"We tend to deliver bad news more urgently," is a kind of agreement.
The Commander is most certainly awake at this hour, but Derrica doesn't pretend he is overly concerned with either of them. They are capable. They rarely create more problems when sent to remedy a dilemma on their own.
One-handed, she lifts the armor away from his shoulder. The inside is slick with blood, but not a worrying amount. A minute's inspection before she lets it drop to the floor, and diverts her attention back to his shoulder.
There is certainly a way to approach this professionally, with some detachment. Healing by its very nature requires proximity, though Derrica has always been careful of how she positioned her body. With Marcus, with what has thawed under that warmth between them, she puts her knee on his thigh. Leverages herself closer as she begins to sponge away the blood.
"It's shallow," she assesses. "It won't need a bandage after I've finished."
The press of her knee to his thigh draws focus, manifesting as his hand coming to rest atop it. A gentle tucking under of his fingers, thumb brushing along the ridge of bone. He can focus on that, the play of muscle and tendon beneath warm leathers, and not the gentle but still stinging touch of the cloth to the laceration.
A muscle-deep twitch, first, a tightening at his jaw. By the second press, he's braced better for it, an indrawn breath of patience following. Can, after that, extract some enjoyment for attention.
And watch her, in this comfortable proximity. "Good," he says. "I'd rather scars be worth the memory." And a random fear demon in a field does not qualify.
Their present position creates the illusion of leverage, of height. With her knee braced and his hand settled there at the bend, the movement of his thumb catching at the edge of her awareness. She leans up, damp cloth laid over his chest as her free hand lifts to his face.
When Derrica touches the scar there, the skin of her fingers is featherlight. She must have put her hands here before, that first night. Or maybe even before that. But never with this specific intention, mapping the fading outline of the jagged scar here on his face.
There's a lot of appeal in her nearness, the press of her knee and that sense of her leverage. There is appeal in affording Derrica in particular some measure of trust and doing so easily, where it might otherwise bristle. Her handling is, as ever, gentle and considered, just like the fingertips tracing the path of his scarring and the question put to him.
"It makes for a worthy reminder," Marcus says, after a moment of thought.
There is space, here, to say more, so— "An error on my part. I sought to stagger a Templar who was wielding a wall shield, but it had some enchantment to it. My magic was fired back towards me. I'm told," he adds. "I don't remember it striking, just waking later." He speaks, and his hand slides up the outer of her thigh, palm warm and flat.
Her thumb skates over his cheek, the slight bristle of stubble and the ragged, raised edge of scar by his jawline.
"Are there others?" she asks. If she thinks back to that shared dream, the violence of their clash in the stables and Richard's timely intervention, she recalls the way blood had pooled across his tunic even though Derrica hadn't landed a single blow.
The shift of his hand spurs her closer, up onto the tips of her toes. By necessity, she tips his head back. Her palm splays carefully over the damp cloth, fingers at his throat, over his collarbone. A cool flow of magic lights against his skin, a minor flex of magic knitting the wound and leaving the last traces of blood as it goes.
The potential for some problematic associates between the cool prickle of her healing magic and the warmer internal shiver of response that everything else she is doing gets is
clearly an issue for some future time, given the way Marcus' hand settles at her hip, the press of a thumb making this touch more assertive. It carries no particular order. Communicates desire, only.
"On my side," he tells her, chin lifted under the flex of her fingers. Studying her face in kind. It would be easy to feel particularly flawed and battered in her presence, if not for how gently she asks and touches him. "The first of them. We hadn't left the Circle yet. He got his sword up under my arm, cut through the robes. We were all still learning."
When her hand lifts, it's only to begin the process of loosening the straps securing his armor over his chest. The cloth is left to fall to the floor, discarded for the moment.
"How old were you?"
Older than she had been, maybe. But the shock of it would be the same regardless, she thinks. The first time that kind of pain was visited upon him had to have carried the same kind of shattering revelation it had for Derrica. Their experience of Circles was very different, but knowing that someone considered their freedom such a threat that killing them was preferable—
Maybe he had suspected it. But maybe it had been hard for him to have it confirmed.
Maybe he won't speak of it at all. Derrica leaves space for that too, even as the intent to pin him into his seat under her weight becomes more and more clear.
Older than she is now currently, probably, says the slightly wryly calculating pause before his answer. "Thirty-three," Marcus provides, anyway, relaxing back in his seat. And if there is a prickle of vanity, it is as much if not more so about the long years he'd been more captive than rebel, rather than the years between he and her.
He could assist with the armor, but she has the better angle besides, and that wanting thing in him that settles his hand where it is would like her to do the task. The twinge of his most recent injury is gone, and so there is no bodily distraction from focusing instead on the comfortable weight of her, keeping him where he is. The hand at her hip rises, to fidget with the tunic.
"We'd no proper healers with us, at first," he adds. "But we'd practice with thread and needle. Simple mending."
Because they are so far removed from this injury, insulted in this small room with Marcus whole beneath her, Derrica can smile a little at that description. Her thumb sets at the corner of his mouth.
"Was it simple mending for you?"
She'll see for herself, soon enough. The newly unfastened straps slip from his torso, encouraged over his shoulder. The hard leather is easy to part, make way for Derrica to put her palm flat to his chest and feel his skin warm beneath the contact.
Stall there, as Derrica looks into his face. He has had her already, lifted against a wall in an opulant estate, door unlocked. But they did very little undressing. When she hesitates, it is as much to read his face as it is draw out the moment, unravel him with care.
Much like when he'd had her against that wall, Marcus is compelled to turn his head, offer a kiss in the form of just brushing his lips against the pad of her thumb, and then further down to find her palm, impress a more specific version of its kind against the curve of skin, tendon, muscle. Hands that can summon raw lightning, or imbue broken things with something hopeful.
"Didn't feel simple," is just as lightly handled. Long enough years that he doesn't with any specificity recall the bite of needle and pull of thread.
He wanders a hand to the one she has rested at his chest, pressing it before he says, "Here," and then guides it slightly down, aside, where she might imagine the rippled stripe of old wound brand across his ribcage and under the cloth.
A soft sound, an ah of reaction as he sets her fingers over the raised stretch of scarring. Derrica traces the outline of it, sight unseen. Finds the ragged edges, the start and end, the uneven cinch created by stitches tugged tight.
And as she does, there is an awareness of his breath. His body beneath hers. His fingers over hers. The strip of skin laid bare by the parting of leather.
"Are there many more?" Derrica murmurs to him.
Her fingers at his jaw keep his face tipped up to her. Over his thigh, her weight shifts, swaying closer by scant degrees. Under the flex of her wrist, the leather parts further.
The next time he breathes out, it comes a little heavier. Reacting, blood moving, summoned. Both the settling of her knee shifting further up as well as articulate fingers mapping out the texture of his skin through his clothes. Her attention feels as precise as the gentle set of fingertips at his jaw.
"It has its mirror," Marcus says, voice also near a murmur. "When he drew the sword back, against my arm. And there's the mark next to my knee," and the corner of his mouth lifts breathe, "from when I fell off my horse."
Not all brands of heroism, then.
His moves her hand again. There are, perhaps, more efficient ways she might find out for herself.
Derrica’s smile widens, bowing a breath closer as he shifts her hand once more.
“Sit up,” comes with the slight pressure of her fingers at his jaw before her fingers dip beneath the leather. Nudge it back, so it might join the straps on the floor.
“Was it Kevin you fell from?”
A soft prompt, as she shucks the leather, one-handed, from his shoulders.
He helps, this time, sitting up and pulling his hand from hers to see to a buckle, and then navigating it off and over. Away, down.
"Aye," Marcus confirms. There is blood soaked into the dark fabric of the remains of his shirt. He has a spare in his saddlebags, somewhere, and is helpful about peeling away this layer as well. He says, as he does so, "He spooked on the road and threw me. I fell into the brush, caught something sharp in the landing. I think it's about the most painful one, of all of them."
Something about that placement, the near dislodging of bone. But of course— "Wasn't his fault," is important to add.
There are other scars. Less substantial than the one hooked up around his ribcage, the one still unseen that curves his knee. A puncture lower down, a burn stripe across the shoulder, a slash across a forearm.
With Marcus laid bare to the waist, Derrica resettles. Reapplies her knee to his thigh, sets her hand to the the curve of his neck, thumb over his collarbone. Bears him back against the creaking wood of the chair, banking on how permissive he has been thus far.
“Not as many as you,” she admits. Knowing she has survived less. Knowing hers are far fewer, the perhaps better mended.
Her opposite hand returns to his side. Finds the scar there, draws her fingers along the slice of it, traces a nail at the nocked edge.
A short exhale as he's set back into the chair, something that is amused and impatient and interested all at once. The good kind of impatience, a kind of internal friction. Like the tickle of fingers, the edge of a nail, against ribboned semi-unfeeling scarring.
"Sometimes," Marcus says. Conscious of himself, the press of half-hardness against fabric, stirred enough by her proximity, gentle hands and focus. His hand finds a place at her leg again, fingers curling around the back of her thigh. "I don't regret them. There was little cause for scars like these, before."
Other sorts of hurts, certainly, ones that leave their mark; but these all feel like the result of stupidity, recklessness, bravery, and the freedom to be those things.
His grip sures up, at the back of the knee. A firmer tug that might steer her into straddling him properly.
A tug noted, indulged only by minor pressure and resettling of her weight into him. Her hand cupping his cheek again, thumb running across the scar there.
“I like hearing about them.”
Words to the tune of I like hearing things about you.
As familiar as they are, these are pieces of him she has been only glancingly aware of. Less so about what they mean to him, what he might have felt about carrying them.
“I like seeing you.”
In which looking and seeing overlap, blur together as she lays her palm flat over his side, narrows the space between them to near nothing. There is nothing truly pinning him other than his indulgence, and Derrica is finding the limits of that, flexing the quiet satisfaction of this leverage.
A quiet grunt leaves him at the pressure, the angle of her knee, not quite getting the thing he was steering for but not to the exclusion of other things. The things she says, the points of contact of her hands. No, he is allowing this, letting her pin him between knee and hands and the hovering over of her attention.
The scar makes for an appealing path, at least. Stippled through his cheek, a natural swoop broken off around the cut of his jaw, hooked back up to his mouth. Messy in the way the injury must have been, whether a healer got to it or not. After a couple of days travel and working, the bristle on his face is less neat than usual, and grows in patchier around those faded seams. It had been nice that he had someone, at the time, willing to touch it just as Derrica is now, and say something kind.
He isn't thinking of that person, eyeline wandered to her mouth, senses attuned to other details he can breathe in, like whatever she last washed her hair with, the clinging of the day to her clothes and skin. (Smoke still clings to him, shirt or no shirt, and the scent of blood wreathes the room.)
The chair creaks. With her leaning and balanced so, he can't claim a kiss without some more determined rearrangement, or pulling her down to meet him. The hand at her thigh skims back up to her waist, fabric of her tunic pulling a little taut as he forms a fist around it.
“I know,” is a whisper of acknowledgement for his hand, the tension in his body under her.
Her attention is so fixed on him. Aware that when she puts her mouth on his skin the coppery bite of blood will be there mingled with the salt of sweat, the day’s work written across him as surely as the scars she has been mapping out. The slow arch up, onto the balls of her feet, sliding forward as her knee presses into the flexing muscles of his thigh.
“I want to look at you,” she tells him. A little rueful, aware of how her own wants will soon be outweighed by wanting more of him than just the tenuous balance they’ve struck. “I want to keep you just like this.”
Her free hand trails down his chest. Lingers over this scar and that, over the rise and fall of breath, the flinch of muscle in reaction to her touch.
She could slip into his lap so easily. But it would give up all her leverage to do so.
It's nearly visible, the relenting. A thing he can give her, a for now somehow clear in these subtle shifts. The way his posture stiffened now undoes itself as Marcus settles those minute ways back, and his hand relaxes from that fist, settling flatter on her waist. Letting his thumb rub small circles where he can feel soft skin beneath fabric.
It is nice to be looked at and touched. Lets the arm near that scar relax, the mirrored marking he'd mentioned a cleaner, fainter slice up the inside of bicep. Dark hair and distinctly sunless skin, as if seven or eight years of freedom still hasn't seen fit to layer in warmer tones, freckles. The thigh that isn't pinned tips aside, and he doesn't mind that the line of his hard cock is more clearly visible, by now, against the seam of grey fabric.
Marcus breathes out at this first thing; nods. Yes, he had been anticipating this, the promise of a room to themselves, the time to spend enjoying it. How he had felt that keen edge of hunger, back in the estate, of baring her right there, and he has practice in checking those more selfish impulses, of riding out the impulse for more when already given so much, without strangling them completely.
Another longer breath out as her warm fingers tuck into the fabric of his waistband. Anticipating. His gaze has dropped that far, only rises back up on a delay at her question.
"Yes," he says. "When I let myself."
There has been some measure of restraint. It's a wonder he allowed himself to deviate enough outside of it for her to even notice, let alone act upon.
Even having posed the question, Derrica hadn't quite considered her own answer to it.
Her palm splays low over his belly, a realignment requiring the drawing back of her fingers from his waistband and laces. Prompts a realignment of her body in relation to his, a settling as her elbow meets his chest and her fingers slip down to the nape of his neck.
"Once," is a certain truth. "Then it felt..."
Transgressive, that is the word she wants. But Derrica doesn't have that exact word, which would so neatly cinch together the sense of intrusion that thinking of him had carried with it then. Maybe even, to some minor degree, now.
A twitch of her shoulder, the shrug moving through her entire body, stirs the drape of her tunic against his bare skin. Her fingers flex where she has set them, grazing the fabric of his waistband once more.
Marcus doesn't know the word, either, that should fit in that space of a pause, but he thinks he knows its shape. Something about what is or is not proper, maybe, or about border-crossings, the delicate definitions that they had defined and redefined. There is no room, here, between the press of her elbow to his chest and the play of her hand, for him to know guilt about it.
His hand guides up the curve of her side, not reseating the fabric or pulling it free, just feeling. Maybe following a path he'd imagined touching before, in fleeting fragments of want and impulse. Things that are better formed, now. Beyond that, he remains still, patient.
"Tell me," he says. Something a little less sober and serious to the question in the following scrape of eye contact. It is an indulgence, to ask. "That once."
Should she feel embarrassed now? Is there space for that self-conscious rise of heat in her face? She flushed regardless, thinking back, recalling that flutter of heat washing through her body. How elicit it had felt then, being so aware of his body, his hands.
What little space remains, she closes it. Her knee digging into his thigh, her own thigh set against him. Derrica doesn’t kiss him, not yet. The immediacy of that want is set aside as she looks at his face, leans into the press of his palm.
“We were sparring,” she tells him. “In the training yard.”
The exact day doesn’t matter, not really. It could have been any day, any entanglement.
“You caught hold of me after you’d knocked me back. And I remember thinking about what it would be like if you held me tighter, instead of letting go once I found my footing.”
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The Commander is most certainly awake at this hour, but Derrica doesn't pretend he is overly concerned with either of them. They are capable. They rarely create more problems when sent to remedy a dilemma on their own.
One-handed, she lifts the armor away from his shoulder. The inside is slick with blood, but not a worrying amount. A minute's inspection before she lets it drop to the floor, and diverts her attention back to his shoulder.
There is certainly a way to approach this professionally, with some detachment. Healing by its very nature requires proximity, though Derrica has always been careful of how she positioned her body. With Marcus, with what has thawed under that warmth between them, she puts her knee on his thigh. Leverages herself closer as she begins to sponge away the blood.
"It's shallow," she assesses. "It won't need a bandage after I've finished."
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A muscle-deep twitch, first, a tightening at his jaw. By the second press, he's braced better for it, an indrawn breath of patience following. Can, after that, extract some enjoyment for attention.
And watch her, in this comfortable proximity. "Good," he says. "I'd rather scars be worth the memory." And a random fear demon in a field does not qualify.
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When Derrica touches the scar there, the skin of her fingers is featherlight. She must have put her hands here before, that first night. Or maybe even before that. But never with this specific intention, mapping the fading outline of the jagged scar here on his face.
"Was this one?"
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"It makes for a worthy reminder," Marcus says, after a moment of thought.
There is space, here, to say more, so— "An error on my part. I sought to stagger a Templar who was wielding a wall shield, but it had some enchantment to it. My magic was fired back towards me. I'm told," he adds. "I don't remember it striking, just waking later." He speaks, and his hand slides up the outer of her thigh, palm warm and flat.
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"Are there others?" she asks. If she thinks back to that shared dream, the violence of their clash in the stables and Richard's timely intervention, she recalls the way blood had pooled across his tunic even though Derrica hadn't landed a single blow.
The shift of his hand spurs her closer, up onto the tips of her toes. By necessity, she tips his head back. Her palm splays carefully over the damp cloth, fingers at his throat, over his collarbone. A cool flow of magic lights against his skin, a minor flex of magic knitting the wound and leaving the last traces of blood as it goes.
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clearly an issue for some future time, given the way Marcus' hand settles at her hip, the press of a thumb making this touch more assertive. It carries no particular order. Communicates desire, only.
"On my side," he tells her, chin lifted under the flex of her fingers. Studying her face in kind. It would be easy to feel particularly flawed and battered in her presence, if not for how gently she asks and touches him. "The first of them. We hadn't left the Circle yet. He got his sword up under my arm, cut through the robes. We were all still learning."
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When her hand lifts, it's only to begin the process of loosening the straps securing his armor over his chest. The cloth is left to fall to the floor, discarded for the moment.
"How old were you?"
Older than she had been, maybe. But the shock of it would be the same regardless, she thinks. The first time that kind of pain was visited upon him had to have carried the same kind of shattering revelation it had for Derrica. Their experience of Circles was very different, but knowing that someone considered their freedom such a threat that killing them was preferable—
Maybe he had suspected it. But maybe it had been hard for him to have it confirmed.
Maybe he won't speak of it at all. Derrica leaves space for that too, even as the intent to pin him into his seat under her weight becomes more and more clear.
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He could assist with the armor, but she has the better angle besides, and that wanting thing in him that settles his hand where it is would like her to do the task. The twinge of his most recent injury is gone, and so there is no bodily distraction from focusing instead on the comfortable weight of her, keeping him where he is. The hand at her hip rises, to fidget with the tunic.
"We'd no proper healers with us, at first," he adds. "But we'd practice with thread and needle. Simple mending."
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"Was it simple mending for you?"
She'll see for herself, soon enough. The newly unfastened straps slip from his torso, encouraged over his shoulder. The hard leather is easy to part, make way for Derrica to put her palm flat to his chest and feel his skin warm beneath the contact.
Stall there, as Derrica looks into his face. He has had her already, lifted against a wall in an opulant estate, door unlocked. But they did very little undressing. When she hesitates, it is as much to read his face as it is draw out the moment, unravel him with care.
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"Didn't feel simple," is just as lightly handled. Long enough years that he doesn't with any specificity recall the bite of needle and pull of thread.
He wanders a hand to the one she has rested at his chest, pressing it before he says, "Here," and then guides it slightly down, aside, where she might imagine the rippled stripe of old wound brand across his ribcage and under the cloth.
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And as she does, there is an awareness of his breath. His body beneath hers. His fingers over hers. The strip of skin laid bare by the parting of leather.
"Are there many more?" Derrica murmurs to him.
Her fingers at his jaw keep his face tipped up to her. Over his thigh, her weight shifts, swaying closer by scant degrees. Under the flex of her wrist, the leather parts further.
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"It has its mirror," Marcus says, voice also near a murmur. "When he drew the sword back, against my arm. And there's the mark next to my knee," and the corner of his mouth lifts breathe, "from when I fell off my horse."
Not all brands of heroism, then.
His moves her hand again. There are, perhaps, more efficient ways she might find out for herself.
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“Sit up,” comes with the slight pressure of her fingers at his jaw before her fingers dip beneath the leather. Nudge it back, so it might join the straps on the floor.
“Was it Kevin you fell from?”
A soft prompt, as she shucks the leather, one-handed, from his shoulders.
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"Aye," Marcus confirms. There is blood soaked into the dark fabric of the remains of his shirt. He has a spare in his saddlebags, somewhere, and is helpful about peeling away this layer as well. He says, as he does so, "He spooked on the road and threw me. I fell into the brush, caught something sharp in the landing. I think it's about the most painful one, of all of them."
Something about that placement, the near dislodging of bone. But of course— "Wasn't his fault," is important to add.
There are other scars. Less substantial than the one hooked up around his ribcage, the one still unseen that curves his knee. A puncture lower down, a burn stripe across the shoulder, a slash across a forearm.
"What of yours?"
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“Not as many as you,” she admits. Knowing she has survived less. Knowing hers are far fewer, the perhaps better mended.
Her opposite hand returns to his side. Finds the scar there, draws her fingers along the slice of it, traces a nail at the nocked edge.
“Do any of them still pain you?”
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"Sometimes," Marcus says. Conscious of himself, the press of half-hardness against fabric, stirred enough by her proximity, gentle hands and focus. His hand finds a place at her leg again, fingers curling around the back of her thigh. "I don't regret them. There was little cause for scars like these, before."
Other sorts of hurts, certainly, ones that leave their mark; but these all feel like the result of stupidity, recklessness, bravery, and the freedom to be those things.
His grip sures up, at the back of the knee. A firmer tug that might steer her into straddling him properly.
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“I like hearing about them.”
Words to the tune of I like hearing things about you.
As familiar as they are, these are pieces of him she has been only glancingly aware of. Less so about what they mean to him, what he might have felt about carrying them.
“I like seeing you.”
In which looking and seeing overlap, blur together as she lays her palm flat over his side, narrows the space between them to near nothing. There is nothing truly pinning him other than his indulgence, and Derrica is finding the limits of that, flexing the quiet satisfaction of this leverage.
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The scar makes for an appealing path, at least. Stippled through his cheek, a natural swoop broken off around the cut of his jaw, hooked back up to his mouth. Messy in the way the injury must have been, whether a healer got to it or not. After a couple of days travel and working, the bristle on his face is less neat than usual, and grows in patchier around those faded seams. It had been nice that he had someone, at the time, willing to touch it just as Derrica is now, and say something kind.
He isn't thinking of that person, eyeline wandered to her mouth, senses attuned to other details he can breathe in, like whatever she last washed her hair with, the clinging of the day to her clothes and skin. (Smoke still clings to him, shirt or no shirt, and the scent of blood wreathes the room.)
The chair creaks. With her leaning and balanced so, he can't claim a kiss without some more determined rearrangement, or pulling her down to meet him. The hand at her thigh skims back up to her waist, fabric of her tunic pulling a little taut as he forms a fist around it.
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Her attention is so fixed on him. Aware that when she puts her mouth on his skin the coppery bite of blood will be there mingled with the salt of sweat, the day’s work written across him as surely as the scars she has been mapping out. The slow arch up, onto the balls of her feet, sliding forward as her knee presses into the flexing muscles of his thigh.
“I want to look at you,” she tells him. A little rueful, aware of how her own wants will soon be outweighed by wanting more of him than just the tenuous balance they’ve struck. “I want to keep you just like this.”
Her free hand trails down his chest. Lingers over this scar and that, over the rise and fall of breath, the flinch of muscle in reaction to her touch.
She could slip into his lap so easily. But it would give up all her leverage to do so.
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It is nice to be looked at and touched. Lets the arm near that scar relax, the mirrored marking he'd mentioned a cleaner, fainter slice up the inside of bicep. Dark hair and distinctly sunless skin, as if seven or eight years of freedom still hasn't seen fit to layer in warmer tones, freckles. The thigh that isn't pinned tips aside, and he doesn't mind that the line of his hard cock is more clearly visible, by now, against the seam of grey fabric.
"And then I get to look at you," Marcus says.
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Her fingers set over that slashed bicep. Thumb sliding over the raised scar as her eyes lift to his face, fall back to all he’s laid bare for her.
“I couldn’t look at you before.”
The first time. Both of them fully clothed, more or less. Allowances for Derrica’s gauzy attire must be made.
Her fingers, having lingered over his chest and the slow thud of his heartbeat, slide lower. Hook into the waist of his trousers and stay there.
“Did you think of this, before? Of us?”
What they might be like, even before they had begun learning how they might fit together.
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Another longer breath out as her warm fingers tuck into the fabric of his waistband. Anticipating. His gaze has dropped that far, only rises back up on a delay at her question.
"Yes," he says. "When I let myself."
There has been some measure of restraint. It's a wonder he allowed himself to deviate enough outside of it for her to even notice, let alone act upon.
"Did you?"
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Her palm splays low over his belly, a realignment requiring the drawing back of her fingers from his waistband and laces. Prompts a realignment of her body in relation to his, a settling as her elbow meets his chest and her fingers slip down to the nape of his neck.
"Once," is a certain truth. "Then it felt..."
Transgressive, that is the word she wants. But Derrica doesn't have that exact word, which would so neatly cinch together the sense of intrusion that thinking of him had carried with it then. Maybe even, to some minor degree, now.
A twitch of her shoulder, the shrug moving through her entire body, stirs the drape of her tunic against his bare skin. Her fingers flex where she has set them, grazing the fabric of his waistband once more.
"But I've thought of you since."
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His hand guides up the curve of her side, not reseating the fabric or pulling it free, just feeling. Maybe following a path he'd imagined touching before, in fleeting fragments of want and impulse. Things that are better formed, now. Beyond that, he remains still, patient.
"Tell me," he says. Something a little less sober and serious to the question in the following scrape of eye contact. It is an indulgence, to ask. "That once."
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What little space remains, she closes it. Her knee digging into his thigh, her own thigh set against him. Derrica doesn’t kiss him, not yet. The immediacy of that want is set aside as she looks at his face, leans into the press of his palm.
“We were sparring,” she tells him. “In the training yard.”
The exact day doesn’t matter, not really. It could have been any day, any entanglement.
“You caught hold of me after you’d knocked me back. And I remember thinking about what it would be like if you held me tighter, instead of letting go once I found my footing.”
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