Roses for Erin

“Cross my heart.”

“Ok. Then... can... can we go upstairs? I... I want to get out of this costume now. I'm... tired, Erin. I'm so very tired.”

“Of what, babe?”

“Everything. The whole dreary thing. All of it.”

I brushed the fresh tears off her cheeks

“Let me help you, then,” I said, soft and gentle. “Lean on me. I'm here for you. Lets... go upstairs. I'll warm up the shower and you can wash today off of you.”

I helped her slip her legs off me; she scrubbed her sleeve across her face and sniffed.

I looped my arm through hers as we exited the room and made our way to the smaller servant's staircase that climbed to the third floor. I opened our door and ushered her in, letting it close behind us. Then I helped her out of her sword belt and eased her jacket off her shoulders, before turning to hang her Bolero carefully over the back of a chair.

I placed the tricorne on the dressing table and kicked off my heels.

Hannah watched me wordlessly, pale faced and wan.

“Come,” I said. “Sit down. Here.”

I helped her down onto a stool and knelt down in front of her so that I could ease the shoes off her feet. Then I pushed myself back on my haunches.

“I'll... get your shower running, shall I?”

“Erin?” she said, softly.

“Yeah, hon?”

“Do you actually like me? Really? Please don't lie. You don't have to lie to spare my feelings. Just... just be honest. Do you?”

“Look at me,” I said, gently.

I waited until she did.

“Yes.” I breathed. “I do. Really.”

She swallowed; looked down again.

“Okay.”

She fidgeted.

“Sorry for going to pieces on you,” she said. “I'm just so tired of being alone. I'm so tired of wanting what I can't have.”

“You aren't alone. And if you want me, well, you can have me. All of me. Every last bit.”

“Tell me that again in a year and a day when you're tired of my attitude and drama,” she whispered.

“Alright, I will. And... every year after that too, if you'll let me.”

She shuddered out a little half-sob and buried her face in against me again.

I held her for a moment longer, then gently disentangled myself from her arms. I stood, sighed, and tugged her bow out of my hair.

I unclasped the pieces of eight from around my neck and set them aside on the dressing table's polished mahogany top.

I strained my arms behind me; found and tripped the hook and then eased the zip down to the small of my back so that I could shrug and wriggle my gown free of me.

I scooped it up, shook it out and hung it carefully over the chair.

“You're wearing the burgundy. I... didn't realise,” she commented.

I glanced back at her; she was watching me.

“You chose it for me. Of course I was going to wear it. It brought me good luck. It brought you into my life.”

She flushed and looked down at her knotted fingers.

I reached behind my back and unclipped my bra. I set it carefully aside and wrapped one of the suite's soft cotton dressing gowns around myself; our room was chilly and my nipples were already erect from the cold.

I made my way to the bathroom.

I reached into the shower, fumbling and cursing at the stupidly over-complicated console as I tried to turn the jets on and warm them for her.

And suddenly her arms were around me and her lips were pressed to my jawline and she was pulling me back against her.

I gasped, arching, pressing my bum instinctively back against her belly.

She fumbled at the opening of the dressing gown; I cried out wordlessly as I felt her fingers find my erect left nipple. I turned my head, desperately seeking her lips, began to kiss her as if the world were ending. She broke free, trailed her mouth and hot tongue down my jaw, down my throat and neck as she pushed the fabric of my dressing gown aside.

I staggered round to face her.

She paused, panting, staring at me.

“No, no, no, don't stop, don't dare stop,” I begged her, almost unable to bear it. “Don't. Please. That was so...”

She kissed me again to shut me up.

“Touch me,” she gasped.

She fumbled at her buttons and peeled her shirt back. “I've wanted you to touch me for so long now...”

She struggled out of her shirt and bra and flung them aside, then fumbled for my hands and put them to her.

She hunched forward, pressing the warmth of herself to me, taking my cheeks between her fingers as she began to kiss me again.

I cried out again as she roughly ripped the dressing gown off me and kicked it aside before she took me in her arms.

“Play with me,” she panted. “Oh, oh God, Erin, touch me...”

I marvelled at the warmth of her breasts and ribs and flanks beneath my eager fingertips.

I felt her shudder.

She began to trail her fingers and her nails over my sides, down to my hips, around and over my bum...

Her touch was gentle as butterflies at first and I gasped and panted and writhed against her as she lit trails of delight all over my body.

But she didn't stay slow and gentle for very long at all.

And I surrendered any thought of holding any bit of me back from her.

Her kisses were divine, her scent and taste filling my senses.

I wanted her.

I wanted to be hers.

I wanted her to possess me.

My belly cramped; I groaned; worming and writhing my way in closer to her.

“Take me...” I begged her.

“Yes,” she agreed, with a shivery little gasp.

I laughed at her ridiculous statement, and she kissed me again to stop my near-delirious giggles.

She fumbled down between us.

She found me and forced her fingers in under my thin panties. I arched hard against her hand as she spread my lips.

She gasped out a soft, disbelieving “Oh my God” as she discovered just how wet I was.

I was soaking for her; aching for her.

Moaning for her.

Completely ready for her to take me in any manner that she desired to.

I had never wanted anyone as much as I wanted her in this moment.

“Fuck me,” I begged.

She pushed me back against the bathroom wall and fumbled her leg in between mine to spread me over her.

I clutched at her, groaning, ecstatic, as she began to drive her delicious, firm fingers over and around my clit.

This was not lovemaking.

There was nothing tender, nothing languid about this.

This was her pure, base need to have me.

And my pure, unfiltered need for her to claim me.

For me to belong.

To be hers.

I loved it.

I loved her urgency, her power, the tautness of the muscles of her thigh which now drove and shifted between mine.

I loved how we didn't need words or platitudes or little flirty bits of nonsense or the sweet and pretty lies that horniness brought.

I loved the honesty of our lust.

She was slick with me.

Her body felt scalding hot; like a furnace forcing me backwards, charring my skin with the heat of her against me.

My pussy ached; I desperately needed all of her.

I could hear her panting in my ear; feel her hips shimmying, wriggling in and out, grinding on my thigh as if she were trying to ride me.

Sweat beaded my skin.

My vision began to blur far beyond my astigmatism's normal bounds.

I clawed at her shoulder, she moaned hot and heavy into my ear.

The tiles were cold on my bare back and bum.

Her finger was in me now, or maybe it was two, or even three - I couldn't tell, all I cared about was that whatever she had in me was curling over my clit and into and out of my aching, stretched, soaking slit in the most perfect way.

I gasped out as my pussy clenched once, then again, even harder.

“Come for me,” she moaned. “Come for me, oh God, just... let me feel you come for me...”

She bit my neck, hard enough to hurt; I yelped and clawed in hard against her, both loving and hating the glorious pain that made everything a trillion times more intense.

My hips began to buck; I couldn't control myself, my body was overriding me, all my pleasure centres were fusing into one white-hot incandescence centred just above her thrusting fingers...

I squeezed my eyes closed, tried to angle myself more for her, open myself so I could take just... just a little more of her... into me.

I was close.

So close.

I never got this close this fast.

I had to fuck myself for ages to come.

Sometimes I couldn't even...

I had to work for it. I had to earn...

She didn't...

Oh...

Oh God...

She was so good.

At this.

She arched forward, fumbling for my nipple, contorting herself so she could take me between her lips and... and flick her tongue... on... on my... as she... and...

My entire body clenched and juddered; my foot slipped, she shrieked, I cried out some wordless ridiculousness, and we slid gracelessly, in no-doubt comic stages, until we came to a halt part-way down the wall, her fingers still sunk in me.

I came on and on and on as hard as I could ever remember coming.

I was making noises that the last remaining sane bit of me didn't recognise.

She was panting and whimpering in my ear.

And at last I went limp and slumped there, cut down, braced between her and the wall, shuddering, groaning, sobbing each time she stroked her now-gentle fingers oh-so-excruciatingly-slowly in and out of me.

Aftershock after aftershock lashed me like a whip to my belly.

I whimpered and shimmied and wriggled like a beached fish.

And... at last she stopped.

I finally felt like I could draw breath.

I made some sort of stupid moaning wail as all the remaining tension popped like soap bubbles on the breeze.

She pulled herself free of me, and gathered me onto her lap.

My heart was still racing as if I'd tried to sprint a mile.

“Erin?” she breathed. “Erin?”

But I had no words.

She'd taken them all from me.

So I summoned the last of my strength, buried my face in against her, and tried to fix the little moan she gave into my heart forever.

.:.

“I didn't mean to bruise you,” she whispered, ashamed. “Oh God, Erin... it's going all purple...”

I touched the welt on my neck and winced. “It's okay. I'll forgive it this once. You'll just need to loan me a scarf in the morning. Next time, bite me somewhere... less obvious, okay?”

“Was I... too rough? I... oh God I'm so sorry, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to be... I never meant...”

“It was amazing,” I breathed. I turned to face her again; grinning at the way her eyes dropped immediately to my soap-streaked breasts once more.

I pushed her back under the jet of warm water; she spluttered.

“Hey!” she protested as she wiped at her face.

“Just getting you wet,” I said. “Fair is fair.”

“Oh, ha, ha. It's not the same. At all. And anyway... I was already soaked,” she added, pouting. “I'm drenched down below.”

“I'll pay my part in a bit,” I said. “With interest. Most exquisite interest. If I can give you even a quarter of the pleasure you just gave me then I can die happy...”

I leaned in, licked some droplets from the skin of her right breast.

She shuddered against me.

“Also, it's official,” I added. “I really, really, really like you and that, Hannah, was mind-blowing sex.”

“Oh. I'm...”

“Hannah, are you blushing?”

“No. Never. Not possible.”

“I was about to say...”

She snorted, then wrapped her arms around me and held me to her.

“I can't believe you let me do that to you without protest. I'm... I didn't mean to be so...”

“You can do that to me whenever you want. I... fuck, it was so hot. You're so hot. And... I loved being taken like that by you. Oh my God, I loved it. Just being... overpowered like that. Oh my God it's making me light-headed just to think about it...”

“Are you... sure?”

“Hannah, love, if you ever need to make me scream, like really really scream... just tie me to something so I can't get away and do me like that again. I honestly saw stars. I've been tied up and... used... before, it wasn't fun. At all. But when you do it? Fuck me, it's something else when it's you. You have my permission to do that to me whenever you want. You could do that to me when I was asleep and I'd wake up crying and ecstatic.”

She gave me a shy little smile.

I watched her for a moment.

“What's gotten into you?” I asked her. “You're... not usually this unsure of... well, of anything, really?”

“It's you,” she said softly, after a brief water-spatter silence. “I... I just feel like I'm dreaming is all. I'm... I'd... forgotten what this was like. To be with... someone like you. The girl of my dreams.”

“Your dreams, is it?”

“Yes,” she said, soft as a breath of wind and barely audible over the water.

I stared up into her eyes.

“Careful,” I managed, at last. “You'll catch something if you carry on like that.”

“Oh? What?”

“Me,” I whispered.

She flushed even pinker. “Stop teasing me. I'm completely scatter-brained right now. It's not fair.”

I leaned in again, kissed her cheek. “Sorry,” I whispered, but I wasn't at all.

“You're terrible.”

“You're smiling,” I said, “so clearly you like it.”

“I do. Believe me.”

“Wash my back, then,” I demanded. I turned away from her and closed my eyes, enjoying the slick skin of her breasts as she moved in against me.

“You have a lovely back and lovely shoulders,” she said as she ran her hands over me. “That first day when you tried on that bra was a real trial for me.”

“Really?”

“Oh God, yes. I went home and played with myself.”

“Really?” I repeated, amused. “Did you do that a lot?”

“Over you? Yes. Often... multiple times every day. I rubbed myself raw once or twice.”

“Heh.”

“It's not funny.”

“It is, kind of. But... also, I like that... you wanted me that much. It's nice to know. I don't get to feel that often. Wanted, I mean...”

“You'd better get used to it then. Lift your arms.”

I complied and she gently began to lather my ribs and boobs with suds.

“I already washed those,” I observed, after a while.

“I love your breasts,” she said, matter of fact. “I know you don't think they're nice but trust me, they're lovely. So now I'm taking care of them.”

“I would have liked bigger ones...”

“Oh no, definitely not. Yours suit you perfectly.”

“Small and lumpy, like me,” I said with a wry smile.

“That's a strange way to pronounce “slim and beautifully proportioned”,” she retorted.

I made a face.

She noticed.

“Stop demeaning yourself or I won't tie you up again.”

“Sorry.”

“Just... accept that I love your body. That I love you.”

“That... will take me time,” I whispered, over the sudden perfect cranberry ache in my chest.

“Scars always do. But I'll view you as my life's work.”

“Where were you when I needed someone so wonderfully special in my life?”

“Chasing vanity and hubris somewhere out beyond the Western seas,” she said, bitterly.

I let her finish cleaning me, then clambered out from under the water as she rinsed herself. I held her bathrobe for her and helped her wrap it around herself.

Then we addressed ourselves to the geometry of our room; our unspoken agreement was that the two singles were no longer desirable. Fortunately they could be joined with minimal effort.

I put the small bedside table in the corner while Hannah pushed the two beds together for us.

I stood and watched, admiring the way the bathrobe clung to the curves of her bum.

“I like this view,” I announced. “It's like gift-wrapping at Christmas. Pity it's not shorter...”

“Oh you. Stop trying to make me blush and make yourself useful and dim the lights, would you?” she said, tartly. “I'm... Erin, I'm a bit too fugue state to do this in daylight. So... please? Just... a bit dimmer?”

I turned the control to something between romantic and Stygian.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “Sorry.”

She finished arranging the pillows and then turned and sat on the edge of the bed.

“God, you're a beautiful woman,” I said.

She couldn't quite manage to subdue her smile.

“Erin?”

“Uh huh?”

“Please don't think I don't enjoy it when you watch me. You do absolutely melt me when you look at me like that,” she said.

“Melt, is it?”

“Oh God yes,” she breathed. “Complete puddle of mush.”

I sauntered closer, thoroughly enjoying this strange new reality.

“You look... wicked,” she added. She risked a small grin, barely visible in the shadows. “Are you wicked?”

“Thoroughly wicked, I'm afraid. You've created a Succubus, now you need to live with the consequences.”

“What sort of consequences might those be?”

“Oh, just the actualisation of all sorts of extremely depraved thoughts. About you and about what I plan to do to you.”

She leaned back, bracing herself with her hands. Her robe shifted as she moved, exposing her thighs and belly and the hint of a dusky curve of breast.

“What kind of thoughts...” she breathed.

I knelt down on the soft, carpeted floor, and reached out to slowly ease the fabric further off her shadowy body. I glanced up; her eyes were dark, her mouth ever so slightly open.

“Oh, you know,” I whispered. “Succubus things. Like how much I'm going to enjoy doing this...”

Her firm, taut stomach quivered as I planted a kiss on it, just below her bellybutton, and she made a soft little noise that I utterly loved.

“Oh God,” she whimpered.

“Hannah?”

“Yes...”

“Can I touch you?”

“Where?” she said, amusement plain in her voice.

“Everywhere.”

She shifted and opened herself for me, letting me in between her thighs and leaning back as she did so. I trailed a line of gentle kisses slowly lower over her belly; she groaned and slumped backwards onto the bed.

I shivered as she tangled her fingers in my hair.

“That seems... to be a rather specific and limited... everywhere,” she said, hoarsely.

She had incredibly soft, downy pubic hair - just the lightest of dustings and trimmed to a scrupulously neat little inverted pyramid. I kissed down over it, listening with half an ear to the second whimpery little “Oh God,” she let out as I reached the warm, musky vee of her sex.

“I'm going to kiss you down here now...”

“Where...” she moaned, playing her part perfectly.

“Here,” I announced, and proceeded to touch my tongue to the smooth, slick line of her lips.

“That's... not kissing...” she protested.

“I know.”

“You're... such a tease...”

“I know. Hannah? I'm going to tongue you now.”

“Go... ahead. Do whatever. Do whatever you... want... to me...”

I pressed down with the tip of my tongue and parted her smooth, moist lips. She tasted... nice, was the best way I could think in the sublime perfection of the moment. Nice. Such a stupid word for something so amazing. I loved her taste, the slight tang of her on my tongue. It pleased something primal deep within me, and the way she moaned and shimmied and pressed herself up against my lips pleased me even more.

Her fingernails dug into my scalp as I slowly slicked my fingertip up on her and teased her open.

“Do it...” she panted. “Fucking... do it already... ”

She arched, muscles tensing and releasing as I pushed myself into her.

She was hot, and tight, and so utterly perfect.

“Love... love... that's... oh, oh...”

There was a strange new note in her voice. Low, and desperate.

I wanted, I needed more of it.

I fumbled, found her clit with my tongue, licked it and took it between my lips; applying gentle slow pressure as that long-ago girl had so briefly but deliciously done to me.

Hannah made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a gasp; I felt the weight of her ankles on my back as she locked her legs around me.

Gotcha I thought to myself, fighting the urge to giggle.

I intended to break her as thoroughly as she'd broken me.

At least once, and hopefully more.

I found a rhythm that worked for us - a slow, sucking teasing coupled with gentle penetration and withdrawal of my finger. My lover writhed and whimpered, every muscle in her lovely legs tensing on me as I entered her and then relaxing as I withdrew.