𝙲𝙰𝚅𝙴𝙰𝚃 𝙴𝙼𝙿𝚃𝙾𝚁
── Part VI: Nudum Pactum
Coriolanus was quiet, still. “I can arrange a formal agreement if that would help you, too.” “Not a prenup,” you said, and let the words be cold. “No,” he agreed. “This isn’t that.” “No,” you said. “It’s murkier.” Coriolanus’ fingertips danced. “Then maybe we should make it clear.”
chapter pov : 2nd person, AFAB reader, feminine pronouns ❀ tags: sεx, alcohol, finger sucking, spanking ❀ word count: ~3k ❀ ao3 ❀playlist
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See header "Caveat Emptor" link for table of contents/ chapter 1.
“You locked the door,” Coriolanus said.
“I did.”
His hand was warm and strong at your cheek. His fingers were curling, spreading under your ear. The alcohol in his veins made it easy for unbridled courage to pour through yours, and your hand came back around his waist to join your other at his lapel. You twined the fabric between your fingers, ready to tug.
“You can unlock it,” you said, offering him a chance to step back.
Coriolanus didn’t take it. “I will when I’m ready to walk back out.”
“You’ve done the job you came for, you should walk out now. You’re almost a married man,” you said, and let the weight of the responsibility sit on your tongue.
There was no reason to tell him how sickened the interview had made you feel. Worse, that you had spent the last five minutes staring with blind eyes at the feeds, trying to understand why seeing Coriolanus Snow and Livia Cardew snuggled into a loveseat made you feel so nauseated. You’d seen them across the campus courtyard countless times. You saw Coriolanus every day now, turning hallways or leaning over balconies, always ahead and beyond. Nothing prickled your stomach like that. Nothing soothed it like his touch.
“Not married yet,” Coriolanus said. His thumb rubbed rough, raw, at your earlobe. The spit was beginning to gather between his teeth, and your heart pounded. “But you’re right. I’m spoken for.”
Coriolanus’s hand slid below to spread along your jaw. He tensed, shook you slightly.
“And you, hmm? You know I’m spoken for. You know you’re right.”
“Yeah. All of Panem knows it,” you said between your teeth.
“Yet your hands are on me,” Coriolanus breathed.
“And yours are on me.”
He laughed, finished with the verbal jousts, and kissed you then. His mouth tasted of wine. His fingers still pushed your lips together, but when your return movements were weak, he freed your mouth and instead placed his hand firm at the back of your neck. It guided you, tilted you, as he stepped fully to you. Hip to hip. Your hands were trapped between your chests.
Coriolanus’s hands were on you with intent. He was determined, but not as rushed and frantic as you had been in your last encounters. There was time now to taste each other instead of rapid consumption. A hand was sliding, near the back of your thigh, and as he kissed you, he walked you backwards. Your feet moved automatically with legs and knees bending in obedience.
It was familiar by now, the cadence of how Coriolanus kissed; or, how he liked to kiss. He didn’t waste energy in frantic motion in times like these. He was only sloppy or breathless when the desperation overwhelmed. But if there was time to afford it, like he had now, despite Lucky Flickerman’s voice booming over the intercom that the reaping was now beginning, he liked a languid, warm, pressed-together kiss. His mouth was hot and open. His lips were soft and slotted perfectly against your face. You drank him deeply and tasted the wine and warmth on his tongue. You let him press a thigh between yours, and he let you break your lips away to moan at it. He intoxicated you in turn.
He stopped as the back of your calves hit some low, overstuffed thing. Coriolanus tossed his head back with a groan, and you stumbled onto the padded pallet, too wide to be a bench, too tall to be a cushion, without any backing to be a couch. It would fit two comfortably, or at least, one on their back.
The anthem was playing. The cheering and bustle of the studio audience came through the speakers. Coriolanus didn’t speak again, but his fingers worked. You moved with him- pliant, but responsive- as he shed each beautiful layer of your new suit. His finger searched for the edge of your tights and when he found the seam, he rolled your hips up to peel you out of them. He kissed your mouth, your jaw, your neck, your collarbone, with a methodical precision to his progression. He never missed a step.
When he was over you, your hands couldn’t stop moving either. The seal of Panem pinned at his lapel pressed sharp against your thumb as you unfasten a row of gold buttons.
“I’ve – wanted this- ” he admitted. It was maddening how much more breathless you were. He was the one who had the excuse of wine on his lips.
Coriolanus ducked his head to where your blouse unfurled open across your chest. His mouth traced the skin once covered. Every kiss was measured and weighted perfectly, meant to press tiny groans from your mouth. Applause erupted from the speakers.
“Probably won’t be overheard,” you said huskily, the words jerked from you, and his fingers ripped straps from your shoulders.
The reaping began to roll and he rose like the sun over you, glowing gold in the artificial lights as you shed the last layers. His body was lean but fit as he rolled his arms back to shrug out of his sleeves. He whipped his belt buckle from his waist. You barely had time to admire the clean lines of his muscle before he leaned down again to come over you on the pallet. The bulk of his weight was suspended on a single forearm planted beside your head.
His tongue flicked at the hollow of your throat and you moaned.
“Don’t make a mark,” you said, automatic.
“I remember your rules,” Coriolanus said, and nipped the skin above your breast. “I remember how you were before.”
You hissed as his teeth caught a tender edge.
“I remember you crawling to me,” he said, “and look at you now. You talk back,” another, lower kiss, “you’re reckless-”
You had started to respond when his tongue circled your nipple, a cool precursor to the warmth of his lips closing to suck. His other hand was cupping you in a lock, his thumb toying to keep your other nipple from feeling neglected. He was rough with that hand, pinching like bursts of fire. You shrieked, and when Coriolanus didn’t clap his hand over your mouth and when no one came running, you shrieked again.
“Bolder, but look at you now,” Coriolanus groaned again, and he raised his head. Each of his thumbs pulled, tugged, pinched idly. All you could do was jerk your hips against his, feeling the curve of his erection push into your bare thighs. “Beneath me again.”
“And which do you prefer?” you asked.
“You do know how to play any part. Would you do what I ask?” he said, and lowered his mouth to whisper into your skin. He peppered kisses to the other side of your chest. “Like before?”
“You already got what you paid for,” you said without much thought.
“Well,” Coriolanus hissed, and he pinched with a vicious sharpness. You yelped. "You’re milking me for it, are you? How greedy you are.”
“Don’t want gold,” you said, turning your knee up against his hip in a desperate attempt to open for him. It burst from you before you could realize the words were true. “Want you.”
His eyes flicked up, sharp and glassy. “What?”
You reached for him, shaking your head, shaking the weight of the words away. “I don’t – no. Stop thinking.”
Coriolanus’s mouth crashed against yours, and it was sloppy this time. The desperation wasn’t mandated in this room as it had been in the classroom or the elevator, but some spark had just been lit.
“Did you just say that?” he said, full of breath. His kisses made you ache. “You’re telling me to shut up?”
Your leg wrapped around his hip and his hand palmed across your flank in turn.
“I did,” you said into his ear, furiously combing his blonde hair back. “So shut up – and sit up.”
His muscles were strong as your legs braced over his hips. It was almost one motion, the way he rolled beneath you, and you were sitting over him. He looked you, cocking his head as if framing you, closing his eyes and opening them again to search across your face. His hands found your thighs and his pupils bloomed dark with desire.
Coriolanus was the pliant one now, who let your shoulders hunch forward over him as you lifted your hips. He kept a hand on your hip, but the other he raised to your mouth. You took him between your lips and wet his fingers, which he withdrew again shortly to rub against his cock.
He helped guide it in, hot, slick, thick. You gasped, with no filter to shy away from the full stretch of the intrusion. It wasn’t pain, but a pressure against new tenderness. He was deeper like this. So much deeper.
“Fuck,” you gasped, as if you could lose your balance over him.
Coriolanus’s eyes were closed, his brow pinched, his lips rounding in elation.
Your knees tightened on either side of him. Your hands found his chest and you rolled your hips forward in a test, waiting for the ache to level out. His hands rose to cup your hips. He held you there.
You shifted forward, up; then down again.
He inhaled sharply.
You repeated the motion, slower, and his fingers tensed. He exhaled that breath, as if he had to stop himself from gripping harder by focusing on his lungs. So the pace began to build; not fast, but, fluid. The friction was getting fed at last and left you hungrier with its dragging deliberateness.
The sound that came out of him didn’t belong to language.
And then it changed, the way your thighs clenched over him, your spine curved forward. His hands rose with you and then they sank. The pressure of his fingertips into your skin was beginning to dig. The heat was in your stomach, searing through the haze. You had shifted a hand to the wall to give yourself a firmer anchor, and when you looked down again, his eyes were open. Coriolanus’ lids were heavy, but it was unmistakable that his eyes watched you. Watched the way you moved, the tightness in your jaw when you ground against him just right.
One hand still on your hip, he slid the other to your back where his fingers pressed into the dip of your spine.
The crowd cheered from the intercom and as you went to rock forward again, his hips lifted into you at just the right moment. It pierced you. Too in synch, too responsive. You moaned, shoulders hunched forward. In that span of the moment, he seized control again without needing to put you on your back.
A sucking sound, like he inhaled sharp through wet teeth. It somehow sounded smug. His thumbs stroked against your skin, with someone’s sweat tacking the touch. The press of his fingers was hard enough to pin you back.
“Ouch,” you moaned, but the sound was without pain.
“Ouch?” Coriolanus breathed.
“N-no…”
You moved your hips desperately against him, thigh muscles screaming down. “Don’t stop.”
He wouldn’t, couldn’t, and that was expressed wordlessly in a harsh breath that came almost close to a laugh. He grabbed at your skin and it did hurt, the way every nerve within you was drawn taut in some manner that just made you fuck down on him harder.
Coriolanus looked half-wrecked, hair pasted to his temples and his gaze foggy.
You let your elbow bend, falling down closer to him.
A hand came away, with no need to guide you to him, as you came closer to his face, the eyes heavy with sweat and need. The kissing came again, slow and consuming.
You moaned into his mouth. The rhythm faltered again, but not from a lack of control, but the way your bodies drank from each other with hiccupped, desperate thirst. His hands grabbed at your skin in a harsh hold, and you pushed yourself forward to feel the burn below your belly stretch even further.
That was how you came, with the pressure of his cock pushing something into you that the friction didn’t build slow and erupt. It was a burst, ebbing through you into a weakness, a sharp sensitivity, and you cried out his name.
Coriolanus felt it and groaned yours in turn, his hands traversing you to grab, push, hold you as close as he could. You shuddered, the weakness overtaking your bones, and when you hunched over his chest he finally roared forth. He fucked up, high, holding you limp against him as he chased his own release. He thrusted up, more erratic; you, still sensitive, open around him, felt everything. Below your chest, his breath shortened, and his rhythm broke. In a moment he stilled deep inside you and cursed low, the sound wrecked.
There was a surrender, a second pulse beating within you. And his arms did not break their brace around you.
It occurred to you, when he did release his hold and you awkwardly slung a leg back down to curl besides him on the futon, that this might be the closest thing to making love that you’d ever experienced. He breathed, you breathed. You lifted your head, feeling the weight of your skull, to turn your gentle gaze to him.
“You’ve bruised me,” you said in a half-bemoaning way. Coriolanus propped himself up on his elbow, rubbed his face before fixing his eyes on you again.
“Where?”
You twisted your bare hip and raised an eyebrow.
Coriolanus reached forward, spreading the reach of his fingers across your skin. He shifted his wrist to align himself to the pattern of his former grip.
“No one will see them there.”
“No,” you said. “You’re making a habit of that.”
He withdrew his hand for a moment, and then gave a smack across your ass.
You yelped, grinned.
“A habit,” he repeated. “How many times does it take to make something a habit?”
The words were heavy with sobriety.
“And I was under the impression you were enjoying yourself,” Coriolanus said. He swallowed, his neck flexing in motion, and he looked towards the ceiling. He studied the intercom. There was a ghost of lipstick on his jaw. You reached out to thumb the smudge away. His skin was still warm.
“I did,” you said. “But this is turning into a bad habit.”
“Is it?” he asked. “Bad?”
You let your hand trace over his throat, the plane of his chest, before clutching it back to you. “You will be married,” you said. There was no accusation, just the fact.
“I know,” he said. “And I’d consider you a bit of a hypocrite to be morally opposed at this stage.”
“Well.”
“It’s never been a love match,” Coriolanus said. “With me and Livia. And she knows it, too.”
“So what, you don’t consider it infidelity?”
“You can’t betray a trust that was never there.”
You weren’t amused, but the sound that you let out was close to it. “Bleak.”
“It’s honest,” he said. Coriolanus said. His voice didn’t flinch. “It’s not betrayal if neither of us expected more.”
“And you’re sure she knows those terms?”
Coriolanus tossed his head back. “We’ll draw up a formal prenuptial agreement, naturally.”
You raised your eyebrows. “And so what- you’re going to include me in the fine print?”
He didn’t answer.
“Really?”
Coriolanus ran his hand along you again. “Not in so many words.”
“So, what about me, then? What’s the expectation here?”
Coriolanus was quiet, still. “I can arrange a formal agreement if that would help you, too.”
“Not a prenup,” you said, and let the words be cold.
“No,” he agreed. “This isn’t that.”
“No,” you said. “It’s murkier.”
Coriolanus’ fingertips danced. “Then maybe we should make it clear.”
You blinked. “What does that mean?”
“I can offer protection,” he said. The words were surgical, practical. “I know how quickly someone can get eaten alive here.”
You didn’t respond.
“When I marry,” Coriolanus continued, “That will be public. All of Panem knows I’m taking a wife. There are expectations that you can’t be a part of. But you can be something else.”
Your laugh was sharp, cutting into the sound of applause coming again from the speakers. “Your mistress? A kept woman?”
His mouth curled. “A trusted one,” he said. “A woman I rely on. Discretion is invaluable, and I do feel confident saying that I can rely on you to be discrete.”
You smiled again, but Coriolanus wasn’t giving a good-natured grin. His eyes settled on you with a serious intent. You exhaled slowly. “So then… what more do you get?”
“Loyalty,” he said, abruptly. “Access. The comfort of knowing where you are, what you’re doing.”
“That’s control.”
“That is not mutually exclusive with respect.”
You chewed at your bottom lip.
“You sold it to me when you knew what I was,” Coriolanus added. “I’m only trying to extend the deal. Formally.”
There was an urge now to curl into yourself, to tuck your knees into your chest and hug close.
“Does the concept humiliate you?” he asked, his voice tinged with scorn.
“No,” you said, truthfully. No, it wasn’t a shame at crawling back to a desperate lifestyle left behind. This wouldn’t be that, not at all. This - with him – had never been, not really.
Right?
“Once I’m married,” he said. “It would make certain boundaries clearer.”
“And you’ll have your lawyer draw up a contract?”
“Yes,” he answered with sincerity.
You laughed, short. “Well, sure. I’d need assurances.”
You were still half-joking, but Coriolanus’ eyes were steel. “And I’d need obedience.”
There was no more smile. The truth of it bounced in the silent room, dropped like a coin on the floor.
You tilted your chin to meet him square. “Fine,” you said. “I’ll think about it.”
Coriolanus held your gaze. “So will I.”
But you both already knew negotiations had concluded.
Part VII: TBC