Untitled, Phedre/Nicola, NC-17 Title: Um, I don't have one, because I am lame. How about "Untitled"? Original, huh? Author:green_amber Fandom: Kushiel's Legacy Pairing: Phedre/Nicola l'Envers Rating: NC-17 Warnings: BDSM Summary: Phedre indulges her darker desires for the first time since Darsanga. Spoilers: through Kushiel's Scion A/N: Written June '07 for sionnain's birthday.
I waited, abeyante. The pearly marble of the floor chilled my knees through the thin fabric of my gown. I was grateful for the slight discomfort; it helped to take my mind off the swirling morass of guilt and nerves that assailed me this night.
There was a quiet click, and the door opened. I kept my eyes downcast, but the whisper of skirts on the tile told me that Nicola had arrived. A soft laugh, low and merry, told me she had caught sight of me, and then I saw her hand, heavy with gems, as she reached to cup my chin.
Her touch was at once familiar and alien. Familiar because she and I had been lovers, once; alien because it had been many years. Long years, some of them, and hard. I was not certain I was the same woman Nicola had known.
Nicola lifted my chin with her hand, forcing me to meet her violet gaze. Her fingertips were softer than Joscelin's; her touch was commanding in a way his was not. She was smiling. It was a smile I remembered well, and promised the most delicious cruelty. Kushiel's blood courses through the veins of House l'Envers. Whether this resulted from the coupling of the two Companions' mortal scions, or whether gentle Naamah herself yielded to mighty Kushiel, I did not know. I had never asked Delaunay, or Melisande.
Nicola's smile was suddenly very like Melisande's to me. Her eyes seemed to search my soul, to divine every secret I concealed.
"Phedre," she said. "You are a million miles away, cara."
"Ghosts, my lady," I said simply. The dead and the living. Delaunay, Melisande. The spectre of the year I'd nearly lost Joscelin. He'd sent me to Nicola with his blessing tonight, yet I could not shake the fears that hovered about me. What if he thought he could bear it, but could not?
"Come. We shall banish these phantoms, you and I." Nicola snaked her long fingers into my hair, gently at first, then seizing a thick hank of hair with an iron grip, pulling me to my feet. She led me to the bed, her bed, a sumptuous four-poster heaped high with satin and brocade. "Your signale is still the same?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Remove that gown, and lie down."
I obeyed, and Nicola climbed into the bed atop me, straddling my waist as she pulled two lengths of rope from I knew not where. Deftly she tied one wrist to the headboard, then the other, and again she smiled.
"Do not go anywhere, cara, she said, laughing at her jest as she slipped out of the bed. She opened an ebony chest and began to rummage through it. I heard the clink of metal, the soft slap of leather, and sighed in anticipation.
I tested my restraints; they held fast. The ropes chafed at my wrists and the delicate burning of it brought the first tendrils of red into my vision, and wet heat to my sex.
Nicola returned. She produced two tiny clamps. My nipples grew hard, aching for the pain, but instead she lowered her head to one breast and then the other, laving with her hot tongue. I must have cried out, because Nicola smiled and trailed one hand lightly between my thighs. "What a lovely little wanton you are," she murmured. I writhed, trying to hold her hand where I wanted it, but already she had drawn it away.
She placed one of the clamps on my nipple and I gasped at the burst of pain. When I had caught my breath, she applied the other. Then she climbed atop me again and kissed me, first on my lips, then harder on my neck and at my collarbone. I tangled my legs around her, wanting her closer, pressing my pearl of Naamah against her rough brocade skirt in a most undignified fashion.
"Naughty girl," she said, rising up again to lounge beside me in the bed. "I do believe you've ruined my gown."
"I…I'm sorry," I said, then saw that any damage to her gown was utterly invisible, and knew that this, too, was play. "How may I make it up to you, my lady?"
"Regretfully, I shall have to punish you." She picked up a flogger from the nightstand and trailed its leather tails over my skin. Her wrist flicked, and it was like fire, like water spilling over my breasts. Red filled my gaze as she struck me again, and again.
"Tell me what you want," she whispered.
"My lady…I want…"
"Yes?"
"Please, my lady. Touch me."
Her hand traveled to my sex again. She thrust two fingers deep into me; her nails were too long and it only added to the pleasure. My hips seemed to move of their own volition, rising and falling to match her rhythm, and the ropes cut deeper with every breath. Close, so close…
With her other hand Nicola pulled the clamps from my nipples. The world went scarlet as the blood rushed back in. Nicola slid a slick finger over my pearl of Naamah, and I shuddered, biting my lip as I came, tasting the metallic tang of blood.
This, as much as anything else, was what had made Nicola a lover and not a patron, I reflected as she cut my bonds away: She had always cared for my pleasure. I remembered other ropes, and a clever little knot, strategically placed…
Nicola poured me a goblet of wine and stroked my hair as I sank back to earth. I sipped it, considering all the delightful things I could do to pleasure Nicola. We would not sleep much this night, I was certain.