Work Text:
Lyria wakes to the feeling of Cullen’s lips on her neck. Unbidden, a smile rises to her lips. This is how it should be, she thinks. Waking with him still tangled around her, instead of pulling herself from bed too early for training or demons chasing, though the inevitability of someone knocking at her door now resides in the back of her mind. Even though the first gray rays of morning sun spilling through the windows say it's still very early.
But as Cullen’s tongue runs just under her jaw, sending a bolt of something down her spine, she can’t bring herself to protest. Perhaps she didn’t need sleep. Maybe she just needed this. Admittedly, though she’d had sex before this, she’d never thought of it much once it was over. At best, sex was mildly pleasant—a pastime when there was a lull in activities. With Cullen it was something else entirely.
Were there nothing pressing to draw both of their attention, Lyria suspects they’d spend a great deal of their time in bed. All of it, quite possibly. Part of her is embarrassed at the way that this thing between them sets a haze over her mind. Though that same haze makes it difficult to care. And maybe she would be more embarrassed if it weren’t entirely clear that he felt the same.
The war room had become a dangerous place to be, exchanging coy smiles across the table that must, at all times be between them lest they give in to baser instincts. There was even once late in the library that things had gotten…very close. Visiting his office also became quite risky. If there was official business, she made sure to stay on the opposite side of his desk, the willpower required was likely the same as it might to resist a demon’s pull. Perhaps worse when he’d meet her eyes. She always knew he was thinking of it, and it never failed to make her blood heat. Sometimes she thought of sending messengers, but she hadn’t yet managed to resist the temptation to see him.
He’s pulling her tighter against him now, and she can feel where he’s already hard, and she makes a low, needy little sound. He hums against her throat, apparently satisfied with her reaction. But then he rolls her onto her back, lips angling over hers, and she feels the result of last night’s activities still sticky between her legs.
“Good morning,” Cullen murmurs against her lips, his voice still gravelly with sleep.
She manages a returning smile, hand coming up to thread through the hair at the back of his neck, “On dhea,” she replies, and he grins sleepily at her before his lips slide back against her jaw, her throat, her ear. And it feels wonderful, but then he begins his excursion lower and she fidgets.
Undeterred, his lips brush over her collarbone, a thumb grazing just under her breast. Already she’s sinking heavier into the bed, content to let him amble aimlessly over her skin. It feels divine—but he must have forgotten the mess he’d made of her the night before. The way they’d both been too spent to do anything about it. He’s still making his way to what she’s quickly learned seems to be his inevitable destination—not that she would ever complain. As much as she’d quite like him to make it there, she shouldn’t. But she’s struggling for the words to tell him that, to explain why. Likely she should bathe first, it seems the proper thing to do.
Her face is warm as she manages to thread her fingers again through his hair, and he looks up from where his lips have just been pressed chaste between her breasts. His amber eyes are glazed with sleep and lust, and it takes her a full fill of her lungs to remember why she’d stopped him.
“Cullen I—” her face feels warm. It seems that no matter the amount of times she’s done this, she can’t quite outrun the embarrassment of saying certain things. “We shouldn’t.” she settles for saying instead.
He frowns slightly, and lightly grazes his teeth over one of her nipples, “Why not?”
“Because I’m—” she sighs, “Because someone will knock soon,”
Cullen hums briefly against her ribcage, before pulling back to look her in the face, at once all scrutiny.
“You don’t want to?”
“I do, but—”
“So they’ll knock,” his lips graze her hip bone, “Tell them you’re busy.”
“Cullen,” she manages, because he’s dangerously close to his destination now, “I’m still…from last night.”
He raises an eyebrow at her as he pushes her thighs apart, and surely he can see now, as much as she can feel it. But he only presses his lips to her inner thigh, “So you are. My apologies,” she lets out a breath, relaxing slightly. She’s certainly not expecting him to draw a finger through the wetness, splitting her apart fully. “It seems I should clean up my mess,”
She makes a noncommittal noise, half surprise and half something else. Not a protest, though she thinks it should be. She should protest, he should be disgusted by this—they both should be. But he tentatively slides a finger into her. The sound it makes is indecent but they both groan at the feel. And any protesting dies on her lips, her mind going almost fully blank as he draws his finger out and then presses in again, curling it against her in that way that makes her half-insane. When his mouth finally joins his fingers, sucking lightly at her, she loses it altogether.
The pleasure unfurls slowly. It swells first in her stomach and then crests, washing through her limbs and leaving her very bones vibrating with it. He’s still lapping at her gently, intent on cleaning up this mess too, it seems. And her skull is vibrating with pleasure, possibly still clouded with sleep, which must be why she doesn’t hear it.
It’s the sudden absence of him between her legs, and the exhale of amusement against her thigh that brings her back to awareness. Someone is knocking at the door, and Lyria recovers herself enough to hear, “Your worship?”
Lyria shoots a slightly panicked look at Cullen, who tries to hide his smirk by pressing it against her abdomen. It’s undoubtedly Arwyn, who appears every morning without fail, tea and pastries in hand.
“I—” it comes out a little strangled and breathy, so she has to clear her throat, sitting up slightly, “Leave it at the door—please!”
They both wait, the commander of the Inquisition still trying and failing to hide his amusement in her skin. When he finally decides it’s been long enough, he grins up at her, “Perfect timing, then.” he kisses her chastely, “Shall I retrieve your morning tea, your worship?” she tries to scowl at him for his use of the title, but they both know her heart isn’t in it, and he kisses her again before making to roll off of her, but she stops him before he can. He arches an eyebrow, “Your tea will get cold.”
But any humor dies when she wraps a hand around him. His golden eyes flit down to the motion of her gentle strokes and very quickly his breathing picks up. His next kiss is hungry, heady and all encompassing, any dissent quickly forgotten. And when she guides the head of him to her cunt, he closes his eyes, as if the very notion of it is enough to undo him. There’s a brief pause before he presses in as if he has to collect himself. But when he does it’s utter bliss.
Very quickly he’s losing himself as he often does, muttering senseless praise against her lips, her throat, her chest. She’s beautiful, she’s perfect and that she feels—he never does have an end to that sentence. Her legs wrap around his waist, angling her hips up so he hits deeper and it sends them both quickly over the edge.
He’s still holding himself up on slightly trembling arms as he catches his breath in the crease of her neck. The sun has barely risen in the sky and already she’s found her pleasure twice. If every morning were like this, she may never complain about anything ever again. Lyria lets out a small, half-hearted cry when he extracts himself. He kisses her in apology, both of them still slightly breathless.
And when she feels the result of their coupling spill again between their legs, she smiles against his lips, “There goes your hard work.”
“I’m quite happy to service you again, Inquisitor.” he murmurs, and she laughs.
“As much as that may delight me, my tea very well might be cold then.”
He shakes his head, but his eyes twinkle with obvious amusement. Obliging her, he slides out of bed, pulling a pair of his trousers from the floor and tugging them on as he makes for the door. Lyria sits up to watch the muscled line of his shoulders, and not for the first time, smiles to herself as the word mine resounds inexplicably in her mind.
Cullen opens the door, reaching for the tray outside, and Lyria finally sets her feet on the cool stone floor. She’s reaching for her dressing gown when she hears him chuckle. He recedes back into the room, silver tray in hand shaking his head.
“What’s funny?”
“Two tea cups,” he replies simply, and her eyes fall to the tray in his hands, which does indeed carry two cups instead of one.
“Busybodies.” she says with affected consternation that is not at all reflected in the grin on her face.
“As someone once pointed out to me, one of us isn’t exactly subtle,” he says, sliding the tray carefully onto the table by the fire.
Cullen helps himself to one of the raspberry-and-almond biscuits on the plate, but he’s only taken a bite when Lyria plucks it right out of his hand and sinks into her armchair by the fire. He tries to glower at her, but doesn’t quite manage it.
“Yes you are lacking in that department,” she agrees as he pulls a tunic over his head, only further mussing his unkempt hair. He rakes his fingers through it, but it's still nowhere near its usual state when he takes up the chair opposite hers.
Lyria hasn’t quite figured out the hair, how exactly it goes from this tangled mess of curls just haphazardly pushed from his face to its careful arrangement. She’s usually gone by the time he gets himself ready for the day—either for training, a gaggle of Josephine’s nobles or the various other responsibilities she never knows how to turn down.
Cullen smiles bemusedly into his teacup, “I was talking about you,”
Lyria purses her lips with affected indignance, but feels the flush of her face.
“I’ve gotten better.”
And he could mock all he wished, but she had gotten better. A bit. There had been no lightning storms in the past week, at least. She had once set fire to the window drapings but they’d since been replaced. She’s currently learning to channel the magic into less destructive things, like frost spreading over the mantle or vines now growing steadily over the balcony railing.
Cullen shoots her an apologetic look as he sets the teacup back on its saucer, “The tea is cold, by the way,” Lyria shrugs noncommittally, and then waves a hand over his cup before she takes hers up, heating it between her fingers. He raises an eyebrow and makes a second attempt at his now-warmed tea. “I’ll remember that,”
Lyria smiles into her teacup.