Twenty-Eight Pye
TWENTY-EIGHT
Pye
Avirin leaves Pye in the studio clutching the key. It takes all he has not to pull her back in, to lie her across the table, to watch her lips part when he sinks inside her for the first time…
But there will be time enough for that. Tonight, he follows Avirin’s command, as he will follow her for as long as she will have him.
His wings flutter as he moves toward his room to strip out of the most cumbersome articles of his day clothes. It is a meditation. Soon, there will be nothing between him and Avirin. No clothing. No pretense. Nothing but skin.
Pye shuts their eyes, body threatening to give into that hot snap of want. They must resist it. They must keep their thoughts in order. They must give everything to Avirin in the best way they know how.
With a steadying breath, Pye moves to the armoire and withdraws a small vial before they finally leave the room.
In some far corner of the house, the noises of the card game continue.
Pye barely hears them as he walks the darkened corridor toward Avirin’s room.
He has followed this path many times. In the early days when Avirin would not leave her chambers.
In the late night when he could not sleep.
In the first light of dawn when he woke from a dream of her.
With each step, his stride grows more certain until he reaches her bedroom door.
His fingertips brush the carved frame. This place is holy, and he does not take the invitation lightly. He meant what he told her the first day. Being offered a place in Avirin’s world is sacred, and he is a mere mortal following a goddess to her altar. He intends to worship her properly.
He slides the key into the lock and eases the door open.
There isn’t a candle in sight, but the moon is full and bright, spilling over the chaise lounge and onto the floor.
Avirin’s room is much the same as when Pye arranged it, but now, it is covered in her — a stack of books on her bedside table, a robe draped over her folding screen, her scent hanging in the air.
Avirin has made this place her own. She is comfortable here, in this house, with him.
His chest cinches at the thought, but it is forgotten when Avirin turns from the empty fireplace to face him.
She is a vision in her muslin chemise. Pye can’t tear his eyes from her, following the dark waves of her hair where they dip into the wide neckline.
She watches him, too, her black gaze roaming without shame.
They have no need for secrecy any longer.
This is their home. She is his wife, and he is her husband.
At long last, that thought stirs only molten desire.
For a moment, Avirin’s face flickers with uncertainty, but then her chin lifts. There is a glint in her eye, and Pye wants to give chase to it, like a hound after a fox.
“Close the door,” she murmurs.
Pye runs his tongue over his lips. Maybe that will give him a taste of her essence in this room. Maybe that will keep him from falling to his knees, crawling to her and burying his face between her legs.
Pye does as she commands, forcing themself to remain upright and reaching for the door behind them.
The key turns in the lock. It is a sound so pointed and final that Pye has to lean back against it.
The two of them watch each other. They both know what she’s brought him here for.
There is something unmistakably arousing about that — being called here to serve his wife, allowed inside for the first time to attend to her pleasure.
Avirin closes the space between them, stoking the heat in Pye’s stomach with every step. When she reaches him, she lifts her hands to the top of his shirt. She doesn’t look down as she undoes the buttons, her face hovering before his, her breath warm when their noses brush.
He lifts his hands to aid her, but her movements are steady. She does not need his help. She knows what she is doing; she knows what she wants. So Pye does not interfere, tracing delicate lines on the backs of her wrists and basking in the feeling of being undone by her.
She reaches over his shoulders to unbuckle the clasps at the base of his wings.
Once everything is loose, she looks away from his face, following the path of her palms up the planes of his stomach.
She leaves a warm trail as she lifts his shirt, guiding the fabric up and over his head until it falls to the ground.
He remains still. Her eyes scan his chest, his arms, his stomach, taking in every inch of ink embedded in his skin. Her fingers wander them all, taking extra time over the hawkmoth wings spread across his chest.
She’s never touched him like this. For all their time together, Pye was focused on her, and he thanks the gods for that.
He would never have survived being under her attention this way, withstanding the curious calculation of her gaze and the inquisitive journey of her hands.
If Avirin had touched him like this before, Pye fears he would have forgotten any notion of virtue if it meant another second of her interest.
She brushes his nipples and lingers on the metal that protrudes. Her hand moves instinctively to her own ears to feel for the small holes. “I’ve never seen…”
Pye does not rush her. He has all the time in the world for this, a willing experiment who sighs when she thumbs his piercings.
She bites her lip. “May I —”
“Anything.”
She looks up from beneath her lashes, and then, she cranes her head to circle his nipple with her mouth.
He sucks in a sharp breath. She hesitates, but at the look in his eyes, her tongue swirls speculatively around him. Pye reaches for the wall to brace himself, and her eyes dart toward the movement before she sucks him more roughly.
Unadulterated want pulses through him. Her mouth is warm and wet, teasing the metal until it knocks gently against her teeth. Pye’s head hangs lower. Her hands trail down to his waist, teeth scraping his nipple as she works open the buttons of his pants.
Pye’s mind threatens to blank, but he remembers himself, reaching into his pocket for the vial of vibrant, purple liquid. He sets it on one bedside table. “For after.”
Avirin’s eyes light up, swarming with desire that has finally been set free. “On the bed,” she instructs.
A shiver darts up Pye’s spine. Her newfound certainty is firmly in place, and Pye is her humble acolyte. They don’t drop her gaze when they sit on the edge of the bed, and when she steps between their knees, Pye runs his hands up the back of her thighs to aid her climbing into his lap.
She holds Pye’s face for a moment before she eases them back against the pillows, and her hands move to one of his wrists.
A strip of fabric knots around it. Through the dark, Pye can make out one of their cravats tying them to her bedpost. Soon, their other wrist is secured as well, and Avirin straddles their hips with moonlight pouring in behind her.
It cuts through the thin fabric of her chemise, outlining every luxurious curve of her body.
Pye groans.
“You know…” Avirin reaches for her bedside table and retrieves a small, black daybook.
“There’s quite an assortment of reading material in that library.
” She opens the book with one hand, glancing between the pages and Pye’s wrists while she runs her fingers over the restraints.
“And I suspect they can’t all be blamed on the former tenant. ”
Pye grins lazily. “You found my notes.”
It’s been years since Pye last wrote in that journal, but at one time, it was their constant companion. During their nights in the brothels, they filled the book with anatomical drawings, manuals for bondage knots, and ingredients for abortive potions.
“They’re very detailed.” Avirin flips another page. “Almost as good as having you to guide me.”
“That close, is it?”
A smirk flits across her face. “There are things in here I could never have dreamed. All manner of things we can try, my lord.”
She picks up a scrap of paper from the nightstand and tucks it into the daybook. Pye’s body grows hot. Other bookmarks peek out from every angle, and he wants to know exactly what interests her. He wants her to read it to him. He wants her to direct him while he sucks bruises inside her thighs.
But then the book is gone, and she looks smug, like she knows the torture she’s inflicting. “Tonight, though, I thought we might take our time.”
Pye’s antennae twitch at her arousal. “Are you certain you can wait, my lady?”
Her eyes narrow, and Pye can’t help the smile slinking across their lips. She does not relent. “You seemed quite happy to make me wait all those months. With your lessons. With your honor.”
When she sneers, his hips buck. Taunting Avirin does something to Pye, a wicked thrill that makes him salivate.
There is nothing like the sharp look she gets, revealing the prickly nature that she has always been taught to disguise.
It’s a reward when Pye finds the right knob to wind up.
Never too much; just enough to pluck her strings, to stoke her fire, to spur her into action.
He will gladly take any punishment she sees fit…and perhaps she would let him punish her, too. Is that what she’s marked in the pages of the book? Does she enjoy it when Pye torments her? Does she touch herself to the thought of him making her behave? Making her cry? Making her beg?
Her hand splays across Pye’s ribs. “Where is your mind, Lord Riften?”
Pye inhales to watch her hand rise with their chest. “With you. Always with you. I think of nothing else.”
Her lips part. He yearns for the softness of them, but his mind goes blank when her hand trails to the open flap of his pants.
His cock twitches when Avirin teases the soft hair beneath his navel, following it down to his hardened length beneath the fabric.
She curls her hand around him, and he makes a muffled groan, fighting not to rock into her grip.
Never has he been the victim of such singular focus. It is heavenly and intoxicating. Her curious eyes rove him and note every reaction to her touch. Every tremble of breath. Every twitch of skin. Every flex of fingers. Slowly, she delves beneath their waistband and closes her hand around them.
Pye shudders.
“You’re so warm,” she breathes. “So…firm.”
Her teeth scrape her lip, eyes turning glassy before she pulls him out of his pants.
His cock springs up toward his stomach, flushed and rigid.
Her eyes widen, and he knows where her mind has wandered.
Where Samuel’s cock was smooth in that dark opera balcony, Pye’s shaft is ribbed at each inch like a thick corkscrew.
Carefully, Avirin slips her fingers between the ridges and squeezes until liquid desire beads at his head.
Pye hisses.
Her tongue glides along her lip. “Does that mean I’m doing something right?”
“You’re doing everything right.”
A pleased smile crosses her face. Pye wraps his hands in the restraints to keep his hips planted on the bed, but it does little to still him when Avirin guides her fist to the top of his cock.
“When your mind is with me,” she asks innocently, “how do we spend our time? How do we occupy ourselves?”
Pye curses.
“Are we strolling through the gardens?” she teases. “Are we sitting down to dinner? Or…” Her eyelashes flutter like the portrait of chastity. “Is there some other way you imagine me? Some other activity to fill our hours?”
Pye’s breath is stilted and raw. “Surely I have never been this cruel to you, my lady.”
“Oh, never this cruel.” Avirin bends down toward them. “You have been far worse.”
Then she takes the head of their cock into her mouth.