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A spirit hovered by Rook's shoulder — not a wisp like those that Emmrich had come to expect, trailing after her, chittering against her ear and making her giggle. No, this was a spirit, fully formed though only half-seen, unnoticeable to those with less keen sensibilities when it came to the Fade.
It curled behind her, Rook tucked into his armchair by the fireplace, a book on her lap, one that he had authored a good while ago. It was pressed so close, hooking its “chin” on Rook's shoulder, as if reading along. Its imitation of a mouth moved along with Rook's as she read to herself quietly, forming the same shapes and structures, a ghostly tongue darting out to wet its “lip” the same time as Rook's did when she turned her page.
Fascinating.
Rook looked up from her book, feeling him watch her. Their gazes met and her face lit up, lips curling into a playful smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling — and the spirit materialized, brightening and pulsing as if to a heartbeat, soft lilacs and greens bouncing off Rook's face for a split second.
And there — a feeling, a memory. A meadow of flowers. The nip of winter and a thick coat. Hands laden with gold. A gentle, welcoming warmth pooling in his veins.
Rook reeled back, surprised, and it disappeared. She turned, searching for it, eyebrows raised. “A spirit! Did you see that?”
“I did.”
“That didn't seem like a wisp.” Rook laughed. “What do you think it was?”
She looked up at him with expectant eyes, trusting and affectionate, and something in his chest nearly seized. Emmrich cleared his throat.
“I'm not sure, darling.” He put his quill away, distracting himself by righting his notes and stacking his papers. His voice was soft when he added, “I didn't get a good look.”
A white lie and he bit his tongue.
It couldn't have been… nevermind. Just a fluke — and he put it away from his mind.
Until it appeared again.
They were in Rivain this time, a squadron of Antaam soldiers surrounding them.
He missed the sword coming for him, steel glinting, too close for comfort, until Rook pushed him out of the way, taking the blow for herself.
She cried out and gritted her teeth, one hand staunching the wound on her upper arm, blood dripping. “Stay away from him!”
And the spirit blazed behind her, fire and fury, lilacs and greens gone and turning a dark purple, a bruised storm cloud. Rook rushed forward, ignoring her wound, mage dagger in one hand, orb in the other. The spirit moved with her — a blur, a shadow of limbs and steel.
Emmrich scrambled up from the dirt, quickly gathering himself and calling forth more spirits. He entangled Rook's targets, staggering them, as she sliced through the Antaam group with unusual ferocity.
Next to her, Taash moved, dealing blows with their double axes and raining fire right in step with her. “Rook! Good hit!”
Between the three of them, the entire Antaam squadron fell neatly, one after the other. Emmrich dashed to Rook's side, kneeling and taking her bloody arm as she sagged onto the sand.
“Rook.” Taash hefted one axe over their shoulder, turning the dead Antaam soldier with their foot, looking for loot. “Didn't know you could do that.”
“Do what?”
“The spirit thing.”
Rook blinked at them like they'd grown two heads. “The spirit thing?”
“You know.” Taash huffed at her. “Aren't you a necromancer and shit?”
“Uh-huh…” Rook shifted, legs splaying in front of her, sand sticking to her armor. She hissed as her arm was inadvertently jostled.
“Darling, please stop moving.”
“Sorry.”
Emmrich pulled at the threads of the Fade, concentrating as he willed it to knit the gash on her arm, blood drying as the wound very slowly closed. Rook breathed heavily next to him.
“The spirit thing…” she whispered to herself before turning to Emmrich. “Did I do a spirit thing?”
Emmrich hummed, busying himself with inspecting her skin and picking away the dried blood. “I… believe so. Or, at least, something quite similar, my dear.”
“Huh.” She scratched her cheek before, ultimately, getting distracted by her arm. She grinned at him as she stretched it. “Good as new! You're perfect as always.”
She kissed him on the cheek before jumping up and running to Taash, looting the bodies of the Antaam soldiers with them. The two bickered about the merits and differences of Rivaini and Nevarran spirits, Rook's loud laughter echoing across the empty beach.
Still knelt on the ground, Emmrich pressed a hand to his cheek, rubbing the spot where Rook kissed him. He swore he could still feel the warmth of her lips, as if she’d left her mark on him, lilac and green glittering by the corner of his eye. Once could have been a fluke, but twice? Just coincidence, perhaps? Two totally separate spirits taking a liking to Rook? What were the odds? Then again, this was Rook. The odds never mattered to her. She laughed in the face of them, warm-cheeked and bright-eyed.
So it stood to reason that perhaps that truly was the same spirit of—
“Emmrich, come on!” Emmrich was jolted out of his thoughts with a call of his name, Rook and Taash, now a few ways off, walking dangerously close to the water. He jogged after them before Rook could fall in.
He put the matter to rest for now — there would be time for him to dig into it later.
But, as they would say, three times was a pattern.
They returned to the Lighthouse, whatever passed as night in the Fade quickly falling around them. Rook leaned on his desk, right between his legs, blocking his view of the research papers he was reading. Her fingers traveled up his arm, then rested on top of his heart.
“Come to bed?”
The spirit was behind her again, hooking its chin on her shoulder, watching him, glow-bright aura soft — expectant but undemanding, a reflection. It would have been unnerving if not for the warmth growing under his collar, right where Rook was touching him, his heart beating, pounding, running for her, only her. His mouth dried, his hands shook, turning clammy, belly twisting with butterflies as if he were a boy fumbling through the first steps of a new waltz, music too loud in his ear.
Oh, to look Devotion in the eye, it was — it was a wonder beyond his imagination.
“Emmrich?” Rook cocked her head at him, batting her eyes, her hand trailing up to his neck and playing with his pin. A finger slipped beneath his collar, pressed right into his skin.
“I love you.” It spilled from his lips without him meaning to. There were no other words that mattered, no other words so true. “I love you, my darling.”
Devotion looked so pleased.
Rook flushed at his words then grinned, just as pleased herself, before tugging him forward, finger in his collar pulling him toward her. She cupped his cheek before saying, “I love you, Emmrich Volkarin.”
She pressed their mouths together, lips meeting his in a slow, unhurried pace. Her lips were chapped, he thought idly, and he could imagine it already — he would leave a glass of water, covered, on her side of their shared bed, pour two cups of tea at their breakfast table. He would have a pitcher of something sweet always ready for her, whatever and whenever she wanted. Something cold for those bright summer days, working side by side. Something hot for the winter nights tucked next to each other on their couch. Her cold toes would be under his thigh as she read to him or he to her, and their home would be filled with her warm laughter, chapped lips and all.
When they parted, Rook's lips descended to his jaw, kissing a line up to his ear, then back down again, his breathing going heavy. He could not help himself — his hands settled on her hips, massaging the skin through the fabric of her shirt, daydreams in his head.
They would plant lilacs in the garden. Lilacs and roses, rosemary and chives, elfroot and felandaris — whatever would grow, as long as they did it together. Hands in the dirt, sowing their seeds—
“Sowing our seeds, huh?” Rook teased him, her breath ghosting on his neck. She'd apparently worked his collar pin off, pushing the starched fabric open.
Emmrich froze, mortified, a creep of red running up his neck and onto his cheeks. “I— I didn't mean—”
Rook silenced him with a harsh suck to his neck, right on his pulse, teeth sinking without breaking skin, Emmrich letting out a low groan. She lapped at the growing love bite, bruised red and purple. It was a good thing he wore a high collar.
“I would love to sow my seeds with you,” she murmured, and he sucked in a shaky breath. She continued, “You can pollinate my flowers. Fertilize my soil. Plow my fields.” She moved up, rubbed her cheek against his. Her breath was by his ear. “We'd have quite a harvest in no time.”
Emmrich had no idea whether to laugh or moan, either one would encourage Rook's unfortunate predilection toward terrible word play.
Rook laughed for them both, the rumble in her chest traveling to his, warm and affectionate.
“Would you like that?” She slipped off the desk and settled on his lap, legs around his hips. Her voice went soft, trailing off. “Maybe when this is over…”
Emmrich would like that very, very much, though he did not dare say it. No, he would not dare to presume so much from her, especially not when the relationship had barely begun to bloom — nevermind that it was Rook who brought it up at all. Nevermind that she was on his lap murmuring about maybes. Nevermind that Devotion clung to her like a second soul.
Oh, no, Emmrich knew better, had learned those lessons keenly — lovers slipping away when he held on too tight, when his mouth got away from him in the afterglow and he mistook warm affection for a lifelong promise. He'd learnt to pick his words carefully after that, to hold but not clutch, to keep the offerings at their altars simple and delicate — inoffensive. The deep well of affection tucked away in caresses and sex and gestures that never presumed too much. Love that made breakfast and always had an extra toothbrush, but accepted excuses as easily as kisses.
So what was he to do with this?
Rook melting into his lap, her arms around his neck, fingers playing with his hair and making him shiver. Her nose brushed against his, eyes half-lidded, lips a hairsbreadth away from his own.
Love — or lovesickness — curled low and hot in his gut, and his cock twitched in his trousers. A wicked grin spread across Rook's face. “Oh, I see.”
She canted her hips, angling them just so, and her clothed heat was pressed against him. It was maddening — the undulation of her hips, the mesmerizing back and forth of it as she grinded against him, his breath catching in his throat, a bitten back groan rising from his lungs.
Emmrich pressed his hands to the curve of her spine, palms splayed on her vertebrae and the prominent ridges there. He pressed her into him, her chest crushed to his as if he could interlock their ribs. He kissed her, close-mouthed and chaste until her tongue licked at the seam of his lips, hot and insistent.
Her fingers were on the buttons of his vest, tugging them open, unhooking golden chains, until he felt her hands through only the fabric of his dress shirt, nails raking down his front. Her hands rested on the edge of his trousers, pausing there as his cock strained. His breath stalled as he waited for her to touch him, to do something, anything.
Instead, Rook stood — and before he could mourn the loss of her heat, she knelt. Fingers dug into the fabric over his thighs, eyelashes batting up at him and teeth sinking into her bottom lip. A picture of coyness as the corners of her mouth quirked up. Her fingers found the buttons of his trousers and he pressed his hand to hers, his heart in his throat.
“You don't have to, darling.”
“Hush,” she quieted his protests. “I want to.”
Rook's fingers popped the button open, mouth dragging along the fabric over his cock, her breath scalding even through cloth. She pushed his trousers further open, fingers hooking on the band of his small clothes until she freed him, already mortifyingly half-hard when she had barely touched him.
Emmrich's breath hitched as she wrapped her hand around his length, thumb brushing the pearly wetness gathering at the tip. “You're always so gorgeous, Emmrich.”
It was difficult to concentrate with the way she gripped his cock, thoughts flying away from him as she began a slow pace, fist pumping from root to leaking tip, twisting her grip and making him groan.
“The way you sound, the way you feel…” Her breath ghosted on his skin, and he swelled more in her grasp. “It's perfect. You're perfect.”
Behind her, Devotion watched on, a spectral voyeur only he could see, though he doubted the spirit thought much of it, thoroughly uninterested in the physical or in possession. Rook's actions didn't matter so much as the meaning behind them — in that, Devotion pressed close like a lover, reveling in it, stroking her hair and leaning onto her back until it nearly phased through the back of her chest. It was a wonder Rook could not feel it, the utterly fascinating way it molded its see-through form into hers, lilac and green on hair and skin.
Emmrich pressed his hand to Rook's cheek, tilting her head up. Their eyes met and he knew there was no separating Devotion from her now — her eyes filled with the same emotion.
It humbled him.
Throat constricting, realization caught between his lungs and his heart, warm and bright as blood and sunlight. He wanted to kiss her, to open his chest and press her inside and keep her there.
But Rook had other plans — and she shook off his hand, her fingers still wrapped around his cock and her other hand on his thigh, pressing it apart as she leaned close. Her breath was on him and suddenly he was engulfed in the wet heat of her mouth, teeth carefully tucked behind her lips.
He groaned as she slowly slid her lips down his length, saliva escaping and running down her chin, coating her fingers and easing the glide of her hand over what her mouth could not reach. She worked him slowly, her fist matching the bob of her head, working in tandem as he breathed heavily above her.
She was doing so well — and when he felt himself hit the back of her throat, it lit his blood on fire, hand flying to her hair to clutch at the strands. Not enough to hurt, but finding comfort in anchoring himself to her. A whimper escaped his lips, a stream of praise as he tried not to thrust into her mouth.
Her throat constricted suddenly and she sputtered, pulling back quickly as she coughed. She let out a frustrated sound.
“Sorry,” she murmured, mouthing the side of his cock, lips lingering in apology.
“There is nothing to apologize for.” He petted her hair, fingers brushing her hairline and combing through the strands. “I should be thanking you, my beautiful girl. You're doing so wonderfully for me.”
She smiled and her lips shone wetly with saliva and his precum — and she engulfed him again, suckling on the tip, tongue swirling on the head as she closed her eyes. Emmrich breathed hard, careful not to press at her too much as she hollowed her cheeks and sucked. “My darling girl — that's it.”
Confidence growing, she picked up the pace — hand and mouth working in rhythm as she brought him closer and closer to the edge.
He tapped at her cheek. “Rook, Rook— I'm almost there, darling.”
It seemed to only spur her on — tongue on the underside of his cock as she pulled her head up, then down, again and again. The muscles of his thighs tightened, the coil of arousal low in his belly turning taut and his eyes slipping close, focusing on the hot pleasure of her mouth.
Wet, lewd squelches filled the room as she set an unrelenting pace, the mess of her affection on spit-covered lips and the tight heat of her throat as she tried to take him deeper at each pass. It did not take long for him to spill into her mouth after that, a litany of praises from his lips as pleasure overwhelmed his senses and Rook drank her fill of him.
Emmrich went boneless in place, satisfaction running through him, content to lean back on the chair and simply pet her hair. His cock softened in her mouth as she continued to lap at him, sucking gently and cleaning him off. He welcomed the sensitivity, used it to anchor himself as his toes curled again when Rook's tongue pressed against the head of his cock.
Eventually, Rook let go of him with a lewd pop, resting her head on his thigh as he brushed her hair back. Emmrich quietly admired the way the light hit her spit-slick lips and the flush of her cheeks — beauty in repose, all heated skin and darkened eyes.
Desire curled once again in his belly as Rook pecked a line of kisses on his thigh, cock twitching, surprising even him. She smirked, one side of her lips quirking up in a half-smile. “I suppose you're ready to come to bed then?”
He swallowed heavily. How could he ever resist?
“Let's, darling.”
Rook's smile turned wicked, and between the two of them, Emmrich was tucked once more in his trousers, and her hand was in his, pulling him up the stairs with hot kisses. Rook walked dangerously backward, only throwing her head back and laughing when he told her to be careful. Then she kissed him again and again and again, Emmrich's hand fumbling for the tiny mechanism that unlocked his bedroom behind the bookcase as Rook nipped at his pulse and pulled at his shirt. Devotion trailed behind them like a particularly happy ghost, a twinkling shroud of color.
They stumbled into the room, the door closing behind them with a loud thud as Rook pushed him against it. She pressed up against him, body soft and full, a delicious contrast to the hard wood against his back, digging into the muscles of his shoulders.
Rook kissed him like he was air, lips coming together and breaking apart over and over again, the aftertaste of his spend still on her tongue. He fell into her waves, adrift, lost in the sea of the Fade and her affection, anchored only by his hands on her hips and his thigh slotting neatly between her legs like it belonged there. Rook — passionate and lovely, hot and insistent — grinded on him, the growing heat of her evident even through fabric. A whine escaped her lips when he shifted, repositioning his leg, catching a sensitive spot that left her breathless.
Emmrich lifted his thigh just as she dropped her hips again, earning him another breathy moan, her skin flushing prettily. How he loved the color on her — how he would adore and adorn her in just that same shade, his own devotion against her skin, dark rubies and pink diamonds on golden chains hanging from her ears or spilling down shoulders, over full breasts that fit perfectly in his hands.
And oh, how his clothes were suddenly too tight, too much, too hot on his skin just imagining it, and it seemed Rook was faring no better, sweat building in the dip of her neck, sliding down to her collarbone before disappearing under the fabric of her shirt. He slid his hands into the waistband of her trousers, finding the edges of her shirt and pulling it from its confines.
When he finally touched her, hands under the fabric, palms to the skin of her waist — he sank into another daydream, dipping his head into her neck, the ghost of his breath making her shiver.
“I would clad you in gold, my love,” he murmured against her skin, thumbs digging into her belly. “All the gold in Nevarra at your fingertips, you need only say the word.” A finger traced Rook's navel and she gasped softly. “Here to start, I think — you would look lovely with it dangling from here, amethysts, perhaps, and yellow gold in a traditional Nevarran style, clean lines and hexagons.”
“I've never…”
“No? What a shame.” Emmrich pressed his lips to her pulse. “Perhaps I can help with that. I have some experience.”
Rook shivered again, panting. “You'd do that? For me?”
“Yes.”
Anything. Everything.
This would be so little in the grand scheme of things — to reverently clean her skin, to press the hollow needle through as he told her to breathe. To brush away tears and swallow pained gasps with a kiss. To care for her afterward as flesh healed and they picked out the next one. Up her ears, through cartilage and ridges, or perhaps, her lip, the gold biting into his as they kiss.
Or lower, past an exquisite neck choked with jewels, past fine collarbones, the jut of bone turning into the soft fullness of flesh. He reached for them now, his hands sliding up beneath the fabric of her shirt, nipples pebbling under the touch of his fingers. Rook moaned softly, sensitive.
“And here.” Emmrich pulled back to look at Rook, taking a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, tweaking it to the sound of another moan. “A chain. Through another piercing, or perhaps a clamp. What do you think, my darling?”
“Nngh…”
Devotion stood behind Rook, pressed to her back, a ghostly arm running up her torso and softly resting on one breast. Emmrich had almost forgotten it, truth be told, distracted by the woman in front of him, but now his eyes followed the way its “fingers” tried to knead the flesh through the fabric. Then paused when he did.
“Emmrich…” Rook panted, she pushed her chest toward him, silently urging him to continue.
He obliged, kneading her breast and pinching her nipple. Devotion followed suit, resuming its ministrations in what Emmrich realized now was an imitation of his movements. He nearly choked on his own desire — Rook, dressed in Devotion, his and hers, evidence of everything he yearned for but had tucked away in the corners where his heart met his soul.
It gnawed him down to the marrow — this waiting, this wanting.
And oh, Maker, how he wanted, selfish and starving, belly aching to have his fill of love until he became sick with it, until he retched blood and bile on the floor and it burned like acid in his throat. Then — just when his heart would finally begin to settle — he would take more and more and more, and drown. He wanted to ruin himself, dig himself out of his grave again and again, only to fall back into it through the singularly exquisite agony that was love.
The giving and the taking, the push and the pull — love, devotion in perfect, equal measure.
Emmrich buried his head in the crook of her neck, mouthing at her pulse. His hand slithered down past her belly, finding the waistband of her trousers, and making quick work prying the buttons open, one hand still on her breast as the other slid beneath her small clothes. His fingers brushed past her curls, teasing at the junction between her legs but never quite touching.
“Emmrich, Maker, please—”
He chuckled and hushed her, finding it difficult to deny her as his heart was filled to bursting, Devotion “mouthing” at the other side of her neck. Rook shivered as if she could feel it, the ghostly brush of unearthly lips.
Pressing his thigh against her just as his fingers found her clit, Emmrich felt Rook tremble, her gasp loud in his ear. She grinded down on him, chasing the friction from his fingers and the fabric with stuttering breaths, his pace unfaltering on her bud.
“Utterly gorgeous,” he murmured into her neck as he felt her heat turning slick, coating the tips of his fingers, the wet slide of skin as he circled her clit. “The things you do to me, dearest. Night and day, I find myself yearning to touch you, to feel the heat of your skin, and keep you by my side.”
Selfish, foolish thoughts he couldn't help but whisper into her flesh as he pulled his thigh away. Rook's whine of displeasure was cut off as his fingers ran through her folds, spreading her slick, tracing lines from her entrance to her clit and back again.
A finger catches at her core, and Rook pressed her hips closer. “Inside,” she demanded.
“Of course.”
He sank a finger into her — inhaling a shaky breath as she clamped around his intrusion, molten heat dripping onto his palms and her smalls.
“Another—” She was breathless, but her hips jerked harshly on his hand. “Another one.”
Emmrich laughed softly, but obliged, finding it difficult to resist her wishes — a second finger sinking into her heat. She tightened around him, releasing a pleased gasp as long fingers found the sensitive spots inside her. Her cunt squelched lewdly around him and he found himself biting her pulse at just the sound it.
Her heart rabbited against his teeth, quick and hot, and he soothed the blooming mark with his tongue as he dragged his fingers out, only to sink again, drawn back into the orbit of heat and slick.
Rook rocked herself in time with his hand, grinding her clit to his palm as the tips of his fingers reached places he knew her own could never, curling and brushing exactly where she needed him before she knew it herself. Her cunt pulsed around him, the movements of her hips turning jerky and her breath coming in rough stutters.
Pulling his head away from her neck, he pressed their foreheads together, Rook's eyes fluttering shut, cheeks flushing darkly. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, fingernails digging into the fabric.
She gasped his name and it had never sounded lovelier, the hot ache of desire churning in his gut. She fucked herself on his fingers, as best she could at the angle, and Emmrich met her at each thrust.
“Emmrich, Emmrich—” Her voice went thin as she gasped.
“Won't you come for me, sweet girl?”
The squeeze of her core was exquisite, fluttering around him like hummingbirds as she cried out. The palm of Emmrich's hand rubbed on her clit, eager to prolong the pulsing of her cunt and the tremors that wracked her body, legs shaky as his other hand came to wrap around her.
He held her close as she calmed, leaning heavily on him, her legs turning into jelly. He extricated his hand, bringing it to his lips and tasting the delicious salt and tang of her. Rook cracked her eyes open, watching his hand for a moment before meeting his gaze and leaning forward, lips on his fingers and tasting herself. It was as lovely as it was obscene, and it sparked the heat under his skin, blood running hot.
Rook pulled away, eyes still glazed with a relentless desire. Her hands intertwined with his, tugging him forward until the back of her knees hit the bed.
They fell together, her not quite pulling, him not quite pushing, simply the natural, intuitive movement of their bodies as they molded against the other in one single desire. Their lips met again, sliding desperately as teeth and tongue clashed, the inelegant press of their hands as they scrabbled to pull clothing off, heated skin exposed to the cool air, Emmrich nearly rutting into her when he was freed — only refraining through hard-won self-restraint. He was still a gentleman after all and through the haze, licked and sucked his way down the expanse of her skin, kissing between her breasts then her navel, mapping and connecting a constellation of moles and freckles and scars until he found his prize in the wet heat of her cunt.
Knees on the floor in supplication, Emmrich spread her apart, moving with purpose and swirling his tongue on her clit in tight circles before dipping his tongue into her core and back again. She had tasted divine on his fingers, but it could not compare as he drank her essence from the source, heady rich nectar on his tongue as her bud swelled under his ministrations.
Rook moaned, loud and lewd, as he suckled at her folds, two fingers sliding into her core and curling just so, stroking at the walls of her cunt. Mouth returning to her clit, he pressed his lips closer, sucking harshly, allowing a careful graze of his teeth.
Rook swore, crying out, “Fuck!”
Her legs clenched around him, surrounding his ears, heels digging into his back, and hand flying to his hair, pressing him closer until he was lost in her heat, breathing only the heady smell of her cunt, and suffocating on slick and skin.
What a way to go, any panic or fear dulled in the fog of love and lust, sweat and devotion. Somehow, he knew Rook would kill him. Somehow, he knew Rook would bring him back to life.
And he would let her.
She could put his life on a string and pull and play and stretch it however she wanted. Just let Emmrich cling selfishly to her fingers, mark where he was wrapped around her skin — evidence he had been there and he had been loved.
Rook cried out again, rolling her hips, muttering obscenities and begging, “Don't stop— Maker, do that again— yes, right there, yes, yes—”
She crashed around him, thighs trembling around his ears, back arching off the bed as he was covered in her slick, drowning in ambrosia, hot and heavy on his tongue, dripping down his chin, his neck, almost slaking his obscene thirst for her. He continued to lap at her folds, fingers stroking her through her climax, chasing her taste until she finally shoved him away with another gasp.
Lips parted and panting, chest heaving, skin pebbled with gooseflesh — Rook was a vision, glowing softly in Devotion’s light, sweat like diamonds, strands plastered to skin, eyes half-lidded and trained on him. She buried her fingers in his hair, pulling him up by the nape of his neck. Another kiss, a thousand and one since they began, a thousand and one more still yet to come, Emmrich desperately hoped — countless more days and nights like this, happiness seeping through every pore, satisfaction thrumming down his spine.
Her lips kissed across his jaw, fingers tight on his shoulders and pushing. Before Emmrich knew it, he was on his back, Rook pressing him into the pillows as she hooked a leg over his hip, panting into his mouth and rubbing her cunt across his straining cock. She was in constant motion, never staying anywhere too long — lips and tongue moving along the sinews of his body, hands and fingers clutching at his shoulders, his waist, then finding purchase on his hips, nails digging into the skin. She drove him mad, lit every nerve on fire with just the press of her fingers and the flex of her thighs.
Oh, how he ached as she teased him, wet hot folds gliding against his length, dribbles of his precum pooling at his navel just as a cloak of color surrounded them, her hips stuttering in surprise.
“Shit—” she gasped, jolting back, Emmrich wincing as her nails dug a little more painfully into his side. “What the—”
Rook nearly jumped from his lap until his hands flew to her hips, stroking the dimples of flesh with as much reassurance he could muster, untwisting his tongue with some effort. “Can you see it, my love?”
“This…” She furrowed her brow, concentrating on the colors and the energy, Devotion melting into lights dancing like petals. Realization dawned on her face. “Spirit?”
“Just so.” He stroked lines up to her waist. “Isn't it lovely?”
Rook hummed, not answering, simply eyeing the colors that floated around them like butterflies. She relaxed, then looked at him. “You're lovely — did you know that? The light looks pretty on you.”
He laughed in surprise, never quite sure what she would say next. He supposed he could live being called pretty. “I could say the same for you, darling.”
She grinned, cheeks flushing — and rolled her hips, Emmrich nearly choking on the gasp that left him.
“I suppose this isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to us.”
“No,” he panted, breathless at the exquisite shift of her hips on his. “I don't think so either, dear heart.”
Rook laughed and leaned back, wrapping a hand around his cock, squeezing him lightly at the base before lifting her hips. She notched the head of his cock to her cunt, and Emmrich clutched the sheets beneath him and prayed for the fortitude not to simply thrust up and rut into her like some kind of wild, hungry beast.
She laughed again, bright and airy, flicking her hair back with one hand as she leaned forward, bare breasts brushing on his chest, nipples catching against the curls of grey hair there. With her other hand, she pressed the tip of his cock into her, excruciatingly slow, a tease as she fluttered around his cockhead. Then stopped.
“Do you love me, Emmrich?”
“I do, I do — of course, I do.” His hands gripped her waist, kneading her soft flesh before moving lower, palms on her backside. He gently pressed down, encouraging her to take him deeper, but Rook resisted.
“Say it, then,” she whispered into the air between them, haloed by soft lilac and green, and all the warmth of every summer memory. “I like it when you say it.”
And oh, how he loved to tell her, murmuring sweet words at the breaking of dawn into her hair, or whispers between the sheets at the place where her heart and his meet. So he told her now, the words as easy as breathing.
“Darling, you don't even know half of what you do to me. You have lit a fire in my blood in ways I hadn’t dared to imagine.” His breath came out in pants, toes curling as Rook sank half an inch more. He pressed his hands back to her waist, stroking over her ribs. Emmrich continued, “You — heart of my heart, soul of my soul, my love for you has been etched into my bones. When I am gone and future generations dig up my grave, they will find your name in my marrow.”
His fingers trailed up her spine before pressing between her shoulder blades. He pushed her closer until they were chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat, her hands moving away to clutch at the bedsheets beside his head for balance. Leaning forward, his nose drew a line up her cheek, until his lips brushed against her eyelids. “Sight beyond sight, warmth beyond warmth. You are a marvel unto yourself.”
Rook shivered. “Sweet talker.” Then pulled away to look at him, pressing her hips down as she let his cock sink deeper, an ache running through him, fire under his skin but not enough to sate. “More.”
The hot, wet grasp of her cunt as she squeezed around him made it difficult to think, and he gasped at the sensation. “Darling, please—”
She tutted as she teased him. “More, lover. Just a little more.”
“My darling Rook, you must enjoy torturing me so.” She only laughed, squeezing him again until the skin of his cheeks was flushed red. “But how could I deny you?”
“You wouldn't.”
“I wouldn't,” he agreed. “And thus, I am at your mercy, beloved, for my heart is freely given and it is yours alone. I adore you.” He pressed his hand to her nape, bringing her back down to meet his lips. “Without reservation, without complexity. I devote myself to you for there is nothing sweeter than this — your lips on mine and your breath in my lungs. I lov—”
He was cut off as she took him to the hilt, words abandoning him, his train of thought abruptly coming to a halt.
“Cat got your tongue, love?” She laughed between breaths, chest heaving.
Emmrich could not answer — forming words an impossibility through the heat rolling off her, igniting his veins.
She was everywhere — on him, within him, souls touched by Devotion, speaking promises of forever. Her fingers were curled on his sides, and he was held down, held close by just the hot line of where her skin touched his.
Rook rocked against him, hips lifting, then sinking again in a deep, desperate rhythm as she moaned.
It was a ferocious thing that grew inside him, hot and wanting, hands to her hips, meeting her at every thrust. Their eyes found each other and the burn of her gaze was spellbinding and sharp, as if she could reach past his skin and peel him open. And he would let her, he thought — let her turn him inside out, feast on the blood and viscera until her hunger was sated. Let them find him between her teeth, down her throat, pressed hard into the lining of her stomach until there was no mistaking them as two beings, but only one — how wonderful that would be.
Pleasure transformed her into divinity itself, his hand finding the place her thighs met, rubbing circles on her clit until her hips stuttered against him, her nails digging into his stomach, leaving harsh beautiful crescents. His cock kneaded the sensitive spot inside her, and Rook whimpered, mewling in pleasure as she clung to him with trembling thighs.
From there — it was simply sensation. Flesh on flesh, hot and slick. The quickly dampening sheets, crumpling under push and pull of bare bodies. The glowing light of the Fade around them, brighter and brighter. The heat was dizzying, going straight to his head as their lips crashed together inelegantly, skins flushed, nerves on fire.
And suddenly, she was clamping down on him, the knot in his stomach tightening and releasing. They tumbled over the edge together, and she stole his breath, mouth moving against his, swallowing each other's moans. She gripped him tightly, walls pulsing in time with the rabid beating of their hearts as he spilled deep into her heat.
They did not speak for the longest time as Emmrich brushed his hand through her hair and Rook peppered dainty kisses across his collarbone, his cock softening and slipping from her core. No, there were no words necessary and two of them laid in that in-between place of dreaming and wakefulness, unconcerned by the sweat of their passions drying between them.
Souls melted into the shared warmth, only pressed closer by equally shared Devotion.