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“You’re tense.”
The words came from Liarel as Isaac passed her in the castle’s spiral stairwell. She was going up and he was heading down, and he was happy to see her come around the corner even despite the look of cloudy irritation on her face. She said nothing to greet him, but Isaac had expected as much; this was not the first time he had caught her in a foul mood these past few weeks.
He turned to face her, his hand upon the rail. She glared down at him, her lower lip jutting out in something that might have been a pout on anyone else, but what Isaac recognized as a look of contemplation, or concentration, on her. She was trying to puzzle something out, dancing around her true thoughts without giving them voice. It was unlike her; she was normally so direct. Something must have been bothering Liarel greatly, but even so, Isaac could not help but feel endeared.
“We’re in tense times,” he responded evenly, meeting her eye as neutrally as he could. Standing a few steps above him, Liarel was able to look down on him; but when she took one step down, boot heels echoing as they tapped against the stone, they saw eye-to-eye.
Liarel glared. “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she said. That was far more like her, Isaac thought, and he smiled before he could think better of it. He stepped closer to her too, ascending two stairs in one stride. He was still a few steps below her, but Isaac was tall enough that she had to look up to hold his gaze. That was something Isaac had always been self-conscious about – he hated to imagine people thinking he looked down on them – but it had become a sort of comfort to him, seeing Liarel’s defiant gaze turned up to him.
“I know,” he said. He reached for her; Liarel stepped forward, perhaps without thinking, and pressed herself against him. She rested her cheek on his chest and allowed Isaac to embrace her with one arm, sighing as its weight settled around her. Every single muscle in her back and shoulders was tense before she forced herself to relax.
Isaac hummed. “I’m not the only one, am I?”
It wasn’t really a question. Liarel buried her face in Isaac’s chest as though that would hide her embarrassment, and Isaac – unwittingly – laughed at such a childish response. She wouldn’t dare to show this side of herself to anyone else – he knew this – and so he counted himself lucky to be the only one privileged enough to see her at her most vulnerable.
“Like you said, we’re in tense times.” Her voice was muffled, but Isaac heard her loud and clear. The hand on her back slid up to stroke the back of her head. The short, soft strands of her moonlight-silver hair were soothing to the touch. Isaac took comfort in the feeling.
“The war is over, but we’re still surrounded by enemies. It’s hard to tell who is friend and who is foe when everyone carries a knife behind their back.”
Liarel looked up. “Is that meant to be a joke?”
Again, Isaac laughed, this time by choice. “No. I know the dagger you have tucked into your belt is for my protection.” He ran his hand over it for good measure, and Liarel tensed, more out of instinct than anything. Isaac took no offense.
Liarel relaxed again a moment later. “All of it is,” she said. “Everything I do is for you, seras .”
“I know.”
Isaac tucked his nose into her hair, inhaling lightly of her scent. That, too, was a comfort and a luxury neither of them had been able to indulge in as of late. He missed her terribly, even despite how close at hand she always was. He knew she missed him, too.
“Stay with me tonight,” he murmured against the top of her head. Liarel’s hands clenched behind his back, fingers tangling in the thick, soft fabric of his cape.
“I can’t,” she said. “What if—”
“The guards can do without their spymaster for one night,” Isaac insisted. Then, lowering his voice to nothing but a whisper: “Please, Li. I need you.”
Liarel hesitated. He felt it in the flex of her fingers, in the tightening of the muscles at her front and back. She pressed her face into his chest and took a deep breath; he felt the warmth of her exhale through his shirt.
“Weren’t you in the middle of something?” she asked, which told Isaac she had conceded. “I’d hate to steal the king from his business.”
“Truthfully, I’d only gone up to get some air. I’d have stayed longer, but the wind has picked up. It’s quite cold.” He smiled.
“Even though you’re practically a human hearth?” Liarel joked. She laughed and pulled back, just enough that she could freely look up into Isaac’s eyes. “Fine. If it’s that cold, I won’t deny your offer of keeping me warm.”
“I’m glad,” Isaac said, and kissed her.
It was some time before Liarel came up to his room. Isaac had gone first so as not to rouse suspicion – they were still trying to keep their relationship a secret, after all – but she had followed an hour later, much sooner than expected. Isaac was only barely out of the bath when he heard the door to his chambers creak open and saw the black cat shadow of Liarel creep into the room.
“You’re early,” he said, fond, when she stripped herself of her cloak and weapons and laid them on the sitting table.
“And you’re prepared,” she shot back, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lip. “Didn’t even bother to redress?”
“I hadn’t any time to,” Isaac chuckled. “But what point would there have been, anyway? You know as well as I what it is we both want.”
“I do,” Liarel agreed, “but you know how I like stripping you down.”
Isaac smiled. “My robe will have to suffice.”
And suffice it did. Liarel’s smile softened as she stepped forward, arms outstretched, and laid her hands on Isaac’s strong, sturdy shoulders. Her fingers spread gently over his dressing gown, and she slowly slid it off him, exposing his well-muscled arms inch by inch by inch. Isaac nearly closed his eyes to indulge in the sensation, his skin oversensitive from anticipation, but he forced himself not to: he wanted to see Liarel’s face, to witness each and every moment they shared together, for he did not know when the next would come.
The robe fell from his shoulders. Liarel worked the belt next, tugging it loose and slipping it from its loops. She didn’t really need to – simply opening it would have been enough to expose him – but she was nothing if not thorough.
“Already excited to see me,” she said, looking down to note that his cock had begun to stiffen. How could it not, though? She was beautiful, and he loved her dearly, even though neither of them dared to speak their feelings aloud.
“I am,” Isaac admitted easily. He smiled down at her and traced his hand over the curve of her jaw, carefully cupping her face and stroking it with his thumb. It took everything he had in him to be gentle, to make this moment last; he wanted nothing more than to pull her to him, to lift her up and crush their lips together, to stumble toward the bed and throw her down onto it – but no, he had to take his time. He had to savor this.
He kissed her anyway and Liarel stood up on her toes to reach him. He hummed against her lips and she swiped her tongue cheekily across his, prompting him to open them and let her in. He welcomed her eagerly, allowing her to lead for now, to set the pace and deepen the kiss as much as she pleased. And of course, Liarel did not disappoint: she attacked his mouth with all the skill and passion she put into her work, using everything she had learned about him and what he liked to make him succumb to her desires – though, admittedly, it wasn’t hard. He was more than happy to. Anything, everything for his Liarel.
When she finally broke away from him, a thin line of saliva keeping them connected, Liarel smirked. “Reminds me of our first night together,” she said. “Me sneaking into your tent and kissing you like I’d die if I didn’t.”
Isaac sighed, fond at the recollection “I can’t say I was expecting it then,” he said. “But now…”
He leaned in again. Liarel met him halfway. They kissed again, softer and slower than before, but no less enthusiastically. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hopped in place; and Isaac, knowing what she wanted, caught her around the middle, careful not to squeeze too tight lest he crush her chest. Liarel moaned into his mouth the moment she felt his arms around her, and Isaac groaned in return, stepping forward and submitting to his earlier desire to carry her to the bed.
He set her down gently on it, their mouths parting for but a moment before he crawled back on top of her. Liarel spread her still-clothed legs, wrapping them around Isaac’s waist and urging him closer to her. He followed her silent order happily, shifting forward so one of his knees pressed between her legs. She rolled her hips against it, sighing pleasantly against his lips.
“Get these off of me,” she commanded, pinching a fold of her trousers between two fingers. Liarel undid the clasp of her belt herself, and while Isaac set to work tugging her pants down and off, she divested herself of her shirt, vest, and undershirt all at once.
“I’m always impressed with how you can do that,” Isaac said. Liarel simply scoffed, but there was a pleased tilt to her lips and a light flush on her face that Isaac couldn’t help but feel wasn’t just from kissing.
“You learn to dress and strip quickly in my line of work,” she said. “You never know when you’re going to be called to work.”
“I’m sure.” Isaac smiled, but it faltered a half second later. “I don’t work you too hard, do I?”
A look of surprise crossed Liarel’s face, her eyes widening minutely and her brows twitching upward. Then, quietly, as she reached up to caress Isaac’s face, she said, “No, seras . Not at all. If anything, I’d do more.”
It wasn’t necessary. She already did so much. Isaac opened his mouth to say so, but he found that he suddenly couldn’t get his words to cooperate. Liarel likely didn’t need to hear them, anyway, and nor did she seem to want to, because a moment later she patted his cheek and said, “Fuck me.”
She took Isaac’s hand and put it on her breast. Isaac could feel his face heat, no doubt painting his cheeks a bright red, but he obliged her as always. Isaac squeezed one breast in one hand, then lowered his mouth to the other, flicking his tongue out to run it over the stiff peak of her nipple. Liarel moaned, squirming under his touch, and bent her back to arch up against him.
Pleased, Isaac took her breast into his mouth. He sucked on her nipple, pinching it lightly between his teeth, and moaned around it when she re-wrapped her legs around him. “Gods, Ike,” she gasped, twitching upward and pressing herself as close to him as she could, “Your mouth, it’s—”
“Good?” Isaac asked, pulling away for just a moment so he could switch to the other side. He replaced his hand with his mouth, and sucked on that nipple too, running his thumb over the one he’d wetted with his tongue a moment before.
“Yes!” Liarel gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise. She was loud – louder than she should have been, maybe – but Isaac’s chambers were big and the walls thick, so he didn’t worry about it. If anything, he was delighted to find she was enjoying herself so much for how little he’d done.
He bit down. Liarel cried out under her hand, and a moment later, she’d clapped it to the back of his head, tangling her fingers so tightly in his hair Isaac worried she might have torn some out. “More – oh, seras , more, please, use your mouth, I want—”
He knew what she wanted. Even so, Isaac still felt a distinct swoop in the pit of his stomach. This was far from the first night they’d spent together, but he still found that he was a little bit shy, unused to hearing anyone be so direct and demanding, particularly in matters of sex. He was grateful she was carried away enough by pleasure that she hadn’t managed to bite out anything vulgar, if only because he might have burst into flames out of embarrassment.
He obeyed her unspoken demand anyway, releasing her breast and trailing kisses down the length of her abdomen until he reached her stomach. There, he traced his tongue around her navel and dragged it down, trying not to laugh at how she squirmed under him. He knew Liarel was just the slightest bit ticklish, and it never ceased to endear him to her, seeing how the brusque, composed spymaster giggled and twitched when touched the wrong way.
“Tease,” she said above him, though her voice was breathy and hollow. When Isaac’s eyes rolled up to gaze at her from beneath his lashes, she was smiling, and he returned it fondly.
“My apologies,” he said. “I just wanted to indulge a bit. I won’t make you wait anymore.”
And with that, he took her legs in his hands, spread them apart, and pressed his mouth to her pussy.
Liarel tasted amazing. It was something Isaac had taken time to get used to, but once he had, he found that he craved her in ways he never would have expected. Perhaps it was simply his werewolf blood making itself known, but he wanted to devour her, to sink his tongue inside her, to move up and bite her, mark her, claim her. She’d let him, he knew, but he could not risk that – his strength was something to be controlled, not used recklessly, and he would never forgive himself if he hurt her. For now, he would simply content himself with this, with sliding his tongue between her folds and sucking her clit into his mouth.
Liarel moaned. She spread her legs wider, even without Isaac’s prompting, and once again pushed him forward by the back of the head. He went happily, groaning as he felt a small trickle of wetness slide down his chin and soak into his beard. Her felt her clit twitch against his tongue, and he knew, then, that she was already close.
And oh, what a feeling that was – that he could bring her to the brink of such exquisite pleasure, and so soon! He’d hardly done anything, but he understood exactly how she must have felt. Isaac himself was unbearably hard, his cock twitching painfully as it rubbed against the bedsheets. They felt damp under him, though whether that was from sweat or his own precum, he wasn’t sure; he decided it didn’t matter, because that wasn’t what he needed to focus on right now. His pleasure came second, after Liarel’s – everything came second to Liarel, his Liarel.
“Fuck, Isaac – ah, Ike, seras , stop, please, or I’m gonna—” But as she said that, Isaac swirled his tongue around her clit and slid it into her hole, and Liarel came with a start, gushing into his mouth and coating his chin with her slick. The warning had come too late, and so Isaac disregarded it, thrusting his tongue in and out of her as she rode out her orgasm. He stopped only when she went limp against him, her hands untangling from his hair and falling uselessly beside her on the bed.
Her chest was heaving when Isaac finally came up, licking his lips as he stared down at her. She rolled her eyes up to meet his, a hazy smile clouding her expression, and she laughed, breathless and content.
“Inside me,” she said, insatiable. “I want you inside me now.”
And, as always, Isaac was happy to obey.
He knelt between her legs and thrusted into her in one long, smooth motion, bottoming out almost immediately after sinking past her entrance. It was always such a strange feeling, sheathing herself inside his beloved like this: she was so tight, so hot and wet, and all Isaac wanted was to keep thrusting, to pin her down and ravage her.
He could. It would be easy. But he was as scared of his own strength as his enemies were, and if he crushed her in his attempt to show her how much he loved her…
Liarel’s voice cut through his thoughts before he could entertain them further: “Stop thinking,” she said. “Just move.”
Isaac laughed, more a huff of breath than anything. “I just don’t want to overdo it.”
“You won’t,” Liarel told him. “You’re big, but it’s nothing I haven’t taken before. I’m used to you by now, Ike.”
A shiver wracked his body at the thought of her moulding herself to him, starting from the top of his spine and ending in the tips of his toes. “Li…”
She clenched down around him. Isaac nearly choked.
“C’mon,” she said. “Trust me.”
He did. He trusted her more than anything. And so with that, he nodded and drew his hips back.
“Ah!” Liarel gasped when Isaac’s hips snapped forward, driving his cock deep inside her. She smiled, ecstatic, her eyes wide and her lips parted wider. “Yes – there, Ike, that’s it, that’s what I – ahh!”
She cut herself off with another cry. Isaac snaked his hands under her hips and lifted them, thumbs digging in just above her pelvic bone. He pulled her to him, driving her as far onto his cock as she could go, and he ground up into her, hitting her deepest, most sensitive parts. Liarel moaned, unfettered, her eyes rolling back and head lolling onto the bed, helpless against Isaac’s brutal, possessive hold.
He still fretted about how tightly he was gripping her – much harder and she would bruise – but the way Liarel clenched and unclenched around him as she spasmed on his cock was enough to nearly drive the thought from his mind. He chased the pleasure of fucking her mindlessly, grunting as he snapped his hips and she began to rock against him in time with his thrusts.
“Yeah,” Liarel breathed. She shivered. Her hands clenched in the sheets. The next thing Isaac knew, she had grown impossibly tight around him, and the slide of his cock in and out of her had gotten even easier as his cock became soaked in her juices. Liarel came again, almost silently this time, the only sound signifying it a breathy gasp from between her gorgeously parted lips.
Isaac kept thrusting, but slowed down so as not to overdo it. He was getting close, too, and he wanted this to last – but when he stopped entirely, and when Liarel came down from the high of her second orgasm, she kicked him with the back of her heel, still hooked around his waist.
“What’re you doing?” she asked, voice slurred with pleasure. “Don’t stop… I still want…”
“Liarel,” Isaac whispered, leaning down to kiss her. “Liarel, Liarel, Liarel…”
She kissed him back between every whisper of her name, smiling against his lips so strongly that Isaac could feel her teeth. He didn’t have to tell her what he was thinking, embarrassing as it was; she just knew.
Liarel pushed herself up to rest on her elbows, and then up again until she and Isaac were both sitting upright, he on the bed and she in his lap. They were still joined together, his cock firm and hard and twitching inside her, and she rocking her hips to coax it back to action.
“Fuck me,” she said, an echo of when she’d asked before. “And don’t hold back.”
Isaac’s eyes widened. “Li…”
“I want it,” she said, and as if to emphasize it, she pressed her hands to the backs of his shoulders, dug her nails in, and dragged them down across his skin.
Isaac’s breath caught in his throat as his back exploded in wonderful, exquisite pain. He arched against Liarel, pressing their chests together, her breasts squishing up against his. It felt good, so good, to be this close to her, to feel her hands on him, to have his nerves light up as if they were in battle, the two of them fighting for their lives side-by-side, just as they always had. And then – then, in that state, as adrenaline coursed through him, burning in his veins and electrifying his senses, he understood.
And he gave her what she wanted.
Isaac’s nails dug into Liarel’s hips. She hissed in pain, sucking in a breath through her teeth, which were bared in a feral smile, and she lifted herself up only to slam herself back down on his cock, fucking herself on it until he sunk his teeth into her neck, pushed her down on the bed, and fucked her.
He thrust into her hard and fast and deep, so feverish with desire that she could find no purchase below him. She was completely at his mercy, her body limp beneath his, and she laughed and moaned and gasped, pulling on Isaac’s hair and trying desperately to keep time with his thrusts. She couldn’t, though; she was helpless as a ragdoll beneath him, and if she hadn’t been moaning and crying out, “Yes, yes, like that, Ike, just like – fuck, just like that!” then he might have been worried about breaking her. As it was, though, he could feel his mind fog up, and could feel bruises forming under his fingers and beneath his teeth where he’d bitten into her neck and sucked mark after mark into it.
The haze of pleasure building up inside him was nearly blinding. It was all Isaac could do to focus enough to pull back and look Liarel in the eye as she came one last time on his cock. She cried out, pussy clenching down and entire body pulsing with pleasure, and she smiled up at him, nearly mindless herself.
At the same time, the two of them surged forward, their lips meeting in the middle for one last messy, heated kiss. Isaac dragged his tongue across Liarel’s lips and she pressed hers against his teeth, and Isaac came, thrusting into Liarel one last time and hitting her as deep as he could go. Her eyes flew wide open and his squeezed shut, imprinting the image of the wild, feverish pleasure in her smile on the backs of his eyelids and in his mind’s eye forever.
His hips twitched as his orgasm slowly began to fade and taper off. When he felt his cock soften inside her, only then did the fog of ecstasy in his mind begin to recede. Isaac collapsed on his side next to Liarel, and Liarel turned with him, making sure he stayed inside her until she was ready for him to pull out.
She reached out and dragged the sweat-damp pads of her fingers down his jaw, tickling him as her nails dragged against his beard.
“There, seras ,” she said, smiling affectionately at him. “Do you feel better now?”
Isaac blinked sleepily. It took a moment for his mind to catch up with what she asked, and when it did, he pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms around her just as he had when they were in the tower’s spiral stairwell. “Yes, my love,” he said, murmuring the words against her cheek. “As long as I am with you, nothing could make me happier.”
He felt her smile, and when her hand moved to the back of his head, her touch was gentle rather than rough, her fingers carding through his hair rather than pulling it as she had so many times before.
“Good,” she said. “Because I feel better, too.”
And that was all he’d ever wanted.