The sun has dipped beyond the horizon by the time you're done — a consequence of your late start and the longest bath of your life — and it is definitely time to eat something. Jaskier refuses to let you go to the commissary though; insists on going himself and asks that you start the fire instead, once the tub has been cleared away.
It's not a hardship of any kind to follow his requests. You think he has some kind of rapport with the ladies that run the commissary, and you don't really want to put on all your clothes again anyway. Watching him pull on pants and a shirt to leave was hard enough — you do well to put on your smallclothes and your robes before falling into a comfortable place on the couch.
You feel relaxed and warm, limbs still loose after... everything, and you distantly wonder how debauched this whole thing is going to get before it's all said and done. (You resolutely aren't think about things being 'said and done.')
Jaskier comes back with dinner, pulling you out of your thoughts. How long was he gone? You're feeling easily distracted, especially as you sit up and press yourself against his side. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, you can't think of anything else. It's shameful, considering you'd gotten off in the bath.
You make conversation even though you aren't really paying attention to what you're saying — something about one of the ladies in the kitchens. You eat, but you don't really taste your food. All you can think about is the warmth of his body, the way the light looks when it flickers across his skin from the fire, and the ways you've touched before. You keep coming back to — to the other conversation, when he'd said he had plans for tonight. Distinctly sexual plans.
"When are you going to share your big plan with me?" you blurt into the silence that has easily formed between you, turning to look more directly at his face. You are so eager to know.
He looks back at you, breaking from where he'd been humming a tune under his breath. You see where his fingers were counting time on his thigh. Oh, his hands. "Big plans?" he asks, blinking guilelessly at you. You dig your elbow into his side, just a little, and he laughs. "I do have some plans, yes," he allows you, and then he turns away to take a drink.
"You are so determined to drive me to the point of insanity with your teasing," you mutter, but — it's not as if you're truly mad. He'd said it was for later tonight, more or less, and that means you will find out in time.
It does come out sooner than you'd imagined, all things considered. You finish before he does, leaning your head on his shoulder and watching the fire. Listening to him workshop music, even as quietly as he is doing it now, has been one of your favorite things about sharing space with him. Eventually, though, his bowl is empty.
You move with the intention to settle into your usual evening routine — you'll go find a book to read, he'll pull out his notebook and use your legs as a writing surface, and you'll while the night away — but he makes a noise that pulls you up short.
"Let's go to bed early, hm?" he suggests when you turn to look at him, and — you are not so innocent to miss the obvious implication of his words.
"Consider it done," you tell him, getting to your feet and reaching out to pull him up as well. He follows along as you drag him with enthusiasm you foolishly weren't expecting to have, considering that this was all you'd thought about throughout dinner. Trusting him has always felt good, and whatever plays out tonight is sure to be something you'll enjoy.
He lets you tug him into the bedroom, lets you pull his shirt off over his head and undo the laces on his pants. Getting to undress him feels like a treat, even though you can't bear to drag it out, to savor it. Your hands are trembling with pent-up energy; you want to put them everywhere at once. You could unwrap the gift of him every day, forever.
You feel a bit like an animal again, mouth nearly watering as you take in the sight of his bare skin, the way he looks standing fully nude in your bedroom. It's different from last night, when you'd been on the other side of a crying jag and a great deal of emotional upheaval. You're less worried, for one, and it is that change that has made way for you to feel little other than unfettered joy.
While you're staring at him, feeling a bit dumbstruck, he returns the favor. Bridges the gap between you to undo the tie of your robe and slip it off over your shoulders. It hangs around your elbows and you don't miss the noise he makes, in his throat, at the sight.
"Putting a chemise on seemed like too much effort," you mumble, half-embarrassed, but he catches your hand when you make a motion to cover yourself and steps in close, instead. You let the fabric fall to the floor when he pulls you against his chest, leans down to cover your mouth with his.
"You are so beautiful," he says, hands roaming your body. When he cups your breast in one hand and touches your nipple, you jump. There's something in his touch that affects you deeply, but when you pay attention to how you feel beyond that, it's nearly a tickle, but it's a tickle that stokes the fire in your loins. "And you find new ways to surprise me, every day."
"This is only day two," you return, feeling compelled to argue the point despite the fact that it doesn't really matter.
"You will find that this winter started long before yesterday," he says quietly, like it's only for you, and a shiver crosses your skin. Oh.
You go up far enough onto your toes to kiss him again, leaning a bit on him for balance, and his hands find their way to your hips. It goes on forever, but still not as long as you want it to — you want to begin and end every day with his mouth on yours.
The gentle tug of his fingers at your waistband draw your attention away from his talented mouth, and you pull a hand away from where you've been holding his face to — give him a hand in getting them off, or something. Not that he needs much help, for soon your underthings are on the floor and his hands are on your bared skin and —
He steers you toward the bed not long after with the barest interruption to your kissing, hands still on your hips. You're half-convinced your dance experience is the only thing that keeps you on your feet as you cross the room. You like this dancing with him just as much as the real thing, last night.
"Are you ready for your first lesson?" he asks, settling you down onto your back on the sheets. He's still stood between your knees, looking down at you with such heat in his eyes that you can feel it on your skin.
Lesson? What? Oh —
"You were serious about that?" you ask, suddenly breathless. You curl your leg around his to pull him even an inch closer, and his hand comes to rest on your thigh. The sweeping motion he makes, from knee to hip, gets you ever hotter, and he laughs quietly, as if to himself.
"I was definitely serious about an opportunity to have a great deal of sex with you under the guise of edification, darling." Your face goes hot, now, at his words, and —
"Maybe the first lesson should be in confidence," you murmur, watching him watch you. You feel pinned like a butterfly. "I — wish I could talk to you the way you do to me." As a thought it has already come up to you a few times already. There is an easy-going confidence that Jaskier has always been clothed in that you... You wish you could wear it, too.
"Unfortunately, I think that will only come with time and practice," he says, and he looks remorseful about it. "Except... I suppose I can say that you have no need to be shy, with me."His expression is serious, intent, and you take a steadying breath.
"Oh, well, if there's no need," you say, half-joking, trying to loosen your nerves. You trust him, implicitly and explicitly, and besides that — you can't be him. Even though he has a wealth of things to share with and show you, you won't be like him even if you do learn it all. If only you could rationally understand that and stop worrying that any wrong word or action would lead this to falling down around your ears.
"I'll help you practice," he says, face softening. "And I promise, I won't tease you." That makes you scoff. He's such a tease. His mouth presses into a line, eyebrows high, and then — "Well, I'll never tease you to embarrass you, unless you want me to. Teasing you into wanting me is different."
"Why would I want you to?" you ask, zeroing in on that to ignore the idea of him 'teasing you to want him.' You're starting to think he's already trained you to be weak to that one, and it's only been a day.
"Some people enjoy that," he says, tilting his head to the side. Watching you still.
"Being embarrassed?" It doesn't make much sense.
"Sometimes. Or being humiliated, though that may be a bit more than just teasing. Some people enjoy the idea of taboo, and some people enjoy being scolded as if they've been naughty," he says, as if reading off a list. The way he says the word 'naughty' makes something hot spike down your spine.
"Seems strange," you say after a moment, wondering why the word did anything to you at all. That, itself, is strange. You don't much like getting in trouble in any capacity, so surely you do not fall into the surprising set of people that are, apparently, aroused by that.
"Perhaps to you," he allows, rubbing his hand up your thigh again. "You don't want me to tell you how naughty you've been, my girl?" There's that same hot spike, but —
"Have I?" you ask, feeling struck a bit dumb again, a bit off-kilter.
"Hm?"
"Been naughty," you finish, feeling your face grow hot just for the saying of the words.
Something soft passes across his face again, and he shakes his head. "It's not so much about actually being, in as much as it is about being treated as though you have been. Unless you actually want to, but even that is — well, it would be structured."
"So it's a game of pretend," you say, watching him watch you.
"A very lewd game of pretend," he agrees.
"People really do that? Are they so bored in their sex?"
"No, the ones who are bored usually just bed handsome bards at the inn," he says wryly. Even you can't help snorting at that. "But if it pleases them — or you, or me — to pretend for a little while, I can't begrudge someone that. It doesn't hurt anyone, after all.
"I suppose that makes sense," you tell him, still rolling it around in your head. "I'm not sure how I feel about it."
"The fact that you are here, with me, is all that I could want," he says, leaning down to cover your body with his own, to bring your faces closer together. "I cannot stress to you how very little the rest of it matters to me." He is, by his expression, very serious. One elbow is by your head and his other hand is on your side, a gentle touch. "But you seemed to want to — experience things, and I have experience to share. If that is not the case, at any point, you need only say so."
"You would... give me that power?" you ask, words falling from your mouth before you can fully put the sentence together in your mind.
"The power to stop something if you aren't enjoying it? Of course I would. It's about mutual respect, and trust." And love? your traitorous, previously-silent heart suggests. But now is not the time to think about love — "I meant it when I said I did not want to pressure you. This is — not like a tryst with a stranger in a tavern, darling."
"Because we're friends?" you ask, unable to not ask, and he smiles just a little. It crinkles around his eyes, mostly.
"Because you are very dear to me, and I could not live with myself if I damaged our relationship, or your opinion of me." The sincerity that has always been present in your friendship feels doubly potent now, with his face so close to yours and the thrumming in your heart the way it is. Somehow, him returning your affections has made you more weak to him, not less.
"You are dear to me, too," you tell him after a very long moment. You find his hand on your side with your own and entwine your fingers, squeezing briefly. I love you, you think, against your better judgment.
The moment has gotten too heavy, like something other than just Jaskier on your chest, and you lean up to press a kiss to his cheek because it's the nearest part of him. "So was that your plan for the evening? Playing pretend with me?"
He sits back a little further, squeezes your hand in return. "Surprisingly, no," he says, looking amused, and then he pulls away fully to dig around in the drawer of the nightstand at his side. What is he looking for in there? It's just books and papers and —
Oh. "I picked up some things at the market, today, that we might repurpose. If you're amenable." The way he looks at you as he turns back to face you makes you feel — shy, almost. So he really was thinking of you, before. "And if you're not interested, I'll surely find some other use for them."
Something fierce and possessive blooms in your chest, then, despite the fact that you have no idea what he's holding. It's just dark enough that you can't really tell — not enough candles, eyes yet to adjust.
But if — if he bought it for you, well, by the gods, you want him to use it with you. Whatever it is.
On your stomach, casual like you really are a table, he lays out his purchases. The first is a strip of silk; it's just a few fingers wide but it pools on the blanket at your sides. Then, another strip — shorter, though not insignificant. Finally, a cold bottle of oil.
Between looking at the array and looking up at his face, you know you must be wide-eyed. He says: "I don't remotely expect to use these things tonight," which is — well, a bit soothing. What place does fabric have in sex? "But I wanted to have — the best, for you, if it was something we wanted to try."
"I suppose I don't understand," you admit. You rub the fabric between your fingers, thinking about it. He steps impossibly closer when you bring your foot up onto the edge of the bed to relieve some of the weight of them hanging off the sides, and you look back up at him.
"I want — to test the waters with you first, of course. Not just jump into things. But..." He thumbs the silk where it sits on your stomach, the rest of his fingers on your skin, and you shiver. "It's just something to use as restraints. And a blindfold, possibly."
You tuck those answers away for later, for thinking about. He said it wasn't for tonight, after all. Instead — "And the oil? Is there a special sex oil and I've just never known about it?" You may sound a bit scandalized, you realize as you say it, but — oil? And Jaskier said he wouldn't make fun of you. It'll be alright.
"It's just linseed oil," he says, smile spreading slowly across his face. You feel soothed just by the sight, feel yourself smiling back up at him. His easy-going nature — you love it. "There are some 'special sex oils,' yes, but you would have to know what you're looking for to find them. You won't accidentally buy them for the bath or your skin," he reassures you, picks up the bottle and turns it slowly in his other hand. "It's just something to ease the way if we need it. I'd much rather be safe than worry about hurting you."
"Unless you want to?" Your mouth is just saying whatever it wants to, now.
He makes a considering face. "Unless you wanted me to, I suppose, though I don't much enjoy inflicting pain." He sets the bottle back down and it rolls until it's at your side. He touches your hip. "Do you want me to hurt you?"
"No," you rush to say, looking up at him openly. "I just — I mean, that's something people like, too, right?"
"Ah." He smooths his thumb over your skin and somewhere in the back of your mind, where you're not paying attention to his face, it's winding you up just a bit. "Yes, they do."
"Do you want me to hurt you?" you ask him, watching his expression. He smiles, wry, and takes one of your hands up to kiss your knuckles. Such a charmer, this man.
"No, not particularly," he admits. Folds your fingers together to hold your hand again, and you nod even as you try to make things make sense in your head. "What are you thinking?"
"You just —" You gesture at your neck with your free hand. "With the woman from the inn, before. All those bites."
His face shows recognition, and he licks his lips. You can't stop watching him. "Yes, I — well. Many people would consider a few love bites to be a bit different than the sort of pain I meant, before. Have you never had one?"
"...no?" In what world would your hurried and generally un-fun trysts have had a place for something like that? If a boy had bitten you, you might have literally run away instead of only wanting to.
His eyebrows go high, now, and his touch at your hip goes from just his thumb to the palm of his hand, seeping warmth into your skin. "...may I, then?" He bites his lip, watching you back, and you just — nod at him. You're not sure what to say.
He seems to be, though, and seems sure what to do to boot. He pins the hand he's holding to the bed as he brackets your body again with his, and he nuzzles into the space between your ear and shoulder. "Tell me if you - if you don't like this, alright?"
His knee comes up onto the mattress between your legs, and you feel as if you have a very handsome blanket.
The silly thoughts fall away when his mouth touches your skin, though, fastening to the side of your neck. You've been talking so long, almost in circles, that you'd almost forgotten that he was naked. You can't do anything but notice it now.
His teeth scrape across your skin, followed by the wet press of his tongue. You arch up into it, your breasts pressing against the coarse hair on his chest, the solidness of his body. He hums and you turn your head away to give him more room, to let him do whatever he wants to you even though his breath tickles a bit, and —
His teeth close down over your skin in a firm bite that has you jumping. It's brief, just an instance of pain followed by his tongue as if to soothe it, and there is heat suffusing through your body like ripples across water.
It feels like just a blink and then it's over, and then he's leaning back to look you in the eye, nearly nose to nose.
"What do you think?" he asks, and you bring your free hand to the damp spot on your throat.
"That can't have been enough to leave a mark, right?" It is only vaguely sore, a pain that is quickly fading. Nothing significant. You've kicked tables harder than this.
"No, but — well. If you didn't like it, I —" he shrugs one shoulder, looks down at you helplessly. Your heart swells and you can't help but smile at him.
"Maybe I'm being optimistic but I think... I think I would like it. And I would like something to remember you by."
"Going to forget me in the morning?" he teases, shuffling a little further onto the bed. You push yourself back to give him more space, and you're rewarded by both of his knees between your legs, the press of his entire body over yours. You can't help pressing back up into him, trapping his hard cock between your bodies.
"No, but it might be nice to be reminded of tonight," you croon, just to see whatever face he makes at your words. His erection twitches against your stomach and he takes a deep breath, and then he puts his mouth to good use — on yours, this time.
It's not kissing like before. He is thorough, and dedicated, and you do your best to meet him in kind. The slow rutting of your bodies together comes more naturally than you could have expected, a rolling motion that you almost don't notice you're participating in. He's so close to you and you shift to bring your knees up, to open your legs fully for him. To get him closer.
He moves in easily, like water flowing to fill an empty space. It's enough of a change of position that you think —
You get your hand between your bodies, wrapping around his cock, and he sucks in a breath even though he surely knew it was coming. He's slick at the head — there's a cooling spot on your hip, too, from where he's been leaking, and something about knowing that you've made that happen... It pleases you greatly. When you squeeze him gently it twitches in your hand, and you stroke him despite how awkward it feels to bend your wrist in such a way.
"You vixen," he murmurs, mouth leaving yours to go back to your neck. This time you can tell he's not playing with kid gloves — the bite of his teeth on your skin is firmer, sharp and sucking. It brings a noise out of your throat that you didn't know you could make, and fire is licking at your veins now. Your toes curl.
The hand you don't have on his weeping cock is still on his back, and you're holding on for dear life. You want him ever-closer, inside you in every way he can be.
You're far out of practice with — pleasuring men, but he doesn't seem to mind. He moves to the other side of your throat and just — stays there, panting against your skin with his head bowed.
"Does it feel good?" you ask him quietly, only half-thinking about what you're doing. If you concentrate too much on the rhythm, on the pressure of your hand, you'll mess it up.
"So good," he agrees. Turns his head to press a kiss to your skin. "Fuck."
"I assume that's in the stars, yes," you say, and he chokes out a little laugh, presses his face further against you.
"If you want it to be," he agrees, after a moment. He seems to gather himself — his mouth finds your neck again, sucks a bruise to mirror the one on the other side. Oh, it feels so good. The want, thrumming under your skin, is making your whole body tight.
"I want," you say, only barely breathing. His teeth are on your throat and you don't want to disturb a single thing.
Eventually, a lifetime later, he does leave off your neck. The bites are a throbbing reminder, pulsing along with your heart trying to beat out of your chest. He props himself up and looks you in the face, and you lick your lips as you watch him. He's flushed, and his hair is a mess, and —
He's just looking at you, assessing, and you get your free elbow beneath you to lean up far enough to kiss him. It's been too long since your mouth was on his.
He meets you kiss for kiss and presses you back down into the mattress. You go, easy, because you like his closeness. He pulls your hand away from his cock and presses it into the bed next to your head, and when you stop kissing to breathe, you blink up at him.
"Let me —" he says, and you're so dazed you feel like you're only barely seeing his face. You'd let him do anything.
You hum and do your best to focus, watching him watch you again. Your hips are close, with this new position, and when he shifts in place his cock is so close to where you want it to be.
"Jaskier," you whine, and he bites his lip, hums a breath.
"Impatient, are we?"
"Yes, sure, I'm needy, you've ruined me," you rattle off. "Please just fuck me, you giant tease of a man," you continue, saying whatever you think might work to get him inside you. You've wanted him since the damned bath, not including every moment during the day.
"How sweet a request you make," he murmurs, and the hand that isn't pinning your wrist catches your attention. He sweeps the silk off your skin — you'd forgotten about it, how? — and then it makes a quick journey to the juncture of your thighs.
He touches you gently, briefly, just enough to make your hips jump. Doesn't even put a finger inside of you. He makes an amused noise, touches you softly again, and you don't bother keeping in the grumbling noise in the back of your throat.
"Again with the torture," you complain, lifting your hips as though to get more contact, but he pulls away before you have any success.
"I want to hold you down and tease you until you're desperate for me," is his reply. There's a roaring bonfire in your body now, smothering you with want. Maybe you make a face, because — "Would you like that, darling? Want me to tease you with the idea of pleasure until you can't bear it any longer? Or I could bring you to the edge of orgasm just to leave off, leave you wet and panting and wanting until I want to."
These filthy words are killing you. You try to rub your thighs together for some relief, any kind, but he's holding you open with his body. Fuck.
"Please," is all you can say, stretching your leg back out in an attempt to relieve some of the tension in your body, not that it helps. He smiles then, like normal, and looks benevolently down at you.
"Maybe next time," he says, and takes himself in hand, pressing the head of his cock against your opening.
You aren't going to admit it to him right now, but maybe the teasing thing does have some merit. The way it feels for him to be inside you, after so much waiting — it's overwhelming and perfect and you're already shaking out of your skin.
"Jaskier," you breathe, looking up at him, pressing back to meet him. There's a look of concentration on his face, but you think you can see the pleasure there too. Or perhaps you're just projecting onto him. He blinks and looks at you, then, and —
"You are radiant," he says, apropos of nothing. His hand runs up the outside of your thigh, folds you up juts a bit differently. You let him, completely unconcerned with the way he contorts your body. Or, at least, unconcerned until you discover it means he can press in even further, until you're flush together. Then, you decide you much enjoy it.
You're melting, it feels like your face is on fire and you're sweating all over. When he begins to move, so slowly you wonder how he can bear it, it only gets worse.
He leans in close, close enough that you can get your arms around his back and bring your mouths together, but he never stops fucking you. Even when he is panting just like you are, he still seems limitless. Keeps murmuring filthy compliments in your ear while your face is tucked against his neck, desperate for the press of skin against skin even now. If you had the presence of mind to think, you'd think that that feeling would have abated some in the face of this pleasure.
He asks you to touch yourself, to find an orgasm with him, and your hand moves without you ever making the conscious decision. You're slick and sensitive and it's hard to keep a steady touch when your hand is wedged between your bodies, but by the gods, you make it work.
Your orgasm sneaks up on you — one second you're touching yourself, face turned up toward Jaskier's in his new position even though your eyes are tightly shut; then you're coming apart, hand falling from his back to clench the sheets in your fist, an embarrassing noise falling out of your mouth.
He talks you through it, not that you can hear what he says over the blood rushing in your ears. But you can hear his voice, and he's still inside you, rocking gently into your body. When you recover enough to force your eyes open he's looking at you, lip between his teeth, sweat shining on his forehead in the low light.
"Jaskier," you say, because his name is the only word you know right now. He says yours in turn, questioningly, and you can't help but beam up at him. You feel good, loose and full of fizzing energy, sensitive on the inside where his cock is still stretching you open. "It's your turn, now, you know," you breathe, trying for conversational and completely unsure how to tell him you want him to come as soon as he can bear to, that you'd do anything he wanted to get him to that point.
"So it is," he agrees, breathing labored.
"If you want," you amend, and you're rewarded with wink.
"Don't worry, I won't be long with you — looking at me like that," he says, gesturing to your everything. It must be a compliment, incomprehensible as it is, and he bows his head to kiss your slack mouth as he moves in earnest once more.
He's not wrong. It doesn't take long, even though your thighs are aching from the act of meeting him in kind by the time he falls over his own edge. He groans, deep and affected, against your mouth, and you curl your arms and legs around him a little further.
After, recovered, he walks on unstable legs to get a cloth to clean you both up with. You're — half-afraid to move, honestly, worried about the mess, and so you lay there on your back and watch him walk around the room. It's not the first time you've seen him naked, but there's something compelling about the vision of his pale back, the divots at the base of his spine, his shapely bottom. He looks delectable even in the terribly low light. You're wrung out, but you want to put your mouth on him anyway.
Maybe he really has ruined you. Maybe... maybe you like it.