Can You Feel That #2
The weight of Thea's gaze was heavy, and Aaryn wanted to shy away but also couldn't look away.
Not when Thea stared at her as if she were starved.
As if the wetness her fingers found would quench her thirst.
Aaryn felt particularly connected as Thea collected her arousal slowly, politely, as if Aaryn wasn't so full of desire it would spill out of her at any minute.
In a way, she guessed it was.
She almost laughed, but then Thea's touch was inching, circling, not quite meeting where Aaryn shifted her hips. Avoiding, even.
"Thea," Aaryn warned. It came out a whine.
"Skies, you don't even know," Thea groaned, as if she hadn't meant the words to slip out. Then Thea kissed her.
But Aaryn's moan made the kiss lazy, clumsy.
The swelling in her core tightened, and Aaryn rocked her hips into the touch. She wasn't as coordinated as Thea, not now, at the mercy of her tactical precision.
Aaryn's fingers twisted in Thea’s hair before she released her with a huff, remembering she had hands too.
Curiosity and eagerness trembling at her fingertips traced the shape of Thea—her shoulders and the tautness of a bicep; the contrasting softness of her breasts, which Aaryn shamelessly sought.
The ties of Thea's shirt dangled against the back of her hands and she undid them quickly.
"What do you even know," Aaryn returned—shakily—and nipped at her lips.
Thea’s deep chuckle rumbled into the kiss, made warmth flare in Aaryn's belly. It was less a meeting of lips than a sharing of breath as Thea stroked her fingers again and again.
So shared, so close, that Aaryn felt and heard the pleasure hit Thea as she defeated her enemy—the shirt. Aaryn cupped her, nipples tight against her palm, beading beneath her fingers as she brushed her thumbs over Thea.
It was a little clumsy on Aaryn's part, and on Thea's too as her hips rolled against Aaryn's thigh, too many moving parts that, regardless of how out of sync they were, melted the urgency between them.
Kisses dripping honey, soaking into their moans, spilling between their mouths, drawn forth by Thea's meticulous fingers between Aaryn's thighs.
Aaryn wondered if it dewed between Thea's, too, beneath her pants, where she rocked against Aaryn's hip.
Thea gasped and Aaryn locked onto the tiny freckle on her jaw, a target for her lips.
She smiled at Thea's questioning hum and slid down her throat, visited the dip in her collarbone and considered taking up residence there, before abandoning her new home for the tempting peaks of her breasts.
Thea's skin was so soft against Aaryn's lips, her nipple a tight opal that she pressed her tongue to.
There was a hitch in the perfect rhythm of her fingers, but Aaryn couldn't give volume to the amusement in her chest, because Thea’s strokes still pulled the line of pleasure taut, making her breath catch only to skate shakily across Thea's skin.
"I like feeling you like this," Thea said with a pointedly slow glide between her folds. "You're so wet for me."
Aaryn pulled her mouth away, her entire body jerking in pleasure, nails digging into Thea’s bare shoulders. "You can't say things like that," Aaryn breathed.
"Why not?" Thea challenged. "It's the truth."
Aaryn swallowed and admitted, "I like when you tell me the truth."
“Me, too.” Thea's grin was intimate and knowing and—and something that made Aaryn's stomach drop and twist in arousal. With her shirt undone, hanging haphazardly from her shoulders, a hand between Aaryn's thighs, and her hair mussed from Aaryn's touch, Thea looked like she belonged there.
"Shall I tell you more?"
Aaryn suddenly didn't know if she could survive many more truths.
Thea worked her fingers and Aaryn clung to her, attention caught between the bite of her lips or the sway of her breasts as they moved together—Thea against her thigh, and Aaryn against her hand.
"I dreamed of you like this. I've wanted to kiss you for so long." And she did just then, as if to prove her point. "Great skies, Aaryn—" She choked off and shook her head, pausing the rhythm against Aaryn's hip. "You're here, with me. In my home. There's no armor between us, no Evergale."
Aaryn nodded, tasting the words from Thea's lips directly, her hips rocking into every slick press of her fingers. It bloomed within her, beneath her skin. "Thea," she whined.
"I love the sound of my name on your lips."
Aaryn tipped her head back but Thea coaxed her upright again, her gaze intense and lip bitten as she watched the pleasure overtake Aaryn, arm flexing and shifting with every stroke. "I want to see you come for me."
And she did. It swelled within her before cresting, and Aaryn stiffened as it hit, a hitching breath preceding the absolute fall.
She welcomed it with rolling hips and a messy kiss, yanking Thea close as if she might find refuge in the surge of pleasure.
Thea coaxed her into the depths, dragging her fingers through a sudden flood of arousal, lips twitching against Aaryn’s in satisfaction.
Aaryn went limp once it faded, the clover soft beneath her.
Thea's hand retreated, and she lifted—Aaryn watched with half-lidded eyes as Thea sucked the shine from her fingers one at a time. She pulled Thea atop her, giving her arm a break and delighted to feel her full weight. The kiss turned slow and lazy, lips sticky with affection and her own taste.
Aaryn's knee was between Thea's thighs, and she pressed up, felt the jolt of Thea's hips, captured them to drag her against the friction.
"You aren't going to leave me alone in this afterglow, are you?" she challenged.
Thea took a slow, deep breath, eyes fluttering shut. "I wouldn't—wouldn't dream of it," she murmured.
Aaryn drank in the sight of Thea. "Can I touch you?"
Thea's hands were at the waistband of her pants. "Oh, fuck, I don't wear belts anymore," she breathed, and they both laughed, Aaryn delighted at Thea’s flush and so full of affection and desire.
Thea was wet at her touch, and Aaryn hoped she wouldn't notice the shake to her hand, the nerves that ran rampant beneath her skin—
"Skies above," Thea groaned, and buried her head in Aaryn's throat. Aaryn repeated the same stroke that had inspired such a sound and discovered art in the way Thea muffled her pleasure into Aaryn's neck, then wondered if the thump of her heartbeat was as obvious as the wet pulse at her fingertips.
Aaryn wanted so much of Thea—gripping her waist to feel every grind of her hips, skating her hand over her bared skin, cupping her breast, coaxing Thea to sit up so Aaryn could reach her with her lips.
Maybe she wasn't quite skilled enough to do both at once, but Thea certainly didn't seem to notice her stilted rhythm.
Aaryn, however, noticed everything. Every gasp, the dart of Thea’s tongue to wet her lips, the shake of her body and the squeeze of her thighs. The shiver as Aaryn rolled Thea's nipple between her fingers, and flicked over the other with her tongue.
"I'm—" Thea pitched out, her voice high and tight, the frame of her poised over the peak.
"I want to see you too," Aaryn said, face aflame at voicing her desires. "Feel you in the palm of my hand."
Thea's hips stuttered, and a hand shot between them, gripping Aaryn's wrist as she cried out, biting down on the sound as she tensed and splintered apart.
Aaryn flattened her palm, grinding the heel of it gently, easing Thea through the aftershocks.
Their chests expanded with each breath and in the following silence, Aaryn didn't know quite what to say. She was content here, beneath Thea, petting a hand through her dark hair.
"So. That wasn't exactly what I had planned to show you today," Thea murmured into Aaryn's shoulder.
Aaryn laughed, affection overwhelming her. "Oh, I don't know," she teased. "That was pretty magical, if you ask me."
Aaryn and Thea practically floated around the circle in the following hours and into the next day.
Thea was no longer running from Aaryn between their practice sessions. In fact, they'd met for a meal, and Aaryn's cheeks flushed every time she remembered Thea's head thrown back, her throat on full display and a moan spilling from her lips.
What pulled Aaryn out of the honeymoon-like afterglow was the murmur of something she hadn't heard in years.
"—death by dragon's breath," someone hissed as Aaryn and Thea passed them.
The phrase stopped them both in their tracks, and they shared a twin glance of dread.
"Briggs," Thea called, because of course Thea recognized one of them enough to call out to them. "What are you guys talking about?"
"Oh! Uh—hey, Thea," Briggs greeted, somewhat nervously. Briggs had multiple bands of runes tattooed around his arms, a few piercings. He was someone important. His gaze darted beyond them. "Vaelen wants to see you when you get a chance."
Aaryn's stomach sank, and the skip was gone from their steps.
Executions hadn't been done in such a manner in… well, certainly not in Aaryn's lifetime. Long ago, they'd been outlawed by a king as inhumane. She'd only read about such things in history books.
For them to go to such drastic measures now?
They never made it to Vaelen.
A low rumble rocked beneath their feet, the barriers shimmering in waves as the magic steadied the platforms in the sky. Fear shot through Aaryn, her first instinct that somehow they were being attacked.
But it wasn't an attack. An anguished cry rang out, haunting and piercing all at once.
A flash of light, a shout, the gathering of a crowd. Aaryn and Thea pushed their way to the front.
Stormstrike roared, wings flapping, air battering at their clothes, blowing the branches of nearby trees back, scattering leaves as if to ward everyone away.
He glowed, a ball of magic in his throat, and the swarm of people began to run.
Thea grabbed her hand and pulled her, but Aaryn's instinct was to run toward him, toward the small figure on her knees beneath him.
Blood dripped down Carissa's wrist and Aaryn gasped.