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The Royal Hot Springs were something of a well-kept secret in Inazuma City, a status that seemed at odds with its imposing appearance beside the Tenshukaku.
But that was okay, the owners insisted. The fewer people who knew about the place, the less rabble they ultimately ended up turning away and sending back to the Asia Bathhouse on the main market street. After all, unlike their rivals, the Royal Hot Springs , were very selective about their clientele. Only those lords who had personally been invited by the Raiden Shogun were permitted to partake in the steaming hot pools, the private bathrooms with individual butler service and a selection of scented salts from just about every corner of Teyvat imaginable, from the crisp, icy smells of Snezhnaya to the rich, floral blends of Sumeru.
The scent that drifted up to Mona's nose now was a mixture of Qingxin flowers and jasmine, a familiar blend from Liyue that evoked memories of trekking through the mountains with the spring breeze on her face. For a moment, she was content to simply stand there and take it all in.
So, this is how the rich live.
The sound of snorting snapped her from her reverie. She opened her eyes to see Wanderer on the other side of the pool, glancing over his shoulder as he finished tying back the hanging ropes that had set the water between them bubbling.
“And you're sure nobody will catch us?” she asked.
Wanderer shook his head. “I already told you. The owners are away for the weekend. As long as you don't make too much noise, we'll be fine.”
Mona wanted to ask about the city guard she'd seen patrolling the square outside, but decided that he'd probably pose no problem. Most intruders would probably try to break in at ground level, not fly in through a hatch in the roof on a gust of Anemo (an experience Mona was still struggling to get accustomed to without feeling like she was going to be sick).
Wanderer stretched his arms above his head, then reached down to start undressing. He'd already left his hat and sash in a neat pile nearby, and now worked on removing his various layers of belts and the outer inner lining of his kimono . Mona did the same, shedding her layers one by one until she was in nothing but her leotard.
A look up had her heart jumping. She diverted her eyes quickly, a move that didn't go unnoticed by Wanderer. He snorted softly.
“What did you think the dress code was for an onsen?” he teased, pulling off his underwear, the last remaining item of clothing he was wearing.
“I hadn't really thought about it,” Mona mumbled. She let her eyes linger on Wanderer's bare shoulders as he walked, the light from the lamps dancing across his lean muscle before he lowered himself to the edge of the pool and slipped under.
It was a truly immature way to hold herself, Mona thought. She'd seen Wanderer naked enough times that the blush she felt creeping to her cheeks right now was nothing short of embarrassing, though there was something different about the casualness of it all, not to mention the fact they were technically in public and could still get caught at any moment. To distract herself, she slipped her hands beneath the hem of her leotard and slowly pulled it down.
Removing the garment completely felt like forcing two positive ends of a magnet together, but somehow, she managed it. She walked over to the edge of the pool and looked down at Wanderer. “Happy now?”
“Mm. Although I would recommend getting in the water at some point.”
Mona clicked her tongue at his sarcasm and copied what he'd done, sitting down with her legs over the edge and sliding into the pool in one. The water enveloped her with an immediate warmth, one that had her letting out had an involuntary sigh of pleasure.
For a few seconds, she simply floated there, enjoying the heat and the feeling of the bubbles against her skin. The pool was shallow enough that it would have only reached her waist had she stood up. Instead, she closed her eyes, crossed her legs, and floated so that the water covered her shoulders and her dark hair spread out over the surface.
The sound of gentle splashing made her look up. Wanderer was gliding his way over to her.
“So, how does your first onsen experience stack up against the lakes of Mondstadt?” he asked, coming to a stop in front of her and adopting the same cross-legged floating position.
“It's nice. At the very least, I can feel my hands here,” said Mona.
She cast her mind back to the times she'd gone wild swimming back in Mondstadt, whether it was following the ducks in the shallows of Cider Lake or braving the freezing waves of the Falcon Coast with her friends in the Adventurer's Guild. Now, her gaze travelled over the small room, the dark wooden walls and the high ceiling, the warm that glowed on the undulating surface of the water and the steam that drifted up. Comparing the two didn't really seem fair.
Never let me say the Inazuman elite don't know how to live, she told herself with a smile.
Wanderer's wrist brushed against her elbow under the water. The contact served as a reminder that the pair of them were both stark naked. Mona pulled away instinctively, seeking a distraction as a heat that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water prickled up the back of her neck.
“Can I put my head under?” she asked.
Wanderer snorted. “I'm not going to stop you.”
It was as good an encouragement as Mona needed. After taking a breath, she dipped beneath the surface. The world shimmered around her, the salt in the water stinging her eyes. Wanderer was waiting for her with a half-smile on his face when she came up once again.
“There is actually a strict etiquette for this partaking in this kind of establishment,” he said as Mona pushed her hair out of her face. “A bunch of unnecessarily strict rules upheld by the stuffy gentry. Do whatever you want. Break every rule for all I care.”
His reaction came as a surprise to Mona, as someone who usually took great efforts to teach her the customs of his nation, from the way he sat at mealtimes to the details in his clothing. Before she could question him on it, though, he'd sank beneath the water just like she'd done. He resurfaced just a few inches in front of her.
“I think the fact we're in here in the first place is enough of a breach of etiquette,” said Mona, placing her hands on his shoulders, a gesture that served as much to keep him at bay as it was an excuse to touch his smooth skin.
Wanderer's smile widened. “How very true.” Missing the point of her hand positioning completely (or, more likely, deliberately ignoring it), he planted his feet against the base of the pool, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her into his chest. “Are you still worried we might be found out? I'd be all too happy to offer a distraction if you ask nicely.”
A distraction. That was one way of putting it, Mona thought. She'd have been lying if she'd claimed it hadn't been at the back of her mind from the moment Wanderer had suggested they hire a private room at the Royal Hot Springs together, and the way her chest was pressed into his right now didn't exactly make things easier for her. Her thoughts tended to steer that way more and more nowadays, no doubt having been poisoned by his stream of sultry words when they were behind closed doors and seemingly never-ending libido.
Then again, she wasn't exactly one for discouraging him. The fact she was even considering such an act in a public place right now was testament to that.
Not that she was going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it out loud.
“I was doing fine, actually,” she said at last, revelling in the hint of disappointment on his face as she slipped out from his arms. “And you're right. Nobody has a reason to walk in on us if we're quiet.”
She'd just started to swim back to the side when Wanderer caught her wrist and pulled her towards him.
“And if they were to walk in on us? What would they find?”
Mona let a playful smile pull at her lips. “I'm not fucking you in a hot spring, Wanderer.”
She thought that would be the end of it for a few seconds, at least, but Wanderer's grip on her wrist stayed as it was. He pulled himself closer to her slowly, his shoulders leaving gentle ripples on the surface of the water.
“Do you think the gentry stick to the same rules?”
Mona hesitated. “There's a strict etiquette. You just said so yourself.”
“Mm, I did. From the outside, at least.” Wanderer's voice had dropped to a soft, teasing tone. “But have you ever wondered why there are so many private rooms here compared to the public bathhouse in the lower city?”
“I assumed it was so they weren't overheard,” said Mona. She was deliberately stalling at this point. “If the main clientele here really are as important as you claim, then I imagine their conversations are of the utmost secrecy. National security and the like.”
“How very true. And yet don't they say that the most important secrets are often those exchanged between warm sheets?”
Mona's back hit the edge of the pool. Before she could stop him, Wanderer had closed the gap between them and nestled between her thighs. He trailed a hand down her side.
“The gentry are very good at setting rules they don't follow.” He was almost whispering now, his lips finding the crook between her neck and collarbone and pressing a kiss there. “We've already broken into their space. Why not take a page from their book entirely?”
Mona let her hand settle on the back of his head, her fingers carding through hair that had managed to stay mostly dry, unlike hers. It was a losing battle, as much against Wanderer's advances as her own waning desire to fight them.
“Just make sure you're quiet,” she said finally.
With her flimsy defences torn down at last, Wanderer laughed softly and pressed her further into the side of the pool. His lips found hers and sealed them in a long, heated kiss, one that had Mona's heart jumping and fingers curling into his hair. He pushed his hips forward eagerly, and at last, Mona felt the length of something impossibly hard press into the inside of her thigh.
Without thinking, she reached down, took him in her hand, and started to pump him slowly from tip to base. Wanderer broke the kiss to sigh. His breath landed hot on her cheek.
She could tell he was oversensitive already, straining against her hand. Usually, they took their time undressing one another, both revelling in the other's growing frustration until one of them snapped, but Mona knew this wasn't going to be one of those times. She could already feel a sense of urgency spread through her, spurred by the intoxicating steam of the water as much as the way Wanderer trembled with each pump of her hand.
“Turn around,” he breathed.
As Mona did as he said, she found her eyes drifting over to the door. The thought of someone finding them when they'd simply been intruding had been bad enough, let alone with what they were about to do now. And yet there was a strange kind of thrill to the idea, one that she'd be lying if she'd claimed had never crossed her thoughts before, bubbling up between the cracks of her lust-addled mind. To think that someone could be watching them right now on the other side of that door, peeking through the slats in the wood. That they could walk in at any moment and find them entangled in the water. Would they stare in shocked silence at Mona's flushed cheeks and bare skin? Would Wanderer smile as he locked eyes with them and ran his hands down her sides, acknowledging their presence as one would a curious house pet who'd intruded on their owners' privacy?
The situation flashed through her head, as tantalising as it was horrifying.
Then Wanderer pushed his way inside, and her mind went blank.
A cry left her lips, echoing around the walls of the room. Wanderer let out a shaky breath and bent over to press a kiss to the nape of her neck. His hands trailed from her shoulders, down the curve of her back to her hips as he started to thrust into her.
Mona's teeth sank into her bottom lip. With no time to adjust to Wanderer's size and no space to move against the side of the pool, she was afforded little option but to stand there and hold in her gasps. The stone floor felt cold against her bare front. She made to slip her hands beneath her and lift up her chest, but Wanderer caught her wrists one after the other and folded them behind her back.
“Stay still for me,” he whispered.
As if I could do anything else, Mona told herself, though another sharp thrust promptly stole her thoughts away. She let out an involuntary whine. Her hands curled into fists against her back.
Despite her best efforts, she found her gaze yet again drawn to the door, a gesture that didn't go unnoticed by Wanderer. He planted his hands either side of her shoulders, using the friction of his body against hers to keep her forearms in place, and whispered into her ear, “Still worried about being seen?”
“No,” Mona lied.
The laugh Wanderer gave was broken up by his hitching breaths. “Why don't we give them a show to remember, hm?”
Mona was about to ask in a panic what in the world he was talking about when he pulled out of her sharply, grabbed her by the hip, and started to turn her over. It took a few seconds of unwieldy struggling for Mona to unhook her arms and twist her body around, but then she was lying on her back and Wanderer was slipping inside her again. He leant over her, the mess of his dark hair falling around his face.
“You know we are next to the Tenshukaku, don't you?” Wanderer muttered as he began to move again. The water stirred around his hips, the sound of skin hitting wet skin a sharp contrast to the gentle bubble of the pool.
“So?” Mona blurted out.
Her eyes were half-lidded, her back arched against Wanderer. The new angle allowed him to go deeper, spread her thighs apart and slam into her with a desperation that would surely have had her whining for reprieve had she not been accustomed to it. Even in his gentler, more romantic moments, Wanderer had always conducted himself roughly. It was as if his goal were to carve out a space inside Mona, leaving no room for rational thought. No room for anything but him . And while Mona could say she'd come to expect such roughness on a physical level, she found herself unable to tear her eyes away from him.
“So, how do you think the eminent Raiden Shogun would react if she found us fucking in her bathroom?” A smile played across Wanderer's lips.
Mona's heart leapt to her throat. Wanderer usually balked at the very mention of the Shogun (though Mona had never asked why since the first time he'd snapped at her for it – something to do with his Inazuman roots, she imagined). She grabbed his upper arms and squeezed.
“Stop messing around.”
Wanderer only giggled again. “But you have been thinking about it, haven't you?”
“Of course not,” she hissed, though it did little to disguise the burning blush that lit up her face. Once again, her mind drifted back to that imaginary scenario, the sear of invisible eyes on her skin, the shame mingling with excitement at the base of her stomach.
Had it been that obvious to read? Or was she simply so tainted by Wanderer that it was inevitable at this point that her thoughts would mirror his?
Either way, she had no time to consider it, as something warm and wet brushed the side of her neck. Wanderer ran his tongue up to her ear, his breath hot on her sensitive skin, before dropping his head and sucking a bruise into her throat, all while his hips continued their pounding rhythm. This time, Mona couldn't hold back her cry. Her fingers caught his shoulder blades, nails digging in.
“It's okay. You don't have to admit it out loud,” Wanderer murmured against her skin. “I know the only thing that sets the two of us apart is that veil of pride you hide behind.”
Mona wanted to tell him that wasn't true, but she was cut off as Wanderer's hand snaked up her collar and clamped around her throat. Her ankles latched around his waist instinctively, legs dipping into the warm water.
“Why else would you let me take you here in this pool?” he whispered, dragging his lips up the edge of her jaw. “I think deep down, you want to be caught.”
“No—!” Mona managed to wheeze before Wanderer's grip tightened, squeezing her windpipe to a needle's eye. She stared up at the ceiling through blurry eyes.
Wanderer gave a short laugh that echoed against the walls, as if the sight of Mona choking on air was the most entertaining thing he'd seen. Only when she wrapped a hand his wrist and tried to pry him off did he finally relax his grip. She gasped and gulped down the air, only for Wanderer to cut it off once again with his own lips. He kissed her hungrily, his tongue lapping at hers. A low moan rose from him. The sound of it made Mona's chest tighten.
She could always tell when Wanderer was getting close, sense the cracks that appeared at the corners of his otherwise flawless temperament. In this case, it was the stuttering of his hips, the way his kisses sped up with increasing desperation. Mona whined into his mouth. She was breathless beneath him, pinned to the stone as she returned his embrace with equal enthusiasm. Wanderer's hand tightened around the base of her throat, fingertips pressing new bruises into the skin, marking her as his own all over again.
If someone had walked in at that point, she doubted she'd even have noticed. She wouldn't even have cared .
All that mattered to her now was balanced in her arms.
The thought was uncharacteristically romantic, and it made her latch her legs around Wanderer's waist that little bit more. The gesture pushed Wanderer over the edge, and at last, he gave a shuddering hiss and buried his face in the crook of Mona's neck. His hips stilled as he climaxed, fingers squeezing Mona's throat so hard she swore she saw black creep in at the corners of her vision.
After what felt like whole minutes but was probably just seconds, Wanderer's fingers relaxed, and Mona could breathe again, albeit painfully. She watched as Wanderer pushed himself up straight on his arms above her. A slight flush clung to the bridge of his nose. The hint of colour somehow made him look younger, more gentle.
But then the smirk returned to his lips, and suddenly, all notions of tenderness melted away.
“Cute,” he said, stroking a hand across her cheek, then giving it a light pat as one would a pet dog. With a pull of his hips, he slipped out from between Mona's thighs. She glared at him indignantly.
“If you say so.”
She pushed herself up into a sitting position, glad to dip her legs into the welcoming heat of the pool after having cooled down on the side. Her body ached all over. She was just about to slip under when Wanderer placed his hands on her knees, holding her tentatively in place.
Without taking his eyes off her, he sank beneath the water up to his shoulders and drifted closer. The water swirled in lazy eddies around him.
“You seem upset.”
Mona couldn't hold back a snort. “I can't believe you convinced me to do that.”
“Mm. But you still did it.” His hands trailed up along the insides of Mona's thighs, his smooth touch sending sparks along her skin. A reminder that she hadn't yet found release. “I suppose you'll want to be putting your clothes back on and returning to the city now to be safe.”
Mona trembled as his hands came to rest on the tops of her thighs and his thumbs started to rub circles into her skin, dangerously close to her heat. She already felt bruised from the force he'd fucked her with, but that didn't stop her from angling her hips unconsciously into his touch.
“I suppose you'd like that now that you've gotten what you want,” she replied simply, trying to inject a bitterness she didn't feel into her tone. A front to distract from the way her body ached for him still.
“Actually, I'd like to relax in the water for a while more.”
Wanderer placed a kiss to the inside of Mona's knee, then grabbed her by the hips and pulled her forward so that she was just sitting on the edge of the pool. She had to seize the back of his hair for sheer balance.
Now with his head a mere inch or two from her heat, Wanderer looked up at Mona with a deceptively innocent look in his eyes. It was almost questioning, a plea for permission.
As if she had any choice but to grant it.
“I'll stay,” she said at last.
Wanderer scoffed and kissed her heat, nose buried in her short, dark curls. “Somehow, I thought you would.” Then he dipped his head lower and started to lick.