Work Text:
It’s this body again.
It’s always about this body, as it turns out.
Mentally, G’raha felt much the same, which really just meant his thoughts were constant flashes of images whose pornographic nature he would rather not describe aloud, always featuring the same azure-eyed subject. As Exarch, such desires had been easier to keep at bay—sensation had been muted as a whole due to Syrcus’ claim, and so it had been simply a matter of turning his mind towards more becoming subjects, such as his imminent death.
But now he was very much alive, and very much twenty-four again. Now he had a body that not only answered to his nefarious thoughts, but often was the cause of them. A brush of her fingers, an idle hand resting on his thigh—even an accidental knocking of shoulders felt like enough to set his every nerve aflame.
And this?
Leaning against the headboard of the bed with Lei Lei pressed flush against him, mindlessly threading her fingers through his hair as he tries to pretend he had continued to read a single word of the tome on his hands since she crawled in bed with him?
This was a challenge far beyond his current capabilities.
“Something amiss?”
Her voice is gentle and quiet; it makes his ears go taut in surprise all the same. He felt like a schoolboy caught flipping through salacious pieces of literature, like he feared Lei Lei could somehow sense the thoughts that crossed his mind every time her chest grazed his arm. They certainly felt loud enough as to not require the Echo to be heard.
“Not at all, my love.” He reaches out to squeeze the hand she has placed over his thigh, but keeps his eyes on the worn pages of his tome. Steady. “Why do you ask?”
“Hmm,” she hums. He can feel her smile, even if he doesn’t dare look at it. “Just a feeling.”
A feeling indeed. She scoots closer, and at once he’s overwhelmed by the familiar scent of petrichor, underscored by a sharpness that reminds him of pure aether, like the air before levinstrike.
“I’m afraid your keen intuition has led you astray this time,” G’raha says. He finally musters the strength to turn his gaze upwards, and finds Lei already looking back. “I’m… quite alright.”
“Is that so?” Her hands begin to move through his hair again, and only then does G’raha realize how much he’d missed the brief absence of the touch. “I only ask because you happen to not have turned this page in the past forty-five minutes, you see. But perhaps you’re simply very interested in this period of the Third Astral Era?”
Oh.
“I…” G’raha stammers. “Well, that is..“
There’s no escaping this. He lacks even plausible deniability: there’s nothing about this period of history that he doesn’t already know, and this particular work is remarkably shallow. Skimming it had been a mere exercise in staving off boredom—at least until she curled up next to him, sending any semblance of rational thought left in him out the window.
“Or perhaps it is something else?”
His silence is answer enough.
“Lei.”
Her name on his lips is both plea and prayer; her hand scooting up his thigh fire on his skin. It finds the obvious bulge in his trousers, and the pressure of her palm draws a whimper out of him.
“Still so shy about asking for the things you want,” she chides, though her voice is gentle. “What’s the matter, älskling?”
Her. Her hand on his cock is the matter, her breasts against his side, her breath over his neck.
“‘Tis remarkably embarrassing to be rendered unable to control my… urges simply by being in your presence,” he confesses, face warm. No, he is the matter—he and how much he wants, how little he can control it. “To burden you with such jovial matters is—“
“Burden.” Lei Lei frowns. “Your desires are no burden, Raha.”
She shifts before he can muster an answer, scooting down the bed until she’s settled comfortably between his legs. G’raha chokes on his own breath at the mere sight of her, trousers uncomfortably tight.
“Tell me what you want?”
Her voice is hushed and soft, her fingers stroking gently over his stomach, just above where he truly wants her touch.
No point in denying it. If she would have him—if he truly hasn’t been in a prolonged state of delirium and this woman who he has loved so desperately for so long truly wants him, loves him—he would be a fool to deny it.
“You,” he replies, as simply as one might state the skies above are blue. Like her eyes, he finds himself thinking, foolish and helpless.
“Good.” She smiles. Then, so plainly he doubts his ears for a moment: “Keep reading.”
G’raha doubts his ears for a moment—they flicker involuntarily as he frowns at her in confusion. “What?”
“Read for me,” Lei Lei repeats, hands sliding lower, “and I’ll reward you for it.”
Torture. Sweet, blissful torture was what she offered him, and he wishes he could say it triggers anything in him but further excitement.
The book had fallen onto the bed, a loss he hadn’t had the mind to even notice. He reaches for it with shaky hands as Lei Lei continues to stare at him expectantly, drawing slow circles on his lower belly with her finger. The lightness of the touch makes it all the harder to bear, but G’raha swallows and flips the tome open on a random page.
“The communities which emerged in the aftermath of the Calamity of Fire, while fearful of the gods, were wary to once again make them the centerpieces of their—society,” he reads clumsily. True to her word, Lei Lei immediately slides her hand over the tent in his trousers and cups his shaft. “P—Pursuit of the divine had incurred in the wrath of the heavens, and as a result, society began to focus on the individual talents of its—its people.”
He shifts a little, trying to find himself in a position where he can both keep objects of interest in his vision—the book, which he could probably recite by ear now, as well as the gorgeous woman between his legs. It’s an amazing sight, to say the least, this one he’s been blessed to behold. Lei Lei is lying on her stomach, looking perfectly serene even as her hand strokes painfully slowly over his shaft, obvious to the eye even through all the layers of fabric. Having to keep her arms in position leads to the inevitability of having her breasts pushed together, and G’raha has not a word of complaint for the sight they make, her top hardly keeping her away from immodesty.
He’s stopped reading. She lowers his trousers anyhow, just enough to lay his cock bare, which she gifts with a long, lazy stroke. G’raha bites his lip to hold back what would have been a terribly embarrassing sound—hopefully the pain will help him avoid the further humiliation of bursting at her first touch.
“Well?” Lei Lei stops, shooting him an expectant gaze. “Go on.”
He must look terribly cross, if the way she chuckles is any indication. No matter—the look in her eyes speaks of promise, and when she leans forward to give his cock a kittenish lick that sends levin up his spine, G’raha would happily read a tome in ancient Hingan backwards if it meant she would do it again.
“Faith in the gods… gave way to faith in oneself.” He struggles to get the words out, mind unable to concentrate on anything but the stroke of her hand. “C—Civilization was advancing at a rate unseen in the previous two Astral Eras, and—”
Lei Lei tightens her grip, and G’raha chokes, the page wrinkling under his grip.
“You’re so hard already,” she muses, the teasing in her tone all too obvious. “Can you hold off for a little while, älskling?”
“I…” he breathes deep, “will try.”
Try, indeed. The mission entrusted to him by the comrades he left behind in the Eight Umbral Era may have been a lesser challenge.
“Good. And keep reading.” Lei Lei smiles. “I like your voice.”
Cheeky. The sultry giggle she lets out at what G’raha assumes is his terribly pained face makes the fine hairs on his body stand on end—her breath grazes his cock and he fears coming from that alone. He wants to come, so, so terribly, but he hungers to please her above all else, and he would pluck the stars from the sky if only she were to ask.
“In less than a year, Allah was the largest nation in Eorzea,” he reads. A single upside to this—those words are so utterly boring they might just aid him in holding off. Think of emperor Xande, G’raha Tia. “The miracle of a—aetherochemistry had given the Allagans all they wanted and more.”
His reward for the immense effort of reading two full sentences is Lei Lei’s mouth closing over the head of his cock, immediately making him choke on any words that followed. When her tongue swirls around the tip he nearly loses his grip on the godsdamned book—determination alone keeps him from abandoning the task at hand entirely.
“Y—Yet, a man who believes he has everything will not strive to… to create anew,” he continues, unsure and uncaring if he was following where he last left off. “Lacking the d—drive that once made it great—oh gods—”
No amount of effort could keep him from dropping the tome in his hand when Lei Lei hooks a finger on the band of her top and pulls it down, at once laying herself entirely bare. She shoots him a glance—the eye contact alone in a moment like this makes fire ignite his body—and G’raha lets go of any semblance of pride he might have left.
“Please, Lei. Please, I—”
He both fears and hopes she might continue his sweet torment. In the end, however, his reward is a smile.
“You did well,” Lei Lei tells him. “Enjoy yourself now, hm?”
Her head lowers again, and at once she takes all of him in her mouth.
All the sounds G’raha had been holding back seem to burst out of him at once. A desperate thing between a choke and a whine spills off his lips, and his hand goes to her hair in his loss of self control. Lei Lei only hums her approval—the vibrations alone make him throb—before she pulls her head back and sinks down again.
“Lei—”
It’s a poor attempt at a warning. He can feel his climax pooling low in his stomach, a coil about to snap. He’s thrusting his hips now, unable to stop, but Lei Lei offers only further sounds of encouragement, until—
She pulls back entirely.
G’raha gasps, a desperate protest rising in his throat, but her hands replace her mouth before he can speak, quick in pace and deft in movement. Only then does he realize—
“Come for me, Raha.”
—she was going to make him come on her breasts.
No hope left of holding off after that realization.
His entire body shakes with the force of his release, stringy ropes of come spilling over Lei Lei’s chest and dripping down her hands. Even as he spills, she leans over to give his shaft one final lick, and what little G’raha had left to give smears over her chin. The scene is shrouded by the white spots still dancing over his vision, yet he is convinced it is by a miracle alone he doesn’t come again at the sight.
“Lei.” G’raha lets go of her hair and closes his eyes as she sits up. “I’m… sorry.”
Her sunny chuckle fills the room. “For what?” she asks, and he makes the mistake of opening his eyes just in time to watch her tap gently at the mess on her chest and bring it up to her lips, tongue peeking out to lick it. Truly, he was doomed. “You’ve done nothing I didn’t want.”
He’s still too dazed to do anything but blink at her blearily, but he sees Lei Lei smile at him and then cup her breasts, still very much smeared with his…
“You’re not subtle, you know. The way you look at them.” She lets go of her breasts and G’raha watches, entranced, their hearty bounce. “I figured you’d like that.”
She’s nothing if not right, as she often is. His cheeks feel warm, but being flustered does little to stop his gut from aching with desire. Already his cock begins to fill again. Perhaps this merging of souls had rendered G’raha Tia more animal than man.
“There are other things too, that you stare at like what lies underneath is the answer to all of the shards’ woes,” she teases, picking at the hem of her skirt. “I fear not living up to expectations.”
Expectations? What possible higher expectations could he have beyond having Lei Lei on his bed, bare breasts painted white with his spend, lifting the edge of her skirt for him to see? What could she possibly give him that was not already more than he deserved? The implication alone was an insult.
“Come here.”
It’s not her who says it. The words are commanding, but on his lips they’re but a plea to serve. Lei Lei follows, the look in her eyes speaking of curiosity as G’raha falls back onto the bed. Then his hands latch on the curve of her hips and muster all their strength to pull her exactly where he wants her—
“Raha!”
—on his mouth.
Her fingers immediately thread through his hair, which she has chosen for a grip—an excellent pick, really—and her willingness is all the signs G’raha needs to start. Her smalls are an obstacle too insignificant to bother with proper removal—he hooks a finger through the damp fabric and pulls it aside to let his tongue savor her sweet taste.
He could do this forever, if she let him—gladly live the rest of his days with no purpose but to bring her pleasure. It makes him dizzy, feeling how wet she is; knowing that she had become like this from pleasing him alone. The gasp he earns when his tongue slips into her slit is a treasure he would cling to until the end of his days; the way her hands grip his hair even tighter when he sucks on her clit the most welcome pain he has experienced.
The matter is a swift one, and G’raha would be lying if he said he didn’t take some measure of pride in it. He can feel it, taste it—wants to sear the rhythm of the pulses her cunt makes on his tongue into his mind until it turns into song.
“Raha—”
He keeps lapping, licking, sucking; even as her thighs press against the sides of his head so tightly it makes it hard to breathe. He stops only when Lei Lei herself removes the welcome weight of her body from him, and she has to press his head back onto the bed to stop him from following. It makes her laugh, and G’raha wonders if he would ever deserve the happiness he feels at this moment.
Lei Lei sits back on his chest. “You are aware this was supposed to be for you,” she says, smiling down at him. Even in the low candlelight of the room, she glows.
“It is not in my nature to leave debts unpaid, I’m afraid.”
“Debts,” she sighs, though there is no real bite behind it. “Well, I mind not what you call it, as long as you’re willing to do it again.”
She smiles and reaches back to where he is once again full and wanting, grip solid and purposeful. If anything, at least, this new old body of his did not disappoint in matters of endurance. Perhaps the flesh would, at last, be able to keep up with the mind.
“More than willing, you will find,” he tells her, and through the hours she teaches him, as she had ever done, that perhaps there was merit to his selfishness.