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‘Have you two tried holding hands?’ Shadowheart asks from behind Calathea’s back, the slightest hint of irritation in her casual voice.
With Astarion walking next to her, Calathea just couldn’t help it. She thought she was being inconspicuous, promising herself each stolen look would be the last, begging her body not to shudder at the incidental brush of his shoulder — though there have been too many to be incidental. Calathea can hear Wyll chuckle from behind Shadowheart as she turns back towards her and Lae’zel, the githyanki seemingly oblivious to the situation, lost in her own thoughts. As she does, she sees Astarion bite his lip to hide a sneaky grin. Shadowheart rolls her eyes.
‘You’ve "accidentally" looked at each other thirty times in the last half-hour. Here,’ she grabs Lae’zel’s palm, ‘is how it’s done in case you needed a demonstration.’
Lae’zel stares at their hands, dumbfounded, and leans her head back, looking appraisingly at Shadowheart. Wyll’s lips disappear into his mouth.
‘Darling,’ Astarion turns with his usual flamboyance, puffing up the already voluminous curls at the back of his head, ‘I’m sorry for your broken heart but there are better ways to deal with it than passive aggression.’
‘A one-night stand I can’t even remember is hardly any cause for heartbreak, vampire,’ Shadowheart notices she’s still holding Lae’zel’s palm and lets it go, Lae’zel’s gaze lingering on her.
‘Speaking of. You are coming in— ahem— to my bed tonight, aren't you?’ Astarion cocks an eyebrow at Calathea.
Seeing the fear of rejection beyond his devil-may-care demeanour — even though this isn't in any way serious — she can’t resist spicing things up a little. The drow turns her mind flayer ring, recovered from him just this morning, glad once again of its avail with insight, and flicks her eyelashes down and up at him.
‘Say please,’ Calathea demands.
In her peripheral vision, Wyll bites at his fist grabbing Karlach’s shoulder while she whistles, and immediately withdraws his palm, shaking it.
'What?' Astarion asks, thrown off a little.
'Say please,' Calathea repeats, letting a bit of purr into her voice.
Shadowheart slaps her forehead with her palm.
‘Please?’ Astarion echoes, raising his eyebrows in his best — excellent, really — approximation of puppy eyes.
Calathea boops his nose and grabs his palm in response. It's incredibly difficult not to kiss him.
‘Good boy’, she says, and Astarion’s grin can’t be hidden. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’
‘Public displays of affection are really not what—’ Shadowheart huffs.
‘We are holding hands, isn't that what you wanted?’ Calathea raises their intertwined fingers to show the cleric as she turns around to proceed.
‘Now we’re talking,’ booms Karlach.
Lae’zel seems back to her rumination while Wyll mimics fainting for Calathea’s benefit, and she gives him a shrug. Astarion’s palm on hers is cool and soft, and when she looks down on it, she finds the sight immensely erotic. She retreats further into her hood.
Astarion set up his tent the farthest from the campfire, in a cove next to the cavern’s mouth, commenting suggestively about not disturbing anyone when he went off to hunt. Calathea could barely handle the suspense hanging in the air; then again, the rest weren’t acting all that differently. She volunteered for the first watch nonchalantly. Two days of fighting in a row is demanding work — perhaps everyone would sleep later in the morning. When everyone dispersed to their tents, throwing looks at the two remaining by the fire, she realised the tension was indeed palpable.
Calathea looks at Astarion openly over the fire, head to toe. He cleaned up after the fight, and she almost feels sorry for it: blood suits him better than clothes.
‘See something you like?’ He speaks softly.
Calathea nods, rocking her head from one shoulder to the other, following the swoop of his shoulders with her gaze. She blinks up to meet his eyes. Reminded of how vicious, how vivid they get in battle, she draws in a deep, stuttering breath.
‘Why don’t you come here?’ Astarion leans forward, spreading his knees and placing his elbows on them.
‘I’m just fine where I am,’ she says, stretching out her legs and rocking her feet quickly side to side.
‘Please?’ He raises his eyebrows.
She might as well throw herself into the campfire for the heat that strikes her deep inside. A mischievous smile creeps onto her face as she remains seated, wagging her feet a bit quicker.
‘You’ll have to ask better than that.’
‘I see,’ Astarion grins with his lip between his teeth.
He gets up, and Calathea lets out a faint note of excitement. Astarion rounds the fire, looking down at her, sat on an overturned crate, and stops just out of her reach. Calathea stretches her neck up, longing to feel his touch. He smiles wickedly, coming closer and screwing up his nose. She leans her head back to keep looking at him. Astarion bends, his face so close she can feel his breath.
‘I don’t ask twice, love,’ he tips his head to the side. ‘We’ll see who’s saying please by the end of the night.’
With that, he leaves, and Calathea settles into her watch. The hours go by unbearably slowly; she’s walked around the cavern seven times by the time she stops pretending she could just leave him wanting in his tent. She knows he can hear her steps past it, and every time, she wonders how he’s passing the time until she joins him. Has he spent himself to make sure he can tease her for longer? Is he trancing? Is he reading? Perhaps he has indeed gone out to hunt. She has no idea how much blood he needs, but he’s bound to need it.
That thought returns Calathea to the night he spent in her tent, their morning together. How most of the things he liked had to do with her. She considers taking care of herself before she goes into Astarion’s tent to boost her fortitude. How his arbitrary breathing lays him bare before her. She’s getting overexcited before they’ve even started. Yet this scenario just makes something inside her spin, accelerating, knocking the breath out of her. She could take him in a fight, and he could take her, too. They’re on equal footing, each holding power over the other, which is exactly why shifting its balance is so titillating, she realises. No matter who ends up pleading with whom.
She’s bouncing on her heels, finishing her fifth cigarette in a row, when Karlach finally shuffles out of her tent to take over the watch.
‘All right?’ Calathea asks, already taking a step towards Astarion’s tent.
‘Something about knowing what you like and then treating yourself to it, isn’t there?’ the tiefling gives her a crooked smile and a wink. ‘Get out of here.’
Astarion holds the flap open for her, topless and dangerously alluring. As soon as Calathea’s in, she takes off her pants and throws herself onto one of the two bedrolls he’s got rolled out.
‘I fucking hate these things,’ she says casually, throwing her pants into the tent’s fabric wall.
‘Never wear them again?’ Astarion offers, smirking, towering over her. ‘I like it when you don’t.’
‘Maybe I won’t,’ Calathea squints up at him and reaches out her hand to pat on the other bedroll. ‘If you ask nicely.’
‘Take your shirt off,’ he tells her, a glint of danger in his eyes.
‘Not convinced,’ she shakes her head.
‘How old are you, exactly?’ Astarion asks, now the one pulling the proverbial rug from under her feet.
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ Calathea sits up in surprise.
‘You’re trying to wear down a vampire’s patience, my darling,’ he does a little gracious turn-and-bow before crossing his hands on his chest. ‘It’s a losing game, I’ll tell you as much.’
‘Oh Astarion, we both know your patience isn’t eternal,’ she points her eyes to the promising mound in his pants before flicking them up at his face. ‘Even if your beauty is.’
‘You’re only making it hard—’
‘That’s what he said,’ Calathea snorts.
Surprised, Astarion laughs his real laugh, pinching the bridge of his nose, and she’s flabbergasted. His crowd-stopping high-pitched giggle is wonderfully filthy, but the quick, unvoiced breaths, the voiced inhale, his dumb face throughout? She stands before she can stop herself, and as he drops his hand, closes the distance between them.
‘May I have a kiss, please?’ Calathea blinks demurely.
‘See, I knew you weren’t a heathen,’ Astarion reaches out his hand, caressing the soft skin below her chin with his fingers as if petting a cat.
As Calathea steps closer, his hand hardens, and he pulls her face sharply forth. Arousal built up over hours is heavy in her lower stomach. There’s an urge to descend straight into grovelling at his feet, but she can stand it yet.
‘First, you will take off your shirt,’ his breath tickles at her lips.
‘And if I won't?’ Calathea purrs.
‘I’ll stand here and look at you, and that’s all I’ll do all night,’ Astarion threatens, his lips so close she can taste them, so far she can never get to them on her own.
‘Unless I make you do something more,’ she reaches for his waist, fluttering her fingers along the sides of his abdomen, feeling her labia turn into a magmatic pool straight out of Avernus.
‘I’d like to see you try,’ Astarion smirks, his nostrils flaring with how he struggles to contain a noise of pleasure.
‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ She asks, leaning into the hand holding her jaw, running the backs of her fingers along his erection, over his pants.
He’s quicker than she is by far, and he doesn’t need to let her jaw go when he gathers her wrists in a fist, pulling her hands forward and up as he steps closer, pressing his cock into her hip. Calathea loses balance and steps a foot out behind herself, bending back while Astarion leans in to her ear.
‘Take it off,’ he whispers, then growls, ‘please,’ and kisses her neck underneath her ear.
The jolt that causes throughout Calathea’s body is visible, and she whines, trying to press herself into him while Astarion steps back, dragging her hands and face forward to stand her upright. Another step back and her hands are free, another one, and she doesn’t have the privilege of his fingers on her jaw anymore. Her hands fall to the hem of her shirt of their own accord. Momentarily, she stands in her soaked-through underwear under Astarion’s approving smirk.
‘Now come here,’ he beckons.
This is arousal of a whole other kind, Calathea realises as his eyes bore into hers. She’s not sure who meets whom when his fingers land on the back of her neck. Astarion’s kiss is firm and brief, and then his hand relaxes, sliding down to her collarbone. Nestling his thumb in the valley along it, he raises his eyes to meet hers. His irises are thin red circles around his enormous pupils. He hasn’t bothered with light, Calathea notes.
‘Sound bubble?’ She twirls her finger upwards, checking.
‘Done. Safe word?’
‘My go-to is no.’
‘I rather like it as a plaything.’
‘I figured you would,’ Calathea gives him a wry smile. ‘How about welcome?’
‘Good one.’
She falls to her knees and yanks down his pants. His cock bounces up, and its head is cool against the roof of her mouth before Astarion’s fingers fist in her hair and pull back. She sits on her shins, looking up at him, and lets her mouth gape, seeing his pupils grow even wider. He steps out of his pants.
‘No,’ Astarion says and slaps his dick on her cheek.
Calathea breathes in sharply and tries to catch it in her hand, but he pulls at her hair again. She’s all but gushing already, her body thrumming, and her hand slips beneath her underwear. With a breathy moan, she appeases her clit, rocking her finger over it.
‘None of that, either,’ Astarion orders.
‘Or what?’ she wiggles her eyebrow provocatively, not stopping but slipping her fingers lower.
His fist is tight in her hair, and his tip slides along Calathea’s mouth before resting at the crux of her lips. She opens them slowly, keeping her hands off him, holding his narrowing gaze, trying not to breathe.
‘You know what I’ve been thinking about all day?’ He asks.
Astarion bends just before the very tip of her tongue meets the dome of his head. Calathea does not stop stroking herself, keening sharply when he pulls her head back.
‘Finishing in my mouth?’ She asks hopefully.
Still holding her by the hair, Astarion rounds on her and slips to his knees behind her, pulling Calathea’s ass up from her shins and pushing a knee between her legs, his fingers digging mercilessly into the flesh of her hip.
‘That one little chat we had the night you were with your druid,’ he purrs in her ear.
‘Which part?’ She wants to hear him say it.
He takes hold of the offending wrist, twisting it behind her back. Calathea moans loudly, tilting her ass upwards, and reaches for his cock with her other hand.
‘Specifically what was said behind closed doors,’ Astarion lets go of her hair to slap her wrist and put it with the other one.
Calathea looks over her shoulder to see him bite his lip as he guides his cock down and slides it along her cunt in the lightest rubbing motion. She can’t catch it there with her thighs for his legs holding hers apart. She’s reduced to high, begging whimpers when his hold on her hands tightens and he brings his face behind her ear.
‘Did you think of me when you came that night?’ His wet lips caress the back of her ear.
‘I did,’ Calathea manages.
‘Was your lover not enough?’ Astarion’s voice hardens.
‘He wasn't you,’ she rasps. ‘I wanted you.’
She feels his chuckle along her back, on her ass, against her ear, gleeful as ever, low as all Hells.
‘Remind me, what was it you wanted?’ His light tone is almost mocking for how casual it is. ‘For me to ravage you? Fuck you up within an inch of your life?’
Astarion shifts his grip on her wrists to hold both with one hand and grabs her jaw with the other, pulling her face towards his, close enough to kiss, far enough to see. Her chest heaves. The memory of that night is just about enough to make her drip, but he continues, holding her jaw and her gaze.
‘Answer me,’ he demands, leaning in. ‘Did you want me to do it?’
Calathea gives a light chuckle, biting her lip and shifts her hips from side to side, getting momentary stimulation.
‘You know I did,’ she whispers.
‘Did you want me to slap you, then?’
‘Yes,’ she whines, and the quick, hot splash of his palm against her cheek makes her breath catch.
Astarion’s hard cock pushes against her clit, over her underwear, and stays there, her own pulse shaking her body in rhythmic jolts. Calathea tugs up her hips sharply, trying to get some friction. He lands a wonderfully resounding slap on her ass and rocks his hips upwards, once, fitting his pelvis tightly against her buttocks.
‘I seem to remember you also wanted me to restrain you, darling,’ he breathes into her ear, running his nose along it and tightening his grip on her wrists. ‘Is this enough for now or shall I get some rope?’
‘Mhm,’ she whimpers, desperate.
‘Now answer properly,’ Astarion pulls back from her.
‘Yes, this is good,’ Calathea manages, focused on his cock, staring over her shoulder.
‘You want it?’ He asks, meeting her gaze.
‘So much’, she gasps.
He chuckles, running his fingertips delicately across her lower stomach, sending her skin abuzz and up towards her breasts, the lightest touches on her nipples melting her spine.
‘All you have to do is ask,’ his breath is at the crook of her neck, and she seeks to push her back into him, but he holds her off. ‘It’s up to you when. I’m in no rush.’
‘I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t in a rush,’ Calathea challenges.
‘You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t going to ask,’ Astarion parries.
His hand slides down over the soaking wet patch on her underwear, the heel of it pressing into Calathea’s clit, the fingers stretching along her lips, and stops. His cock comes to rest between her buttocks. She tries to grind against him, but he won’t give her the room to. Her body is on fire, arousal sops into her underwear, she’s entirely at his mercy, and she can't take it anymore.
‘Please, Astarion, please’, she begs, stifled, burning up.
His fingers are unbearably light around the edge of her underwear, picking out a spot to slip it down. When his cock breaks into her, it's all she can think about and all she can feel. He applies both of his hands to hers, holding her upright, counterbalancing the forward pull of her body with his lean backwards. He moves inside her torturously slowly, but Calathea doesn't dare thrust for fear he’ll withdraw.
‘You’ve been good — here’s your treat,’ Astarion sighs, relishing his power over her, almost bored.
‘More, please, more,’ Calathea gasps.
She yelps as he pulls out quickly and presses on her upper back, pushing her face into the bedroll. Astarion’s knees push her legs together. He yanks her underwear down and rams into her without reservation, setting a quick pace, letting Calathea feel his balls slap against her clit.
‘Is this what you want?’ He asks through gritted teeth.
‘Yes, please, don’t stop, please,’ she whimpers, her back arched at his behest.
Overcome, he mutters, ‘oh fuck’. His cock moving incessantly inside her, Astarion grabs her hair again, turning her head on the bedroll to lay sideways, watching Calathea’s face as her open mouth leaks into the fabric. Seeing him fuck her puts her on the verge of overstimulation. His strokes are punishing, frenetic, both ripping in and wrenching out, hitting every nerve around her cunt, unrelenting, bringing her so close—
‘What a good girl you are when you want to be,’ he growls and descends upon her.
His breath is heavy, rushing gusts sending shivers down her spine. Astarion’s lips crawl up her back, devouring every bit of sweat on their way.
‘You wanted me to bite you, didn’t you?’ He taunts.
His teeth on her shoulder sink in when she’s already coming violently, kicking her feet up between his legs, losing purchase in her knees, her lower stomach and hipbones flopping into the bedroll. She can feel she’s bleeding, and he laps it off her skin, smothering his face into her back.
‘You wanted me to bite you all along,’ Astarion pants.
‘Yes, yes, I did,’ she cries.
He finds yet more intensity, more speed, more depth, discarding her hands from between them like used toys and fitting himself into her body. He growls between her shoulder blades and grasps her arms on the bedroll, one before the other, reaching upwards along them until his fingers hook between hers. He pulls her hands up along the bedroll and keeps fucking her into it, shifting himself up along her body, driving his cock deeper, moving in smaller thrusts.
Then he stops so abruptly she might come from surprise alone as his dick throbs inside her.
‘Hm,’ Astarion’s voice vibrates along her spine as his thumbs slip around hers, massaging the soft flesh of her palms.
‘Don’t you dare stop,’ Calathea says, having taken a painfully heaving breath.
His cock pulls almost all the way out, and it’s as if a thread is pulled inside her. Calathea’s head rises, the back of it hitting his shoulder. She feels him pulsating intensely and plays up her cunt’s squeezing.
‘I think I’ll do as I please,’ Astarion purrs and gathers her arms closer, bending his elbows, resting their intertwined palms underneath Calathea’s sternum.
He dips his face into the side of her neck, kissing and licking along it, stopping on the barely present marks of his teeth, and then traces his nose through the back of her hair all the way to the other side of her face. There’s a breathy moan in her ear when he takes the tip of it into his mouth, sucking and tickling it with his tongue.
‘Holy fuck,’ Calathea groans, trembling underneath him.
She struggles to turn her head towards his face, ready to beg for his kiss, but his lips land sloppily on hers before she can, a disorderly, sideways, drooling, glorious kiss.
‘Hmmmm,’ Astarion draws out.
Calathea’s eyelids fall closed with the vibration that sends all throughout her body, and she pulls her hips up and into Astarion. She presses her toes into the bedroll, tensing her legs together.
‘Please,’ Calathea keens, desperate to feel his teeth ripping, his cock bursting inside her.
Astarion’s gravelly chuckle drives her deeper into the ground. That gets her to clasp her fingers around his and flutter her cunt, wishing she could draw him in. His deep breath makes her feel like she's flying up. There are tickling goosebumps all over her body. Calathea’s mouth, open and wet, turns her sigh into a loud, sharp ‘ah’.
‘I want to fucking tear you apart,’ he mutters, his words resonating throughout her entire being.
‘Astarion,’ Calathea whines. ‘Please!’
When Astarion pushes into her, slow and measured, exquisitely firm, she can feel every muscle in her body relax, but she fights to keep her head up and against his.
‘You’ll let me do it, won't you?’ He asks in the voice so often inappropriate in public, so miraculously understated in this moment.
‘Anything you want,’ she gasps, genuine.
The sound of his breathing overtakes all else as he accelerates his strokes, driving her insane and fixing her all at the same time.
‘Anything I want?’ He pushes out.
‘Yes, anything, Astarion,’ she rasps.
‘Will you do anything I want, too?’ He asks in a voice appropriate for this situation exclusively.
‘I will,’ she breathes, jittering.
Suddenly, two of his fingers break into her mouth, and she latches onto them as she comes, thrashing underneath him. Calathea's forehead falls into the bedroll, Astarion’s fingers slip in and out of her clasped lips. His weight comes off her slightly, and he stops but doesn't slip out, moaning with her.
‘Good girl,’ he rasps.
Astarion pushes a few slow, stirring circles into her for good measure, making her gasp and roil, and then slides down and turns her over, rising on his knees on both sides of her legs. The lower half of his face and his torso are slathered in her congealed blood, mixed with sweat. Astarion's cock twitches aggressively, she’s astonished he hasn’t come yet. His eyes are murderous, and believing the threat makes her pull in all the pieces she’s just shattered into, press them together, and prepare to implode.
‘Clean up,’ he throws at her like a snare trap.
She rises gradually, sitting up, presses her lips into the bedroll — raw, dripping, swollen — and she whimpers, not losing his eyes. Calathea wants to crawl to him, but he doesn’t let her legs out from between his knees. She reaches out, but Astarion leans back, jerking up his eyebrows.
‘Let me,’ she says. ‘Please.’
Astarion leans to kiss her in a way that suggests she’s life-saving, so out of place, it shouldn't help her get worked up again, but it happens all on its own. She gets to work on his face, splaying her tongue on his chin, running it along his cheeks, the contour of his mouth, below the tip of his nose. His cock presses into her stomach, trailing up as her mouth moves down his body, and her legs slide gradually out and underneath her body.
‘Am I doing a good job?’ She purrs, but Astarion doesn't need to answer.
The tiny movements of his hips, the sighs and gasps he lets out as she eats her blood off his skin, are the real treat for the good girl that she’s been. Her hands stay out of it, but his stroke along her back, onto her neck, and into her hair when she raises her gaze. Calathea, absolutely entranced with him, leaves her mouth open. She wishes he would thrust straight into it.
‘You missed a spot,’ he scolds and leans away.
She did it on purpose. Calathea stretches her tongue out, lapping at the bit of blood over his navel, narrowing her eyes as he lets out a shuddering moan. She bows lower until she can run her tongue along his erection.
‘Lie down,’ Astarion’s eyes snap open, ‘on your back.’
His balls are in her face when she does, and she rushes to clasp her hands on his ass, pulling up to get them into her mouth. His surprised moan coincides with him coming to all fours, his face over her cunt, and he hangs his head to look between their bodies.
‘You weren't allowed to do that,’ Astarion chides.
Calathea lets his balls go, only to tickle the base of his cock with her tongue.
‘Your turn to ask,’ she says, bringing her hand to his shaft.
‘I don’t think so,’ he manages to say condescendingly, even in this compromising position.
‘Oh?’
‘I’m allowed anything I want,’ he reminds her. ‘And I’m about to take it.’
‘Fuck,’ Calathea sighs and feels herself leaking onto the bedroll.
‘Remember the safe word?’ Astarion asks with a note of concern.
‘Yeah, I’m good,’ she hurries to say. ‘May I please have your cock in my mouth?’
‘That’s better,’ he sighs and eases his hips lower. ‘You are strong enough to push me off, right?’
‘Mhm. Will you please come into my throat?’ Calathea asks and runs her lips along the side of his shaft.
Astarion’s fingers come to her lips, and he starts moving them in gentle circles.
‘Oh I will, but you’ll give me something in return,’ she can hear his grin.
‘Fucking take it,’ Calathea bucks up her hips and plunges his cock inside her mouth.
Having him rub against her tongue, trying to reach deeper into her throat in frenetic, uneven thrusts, lets Calathea know just how close he is. She bends her knees, tilting her hips up. Astarion’s tongue laves around her bush, along her folds, runs delicately over her clit, and he finds a different spot — one to nip gently with his teeth, giving her a chance to stop him. She lets out a series of confirming moans around his thrusting cock, rushing his release, and when he bites in, it finally happens.
Calathea opens her throat to take his deepest push and let his spend flow freely as he moans and growls over her thigh, drinking, fucking her with his fingers. She comes again when he pulls slowly out of her mouth, tasting his spend on his head, delirious with orgasmic bliss, ecstatic with blood loss. Astarion stops and presses his palm firmly on the inside of her thigh, reaching for a potion to dress the wound immediately.
Once that’s done, he rises to his knees only to come around and down on her again, not missing the chance to run his tongue along her cunt, sending a jolt through her and stopping on her chest, where he lays his head, his body heavy on hers.
‘That was amazing,’ Calathea sighs.
‘Fucking phenomenal,’ Astarion says, nuzzling his face between her breasts, running his nose along a nipple. ‘Gods am I glad I didn't give in and fuck you sooner.’
‘How do you mean?’ Calathea’s vision swims; there’s a high-pitched noise in her ears, but nothing matters. ‘Because you couldn't have my blood then?’
‘If we’d gone through with it before that last night, I would’ve— you would've had to die.’
‘Oh. This could’ve been a good one to go out on, though.’
‘Good? Not the best possible?’ He jokes with a note of self-consciousness.
‘Imagine what we could get up to with furniture,’ Calathea mumbles, wrapping her arms around him.