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Cardan Greenbriar is a simple creature. A creature that craves touch, wants touch, needs touch. Cardan aches for it. And when he gets such touch — the mere brush of a fingertip against his porcelain flesh or the firm squeeze of a smooth palm to his throat — it’s if he is doused in holy water; shined on by the divine light of Mab; buried deep in the heavens’ soil. When it goes away, pieces of Cardan’s very soul venture with it, and do not return until the warmth, the grace, the beauty of touch is once again blessing his cruel, hideous, cold husk that he dares call his body.
For years and years, Cardan has prayed for touch, unashamedly knelt until his knees were blistered and sore, bowing his head to the floor and wishing for touch. Kind touch; not Balekin’s mean touch — touch that left his back in fiery agony — but the touch of something gentle and caring.
“Please,” Cardan would say, would plead, would beg, “Please, Grandmother, bless me with something warm.”
Mab had granted his wish, but only for a short while. Cardan basked in Nicasia. She was salty in every sense of the word, but her hands were like two breaths of fresh air. Then she laid with Locke, and Cardan could no longer bear her touch, no longer desired it. It had gone sour, just as his body. Her touch lingered like the scars on his back from the expensive leather of the whip Balekin would torture him with.
After that, Cardan stopped wanting touch so badly. He no longer put himself unnecessarily near his friends, nor did he travel to his sisters and offer to help them ready for banquets and ballparties. He distanced himself from his greed for touch. Cardan had been doing fine.
Until Jude.
Jude, Jude, Jude. His God. His merciless mortal. She defied him as no one had before, she had the audacity to speak to him cruelly, and all the while being a mere human. This angered Cardan, but also excited him. He wondered if Jude’s human hands would feel different than Faerie hands; all they had done was hurt Cardan. But with this wondering came shame. Self-disgust. Rage. How dare he ache for the touch of a girl so below him? His thoughts consisted of her far too often, and almost immediately after daydreaming of her sweetness, he would curse her — away with her strange, round ears. Away with her humanness. Away with the way she lures me.
Even while being beaten by his dearest brother, he thought of her. Jude. He would write this wretched name a million times in ink in hopes of getting her out of his head. She taunted him almost — with her defiance, with her strength, with her undeserving power she had over him. She should mean nothing to Cardan, but Cardan found himself jealous. Jealous that he likely didn’t have a place in her mind as she did in his. Jealous of various other things as well — things Cardan wishes not to think of at the moment.
Then, Cardan got a taste of Jude’s touch.
It destroyed him, yet put him back together all the same. From the moment she touched him, regardless of it being unkind, her very being wrapped around him like a snake and squeezed, squeezed, squeezed. He wanted her touch again. And again. And again. A million times more. And then some.
Jude is the forbidden apple, the mercury tea in the Mad Hatter’s cup.
Then. Then, Jude’s touch became tender. Loving? Cardan doesn’t know loving touch, but he’s positively sure that this is the closest he shall get to it.
His wife and her addicting touch. Jude’s hands were like a benediction. It purifies all of Cardan’s sins.
And when Cardan is sprawled beneath her, arching and pressing into her touch while panting like a madman, throbbing and shuddering as she desecrates him so sweetly. When Cardan is full of her and nothing but her, the steady rocking of her hips pushing her deeper and when Cardan feels as if he could weep, he will beg for her touch.
“Please,” Cardan would mewl. He would be moaning, gasping, sweating. Absolutely and completely wrecked. Jude would be above him — always — staring down at him, her brown eyes shining in the dim fire light like ambers, gleaming and beautiful. So, so gorgeous. Cardan would writhe, fisting the sheets and tail whipping through the air in desperation.
“Please, my love. My darling wife. My God. I need you. Touch me until I can no longer take it. And even after that, if you will.” His words would be slurred and breathy, obviously, because he always comes undone before Jude really even started.
“Shh, my needy king,” Jude would purr. It would send shivers down the bony knobs of Cardan’s spine, which would bend at Jude’s will as she contorts and positions him to her liking. “I will give it to you.”
Jude never, never makes him beg, but Cardan does anyway. Jude always, always gifts him with her touch, but Cardan acts as if he’ll never receive it again. That eagerness pleases Jude, though, so Cardan mustn’t stop. Every now and then, Jude will lay out on their bed and let Cardan ravish her. Those times, even then, Cardan is a slave to her touch. Even when he’s given control. He likes being beneath her; he likes her being beneath him, taking in his gratitude just as much.
He loves Jude. So much. He lets her know this with every moan, with every guttural groan, with every twitch and gasp, with every scream and shout, with every tear-filled cry, with every spasm of his insides around her.
Jude loves him. So much. She lets him know this by being gentle, by being rough, by molding their hips together and staying still and letting Cardan melt into her, by rocking her hips slowly as if she were lulling Cardan to sleep, by folding Cardan’s body in half and pounding into him with such force it leaves Cardan unable to breathe.
The taste of Jude’s touch lingers on his tongue like a song, and Cardan sings for Jude on the nights where she demands a show.
“Cardan,” His Jude says, voice soft. They are lying atop their enormous bed, Cardan on his stomach and Jude on her side, her fingers stroking mindless patterns on his back. She’s tracing his scars. She does that often, and sometimes Cardan thinks she’s trying to replace the bad memories that are connected to them with her love. Cardan believes it’s working.
Evidence of their love-making is drying against the sheets and is a steady throb in Cardan’s backside. The fire goes, crackling and glistening in Cardan’s peripheral vision, the cool, pale blue light of the moon contrasting grandly with the warmth of the fire.
Inhaling slowly and deeply, letting the scent of Jude’s sweet shampoo and her natural fragrance grace his lungs, Cardan replies, “Yes, my dear?”
His Queen glides her hands up and down his spine, trailing where his tail protrudes from the small of his back and to the nape of his neck where she has bitten him numerous times. When her hand stoops low, Cardan’s tail slithers around her wrist, holding onto her.
“When I touch you, you react so intensely.” Jude murmurs, her fingers moving up gently into his hair, stroking through the silky black curls. “Why is that?”
Cardan sighs, his eyes sliding closed. “Before you, touch was rare, if not impossible to receive. Nobody wanted to be near me, for reasons you are aware of. I longed for touch. Ached for it.” Cardan pauses. “I still do. I think, because I wasn’t touched often, I am fairly sensitive to it, which is why you manage to make me shatter so easily.” Cardan’s tone turns slightly teasing. He rolls over slightly to smirk up at his darling Jude. “Does that please you, my sweet?”
“Hmm,” Jude says. It does please her. Cardan can tell. She leans in, kissing Cardan on the lips, her hands cupping his head and cradling the back of his skull. Cardan kisses her back, eyes fluttering closed once more. “Yes,” she whispers against his mouth, “it does.”
“Then it pleases me as well.” Cardan mumbles. Jude pulls away from him slowly, and draws him to her body. Cardan goes easily, but he can’t help but want to be even closer. Cardan wants to deliquese into her, wants to climb inside her ribcage and live in the grooves of her bones. Wants to wrap himself around her heart and keep it beating for all eternity, wants to rest upon the dips in her hipbones. Wants to sleep in the crux of her collarbone and hug the slope of her shoulders.
Jude wraps her arms around him, the warmth of her bare body pressed against his own. Cardan embraces her.
Cardan Greenbriar is a simple creature. A simple creature who finally has touch.
But this does not stop him from craving it. Cardan is sure he will crave touch for as long as he shall live. But that is alright. Because when Cardan finds his skin burning with the need, Jude will be there to caress the ache away.