Chapter 18 #3
“I didn’t know it could be so good,” Dorotèa admitted between little sniffles. “That it could be fun.”
Oste smiled. He realized then that her periodic strangled breaths and shuddering cries were born from an overwhelmed, joyous state, and not the blunder he was worried he made somewhere. “It’s supposed to be.”
“I want to do that—” she started, choked, then resumed. “I want to do that again. I want to do that many times.”
He continued to stroke her cheek. “We shouldn’t yet. You’ll be sore. You may even bleed, depending. It’s new.”
“Not for you.”
“Yes, well—”
“You can feel it again. We both can.”
“Yes, but—”
“And you can do it in so many ways!” Dorotèa hummed, and her sudden outburst already seemed nearly washed away.
Her apparent stamina shouldn’t have surprised him; he’d dueled with her for years and knew how quickly she could bounce back.
And bounce she did, with a sideways roll in the tangle of sheets to dig through them for the ivory piece he’d tossed aside earlier.
She winced and made little sputters when moving her hips but procured it all the same.
Oste felt his cheeks heat, and his cock seemed to rouse itself immediately, as though it was not to be undone by his lover’s endurance.
He made a labored groan when he pushed up to sitting, but didn’t remain that way for long; Dorotèa sprung on him all over again, kissing with fondness, kissing with lust, and he suddenly thought this wasn’t too soon at all.
He warmed, throbbing with desire. Throbbing with anticipation.
And his love, that only swelled; she was doing this by choice.
She was doing this because she wanted to.
She was doing this because he liked it, and because she liked him even though he did.
“I see you,” Oste said between kisses.
“I see you too.”
She didn’t find the bottle of oil, and instead chose to rub her hand across his slick cock and use his remnants on the pretty little thing. When she was done, Dorotèa raised her index finger to her mouth and licked it.
“A—ah,” he choked, utterly taken aback by how strongly his body responded to that. He’d never grown hard so quickly again in his life. “Merde.”
Dorotèa pushed him back against the pillows. He looked up in wide-eyed glee, but hardly had a moment to process her confident savagery; she grabbed his good leg and bent it just where she wanted it, to expose what she was about to take.
Boudiou! It was like she’d studied this and reduced it to mathematical equations. Though, come to think of it, that was how she fenced. Doubtless this was another machination of her own.
“This, I’m a little less sure of,” she breathed, “so if I’m really messing it up…”
“Then I’ll show you the good way.”
“I hoped you’d say that.”
Dorotèa stroked his own opening, and his body jerked in anticipation.
Every time he groaned or moved, she seemed to nod to herself and do it again with greater intensity.
It was no wonder she’d become a master fencer; everything with her was a calculated observation and formulated response.
If she missed, she tried something else.
If she scored, she worked to improve upon it, and oh, how she felt improved after so little time.
Dorotèa edged the ivory shaft inside of him.
Oste’s eyes stretched wide, dilated then to match the opening she made and pleasured him in.
Her careful study repeated over and over again.
Her thrusts changed in form and strength until he was gasping and trembling just where she wanted him.
His manhood throbbed to match the ethereal, heavenly ache growing and growing elsewhere inside him, and, desperate to place his lust somewhere, he held her waist tightly and kissed the surface of her skin when she came close enough. This woman, oh, this woman…
She came harder. His heart was fit to bursting, and his moans roiled in their subservience to her hold over his body and heart.
His vision turned white. He itched and pulsed.
And, moments before he was certain he’d let himself go again, her free hand came down again to fondle everything else just near.
She stroked his coarse hair until she found that delicate sack and much too sensitive skin.
She caressed there, closed her fingers around it, gently squeezed—and Oste’s howl could have summoned every wolfcatcher in Provence.
Oste had no idea how long it took him to return to his senses.
All he was aware of was that he was slumped on his side, ragged and sweaty, and that Dorotèa was petting his scarred arm with a tenderness that didn’t quite align with the giddy delight pooling in her light brown eyes.
It occurred to him that his arm didn’t even hurt.
He barely felt anything but prickling and a slowing ache that started by his hips and rear.
Damnation, she owned him, and he was at peace with it.
“You win,” he whispered after a shiver came and went.
“Oh?” she mused. “I didn’t realize it was a competition.”
“Save it. You threw a glove at me when we started.”
“Alright, alright. I just can’t help it.”
“I want to win,” he mumbled, and was the furthest thing from a victor; he laid uselessly across the soiled blanket and let her sweet comforts come without protest. “I want to fight you again.”
Dorotèa’s hand froze over his skin. Her brows shot up, and a few seconds passed before she spoke. “With… what?”
A pang of anxiety came, but he continued regardless. “Blades.”
Dorotèa’s cry rivaled that from her highest bliss. She kissed his neck in absolute jubilation, and he was knocked onto his back by the intensity of her joy. “Oh, I love you! I love you!”
Comfortable, he thought with a little laugh. Not perfect.
“I love you too,” he answered, then tugged her into an embrace. “I love lots of things about you.”
“Oh?” she got out amidst all her smiling. She nestled right up alongside his body, warm and utterly his.
“Mmh.” Oste swept his finger around her nipple. “I love your breasts.”
“Scoundrel.”
He quirked a smile, then used that same finger to spin a lock of her hair around it. “I love this color.”
“It’s a pain to match outfits to.”
“I bet,” he laughed, then begrudgingly peeled away.
Dorotèa’s arms followed him, but he was, at the end of the day, a physician, and a diligent one.
He rifled through the wardrobe until he found a linen, then crossed back to the fruit and water pitcher.
He wet his hands and rubbed them on the linen, then brought them over for Dorotèa to use.
She leaned over the nightstand to wash up as he did.
“You know what I love the most?” he asked when she was done. They climbed back into bed together. He was becoming sore at last.
“What’s that?”
Oste traced the line of her sternum, then let his finger come to rest when he felt her heartbeat underneath. “Your fire.”