TW: Child abuse, emotinal abuse, self harm, pregnancy thoughts, unprotected sex (though graphic descriptions have been removed per FFN's policies)
Chapter 28
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she) - e e cummings
Erdene was again the first to wake Friday morning, the sunlight was softer, and it felt earlier than it had when she woke yesterday. And once again, Thorin looking peaceful in sleep, made her all warm and fuzzy. She heard the faint tap of feet in the hallway and if she listened she heard the change out of the tray by the bedroom door. Then the steady tap of feet taking the old tray away.
Ooo. Hot food.
Slipping carefully from the bed, Erdene grabbed Thorin's tunic once more, this time it was discarded on top of her dress. Last night, sometime in the middle of the night, he woke her with his big warm hands stroking her skin, whispering into her ear that he needed her wrapped around him. Erdene had felt him at her back, hard and thick and ready.
She spread her legs, he guided one over his thigh. He groaned in her ear as the head breached her. The first thrust was shallow, slow and it made her moan against the pillow she was on. The second was harder, hitting deeper and his name fell from her lips in the dark as they rocked together toward bliss. After she peeled off his tunic and tossed it away. And he took her again, hard and fast, groaning her name as he came inside her again.
It seemed so ridiculous that she wouldn't get pregnant from the last two and a half days.
Once decently covered she opened the door and brought the food in. More boiled eggs, this time there were ten straps of bacon, more of that fluffy buckwheat toast, a different kind of jam, this one looked like raspberry, salt, pepper, sugar, milk and three peeled oranges sat on the tray. She lifted the teapot lid carefully sniffing.
Sweet Christ almighty was that coffee?
Yesterday was some kind of vanilla black tea which was lovely, really. But it wasn't coffee!
Do not drink all the coffee before your boyfriend wakes up. Do not drink all the caffeine. Make him a cup too. Wait. How did Thorin take his coffee? Yesterday he took his tea with a spoonful of sugar (helps the medicine go down - ha!) and a drop of milk. He might drink his coffee black. Or light and sweet like she did. Or-
She poured a cup, shuffling over to his side of the bed and carefully waved her hand over the steam rising from the cup toward his sleeping figure. Blue eyes opened while he breathed in deeply.
"Good morning sleepy head." She whispered with a small smile.
"Bakn galikh, ekûnê." He murmured in return, a sexy, sleepy smile just for her crossed his gorgeous face. "Is that coffee?"
"Bakn galikh." Erdene repeated with her accent. "Yes," she moved her cup away when he tried to take it. "Nope. Get your own. I haven't had coffee in months!"
He laughed, chasing her, catching her around her waist and nipping her earlobe. Whispering in that lower tone that seemed to slick her cunt for him, "And what would you do if I desired more than just your coffee, amrâlimê?"
"Mmm, already? Sex fiend." She pushed her bottom against his hardening cock. "We never did finish what we started in the foyer Wednesday morning. Ah, do not make me spill my coffee!"
Thorin plucked the cup from her fingers, setting it down out of the way. "Hands on the wall, ekûnê."
The dark want in his voice left her shivering, wet and wanting. "Thorin…"
Breathing ragged, he kissed her sweating neck. "You are absolute perfection, ekûnê." The cheeky response he expected in return did not follow. Thorin pulled her up against his chest, kissing her cheek. "Are you well? Did I hurt you?" He had not been gentle in the slightest. She teased him, he made the decision to find out just how rough he could take her. Perhaps that was a mistake.
She turned her head to meet his lips "Um…I think you fucked me so hard my legs forgot how to work. Please don't let go."
The worry left Thorin immediately. He kissed her forehead and cheek. "Shall I set you in the washroom again?"
Blushing, Mahal it colored her back and bottom as well, Erdene said, "please?"
He did so, this time staying a little longer to clean up the spill of their joint fluids that had rushed down her thighs when he slid out of her. And, once again, she ordered him out of the washroom to attend to her own needs. Though this time he was rewarded with a quick peck of a kiss and a gentle thank you before she pointed at the door.
"And what will you do if your legs don't work?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Call you back in." Erdene pushed at his chest, waving her hands at the door until he left.
He warmed the coffee once more, including what Erdene had poured. Thorin assumed she took her coffee the way she did her tea, and set her cup to the side once the coffee was warm again. He would have to remember to thank Dís later.
It had been at least several weeks since they last had coffee in the house. The winter squalls along the coast to the south prevented the merchants who traveled from Ered Nimrais from heading north with their goods. Coffee, red and white pepper, ginger, vanilla and certain spicy peppers he quite liked among them.
And wine.
The wine from the south, from the regions of Gondor and Rohan tended toward white, sweet and dry or warm and acidic while nearly black in color. Dwarven wine was nothing to laugh at, after six or seven glasses he too would be good and drunk. He was vaguely curious to know if Erdene could drink a glass or, like the horsemen of Rohan once we're at his grandfather's table, drunk off a few sips.
Thorin was contemplating writing a note to ask for a bottle of wine to share with Erdene at dinner when she poked her head out of the washroom.
"Thorin, may I either have my tunic from my room or another one of yours?"
He set down the eggs to go to the dresser. "I have seen your body, ekûnê. You needn't hide."
She frowned at him and opened the door a little more. "I'm not hiding. The windows are open. I don't want to flash myself at your family." The windows were open, true, though the curtains would prevent any view. He took the first tunic on top and handed it to her. She gave him a small smile, "thank you." Before closing the door.
Everything was once more warm, the coffee hot, when Erdene left the washroom. She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, kissing his bare shoulder. "What is this one from?" She pressed her lips to a short but ragged slash mark over his left shoulder blade.
He gathered her hands in his, bringing her around to sit in his lap once more. How he enjoyed seeing her sit there, in his black tunic, the one with silver stitching at the collar. One of Thorin's hands went to her knee again while the other touched her gorgeous mass of curls.
"A mine accident. I was fourteen."
The worried way she frowned at him before kissing his brow. "What were you doing mining at fourteen? Shouldn't you have been in studies or chasing pretty young dam?"
"Trying to prove to my father I was worthy of the title of heir." He kissed her lips. "Eat, I made your coffee."
Oh. Well it looked like it had milk in it. Maybe a drop. "Thank you for trying, but I usually take my coffee the way I like my scones, lots of sugar."
And she proceeded to dump three spoonfuls in. He winced at how sweet it looked. Erdene, however, looked pleased after the first sip.
His thumb stroked her hip. "I did not imagine you had a sweet tooth."
"That's my mama's fault. First thing she taught me to make was cinnamon rolls with a cream cheese frosting. I think I was four."
Cinnamon what?
Her fingers toyed with one of his braids. "Thorin, I have to tell you some things. Whenever you're ready. About me."
His hand slid down under her thigh. "Hmm?" And caught on… "what are these?" His fingers caught on faint raised lines, criss crossed like welts. He knew of no weapon that would give such marks. "What are these from?"
He didn't expect her to jump from his lap, shrink from his touch, nor the hunted look on her face. "Don't."
His hand stilled in its reach for her. "Erdene?"
"I…the only way I could have stopped my aunt from chopping off all my hair again was to run away. I knew a couple of older girls who let me live with them for the days my aunt was in town. When she left I went back to my grandparents. My grandfather took his belt to my backside. Five days, plus two meals a day, was fifteen smacks with the belt. I started bleeding after the first four."
The rage that filled him, he thought Wednesday was the worst of it but this- "I will kill him."
"Thorin, please, don't, I got away from them. I'm here with you. I will never go back."
His eyes were dark, angry blue, for her not with her. "They cannot be at our wedding."
Erdene shook her head. "They won't be. I promise. Even before I came to South Yard, I didn't contact them at all. They don't even know where I am now, and even if they could find me, we'll be in Ered Luin soon. No one is getting past your guards, right?"
It helped temper his anger. He held out one hand, "come here. I need to hold you."
Erdene took his hand crawling into his lap, making herself small to curl against his side, her head on his shoulder. "I love you."
He stroked her back, kissing her temple. "And I you. Please do not withhold these things from me any longer."
A shuddering breath left her. "If I tell you everything about my childhood, it's not good. I started hurting myself to cope with it."
"How?" His hands kept moving, touching, almost like he needed to reassure himself she was there, she was well and she was not leaving.
Her therapist told her once a long, long, long time ago back when her first love shrank away from finding out about her self harm, the right person will listen and not judge you. "Candle flames usually, just until the skin hurt. Um…poking my acne until I bled a lot. I punched a few brick walls but when they found my hands bloodied my grandmother lost her dang mind. She smacked me so hard my ears rang for nearly a week straight."
His arms had tightened around her. "You don't do these things anymore."
"No, I don't." She kissed his jumping pulse. He really was trying to control his desire to kill her family, wasn't he? Was it awful she wouldn't have stopped him? Did that make her wicked? A terrible person? "Harming myself doesn't stop others from harming me. It was a way to take back my control. Now I know I'm fully in control of my life."
Mahal. "May I never meet this part of your family, ekûnê. Never."
She nuzzled just below his ear, next to his chin, "you won't. As far as I'm concerned, you are my family now." Small cool fingers stroked his chin, fingers in his beard gently scratching. "Does nan'ith mean sister?"
"It does, new sister. Or young sister, depending on individual or tone." Thorin leaned back to meet her amber gaze. "I have never seen Dís take to someone the way she has with you. Whatever did you say to her in her parlor?"
"We just talked. A little about you, about the courtship ceremony. I asked her for her help acclimating to dwarrow society." She shrugged, gently touching his chest, the rune strikes above his heart. What did they mean? Warrior? Prince? King? Brave "I like her a lot too." Her fingers stilled at the scar. "Do you think your brother will like me?"
Thorin huffed a laugh, "Frerin likes everyone and everyone equally likes Frerin. It is impossible to dislike him or be angry with him for very long." He tucked a long loose curl behind her ear. "If he was not married to his one, I would fear losing you to him. He is far more charming and good natured than I."
Erdene rolled her eyes, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a hungry kiss. One he returned readily, cupping her chin with one hand and tunneling the fingers of the other through her hair. She pressed in closer, digging her fingers into his hair until he was groaning against her lips.
"Erdene." His voice was a rasp of want.
She wiggled, hot and wet against his thigh. "I don't want anyone but you. Ever."
He wrapped one arm around her waist, the other under her knees and took her back to the bed.
They finally had breakfast around mid-morning. Erdene allowed him to sip her much too sweet and light coffee. Thorin gagged, scowling at her, pushing it away.
She giggled, sipping quite happily while they ate quietly. "How did you guys get coffee here? I thought I looked everywhere in South Yard."
"It is an import from the mountains to the south. The plants grow best in long hot summers, which we do not have. You would know Ered Nimrais as-"
"The mountains to the north east of Gondor." Erdene nodded, surprising him with her knowledge. "So only dwarves grow it?"
"I am sure the men grow it as well. The horse riders of Rohan developed a taste for it when they still traded with us at Erebor. Gondor is their closest ally now. Granted theirs will not be as strong as dwarven coffee."
An incredibly vivid image of Eomere drinking coffee and reading the paper while Faramir and Eowyn chatted about their upcoming nuptials popped into her head. Erdene laughed into sipping her coffee.
"What else do we get from the dwarrow in the south?" Better get to know her soon to be husband's people now while she had time to process and remember.
"Some spices, white wine, exotic fruits, red pepper, ginger, and vanilla. There are a good many hot peppers that grow best in the low steppes of Ered Nimrais."
Ooo. Peppers. "If you get me some hot peppers, onions, garlic and tomatoes I make an incredibly tasty salsa. Oh! And tamales. I bet you've never had tamales. Monica's abuela, grandmother, taught me her recipes."
He wasn't sure he could pronounce that, but, "No, I have never had a tam-al-is."
Her smile as she leaned over and kissed him. "Tamale. I can make all kinds, chicken and cheese, cheese and green chili, pork or beef. Monica's abuelo, grandfather, he made sweet pineapple tamales that I ate every time I went to their home in the summer." She almost bounced in her seat, "if we can get some masa and a pork butt I can start working on making the shredded pork. We can eat them one day for dinner."
Perhaps because he mentioned her yesterday, but a thought came unbidden from the recesses of his mind. Lady Rhia had despised manual labor, including cooking. Yet his one was happily planning to cook meals from her homeland just for him.
He took her hand, drawing her into his lap once more. "What is masa?"
"Ground dried corn. I'll need husks too. They're the best to bake the tamales in."
"Do you enjoy making food, ekûnê?"
"I love to cook. And bake. I want to make you cinnamon rolls. You've probably never had one."
"I have not. Tell me what they are made from?"
"Soft fluffy dough, rolled with cinnamon sugar dusted between the layers of each roll and then a cream cheese frosting is spread on top. They're amazing."
They sounded delicious. "I would not protest should you make them. Nor those cookies again."
"Did you like them?"
"I had one. The vultures I call nephews ate nearly the whole batch."
She sat up staring at him. "Thorin! Those were yours."
"I am aware. Had I known then what I know now, those pins would have been in your hair much sooner. I would have begun your bead earlier and Mahal willing, your betrothal gift would have already begun. And I would not have allowed my nephews to devour your request to be courted."
She blushed, snuggling against his chest. "If I knew at the time that was what I was asking, I wouldn't have changed my gift."
"You mentioned yesterday the traditional gift when asking to marry in your culture is a ring."
She bit her lower lip, pressing against his chest, "yes," she whispered against his neck, "it is."
"And you prefer sapphires and emeralds to diamonds."
"Diamonds here are mined safely and fairly to the workers I assume?"
"They are."
"I might be okay with a small diamond or two. I…Thorin if you ask me, I will say yes. I don't need a ring."
"Custom demands it."
"What were your ideas for a gift before I mentioned a ring?"
"The traditional gift for the line of Durin is a weapon. A sword or axe."
Her head lifted from his shoulder. "Oh I'd much rather have that."
"Can you use a sword, ekûnê?"
"Yes. Probably not the traditional blade you're used to, but yes."
"I take it you mean not a broad sword."
"Mmm, the one I'm used to is about this long, single sided blade, tempered steel. Usually the metal has been folded fifty times or more." She dusted her fingers against her thighs. "If you have paper and some drawing charcoal I can draw it for you."
"In my desk. First drawer on the right will have the charcoal and the paper will be in the bottom left drawer."
"And what happened to being a gentleman and bringing me things?"
"Perhaps I wish to see you bend over in my tunic."
"Or…you could have me on your desk like you wanted to Wednesday."
His fingers found their way between her thighs once more. Wet, slick flesh clenching around his index and middle fingers. "Would you like that, ekûnê?"
Her hips pushed against his hand. "Mmm, yes please. Take me hard again. I love having you in me."
"You take all of me so well," he growled against her ear.
"Fuck…Thorin."
Sated giggles were steadily becoming music to his ears. He kissed her lips as he gently wiped their combined fluids from her mound, legs and then himself. Erdene pressed a kiss to his lips before returning to the washroom.
Thorin busied himself gathering the charcoal she asked for and the paper. By the time she returned, he managed to find a stick of ocher, a stick of veridian, and a stick of sienna in addition to the charcoal.
"Ooo! You have colors." She sighed happily, pecking his cheek.
The first drawing was three blades, as she said, slightly curved, all of different lengths. The longest, Erdene said, was a katana, the second, wakizashi, and the last a dagger called a tanto.
They reminded him of Ronin's long blade. "Are these a common sword for your people?"
Mirthful blue-amber eyes smiled at him. "No. These are from Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun."
Yes. The skin marks on her wrists were the same.
"I…" She paused thinking for a moment then, "there was a story, it's still ongoing or at least should be, that I fell in love with when I was a little girl. A boy named Zoro vowed to become the greatest swordsman that ever lived because his best friend and rival Kuina died. She wanted to be the greatest as well." Her fingers ghosted over the page. "Her father gave Zoro their family katana, Wado Ichimonji, to carry with him on his way."
Thorin hummed. How he would have liked to have seen his one as a child.
Erdene sighed, shaking her head. "I worked with a bokken, which is a wooden sword, for a long time because little girls shouldn't play with big knives."
Thorin snorted. How odd the world of men was. Why would they not teach their daughters to defend themselves? "Had you been raised among dwarrow you would have learned to use a blade before you were ten."
Erdene leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his lips. The backs of her fingers stroked one side of his face. "I would love it if you made me a sword."
Thorin tucked long curls behind her ear. "May I have this, Erdene?" He touched the edges of the paper she'd draw on.
"By all means." Her own fingers touched the handful of other pages. "Thorin…"
His sky blue eyes, so gorgeously bright in the late morning sun, rose from her drawing to meet hers. "Hmm?"
She bit her lower lip shyly, "Do you mind if I draw my parents too?"
Of course he said yes.
Her small hands moved quickly, switching between colors for her father and mother. Her mother, a tall, fair young woman with Erdene's freckles and smile. Her father was clearly the dwarrow link, much shorter than her mother, dark haired with Erdene's curls, her eyes, nose and ears. Her mother wore a dress outlined in sienna, flowers in her hands drawn in green and ocher. Her father, a shirt with small designs on the front.
"There, that is what they looked like on their wedding day. I have an old picture of it." She said once finished.
"They were young." Very young. Smooth skinned and carefree. Brightly smiling at the artist who drew them. Mahal. How young they were, how young his One was.
Erdene filled in small curls around her father's head. "She was nineteen and he had just turned twenty. She was pregnant with me at their wedding, but neither of them knew that yet. She went back home, and he was planning to follow but he was killed at a dig site." Her fingers stilled in drawing, setting the sienna for his hair aside. "The hole he was in collapsed on him."
Even removed from his heritage by one or two generations, a dwarf was still a dwarf. "Was it a survey?" He asked, picking up the picture she drew.
The tremor in her voice belied the tears she held back. "Yes, archeological not mining. Do you know what that is?"
Thorin, much to Erdene's surprise nodded a couple of times. "Study of ancient history. Yes. I find it a morbid subject. The single archeologist in Thorin's Hall has provided a number of recovered items from various battlefields. While remarkable in maintaining our histories, it is a reminder of what we have lost as a people."
There was an archeologist in Thorin's Hall? "An archeologist works in the archives?"
"Aye," he took one of her many curls, winding it around his fingers. Still soft to the touch. Tomorrow he would ask if she would allow him to wash and braid her hair. "Balin mentioned him Wednesday, do you remember?"
She blinked, and for a moment he could have sworn her eyes were nearly as dark as the coffee they drank this morning before shifting to amber. "He said he knew someone who could read a thousand pages in a few hours."
He nodded again. "I have never met him. He seems to be good friends with Balin. He came to Thorin's hall as a distant relation to a house we thought lost during my great grandfather's rule."
For a second, for a heartbeat, Erdene went absolutely still. Her mother said she'd been dreaming about Erdene's father being alive in some kind of library. "Is…are the archives like a big library?"
"Similar, to, yes."
Her breath left her. "His name isn't Derren, is it?"
His brow furrowed as he thought for a moment. Frerin had written when it happened. "Anen, perhaps Aren, I believe."
Erdene turned her parent's drawing toward him. "His name was Derren Andenos."
Nodding, Thorin took the drawing, studying it. "I have never met him, but if you wish to show this to Balin, he can tell you if they look similar. Perhaps they are related."
How he loved the small curl of her lips and the softness in her gaze. "Maybe I do have dwarrow family alive and well and living in Thorin's Hall."
If she did, placing her in the seat next to him on the throne would be much easier. An entire house backing her would silence many naysayers. "Balin also mentioned needing to record your lineage. How far back can you trace your family line?"
"On my mother's side, almost two and a half centuries. On my father's," Erdene shrugged, "your guess is as good as mine."
"Show me your family line."
"No destroying anything though. I know my family sucks, but Balin might want them for archival reasons."
"I shall endeavor to leave them unmolested." Thorin noted, as she drew, there were certain people whose faces held a severity while others did not. There was no issue picking her immediate family from the lot. He committed the faces of her grandfather, grandmother, aunt and uncle to memory while she drew others.
There was one, a young woman with long hair, that held a soft happiness. Thorin took up the drawing, "who is this?"
"Beatrice, my cousin. I practically raised her. Her mother is my aunt Lola." Lola, the one that cut Erdene's hair when she was a child. "Betty was her oops baby. And Betty got treated like it. They shoved her into my arms when she was an infant and I don't know why but I knew she wasn't going to be like the rest of them."
She smiled so sadly at the picture. "I wish I had convinced her to come live with me when she turned eighteen, but her mama and daddy guilted her into staying close. She did, and a predatory man snared her into an abusive relationship. Her family kept pressing her to marry him. He was controlling, mean, belittling, he called her fat." She held up the picture, "does she look remotely fat?"
Thorin cursed in Khuzdûl. Who could do that to one they wished to marry? "She did not marry him, I hope."
"No, thankfully she came to her senses and left him." After a small intervention from Erdene.
"I would like to meet her."
"I think you'd like her. She's so sweet, kind and a genuinely good person. I love her so much."
"Invite her to the wedding."
"She was traveling last I heard from her, but I will try." These tiny little lies made her feel gut wrenchingly guilty every time they passed her lips. She was trying so hard not to lie to him too. "Thorin." She needed to tell him.
He sifted through her drawings, "you are quite talented, Erdene."
Blushing, she shook her head. "Nah. Just good at rendering memory to page." As she went the faces grew more somber, though not quite as severe as her vicious relations.
Lunch came, thick sandwiches with bacon and chicken and stone ground mustard. The replacement for his pitcher of water came too along with an abundant stack of fresh linens and a muslin shift for Erdene.
It took over three hours for her to reach those that began her family line. Each of the several dozen drawings had a name, a spouse, children. Thorin was certain Balin would be impressed with the comprehensive history of her family.
"This," she turned the picture to him, her fingertips stained a variety of shades now, "is the first Thoroughfare and his wife Juniper." She nibbled at the left overs of her sandwich. "This is Theodore. I know his father and grandfather's names, but not what they looked like." Erdene turned over the drawing to scrawl out names.
He found, until perhaps two generations before her birth, names were often repeated, just as her second name was Juniper so there was a Juniper or Rose in every generation. Her mother was Evelyn Rose. He held her mother and father's depiction once more. Derren Andenos.
Erdene was right.
Anden sounded much like Aren. Perhaps a cousin, or a brother? Dwarrow family names tended to rhyme.
Erdene's mind was repeating the same thing she read in the ancient faxed (after being printed from an equally ancient computer system) investigation report while Thorin examined her parent's drawing again. Body not found.
She chewed slowly through a fatty bit of bacon and roasted chicken seasoned with rosemary and thyme. Granted she'd translated it from Spanish to English from a faxed copy of a death certificate issued in Chile. How good a chance was it that her father was alive, well, and stuck in Middle Earth? If her father was alive that would explain why his body, one, was not found, two her mother dreamed about him alive and well in a library.
Not a library, an archive.
He also knew he was part dwarf. What had her mother said? Oh. Right. "Thorin…"
He looked up from sorting her drawings into a pile on his desk. "Amrâlimê?"
"What does yasthûna mean?"
His hands stilled. "Did you hear that at the ceremony?"
"No." She shook her head, large curls in need of a decent wash fell into her eyes. "My father called my mother that. And Zirizkhîê."
"Wife, yasthûna means wife. Zirizkhîê, my golden one." He touched the drawing on top. "He was dwarrow then."
"I guess he was. At least in part." She touched her ears. "His were small like mine, you can see it in the picture."
He could see it. Mannish ears.
She curled in on herself on the bed. "What does khîê mean?"
Thorin came away from the desk to sit next to her on the bed. He took one of her hands in his, stained as it was from drawing. "It is an older, more formal term of ekûnê, my One." As old as his great grandfather's time. Perhaps…he touched her ears as well, her lips and eyes and nose and cheeks. Perhaps her father had mannish ears because he too was more man than dwarf.
Shyly, self-consciously she broke eye contact with him.
Thorin hummed, "Tell me about this story you mentioned. The one that inspired you to pick up a blade."
Christ. Almighty.
Did her boyfriend/fiancé just ask her to talk about One Piece? She swept all of the other pages to the side, her fingers dropping the black charcoal for the stick of sienna. Her fingers began to sketch quickly. "It's the story of a boy, his name is Luffy D. Monkey, and he wants to be the King of the pirates."
Thorin's tone was incredulous. "Pirates?"
She giggled, nodding, "he's not like the pirates you hear about who are awful people that take things and kill. He was a seventeen year old boy setting out on an adventure. He and his crew help people, save whole countries from despots and underhanded plots to destroy the lives of others." Her eyes were a gorgeous blue-brown as she spoke. "I first found out about his story when I was seven years old. It was still going when I came here."
That is a very long story to span over two decades. "Truly?"
"Oh yeah." She turned the rough sketch to him. The smiling face of a round faced young boy in a vest, shorts and a straw hat.
The boy seemed so slight despite his musculature. "He carries no weapons?"
"No, he doesn't need to, he ate the gum gum fruit. His whole body stretches, and he's really strong, he fights with his fists. His first mate," she dropped the sienna for the viridian. "His name is Zoro Roronoa and he's the one that inspired me."
Dinner came while she was telling him the story of Sanji the Chef. Who fought primarily with his long legs. Whose eyebrows curled toward one another.
His fingers traced the lion head on her inner right ankle, then the ram on the other side. "It must have made an impression that you marked it on your skin."
She giggled, blushing, attempting to pull her foot away from him. "Thorin, that tickles."
He kissed her inner ankle, a spot on her calf and then just inside her right knee. Topaz eyes gazed back at him. Thorin took her left ankle, gazing at the flowers linked in a chain around the skin. An iris deep dark purple with a yellow and black center, a vibrant blue hyacinth with dozens of tiny blossoms, a lilac, pale pink-purple fluffy and blooming large, and snowdrops. "What are these?"
"The iris is Monica's, they were her favorite flowers. The hyacinths are my mama. We grew them in a window box every year. The lilac is me, that's my favorite flower. The snow drops are Betty, her birth flower and her favorite."
He kissed her left ankle, her calf and the skin inside her knee. He pressed a hot, open mouth kiss to her left thigh, biting it lightly. Her fingers dug into his hair.
"Thorin."
He moved to her right thigh and the circle that went all the way around of tiny pink, white, red, yellow, pale purple and orange roses on a thorny vine. "And this one?"
"I love roses. Like a lot. I wanted a rose garden when I managed to have my own home." She stroked black and silver strands from his eyes. "Do you mind if I have a rose garden when we get to Ered Luin?"
He pressed another open mouth kiss to her right thigh over the largest rose. "Grow whatever you like ekûnê. I would not object." Topaz eyes smiled at him quite happily. He pushed the tunic up, baring her wet cunt and hips. His thumb pressed against the small turtle tattooed at her right hip. "This one?"
"Turtles are survivors. They travel thousands of miles to lay eggs in sand and their young break free of those eggs, with the instinct to get to the water and join their parents and family."
Thorin rose slightly on his knees from the floor, kissing there as well. This time he traced it with his tongue.
Erdene sighed in pleasure, "tease."
He kissed across her lower belly, avoiding her pubic mound to the mark on the left hip. "This one?" A pile of books in a variety of colors with a sleek black and white sleeping bunny curled in on itself atop the pile.
"I read. A lot. And I love bunnies. And dogs. Cats. Birds. Hedgehogs. You name a furry or feathered creature and I probably love it." Her eyebrows rose. "And look at that, I am attracted to an incredibly furry dw-" Her words were lost on a moan as he dipped his head and began to kiss, suck and lightly bite her skin. Her fingers tightened in his hair as he made his way back to her lower stomach, lips trailing upward to her navel.
"You missed one." She managed to murmur.
His head rose, eyeing all her gorgeous bronze and pink skin. He saw no other skin marks. What she called tattoos. "I see no others."
She giggled at him, "really? I had a mouse right there." Erdene tapped over her lower stomach, just above her mound where the skin was smooth and bare. "Huh, that's weird, guess the pussy must have eaten it."
He stared at her for half a heartbeat before barking a laugh. Thorin looked almost boyish as he rose to pull her into a sweet kiss. "Mahal, you make me laugh like no other."
She nuzzled his cheek, "good, your wife should make you laugh and smile and feel happy."
He caught her lips again. "You do," Thorin whispered between each kiss, "I adore you and your humor, ekûnê." His hands went to the bunched hem of his tunic around her waist. "Take this off for me."
She pulled it up over her head, baring her body to him. Propped on her elbows Erdene eyed him with topaz in her gaze.
I appreciate each and every one of you who have reviewed/favorited/subscribed. You're the only reason I'm still posting here. Hope you enjoyed that, it was (minus the sex scene) almost thirteen full pages.