For Ashfae

[shieldofrohan]

There is a sadness to being married, a sadness that has hung around all things since the war - a sadness that comes from faces that are not present, spaces that are not filled. Neither of them have parents, and she feels the void at Faramir's side, the shape of a brother she will now never know. She feels Theodred's absence likewise, and Theoden - how he would have loved to see her wed!

But for all that, she is happy. A new day has dawned on her, like spring from a hard frost. The scars on her arm and side have begun to fade, and some of the grief is lifting from her eyes. And now, as she steps inside the Steward's chambers - their chambers - there is only joy in her.

Joy, and a little nervousness. They have kissed, of course, and there is passion there she had only dreamed of ere he came into her life, but they have done little more than kiss. She has her honour, after all, and though she may trust him more deeply than she would ever have imagined, she will do this rightly, or not at all. So she has kept herself chaste, and though she knows not what experience he has - and will not ask - she knows she has none. Nor is she certain of how he will react to the scars she now bears - he knows that she has them, but has not seen more than the edges of the knots of pink-white scars that mar her fair skin.

No. She will not be nervous. She is the Lady of the Shield-Arm, she is the hero of Rohan, the killer of the Witch-King... yet when she turns to face him, she is only a young woman, her cheeks pink and her eyes shyly lowered, her stronger right hand anxiously smoothing the green and white silk of her wedding gown.

"So, my lord husband..." She smiles, worrying faintly at her lip. Husband has such a pleasing ring to it, in this moment. "It seems you have tamed yourself a maid of Rohan."

It feels she has been waiting for this moment for an age. And yet, now it is here, she is unsure what she can say that has not already been said, what she can do that will not overstep the bounds of this unfamiliar new relationship. He has ever been the one of them who can find the better words.

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[whattheydefend]

He has thought about exactly this more than once, during the months leading up to their wedding, has lain in this bed touching himself and imagining it was her fingers, her mouth on his skin, her voice whispering to him, her hair caressing his chest from where it falls over her shoulder...oh, he has thought about this. But the reality is potent beyond anything he imagined, dangerously so, for he can feel the tide rising in him already, surging, and he longs to let it overtake him.

Reluctantly he returns his hand and lays it atop hers, this time stilling her fingers, slowly removing them and keeping them clasped hard in his own. "Not yet." The words are a hoarse murmur followed by a kiss on her hair, and he uses his other hand to take her chin and tilt her face back up for another slow, scorching kiss. "Not yet."

And then he laughs, twists under her and pushes her on to her back, drags his mouth from hers to her chin, the delicate skin of her neck, down her chest, trailing a line of kisses between her breasts. "My beloved, my bold shieldmaiden, my Éowyn..." There is laughter in his voice as he moves down, slow and deliberate, his hands following in the wake of his mouth, caressing and teasing.

"Surely you would not want me spent so soon..." His tongue dips briefly into her navel, and there he changes direction, moves back upwards and captures one breast in his mouth, laving and sucking, and only when the nipple is hard and pebbled and aching does he move his attention to the other, giving it the same treatment. One hand slides under her, splaying on her back, pressed to the sheets beneath them; the other continues its teasing route downwards, pauses to tug playfully at the darker, coarse curls between her legs, slides against her thigh and pushes just slightly, encouraging her legs to part. "Not when there is so much more yet to do." He looks up at her for a moment, his eyes twinkling with mirth and affection. "You know I am most attentive to all my duties."

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn is not a woman much accustomed to being overpowered, and if she was ever asked, would have said it was the last thing she would ever want. But the boldness and surety with which he pushes her down, the strength with which he grips her hand, sets her heart racing even more, until she could swear it will burst out of her chest. It is more than she could have hoped, to have him hold her so, to feel his mouth trace the trembling skin of her belly, his hand drawing lines of fire on her pale chest.

And then it is his mouth that covers her breast, and, oh!, she had wondered how it might feel but never grasped until now just how different it would be to her own hand, to have his lips close on her nipple and his tongue trace that delicate skin. She stifles a cry, and fumbles a hand up to cup the back of his head, bites her lip at the exquisite intensity of sensation.

The hair between her legs is damp to the touch, and his little tug sends a delicious shiver through her; she delights in the anticipation, and needs little encouragement to spread her legs for him. Cool air brushes the sensitive skin inside her thighs, shivers over the mounting heat inside her.

"I would have thee never spent, Faramir," she tells him truthfully, and laughs - but the laugh seems to catch in her throat, turns husky and raw. "I would have us never leave this bed, even if it keep thee from all other duties. I would have thee linger and love and show me all thy husband's ways." She strokes her fingers through his hair, and when she meets his eyes, her own are heavy with lust, bright as burnished iron. "And at the same time, I would have thee delay no more, and fuck me here and now, for this is some sweet torture."

She blushes a little as she says it, unused to such coarse language, but if ever there was a time for it, that time is now - what else could express that raging desire in her to rut like a bitch in heat, make up for all this waiting by furious action, as if this were the last night as well as the first?

[whattheydefend]

Faramir is a scholar, and can speak some three or four languages. He's also a soldier, and can swear in at least six. His eyes widen at her choice of words, but not from shock or disapproval; instead it is mirth and satisfaction, that she is so impatient as to use words so base. Deliberately, he bends down and flicks the tip of his tongue over her nipple once more as she watches, then soothes the area with light, teasing kisses.

"Mm...it is torture, maybe, but I promise you that will make it all the better in the end." The hand on her thigh moves upward, cupping that mound of curls, pressing, before he gently parts her, dipping one finger in and running it over her slit. He finds wet heat there, and his eyes darken again at this evidence of the truth of her words, and he looks at her with renewed intensity. "So you must be patient a little while yet." His thumb joins his finger, searching for and finding the nub that he knows his the key to all her pleasure, and pressing it even as he bends his knuckle inside her. "Only a little."

[shieldofrohan]

That satisfaction on his face makes her smile, and she wets her lips, aware of her own coarseness and revelling in it. There is a transgreasive kind of thrill in knowing that she need not be a lady here, need not be genteel and dignified. He knew who it was he was marrying - and should know that Dernhelm, too, spent time around the soldiers' fire and heard how they talk.

She hums her approval as his hand cups her where no hand but her own has been, and she is opening her mouth to answer him, though she knows not what she will say, when the press of his thumb against her clit catches the breath from her lungs, makes her gasp and buck her hips, her head falling back. It is not so different a feeling to when she has touched herself thus - except that it is all the difference in the world to know that it is his calloused hand, not hers; that he can feel the swelling of her clit and the wetness against his hand; that she is open to him, and that he knows it.

It helps, too, that he has an angle that she has never managed for herself. She rakes her hair back out of her face and laughs, from sheer delight and wonder. Torture, yes, to wait - but with his clever fingers at work on her, what blissful torture this is!

[whattheydefend]

He had guessed she would be responsive, but her reaction exceeds all his hopes. Faramir lays himself next to her, leaning up on elbow to better take in the glorious sight next to him. He doesn't want to miss any of it, not a single catch of breath or fluttered eyelash. His thumb works at her in small circles, then strokes, alternating and teasing; the knuckle that had barely parted her delves deeper until one finger is pressed inside her, slowly moving, learning the feel of her. He is well rewarded for any patience on his part by the sounds she makes, the way her hips buck into his hand.

"I love how passionate you are, my shieldmaiden." Quiet, encouraging words, not that she seems to need any encouragement. "Passionate and unrestrained and heedless..." He bends over and kisses her forehead, trails his lips down her temple to her ear, presses another kiss there even as his fingers speed up their rhythm a little. "I too would stay here always, would do nothing but love thee, drawing forth bliss after bliss until your cries of ecstasy reach Valinor itself..."

His breath is hot in her ear, and he kisses her there again as a second finger joins the first, carefully stretching her, curling in search of that place where the texture changes, where even more pleasure waits for her. In the barest whisper, he continues, "And I would fuck you until even your wild appetite was sated, my Éowyn. And then I would do it again and again, loving you until we are both too drained to think, and even then it might not be enough."

[shieldofrohan]

She had thought that her own coarseness was a wonder, but to hear it from Faramir, who in all their courting has been naught but courteous and gentle in his words... Even in her fantasies, he has not spoken to her so roughly, and it thrills her to the core, all the more for the heat in his look and the lust in his voice. She gasps, in want and wonder and wild, wild need, and tightens around him; her laugh is not one of humour but of sheer discovery, wanton lust.

Tell me that again, she wants to urge him, tell me all you would do to me, without poetry, without gentleness... But she can hardly find the breath to speak, and her thoughts are not so clear as to form words, not with his touch drawing new pleasures from her in every moment, his mouth on her skin, his breath hot against her cheek. All she can manage is to open her eyes and look at him with naked, animal desire, her toes curling and her fingers tightening in her hair as she whimpers her ecstasy.

"We..." she manages, and wets her lips again, her voice a throaty murmur. "We have forever, love. Show me forever."

[whattheydefend]

"I will." It's a promise made in a voice gone raw with desire, and he kisses her with growing urgency, his thumb dipping into her wet heat and returning to circle her clit, his fingers thrusting into her. "I will, I will..." His cock is a hot iron rod trapped against her hip, and unconsciously he pushes against her, a mimicry of his fingers' actions, of other actions. Not yet, not yet, I will, I swear I will, I swear...

He has heard, read, descriptions of how in times like these a person is reduced to a state of abject need, but that's not what he sees. She is not at all diminished by this, in no way lessened, but as fiercely and intensely herself as she's ever been and more, so glorious in her abandonment that it's breathtaking. If anything he's the one who's reduced, unable to do anything but keep driving her onwards, his fingers working at her as he kisses her mouth, her eyelids, her face, murmuring encouragement and promises and endearments and outright filth in he knows not what languages. "You are so beautiful, meleth nîn, hot and wet and perfect, wild and wanton, my own wild woman of the North, my shieldmaiden, my Éowyn...Valar, you are wondrous like this...ci írui, writhing on my fingers, Írima nát...now love, now, let it go, come for me, for me, Éowyn, hot and wet for me, mi hjartað..."

[shieldofrohan]

His fingers find places she never knew were inside her, make light burst along her spine and delicious tightness grip her belly. She has brought herself to completion before, of course, but it has never been like this, her orgasm not ebbing and flowing, but rushing like a tidal wave against her, pleasure thundering like a storm. Her fingers grasp at the sheets, at his shoulders, at her own hair, as if to anchor her; she writhes and arches against his hand, her chest heaving, her face contorted with pleasure and the need to realise every moment of it; her strong thighs tauten around his hand and her eyes struggle to focus, to find his.

She, too, spills words without truly meaning to, hardly aware of what she says, in a bastard mix of Westron and Rohirric: "There, love, there - oh!... deeper, a little deeper, ai, blíðnes, ai, féowung, hyhtgifa min, oh! Faramir, oh, Faramir...!" And then her tongue overtakes her words, and his skilful touch and throaty promises overtake her senses, and she is no longer speaking but babbling, and then crying out, as she lets go, lets all the pleasure come crashing in on her, gives herself over to the brightness bursting behind her eyes and the wild, furious bliss it carries.

Her eyes fly open, unseeing and unfocused, and her fingers curl - rucking the sheets under her, digging sharp nails into the exposed skin of his upper arm - and for a moment it seems to her that she floats, not outside herself but more fully within herself than she has ever been, and all that there is is her body and his, merged to one being, to one moment...

And then the moment passes, and though pleasure and orgasmic aftershocks still thrill through her, she lets herself fall back against the bed, laughing breathlessly at her own abandon. Sweat beads on her forehead, tears of sheer intensity track down her cheekbones and disappear into the tangled nest of her hair. She pants, smiling, and looks up at her husband with eyes still a little bleary, then abruptly reaches up to pull him in for another fierce kiss.

"You are a wonder," she tells him, as her cunt twitches more feebly around his fingers, and she laughs, her tone teasing and warm. "Show me more wonders, man of Gondor."

[whattheydefend]

She is radiant, sweat glistening on her flushed skin, gasping as she clenches around his fingers, and he's torn between an awed gratitude that he's able to witness this and a possessive satisfaction that he is its cause. The sound of her crying out his name in tones of feverish ecstacy almost pushes him over the edge on its own, with nothing else needed.

He gives her a few moments to recover and catch her breath, leaning above her with a smile that's decidedly smug as he carefully withdraws his fingers, laughing when she kisses him. "You are splendid," he murmurs against her mouth, between kisses. He feels as though he has won a victory of some kind, greater than any he ever achieved on a battlefield, if more private.

But his own urgent need has not abated, and her command is all the encouragement he needs to lift himself up and cover her body with his, continuing the kiss as he does, until he hovers above her. His legs slide along hers, and he lowers his his hips just enough to nudge her opening with his cock, contact that makes him gasp a little, desperate to sink in at once...but he refrains, lifts his head and raises an eyebrow at her, more a tease than a silent request for permission. Has she not already demanded this, more than once?

[shieldofrohan]

This, too, is a new sensation: the head of his cock is smooth and hot, pressing against skin she little knew could be so sensitive. She could linger a time, she thinks, in just exploring that feeling, in experiencing him...

But there will be time enough. For now, she smiles up at him, slow and satisfied, and traces a hand down his lower back, onto his hip. She sees how he is teasing her, and if he thinks she will meekly pretend that there is any doubt in either of them, he is wrong: her cunt is achingly empty, his cock twitching against her, and she may be a virgin, but she knows that there is only one way to satiate this need.

Pulling his hips down towards her, she tilts her own hips up, biting her lip in concentration as she takes him a little further into herself. To her mild surprise, it doesn't hurt - there is a tightness, yes, an ache at the unfamiliar stretch, but not the pain she had been led to expect. Instead, there is only heat and fullness, and the desire that had begun to ebb now rushes back in full flow, making her moan.

[whattheydefend]

Perhaps the last thing Faramir would ever expect of Éowyn is meekness, and she does not disappoint, taking the lead herself and drawing him in. He pauses there, just barely inside her, then pushes slowly, so slowly, less from a fear of hurting her and more because the sensation is too intense to rush, until he's buried to the hilt inside her.

"Éowyn." She's so tight around him, hot and welcoming, and he rests his weight on his forearms, his eyes closed and his head bent against hers, breathing hard. "Éowyn, I--you--"

He has no words. There are none, they've utterly failed him. He kisses her instead, withdraws almost completely, only to push back in with a groan of pleasure. "Éowyn..." It's the only word he has, the only one he needs, a word that means joy and desire and longing and all things bright in the world, and he kisses her again as they begin to find a rhythm.

[shieldofrohan]

She bends her knees up, experimentally, and finds to her surprise that she can feel every change in angle that it makes: his cock presses against her walls, pushing further forwards now. She shifts again, curious, exploring, and gasps at the strangeness of the feeling as he thrusts back into her.

"Faramir..." With her feet under her, she can find the leverage to push up against him more strongly, the muscles of her thighs flexing and twitching with the work, her body moving around him. Her hand flattens on the small of his back, her other hand coming up to caress his cheek. "Oh, love..."

Without really noticing, she's shifting the rhythm of her thrusts, instinctively guiding him to move faster, to sate the once-more-building urge that wants nothing but to be fucked harder and deeper and without pause, to fill that infinite desire for him, as if there is no time to lose, as if they might never see one another again.

She lets out a sound that's as much a growl as a moan, although her caress is still gentle. When her eyes flutter open, there's that fierce light in them again, that raw desire.

"Harder," she tells him, and kisses his jaw, arches wantonly against him. Her voice is throaty and breathless, her mouth dry from panting. "Fuck me harder, Faramir, o, love, do not hold back...!"

[whattheydefend]

He adjusts his angle as she does, as they learn each other in this, finding where to press and where to hold. He has the presence of mind to remember to find a position that will let him slide against her clit as he moves in her, above her, surrounded by her, though in truth it's a near thing. Her legs press against his hips, her nails bite into the small of his back, her hand is on his face. He turns to kiss her fingers between harsh breaths, sweat beading on his face, his expression somwhere between anguished and exhilerated.

And then, then, then...he has held himself in restraint all this evening, a matter of habit as much as deliberation, for he is a disciplined man. But that discpline is not proof against her demands, the way she arches under him, the sweet noises she makes. A loud groan tears its way from his throat as he kisses her once more and then gives in, thrusting as wildly and as even she could wish, lost in lust and the giving and taking of pleasure, lost in her. He holds nothing back, cannot, not from her; everything is for her, everything he is, everything he has, and this most of all. There is nothing gentle about it, only forceful strength and heedless need as he drives into her again and again and again, until his movements become more erratic and a there's a tightening in his spine, his groin, and with a few more hard pushes he cries out, spending himself inside her with a hoarse shout that might be the beginning of her name.

[shieldofrohan]

This does hurt, a little, but it's a hurt her body craves, a roughness and ferocity that only fuels the fire in her groin, the meeting of their raw and desperate need for one another, held in check for so long. She gasps and writhes under him, spreading her legs wider and her knees higher, both hands now gripping his shoulders as she gives herself over to instinct and ruts against him with all her strength. Panting, she buries her face against the side of his neck, smelling sweat and sex, feeling his blood pulsing against her and his breath ragged by her ear.

She's heard of women who can orgasm one after another, but rather assumed it was an exaggeration - certainly when she's pleasured herself, she's been spent quickly. But now she can feel it coming, another wave of that ecstatic ending, and she groans against his skin and digs her fingers into his shoulders, gasping and shuddering at the unbearable bliss that's trembling through her, and...

And then he cries out, and she feels the change inside her, feels him tremble and spill himself, and she arches against him and holds him as tight as she can, and rides the wave of his pleasure, of his completion, her own lust making her heart skip and her breath catch.

It isn't enough to drive her over that edge. Not quite, but exquisitely, agonisingly close. She whimpers, pushing her hips against him, consumed by need and love and ecstasy, trying to eke out the last few thrusts to bring her off.

[whattheydefend]

It takes a few seconds for his climax-blinded mind to clear, for him to realize she's still needy and unsatisfied beneath him. The instant he does he shifts his weight so one hand is free to reach between them, finding that space between her legs. No finesse this time, no cautious slowness--he fingers her hard and fast, still seated deep within her, feeling her walls press around his now oversensitive length. It may or may not be enough to give her the push she needs.

And if it is not...well. The night is young. They have hours left to experiment with, hours that he can devote to nothing but her pleasure. That thought makes him chuckle, a satisfied growl of a noise, and he bites at her neck, sucking on the skin there.

[shieldofrohan]

She cries out, low and strangled, her head arching back as he bites the thin skin of her exposed neck. That drives her over the edge, as much as his fingers do, and she bites down on her lip until the blood drains from under her teeth, her eyes rolling up into her head as she gives herself over to it. This orgasm is not so overwhelming as the first, but in a way the sweeter for it, as she is less lost to the world, more able to cling to the feeling of him against her and inside her, the fine detail of his hair brushing against her chest, his breath on her throat. It is less transcendent, but more wonderful for it.

She sighs in pleasure and lets herself fall limply back against the sheets, looking up at him with unfocused eyes. "Faramir, beloved..."

There are no words to follow it. All she can do is sigh again, and raise one leaden hand to touch his cheek, blissful and, for once, unconcerned by anything else but this sweet moment.

[whattheydefend]

He lifts his head to watch her, brushes hair back from her forehead with careful fingers, traces the circle of her face as she lies back and smiles dreamily up at him. His smile is infinitely tender as he murmurs, again in the Elven-tongue, then repeats it so she will understand. "I love you." His hand cradles her cheek, and he bends to kiss her again, brushing his lips across hers. "Until the end of the world I will love you, and beyond it, for you bring me more joy than I have ever known."

[shieldofrohan]

She finds herself laughing, light-headed and dizzy with possibility. His mouth is sweet and warm against hers, and she returns his kiss gladly, one heavy hand coming up to lace through his hair.

"Ever the poet," she murmurs, and buries her face against the crook of his neck for a moment, breathing him in. "Ever the flatterer. I love you." Her eyes close, and she lets herself float for a moment in the smell and feel of his skin, the taste of salt and the tickle of his breath. Her lord. Her husband. Hers in all ways now, as she is his in all ways. The thought makes her smile anew as she falls back against the covers, looking up at him from under her lashes. "And when I catch my breath, my lord, I may love you again."

[whattheydefend]

"Flattery?" He laughs, pretending to be insulted, and nuzzles her nose with his before kissing her again, slowly withdrawing from her as he does. He grunts a little as this is accomplished, already missing the warmth of her. But he trusts it will not be for long.

For now he is content to slide his arm under her neck, lying on his back as he pulls her into an embrace, sweat cooling on his skin. "Nay, my wife, you wrong me, for I speak only the truth. And if you will give me a little while to recover first, I will prove it to you." There is a glint in his eyes to match hers, one that says this satisfaction of theirs is but temporary, that their night is far from over.

He nuzzles her face again, so near to his, and places another quick kiss there. "It was you who overwhelmed me in the end, but next time..." He leaves the sentence deliciously suggestive and unfinished, kissing her more thoroughly.

[shieldofrohan]

She tilts her face up into his kiss, groaning in pleasant emptiness as he pulls out of her, their sweat-slick skin pressing close. This night is not over, nor the night after, nor the lifetime they have of one another. It's a thought that hangs sweet with promise, all the more for all the months before their love when she had seen no light in her future. He has not only shown her that it can be so: he has been that light himself, and is so again now, a solid, warm reminder that all is not lost.

"I have never yet been overcome by any man," she says, teasing, and her eyes meet his. "Would you challenge me, my lord?" There again, she thinks - and the thought is warm and comfortable, not frightening as once it might have been - before they met there was no man to whom she would have gladly surrendered herself. She is joking, making their love into a fight, and yet... she would submit to him as to no other, in fighting or in love, and the realisation of that comes anew, with a thrill.

[whattheydefend]

That this is only the first of many nights, of all their nights, is miraculous to him; that he will have her fire and boldness by his side by both night and day from now on a wonder even beyond miracles. Surely there was never man so blessed, not since Beren himself. Faramir too remembers dark times, and at the end of them days where he lost all hope for himself, though he yet had faith the Enemy would be overcome even if he did not live to see it. But now he looks to the future and sees only light, regrowth, and her bright eyes shining at him.

So he grins fiercely at her challenge. "I would." The same answer he gave a year ago, on a battlement overlooking Minas Tirith, and now as then he pulls her fully into his arms and kisses her, then rolls them so he is atop her. Heat stirs in his blood already, and though it will be a little time yet until he can take her fully once more, there are other things he might do. One of her hands he clasps in his, pressing it to the mattress by her head as he kisses her with renewed passion.

[shieldofrohan]

His passion, his roughness, makes her gasp, and she presses up against him, returning his kiss every bit as fiercely. The light in his eyes excites her, as does the way he pins her hand down, the strength in his grip. That thrill rushes in her blood again, begins to wash away her post-orgasmic lethargy, and she smiles up against his mouth, a grin no less fierce than his.

"Then you had best be prepared to fight for it, my lord," she whispers up against his mouth, and bucks under him, aiming to roll them back over, one leg looping over his hip for leverage.

[whattheydefend]

"Is that your wish, lady?" It is more of a tease than a genuine question. He had not intended to pin her so fully, to make this into a battle of strength, but the excitement in her eyes, the enthusiasm with which she responds...Faramir would not do this with another woman, would worry about her consent or fear to hurt her. But Eowyn seems to thrive on such rough, unrestrained treatment. A long, impatient year it has been for both of them, it seems, and she is no timid creature in need of gentle handling.

By all that is holy, he loves her.

His greater weight is enough to keep her pinned when she bucks, and he shifts one of his legs, angling it so he can push back against her if she tries to roll them over, smirking at her before stealing another kiss. "Or do you doubt my skill? For be assured, I intend to prove myself to you. Name your terms, and I will meet them."

[shieldofrohan]

Her heart is thudding in her ears, her head light with excitement and desire. His sweetness is dear to her, but this is dear too, this familiar thrill of a challenge, the thrum of adrenaline - and best of all, the knowledge that losing this fight may, for once, be as sweet as winning.

She wets her lips, taking a moment to look up at him, to gauge how their bodies fit together. He has her pinned, yes, but she thinks not inescapably, if she can shift herself right. His body is hot and heavy against her, and she can feel his heartbeat against her chest when she presses up against him again to answer that kiss.

"My terms?" She laughs, meets his eyes. "You would have me set the terms of my own defeat? Very well: then make me say it. By fair means or foul, make me say that I submit to thee. Is that challenge enough, oh my lord?"

[whattheydefend]

Faramir laughs, his expression a mix of rueful and excited, eyes gleaming. Other men might think that an easy thing to achieve. Other men would be less familiar with the White Lady of Rohan, and underestimate her pride, or her skill, or her determination. "A challenge indeed," he agrees. "And one of the most difficult I have ever undertaken. But I shall strive to do my best." He rolls his hips against hers as he says it, to give the words a double meaning; already he is half-hard once more.

He reaches quickly for her other hand, pinning it as well, not attempting to be gentle. He has the dual advantages of weight and leverage, and if he put all his strength into it she would have a difficult time indeed breaking loose of his grip.

But this is only the beginning of the game, and what others would assume a winning move merely an opening gambit. He presses his advantage enough to take another kiss, his tongue delving deep into her mouth, and waits for her to retaliate, reviewing possible strategies in his mind. A difficult challenge indeed, but there is one advantage to games of love: whatever the result, they are both likely to win.