|
|
Post by Omnia Munda on Aug 1, 2008 10:14:33 GMT -8
The weyrleader's breaths were warm and slow through the wisps of the new weyrwoman's hair, and for a time he procrastinated answering her questions, lashes lowering as he just enjoyed the scent of her and the feel of her against him.
When he did lift his head, his hand came winding around the small of her back again as it had done before, replacing one closeness with another. "I didn't do so much," he murmured, giving his hair a suddenly self-conscious shake. The long locks that liked to droop over his forehead swung back, and for a moment he was made younger by starlight and the hair being back from his face. He looked up. "I was in the stables when the dragons interceded. Not literally, I mean; I was a farrier. Just a kid, so I wasn't handling the better runners or anything."
J'fel's mouth had become a wry twist, and he tipped his head over a little and tilted down his gaze from the stars above to the one he claimed stood beside him. "For every weyrleader or weyrwoman with a noteworthy past there's one like you or me, fosterlings and kitchen brats." The wry smirk turned into a grin, and his fingers wriggled against her back in something like a tease, not quite a tickle. "Our history begins now."
|
|
|
|
Post by Xinnai on Aug 1, 2008 10:28:03 GMT -8
Head tilted slightly as she watched him, eyes soft on his face, too enraptured by his story to feel touch or notice just how close they were. There was the hint of a smile as she shifted, effectively turning the slightest bit so they faced each other head on.
"A farrier?" Salina mused. "I would never have thought. You have a dignity about you...And soft hands. Certainly would never think of you doing hard labor." Lips twisted then, sarcastic even on her face.
The goldrider's attention went wandering to the garden and back to J'fel. She would spoken then, but the fingers at her back made her twist slightly, breath catching. When she did speak, it was warm with laughter. "Yes, I suppose you're right. From the glorious to the lowly. Dragons don't discriminate, at the very least." She became very serious then. It was very true. Dragons didn't care about the rank you thought you possessed. They only cared about you and then they put their mark of rank on you. It was simultaneously bittersweet and comforting.
"Would you say it does?" The weyrling was that slightest bit coy once more, the furtive laugh bubbling at voice. "One would think my life were just beginning now. And another history too? Mmm. That might be a bit much to handle." Breath came out in a laugh without sound as she winked, light mood returning.
|
|
|
|
Post by Omnia Munda on Aug 1, 2008 12:03:40 GMT -8
J'fel answered sarcasm about his prior 'career' with a sharp grin and an edgy, almost warning tone. "It's not so hard. You just bend your back a lot." His brows, thick aristocrat's brows, rose and his voice shifted, becoming carelessly light. He held out the hand not playing across the curve of the weyrling's back before them as example: "And it's been four turns since then - plenty of time to rest my hands."
He pocketed that hand and caressed her back more smoothly with the other, but he bowed his head a little in answering her last. "I speak in the broad sense, Salina. I was in a fog until Jordeth found me; the life I had before's like a dream, now." A frown creased his brow and unsettled his features but the gloom it imposed was brief. The weyrleader lifted his head and shrugged away whatever his concern had been in favor of pulling her closer, bending his arm and reaching for her waist the way he had before to turn her toward him.
"Perhaps this life's a dream, too," he said, whisper taking his voice once more, desires remembered making his tone smoky. "But a better one."
He'd have another kiss of her then, if she gave it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Xinnai on Aug 1, 2008 14:21:57 GMT -8
She felt instantly contrite-it was not for J'fel's past she smiled such over, but rather the words she'd heard of him. She shifted, fingertips drawing along his palm when he held it out, an unspoken apology. After all, she was the one with the calluses. "Undoubtedly," she murmured in soft reply.
She was tracing over his face, watching every tiny flicker of emotion. At the apparent saturnine emotion overtook him, she reached up lightly to touch his face. "Yes, for me as well. And I've not been with Deoneth for a handful of hours yet. Do you miss it?" she asked, fielding the same question as he had to her.
They were abruptly and very smoothly face-to-face once more by a designed move on his part. When they met his, eyes were very serious and soft smile graced petal-pink lips. She let her hand drop to his shoulder, pressing forward slightly and causing her skirt to swirl and puddle about her feet. "I think you might be right. A wholly more pleasurable one," she whispered, eyes still hooked to his.
|
|
|
|
Post by Omnia Munda on Aug 4, 2008 11:24:53 GMT -8
J'fel left her question for another moment, and indulged himself in the pleasure the moment - the dream - offered. His lips found Salina's again, less gentle this time; there was heat and hunger in these caresses, a wanton desire expressed with absurd delicacy in the littlest sweep of tongue.
Though he kept her secure in the bend of his arm, his free hand found her shoulder and descended a caress down the length of her arm to the elbow, then slunk beneath where his palm fit warm against the curve of her ribcage - barely decent. There was an electric tension in his muscles as they moved, making his arms taut and his stomach lean and hard, taunting self-control.
Then he drew his head back, smiling, eyes deep and full of promise or of threat. "Miss what," he whispered, satisfaction and humor equally droll in his husky intonation.
|
|
|
|
Post by Xinnai on Aug 4, 2008 11:40:22 GMT -8
Lips met and it was an entirely different meeting that they made this time. Wanting and ardent, it made the hand at his shoulder turn to clutching as she shifted forward, rising on toes to meet him, feeling the caress of hand upon her, moving to a place where a weyrleader should not be touching a weyrling. It didn't matter now, not when they weren't involved with such petty titles.
The implications of such actions were denied to her now and that simple little retraction made her want it all the more. She was trembling lightly when he pulled back, eyes still closed before slowly opening, much closer to silver in color than any human had a right to be. Her mind was whirling slightly from the insinuation that osculate had held. She had to inhale deeply once, twice, to answer his question.
"Miss your former life." It was mortifying to realize that her voice was shaking slightly, following the motions of her body. It had not nearly been such a passionate move, but it had affected her as deeply. The flush rose to her cheeks again, bright and warm in the darkness. Head ducked and she stepped back, away from him, trying to hide it in the cover of ink and frost that the sky made.
|
|
|
|
Post by Omnia Munda on Aug 4, 2008 12:46:02 GMT -8
That the shift of her body only put a willing curve into J'fel's ready palm made the weyrleader's smile even broader. His thumb moved slowly over peacock-blue fabric, artfully and silently caressing the clothed shape, bold and utterly inappropriate. When she drew away from him he raised a brow at her, eyes knowing; his hand spread harmless and empty, then dropped to his side.
The other hand was not so quick to let her go, however. He unbent his arm as she moved but kept his palm upon her, its warmth sliding across the small of her back as she stood away from him. "No," he said, the intonation of the syllable complex enough to make up for the simplicity of the word itself: amused that she could even think it possible. Being a farrier had offered him nothing. Being Jordeth's had brought him everything.
J'fel stepped forward, closing some of the space Salina had created by stepping back. "Are you embarrassed?" He lifted his hand to chase her flushing, fleeing cheek with the caress of his fingertips. Tell me if the queen wakes, he reminded Jordeth, and tried to close in on the new weyrwoman with another step. "Don't be," came his whisper in the darkness, and then he bent his head to try to kiss her again.
|
|
|
|
Post by Xinnai on Aug 4, 2008 13:01:03 GMT -8
A brief shudder rolled through her small frame when he refused to let her go. She didn't want to, but she didn't want him to see, didn't want him to know just how she was feeling. That mortification that mixed with the desire that was still pumping from her in waves, remembering the feeling of curved fingers and the brush of heat across an inappropriate place.
"I didn't think so." She was putting the rational back into place, thoughts catching up with her careening system. He closed into the space she'd created though, making feelings of panic bloom for a moment. She would have twisted away to hide the flourishing color in her otherwise pale face but he was touching at the flaming flesh, telling her not to be embarrassed as his lips lingered closer.
There was nothing she could do-thought was gone once more, the rational turned irrational, and she stood on tiptoe once more to press lips to his, craving more of that insatiable heat as her hands came to shoulders, holding him closer.
|
|
|
|
Post by Omnia Munda on Aug 4, 2008 13:38:36 GMT -8
When Salina's lips were as willing to meet his as his were to meet hers, J'fel knew he had her at last. Satisfaction and achievement swelled within him, adding their heady spices to the taste of the kiss, inspiring heat and fervor in the kiss. He looped his arm around her again, his palm firm between her shoulder blades, a tight trap to hold her while his mouth ravished hers. He couldn't get his fill of her with only kisses and he knew it, but he intended to have as deep an indulgence in them as he could.
His other hand sought again that place it shouldn't be, his touch slow but avid, seeking just the right stroke that would convey through the layers of her dress' bodice the sensation that would cause her breath to catch or her eyes to open or her kiss to heat.
And all the while a part of his mind attended Jordeth; and all the while a part of Jordeth's mind attended Deoneth, watchful for the slightest hint of a worried dream or a troubled bestirring. Take care, he warned his rider, and wondered what the baby gold would think of it if she woke to find his awareness focused so keenly upon her, like the shadow of her own mind. I would rather you release her before the queen wakes than after.
J'fel obeyed his dragon's wishes - in part. He drew his head back, breaking the kiss, his breath coming heavy with panting; but his hands remained where they were, refusing the weyrling escape from either his touch or his embrace. Looking at her through a gaze of blue fire, the weyrleader licked his lips and murmured, "I hope we'll have many walks like this."
Not that they were walking much just then.
|
|
|
|
Post by Xinnai on Aug 4, 2008 13:58:12 GMT -8
Body was arching into his, into his every touch as their mouths fused. It was heady, this kind of fusion of mouths. It was powerful, the very example of it the vibration of her frame against his, inspired by the strokes. Strokes that illicited a pulling in her stomach, demanding more where they could be none.
The very reason for such denial was sleeping deeply and peacefully, her slumber going undisturbed by her rider's roiling emotions and actions. The little queen was exhausted by the events of her first day within this world. The only evidence of any sort of troubled dreaming was the twitching of a bright tail from side to side.
Salina was thrown headlong into their kiss. Another stroke inspired a purr to rise, surprising her. Such an ambiguous move and she felt like her knees might give. She was grateful when he removed mouth from hers, even as the intense regret rose. Her breath was coming just as unevenly as his, caught within the hold of his arms. Eyes were misty, head shaking slightly as she met his gaze. "Yes. Definitely." She couldn't bear to bring herself from silken to pleasure to coherency. It was unfair.
|
|
|
|
Post by Omnia Munda on Aug 4, 2008 15:10:21 GMT -8
J'fel's hand paused, a possessive cup over the curve he'd been caressing, and he grinned down with fierce eyes into the weyrwoman's misted ones. She was his, now. He was certain of it.
Oh, there'd be her classmates, he knew. And no shortage of other bronzeriders would be all too willing to share her company the moment she left the weyrling barracks for a queen's weyr of her own. But the certainty that Salina would have no shortage of male companionship did not bother J'fel at all. She wanted him. What would it matter if she could have some other man if what she needed was with him?
He could see the pitfalls, of course: a jealous Aderes (though J'fel could not imagine the ethereal beauty experiencing such a crass emotion as jealousy) or perhaps Salina expecting to use J'fel's pull to keep her safe from transfer. And he couldn't afford to let Jordeth chase the junior's queen if the senior's was likely to fly soon after; he'd need to be fresh and in form to ensure their post. But if the two golds rose well apart - J'fel could just imagine it, if every new rider for turns and turns owed their dragons to Jordeth. They'd be untouchable.
Unlike Salina herself. J'fel's hand had moved without his specific awareness, sliding down along the tuck of her waist to her hip, then reaching lower to caress the side of her thigh through the fabric. His mouth was open in a grin, his breath still labored from the desire with which he'd kissed her and with which he now touched her, her gown making his caresses innocent despite their obvious intent to arouse her.
"Promise me something," he whispered, eyes grown dark and as full of stars as the sky - they reflected those pinpricks of light as would a quiet ocean in the night.
|
|
|
|
Post by Xinnai on Aug 4, 2008 15:28:09 GMT -8
She was unaware of his thoughts and had she been, she'd rather have not known them. To know that someone she'd defended against her very closest confidante was thinking of balancing her against the woman he was truly enamored of would have upset even her rather loose sensibilities-to some.
Instead, her own head was whirling with the fervor that their "walk" of dripped. Eyes closed again, fluttering to a standstill, her pulse picking up with the slow motion of fingers. It would not be truthful to say that the brush of fingers on such a sensitive part of her skin, even through the gown, did not affect her. Because it did. Fingers dug into his shoulders to illustrate this.
Her mind was clear enough to be wary at his demand. Eyes opened within her starlit face to watch him, that caution evident especially because of the bone white color her skin was reduced to, washed by the only light the night provided. Her mind whirred into motion, breaking free from the pleasant haze she'd been descending into. A promise? A promise of what?
What could J'fel possibly want from her? Other than the very thing that they were denied at present. He wouldn't want her to wait for him. Scorn laced through her even at the thought. So what could he, J'fel and weyrleader, want her, Salina and weyrling, to promise him? She paused for a moment before speaking. "Promise you what?"
|
|
|
|
Post by Omnia Munda on Aug 4, 2008 15:45:35 GMT -8
To be fair, the tantalizing future in which J'fel imagined himself full partner to Aderes, privileged lover to Salina, and weyrleader to them both was not the only temptation the bronzerider felt heating his blood. His hand crept over the fabric of the weyrling's gown, fingers stretching and curling again to caress her with their tips. If only he'd dallied with her the night before - in his mind he was drawing the length of blue cloth up, baring her legs and pulling her against him. There was a bench in the garden, farther back; they could make good use of it in the darkness -
J'fel caught himself and honed his mind on what he'd been about to request of the weyrling. "Make Deoneth as biddable as you can," he said, voice a bit breathless. His cheeks had taken on a rouge as if from exertion, but his expression remained fiery, and he licked his lips before explaining.
"I want you staying here."
Then he bent his head to scatter heated kisses along the line of her jaw toward her ear, a fervor that made his words seem even more heartfelt inspiring the hungry nips of lips and teeth.
|
|
|
|
Post by Xinnai on Aug 4, 2008 15:58:33 GMT -8
A gasp rose within the goldrider's throat, full and breathless, as she felt fingers' movements. She had to grab at him with bruising strength as she gasped again. She lost her train of thought as she bowed closer, wanting more of this, wanting more of his touch and taste than she could possibly be allowed. She had to think of the little gold she was now linked with-this was no shallow rule to be bent and broken. It had weight.
She pulled her mind back from the hole it had jumped in, focusing on his words and not his fingers. But watching him reminded her and she felt heat clawing at her chest, making her heart pound. She blinked for a moment, just registering his words. And then he was kissing at her skin, making her clutch at him, boneless. But she had to ask, had to.
"We're biddable already," she murmured. It was enough of a promise without saying the words. She shuddered, gasping again at the razz of teeth against skin. She swayed into him, hungry purr rising in her throat. "We want to stay..." It was but a murmur, the last thread of any sort of intelligence she had left.
|
|
|
|
Post by Omnia Munda on Aug 4, 2008 16:11:32 GMT -8
Jordeth was warning him again, this time without words. The bronze was growing tired of splitting his attentions - Pelegaoth required him, and he wished his rider would finish his trysting and deliver the weyrling to her quarters so that he could rest his three-way-divided mind. But J'fel was enchanted with the feel of soft skin beneath his lips and the sound of Salina's gasps in his ear.
"Perfect," he whispered, and took her earlobe in his mouth. Between them his hand flexed and fingers arched, dragging the fabric of her gown against her skin. He craved those catches of breath, wanted more than (almost) anything to feel the new weyrwoman turn to parchment in his arms, shaking like a page in the wind as he stroked her. If only...
It required all the will J'fel had to release her tender skin from his suckling lips and straighten his back. His hand went still, offering pressure and heat but no more motion, and he looked down upon Salina with a countenance of frankest desire. He swallowed as much of it as he could, then breathed, "Walk with me." It was no longer a request; it now had equal parts plead and command, as forceful as it was reluctant.
The young weyrleader drew a deep, steadying breath and grinned, loosening his arm from around the goldrider at last, stepping back and removing his hand to let the terrible cool air intercede between them. "If we don't walk, I will wake her."
|
|
