The Princess was an enigma. She was the picture of grace and elegance, spoke with intelligence and authority, and seemingly never behaving in a manner inappropriate for her station. Yet anyone believing that had not witnessed the way she behaved around him, or had not paid close enough attention.
It was subtle, at first. Brief eye contact across a busy room; or passing a little too close in the hallways. He tried not to notice. Reminded himself of how inappropriate it would be for him to react the way he wanted to. That didn’t stop his mind from racing; didn’t stop him from thinking about how soft her skin looked, how much he wanted to touch it, to lay kisses over every inch of it —
Thankfully, he managed to maintain an unresponsive outward expression. Unfortunately for him, Lothíriel seemed irritated by his apparent lack of response, and became increasingly less subtle. She was not subtle about the way her gaze drank him in when he entered a room, nor the way her teeth grazed her bottom lip whenever their eyes met. It was infuriating . Éomer had never been so madly attracted to anyone to such a point of distraction, and he’d certainly never met anyone who treated it like a game.
Something had to give. His concentration and attention was not given to matters which should have commanded it, and the kinds of images she planted in his mind would have horrified any honourable man. He was so lost in these thoughts that he all but walked straight into her in the hallway. His heart almost stopped; they were mere inches apart. For a moment her reaction mirrored his; surprised and unsure of what to do next. She raised her hands, and they hovered for a moment before she dropped them again; apparently deciding against laying them on his shoulders. He simply gazed down at her; eyes wide.
But she recovered first from the shock. She bit lightly at the soft flesh of her bottom lip, but she never broke eye contact. For a moment the King of the Mark simply watched her as if in some mesmerised trance, but his senses soon returned to him.
“You cannot keep behaving like this. I am a King, and you are a Princess; a Lady of Gondor. Situations like these are unbefitting for both of us.”
Much to his distress, she smiled at that. “And if you were not a King, and I were not a princess?”
Enough . She knew what she was doing. And if she wanted a reaction from him, she was going to get one. He moved towards her, and in seconds she stood with her back flush against the wall; with the palm of his hand flat against the cold stone beside her head. With his other hand he tilted her chin up to look at him looming over her, and he felt the way her breath hitched and became shallow, nervous, desperate . His dark gaze lingered for a moment on her lips, just inches from his, then rose to meet her sea-green eyes.
“Then I would have had your skirts around your waist the first chance I had.” His voice came out as a deep, rumbling growl. And then he stepped away from her, and he could have sworn he heard her groan in protest. Something had shifted between them, and now it was his turn to control the game. He turned to return to the celebration, leaving her breathless and still leaning against the wall for support.
“Until next time, Princess.”
Full fic can be found here :
https://archiveofourown.org/works/45645622/chapters/114861370
ellievsbear
pixelskylines
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stormborns
