"Emma?" I said, breaking the silence, though I wasn't really sure what to say. She didn't reply. "I-It's good to see you, too. I, uh... how have you been?"
She looked up at me, beautiful blue eyes locking with mine. Her lip trembled, and her eyes watered with tears, and then she buried her face in my chest and cried.
"Wha — uh — " I shifted my hands and picked her up, holding her against me, then shuffled over to the dingy bed in the corner and sat down. She curled her legs up against her chest and clutched at my tunic as her body was wracked with sobs.
My hesitation vanished. I ran gentle, soothing lines down her back with my hands, murmuring sweet nothings in her ear. I didn't know what else to do, but it seemed to work well enough. After a minute or two, she calmed down, reduced to sniffling every so often, but still I stayed quiet. If she needed time, I'd give it to her. I didn't have much else to offer.
"I'm sorry," Emma said, mumbling against my chest. She curled up a little more, pressing against me.
I ran a hand through her hair. "I — It's okay."
She shook her head weakly. "No it's not. I never should have said... y-you know."
"Did you mean it?"
Emma jerked her head up to look at me. Her eyes were red and wet. "No! Of course not!"
"Then it's okay," I said, cupping her chin and using my thumb to wipe away the wet streaks on her cheeks. "I forgive you. Really, I do."
Emma's lip trembled again. "How? I — I insulted your m-mother. I u-used this against you! I called you — I c-called you — "
The reminder made me twitch, but I pushed the pain down. "You didn't mean it." I leaned down and kissed her gently. "So it's okay."
She ducked her head and sniffled, pressing against my chest again. "I don't deserve you," she whispered.
I continued stroking her hair. She'd always liked that. "That's not true," I said.
"Yes it is." Her voice was bitter, now. "I'm weak. I'm pathetic."
I sighed into her hair, then pulled back and tilted her head up so I could see her face. "What happened?"
Emma bit her lip. Her eyes glanced around, seeking a distraction in my clothes and finding nothing, before finally darting back to meet mine. "Father," she mumbled, fiddling with a loose bit of string on my shirt. "W-when we moved into the inner city, he... he's more strict, now. I think it's because of Lord Matthews. But he — " Sniffling, she looked away and curled into my chest once more. "He said I had to stop seeing you."
She paused, breathing deeply against me. I traced slow, curly circles against her back, but made no move to speak. I didn't want to say the wrong thing.
Finally, she continued. "I tried to come anyway," she said, voice wavering. "I really, really did, nearly a dozen times. But the servants, they caught me every time, and Father got angry with me. He... hit me. He's never done that before. Then he locked me in my room, said I couldn't leave until I did what he told me. Until I agreed to not see you. He said you... he said you were s-sullying me. Trying to turn me against him and the Empire. Trying to corrupt me. H-he said you weren't human."
Emma looked up at me, clutching at my collar, her beautiful eyes wet and shimmering. I squeezed her tighter. "I c-couldn't go against him. I'm too weak. He frightens me. And t-that day at the market, Lord Matthews was with us. He's a purist, one of the Emperor's dogs. When you came up to us and tried to talk to me, he got angry. I think he would have had you arrested or beaten or... But I remembered what Father said, so I... I used that."
She was actually crying now, tears making dirty tracks down her freckled cheeks. "I-I'm so, so sorry, Taylor. I just — I had to make you leave! Before you got hurt. I couldn't — I couldn't watch that. But I... I shouldn't have said it anyway."
She fell silent, and I started rocking us back and forth slowly and softly, breathing into her hair.
"It's okay," I said after a minute, pulling her closer. "You're here now. We're together. So everything's okay."
Emma shifted. "He's making me get married."
I froze. "What?"
"Father," she said. "He... he's sold me. For the good of the family, he says. I'm betrothed to Lord Demoux, now; one of Lord Matthews' coterie. He's forty-three years old." She gave a bitter laugh. "His firstborn is older than I am. And I h-heard his previous wife had an affair so — he had her executed." Her body trembled in my arms. When she continued, her voice was brittle, almost inaudible. "The wedding is in six months, when I'm of age. I'm — They're going to make me have his babies. Probably ten of them. Then I'll be old and ugly and I'll knock over a vase one day and I'll be executed too and I-I-I'm never going to see you again."
I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her back, staring into her wide eyes. "That's not true!" I said. "We promised, remember? We'd always be together. So — s-so you're not marrying some Imperial twit, okay? We're going to get you out of this. And we'll figure it out together. We — we can talk to your father or — or — or something, and then you'll be okay, and we can — and we can be together again." I paused, swallowing. "I won't let this happen to you, okay? I promise. No matter what."
Emma stared at me in awe, her eyes shimmering once more. She opened her mouth to reply, but I stopped her with a kiss. I closed my eyes and brought a hand up to cup her cheek as she reciprocated, and together we slid down to the bed. My body pressed against hers as I lay atop her, our legs interlocking, my other hand reaching down to her hip.
I pulled back for a moment's breath, staring into her eyes. "I won't let that happen," I said, then dove forward to resume. She moaned into me as her hands fumbled at the strings of my shirt. I guided her fingers to the knots, which she ripped open while I loosened her own clothes. We were forced to break apart again when she pulled my top over my head, immediately discarding it and bringing her hands around to knead my breasts roughly.
I growled, deep within my throat, then pulled her shirt off, too. "You're mine," I said, eliciting an adorable squeak from Emma. She smiled up at me, and then we were kissing once more, her arms winding around my neck as I worked at her bottoms. Soon enough, they were on the floor with our other clothes, and I slipped my bottoms off too. Our underwear followed quickly — she wore regular cotton, not those lacy silk ones she'd once gotten me as a gift. I was mildly disappointed.
But then we were unclad, nothing stopping our bodies from touching. Her skin like a bonfire against mine, an inferno. Her smell, her sweat, almost enough to make me wet on its own. The sounds of her halting, gasping breaths, the little yelping noises of pleasure she made when I tweaked a nipple or bumped her nethers with my knee, accompanied by the wet smacks of our kisses, exciting us both in a million different ways.
Her taste, just as I remembered. Exactly as I'd missed.
"Nobody else's," I panted, pulling back and peppering her jaw with feather kisses. I slid a hand down to her nethers, slipping a finger inside and massaging the way I knew she liked. As I'd expected, she gasped, arching her back and using her arms around my neck to pull her body up and press it against mine, an exchange of sweat and heat. I grinned and kissed my way down her neck, receiving a hundred tiny shudders as I went. "Nobody can do this to you but me."
I paused to circle her nipple with my tongue, a teasing twist that made her whimper. I squeezed my own legs together, a futile attempt to alleviate the burning in my loins. I was almost desperate to have her mouth on my body, her fingers inside me. But I wasn't done yet. I'd waited months for this to happen again; I could manage another few minutes.
"You're mine," I repeated, punctuating the words with a squeeze of her breast and a nipping suck of her nipple. She yelped, and I glanced up at her. "Understand?"
Emma pulled her hands away from her face and looked down at me, our eyes meeting. Her breathing came hard and heavy, my head rising and falling as her chest did the same. "I un — " I popped a second finger inside her and stretched — but only once, before stopping. "Aaghhh! Ohh, pleasepleaseplease!"
I couldn't stop from grinning as I bit her nipple again. She whimpered. "Understand?"
"Yes!" she said, bucking against me. "Yes yes yes, I understand!"
I rewarded her with a few thrusts of my hand, making her writhe beneath me, her flesh jiggling. I moved down a bit, to her stomach, biting one of her folds hard enough to leave a mark, just beside her belly button. Harder than usual, but I was starved. Of course, she didn't seem to mind. Not with the way she hissed and clenched her legs together around my arm, her hands curling in the bed sheets.
"I'm the only one that gets to do this?" I prodded.
She groaned, shaking in frustration as I trailed further down her body. "Yes! You're the only one, now please — "
I pulled my fingers out and replaced them with my mouth, spreading her wide with a single movement and burying my tongue in her sex. The taste dominated my senses, sending memories flashing into my mind. She was so sweet, yet so bitter. An appropriate taste.
Juices gushed into my mouth as she thrashed beneath my grip, hissing and gasping and groaning before finally exploding over my face with a shriek, only half-muffled by the way she buried her face in the sheets. Her legs locked around my head and she arched her back, almost lifting me to my knees. I struggled to keep attached, to take in all that I could; I was a little out of practice, but I couldn't bear the thought of wasting her. Any of her.
Finally, she subsided, and we fell back down to the bed together. I caught myself, and crawled up her twitching, sweat-slicked body, licking a path clear and enjoying that taste, too. She giggled breathlessly when I reached her ribs — she'd always been ticklish there — and wrapped her arms around my neck, smiling dreamily up at me with lidded eyes. I caressed her cheek and leaned in for a kiss. She returned it with surprising vigour.
We broke apart, with a whine from Emma. Unable to kiss me any longer, she turned and took my hand in hers, giving it her attentions instead. I dropped to the bed beside her, watching and smiling. She met my eyes, and we held the gaze for a long minute.
"I love you," I said, making her pause. "You know that, right? You — you'll always have a place beside me. I — I mean, maybe I never said that as much as I should have, but... it's true."
Emma swallowed, staring at me. "I love you, too, Taylor," she said, voice soft. A moment later, she gave a devilish grin, popped my fingers in her mouth, and started suckling and running her tongue along the sides, making exaggerated moans all the while. I realised those were the fingers I'd had inside her and blushed, even as my other hand crept down between my own legs and felt at the wetness there.
"But I haven't done you yet," Emma said in a husky tone, popping my fingers out of her mouth again and rolling on top of me.
"Wai — " I cut off with a high-pitched moan I couldn't hold back as Emma ran down my body and planted her mouth on my own sex, keeping my legs spread wide. Her tongue did things to me I couldn't quantify, each and every movement making me jerk and twitch and whine or squeal. I loved it. And I needed it badly. I reached down to grab her head, pulling her further into me while bucking against her, gasping her name over and over and over.
As far along as I already was, I didn't need much of her ministrations before replicating her earlier orgasm. The difference was, she didn't let up. Once the trembles subsided, she pulled back and slid her fingers in me, twisting and curling and thrusting in a way that seemed mad but was most definitely calculated. It was overwhelmingly glorious, despite — or perhaps because of — the almost-pain from my current sensitivity.
I tried to pull away, but she held me in place. With another grin, she lifted my hips up and sat between my legs. Our nethers touched. Then she began grinding against me, our wetnesses mixing and coating each other's groins, spreading heat between us, our nubs bumping and scraping in ways that left me thrashing against her even as I sat up and bucked in rhythm, adding my own weight to the grind.
Wet, fleshy slaps and smacks and schlicks filled the air, twisting and dancing with our incessant moans and nonsense exclamations of pleasure. Our fingers dug rivers into each other's skin as we held each other tight, seeking something I couldn't explain. I reached orgasm first, but she wasn't far behind, whimpering my name into my neck as my voice escaped me.
Together we collapsed, her splayed out atop my body, sweat cooling on our empty skin. We took the time to regain our breath, running slow, careless hands across each other's bodies. Emma sighed contently, snuggling into her usual spot against my side, laying her head against my neck. I prodded at her ribs and she giggled. Her hand sought out mine and intertwined our fingers. I smiled lazily. She'd always liked holding hands.
Minutes passed in blissful quiet, the both of us simply enjoying each other in the purest sense. But it couldn't last forever. The haze of sex lifted from my mind, and my fears and worries creeped back in. I squeezed Emma's shoulder, more to comfort myself than her.
"Run away with me."
She looked up at me. "What?"
I swallowed my hesitation. "I'm serious," I said. "Run away with me. We can barter for seats on a trader's cart or steal a horse or just walk. It doesn't matter, as long as we get away from this city."
Her eyes shimmered. "We can't."
"Why not?"
"A hundred reasons," she said bitterly. "What about your father? Isn't he still sick?"
"He's not — No," I said, holding back the sadness. "He died a month ago."
"Oh." Emma kissed my jaw gently. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you." I twirled a strand of her hair around my finger. "But he... I don't have any reason to stay here anymore, Emma. No obligations, no nothing. We can throw all this shit away and leave, just the two of us."
Emma shook her head against me. "I want to, Taylor, I really, really do. But I can't. What happens if I leave? What happens to my sisters? Father would make one of them marry Lord Demoux, instead of me. Or someone worse. What if he makes Vanessa do it? Or Anne? She never learned to control her temper. She'd get herself killed." She curled into herself. She felt so small. But her voice did not waver when she said: "I can't let that happen."
"You don't think your father would marry them off anyway?" I said. "It's just a matter of time. It doesn't matter whether you're there or not. You can't stop him. You have to worry about yourself first."
