God. As if he weren’t already in love with her after watching her weave
through the enemy with her weapons. Watching her smiles like that, teasing
him... he might truly be lost already.
“Every time they drink, apparently,” he says, raising his glass. “Which is
often.”
And teasing him she is most happy to keep on doing, utterly oblivious to whatever else he might be thinking of. For the first time in weeks, she can be just herself. Her people are not watching them, nor his. That she can roll her eyes and swat at him in the air with a flick of her wrist.
"I struggle to call those circumstances fit for dancing, Admiral, no matter how you might protest."
And with no warning what so ever, she slides right off the side of the lounge onto the floor. Sat there and her hand lifts to crook her finger to beckon him down to join her. "You are going to subjected to it later on whether you like such things or not, so you best learn how we attend such things while no one was looking. My triumphant Admiral cannot be seen to embarrass himself at his own celebrations."
On the floor, apparently. Right now. Her eyes are bright, still, as she takes another sip of the wine, the glass was almost empty - that just wouldn't do. So instead she goes fishing for the bottle as she waits for him to join her on the floor. Pouring herself another glass - all interest in maintaining an air of position firmly gone for the moment.
Oh. That - takes him by surprise, for sure. He can't help but rest his own glass on the floor, rising to join her. So too rises the heat in his cheeks; he finds himself staring up at her with nothing short of awe, overwhelmed by how ferociously beautiful she is. God. The way she says my triumphant Admiral, as if he is some previous thing of hers ... He could listen to that forever, he thinks.
"I - am not so bad," he says, awkwardly. "But I am very short. Wouldn't you rather have a taller partner?"
But that gleam in his eye says he wants this so very badly. Lift him if you must, Lakshmi; he would love to dance.
She waves her fingers, shooing the notion off. It hardly mattered, and she is far more pleased that he is playing along. "As if something like that mattered to me, Admiral."
Instead - since she's here, being informal, for all the trust he had given her in telling her the truth of who he was, his past, what had happened to him, she repays it in turn, being herself without the trappings - she goes about clearing them some space on the floor. Twisting her body about to plant one bare foot against the lounge and giving it an almighty push out of the way. It goes with the shove and she settles back, smiling, trickling laughter in through her words. Though this time, she sits far more - decidedly. Her back goes straight, her chest lifts, her legs curl under her delicately so they lay in the say direction. Then she fishes for the material that was draped over her shoulder, bringing it up over her head, resting to drape around her, over her hair. Poised like she were a dancer as fine as the ones her husband once employed.
"But the performance will be for you. So it doesn't matter in any case." She's planning it, apparently. Already working through the motions of how it will be done in some fitfully daydream that winning will be as easy as that. It won't be, they both know that, but the doors are shut, her rebels drink with his crew and it is just them. So maybe, for a little while, as long as no one else knew, it might be forgiven. "We prize beauty, art, colour, all these things. Like you said, tradition." She smiles as she goes, reaching over to fill his glass up in turn.
"But some of it will be strange to you." Definitely, definitely still mischief in her gaze. Settling the bottle back down and sliding it back towards him. "We dance with our eyes, our limbs, each finger and our expression as all one movement, whether they are love songs, songs praising great battles or religious." Her body lowers with the movement, pointedly so, her eyes rising up under her lashes to look at him. Fixed on him exactly, smiling softly. Then rises herself up in one slow motion to demonstrate the control into the movement. "No doubt, for you, it will all be battle songs and love songs. They will touch your feet to bless you and then - "
Her head turns away, and sweeping palm up against her cheek, then peering back at him. Like a lover teasing her beloved her gaze, then drawing her fingers below her eyes as she looks at him. Trying her best to keep a straight face through it all. She knew she wasn't a particularly great dancer. But she enjoyed it, and that was enough. Besides, it only had to be enough for him to know when one of her ladies was flirting with him.
He's lost. He's so lost. The first moment she lifts that cloth over her head and begins to move, he can't help but watch every single movement like a man in the desert who's caught sight of a river. God. Just. All of her. Beautiful, wild, incredibly fierce - and flirting with him? He can't think it could possibly be flirting, could he? But she looks at him like a lover, he thinks, and all this talk of love and battle songs - it makes him utterly dizzy with the joy of it. Keep ahold of yourself, Vorkosigan, he reminds himself. When all this is done, she goes home to her people. And you will just be the odd Admiral who got her there.
A hero to her and her people, hopefully. But that is all he can hope for. He has to remember that, dammit, or he'll never make it back intact. There will be some piece of him left with her when they pat, lost in the gorgeous movements of her body ...
He takes another long sip of his own wine. His expression almost seems to glow in the dim light; he's drunk enough to be a little drunk, bringing rosiness to his cheeks as he watches her with nothing but awe. Maybe she's not a great dancer, but he surely can't tell the difference. She is beautiful. Too beautiful for him to dare besmirch.
"I would - take any dance from you, my lady," he says, his tones hushed. "Battle and love both."
How he looks at her - and it stills her. Like a statue in her movement, but mercifully hidden away in the movements of the dance. She's drunk, she knows that surely. Her fingers are numb, her mouth feels full, and her limbs sluggish. But that doesn't change how his look strikes her, how it soothes in her heart some impossible ache she had learned to call companion. I have been alone too long. He must have a half dozen men and women that fall at his feet, so maybe there wasn't anything to be read into it other than he is kind enough to make her feel beautiful. Perhaps he's just toying with her the same. But for all her lessons in grace, weapons, song, dance and reading and writing - she never had those in flirting, teasing, in knowing how to respond. There had only ever been her husband. He had as surely swept her off her feet and she never had eyes for anyone else but him.
But he was gone now, and she was left unsure for a moment, looking at her Admiral from behind her hands. With how he looks at her, and the sudden realisation that she likes how he looks at her. Not with the difference of a General to Ruler. But right now, she is herself, and he...
Lakshmi swallows. "Love then. I have had enough of battle, for today."
( When had she started thinking of him as hers? )
Her word sticks a moment, rapidly blinking the realisation out of her gaze as she body turns into the next gesture. "She - " I, and she realises, she isn't quite sure if she's playing anymore. " - will invite you to look." It sweeps down herself - unsure, but practised, her eyes lowering, her fingers splaying wide - alapadma, a flower opening - as they fan out and around her chest, above her heart. Then curve back around her stomach, pinching her waist in with the movement, her head rolling back as her legs move. Suddenly, sweeping the other way in the flurry of skirts. The chime of her anklet that was suddenly the loudest sound in the room above her own breathing. To lean forward, far more directly into his space this time.
Her hand hovers, letting him see as she moves near to him. "She will push you, just the once." A demonstration, a playful swat against his shoulder. " -- and then you catch her by the wrist, and tug her in." Her mouth closes with the gesture of her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. Tipping her head just the once, go on then.
Tricky to keep down the fit of nervous giggles. Alone much, much too long. Maybe she ought to have taken up Jhalkari's offer years ago.
He follows her instructions in a dreamy trance. Looking as she invites him, watching the way her fingers splay against her chest (and wondering, with twinge of guilt, how they might look against her with skin bare, leaning over him--) And then around again, skirts whirling, anklet chiming. The moment she comes into his space he's paralyzed, staring up at her, his gray eyes fond and longing and -
Get ahold of yourself, Admiral, he admonishes himself. She is not yours and never will be. And what a cruel concept that would seem to her, probably. Being someone else's. Miles longs so desperately to be someone else's that he hurts but - he can't expect it of anyone else. And he can't expect anyone to desire it of him.
But god does he want it in this moment. Especially when she pauses at the end, gesturing for him to grab her. He gives her a questioning look - really, are you sure? - before he gently reaches forward, taking her hands. Pulling her down to him. And then - holding there, cheeks flushed, staring up at her.
"It's a lovely dance," he murmurs. "I'm very fond."
She goes with his pull, her hand bracing on the floor as she slid forward, down - into him. He had such very lovely eyes. A sky of clouds, all promising rain. Which is a perfectly ridiculous thought. But it is the one she has, so close to him. Her eyes flicking between his.
Her tongue wets her lips. She must be sensible. She must be kind. To him, to herself. "I am glad you like it." She must be selfish, greedy, snatching for balms to her own loneliness, the aches she had never tended simply because he is kind enough to indulge her own silliness. "You will have much of it, I am quite sure. Many men and women would - far better than a lonely widow who is quite drunk."
A forgivable offence, she hopes. He has indulged her so kindly, so far, because she is yet to pull away. A little further and she would be laying across him. Nothing about this is seemly, decent outside of this room. "I fear I make a fool out of myself." Her wrist is still in his hand.
Many men and women, eh? He's far less certain than her right now, it seems. But - he dares not take advantage of this lonely, drunk widow, as she calls herself. Surely doing so would be beyond low, beyond awful to do to someone he has already grown to cherish.
But - god, he can't help but long for her to lean a little closer, to settle down into his lap. Already his body betrays him, damn it all. He shifts slightly. Not letting go, but neither does he pull her in closer. Not yet. "I - daresay these other men and women would not do nearly so well as you." He permits himself one small gesture: to reach up to her cheek, resting his tiny, delicate fingers along the curve of her jaw.
Her head turns with it, her eyes closed - for that moment it hurts so utterly. No one has touched her, she has not let them, for years and years and years. A denial of herself because what is her body but something to be burned? It goes down, her spine like hot oil from a temple lamp, pooling low before she turns up and into it. Soothed and wounded all at once from so slight a thing from him.
Clouds, the monsoon, that he promised her. That he keeps promising her - it terrifies her utterly. He terrifies her. This terrifies her. She has given him so much of herself, some of it he knew, much of it, he didn't. They were bound now. To the end of this war, and maybe no further. But to that end -
A turn until her mouth brushes against the edge of his touch. Until her lips, and they part against his light movement on her skin and she bites the tip of his finger. Blunt, not hard, a soft ache of skin against skin. But purposeful, decided, when her eyes open that barely kept back thing is obvious, fills up her whole being. A hunger that sat flat behind her gaze. touch her again, please. She wants it so much she thinks she'll burn up the ground below them. "Are we still play, my Admiral? Or are you playing with me?"
Miles can't help but watch every small movement of hers, especially when she appears to turn away slightly before letting him place his fingers along her face. This ... is getting too serious, isn't it? He ought to stop, maybe, and not put her into this position in the first place.
But even that slight contact sends electricity down his spine as well. Especially when she turns, lips brushing up against his fingertips, nips just slightly at the tip of one - oh, god, he wants. He wants so badly that he aches, that he'd promise anything. Do anything. Anything that she might possibly ask of him. Which is so desperately dangerous that even he hesitates, but - she has started in him a fire that refuses to die back down once lit.
"No," he says, swallowing thickly. Looking up at her with those fierce gray eyes of his, softened by fondness. Affection. Love, perhaps? Yes, it's love, if only the sort that burns bright at the beginning of an adventure like this. "I am not playing. Not at all." A pause; a bit of a crooked smile. "God, I think I've been in love with you since you gutted that soldier who was about to kill me."
She blinks, at once taken by the words, so much more than she expected. Parting in a suck in of breath that takes her as suddenly as he says it. "You... " He, what, Lakshmi? She so desperately doesn't want him to stop touching her. For him to stop looking at her like that. She didn't think she could imagine him any other way, than how he looked now. Wants to take it in both her hands and put it to a painting that even when she must lose him, she could keep this.
"... You have had me, since the day we met." You will always have me. But it wasn't because of a misunderstood ceremony, the exchange he didn't know about. He had never turned away from her. Not shying from what she had asked. He brave, more profoundly brave than any man she had ever commanded. "My Admiral, my hope." Her hand rises to exchange her touch with his. To sweep down his face. Her strange little admiral, sharp, quick and clever. "I could never let anyone touch you. You are the first thought I might have a life beyond all this death. I never thought to have that again. Even if you must leave, after all is done. I would protect you with my life, until then." She let her hand hover, where it slips from his cheek.
Ah. That is a very gentle rejection, he thinks. To state that he has her, that she will protect him, that he is her hope - it's all tied to the role he is playing for her, for the service he is providing. And why not? That is what they started this relationship as. He's the one getting messy, taking advantage, trying to steer this elsewhere ... and he is not his seventeen-year-old self who might have sailed on anyway, determined to manipulate by guile what he can't gain by genuine affection.
He shivers as her hands find his face, shivering more as they drop. In return, he lifts one hand to hers, bracing it there. He closes those bright gray eyes of his. "Then I am glad," he murmurs. "To be whatever you need." Truly, he is. Kicking himself a bit for letting himself get so riled up, but truly willing. A slight pause. "You - need not think that I have any expectations of you. I know full well how --" his mouth twists a little, "-- slight I am." Hideous, he means.
"I do not need, I want..." She looks down him, concerned for a moment to what he's speaking of as her hand curls around his face. Realising what he means. How he means. She looked back up and there is really - only one response to that. To the impossible, impossible question that is what she wants. Because she is not good with words. She says what she means, as she means to say it. Much to her courtier's horror at times. It won her loyal servants from the highest to the lowest.
Less, the adoration of poets.
So she kisses him. Simple, like it was the easiest no more than to lean forward and down the rest of the way. Her head tilts into the angle. Her mouth parting against his with a thready sigh. Her eyes lowering with the contentment of touch. The wine on her tongue that makes this easy, that makes her spine curve. Her fingers slide around the curve of his cheek, into his hair. Adoring how it feels against her touch. Adoring the little thing that is a kiss where the world cannot see. He is slight, different, yes. But that makes him so easily her own in his mind. Not made a mess in memories. Not stained with blood. He could pull away and say that he had changed his mind, and that would be water to the desert.
When she pulls back, it is not to go far. "Only, I do not know how such a thing is meant to be. I have been a Queen alone, a very long time. Will you show me?"
Oh. Oh. He is so very bad at reading people when it comes to affection like this - but he is so very glad to be so wrong. The moment her lips find his, he kisses back, lips parting in turn, bracing one hand against her hip while he trails the fingers of the others along her spine. He keeps it simple for this first kiss, but there is the promise of tongue and teeth and anything else she might wish. He has a skilled tongue, both metaphorically and literally.
There is no chance he's changed his mind. When she pulls back a bit, he takes a moment to catch his breath, his cheeks flushed. If that was in any way meant to stave him off, or to give him a little so that he might not want more ... it definitely didn't work. He is more desperate than ever to give her everything he possibly can.
"I - I would. Very gladly." Worship at her feet if need be. Find other ways to make her feel all that he can. But - he must ask first. he must, he must, or forever live in worry and shame that he hadn't. "Are you sober enough? Is this truly what you want?"
He won't take advantage of her state, dammit. If she's too drunk to agree, then it's no agreement at all.
She huffs laughter, and if it were not a different kind of intoxication to be so close to him, she might give him a more determined shove away for the question. He is so sweet, in such different ways that she ever thought of when she first heard his name, his reputation.
But for now, she can give the easy assurance. "Drunk enough only to be bold, my Admiral, not enough to make choices I regret. I'm not about to fall off a horse again - " right, that was a story for another time. Cutting herself off, he doesn't need to think of her as inelegant at a time like this. When, well, he wasn't the only one to feel self-conscious. It had been a dreadfully long time. What was it now, five, six years? It didn't bear thinking of. So she doesn't, instead leaning to brush the tip of her nose against his cheek. "Not that I do such things often."
Well - that's fair. He's much the same, isn't he? Bold but not completely drunk, still very much in control. Just. Less controlled. More willing to take a leap.
"I would like to hear about that sometime," he says with a small smile. The tricky part will be trying to remember not to share his own. "I would also love to see you on a horse sometime." God, would he. That might be the best damn day of his life.
"You will, when we go to the surface. Perhaps you will even meet my mare. She is Sarangi. She has carried me through many battles." She adores her, quite obviously. She might just like horses more than people - but that is for a later date.
For now, she smooths her fingers against his hair, lower, against his neck and hovers on the invitation. "How else would you like to see me?" An indication, that for now, all he need do is ask, and she will give it, as long as it was limited to them in this room.
Ah, he'd like nothing more. How lovely that sounds to him right now. iT makes him miss his own horse quite fiercely. Fat Ninny is surely living out his old age pampered in a stable right now...
But. Other very pleasant concerns at the moment instead. He lifts his eyes to hers, leaning up to press a kiss to her jawline. "As yourself," he murmurs. "Only what you wish to show." No need to be queen. Just - herself.
She sighs, the little reactions always gave too much away. Her nails scratching against his shoulder as his mouth curves on her skin. That, so surely, could be no more than she wanted. Him to touch, him to look at her, and want nothing other than the woman in front of him. To have those grey eyes, his clever mouth, his kind words, all to herself.
Lakshmi reached behind her, searching for the hand at her back to guide it up. To the bare piece of skin that sat between her top and skirt. Encouraging him to touch, rather - to keep touching. Once she's sure he would not stop she leant to kiss him again. Because it covers - a shyness. At odds with what she wants and how terrifying that is. But if she does it like this, so close that there was nothing more than a breath between them. To reach up to her shoulder and begin to loosen the ties that kept all her garments together as she keeps kissing him. ( Only, just one moment where that takes up more than everything she is capable of in sheer distraction of that ) But, a trick of comfortable clothing perhaps - just one tug, and the material begins to loosen over her body. The rest, she thinks he can figure out as she begins to lean into him more eagerly. Her minimal task done and a far more enticing one in front of her.
Something she gives herself too as surely as she gave herself to anything. The needy, desperately soft sound that she presses into his mouth. Her hands coming to brace either side of his neck. Harder, quicker, how badly she wants him, have him all to herself that fills her up.
He follows her lead gladly. Skating his fingers along her skin, rubbing small circles with his thumb - taking in a breath as she loosens the fabric of her clothing. Yes, he can follow that implied suggestion. He begins to tug the cloth away from her even as she distracts him otherwise, leaning in closer, kissing him hard. He is eager to return every motion, to meet her with himself, to pull her in closer. He wants her so badly it hurts. Just please, universe, grant him this one thing. Let him bring her joy in turn with whatever he can do for her ...
The universe, as it turned out, was a cruel and unforgiving mistress.
Because she pushes him back, leaning over and into him, encouraging him onto his back as she begins to pull at her clothes. Giddy, almost. This is - utterly below them both. To be rolling around on the floor like a pair of silly teenagers. Her clothes beginning to slip, unravelling between them and soon, he'd have plenty of skin to touch. Enough to make her shiver in anticipation against him.
Down, down, down. Until her chest is pressing into his, her hands beginning to reach for his clothes in turn.
"Rani! Are you there? We are looking for the Admiral, someone said he came this way."
The loud knock on the door jerks her all the way up again. Immediately yanking for her clothes with a string of words that were anything but pleasant and more a panicked frustration. Her arm curling over her chest and she went to unravel herself from him. "A moment!" Shit.
Oh for the love of - Miles curses under his breath in Russian. Then in Greek for good measure. Could they have waited five minutes? Just five minutes with her in his arms, at least touching her with his mouth and his hands, doing all he can to make her happy - not her getting up off of him in a panic. (He knows why, and he knows it's not anything to do with him. She could have a Jacksonian-altered superhumanly handsome man under her and she'd still push away rather than risk her entourage seeing what antics they're getting up to. But. He's still a little stung.)
He reluctantly gets up himself, straightening his uniform and trying to unmuss his hair. Muttering another curse. "Yes, I'm here," he says with just the slightest hint of irritation. Going to the door to try to give her more time to put herself together.
She pulls herself up into the lounge. Reaching up to hastily to retire her clothes against her shoulder. She's still - utterly dishevelled. Sinking her teeth into her lip in the effort of trying not to loathe the interruption. Arranging her veil over her hair. Combing her hair as neat as she could. Snatching up the wine to busy herself with drinking it and not looking at him. Like nothing at all had happened. Or near to nothing. She was fairly sure she might be kiss-drunk. As well as... drunk. Wonderful.
Damn, damn, damn. Was that Devi? Of course, it was. She could refuse Devi nothing, of course, they would send someone as dear to her as a daughter. Of course, it would be the one who would throttle him for touching her in a way that was anything more than the lightest brush. Shit.
Devi is... well, hard-eyed and hard mouthed when she looks down at him when the door opens. "Admiral. Your men are drunk - and fighting - " She looks up then, further into the room where Lakshmi drinks her wine and looks at the wall in the meantime. Devi wallows and then carries on. Clearly... questioning if nothing else. "- over some of the spoils. Your Lady Taura called for you."
Oof. Miles knows Devi well enough by now. More than enough to respect her fiercely, and also respect the fact that the woman would run him through for so much as thinking about inflicting his tiny, twisted body on Lakshmi. Best to heed her request and move quickly before any momentary mercy flees her body.
He manages an apologetic look back at Lakshmi, then returns his attention to Devi. Also. Trying to hide the flush in his cheeks. It's the wine, he swears. "I'll attend to it at once," he says firmly. "Thank you for telling me." And with that, he'll brush past her hurriedly to see what the hell his mercs are after. And curse her for ruining this, dammit, couldn't he have gotten five minutes here.
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God. As if he weren’t already in love with her after watching her weave through the enemy with her weapons. Watching her smiles like that, teasing him... he might truly be lost already.
“Every time they drink, apparently,” he says, raising his glass. “Which is often.”
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"I struggle to call those circumstances fit for dancing, Admiral, no matter how you might protest."
And with no warning what so ever, she slides right off the side of the lounge onto the floor. Sat there and her hand lifts to crook her finger to beckon him down to join her. "You are going to subjected to it later on whether you like such things or not, so you best learn how we attend such things while no one was looking. My triumphant Admiral cannot be seen to embarrass himself at his own celebrations."
On the floor, apparently. Right now. Her eyes are bright, still, as she takes another sip of the wine, the glass was almost empty - that just wouldn't do. So instead she goes fishing for the bottle as she waits for him to join her on the floor. Pouring herself another glass - all interest in maintaining an air of position firmly gone for the moment.
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"I - am not so bad," he says, awkwardly. "But I am very short. Wouldn't you rather have a taller partner?"
But that gleam in his eye says he wants this so very badly. Lift him if you must, Lakshmi; he would love to dance.
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Instead - since she's here, being informal, for all the trust he had given her in telling her the truth of who he was, his past, what had happened to him, she repays it in turn, being herself without the trappings - she goes about clearing them some space on the floor. Twisting her body about to plant one bare foot against the lounge and giving it an almighty push out of the way. It goes with the shove and she settles back, smiling, trickling laughter in through her words. Though this time, she sits far more - decidedly. Her back goes straight, her chest lifts, her legs curl under her delicately so they lay in the say direction. Then she fishes for the material that was draped over her shoulder, bringing it up over her head, resting to drape around her, over her hair. Poised like she were a dancer as fine as the ones her husband once employed.
"But the performance will be for you. So it doesn't matter in any case." She's planning it, apparently. Already working through the motions of how it will be done in some fitfully daydream that winning will be as easy as that. It won't be, they both know that, but the doors are shut, her rebels drink with his crew and it is just them. So maybe, for a little while, as long as no one else knew, it might be forgiven. "We prize beauty, art, colour, all these things. Like you said, tradition." She smiles as she goes, reaching over to fill his glass up in turn.
"But some of it will be strange to you." Definitely, definitely still mischief in her gaze. Settling the bottle back down and sliding it back towards him. "We dance with our eyes, our limbs, each finger and our expression as all one movement, whether they are love songs, songs praising great battles or religious." Her body lowers with the movement, pointedly so, her eyes rising up under her lashes to look at him. Fixed on him exactly, smiling softly. Then rises herself up in one slow motion to demonstrate the control into the movement. "No doubt, for you, it will all be battle songs and love songs. They will touch your feet to bless you and then - "
Her head turns away, and sweeping palm up against her cheek, then peering back at him. Like a lover teasing her beloved her gaze, then drawing her fingers below her eyes as she looks at him. Trying her best to keep a straight face through it all. She knew she wasn't a particularly great dancer. But she enjoyed it, and that was enough. Besides, it only had to be enough for him to know when one of her ladies was flirting with him.
no subject
A hero to her and her people, hopefully. But that is all he can hope for. He has to remember that, dammit, or he'll never make it back intact. There will be some piece of him left with her when they pat, lost in the gorgeous movements of her body ...
He takes another long sip of his own wine. His expression almost seems to glow in the dim light; he's drunk enough to be a little drunk, bringing rosiness to his cheeks as he watches her with nothing but awe. Maybe she's not a great dancer, but he surely can't tell the difference. She is beautiful. Too beautiful for him to dare besmirch.
"I would - take any dance from you, my lady," he says, his tones hushed. "Battle and love both."
no subject
But he was gone now, and she was left unsure for a moment, looking at her Admiral from behind her hands. With how he looks at her, and the sudden realisation that she likes how he looks at her. Not with the difference of a General to Ruler. But right now, she is herself, and he...
Lakshmi swallows. "Love then. I have had enough of battle, for today."
( When had she started thinking of him as hers? )
Her word sticks a moment, rapidly blinking the realisation out of her gaze as she body turns into the next gesture. "She - " I, and she realises, she isn't quite sure if she's playing anymore. " - will invite you to look." It sweeps down herself - unsure, but practised, her eyes lowering, her fingers splaying wide - alapadma, a flower opening - as they fan out and around her chest, above her heart. Then curve back around her stomach, pinching her waist in with the movement, her head rolling back as her legs move. Suddenly, sweeping the other way in the flurry of skirts. The chime of her anklet that was suddenly the loudest sound in the room above her own breathing. To lean forward, far more directly into his space this time.
Her hand hovers, letting him see as she moves near to him. "She will push you, just the once." A demonstration, a playful swat against his shoulder. " -- and then you catch her by the wrist, and tug her in." Her mouth closes with the gesture of her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. Tipping her head just the once, go on then.
Tricky to keep down the fit of nervous giggles. Alone much, much too long. Maybe she ought to have taken up Jhalkari's offer years ago.
no subject
Get ahold of yourself, Admiral, he admonishes himself. She is not yours and never will be. And what a cruel concept that would seem to her, probably. Being someone else's. Miles longs so desperately to be someone else's that he hurts but - he can't expect it of anyone else. And he can't expect anyone to desire it of him.
But god does he want it in this moment. Especially when she pauses at the end, gesturing for him to grab her. He gives her a questioning look - really, are you sure? - before he gently reaches forward, taking her hands. Pulling her down to him. And then - holding there, cheeks flushed, staring up at her.
"It's a lovely dance," he murmurs. "I'm very fond."
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Her tongue wets her lips. She must be sensible. She must be kind. To him, to herself. "I am glad you like it." She must be selfish, greedy, snatching for balms to her own loneliness, the aches she had never tended simply because he is kind enough to indulge her own silliness. "You will have much of it, I am quite sure. Many men and women would - far better than a lonely widow who is quite drunk."
A forgivable offence, she hopes. He has indulged her so kindly, so far, because she is yet to pull away. A little further and she would be laying across him. Nothing about this is seemly, decent outside of this room. "I fear I make a fool out of myself." Her wrist is still in his hand.
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But - god, he can't help but long for her to lean a little closer, to settle down into his lap. Already his body betrays him, damn it all. He shifts slightly. Not letting go, but neither does he pull her in closer. Not yet. "I - daresay these other men and women would not do nearly so well as you." He permits himself one small gesture: to reach up to her cheek, resting his tiny, delicate fingers along the curve of her jaw.
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Clouds, the monsoon, that he promised her. That he keeps promising her - it terrifies her utterly. He terrifies her. This terrifies her. She has given him so much of herself, some of it he knew, much of it, he didn't. They were bound now. To the end of this war, and maybe no further. But to that end -
A turn until her mouth brushes against the edge of his touch. Until her lips, and they part against his light movement on her skin and she bites the tip of his finger. Blunt, not hard, a soft ache of skin against skin. But purposeful, decided, when her eyes open that barely kept back thing is obvious, fills up her whole being. A hunger that sat flat behind her gaze. touch her again, please. She wants it so much she thinks she'll burn up the ground below them. "Are we still play, my Admiral? Or are you playing with me?"
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But even that slight contact sends electricity down his spine as well. Especially when she turns, lips brushing up against his fingertips, nips just slightly at the tip of one - oh, god, he wants. He wants so badly that he aches, that he'd promise anything. Do anything. Anything that she might possibly ask of him. Which is so desperately dangerous that even he hesitates, but - she has started in him a fire that refuses to die back down once lit.
"No," he says, swallowing thickly. Looking up at her with those fierce gray eyes of his, softened by fondness. Affection. Love, perhaps? Yes, it's love, if only the sort that burns bright at the beginning of an adventure like this. "I am not playing. Not at all." A pause; a bit of a crooked smile. "God, I think I've been in love with you since you gutted that soldier who was about to kill me."
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"... You have had me, since the day we met." You will always have me. But it wasn't because of a misunderstood ceremony, the exchange he didn't know about. He had never turned away from her. Not shying from what she had asked. He brave, more profoundly brave than any man she had ever commanded. "My Admiral, my hope." Her hand rises to exchange her touch with his. To sweep down his face. Her strange little admiral, sharp, quick and clever. "I could never let anyone touch you. You are the first thought I might have a life beyond all this death. I never thought to have that again. Even if you must leave, after all is done. I would protect you with my life, until then." She let her hand hover, where it slips from his cheek.
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He shivers as her hands find his face, shivering more as they drop. In return, he lifts one hand to hers, bracing it there. He closes those bright gray eyes of his. "Then I am glad," he murmurs. "To be whatever you need." Truly, he is. Kicking himself a bit for letting himself get so riled up, but truly willing. A slight pause. "You - need not think that I have any expectations of you. I know full well how --" his mouth twists a little, "-- slight I am." Hideous, he means.
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Less, the adoration of poets.
So she kisses him. Simple, like it was the easiest no more than to lean forward and down the rest of the way. Her head tilts into the angle. Her mouth parting against his with a thready sigh. Her eyes lowering with the contentment of touch. The wine on her tongue that makes this easy, that makes her spine curve. Her fingers slide around the curve of his cheek, into his hair. Adoring how it feels against her touch. Adoring the little thing that is a kiss where the world cannot see. He is slight, different, yes. But that makes him so easily her own in his mind. Not made a mess in memories. Not stained with blood. He could pull away and say that he had changed his mind, and that would be water to the desert.
When she pulls back, it is not to go far. "Only, I do not know how such a thing is meant to be. I have been a Queen alone, a very long time. Will you show me?"
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There is no chance he's changed his mind. When she pulls back a bit, he takes a moment to catch his breath, his cheeks flushed. If that was in any way meant to stave him off, or to give him a little so that he might not want more ... it definitely didn't work. He is more desperate than ever to give her everything he possibly can.
"I - I would. Very gladly." Worship at her feet if need be. Find other ways to make her feel all that he can. But - he must ask first. he must, he must, or forever live in worry and shame that he hadn't. "Are you sober enough? Is this truly what you want?"
He won't take advantage of her state, dammit. If she's too drunk to agree, then it's no agreement at all.
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But for now, she can give the easy assurance. "Drunk enough only to be bold, my Admiral, not enough to make choices I regret. I'm not about to fall off a horse again - " right, that was a story for another time. Cutting herself off, he doesn't need to think of her as inelegant at a time like this. When, well, he wasn't the only one to feel self-conscious. It had been a dreadfully long time. What was it now, five, six years? It didn't bear thinking of. So she doesn't, instead leaning to brush the tip of her nose against his cheek. "Not that I do such things often."
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"I would like to hear about that sometime," he says with a small smile. The tricky part will be trying to remember not to share his own. "I would also love to see you on a horse sometime." God, would he. That might be the best damn day of his life.
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For now, she smooths her fingers against his hair, lower, against his neck and hovers on the invitation. "How else would you like to see me?" An indication, that for now, all he need do is ask, and she will give it, as long as it was limited to them in this room.
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But. Other very pleasant concerns at the moment instead. He lifts his eyes to hers, leaning up to press a kiss to her jawline. "As yourself," he murmurs. "Only what you wish to show." No need to be queen. Just - herself.
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Lakshmi reached behind her, searching for the hand at her back to guide it up. To the bare piece of skin that sat between her top and skirt. Encouraging him to touch, rather - to keep touching. Once she's sure he would not stop she leant to kiss him again. Because it covers - a shyness. At odds with what she wants and how terrifying that is. But if she does it like this, so close that there was nothing more than a breath between them. To reach up to her shoulder and begin to loosen the ties that kept all her garments together as she keeps kissing him. ( Only, just one moment where that takes up more than everything she is capable of in sheer distraction of that ) But, a trick of comfortable clothing perhaps - just one tug, and the material begins to loosen over her body. The rest, she thinks he can figure out as she begins to lean into him more eagerly. Her minimal task done and a far more enticing one in front of her.
Something she gives herself too as surely as she gave herself to anything. The needy, desperately soft sound that she presses into his mouth. Her hands coming to brace either side of his neck. Harder, quicker, how badly she wants him, have him all to herself that fills her up.
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Because she pushes him back, leaning over and into him, encouraging him onto his back as she begins to pull at her clothes. Giddy, almost. This is - utterly below them both. To be rolling around on the floor like a pair of silly teenagers. Her clothes beginning to slip, unravelling between them and soon, he'd have plenty of skin to touch. Enough to make her shiver in anticipation against him.
Down, down, down. Until her chest is pressing into his, her hands beginning to reach for his clothes in turn.
"Rani! Are you there? We are looking for the Admiral, someone said he came this way."
The loud knock on the door jerks her all the way up again. Immediately yanking for her clothes with a string of words that were anything but pleasant and more a panicked frustration. Her arm curling over her chest and she went to unravel herself from him. "A moment!" Shit.
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He reluctantly gets up himself, straightening his uniform and trying to unmuss his hair. Muttering another curse. "Yes, I'm here," he says with just the slightest hint of irritation. Going to the door to try to give her more time to put herself together.
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Damn, damn, damn. Was that Devi? Of course, it was. She could refuse Devi nothing, of course, they would send someone as dear to her as a daughter. Of course, it would be the one who would throttle him for touching her in a way that was anything more than the lightest brush. Shit.
Devi is... well, hard-eyed and hard mouthed when she looks down at him when the door opens. "Admiral. Your men are drunk - and fighting - " She looks up then, further into the room where Lakshmi drinks her wine and looks at the wall in the meantime. Devi wallows and then carries on. Clearly... questioning if nothing else. "- over some of the spoils. Your Lady Taura called for you."
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He manages an apologetic look back at Lakshmi, then returns his attention to Devi. Also. Trying to hide the flush in his cheeks. It's the wine, he swears. "I'll attend to it at once," he says firmly. "Thank you for telling me." And with that, he'll brush past her hurriedly to see what the hell his mercs are after. And curse her for ruining this, dammit, couldn't he have gotten five minutes here.
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