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Stains of Red

Contribution for Cullen week, the prompt “thirst.” Cullen x Lydia Trevelyan, early relationship. Rated T. @cullensource

She counted time as the intervals between his kisses.

Since their first kiss on the battlements only days ago, since he said yes I will yes, they kissed in their stolen times between. Long kisses, short yet peppering kisses, ones that lingered and ones places on her hand as if he was a knight and she was his lady fair. They tried new patterns, deeper kisses or kisses elsewhere than the lips. They thrilled each other with their experiments, planned more and then things after, though after wasn’t spoken of yet. He always pulled her back for more before she left his office, his gloved hands wrapping themselves around her hips and pulling her back into his frame. That was his promise of after.

Outside his door with her hand against the knob, she shivered with the thought of his arms. It was evening and her duties and his duties left her a full day without his lips or his embrace. Too, her hands itched to weave through his hair, muss it from the pomade’s hold. What took us so long? she often asked herself since their first kiss. She was already in a drought, desiring for so long without even realizing it. She needed time to make up for what was lost, time stacking both from her early folly and lack of kisses during the day.

Cullen. Cullen, Cullen, Cullen. She pined. She longed. How was he real? Was that why she kissed with everything, fear he would disappear? So much of her life was marked with temporariness. Cullen defied. He was solid and warm. His eyes spoke of always. My kisses will tribute, she thought still outside his office. They’ll cure our drought.

She put on her reddest stain for the lips in wild moment sitting at her vanity that afternoon, knowing it would stain when she came to him. What would his soldiers think? They lived in a whirlwind since he kissed her and she giggled with the thought of her Commander walking around with stains. He’s mine, the stains would have said. He’s mine and I’m his woman…

By his door with her lips stained she pressed on the door handle, her heart still thumping as if he didn’t tell her he imagined them together yet. He eased when he saw her in the doorway, grinning and beaming and turning from Commander to Cullen. Beautiful man in her arms, holding her face in her hands and kissing her in greeting. He was warmth and home and had artistry in his kiss. He knew when to converse with the barest hint of tongue seeking entrance or when to merely offer slow and sensual press, her bottom lip trapped between his. He knew when to travel downward, have his breath caress her neck before gently nipping. At first he worried the soft beard that grew across his chin and neck chaffed her or was too bothersome in their silent, needy conversations, but her quick assurances afterward eased him. She wasn’t the sort of flower of the mountain that would wilt at the subtlest roughness. She could take him all. I like your beard, she told him. She quivered with the thought of it between her thighs.

(She left that unsaid. For now.)

He must have recalled that conversation. With her fingers twisting through his fur, a prelude to the soft tugs she’d give to his hair, he buried his face in the crook of her neck. She giggled at the pleasant roughness before she met his lips again. It struck her as she he succumbed and lost himself in her how such a fine, powerful man who fought for three days without rest when the breach first opened could so easily come undone with just her lips. This was new to him, he admitted earlier. He kissed before, lusted, but had never fallen quite like this.

He fell with her.

“I’ve waited all day,” she said between kisses, he hungrier the more he satisfied. “I want you all the time.”

“I waited so long.”

She cradled his head, his lips fixated on the crook of her exposed neck. “How long?” she asked, curiosity peeked.

“Since I held you in my arms after Haven.” He encompassed her as he wrapped his arms around her. “Since I first saw you.”

He spoke so ardently. He spoke without the barest hint of shame. “So romantic.”

He chuckled. “What’s wrong with that?”

She pressed him closer. “Nothing, nothing. I love it. Please, woo me. With kisses and words.”

“Hold me.”

Hold me he asked, with a sincerity that nearly broke her heart. He wasn’t used to holding. She wasn’t either. Her bits of romance where clandestine kisses in the Circle in secret, not wide and open kisses and embraces in an office with the other door wide open. Maker she could get off from just holding.

She held him like he asked, though the plates of his armor and bulk of the fur around his neck made adjusting difficult. But he wanted to be held. Who before asked without thought or shame that they wanted her arms? “Can you take this off?” she asked still in his arms, gripping the mantle. “I can hold you better.”

“Oh maker you’re face is all red.”

His was too. She laughed at her somewhat foiled plan, but let them see her too, she thought. Let them all know her Commander kissed by the book. The two in each other’s arms and smeared with red, none moved to wipe the traces away. Like she he wanted to keep her kisses there, not rub them away carelessly. “Can I hold you?” she asked after a moment, after they were done appreciating the smeared lust on lips.

“Lyd...”

“I’m curious anyway.” She tugged at the fur. “How does this come off?”

Smirking. he showed her. First off came the mantle, Cullen setting it on his desk. The removal already took away bulk, but he still had broad shoulders and standing in front of him made her feel tiny and little. Something rare for her, as she’d always been the tallest. He unlatched his breastplate next, tossing it behind him, then the pauldrons on his shoulders and his gauntlets, leaning against the dress and watching her watch him. He wore an undershirt under his armor, the strings unlaced at the front, offering the barest peek of golden hair.

Yet before he took off his gloves, his hands reached for her hips, pulling her into his tall frame. “Gloves?” she asked, placing her hand over his. “What of those?”

His cheeks pinkened. “Um...”

She sensed she shouldn’t have asked. “I’m sorry.” She wore a half glove herself on her left hand to keep away prying eyes from her mark. She couldn’t imagine why Cullen would want to hide his hands until he admitted they were rough feeling, perhaps too much so for her.

“Maybe I like it a little rough.”

His cheeks still red, though for a different reason than shame, he half smiled as he let her take one of his hands to peel off the glove. She kissed his palm and every finger. They were big, though his fingers were nimble. They were calloused and well worn, used hands. Lived hands. Rough, but she liked them that way. She wouldn’t have them any other way.

She undid the other, sighed when he used them to cradle her face, brush his thumbs over her slightly parted lips. That was the way she was meant to be held, the way he was meant to hold.

“Always hold me this way,” she asked of him. “I love your hands.”

“I…I know I don’t have much,” he said, still cradling her face, his eyes golden in evening light. “I wish we could have met somewhere else.”

“The Circle?”

“Maker no.” He banished the thought. “I mean, a place where I could woo you properly.”

She threw her arms around his neck, holding her earlier as he asked. He wanted to be held, to be loved, this man left droughted too long from a lack love. He deserved to be dotted on. He deserved her adoration.

And she wouldn’t wanted to have met him anywhere else, to stain him red anywhere else but where they were. She would always be his willing adorer.

“You’re perfect,” she said. “Even when you’re all red.”

“I’m still blushing?” he asked with a small chuckle. “Maker.”

“It’s also the lipstick. Mostly the lipstick. I’m sorry, I—”

“I like it.”

They held and they kissed and they kissed and they held again, not parting till the night with stains of red.

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