transgressings | inbox for duplicity;

He colors very faintly, high in his cheeks at at the shells of his ears. She doesn't need to finish that sentence. The recognition is plain in her eyes. He can feel the thud of his heart against the cage of his sternum. There's a distant part of his mind disconcerted by how little shame he feels.

"I would like that very much, Ms. Ives. Thank you. That's gracious of you."

Propriety says that he should deliver the letter, allow her to read it at her leisure, and trouble her no more. Somehow, he is now less concerned with propriety than where this conversation might go. He has already seen the potential for interesting places.

He steps inside, still quite tall and broad although not anywhere close to the proportions occupied upon their last meeting. He takes in the surroundings with an expression of polite curiosity, but his attention to detail is much more focused than it would usually be, mind quicker and largely zeroed in on her already.

It does seem rather impolite to send him away when he has taken the trouble to find her, to deliver this letter himself rather than attempt to send it through a courier, and she won't pretend that she harbors more than a bit of curiosity about him now that she's learned the true face of the man behind the beast.

So she steps back, further into the house; it is a decadent, sprawling property with signs of wealth everywhere, though most of the furnishings had been installed to Dorian's tastes rather than her own. The only room that really holds vestiges of her own personality is her bedroom, but she won't elect to lead him there, instead diverting towards the sitting room where she gestures for him to sit.

"Please, make yourself comfortable. I'll go and ready the tea, and — " He is still rather tall, she notes, with a brief parting of her lips that perhaps belies her fascination with his bearing, before she lowers her gaze deferentially. "It will only be but a moment."

He had no expectations of what he might find in coming here, freeing him to take in what he sees with an open mind. It is far more decorated than anything he's accustomed to outside the courts of Orlais, although the style is distinct.

He inclines his head graciously, making note of that pause and the expression accompanying it before taking his seat. He positions himself more forward than leaning back, his posture as much a result of the sense that anything can and might happen as any sort of propriety. He's already beyond the ability to consider that experimenting with the powders might not have been the best idea.

"Of course," he says, voice deceptively mild given the turn of his thoughts. She is as mysterious as he recalls, and there is still an ineffable draw. Different in nature from that night but no less compelling.

She's surprised to find herself experiencing some sort of nervousness as she readies the tea, although it does not manifest visibly in her hands, barely a discernible tremor even to her own awareness — and these are motions she knows without even having to lend considerable thought to it, an act she was trained in performing long ago. The tray is set and she lifts it easily, and no doubt the sounds of her heeled boots against the smooth floor will herald her return long before she's actually visible in the doorway, greeting him with a polite smile as she crosses the room to set everything down in front of the long sofa.

Of course, her positioning herself to serve the tea also requires her to sit beside him, something she does with an almost apologetic quirk of her mouth as she carefully arranges the long skirt of her dress across her lap — and when she leans forward, she can almost feel his gaze on her, palpable, while her hands hover in the air in a moment of hesitation.

"How do you take it?" A pause, and then she somehow feels the need to specify. "Your tea, I mean."

He listens to the measured step of her approach and quietly revels in the build of the anticipation. It's such a different experience being with her in this dwelling with all of the trappings of civilization around them and contrasting memory flashing through his mind like bright little motes: the sight of her in the bar, the negligible weight of her in his arm, the feeling of a heel pressing into his skin.

He hardly blinks upon her return, bold with how he watches her. When she sits, he neither shrinks away nor draws closer. Not yet. He weighs and measures the space between them, the flavor of it. He's sure it's not solely his imagination, the energy in the room.

There's the faintest curve of a smile for her correction, something knowing. "Unadulterated." He savors the word. It implies more than plain. "Thank you."

She nods once, an acknowledging incline of her head, although her eyes might look over him for an additional second longer than could be termed entirely appropriate before she reverts her attention to the tray in front of them, reaching to pour with a slow and purposeful movement and all without spilling a single drop.

He may prefer his untouched, but there's opportunity for him to note exactly how many cubes of sugar she places in her own cup, obviously indicating the presence of a preference for sweetness — though she won't do that until after she collects his cup and hands it to him directly, fingers drifting along his with unconscious intent.

"Of course," she murmurs, and then prepares her own to her liking before bringing the tea to her lips, her gaze finding his above the cup.

"Truthfully, I'm grateful you found me. After what transpired between us... I was also hoping for the chance to speak."

Appropriate or not, he feels a certain electricity pass between them in the shared gaze. There's no erasing what happened or how close to the surface it still sits without the need of a red charm or energy.

He takes the cup. His skin tingles long after the short contact ends. He watches her hands, notes the sugar. Thinks about and then quickly discards the idea of how she would taste sweet with tea still fragrant across her lips.

He doesn't yet lift his cup in turn. He wants no tremor to betray his completely inappropriate tension. "Then you have me at your disposal. Most of what I'd say is contained within the letter. I'll gladly hear you out."

"I realize you must have... regrets. Misgivings, about what occurred."

She carefully levels the teacup down between her fingers without returning it to its saucer right away — soothed, somewhat, by the sensation of warm ceramic against her skin, though she'd felt it too, the energy that had briefly transposed between them in that exchange. It fascinates and excites in equal measure.

"I don't want to leave you with the impression that I in any way blame you for what occurred. My part was my own. My participation equal." She nearly takes another sip of her tea again and weighs her next word very carefully. "Enthusiastic."

He makes no effort to offer clarification now. Yes, he felt regrets on his way here. Sitting in her presence at such a civil exchange, regret has receded, misgivings attaching to something new altogether, such as the way his eyes are drawn to her mouth while she speaks.

The clack of his teacup against his saucer punctuates her final word. He sets both aside on the nearest surface he can reach without undue stretching. His sharper inhale is no longer the bellows breath of the beast. It is audible.

It feels as though his voice is coming from a greater distance, words forming that he could never have put together coherently a half hour ago, nor spoken with such calm certainty. "The form was thrust upon me. The fire was mine, something propriety says that I should indeed regret."

He turns more toward her, as much as the confines of the seat allow. "How much of a beast might you say I am if I confess that now that I'm here I don't?"

"Yes." She cannot fully understand why the word leaves her in somewhat of a breath, no volume behind it, as though she has merely sighed it into existence — and then she lowers her own cup into its saucer with a careful movement, even if it may be a bit faster than she intends.

"This place... has ways of transforming us. Often into things we don't fully recognize, but in other instances — " And she considers all of the moments in which she has sought someone based on the pure need that nearly burns like fire within her, refusing to abate until it has been thoroughly satisfied. She needs that second, however brief, to attempt to gather her thoughts as they scatter in the whirlwind of her mind, barely remembering to leave her own cup on the table before them shortly before he pivots to face her.

"I would hate for you to feel anything of the sort," she murmurs, gaze carefully rising to his. "And I suppose you might have cause to find me a beast as well, given that I do not."

He hangs on the pause. It's the other instances with which he has had the most experience thus far. Nothing has taken him so beyond himself that he finds it unrecognizable, whether to his benefit or detriment he can't be sure.

"No. Never. Not for passion or need." Where are his carefully constructed walls that keep him so tidily contained? He feels as though he couldn't reach them if he tried. He doesn't wish to try, reaching for her instead. It's a sideways pressing of knees against knees on the sofa, the place a reminder of polite company and a call to manners.

He pauses a scant inch from her lips with a soft rake of breath then closes the final distance. He has vague memory of an ill fit for his mouth before. It's erased by the fit now, her upper between both of his for a taste and test of the bow. He draws back with a light scrape of teeth.

"I felt what you felt that night and fed my experiences to you. I'm certain I could do that once again here and now. If you want it. Do you?" His gaze is intense and steady, searching.

It does feel rather as though they are on the precipice of something, dangling, twisting, waiting for the breeze to shift and either force them to withdraw or let them tumble headlong over the edge, and when he turns to her, reaches for her, she finds herself inclining in his direction without a second thought, knees nudging his beneath the long fall of her dress.

The sensation of his hand sliding across her waist elicits a light gasp mere moments before his mouth finds hers and she's drawn in by heat, warmth, the promise of more with that blatant, bluntly-edged nip of teeth against the fullness of her lower lip that practically has her veering after him to seek further kisses along those lines.

"I remember," she murmurs, her eyes having shuttered closed, but now she opens them to find his impossibly close to her own, clear and inquiring, and when she lifts her hand to gently stroke her fingers across the side of his face her assent is clear long before she gives him the words that make it plain. "Show me what you're capable of."

It's the memory of her heel digging into his thigh that shapes his next impulse, not that he's nearly as impervious to damage this time around. He's not worried that she'll try. They're flowing on a different current. He nips a final kiss, swift and just a little sharp before slipping from his seat on the sofa to his knees before her. It puts him below eye level.

He takes her heel in hand and lifts her foot to chest height to remove the shoe with slow deliberation and toss it aside. Both hands press up beneath her dress skirt to follow the silky path of stocking, careful not to catch on the roughness of calluses. At the top of the stocking he halts his upward progress to feel for the fastenings to let them loose.

Half closing his eyes, he concentrates. It's harder than when he was the demon. It had instincts he does not, yet with the aid of the vials and remembered experience, he shares the strong thud of his heart with her, how it feels against the cage of his sternum, how it feels to be hard, potent, and encased in too tight trousers, to have breath catching in anticipation.

With the release of the stocking comes a slide of fingers back down again and a slow unfurling of the thin fabric. Her skirt stays down, forcing him to go by feeling alone and only imagine how her leg looks in the incremental exposure. He's all but trembling with urgency, and yet. And yet...

Just as that night, he wishes for nothing to be too easy. Waiting sharpens the blade.

There is a quirking of inquiry in her expression now, when he seizes that kiss from her mouth and then immediately diverts from her to kneel on the floor in front — and she can almost sense his intention moments before he performs the act itself, taking her foot in both hands and drawing it upward to remove the shoe it wears before ascending upward, along either side of the length of her leg, and her breath hitches before she feels a strange echo of it almost in her hearing but not, a twin pulse both in her chest and at the apex of her thighs.

It's him; she's attuned enough now to sense it, to know he's giving her his side for her to experience yet again, and on its own, it proves intense, the mere note of anticipation in his breast quickening her heartbeat in turn, and her breath noticeably, audibly speeds up as his fingers free her stocking from the clasps that keep it from falling down on its own, only to roll it down in excruciatingly slow increments. She has not been exposed, not truly, not even a single button on her dress undone, but she feels bared, naked in her wanting, a needthat she realizes in this moment has not abated, regardless of the form he has come to her in.

Once the silk has been slipped past her foot, she represses a shiver at the sensation of cooler air against newly exposed skin, but it's her who tugs her limb out of his hold — only to replace it with its twin for him to perform the same action, a smile toying at the curves of her mouth when her gaze lifts to his. The sensuousness of it is what leaves her trembling, heat pooling between her thighs, her own pulse echoed there with an ache she longs to satisfy, longs for him to relieve in filling her.

"I feel you," she murmurs, adjusting her seat so that she perches on the edge of the sofa, her fingers grasping for the open halves of his jacket, thumbing the lapel briefly before she coaxes it back from his shoulders. "Your heat. Your desire."

To know beyond doubt that he's felt, seen on a level beneath sight is intoxicating. He meets her gaze and reaches out his awareness to catch sense of her, too. There's such intensity to the doubling of sensations and desire that he has to bite back a groan.

His hands slip free her other shoe while he rises to her touch in the removal of his jacket, coming up higher on his knees to help it slip back. When it begins to fall, he lowers once more and makes certain she's never fully without his touch, one hand replacing the other to pull out of the jacket sleeves. It's easier this time to unfasten the stocking. He's a fast tactile learner.

It's harder to maintain the sensual pace of taking down the silk. She's there now, just beneath his skin with anticipation and ache blossoming as twin to his own. It's a strange sensation, almost as though he could slip the bounds of his flesh entirely and bury himself in her heat instead. He lets out a shaky breath, fingertips skimming the back of her knee, the curve of calf and firm line of Achilles.

Once it's free, he flicks it aside. Both hands slide up her shins, over her knees and upper thighs. He squeezes there as though he could imprint through his physical touch alone the shape of want.

"And I yours. Enough that were I not already on my knees, I'd drop." Again he rises, only enough to press forward between her knees and capture her mouth again, a taste of her dark curl of smile, of breath, and tongue, and teeth.

The passion still exists, the wanting, threads of the same need that had been evident between them when he had been transfigured into something altogether inhuman but possessed his own level of awareness, of empathy towards her. That feeling had no doubt prompted him to seek her out in his attempt to make amends for what had transpired, but what he could not have predicted is how his actions would instead endear him to her even more, his concern for her wellbeing softening any remaining apprehension she might have still possessed.

And now, he handles her delicately yet deliberately with the hands that carefully roll down her stockings one at a time, exposing the pale lengths of her legs all while he feeds her the rising sensations of his own need, leaving her half-breathless before they've even shifted to remove anything else.

She can feel his firmness, though, the strength of his frame as her hands curve over his shoulders to assist with the shedding of his jacket, and it only leaves her more curious about what he looks like without those other layers in the way.

"You were on your knees once before and that served us plenty well," she murmurs, against the tilt of his mouth, chuckling warmly as her arms wind across his shoulders and she draws him in between the spread of her thighs, his touch caressing over their softness, and their kiss deepens, acquires more hunger. She tastes the flavor of the tea on his tongue when her own dips past the seam of his lips to tangle with it, and when she retreats again she's panting lightly. "Though we need not do this here. There are any number of beds upstairs, if you like." Then again, this wouldn't be the first time she has fucked on this couch.

The memory blossoms and solidifies with the anchor of her words to evoke it, on knees that felt so different from his own, legs shaped entirely wrong (right for what he was.) As difficult as rational thought is with need so front and center, he finds appeal in the idea of a proper bed, to show that he can at times not be an improper savage about it all.

"Yes." A final kiss to seal the deal, then he climbs to his feet. He doesn't have to think about it, bending to scoop her up in his arms. It's a playful callback to the deadly seriousness of that night, when he would likely not have taken no for an answer. He's strong, but human. Her weight in his arms is as it should be with a gather and rustle of her dress.

"If the stairwell is narrow, I'll reluctantly relent." He flashes a smile and turns with her. "Direct me?"

She's carefully plucked up into his arms as though she weighs absolutely nothing at all, the sudden shift in her internal axis prompting a somewhat breathless laugh as he draws her in, and though she knows she isn't required to twine her arms around his neck to hold onto him further she does so anyway, the hem of her dress swaying with the movement to spill back down over her legs in a soft rustling of the fabric.

"Then fortunately for both of us, it is very grand indeed." And certainly wide enough to permit his continued carry of her; the house itself may a bit extravagant for her tastes, certainly suited to Dorian's aesthetic more than hers, but her quarters are thoroughly, unmistakably her own, and once they've ascended up the stairs to the second story she gestures to the correct door with a small wave of her fingers, granting him the unspoken permission to enter the room with its dark, subtly gilded wallpaper and heavy curtains she often pulls to block out the sunlight.

They haven't been drawn yet, and brightness spills in now, casting inviting rays on the made bed before them, which she suspects he'll deposit her on — though she won't be set down without tilting up to catch his mouth again with her own, an invitation to linger nearer to her as she curves her fingers into his shoulders with the attempt to draw his body over hers as she stretches out across the mattress.

He can't deny the appeal of the ascent, going where pointed, something light to it all that has him feeling younger than his years and anticipatory. Bedchambers are often so revealing. Hers comes as no surprise somehow, the contrasts of darks and lights, the properly made bed.

She has no trouble whatsoever coaxing him down in the kiss and further. He uses both arms beneath hers to push her further up the mattress and stretch her onto it lengthwise instead of sideways. Coming up onto a knee and shoving with his remaining foot on the ground, he makes his way up there, too, weight heavy upon her in a pin of dress skirt, but propped on a hand and an elbow to keep from crushing her down entirely.

The kiss doesn't go unbroken through the entire affair. Always he comes back to it, and then putting more weight on his elbow, he frees his hand to cup her cheek and trail lower down her throat. It feels debauched to be making out almost fully clothed on a bed in the middle of the day, more so than if they had removed everything first.

He slips his hand lower over her bodice and traces curves through fabric. Buttons feel like smooth, small pebbles against his fingertips. He can't resist the urge to undo just a few and dip his hand into the gap to find the next layer, skin warmed and crisp.

It is an indulgence, a midday moment stolen when she does not often have the opportunity to embrace this kind of spontaneity, and it does feel rather like they are getting away with something, sparing their time for this while the rest of the city goes about their normal business.

He's a welcome weight on her, even in his heaviness, and his hands on her are gentle, mapping, like he intends to learn every place on her that might have been inadvertently neglected during their last encounter — though he'd been a different shape then too, his great size preventing him from attempting these warm, purposeful touches, and now she arches beneath the descent of his fingers as they find their way along the delicate fastenings of her dress.

When his hand slips beneath the unfastened neckline, she hums against his mouth at the sensation, perhaps even tilts herself up in invitation for the swell of her breast to fit into his palm, and she breaks the kiss inevitably with the need to breathe, soft pants as she tilts her chin back to expose the line running down the column of her throat.

His shirt proves to be a bit easier for her to lift, her own slender fingers running along the nape of his neck and then dipping beneath the collar to knead against the firmness of his shoulders, seeking more of that warmth.

There's no resisting the invitation. He trails slow kisses up the center of her throat, from the hollow to lip over the jut of her chin. A gentle squeeze of hand, a slip of thick fingers over thin fabric rewards her offering to him in her arch.

He works more buttons free, a side lean onto his elbow giving him the access. Now he can push his hand deeper, a caress of ribs, a shove beneath her back to lift her to him with a brace between her shoulder blades. The house is quiet, emphasizing the more intimate sounds of skin on cloth, quickening breath, hers and his.

He rolls his shoulder beneath her hand. This, too, feels different, no pelt, no twitching skin, her touch firmer and more substantial to him now. He shifts to get his other hand beneath her head, encourage her back to his mouth for a much deeper kiss. His hips move against her in a few needy rocks, want growing but not yet to the tipping point of desperate hands or full ache for skin to skin. He's very much relishing the build.

Undressing is always a more deliberate process for her, great care usually taken with all of the small fastenings that typically adorn her wardrobe — although she has sacrificed several pairs of undergarments to more impatient hands, grips that are strong enough to rend the fabric from her body altogether and leave her bare for the taking, for her to claim in turn.

This, to her surprise and delight, builds the anticipation as much as it does increase her desire for him in this form; he's still firm against her, but the slide of his skin against her own, the places where his hands cup the back of her head and cradle between her shoulders as he guides her up to him, leave her free to wind her own arms around him until she starts to become too needy to feel more of him against her.

She does have to extricate herself from him somewhat, the sleeves of her dress already slipping down from her shoulders with the bodice unbuttoned, in order to encourage the removal of his shirt, finding the hem with her fingers and rolling it up halfway in silent request. Some of it is for the pleasure of her eyes as well as her hands; she wants to see the intricacies of his true form, although they're already mimicking an earlier action with him slotted between the spread of her thighs, hips shifting into her own until she moans lightly.

inbox for duplicity;

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Sorry for late! Smut brain has been idling in neutral.

sliiiiides in just as late

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