Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Ow,” was the first word Aglais said to her upon returning home.

Neve, who had wrapped herself in a robe and run out of the bedroom when the sound of the front door being closed wasn’t followed by anything else, stopped in her tracks and looked her over. There was no sign of injury that she could see. “What's wrong?”

With her considerable height, Aglais always had to duck under the lintel, but it seemed she had forgotten to straighten after. “Hey, Archon,” she said, reaching out to pet him, but she stopped with a hiss halfway through the motion. “The fucking elevators,” she said eventually, through her teeth.

It was so rare to hear her swear, and with such conviction, that Neve blinked in mild concern. “Did one fall on you?”

“Very funny.” Carefully sidestepping the Archon, who was trying his cheerful, purring best to make her trip and fall by winding around her feet, Aglais walked further into the kitchen. “They didn’t work. You don’t wanna know how many stairs there are between the Basalt Hypogeum and the Hollow Belfy. Too many, that’s how many.”

Neve hid both her disappointment and her amusement as she tightened the ties of her dressing gown. It was, coincidentally, the literal opposite of what she’d imagined she would be doing right now. “Did you stabilize it?”

“It’s a work in progress. Emphasis on ‘progress’.” Aglais leaned against the kitchen table as she spoke, looking as if she sorely needed the support. “I think the walk from the shop to here was the last straw for my legs. And my back. And everything else.”

From the archway she was lingering under, Neve stepped forward. She had her house leg on, the one she could wear comfortably without heels. Her other foot was bare, as was a considerable part of her under the dressing gown. “You poor thing,” she said, trying to infuse as much empathy as she could in her voice, considering she couldn’t help smiling. “Would you like something warm?”

“On me or in me?” Aglais replied, and Neve was about to click her tongue at the terrible joke until she realised, with dismay, that Aglais wasn’t joking.

The situation was worse than she’d thought.

Well. Neve was used to handling bad situations with a brave face. “Sit down,” she said, gently pushing Aglais on her shoulders until she landed on a kitchen chair, and placing a kiss on her forehead, right between her horns, once it was at a suitable height. “I’ll heat up some soup for you.”

After she walked away, Aglais let herself slump on the table. “You are perfect and I love you,” said Aglais, although the last part came out a little muffled since her cheek was pressed on the wooden surface.

As she turned to the stove, the hem of Neve’s dressing gown twirled around her bare thighs with a murmur of silk. The tide of amused disappointment was already receding, leaving nothing but fondness. A chuckle bubbled up from the back of her throat. “Likewise, Trouble,” she said, meaning it.

It wasn’t much of a dinner, but it was still nice: while she waited for it to heat up, Neve lit some of the candles she had prepared — beeswax, the real deal, warm and fragrant — and listened to Aglais’s retelling of her trip to Nevarra City, which was both a report and a log of complaints. Since the Basalt Hypogeum was displaced from the Grand Necropolis by Johanna Hezenkoss, it had apparently acquired a taste for travel. It wasn’t uncommon for the Necropolis to rearrange itself, except for the fact that the level seemed to travel along the axis of time as well as space, and parts of it liked to strand randomly into the Fade without warning.

“King Caspar complained to Myrna personally,” Aglais said — grumbled — scowling at a spoonful of soup with her cheek propped on a hand. “You don’t want to deal with her when she’s displeased, I assure you.”

“I believe you.” Neve meant it. “I hope the actual work was fun, though.”

For the first time that night, Aglais grinned. “Oh, it was a mess. A tangle of energy lines with all the arcane signatures untethered. It took us two days just to map them.”

Neve smiled back. “Yeah, that does sound fun.”

“You should come, next time.”

“I have my share of local trouble, thank you.” Deep down, though, Neve would have loved to. Aglais had helped her with her own messes plenty, after all, and there was something endearing in seeing Rook, her Trouble, turn into the scholarly Mourn Watcher Ingellvar when she was in the Necropolis. Also, she meant it: it did sound fun. Then she leaned back and arched an eyebrow. “You assume there’s going to be a next time.”

Aglais groaned.

Food did her good, however, and company, too. Her tone had become more and more calm and soothed the more she talked to Neve, and it hadn’t taken long for the Archon to jump in her lap, where he curled up and fell asleep. When the spoon clattered in her empty bowl, though, Aglais stroked his back gently to wake him up. “Sorry, kitty, we have to move. I’m too old to fall asleep on a chair.”

“Nobody younger than me should say that.” Neve leaned over to scoop up the cat. He would normally never tolerate that, but he was malleable when sleepy. “Go wash all the undead grime off yourself. I’ll wait for you in bed.”

“Wait.” Some tired interest had slipped into Aglais’s tone. Neve looked up to see her staring at her chest, hazel eyes narrowed. “What are you wearing?”

A quick glance told Neve her dressing gown had opened a little when she’d bent down. It wasn’t the skin that caught Aglais’s attention — she’d seen more even just at the Lighthouse. Venhedis. Neve hadn’t meant for her to catch on. Part of her was hoping she could just pretend she’d never intended to surprise Aglais with this whole plan. It felt more ridiculous the more she thought about it.

Adjusting her grip on the Archon, she shrugged. “Nothing.”

“No.” Aglais’s voice was affronted now, but when she tried to reach for Neve her entire body stiffened even before Neve could take a step back. “No, no, no. Let me at least see it.”

The Archon wriggled in her grasp, so Neve let him down on the floor. She physically felt Aglais’s eyes following her movements. “I don’t know. It seems cruel now,” she said, trying to mask her genuine regret with playfulness. “You need to rest, and I need to change into something… more comfortable than this.”

The expression on Aglais’s face was close to heartbreak. “You had plans,” she said, touched. “For when I came back.”

Being found out made Neve’s skin prickle. She tightened her fist, planting them both on her waist, as if challenging an enemy. “I might have missed you. Don’t say anything.”

Aglais bit her lips, but her eyes spoke for her.

“It’s alright,” Neve added. “I’m glad you’re home. That’s the important part. Maybe another day we can…”

More slowly this time, Aglais reached out. Her outstretched hand filled the space Neve had created between them. Neve didn’t have to touch it to know her palm would be soft and cool, but she did anyway.

Aglais’s fingers closed on Neve’s. “Kiss me?” she asked, gently pulling her closer.

There was no reason Neve would deny her that. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was always thinking about kissing Aglais. She really missed her, more than it was reasonable, given that it had been just a few days. More than it was safe. She hadn’t realized how much she got used to her presence until the presence had become an absence.

So she let herself be pulled. Aglais opened her legs to make room for her, and she stepped between them. This was easy, now, but still thrilling. There had been a time, not long ago, in which the thought of being so close to her had made Neve’s head spin.

When Aglais’s hands landed on her hips, she could feel them through the thin silk and the even thinner layer underneath. Her body fit so perfectly in Aglais’s hold. “Trouble,” she whispered, finally allowing herself to forget everything that wasn’t Aglais’s soft hair under her fingers, her warm breath on Neve’s mouth as she bent down to kiss her.

She could get lost in the fullness of Aglais’s lips, the sweetness of her mouth. Aglais smelled of rain and smoke, sweat and ash, and Neve held her carefully in her senses.

When Aglais’s teeth nibbled her bottom lip, Neve melted against her with a sigh. Her skin prickled for another reason now, and warmth bloomed just under her ribcage, spreading out to her whole body.

Against her will, she pulled back. “I don’t think this is a good—” she made herself say, but her feeble attempt at common sense was cut short when she realized Aglais’s hands, which had landed on the back of her thighs, were slowly inching under the hem of her dressing gown. Her unimpressed expression made Aglais chuckle. “Your hands are cold,” she pointed out.

“You’re warm,” Aglais said sweetly. “You’re never the warm one. Let me enjoy it.” Her hands went ever upwards.

Neve did nothing to stop them, and held her breath when cold fingertips reached the trim of her undergarments.

Aglais made a small sound in the back of her throat, then cleared it. “Is it lace all over, or…?”

“You’ll find out,” Neve said, circling her neck with her arms. “Another time.”

This time, the noise was tinged with disappointment. “I missed you,” Aglais complained, pulling Neve closer — she had a firm enough grasp on Neve’s backside that only a little force was necessary.

She wasn’t making it easy for Neve to resist temptation. Aglais’s thighs were large and strong. Desire as wella as muscle memory urged Neve to straddle them, and maybe discard the dressing gown while she was at it.

As their legs touched, though, Aglais stiffened.

Gently ttilting her head back to look in her eyes, Neve asked, “Trouble, are you alright?”

She could tell that, for a moment, Aglais was considering lying. “No,” she said eventually, plaintively.

Neve bit her lips to swallow a laugh and stroked her cheek. “I’ve barely touched you.”

Aglais’s pained expression turned sour. “I really hate stairs.”

This time, Neve laughed outright. “Oh, go freshen up and come to bed. I’ll put some ice on you, you’ll feel better tomorrow.” She closed her hands on Aglais’s wrists. “You’ll have to let me go, though.”

Compliance was reluctant, but eventually an unhappy but resigned Aglais disappeared in the washroom.

Alone, Neve stood in the empty kitchen a little bit longer, trying to decipher what was stirring inside her.

Because she was herself, she approached it clinically, coldly. An emotion could take many forms, some of them baffling. She had worked on several cases in which feelings made people behave irrationally, clouding their judgement, or manifested in ways that were apparently counterintuitive.

Neve knew Aglais wouldn’t expect extravagant gestures or romantic surprises from her. It was all in the small, big things with Neve: letting her guard down. Letting Aglais in. Building something together.

She ran her hands on her own thighs, rucking up the hem of the dressing gown until palms met lace. What was this, then? Quite the extravagant surprise, she had to admit. It had only been a handful of days, and yet Aglais’s absence nagged her so much that she had to do something about it.

That something was, apparently, buying the kind of risqué lingerie she had always considered both impractical and uncomfortable, not to mention ridiculous. At least she knew she could count on the seller’s discretion since they owed her. Small mercies.

She did like how it looked on her.

Her fingers trailed upwards, not that differently from how Aglais had done a few minutes ago. She shivered. Lace hugged her hips snugly, almost impalpable.

Somewhere along the way, she lost her habit of always expecting the worst. She had pictured — all too vividly — Aglais coming home to this. No fanfare, no elaborate setup; just Neve, like this. She had imagined Aglais’s long, appraising gaze committing Neve to memory, before unwrapping her like an expensive piece of candy, and then savoring her like one, too.

Her palms circled her slim waist, thumbs meeting over her belly button. She had dismissed Aglais’s plea to look at her because it wouldn’t fit Neve’s expectations. It was flattering, however, that she would ask, even being in a state to do nothing but look. Restless, Neve tapped her fingers on her barely-clothed skin.

Whatever decision she was going to make, she had to make it fast.

*

When Aglais stepped out of the washroom and into the bedroom, most of her mind was occupied with thoughts of what had transpired in the kitchen. Her brain wasn’t as tired as her body, but it was a close call: she was drunk with exhaustion.

However, she couldn’t stop thinking about that flash of red lace following the curve of Neve’s breast, about what her fingers had felt underneath that too-short dressing gown. It made her weary heart race, and this time in a pleasant way.

It never ceased to amaze her, when she stopped to think about it — and she thought about it often — how incredible it was to have Neve in her life. That they had found each other, a Nevarran Mourn Watcher and a Minrathous mage, both intrinsically tied to the place where they were raised, with no reason to ever even hear about each other. And now here they were. It only took the near-end of the world.

She had only been away for three days, and Neve missed her. Enough to make plans about it, apparently. She could kick herself for having missed it when she walked in; in her defense, she had been — still was — a wreck. She also regretted not insisting more with Neve on letting her see what she’d been wearing.

Neve was probably right, she had to admit to herself: it would have been a little cruel to let Aglais see when there was nothing she could do about it. Still, she didn’t want Neve to think she wasn’t interested, because she was. Very much.

Her thoughts, which were as loud as a spoken conversation in her head, suddenly quieted when she saw Neve waiting for her in the bedroom.

The perennial lights of Minrathous bathed her as she stood in front of the window, forearms crossed on the inner windowsill. She was leaning forward, most of her weight resting on her good leg. Watching the rain falling outside, probably, or inspecting the row of potted plants they hadn’t managed to kill yet.

She wasn’t wearing the dressing gown anymore.

Aglais’s heart stopped for a second, then started beating faster. “Red suits you,” she managed to say. Her voice was a bit strangled. “I wouldn’t have said.”

Neve didn’t turn around immediately; she didn’t even start at Aglais’s voice, which meant she had heard her coming. If she was consciously giving Aglais time to appreciate the lovely fullness of her backside enclosed in twisting red lace, then Aglais could only be grateful.

Before she became Rook, before she met Neve, Aglais had never given a second thought to clothes. They were either practical, for work, or formal, also for work. Her favorite Mourn Watcher livery was the one with the most pockets and the least chafing. It was only after taking Varric’s place that she had to mind how she presented herself; and, knowing nothing about fashion and style, when it had come to choosing an example to follow, she had obviously chosen Neve. Quietly, gradually, she’d started lining her eyes in black, doing her hair up in a bun. There was no way a big, tall Qunari would ever make people think of Neve Gallus, but there were leaves Aglais could take from her book to look more polished, authoritative. Put together. Competent.

She had always thought it came naturally to Neve — the knowing how to make herself look pretty — but this had clearly required some special effort. What she was wearing was made of several panels, each expertly sewn and cut to flatter the natural curves of Neve’s body. When she turned, Aglais could see that the front was as stunning as the back. The plunging neckline cut a deep V through Neve’s torso, leaving it almost bare all the way to her waist; the trim was lightly curled, like butterfly wings, and Aglais’s eyes were helplessly drawn to the perfect swell of Neve’s breasts.

“Changed your mind?” she asked, aiming for breezy and ending closer to breathless.

She stood still as Neve’s eyes scanned her from head to toe, then back again. With interest, as if Aglais were the one wearing revealing lingerie instead of the old sleeveless shirt and the shorts she slept in. She didn’t feel at a disadvantage, though: if the quietly calculating look on her face meant anything, Neve knew exactly what she was going to do with her, and Aglais was eager to find out.

“I thought we could try something,” Neve said eventually. There was some hesitation lurking under the evenness of her tone, which made Aglais’s heart beat even faster. “If you’re up to—”

Aglais didn’t let her finish the sentence. “Yes,” she said with decision.

It earned her a crooked smile. Amused, satisfied, but also relieved. Neve’s joined hands loosened, and she smoothed the lace bodice over her waist. It wasn’t meant to be seductive; she was steeling herself. Aglais’s mouth still went dry.

Then Neve’s eyes locked into hers. “Will you do as I tell you, Trouble?”

Her tone — low, firm, business-like — went straight to Aglais’s core. She forgot about the exhaustion, the lateness of the hour, and pretty much everything else. The world could manage for a while without her.

She nodded.

Neve exhaled, and her already straight shoulders squared a little more. Her hair was loosely gathered on her nape, and Aglais pictured the quick, efficient gestures that got it out of the way while Neve waited for her. A strand had escaped, drawing a comma just above her collarbone.

“On the bed,” she ordered.

Aglais stopped staring and got on the bed.

After a moment or two, Neve followed her, stopping in front of where Aglais was sitting. Contemplating, evaluating. The air Aglais still had in her lungs dissolved when Neve reached out to press the tips of her fingers to her chest, just between her collarbones. She wasn’t pushing: just touching. “Down. Slowly.”

Slowly, Aglais obeyed — lying sideways across the bed, legs bent over the edge.

Neve hummed approvingly. “Like that,” she murmured.

The smallness of their bedroom had forced them to push the bed into a corner. It was a small bed, too, especially for two people, especially when one of them was as big as Aglais; she could have touched the wall behind her and the one to her right without having to stretch her arm all the way.

As Neve climbed on the bed after her, pushing her knees apart so she could kneel with her good leg between them, the bed felt even smaller. It didn’t matter. Aglais’s consciousness narrowed down to Neve towering above her, eyes running over the dark marble of her thighs, dusted with almost impalpable hairs, up to the point where skin met the vivid splash of red lace, to the hourglass narrowing of her waist, to the full curves of her breasts, which promised to spill out of the daring neckline if she just bent down a little more.

To, finally, her eyes, which held Aglais’s gaze with a firm pensiveness.

Without breaking eye contact, Neve placed her hands on the top of Aglais’s thighs, drawing a surprised, sharp hiss.

“Cold,” Aglais breathed out.

“I know,” Neve said sweetly, teasingly. Then, more seriously, “Should I stop?”

Aglais breathed in deeply, focusing on the startling feeling, which suddenly turned from too much to perfect. It was exactly what her sore, aching muscles needed. She shook her head, then said out loud, “No. Please.”

All the pain in her thighs was frozen and chipped away by Neve’s careful touch. The more she spread her icy palms on her, gently bending Aglais’s legs one after the other so she could reach underneath, the deeper Aglais slipped into something that wasn’t quite sleep, but not quite awareness either. A hypnotic, suspended state. At first, cold burned like fire, then a wonderful numbness followed, seeping into her skin, her flesh, her core. The pain didn’t disappear, but dulled, turning from burning into a slightly uncomfortable sensation.

When Neve called her name, she blinked her eyes open. She hadn’t noticed she’d closed them. “Mmm?”

A low chuckle. “I thought you’d fallen asleep on me.”

“Maybe I have.” Her eyes wanted to close again, so she let them. “I feel like I’m dreaming.”

“Do you?” Her tone had a polite interest, as if they had been talking about the weather.

Aglais opened an eye when she felt Neve’s weight leave the bed, just for the mattress to dip again as Neve sat on the edge of the bed, next to Aglais’s legs, to slip off her prosthetic. She reached out, but stopped before touching her. “Alright?” she enquired quietly.

When they first met each other, and even during their tentative, foolish courtship, Neve had never once complained about her missing leg, to the point that everyone just forgot about it most of the time. Aglais, too, even though she was helplessly drawn to Neve. Now, after months of cohabitation, she was attuned to Neve’s walk, her posture, the subtle way she stretched her leg and knee when she thought Aglais wasn’t looking. Aglais rarely asked, and surely wouldn’t offend Neve with her condescension; but now that she knew Neve never appeared uncomfortable because she sometimes pretended not to be, she just made sure to be by her side, ready to help if needed.

Which was exactly what Neve had always done for her, after all.

“Mhm,” Neve said, then turned, and the next thing Aglais knew was Neve’s body over her, knees firmly planted on either side of her hips, hovering warmly and darkly.

Aglais’s hands moved instinctively to balance her — right hip, left thigh — just as Neve grabbed her chin, tilted her head up and leaned down to kiss her.

At times, Neve kissed her pensively, carefully, as if she was trying to figure something out in the way their lips fit against each other. Other times it was an absent-minded peck before being on her way to somewhere else, which still endeared Aglais in its ordinary sweetness.

This time, Neve kissed her deeply, demandingly, with the apparent intent of claiming Aglais for herself. And Aglais, relinquished by her blood family, raised by Mourn Watchers, accepted and valued but never truly chosen by anyone, wanted nothing more than to give herself up, entirely.

“If this were a dream,” Neve murmured against Aglais’s lips, still holding her chin, “what would happen now?”

It did feel more and more dreamlike, the way Neve felt under Aglais’s hands, like warm silk where her palms touched bare skin, smoothly textured where the lace was. The pleasant numbness in her legs and arms was spreading to her mind, or so it felt like. “This is my dream, right?” she murmured, letting herself fully sink into it. Her thoughts were fuzzy, hazy. Even talking was like swimming against the current, and she wanted to give in to it. “Do whatever you want to me.”

Through half-lidded eyes, she saw Neve lean back to look at her. The intensity of her stare would have flustered Aglais in normal circumstances, making her scramble for bad jokes to dissimulate her arousal. And she was aroused, but it was a buzzing undercurrent tingling just beneath the surface of her consciousness, suffusing her body, pooling in her belly. Her heartbeat was slow, she could hear her blood thrumming in her veins through her entire body.

And, at the center of it all, was Neve.

Without breaking eye contact, Neve let go of her chin to trace a cheekbone, then delicately scraped the stubs of Aglais’s horns with neatly-trimmed fingernails. She ran her fingers through Aglais’s hair, which had grown out just enough for Neve to get a hold of it and tilt her head slightly back.

“Whatever I want,” she echoed. Her look was appraising. “That’s a dangerous offer. It might get you in trouble.”

Aglais stopped breathing. “I wish,” she whispered hoarsely.

Her hands were still holding Neve with a slack grasp. Neve moved, easily slipping out of it. She didn’t go far, just shuffled a little lower on Aglais’s body, sitting on her thighs. Aglais barely had time to feel her absence — her ice mage could be so warm — that Neve was pressing her lips to the hinge of Aglais’s jaw, then an inch lower. She lingered on the side of Aglais’s neck, where her racing pulse could be felt, just as her hand slipped under Aglais’s shirt.

“Breathe,” Neve murmured as her smooth palm slid slowly on Aglais’s belly, caressed her ribcage, and then followed the curve of one of her breasts.

Aglais gasped as her nipple pebbled under the touch of careful, methodical fingertips, just as a hint of teeth was pressed on the column of her neck.

The whole world narrowed down to that: a mouth nibbling at her above her collarbones, Neve’s weight on her, a nipple sweetly rubbed between thumb and forefinger, and the heat steadily flushing her belly, gathering between her legs. She arched her back, seeking something, anything, until finally Neve’s other hand was cupping her.

Her middle finger pressed where Aglais was already desperately wet. Even through the fabric, the touch was too much, and at the same time not enough. “Neve…”

“I have you.” Neve spoke those words against her skin, then kissed her neck. Her mouth moved lower, lower. Colder air made Aglais suck in her stomach as Neve rucked up her shirt even more and took her other nipple between her lips.

She knew what to do, because Aglais had told her, shown her. Not at first; after the ebb of their first, completely unplanned kiss on the docks had come a flow of caution. Neither of them had known what to do with the possibility of intimacy, and they had found themselves both eager to offer it and hesitant to take it. Taking things slow had been less of a choice and more of a circumstance neither of them had the power to change.

And then Neve had disappeared, taken by the gods. Even before Aglais was imprisoned in the Fade, she had put her fear of having lost Neve forever in a small box in her mind, where the anguish couldn’t distract her from her mission. But facing those fears, those regrets, had been the only way to free herself. And so Aglais had carried on, bleeding from the wound of her desperate hope, and when she had seen Neve again she couldn’t quite believe she was truly alive. Blighted, exhausted, and furious, but alive. Then everything had changed once again, then once more, to the point Aglais had stopped keeping count of the world-shattering events she was witnessing; and at the end of it, after the dust had settled, Neve had been there, waiting for her. Or perhaps the other way around: Aglais had had the privilege to catch her when she fell.

It had been momentous, and easy, and unbelievable, and natural, to let Neve in, to give herself up, trusting Neve to catch her in turn. Neve wanted Aglais in her entirety, the whole of her body and her mind and her spirit and her heart, as awkward and cumbersome and disappointing as she might be. And she got all of Neve in return: her brilliance, her dry wit, her soft skin, her morning crankiness, her burned coffee, the mess that seemed to spring from every place she spent more than five minutes in.

So Neve knew very well by now that a light, constant touch on her nipples made Aglais crave to be filled. The pressure of Neve’s finger through the fabric increased for a moment, then she took her hand away so she could slip it underneath Aglais’s shorts. She wasted no time sinking two fingers in Aglais’s soft wetness, drawing a sigh out of her.

Neve licked her nipple one last time before raising her head. “Alright?” she checked in, then laughed to herself when Aglais could only nod. “I have you, Trouble,” she repeated. Her hand might have been small, but did everything right. “Look at you.”

Her tone was quietly marveled, almost reverent, as if Aglais had been the stunning beauty out of the two of them. She surely must have been a spectacle; her shirt rucked up, leaving her breasts and belly exposed, Neve’s hand in her shorts.

Aglais tilted her head back on the bed when Neve’s fingers slipped out of her and trailed up to her clitoris. The same light, constant touch, smoothed by her own slick, and the unbearable pressure building up inside her made her want to bend her knees. But Neve was still sitting firmly on her thighs, pinning her legs down.

“Neve, I’m…” she tried to say, but she was cut off when two fingers slipped into her without warning, stroking her front walls in just the right spot.

Her release was so intense it felt like a rending, but without pain. Even as the waves started to recede, Neve kept her fingers on her, inside her, carrying her through another sweeter, longer orgasm, until she was dizzy with the overpowering relief of the aftermath.

Time slowly ticked back into its ordinary orbit, the room reappeared around her, and Aglais laughed.

“That was…” she started when she could breathe again, and didn’t know how to appropriately end the sentence.

Cleaning her hand carelessly on the bedsheet, Neve chuckled. “And here I thought you were tired.”

Aglais felt absolutely wrung out, but also bursting with joy. “Never underestimate me, Gallus.”

She could see Neve was about to snark back, but she could only startle when Aglais tried to bend her knees again and this time succeded, catching her unawares, tipping Neve forward until she was hovering over her again.

Neve’s hair, free of its tie, caressed Aglais’s face like silken feathers as she laughed. Aglais would have done anything for her, if she’d only asked. For now, she just kissed her with the laid-back satisfaction of a girl who’d just been shown a very good time. Her hands rested on Neve’s hips with no particular purpose, just enjoying the curves and planes of her body under her hands. The lace crinkled at the crease of her waist, and heat licked at Aglais’s core once more, albeit light and sluggish, as her thumbs played with it.

The warm haze her mind had been steeped in had receded enough. When Neve pulled back from the kiss, Aglais whispered in her ear, “I want you.”

They were so close that there was no hiding the shiver that ran down Neve’s back. Her eyes shone darkly as she looked deeply into Aglais’s, and her lips parted and then closed again. Worry and indecision creased her forehead.

“You want it, too,” Aglais told her, spreading her hands to circle Neve’s waist. The tips of her fingers almost touched. “You can do all the work, just let me put my mouth on you, please. I won’t hurt myself. I’ll be good.”

It was a shameless attempt at a coy seduction, one that almost made both of them laugh. But there was something earnest in it, too, where Aglais’s eagerness and desire were on full, artless display.

And she was right: Neve wanted it, too. Neve wanted her. Aglais could see the moment when uncertainty melted into temptation.

She couldn’t wait any longer. “Come here,” she says, pulling her upwards.

*

In the past, although there had never been much room for this kind of thing in Neve’s life, she wasn’t living a chaste life, either. She was pretty and clever; her bed didn’t have to be cold if she didn’t want it to be. Except that, most times, her own company — and her own hand, as a matter of fact — had been enough, and even when she’d treated herself to some company, she had made her preferences clear: quick, efficient, to the point. For Dock Down detective Neve Gallus, the hallmarks of a satisfactory encounter were not that different from those of a competently handled case.

Aglais made her want to linger.

“This was supposed to be about you,” Neve reminded her, even as she let herself be dragged up, along the axis of Aglais’s' well-loved, lovely body until Neve’s knees were framing her face.

The look Aglais gave her from between her thighs was amused. “I am exactly where I want to be,” she pointed out, in a tone that belied the fact she couldn’t believe she had to say it out loud.

She did look lovely down there, Neve had to admit. Then it occurred to her she could say that out loud, and she did.

The shiver that shook Aglais ended with her arms wrapped around Neve’s thighs. “Can you keep the thing on?” she asked urgently.

“Yes,” Neve replied quickly, letting her thighs spread even more, almost giving in to her own impatience — almost, “if you want.”

Before closing her eyes, Aglais looked at her intensely. “I want,” she murmured, before using the leverage of her arms to lower Neve down onto her mouth.

It would have been little more than a tease, this light pressure, except Neve could still feel Aglais’s arousal on her fingers, could imagine all too well how it would have tasted had she sucked on her own fingers after — she made a mental note to herself, for the next time — and she could still remember how it felt to wind her up, how soft and supple her breasts were in her hand, the stiffness of her nipple between Neve’s teeth, the full loveliness of her body, how sweetly docile her release always was to coax out. They’d done this, or some variation of this, for an amount of times Neve stopped counting (on purpose, after she realized she was doing it; it feels sacrilegious, somehow, to number things such as these), but familiarity hadn’t taken away the simple marvel of letting herself be loved by Aglais.

The almost impalpable barrier of lace took nothing to be sodden, and she ignored Aglais’s chuckle when Neve was the one to pull it out of the way. But Aglais immediately redeemed herself by putting her mouth to better use, and almost instantly Neve had one hand against the wall in front of her, the other in Aglais’s hair, and there was only a thin line of self-control keeping her from pressing, chasing, seizing.

Aglais noticed, and slowed down.

Indifferent to the noise of frustration that came out of Neve’s throat, she didn’t stop, but now she was teasing her, tongue and lips leaving Neve’s clit and dipping deeper between her legs. The sweep of her tongue inside Neve was firm and eager, and it felt good, but Neve wouldn’t come from this alone, and they both knew it.

Still, Neve lingered there. Because it did feel good, because they both deserved to do something just for that reason, because sometimes that was enough of a reason. Because Aglais wasn’t lying when she said she wanted to be here, between Neve’s legs, in their bed, in their home. In a life they were building together, whatever it ended up looking like. Despite the cautious start, there was nothing tentative in their commitment to one another, and Neve — married to her city all her life, to her job for years, and genuinely convinced there would not be room for a third element in that equation until she met Aglais — was impatient to see what shape this kind of mutual devotion would take in a year, two, five, a decade. A lifetime.

Hopeful. What a strange thing to be.

All these thoughts passed through Neve’s mind like clouds, or their shadows, perhaps; present, but not distracting her from the focus of her attention, which was the sweet torture that was slowly, inexorably building up pressure inside her, and which was about to cross the boundary from teasing into intolerable.

The noise that escaped her was so filled with needy desperation that she covered her mouth with the hand that had been holding Aglais’s head, only realising after she did it that there had been some pressure in her grasp.

As she let her head fall back on the covers, Aglais didn’t look put out at all. The expression on her face as she licked her lips was, if anything, self-satisfied. This time she didn’t ask if Neve was alright: she was a smart woman, she could read the room.

When she pulled Neve down again there was a bit of impatience, and Neve immediately understood she wouldn’t hold back this time. Her thighs twitched, then stiffened, and she was soon gasping for air as Aglais encouraged her to get closer, to seek her own release against her, to ride her mouth until the spark finally caught, making Neve curl forward until she was resting her forehead against the back of her hand, the only thing — with Aglais’s arms around her legs — keeping her upright.

It seemed to go on, and on, and on, as if her earlier efforts were being repaid with interest. And she took everything, helpless to stop and knowing she didn’t have to, following the lead of both her body and Aglais’s, who also didn’t seem willing to stop.

Finally, when uncomfortable started edging its way into painful, she rose to her knees with a sigh. Under her, Aglais let go of her legs, although her hands stayed on Neve, steadying her as she swung a leg over Aglais’s chest and dropped (collapsed) onto the mattress beside her.

She was still piecing herself back together as Aglais filled up her chest with air, then exhaled with a satisfied sigh. “And you wanted me to sleep instead of this,” she said with faux indignation, before casually running the back of her hand over her mouth.

Her back on the covers, hands over her stomach — her breath was still short — Neve turned her head towards her, and, as she watched Aglais gingerly pull her own shirt back down and fix her shorts until she was comfortable, she thought, I love you. “Welcome home,” she said.

Which was, after all, the same thing.