Chapter Text
That’s the end of the sex talk, or so Marie thinks. A surreal moment where suddenly ale could make her hallucinate. Or loneliness and vulnerability and far too much to drink – she isn’t about to think anything of it. She wakes up the morning after taking Vasco out for drinks, has a vague memory of the conversation and wants to bury her head in the pillows all over again, but that’s about it. When it comes to things that aren’t mocking his guild or being rampantly cruel, Vasco has a sneaky sense of humour. It would have been a disaster three months ago, when he was still a step back and prickly, but she wouldn’t have said it three months ago. They’re going to be all right.
Aside from the odd wince, Marie forgets all about it and gets on with her week. A few days after that nasty business with the Luminis, they run into trouble again, when what was meant to be a simple investigation of a nearby bandit camp becomes fighting far too many beasts. She turns when they’re still breathless from a fight with four ulgs, just to check everyone over. Kurt’s grimacing and wiping off his sword, and Vasco’s... looking at her out of the corner of his eye, that way he gets when he’s trying to find a moment to speak to her.
She nods a little, and he returns it – briefly, curtly. In private, then. Some fallout of Bastien’s actions? A Naut matter? She’ll find a moment. They’re about to meander back to New Serene, anyway; this was a swift check of a few merchant caravans from bandits, to prevent trouble with the Bridge. (They like to say the Congregation’s roads are more unsafe than theirs. Utter nonsense, and Constantin refuses to let them be smug about it any longer. She privately agrees, and besides, she’s certainly not letting them send over their own guards and start sticking their fingers in New Serene business.)
Marie cleans her sword and rolls her shoulders, and they make their easy way back into New Serene. It’s a rare quiet day – quiet few days, really. They’ll have to deal with cleaning up more Guard business, and at the end of the week they’ll be setting off to San-Matheus, but she doesn’t have any meetings with governors – aside from informal tea with Constantin while he rants about courtiers, that is. She’s not about to start any wars, as far as she can tell, and she gets to sleep in her own bed. She’ll take it.
Kurt asks whether they should head to the tavern, but she says something about needing to get the, well, the ulg off her. He nods at that, and then she waves as he heads off to the barracks. They’ll meet again before dinner; this routine is familiar.
“De Sardet?” Vasco says, quietly. “Can we speak a moment?”
She smiles, and tries not to look overly worried. “Of course.” And she gestures with her head, where they can step into a side alley. It’s a good spot: a quiet street, but the city’s steady hum and bustle cover all manner of conversational sins. She says, “What is it?”
He licks his lips, and then says, “Your offer. Did you mean it?” It’s swift, and the sort of carefully calm that she’s gathered means he’s nervous.
“My…?” she starts, dumbly.
His voice is quiet, his eyes dark. "From what you said, I thought we could both do with a little… relief."
And then it hits her like a landslide. If you’re ever feeling lonely, it’s always a delight to have a dashing captain in my chamber. For one dizzying moment, Marie forgets how to breathe. So it wasn’t entirely her imagination. She stares at him – realises, suddenly, how many steps back he is, as if he hasn’t wanted to crowd her. As if he’s been so careful, because he’s… he’s been thinking this over. Trying to find the best way, as he always does. He wants –
“Yes,” she says, all at once, much to her own surprise. She tries it out again in her head and realises, yes. It’s the truth. Something in her gut has grabbed onto the idea and won’t let go. She’d never allowed herself to think of it – hired by her family, and then forced into her retinue by the Admiral, and then her friend – but she realises with some surprise that yes, she does. He’s her friend, and he’s a very attractive man. One with a presence about him, a wryness in his eye. If they’d met under better circumstances, if she knew him less well, the sort of man she might gladly have taken to her bed. Marie tries to shut away the idea of asking Léandre d’Arcy into a back room at some party, the swift unlacing of flies and the rearranging of makeup. She knows that dance better, but somehow, it has far, far less appeal than… the man in front of her, she realises, a sparking curiosity going up the back of her neck.
She repeats, after too long a pause, “Yes, I meant it.”
He looks like he can finally exhale. It shows on his face before he can quite shut it away, his shoulders untensing. It's fascinating watching him recover his confidence. She realises she's smiling. "And you want to provide me that… relief?" Her voice has unintentionally dropped into that back-room register, with breath in it – and from the way his mouth opens just a little, his eyes scraping over her face, he hears it. She’d forgotten what it was like, playing this particular game, being this. It’s like putting on a good coat and a pair of stockings, the way it makes her feel a little like someone else, or perhaps truly like herself for the first time in a while.
He steps closer now. "We look out for each other in other ways," he says, with studied casualness – but there's the hint of a smile underneath. "Is it really so strange?"
She swallows. "When you put it like that… And as you said, these things are always easier with a friend."
And his small, pleased smile at that, that she knows. This is almost like one of their ordinary conversations, except her steady, careful friend has apparently been pent-up and thinking of her in his bed, and he's standing so close, and the air is so warm – was it quite so warm a moment ago? – and they're speaking of...
She tries to find dry land. “But Vasco, we were… not exactly sober. You know I won’t hold you to anything, don’t you? Even if we… I don’t want to presume.” She swallows.
He takes another step forwards, two. “And if I want you to presume?” he says, quietly, voice a sort of rough she doesn’t think she’s heard before. It goes through her in a way she hadn’t quite expected.
She inhales, distracted by the closeness of him, and then smiles. “Then I would say I’m very flattered, captain.” She tries to find her practicality under the tingling in her fingers, the speeding of her heart. “But we all have so much to do, and you should think it over. Two days?”
He nods, not taking his eyes off her, but there’s the beginning of a smile playing at his lips. A sign of things to come, she hopes.
She says, softly, “Knock on my door that second night. At a quarter past nine.” She swallows. “And I promise you, if you don’t knock… these things happen. I won’t hold it against you.”
He reaches a slow hand out to her face, and her heartbeat flies, her lips tingling. She hadn’t expected how much, but she wants – he tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, hand gentle and gaze intent, shifting towards her…
“I’ll be there,” he says, stepping back. He nods, and touches his hat. “De Sardet,” he adds, like they’ve just been having a conversation about the price of fish, and leaves her there.
She smooths back her hair, trying not to think of his fingers on her skin. Trying not to think about those hands that have passed her potions, cocked pistols, pulled her back from projectiles, instead unbuttoning her doublet or slipping into her trousers. Things that a few short minutes ago would have been a swiftly-forgotten dream, or the flash of an idea in the strange hours before dawn that she tried to repress – things that are now seeming thrillingly, frighteningly possible. She’s done this dance before. She knows what it is to look forward to meeting a paramour. But it’s been some time, from how foolishly distracted she feels. She recalls years of practice, takes a deep breath, and plasters calm onto her face. Then she sets off for home.
Logic dictates that this must be some elaborate joke, or that Vasco will have come to his senses. He was sober, but adrenaline can make anyone go a bit mad. These things don’t happen, and they certainly don’t with Vasco, who still squints at nobility on their missions and always seems surprised when she asks him about himself – as if he’s still not quite used to someone like her giving a damn about someone like him, though that's been wearing off, day by day. And if they exhaustedly bump shoulders by the campfire, or he’s instantly at her back with a potion, well. That’s a different sort of trust. It has nothing to do with being invited into someone’s chamber. Clearly the combination of new responsibility, a whole new island, and having too-attractive comrades has caused her to lose her mind. The solution is probably another cup of tea, to distract herself, and to forget about this odd daydream.
And yet two days later, at a quarter past nine on the dot – a captain's precision – there's a knock at her door. Quiet, but firm. Her spine prickles. She double-checks the clock, but it still reads the same. She’s still half-telling herself that it must be a courier with last-minute news or Kurt to discuss some battle plan for tomorrow when she opens the door. The reality is harder to deny when she finds a certain captain watching her, standing on her doorstep with a sort of careful wariness that suggests he’s not shifting from foot to foot through sheer force of will.
"Vasco," she says, aiming for ordinary and landing somewhere near too airy, verging on demented. She tries not to let every absolutely filthy thought she's had since his proposition show all over her face, heart speeding. He's always been able to see through her too well.
"De Sardet," he says, voice casual – but his eyes are dark and his body's a coiled spring. "I thought we ought to continue our previous discussion."
Yes, he remembers. And the look on his face… The intent, watching stillness; the hint of colour in someone’s skin if you know exactly where to look, though he’s suppressing it well. She's never seen it before, not on him. On court suitors who've wished to find a back room at a party or who've watched her pull up their skirts, but… not on him. He's not here to say he's changed his mind. Light.
"Of course," she says, her throat suddenly dry. And she waves him in, feeling every inch of the space between them as he slips past her before she closes the door. She sees the brief turn of his head, the sweep of his lashes, and – he's eyeing her. The fact prickles down her spine in a way she hadn't expected. They track each other well in a fight, always have even when he was looking at her warily and thinking she'd got him fired, but this – this is something else, these ever-decreasing circles that feel like gathering momentum. She's not sure if it's more terrifying or thrilling.
When she turns, his hat is in his hands – and it's that, the sight of her fastidious friend with a lock of hair falling into his eyes, looking a little uncertain, that makes this real. She doesn't know why it surprises her: she's had an arrangement like this before. But that was with a fellow bored noble, not… not a Naut whose respect was hard-won, who might be her closest friend in some time. Who’s standing, the light from her fire reflecting on the leather of his coat, cheekbones shadowed razors. He taps his hat against his other hand, the studied casualness that she’s quite sure means he isn’t casual at all. She thinks for the briefest moment that she sees him bite his lip, as if he’s uncertain, too, and then it’s gone. (She could always do that for him – no. Yes, what are they here to do, discuss potion recipes? She tries to drag her mind into the fact that this is happening.) Vasco is looking around, his face meticulously still.
"Most of the servants are in bed. The rest are in the kitchen," she says, as if he hasn't come in for tea and talk a time or two before. Except generally that ends in them telling each other stories, not – she tries to blink away the flash of him fucking her into the mattress, and the strange thing the thought does to her chest. Lower, too.
"You cleared the decks," Vasco says, his voice wry. His eyes are on her again. He’s so often a step back, watching, but this is different – as if he can’t bear to drag them away from her for too long. He looks around the room but always, in the end, comes back to her.
"It seemed a good idea. I had better take your hat," Marie says. She adds lightly, in some attempt to restore normality, "Unless you like to keep it on." She reaches out and sees him half-smile.
"A captain's prerogative," he says quietly, but hands it to her. The brush of his gloved fingertips against hers, even brief, feels like the tingling after-effect of a spell. It… really has been some time, if such a small thing can take her so. But yes, she thinks as she puts it on the stand, feeling his gaze on her back like a hand touching her spine. He's still her friend, and they can do this. Even if it takes awkward quips through every moment of it. (She’d gladly do that to have him in her bed. The thought surprises her, but it’s true.)
When she turns, he raises a brow. Waiting for her to take the lead, she realises. Definitely uncertain. It surprises her, after the alley. Perhaps it’s some strange form of etiquette, seeing as this is her house. The sight of him in her home, close enough to touch and yet seeming a little lost at sea – she wants to tell him that this isn’t some new patch of island where he’s about to be ambushed. What falls from her mouth instead is rather different. The words are soft, but they might as well clatter for how abrupt they are. "May I kiss you?"
Some aren't into that sort of thing, and she'd… she’d understand. But it’s always a good starting point; it might help him relax. And if the thought of kissing him makes something fizz in her chest like champagne, makes her fingers tingle – well, that’s neither here nor there. It’s been a long time since she’s kissed anyone; no wonder her body’s curious about proceedings.
He blinks, and frowns as if she's asked something foolish. "Of course." He pauses and looks down, and she wonders what’s wrong – but it’s only to tug off his gloves and put them on the banister. She tries not to stare stupidly at tan, inked knuckles and long fingers, at the smallest white lines of scars. It’s not as if she hasn’t seen his hands before, by the Enlightened. But she knows he has callouses, and the thought of what they might feel like on her skin – (In her, she thinks, and then tries to put aside because it still feels like a presumption, and then she remembers why they’re here and thinks it again, mouth going dry.)
He takes a step towards her, then two. She closes the remaining difference, swiftly before she can change her mind – and then can't make herself take that last step. It feels wrong, somehow, to all but headbutt him. Even if everything in her body is calling, Kiss him, you fool! No. His choice. She doesn’t want him to regret… her. It's important to her, to let him change his mind. And if her chest clenches at the thought and she very much hopes he doesn’t, well.
The warmth of him creeps up on her, more than she expected. Marie leans in, slowly enough to let him pull away. Waiting for him to, in some part of her mind. He doesn't. He tilts his head and waits for her, instead, eyes going half-lidded. She almost wants to stop and stare, for the unexpected things the sight does to her. Were his lashes always so long? She has to look away from him to find her courage. This close, she can truly tell what the brief scents she caught earlier are: the oil he uses in his hair, mint on his breath. Signs of a recent bath. The idea of him chewing herbs as determinedly as he does everything else and preparing for this… It threatens to send her into hysterical laughter, or – or something else. Something in her chest swoops.
"What?" Vasco says, quietly amused.
"Mint." She keeps it airy rather than accusatory, not wanting to embarrass him. "You're always so prepared. Is that due to being a captain, being a Naut, or just being you?"
"The latter, I suspect," he says softly, so close she can feel his breath on her lips.
She tilts her head, and feels him do the same, further, shifting; she catches his eyes falling closed and the smallest inhale of his breath. Their noses brush, and then she's kissing him – the wary captain who somehow seems to have become her friend. She hopes she's not about to destroy all that.
It's the gentlest press, a brush of lips. He takes the smallest breath and then moves with her, lips parting just a little as he kisses back; lips that are soft, for such a sharp-tongued man, and one who's spent so much time at sea. She hadn't imagined – not that she's imagined – well, perhaps once or twice. He's… intelligent, and unusual, and funny, and frighteningly handsome. She has good taste in friends. These things happen.
He kisses back, and keeps kissing back, lips gentle against hers. She can feel him letting her set the pace, as if he's not quite sure this is happening either. It’s good, it’s better than she ever expected, but she wants – she feels his hand at the back of her neck, stroking aside her hairqueue to put five warm, slightly rough fingers on her skin and pull her closer. Just that, his skin on hers, lights a fire. She's not quite sure how the rest of it happens. She hears a soft, pleading sound, and realises to her embarrassment she’s made it.
He steps into the cradle of her arms and kisses her in earnest. Her thoughts scatter to the wind. This kiss is firmer, hungrier, his mouth harder against hers. There’s something wry in it, the way he draws back just a little as if he wants to tease before he returns again as if he can't bear not to be kissing her; something of his usual fierce focus, as if he’s taking note of her responses just as much as she is his. She can feel him unwinding, untensing with it, becoming more himself, and she can do nothing but meet him there, kiss back just as furiously; taking his upper lip into her mouth, then the lower with the next pass, scraping her teeth lightly against it and listening to the soft breath through his nose that gets her – the way he returns faster, with purpose, and lingers. He wants this. Wants it as badly as she did, has probably been fantasising and distracted and pretending not to be driven slightly mad by it… She realises that she might have severely underestimated what she's unleashing.
Marie hums and coaxes his lips apart, slipping her tongue softly, experimentally against his; needing to feel how he'll respond, needing to map the scalding velvet of his mouth and add that to the list of things she knows about him. (The noises he makes. That he takes his gloves off like he needs to feel her. The way he looks when he wants her to kiss him.) Needing to get closer, something.
That breaks the dam – there's a shift and then his hands are on her face, holding her there to get the angle, rough thumbs stroking over her cheeks. By the time he's licked into her mouth and is kissing her hot and deep like he wants her to know exactly why he's here, she feels warmth and solidity and realises that she's pressed to him, body shameless against his. His hand shifts briefly to clench in her shirt at her back, urging her on, as if he can pull her closer still – warm and strong and wonderful. She knows her breasts are pressed to his chest, but he certainly doesn't seem to be protesting.
She can feel muscle bunch as he gets an arm around her, and she's seen enough – she's watched him fight – she suspects he's quite something under the layers. His damn coat. His damn every item of clothing. She wants to feel him. At this rate she's going to end up turning his trews to shadow-smoke by accident, and… then she'll have to apologise and find a merchant to get a new pair, because this is her friend Vasco. Vasco , who mutters over maps with her and mistrusts the Inquisitors and… is a very handsome man, who can kiss like every stereotype of seductive sailors and then some. He traces his tongue against hers with a faint, pleased hum, and her thoughts scatter to the wind. At least, any that aren't Oh, yes. This simple experiment has become rather filthy.
He presses forward with a breath, delves into her mouth. It’s deep, exploratory, scalding – like he wants to be inside her in any way he can, like he’s as light-headed and half-desperate as she is. She feels it in her knees, her toes, tingling down her spine. She feels it in her cunt. Marie realises with some embarrassment that she may just have moaned. It really has been some time. He pauses, and the heat of his mouth is gone, and there's the swiftest, strangest feeling against her skin – his smile. He's just heard that, she realises, and he likes it. Embarrassment and arousal fight for dominance at that. And then he kisses her again, and oh, by the Enlightened…
She shifts to kiss under his jaw in a little revenge, like exchanging jests when they're bored on the road in an attempt to outdo each other – and his shaky little breath at that shoots straight down her spine. It encourages her. She mouths at one of those elegant inked lines, traces it down his neck. There's an old, pale scar under his ear; she kisses that, too, before returning to his inkmarks. He tilts his head to let her, and she takes his face in her hand, gently tilts a little more. That sharp little inbreath, and she wonders if that was too much – but no, she realises, he likes that too; he leans into her hand and lets her explore the vulnerable line of his throat, fingers tightening at her back. It surprises her, somehow, coming from him: a man with more poisons than bootlaces who's always seemed so careful.
When she draws back, he moves to chase the kiss – that thrills her more than it should. He stops and looks at her with eyes nearly black, his lips a little parted, and there's pronounced colour under the ink on his cheeks. She draws in a breath at the sight of it all. It suits him, even more than she thought it would in her furtive imaginings. She knows, suddenly, that if she were to reach down, she'd find… (She wants to get her hands on him. All over him, really. Light, she doesn’t know what’s happening to her. She swears she never used to be this much of a fool with those she’d take to bed.)
"I take it you haven't changed your mind either," he says, almost with his usual sardonic tilt – except it's slightly breathless, shivering at the edges. She’s made him like that. She’s not sure she’s ever going to be able to look him in the eye after a fight. Or possibly ever again. Still, she has the horrifying feeling it would be worth it.
She smiles at him, can't help herself. "Would you like to come to bed with me, captain?"
"By the tides, yes," he says bluntly, voice rough as a gravel beach, and she laughs.
He licks his reddened lips, and he watches her stare at that, eyes flickering up to hers. She nearly kisses him again, then. All this talking. She’s paid to talk. What a waste, when she could be doing this, when she could be pressing close to him and feeling his hands and – Oh, the hell with it, she thinks, and takes his hand.
Marie doesn't know what makes her pull him upstairs like she might have in her younger, sillier days, but he certainly doesn't protest. And when he closes the door, she cups his face in her hand and kisses his mouth, deep and hot, a promise of We’re about to have a wonderful time, you and I. She had meant to pull away teasingly after a swift kiss, then make a joke perhaps, but Vasco gathers her into his arms, his lips hungry on hers, and it’s just hopeless. He backs her up against the door after a moment, hot-eyed, one hand on her jaw, his fingers tangling in the hair at her nape, and then kisses her again, biting her lower lip. Arousal surges through her; she whimpers into his mouth. Light, he’s so good at this, she thinks dizzily.
Vasco sucks in a harsh breath at the soft sound she makes and kisses her harder, and she knows she's melting against him, caught between the door and the lean strength of his body. She can feel his erection clearly through their trews; he’s pressed against her, fully hard or nearly. The thought of how that cock would feel inside her sends heat jolting through her belly; she clutches at his coat, half for support and half because she doesn’t think she ever wants him to stop.
He has one hand on her neck, his callouses rough on her sensitive skin, and the other – the other is slipping under her doublet ever so slowly, tentative fingers catching on the soft linen of her shirt, pressing lightly against her stomach. Such a small, simple touch shouldn’t turn her knees to jelly. Of course, that’s exactly what it does. Marie releases his collar to begin unfastening her own, working her way down the column of little buttons holding her doublet closed. He leans back a little, giving her space to undo her clothing, both his hands settling on her hips as he presses a series of distracting kisses to her mouth. As soon as she has her jacket open his hands are questing up under it, gripping her waist, his thumbs caressing her ribs as his tongue delves into her mouth.
Vasco works his way up her chest slowly, tentatively; his thumb brushes the underside of her breast and she feels a pleasurable swoop in her belly. Marie doesn’t want him touching her through her shirt, she wants his skin on hers. He’s being so cautious, so – chaste, almost – does he not want…? But the hard cock pressed against her would seem to put paid to that notion. She untucks her shirt in one quick motion before she can talk herself out of it, then takes his hand and slips it beneath the fine fabric, guiding it up to grip her bare breast. At the feel of her he lets out a sharp breath with a little voice behind it, almost a groan. He circles her nipple with one calloused thumb; pleasure sparks over Marie’s skin and she whimpers again, and Vasco really does groan at that, putting his other hand under her shirt, a roughened palm dragging lightly over her skin. She grabs a handful of his hair and sucks his tongue into her mouth, rocking her hips against his; Vasco pushes forward to meet her, stroking himself hard against her with one lustful roll of his hips. Heat surges through her; his breath comes shuddering out of him.
“I want to touch you,” he rasps, his voice so hoarse with need it’s almost gone, and the sound of it goes right into her. Those careful hands between her legs, those callouses – Marie is assailed again, vividly, by the thought of Vasco’s fingers inside her, the way he would feel pressing into her, the burn and heat of that initial penetration, the deep pleasure he could give –
“Saints, yes,” she gasps.
He undoes the laces of her trews one-handed, his knuckles brushing against her belly, and then he pauses there, his fingertips just touching her smallclothes, like he’s waiting for the permission she’s already granted.
“Please,” Marie whispers, canting her hips into his touch, and Vasco kisses her again and slips his hand down into her smalls at last. She can’t suppress a gasp at the feeling of him touching her there, his fingers running through her pubic hair, caressing her folds and then parting them gently to find her –
“Storms sink me,” Vasco rasps, running a fingertip through her wetness. “M – do you want – how should I touch you?”
“I want you inside me,” she says.
Vasco doesn’t wait around for permission again this time. He enters her easily, her body more than ready to accept his fingers, and Marie’s knees nearly buckle at the feeling of it. She’s done this for herself many a time over the last couple of years, but it’s been so long since she’s had someone else in her and it’s just not the same. The blood heat of him, the way he moves, and yes, those callouses that seem to stroke and stimulate every sensitive spot in her cunt, and he –
“Oh!” The cry comes out of her unbidden as Vasco presses deeper, pleasure darting through her as he finds out how to touch her, where to touch – “Oh! Ah – ”
It’s a good thing he’s here to hold me up, she thinks, her head spinning. She suspects she might have fallen without Vasco between her thighs and the door at her back. And then he crooks his fingers again and she cries out helplessly as the ecstasy of his touch goes driving through her body. She clutches at his shoulders and rides the waves of it as he pleasures her; he breathes hard in time with the thrusts of his fingers, from arousal rather than exertion. She’s struggling to be quiet and it isn’t working, it feels too good, Vasco is too good – he isn’t kissing her anymore, she realizes dimly – she forces her eyes open and finds herself transfixed by his gaze, dark and excited; he meets her eyes and presses on that aching spot inside her, and the look on his face as he watches her cry out is unbearably erotic.
“Vasco,” she gasps.
“I want you.” His voice is rough as a file, harsh with need.
“You might want to – ah – start with – taking your coat off ah! Ah…” Marie lets her head drop back against the door, struggling to get the quip out around the pleasure he’s giving her. Vasco chuckles breathlessly.
“I might,” he says. “We’re both wearing a few too many clothes for my liking.” He crooks his fingers deep into her.
“Oh! Oh Saints…” Every servant in the house must know what we’re up to by now, Marie thinks, struggling to make herself care.
“Storms sink me.” Vasco nuzzles against her neck, pressing himself close, his fingers never stilling.
“Let’s go to ah, ah, bed before I ah fall down,” she manages.
A joke about having her right there on the floor seems in the offing – Marie’s not convinced she’d be entirely opposed, which would be more embarrassing if her cunt weren’t presently throbbing with pleasure – but all Vasco says is, “Yes,” in a voice that’s almost a growl, and the sound sends a spark of excitement racing down her spine. He pulls his fingers out of her, which leaves her feeling painfully bereft, but then he meets her eyes and puts those slicked fingers between his lips and sucks her wetness off them, his gaze burning into her, and Marie’s breath catches in her chest. She grabs a handful of his hair and pulls him in for a desperate kiss, and Vasco groans into her mouth as she licks the taste of herself from his tongue.
It’s a lovely, graceless dance getting the both of them undressed and into bed together. Marie feels tousled almost beyond recognition, her doublet open, trews unlaced, shirt rumpled, hair doubtless pulling free of its queue in a hundred directions; she sits down on top of the coverlet and starts to wrestle her boots off as Vasco stands before her, magnificent in all his disarray. His hair has come loose from its tie – did she do that? – and it frames his face becomingly. He removes his belt, unties his sash and lets it fall, then shrugs out of his coat and lets it crumple to the floor at his feet and pulls his shirt off over his head.
She’s seen him shirtless before, of course, but only ever on the road, and only for the split second it might take her to politely avert her eyes – she has to suppress the instinct to do it again now, because at last she has license to look, license to admire every inch of him, the deep blue of the tattoos twining down his arms, curling around those strong wrists, tracing the lines of his ribs. He is long-legged, well-muscled, elegant as a cat; he seems to stretch unconsciously as he tugs his shirt off, or perhaps he’s putting on a show – he’s much too beautiful for her to be able to tell. The trail of brown hair leading from his navel down into his trews draws her eye and makes her mouth water. She can see his erection clearly through his clothes. The temptation to get on her knees right now is almost too powerful to resist. Vasco tosses his shirt off to the side and looks at her under those long lashes. Marie bites her lip and returns his gaze.
“You have me at a disadvantage, de Sardet.”
“At least I’ve got my boots off,” she says.
Vasco chuckles. “True enough.” He sits down beside her and kisses her, putting one hand on her neck; his skin feels deliciously hot against hers, but he pulls away far too soon and turns his attention to his boots. By the time Marie gets her own shirt off he’s done, and looking at her with a fire in his eyes. She thought this would be something swift and easy, perhaps with a little laughter, not him looking at her like she's… she's…
“You’re beautiful,” he tells her.
She opens her mouth to say Thank you, and, “So are you,” comes spilling out.
Vasco leans over and kisses her hungrily, licking his way along the seam of her lips and into her mouth. They get each other’s trews off hastily, fumbling their way through it, hardly breaking apart long enough to remove the last of their clothing. He tastes of salt and mint and she wants him, she wants him. Vasco kisses her neck, sucks a love bite into the soft skin just above her collarbone, his hands roving over her body, cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples, sliding down her hips and between her legs again. Marie’s skin is alight with the pleasure of his touch; her cunt burns at the memory of his fingers inside her; he trails his fingertips teasingly along her cleft, making her whimper. His cock is a hard, silken heat pressed against her thigh. She reaches down and strokes him, once, twice; Vasco groans, thrusting into her hand; she bites his neck, sucks on his earlobe, pushes him onto his back and kisses him, fast and needy. She wants to kiss him, she wants to ride him, she wants –
“I want you at the head of the bed,” she pants. “Sit up against the headboard and you can have me.” Then she realizes what she’s just said and pulls back a little, anxiety cold in her throat – “I – I mean, if you want to, you don’t – ”
“I want to,” Vasco says firmly, and he kisses her, and goes.
He’s gorgeous, she thinks as she settles herself astride his muscular thighs, looking down at him under lowered lashes. All that power and grace with him fighting beside her, when they could have been doing this instead. Vasco sits propped against her headboard, reclining a little into the pillows at his back, his hazel eyes dark with desire. How strange it is, the stubborn sharp captain from the Serene docks looking at her with such wanting, such trust in his eyes. The thought sends a thrill through her, and Marie can't help but reach out to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear, and bend to kiss him. His hands are on her thighs, her arse, trailing up to the small of her back, pulling her closer, his kisses slow and teasing, all lips and tongue. She reaches down and takes him in hand, which makes him catch his breath, and then rubs herself against him; the feeling of the head of his cock stroking up and down her cleft is perfect, searing – it makes them both gasp.
“Vasco,” she pants.
“ Oh fuck,” he growls.
Marie agrees entirely, but, “Is this all right?” she whispers. She was ordering him about just moments ago, and he said he wanted – but she needs to be sure. She can’t bear the thought of him simply doing what he’s told in her bed; she wants to hear him say it. He doesn’t keep her waiting.
“Yes.” His voice is rope-rough, harsh with desire. “Please,” he says, and it nearly undoes her. He grabs her hips like he wants to push her down onto him, but he doesn’t, just holds her, his fingers digging in a little. Marie can feel the callouses that stripe his palms.
She sinks down into his lap, taking him inside her at last. They moan into each others’ mouths as he fills her, foreheads pressed together, Vasco’s fingers tight on her hips, Marie clutching at his shoulders. The heat of him, the stretch, the pulse beating down the length of his cock – it’s so much better than her own fingers, so much better than any of her toys, everything she’s been missing for years and more, the coiled strength of him beneath her, the sound of his voice in every desperate breath.
“M – mmh, oh storms,” he rasps. “You feel so good.”
Marie kisses him hard, twining her fingers through his hair. Vasco’s hand trails up her spine to curl around the back of her neck, pulling her closer. She rolls her hips slowly against his and he groans, arching up against her a little. He’s a delicious pressure inside her; she feels blissfully full, the pleasure rising up through her in waves as she rocks herself on his cock.
“So do you,” she says, and begins to ride him in earnest. Vasco lets out a sudden gasp the first time she rises up on her knees and sinks back down onto him, and then clings to her, filling his hands with her thighs and holding on for dear life as she fucks herself onto him over and over. He's clearly needed this as much as she has.
It’s work, being on top, but it’s work that she’s delighted to do – a little sweat is a small price to pay for the sight of him losing himself beneath her, his eyes fixed on her face, his mouth open as he pants with pleasure – a small price to pay to hear the helpless little noises he makes. Marie is making a few noises of her own, of course. He feels so good inside her, every thrust of her hips filling her again, the push and throb of it, the way he strokes her inner walls, the heat of him.
“Ah, ah, ah – ” Vasco seems well past articulacy, his face all tight with pleasure as he clutches at her. She can see the struggle in his eyes.
“Wait for me,” she pants, running a thumb down the line of his jaw. He shaved before he came over, she thinks suddenly, an odd moment of clarity in the middle of taking his cock. His skin is so smooth. It’s a thrilling revelation somehow.
“Yes.” His voice is hardly more than a whisper.
Marie presses two fingers to his lower lip. “Get me wet,” she murmurs, and his eyes go liquid black with lust as he takes her fingers into his mouth and sucks on them. His tongue is just as quick and clever against her skin as it’s ever been in conversation – he strokes the cleft of her fingers like it’s the cleft of her cunt, nudges in between them to tickle the sensitive skin, swallows them down to the last knuckle, lets them nestle into his soft palate – his eyes don’t even water. She has a sudden, dizzying vision of Vasco on his knees with a cock in his mouth; she wants to feel that clever tongue on her cunt, wants to know what he could do to her with it, how quickly he could reduce her to begging. How hard he could make her come. When she withdraws, a strand of saliva connects her fingertips to his tongue. She breaks it against his lower lip, and Vasco looks up at her hungrily.
“Well done,” she tells him, and he makes a needy little sound in his throat at the praise that goes right through her. Marie reaches down with slicked fingers to touch herself as she rides him, and the warm, pulsing pleasure of his cock inside her goes cool and bright and open, filling her up as she strokes herself in time with the rise and fall of her hips.
“Oh,” she breathes, “oh Vasco – ” She’s close, closer than she was expecting, but what else could she be with this beautiful man underneath her? He watches her avidly as she rides him, his face tense with excitement, his eyes intent, focused, but also a little wild, clinging to her as she takes her pleasure from him. The climax rises in her like a wave – “Oh Saints,” she gasps, half drowning in it as it crests around her, and then she comes, shaking in his arms as the ecstasy closes over her head, bright and clear as sunlight in the water.
Then it passes and she crumples against him; Vasco holds her as she catches her breath. “You are so beautiful,” he whispers in her ear, and it sends ripples of warmth through her. Marie kisses him slowly, his mouth soft and wet under hers. Her body thrums with the aftershocks of her climax, and Vasco’s hands are firm but gentle as they wander over her skin – but when she pulls back to look down at him the heat in his eyes is a lit fuse, live and desperate. He didn’t come, she thinks.
“Vasco…” she says. He bites his lip. His mouth and cheeks are flushed, his eyes black with desire. Marie tightens herself around him and he gasps, shuddering a little under her; it sends excitement darting through her belly. She rises up on her knees and then plunges down, taking him to the root in one swift motion.
“Fuck,” Vasco gasps.
“Come for me,” Marie says firmly, and starts to ride him again, her thighs burning with the effort, “come on, Vasco, come for me.”
“Oh storms, oh fuck – ahh – ” He clutches at her, his cock a trembling heat in her cunt, a flame caught in the wind, his pulse wildly quick, his muscles clenching, his face going tight with pleasure.
“Come,” she says fiercely, and Vasco does, a cry of pleasure tearing itself from his throat as he tenses and shudders beneath her. She rocks up and down against him, stroking him through it slowly enough that she can feel his cock twitching inside her, a delicate, blissful sensation. And then he’s through it, and it’s Vasco’s turn to crumple into her arms, to bury his face in the curve of her neck and catch his breath, his hands light on her hips and thighs as he nuzzles closer, panting.
Marie kisses his temple. Vasco sighs. His lips are gentle on her throat, his tongue a swift, hot stroke between them. Marie is blissfully tired, her muscles aching pleasantly after a good, thorough fuck. Vasco is still inside her, slowly going soft.
“You’re lovely,” she tells him. “That was…”
“Mhmm.”
She bends her head and catches his mouth with hers, kissing him sweetly as she runs her fingers through his hair. Vasco lets out a long breath and sucks on her lower lip, reaching up with one hand to stroke her neck and jaw. Even soft he feels good in her; his skin on hers is smooth and warm. He probably intends to sleep in his own bed tonight, but Marie doesn’t want him to leave. She wants him here in her bed, preferably holding her. It seems wholly inappropriate for the sort of casual liaison they’d discussed, but… there’s another, less selfish matter, too.
“You look exhausted,” she says, fingers drumming a gentle rhythm at the back of his neck. His eyes are still shut, and he leans into it, leans into her. She adds, “I haven’t broken you, have I?”
Vasco snorts and shakes his head. “I had business at the docks. With some of my more obstinate colleagues. Today has been… too long.” He looks up at her, and how, in the space of a few moments, had she forgotten how beautiful his eyes are? “Thank you for this, de Sardet.”
She only smiles back. “What did you call it, ‘relief’?”
He smiles a little in return, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone. Then he lets his hand fall, and looks aside – she can already feel him drawing back, the warmth of him leaving, even in the moments before he starts to lean away. “I should return. I’m sure you have matters to attend to,” he says.
“Vasco.” She doesn’t shift, planting herself in his lap even as she wonders whether she’s crossing a line. “You’re my friend. I’m not about to kick you out of my bed. And forgive me, but I’m sure mine is more comfortable than a captain’s room at the docks, at least for a night.” She’s always watching him do so much – watched him barely seem to sleep as a captain, even before they truly knew each other – and though he hides it well, he must wear himself ragged. And now he’s done this for her, with her, too. And yes, some whispering part of her mind doesn’t want to lose his warmth. He’s steady and kind, and he feels so good, and… just a little longer.
He blinks at her. She wonders, suddenly, how many stories he’s heard of Nauts being kicked out of nobles’ beds, a moment’s dalliance and then an embarrassment. That makes her ache: he doesn’t deserve such treatment. But she loses her nerve, then, and looks away from him, licking her lips. Too much. Too strong. She should let him move. “Of course, you don’t have to, if there’s business you have to get back to…”
His thumb strokes over her cheek again, and he says, “It might be you’re right.” There it is, that fond wryness that tells her that she hasn’t misstepped. He guides her to look at him again, and he says, “Yours is a fine mattress. I remember transporting it.”
Relief blossoms beneath the gentle touch of his hand under her chin, the warmth of his skin. She looks down. “Then I should try and take mercy on these sheets.” She shifts and lets him truly slip out of her – trying not to look for too long at the tangle of their limbs, at her slick on him, or the way that his hands are still steadying her at her hips – then goes in hasty search of a basin and washcloth.
After that particular adventure, when he’s handed her back the cloth with a nod and she’s returning to the privy, she realises that her mind is calm, quiet. She’d blame a damn good fuck, but it’s… more than that. It’s the mark of a good bed partner, something she’s had too few times. Self-consciousness should be drowning her by now, but instead it’s barely lapping at the edges of her mind. (And oh look, sea metaphors. Clearly she’s been spending far too much time with Nauts. Well, with one in particular.)
When she returns, he’s examining the ceiling as he often does the heavens, when she suspects he’s navigating. She wonders what course he’s plotting. For a moment she just tries not to stare at golden, blue-inked skin against the red of her sheets, at all that fine-boned muscle. Her wary friend, in her bed. She stokes the fire and looks over her shoulder – and he’s watching her. Something caught-out crosses his face when their eyes meet, as if it’s far from the first time he’s snuck a look – but his gaze is warm. This she knows from across a campfire, their times trudging out of danger and half-collapsing. She tugs out the desperate remnants of her hair queue and leaves it where it is to find tomorrow, shaking out her hair with an inelegant grimace. She hadn’t expected his gaze to go the quiet, satisfied kind of prurient at that. Or when she climbs into bed with him, nudity and all. His eyes skim up and down her body a moment, as if he's not entirely sure this is happening either; as if he wants to appreciate her like this while he still can. (She almost flushes at that.) And then his gaze rises to hers, dark and thoughtful.
Vasco lies there on his side, looking at her, and the distance between them seems at once a mile. A little uncertainty crosses his face, too, just for a moment – but then she pulls her quilt up over his shoulders, to make him more comfortable and in a friendly, “get on with it, then” sort of way.
He turns to resume his contemplation of the ceiling. “Once I spoke of wanting to sleep on silk,” he says, quietly.
She knows that tunnel, and where it leads. “Probably not in these circumstances, however.” She grins at him. “I promise one night’s exposure won’t make you a dandy – just very, very comfortable.”
He looks at her and huffs a laugh, and she smiles back. She suddenly wants, with all her heart, to wrap herself around him and distract him from all those old fears, the way his touch has taken her mind off things. Surely that’s what these gangly limbs are for. But that really would be too much. It isn’t her place. Still, he’s smiling, just a little, and it seems genuine; she’s seen enough false ones by now to know the difference.
She says, “Will you show me how to sleep in one of your hammocks sometime?”
At that he definitely does snort, though he turns his head away from her in a not-even-passable effort to hide it. “I suspect my crew would pay to watch.”
She grins at the ceiling, and tries not to feel the warmth of him, soaking into her apparently-fine mattress just a few inches away. Still, while a little unsatisfying, there’s something reassuring about it. She lets the silence lengthen, the way it often does with him, when they’re on watch or contemplating cards. She’s often had trouble sleeping around others – too long in a court with various knives pointed at her back – and she suspects that will only have grown worse of late; so it surprises her, how easy it is to let her mind spin in circles, and listen to his breathing beside her, and drift off to sleep.