprised her most, she realised, was that she wanted him too, to be with him, to feel him, all of him, to have him fill her with the same passions that shook him. She wanted it all, and she wanted it now.
With a sudden motion that surprised him, she rose from the bathtub, standing tall, and though the cool air of the chamber made her shiver, it did nothing to ease the heat within her. Looking down she saw her lover-husband looking up at her, his eyes darkening with a now familiar emotion, and she cared not that he saw her like this, rather she wanted him to see her, to see all of her, and what was more, she wanted to see him too, all of him.
Slowly she reached towards him, tucking one strand of his golden hair behind his ear, giving him her sign of invitation, and then he rose too, to be level with her. For a moment they locked eyes and she wondered whether he could see the desire that coursed through her or whether she had to show him once more? Breaking eye contact, Lothíriel finally had the chance and pleasure to let her eyes drink in his body, and what a sight he truly was to behold, all of him – she felt her cheeks burn.
She slowly stretched out her hand towards him and she realised her fingers were trembling as she laid them across his broad chest; he twitched at her touch and that alone emboldened her. Slowly, so slowly, she took her time to let her fingers explore his exquisite body, teasingly gripping the thin golden hairs of his chest, feeling the muscles of his chest react to her touch, tracing the lines of his rips down, ever down – a little voice in her head wondered whether he would stop her there, but he didn't.
At her touch he twitched only once, and then he was all hers; looking up she saw that his eyes had fallen shut, his mouth agape and now it was her move to elicit those delicate sounds from his lips, only they were not delicate, but raw and deep, like a wolf's growl, and to her surprise she found that those sounds of pleasure from him no longer disturbed her. It amazed her that with the mere touch of her fragile fingers she could bring this mighty warrior-king to his knees and the realisation filled her with delicious power, but before she could have drunk in her new-found power fully, his hand suddenly shot forth and grasped her wrist with surprising force, but she felt not alarmed by it.
Looking up she saw him slowly shaking his head, though a smile played around his lips, and she released him. Instead she then took his hand and raised it to have him cup her breast; the rough flesh of his palm against the sensitive skin of her breast made her catch her breath, and as his thumb caressed her nipple she cried out in surprised pleasure, but her lover gave her little time to recover as his mouth descended upon hers to swallow her sighed moans. Melting into his touch and kiss, her arms came around his neck, craving her own score of touches, craving to be closer to him.
His rough hands roamed her body, first kneading her breasts, then pressing her closer to him with his hands on her back, and then moving lower, to cup her arse, pressing them so close together his hardness met her softness in a clash of delicious sensitivity and gasping moans. Without hesitation then his hands moved lower to her thighs and with a single swift motion he lifted her up and instinctively her legs came around him, her arms around his neck holding on to him and she was reminded of that moment in the stables from before.
Her lover holding her tightly slowly but surely walked them away from the bathtub and the experiences there and led them towards their bed; holding her still he sat down upon the bed, with her striding his lap, and he leaned into her to deepen the kiss, having her part her lips for him, opening herself up to him. His hands roamed her back and went lower to once again cup her arse, making her moan again. And as his hand cupping her arse held her close to him, his other hand went free, and with an almost frantic movement he turned them around, his free hand used to support both himself and her as he pushed them both further up onto the bed, and only there, in the middle of the bed, did he let go of her.
For a moment then, he allowed himself and her to catch their breath, and he used it well to take her all in. She was truly a sight to behold: lying beneath him, out of breath; her marvellous, full breasts rising frantically, eyes hooded and darkened from lust, and her thighs unconsciously rubbing together to ease a tension she only recently learned to understand. Feeling himself reacting to the mere sight of her, he realised that he wanted her, and what was more, he wanted her to want him, the same way he desired her, and to experience the same pleasure she had given him.
With a smile he crashed onto the bed beside her, reaching out for her, and that smile only widened when he beheld the way she would melt into his touch, seeing her craving to be close to him, to touch as much of him as she could grasp in return. He had dreamed of this, hoped for it, longed for it – all those nights spent with an invisible wall between them, to look but not to touch; all those memories of nights wasted away in hollow embrace, eyes that shied away from him, flesh that merely yielded but never invited – oh, how he had yearned for her desire, for this, for him, for herself. But, he knew, to want is not to know, and though she was no woman untouched, she was untouched in this, unlearned in the art of love, unaware of her own body and her pleasures, inexperienced in the agency she possessed – but he was patient and he was eager, he would help her discover herself.
'Tell me what you want.', he whispered then, again and again, as he merely teased touches to come: fingers that brushed over her skin, ghosting along the sides of her breasts, hands that gripped her back, that pulled her towards him, lips that brushed hers, a touch of flesh but not quite a kiss – and again and again he would whisper, 'Lothíriel, tell me what you want.', and when it became too much, too much excitement and too much anticipation, when she could no longer stand his teasing, when she could no longer stand her own passivity, she at last took charge.
With a sigh she reached for him and caught his lips in a sloppy and feverish kiss, and what she still lacked in skill she made up for in eagerness, and with it – not knowing what else to do or how else to proceed – she pulled his paw of a hand back to the very centre of her being to fan the flame he had ignited there, and as he caressed the flower to her fullest bloom once more, kissing and licking and biting her neck, she moaned and squealed and made all the sounds of pleasure. Yet, as she trembled and shook, the pleasure now seemed almost to be made of pain, and a sense of frustration seemed to take hold, for as much as her king gave, he also withheld the release her body desperately cried for, and with a smug smile at that.
But that woman of his was no longer the meek, passive wife he had come to know, but the lover that beckoned him to her, and now she would only be played with on her own terms. Her arms then shot out and locked around his neck, pulling him down with her, and now she was kissing him hard, with everything she had, with all her little might, and obliging his Queen's wishes her King came to her, winding himself in her embrace, locked between her thighs, and holding nothing back, he helped them become one, and with a gasp from her and growl from him they joined their bodies.
After the first few moments of overwhelming sensations had passed, they at last began to move tentatively, because for her it was all new, a sensual mystery to discover, and because for him it was overwhelming, a sensual fulfilment of a heart's old desire. But soon enough, in between kisses and caresses, words whispered and breaths stolen, they fell into a rhythm as old as time, and no matter where one led, the other would follow. Of course, he wanted to go slow, to make it last, to make it good, and most of all, to please her, but he felt the need in him urging him on, faster and faster, and his Queen followed him no less desperately. With her hands on his back and her heels at his arse she urged him on, and as they raced towards that point of no return her little sounds of pleasure, her cries and sighs and moans, were the sweetest music to his ears.
'Trust me, Lothíriel', she heard him whisper again then, in between pushes, and his hot breath burned against her neck, 'Trust me, my love, and I will trust you.', and she could not breathe, she could not speak, she could not think, she could only nod, giving herself to him fully as he gave himself over to her. Never, never would she have believed that it could be like this – so confusing and thrilling, so wild and so gentle, so teasing and yet so fulfilling. He had held out his hand before, but only now had she found it in herself to take it, and now together, as lovers, they would embrace those pleasures.
And the King learned that his Queen was no less fierce than him, and that she gave as good as she got, meeting him with every push and every thrust, using her sweet summer lips to whisper his name into his ears, and then to cry it even louder, and to hold on to him, with all the passion she had not known before, a passion she as of yet did not fully understand, but she was willing to learn, willing to make this first step into unknown territory, willing to allow herself to fall, willing to allow both of them to fall together, and thus to fall in love.
FUN FACT #1: So, yeah, Méara Cwén - Horse-Queen! Old English is fun, right?
FUN FACT #2: I love writing love scenes and / or sex scenes - I just loooooove typing that shit. However, it took me many years to figure out that not every love / sex scene needs to span 20 pages - this one right here, though, very much deserved that amount of pages. You're most welcome.
FUN FACT #3: I probably use bathtubs so often in my stories because I don't own one and really crave a good old hot bath (especially in the cold winter months) - with or without company, I ain't choosy.
FUN FACT #4: While editing this chapter, I realised that I could actually end the story here. I mean, it's just the perfect amount of teased happy ending and cliff-hanger to give you that bittersweet feeling. But, luckily for you, I have more to tell of Éomer and Lothíriel - their story ain't over yet.