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Hol was a closer. A thousand years ago, before becoming a mindflayer surrogate, her work in one of the many mercantile guilds in Baldur’s Gate was unparalleled. Deals opened and shut behind her; always with just the right amount of leverage applied. She had worked out a song and dance ages ago and the steps seldom needed changing.
All that to say, she knew a routine when she saw one.
He was practiced, she could tell. The way his fingers followed a ghost trail of her body in the air, the pitch of his voice. She even thought she detected a hint of perfume, though gods know where he got it from. Hol couldn't fathom how many unfortunate souls got pulled into the honey this way.
It would have set her teeth on edge if she hadn't seen the stumbles, too. Astarion was a cocktail of befuddlement, self-interest, and fear. And she could tell how, as he soaked in the sun and dirt and wide open space, the splashes of curiosity and awe settled in him, oil and water.
Besides, rehearsed or not, she couldn’t remember anyone looking at her like Astarion did now. The horns and the tail and the general aura of surliness she’d done nothing to correct had stopped most inquirers in their tracks. She suspected his interest in her was incidental - a means to an end - but she respected his moxy.
She wouldn't lose herself in him, but she could have some fun.
Astarion's evening didn't start according to plan, but, as he dragged his lips across Hol's thrumming pulse, it became quite salvageable.
He'd put in effort for this little encounter, though that was half the fun. It helped him feel more himself, like slipping into well-worn shoes. He made sure his hair fell just so, picked the crusted goblin blood from his fingernails, and topped it all off with a dab of a woodsy scent he'd... acquired from one of the druid's chambers.
And, even with all that investment into his seduction, she hadn't stared at him like a dazed lamb as many of his past conquests did. She just smirked, and let him come to her.
Sliding his tongue into her mouth did help quell the taste of annoyance somewhat.
Astarion, as far as he could remember, had always run naturally - or, rather, supernaturally - cold. It was not something he noticed most days. His physical exchanges leaned towards the brief and lethal, especially recently. But on the occasion that he got someone into his bed he soaked in their warmth as if he were basking in sunlight - an experience he could now draw comparisons to.
It always surprised him how hot tiefling blood ran.
He set to work on revealing more skin that he could drag his icy hands across while Hol was eagerly doing the same to him. Perhaps too eagerly; he worried for the structural integrity of his doublet as her fingers tugged the ties just loose enough to pull it over his head.
Astarion backed Hol into the tree behind her, her bare chest rising and falling quickly against his own.
He slid his hands between her hips and the tight leather leggings she preferred, bending down as he pulled them off her. Astarion leaned in toward her without touching, ghosting his breath across newly exposed skin. Goosebumps scattered across her belly and the tops of her thighs; more following the trail of his fingers as he dragged them from the inside of her knee and up, closer to where he knew she wanted them - if her trembling was anything to go by.
He licked a stripe across the divot in her hip and obliged her, two of his fingers sliding easily into slick heat.
Hands that were gripping the tree moved to loosely tangle in his hair as he layered wet, sucking kisses across her stomach, hips, thighs. He moved in and out of her almost lazily, off-tempo from the tight little motions she was making with her hips, the choked sighs she breathed with every caress.
Astarion smiled to himself as he curled the pads of his fingers on the downstroke, pulling a shuddering moan from her. She mustn't have done this often, certainly not recently. Her legs were shaking like a leaf in the wind now, coiled with the energy of someone desperate for a good lay. He felt very much in his element.
Withdrawing from her earned him a tug on his scalp, Hol’s hands twitching at the loss.
Astarion licked her from his fingers as he stood, grinning like a cat with cream. She flushed, quite… prettily. Then squinted at him.
In a flash, Hol pushed off the tree, almost knocking the breath out of him as they landed, with the tiefling straddling his lap.
Oh, if that's how she wanted to play…
Astarion lay back languidly beneath her in a temporary show of surrender, running his hands across her body. The exploration would seem aimless if not for his eyes, which were trained, hawk-like, on every shiver and sigh his roaming provoked. Much like spotting a weakness that he could exploit in a target, Astarion evaluated and catalogued all the little tells of pleasure: her ribs, the backs of her thighs, the base of her tail.
Hol’s hands, meanwhile, were surprisingly steady as they worked on the laces of his trousers, that last barrier between them.
After flicking her eyes across him to confirm that he was gazing at her as hungrily as ever, she slid down over him slowly, both of them sighing at the sweet drag of skin on skin. It almost seemed endless, the warm, tight grip of her moving over his length, her thumbs pushing urgent little circles into his hips.
Astarion rocked with her smooth pace, his one hand lifting up under her thigh for a better angle, the other moving slick and gentle against her clit. He was patient; he could wait hours for the other to ride out their pleasure as he let his own build in a slow, lazy heat. Sex was one of his small freedoms, one he felt compelled not to rush.
Hol seemed to be building up rather quickly, though - head rolled back, fingers tightening reflexively against his stomach. He preened a little. Someone should do something about that.
He ran his hands down the sides of her body, planes of muscle shifting beneath his palms, and cinched them around her hips, trapping her movement as she took him in to the hilt.
She gasped, caught off her rhythm, the friction she was chasing dangling just out of reach.
He met her glare with an angelic smile, and, when she dug her nails into his forearms, indulged himself by rocking below her in small, circular strokes that definitely weren't hitting where she wanted. But oh, she felt good, hot and enveloping, like the first sweet blush of blood her heart had pumped into his mouth.
He could feel her quiver travel from where she was fluttering around him like a trapped bird, to where her hips were fruitlessly struggling against his hands, to the puffs of air from her mouth on his neck as she bit him...
She bit him!
Not hard, he was relieved to find - she had fangs of her own - and she soothed the impact with tongue, dragging her lips up his neck, to the curve of his jaw, arriving at the sensitive shell of his ear. He shivered under the contrast of her; sharp pinpricks of teeth pillowed by soft, flushed lips. Her mouth travelled up, tongue moving in small, hot circles, matching the rhythm of his teasing thrusts, until she reached the tip of his ear and-
He groaned as Hol pulled away, catching his gaze and smiling faintly despite the ragged breaths that were escaping her. After a beat she tilted her head to the side, eyes sliding down to her shoulder then back up to his face, the exposed column of her neck tantalizingly close. She quirked an eyebrow at him.
Well then.
Astarion still held her hips locked flush against his, her tail whipping and twining desperately against his legs. It was getting harder to limit himself to shallow thrusts, considering all he wanted to do was have her sink onto him, over and over.
When was he ever the one to deny himself what he wanted?
He released her, the momentum of her tensed muscles carrying her up and almost entirely off him. Astarion thrust up as he bit down - harder than she had - his fangs and his cock pushing past the sweet resistance of skin into blossoming warmth. Hol sighed with relief, tension and blood draining out of her as they started to chase a new rhythm, though he could feel her hand splayed across his collarbone, ready to shove or twist.
He really should limit himself, as contrary to his nature as that may be.
He allowed himself to pull on her essence once, twice. Her blood coated his mouth, no less overwhelming than the last time, even with the lineup of bandits and goblins he’d sampled between that fateful night and now. The little passionate noises she was making and the way her body gripped him made it damnably hard to pull himself away.
He needed a mental equivalent of a bucket of cold water. Thankfully, he had a deep well of unsavoury memories to draw on. They wriggled, darker and more sinister even than the worm in his skull, and he forced his jaw to unclench, releasing Hol’s neck with a slick sound.
He craned his head away and shut his eyes against the dripping blood that began to pool in hot puddles on his chest; a man averting his gaze from an oasis to glare at the scorching sand instead.
Hol seemed to sense some shift in him. Her movements slowed, then stopped entirely, and a hand came up to cradle his jaw. She stroked it, gently coaxing him to look at her.
It just wouldn’t do.
He nipped at her thumb where it was resting on his chin, then hooked his leg around hers to flip them over in one smooth motion.
Astarion leaned back, taking a moment to look at her beneath him. She watched him with lidded eyes, darkened with lust but just on the edge of shifting to alertness. Moonlight seeped into the blue of her sweat-slicked skin, glinting off as if it was caught on endlessly deep water.
He ran his hand down her neck and between her breasts, stopping to caress one as his hips began to move in deliberate, deep strokes that his earlier teasing only hinted at. Hol relaxed, head rolling back, and cupped herself where they were joined, starting to chase her pleasure in earnest.
All of this had gotten rather more intense than he anticipated, and Astarion felt himself teeter dangerously on the edge of restraint. The smell of blood and sweat was cloying; rich and inescapable, and he emphatically needed to guide both of them away from the headiness of it all.
He leaned down to plant kisses on her shoulder, her cheek, then ran his lips feather-light to her ear.
“Come along, my love,” he murmured hotly, and closed his teeth on her earlobe.
Hol seemed eager to obey. The wave of ecstasy crested over her, inevitable, and she clutched at his back as it rolled in. Her body rippled around him in needy little bursts, thumping heart echoing in his chest. Astarion sighed as he followed her over, head landing helplessly into the crook of her shoulder.
The aftershocks seemed to run through him a little longer than he was used to, but they eventually settled to invite in a gentle weightlessness. He hadn't bit her as deeply as the first time, and the trickle of blood had stopped entirely by the time they collapsed together, shaking and spent. Hol pulled a blanket around them both.
Astarion half-slid off of her, reluctant to part with the heat in favour of the chill night air that already started to seep in through the covers.
He waited as Hol’s breathing evened out. The day of brutal battles, shitty parties, and excellent sex must have hit her like a battering ram, because the rise and fall of her chest soon settled into a slow tempo of someone deeply asleep.
He tentatively stuck his foot out from the safety of the blanket, then yanked it back immediately. Frigid. But he’d have to brave it. After a few more minutes.