He let go of her face, but not before pressing a kiss to her temple. “Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,” he said, knowing she liked Shakespeare, and eased up on her back. “You did what you had to to survive. It’s not the first time and it’s not the last, but it might be the most brutal.” His tone was matter-of-fact, not recriminating or angry. He agreed that she did what she must, absolutely. He would have done the same. Or worse.
As he straightened up, he kissed down her upper arm, his hands on her waist soothing until he reached her hips and gripped firmly to grind up against her again. “You did well to tell me that. Good girl.”
His words and kisses were suddenly soothing, making everything feel a little less sharp, a little less - as Merlin had said - brutal. A violent whiplash between demanding and pushing, and reward.
Now she focused on the feeling of him pressing into her from behind, the pull of her shoulders backwards down to the silk tie that bound them. She looked over her shoulder at him, the angle making it difficult but the intention there. “I want to be a good girl,” she told him, and there was an edge of begging desperation in her tone again.
“Of course you do.” Oh Luna, such a mixed-up little mortal, still so young and yet so experienced in many ways. For a moment he saw her sitting on a couch as a drunk, angry artist painted her, could almost feel the stiffness in her bones from not moving for too long. He had already seen how this ended, but this was the time before, when she was good and obedient and just let the man fuck her because that was what she had been told to do. “You are a good girl. You’re a survivor.”
His hand moved from her hip and back to her sex, fingers probing again, and he pulled the fabric up tight against her. “Tell me what you want.”