Non-graphic married people sex and Thorin doing dirty sexy things to himself.
Trigger warnings! Mentions of slavery, mentions of racist family, mentions of death, mentions of panic and anxiety attacks.
Chapter 16
"I mean, at the end of the day, what the hell does it matter who I end up with if it can't be with you?" - Tabitha Suzuma
He is dreaming. He knows he is dreaming. They are in the bath suites in Erebor. Green black marbled walls rise high above them. Steam from the bath swirls in the cooler air flowing from the open door to their bedroom suite.
His fingers are sifting through damp mahogany spirals that cling to his wet flesh. She hums, tilting her head back, rubbing her scalp against his hands as he works a lather into her hair. Lemongrass and jasmine.
Her voice is a sigh of contentment as his fingers massage. He nuzzles her cheek, kissing below her left ear. Her head tilts, giving him better access. He cannot resist kissing, biting, licking all of her freckled skin. It makes her moan, he can feel the heat of her center between his legs. It echoes his own need. "A few more moments, my love." He stretches one arm to pick up the pitcher.
She is impatient, wiggling her bottom in his lap testing his restraint. He stills her with a gentle bite to the junction of her shoulder and neck. The whimpered, "Please?" He is rewarded with makes him painfully hard.
Suds rinsed from her dark hair, one of his hands protecting her forehead. Another happy sigh. "I love the way you treat me."
He laughs, gently squeezing water from the ends of her hair. "You are my queen. Should I not treat my queen as she deserves?"
She turns in his lap, kneeling between his knees. Hazel eyes a deep, dark brown, "Right now you should treat your queen like you're trying to get her pregnant."
He gazes down the length of her body with heat. Blue eyes meet hazel. "With pleasure my love." He scoops her from the water, delighted by the way she throws her arms around his shoulders. One of his arms under her knees and one around her back. She places small kisses to his face, chin, neck, peppering them like she can kiss away his worries.
He sets her down on the thick rug, sheep's wool in their bedroom. Her small feet with wiggling toes. The towels are soft, just as they had been when he was young. He towels his wife, his queen's body, dry, touching, stroking, gentle kisses drawing sighs of pleasure. Then she, him. She kisses, nips, her hands straying everywhere but where he wants her hands most. A low rumble from his throat as her hands and mouth trail down his chest.
He gathers her hair in one hand, preventing her from getting to her knees. "On the bed wife."
Her impish grin. She kisses his stomach once, tongue lapping at his navel. His muscles tremor. "Of course my king."
She told him more than once she is considered unattractive where she comes from because her body is built much like a dwarrow and yet she is too small to pass as such. As she lies back on their bed, propped up by her elbows, he cannot fathom it. She is beautiful, and she is his. She presses her thighs together, watching him with her lower lip caught between her teeth. Her knees squeeze to alleviate her need for him.
He places his hands under her knees, prying them apart to guide them around his hips. They were made so differently, his wife a child of man and he, dwarrow. He pushed against her heat drawing a low keening moan from her. He breechs her walls steadily, murmuring to her in Khuzdûl how hot and tight she is. How wet she must have been to take him without preparation. He enjoys getting her ready for him, but it is always wonderful to feel her wet, needing and wanting. He enjoys watching her face as she takes every inch of him, the pleasure of being stretched and filled, she told him, there's nothing like it.
Her back arches her, calling his name, crying yes and I love you in both common and Khuzdûl. It's intoxicating hearing his wife use his language. Feeling her body fluttering around his length, heavy lidded hazel eyes nearly topaz in lust. His wife.
She pants reaching for him, as he finally settles inside her. They kiss as if they are one, as if they can climb inside one another. He takes her slow, hard, and deep enough he bottoms out inside her. She lifts her hips for every thrust clinging to him, her legs locked around him, her breasts pressed to his chest.
He knows her body. He knows when she's close. The way her body clenches in warning, the cry of her moans against his mouth, and the drawn out sigh of his name when she crests and arches against him. He cannot resist kissing her lips as he continues, the slap of their bodies only disturbed by their panting. The wet sounds of him filling her repeatedly.
"Thorin," her nails score his back as he takes her hard, her breathing heavy, echoing his, "Please, please," his wife begs so prettily when she needs him.
He changes the angle, drawing one of her legs to his shoulder and pins her hips to the bed.
She falls apart around him once more, and this time he joins her, spilling his seed inside her with a loud groan.
She giggles, as she always does when sated and satisfied. He kisses her smiling, happy face. She lies on his chest, one leg draped over his, drawing patterns between the angles of the marks she calls tattoos on his chest. "Do you think it'll catch this time?"
He tips her chin up with his thumb and forefinger of his right hand to look into her eyes. "We have many children, wife. More so than any king or queen has in centuries."
Her worry is plain. "I'll be forty two in March Thorin. My ability to have kids is slowly dwindling. I have maybe five or six more years and then we're done." Her full lower lip trembles in a pout. "And we agreed on a dozen."
He winds a strand of steel gray hair around one finger. She has so many now. So many gray hairs. And smile lines around her eyes. "So we did, wife. Shall we get back to making number eleven?"
Her pout becomes a sensual slow smile. "You know if we try for twins, that's eleven and twelve right there."
In his dream he laughs at her cheek, rolling her over under him. "I remember someone cursing my name when she found out the reason her belly had grown so large was two girls residing within." He kissed her soundly, nudging himself between her welcoming thighs.
She kisses him back with enthusiasm, her fingers at the nape of his neck to hold him there.
He knows he is dreaming. He must be. She speaks to him in Khuzdûl with her accent.
Thorin woke with a raging need between his thighs. Unlike other mornings after he relieved himself it remained. He should not think such things. She hasn't agreed to court yet. The image of her kneeling between his legs in the bath came back to him with stark clarity.
His right hand closed in a fist around his length. It ached for the sweet friction his dreams gave him. A warm welcoming heat, the sighs of a southern voice calling his name in the throes of their passion. The clamping spasm of her body around him as her release dragged him with her over the edge.
The spill of his seed hot in his hand as he lost himself to the bliss of it for a blessed moment
"You're smiling." Dís accused, with a smile of her own, the Monday morning after Erdene went to see Valis. "My brother, the grumpy king, is smiling." She touched his face above his beard. "I can see the dimples mother gave you."
He leaned away from her touch, "Sister." Had he been smiling? He may well have been. He was thinking about eyes nearly topaz in the sunlight and freckles dusted over sunwarmed skin. Of small fingers tucking unruly mahogany curls behind a delicate ear. Of small cool hands in his and a mouth that smiled easily for him.
"Brother." She set herself at the table near his left elbow. Her chin in her hand. "Tell me which dam put that smile on your face. I will have the wedding planned before Durins Day."
He said nothing, instead dipping the other half of the blueberry scone he was eating into his tea.
"Unless it's not a dam?" She questioned with raised eyebrows. "Perhaps it's someone else?"
Thorin remained steadfastly silent eating his breakfast. He did not bat an eyelash at her.
Dís hummed quietly watching her brother before a half baked idea caught her thoughts. "That little thing Fíli mentioned, the one who may be only a quarter dwarrow. The one that plays beautifully with a voice like a lark."
And now she had her brother's attention completely. Her smile grew at the very serious way his face said everything and nothing. "My son tells me she's lovely to look at. Hair dark and shiny. Curls. Eyes that shift color with the light. Beautiful skin, like she's a summer child even in winter. Listening to her voice was no hardship. He said she's a fair sense of humor too. They bantered, didn't they?"
The second biscuit in Thorin's hand suffered greatly, crumbling almost to the flour it was made with.
The wicked, knowing smile that crossed her face. "It's her isn't it?"
"She," this was the first he'd managed to voice his attraction to Erdene. Perhaps it's best the first time is to his sister. "She's a child of men, Dís. I cannot." He released the crumbled pastry.
"Why not?" She frowned at him. "You make your choice of consort, don't you?"
He said nothing.
"In the past week I've watched your anger be replaced by hope. Bitterness gave way to happiness. She makes you feel something. Might she be the one you claim as yours? You did say you were dreaming. Is it her?"
The furrow between his brows eased. "Dís. You would have me court a woman?"
Woman. Dís heard the same term for daughters of men from her cousin Valis not two days ago during a fitting. Now her brother used it too.
"Thorin," she touched her brother's wrist, covering it with one hand. "When I met Théli, he made me so angry. We'd argue constantly, you remember. He denied me at every turn." Her husband. The most stubborn, pig headed… Mahal did she miss him. "I also knew I never wanted to argue with anyone else ever again. I knew my one when I declared him. No one cared he was a Firebeard."
Thorin snorted, dusting his hand on a napkin. "Mother cared. I cared. Frerin cared. You were eighty-one."
"And you are now 194, brother. Isn't it time you allowed yourself a little happiness? No one is going to care if she is half or a quarter or none at all. No one. You've done well for us here in Ered Luin. My boys are growing, and you've raised them as your own." She squeezed his wrist. "Brother if she puts a smile on your face daily, mayhap ask her to court with you. If she says no, then perhaps she was not your one."
For Erdene, her resolve to see Thorin Monday morning instead of running straight to the blacksmith's Sunday night was driving her a little crazy. This morning she'd gotten up extra early to make sure she could get a good look at the pipe weed vendor's stall. There had been a small package of something labeled Old Toby. That was the stuff Bilbo and Gandalf liked to smoke, wasn't it? They were close enough to the Shire, weren't they to get that? Erdene bought the Old Toby and something labeled Blue Mountain Blend (which honestly sounded like a type of coffee someone might pick up at one of those artisan coffee bars).
Now she was killing time by tapping the smallest amount of her lip balm on her lips with her right ring finger. Once every few seconds she glanced in the direction that Thorin normally came from. Nothing. Erdene spread a few more crumbs on the ground as the birds hopped and pecked at the oats and bread bits she'd gathered from the bakery. This morning's tea and raspberry scone weren't doing anything for her nerves.
Actually…she kind of wanted to throw up.
Anxiety made her hands sting and her legs want to move. The last twenty-four hours were a series of revelations that already gave her a mild anxiety attack. Which scared the living hell out of the girls last night.
Christ almighty. If her dream was anything to go by, Thorin would probably know how to steer her through a panic attack by the time they were married
Oh my god. I'm going to marry Thorin one day. Stifling a tiny scream she nearly dropped her lip balm.
Okay.
Breathe.
Think about other things.
Breathe.
At the very top of the list of new and exciting things: She was dwarrow. At least in part. How much, she would never really know. No doubt on her father's side of the gene pool considering her mother's family had photos of every generation going back to when great granddaddy Theodore and his wife Juniper were freed by the emancipation proclamation.
When Civil War ended, the two Thoroughfares laid claim to Theodore's father's abandoned and partially burned plantation, what was left of the family wealth, changed his last name to Thoroughfare (to spite his father [the plantation owner] who refused to free him and his wife despite repeated promises in letters to do so) and began to build a small farming then shipping empire. Their children, Rose, Violet, Joshua, June and Greyson all married and had children with a variety of immigrants, Irish, Italian, German, Spanish and Swedish.
Erdene had seen pictures of all of them. Her grandfather used to break out the photos once he'd gotten very drunk and talk about how she (Erdene) looked so much like Theodore's wife Juniper (which was a commentary about Erdene's coloring rather than looks [nothing so common as the casual racism of old money in the deep south when copious amounts of alcohol were involved]).
The only mystery in her life was her father's side of the family.
Last night Erdene took out the single photograph she had of him and her mother on their wedding day. His father was Greek from Edessa his mother was from Cairo, Egypt. He was a dual citizen. Derren Andenos, he was a graduate of both London and Cairo Universities and had been on a break from a dig when he met Erdene's mother. They met in Lima, Peru at the Plaza San Miguel while Evelyn was working with the Peace Corps.
Her fingers brushed over the faded blue pen. Her father's script. He had lovely looping handwriting that she imagined looked like something from an Austen novel. Evelyn and Derren Andenos, married June 12th, 1992 Lima, Peru. Below that, in the same script but in black pen, I'm going to be a father. Erdene, I cannot wait to meet you, my daughter.
When she listened to her mother tell the story, her father was so excited to know his wife was pregnant. They hadn't been trying at all. They also hadn't been careful. They loved each other wildly and with such abandon that when they weren't in bed they had trouble not touching each other. Being separated by the dig was tedious but they saw each other nearly every two weeks. Then Evelyn began to really show and someone let her commanding officers know and she was shipped back to the USA with a discharge letter at the six month mark. Derren visited Georgia seven times before he was lost on the dig.
He was lost, Erdene remembered her mother's sad eyes vividly when she handed Erdene the picture. That's all they told me. I was eight months along with you. He didn't call me one day when we scheduled a call. I waited over an hour and then called and left a message at the hotel he and his fellows were staying in. Her mother's fingers stroked the edges of the picture. Your daddy was so excited to meet you. The first girl in his family for over four generations. They sent me what he had in his room. This picture was at his bedside, baby. Everynight he saw us and thought about us before he went to bed. Her mother asked her to take care of the picture. She put it in a plastic laminate packet and kept it with her always.
Usually, when she was at home and not in another world, the photo had its own zippered pocket in her purse. Here in Arda she kept it in her phone because no one would know to steal it. Her phone was basically a fancy looking paperweight if you didn't know how to use it. No one was going to hold her at gun or knife point to get it.
Second revelation, her heartbeat began a quick samba in her chest, her dreams were real. Aside from that first one of Thorin and her in her world. She was certain that one was pure imagination. The rest were real. Or, at least could be real. One day. Some day.
They were a glimpse of a future with Thorin. Married to him, having kids with him. Twins! Twin girls like her mom and aunt. She touched her stomach imagining it round with a tiny foot kicking her hand. He was so happy and their daughter had been perfect.
One more glance in the direction Thorin normally came from. Still no Thorin. Erdene threw more oats and bread bits to the birds. She felt like she was trying to get her high school crush to see her. Except she'd never gone to high school with people her age so what did she know?
Her other relationships were easier. Caleb asked her out less than a second after she finished yelling at him. Santiago wanted her from day one, and the moment she was a free agent again he asked her to go home with him.
Once she had lived in Sparks a while and her heart had begun to heal, Erdene did try dating. Tracy got her on Hinge, Tinder, OkCupid and Bumble, Match. Nothing ever clicked. Several men ended up blocked.
Of course, she didn't know why at the time. She did now.
Her soulmate was apparently a dwarf she cried for when she was five years old. Her mother read her The Hobbit and Erdene cried like the baby she was when Evelyn read the part where Thorin, Fíli and Kíli died. Her mother tried to assure her it was just a book. But his death stuck with her for a long time. It was one of the few books she read more than once when she got a little older.
Then when The Hobbit trilogy came out that old wound ripped open again. She bawled like she was a five year old again when Thorin and his nephews died on screen. Monica hugged her through it the first time and Beats hugged her through the second. Judith stroked her back when they watched it in Judith's office at lunch time a few years ago. And, back in April, during her last binge watch of The Hobbit trilogy, she'd hugged the Boba Tea squishmallow a former coworker gave her while she cried her eyes out.
It never made sense to her why his death bothered her so much.
Now it did.
She looked up from feeding the birds one more time to see Thorin coming around the corner. He slowed for a moment between one step and the next, the curve of a smile across his gorgeous mouth when his gaze landed on her. She grinned back at him, waving and biting her lower lip.
Her soulmate.
Thorin Oakenshield. Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror.
Thorin. Her future.
Her husband. The father of her children. The dwarf who will love her and she him, for the rest of their lives.
If they have a future together then he can't possibly die. Maybe her presence was enough to keep him alive. Or maybe she goes with him and saves his life. They'd tackle that mountain when they came to it. Right now, it would be just them.
He came to stand in front of her, watching her as the autumn winds dragged at both of their hair and clothes. His fingers itched with the want to bury themselves in her curls. "Good morning Mistress Thoroughfare." There was something different this morning. Something in her gaze, honey brown, happiness. He remembered from his dreams. Brown is the color of her joy.
Gone was the skittish behavior of Saturday. Now she looked at him with a grin it seemed she could not contain and a bite of her lower lip. Mahal's great hammer, could she know? Then, as if to answer his question, her gaze raked his form, deepening the bite on her lower lip as a blush - Mahal is she beautiful - colored her skin rosy in the light of the dawn.
Those honey brown eyes fell to his mouth, stayed long enough for two breaths and rose again.
"Good morning," Erdene replied, tucking a long curl behind her ear, watching him watch her, "Master Oakenshield."
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I hope everyone who celebrates had a fantastic Thanksgiving!