Kink Meme - Assassin's Creed pt.2

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Assassin's Creed Kink Meme pt.2
Fill Only

Welcome to the Brotherhood

∆ Comment anonymously with a character/pairing and a kink/prompt.

∆ Comment is filled by another anonymous with fanfiction/art/or any other appropriate medium.

∆ One request per post, but fill the request as much as you want.

∆ The fill/request doesn't necessarily need to be smut.

∆ Don't flame, if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything.

∆ Have a question? Feel free to PM me.

∆ Last, but not least: HAVE FUN!

List of Kinks
(Livejorunal) Archive
#2 (Livejournal) Archive
(Delicious.com) Archive
(Dreamwidth) Archive <- Currently active
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Fills Only
Discussion

Comments

In Name Alone 71/?

[(Anonymous)]

The wine, red and rich and darkened with hints of smoke, loosened her limbs. She moved more freely, her hips swinging, her gait lengthening as she walked to the center of town, where villagers danced in rounds to the lute and lap drum. The music soared. The women laughed, fawning into their dance partners as they looped around the dirt clearing. Lena watched, her head light and effervescent with wine, clapping one hand against her wrist in time to the rhythm of the drums. Her foot tapped, her hip jutting on the downbeat.

Yellow lanterns, hundreds of them, decorated the square. They pulled on the hemp lines strung between houses, sagging the ropes until the taller men had to duck them to keep from lighting their hair on fire. Magical, she thought, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Fantasy. Lena stared, entranced, the music, the wine and the dazzling lights conspiring into a warm feeling that centered over her chest and dissolved the anxiety still rooted in her heart. An assassin’s greatest weakness was the light and there was no lack of it here. The lanterns swayed, bobbing, their pools of light so numerous that they bled together, creating one immense halo around the dancers and tables.

“Una danza, señorita?”

Lena turned at the voice, nearly upsetting her cup from the start it gave her. A young man of twenty or so stood waiting, his hand extended. The laces of his shirt had come undone, a sheen of sweat along his brow from dancing in the warm corona of the lanterns. She glanced at the revelers, their feet and arms weaving intricate patterns as they formed chains and circles, came together, parted… Lena had never done much dancing. At festivals in Rome there was nearly always an assassin who overindulged early in the night and injured themselves in an impromptu duel or fell and bloodied their knees. She would be called back to the Order to tend to them and soon that one clumsy, drunk assassin was joined by others until she had a queue that kept her busy long into the night. Still, the offer was tempting, especially accompanied by the man’s sparkling brown eyes.

“One,” Lena said, smiling. “Yes, I’d like that.”

He took her hand and her wine cup, passing it to a breathless friend. He introduced himself as Gasper, brushing a chaste kiss across Lena’s knuckles as he led her to the dancers. She, apparently, needed no introduction. Everyone in town had heard of the little blonde woman who could perform miracles with her medicines and hands. Lena blushed at his description, flattered, and tried to recall the steps of the simple reel the musicians began. She listened more to the fiddle and the lute than the numbers and configurations tripping through her head. The rhythm never deceived her, free and tumbling, and Gasper was a fine leader, holding her tightly in his strong, farmer’s hands and deftly guiding her through the whirling villagers. Lena felt the braids in her hair loosen, one of the flowers tucked there flying into the air and spinning to the ground. She glimpsed, dizzily, Michelangelo on the fringe of the tables, his arms crossed under his great batwing smock as he smirked and observed the dance. It felt good to move, to forget Lucio and Cesare and just enjoy the presence of another living, breathing human. She might have spent most of her days holed up in the cottage away from the larger business of the town, but in that fleeting moment she felt part of the village, one of the townsfolk, just another campesino relieved to be away from the fields or the forge.

As they careened to a panting stop, Lena accepted another quick kiss on the hand from Gasper, remembering to curtsey and thank him. How fortunate, she thought, that these country folk wouldn’t notice her fumbling manners or ungainly dancing.

In Name Alone 72/?

[(Anonymous)]

Gasper gave her one last spirited turn and she came up short, skidding a little on her leather slippers. At the edge of the crowd, sticking out like a diamond in a box of rocks, was Cesare. Lena felt her heart flutter painfully in her chest, every muscle drawing up tight as she took in his height, his coy gaze and the casual tilt of his hips as he leaned on a new black cane. She had no idea where he had gotten his clothes, though Lena suspected Silvia and her many grown sons had something to do with it.

Lena drifted toward him as if jerked forward on an invisible thread. And he waited for her, knowingly, confidently, radiantly, destructively handsome in his striking blue shirt and antique ivory doublet. It all seemed to fit him just so, hugging tightly to the swells of his shoulders and clinging to the trim angles of his waist and chest. A light blue half-cloak had been tied diagonally across his body, hanging at a jaunty angle and rippling as he took one large step toward her. Perhaps most alluring of all was the new architecture she saw in his face, the points of his cheekbones and the sharp taper of his chin… A wolf, a beast, and she the lamb led hopelessly astray.

No, no… that wasn’t true. She had claws of her own. But they felt dulled, useless, as she studied the enthralling depths of his dark, dark gaze, even more startling now that his hair had been pulled back into a loose tail at his nape. Her palms itched to pull at the black ribbon holding his hair back and watch the ebony silk fall free across those incorrigible freckles.

Luckily, he seemed as intent on drinking her in as she was on memorizing his every inch. She blushed, late, too taken in by his appearance to notice the hungry way his eyes roamed over her body and the tight dress just barely holding her in. Under his observation she felt stark naked, her bare shoulders and décolletage prickling with goose flesh.

“Madam,” he said in a honeyed rasp. “I have a confession to make.”

“I’m listening,” Lena murmured, standing closer to him than was strictly proper.

“Not here,” Cesare said with a discrete shake of his head. He nodded toward the back of the crowd where the lanterns were sparser and the concentration of people not so dense. “Come.”

Lena followed closely as he pressed through the villagers, who parted easily to them, like a gentle flow of water. Together, they drew more than one curious glance, several ladies turning to giggle and elbow each other as Cesare slunk by. Lena couldn’t help but glare at them, blaming the instinct on a general desire to see him respected. Yet it was hard to blame them as her eyes drifted unbidden to the curve of his backside. Maybe she looked undeserving and provincial next to his effortless splendor, but Lena smiled with no small amount of pride as she noted a handful of young men giving her slack-jawed stares.

They emerged near a cobbler’s shack, its sloping overhang decorated with garlands and one single lantern. Lena turned, admiring the charming tableau of the crowd refolding, absorbing the trail they had left. The music continued, sweeping from one song into the next, giving the dancers no time to rest or catch their breaths. When she spun back Cesare had stopped abruptly and she narrowly avoided colliding with him, sidestepping at the last second only to feel his hand reach out to steady her.

The wine, not much of it and nothing strange about it, nonetheless made the boundaries of her vision blur into a pleasant haze. Cesare cleared his throat softly, leaning again on his new cane. A carved wolf’s head peered out from between his fingers. Lena shuddered, wondering if it was coincidence or something more sinister that the cane had been fashioned so; a vision of ragged men draped in stinking furs and leathers rushing toward her with clubs raised flashed in front of her eyes.

“Michelangelo’s design,” Cesare said, following her gaze. “The other was beginning to splinter.”

The wolf leered at her and she suppressed another shudder.

“You don’t like it,” he observed mildly. “I admit - it’s a bit grotesque.”

“Just too lifelike. That’s all.”

In Name Alone 73/?

[(Anonymous)]

They were avoiding something, she could feel it. Cesare seemed to sense it too, shifting idly from foot to foot as they stood in the golden gleam of the lantern. They would be safe, she thought, so long as they stuck to the light. A traitorous murmuring in her head suggested they leave the light and find a dark alley where they might not be seen or judged. Lena swallowed, hard, forcing herself to meet his eye and ignore the frantic skipping of her pulse. Even in stillness and silence he surrounded her, more presence than any one man should be allowed, his scent and gaze real, palpable, wrapping around her chest and squeezing the life out of it.

“My confession…” he began with some hesitation.

Lena grinned, fingering the velvety top layer of her skirts as she said lightly, “Shall I fetch you a priest?”

Cesare’s gaze darkened before her eyes, his smile fading to a quivering frown. “What I have to say should not be heard by any man of God. Il dio lo aiuta, you should not hear it either, but I can hold it in no longer.”

His grip tightened on the cane and the bubbly, fizzy feeling in Lena’s chest evaporated, replaced by cold, hard dread. She searched his face, suddenly afraid, wondering if perhaps the menacing wolf on his cane was some kind of horrid omen. Perhaps this was the end – perhaps he had remembered everything and she saw not the Cesare she had come to know and trust, but the Borgia murderer she had feared and hated. What if, when next he looked at her, his gaze was that of a cruel predator?

“You’ve remembered,” Lena whispered, her throat constricting painfully around a lump.

Cesare shook his head, setting his soft ponytail bouncing against his neck. “No, girasole, the revelations I’ve had do not involve my previous life but… but that which I hope replaces it.”

He frowned, the dimples in his cheeks turning sorrowful and boyish as he rubbed at his beard. Nervous, Lena thought. He was nervous. But if it had nothing to do with his past then what could make him look so downtrodden?

Cesare moved quickly, with more speed than she thought possible given he was still on the mend. He took her hand, cradling it lightly in his sweat-dampened palm. Lena jolted from the sudden contact, her pulse racing again as he closed his fingers over hers.

“I will make a horrible mess of my words if I dawdle,” he said, laughing darkly. A slender lock of hair slid free of the ribbon, falling roguishly in front of his eyes as he glanced up, adding hoarsely, “The night we slept side by side on your bed… In my dreams I may have… have taken certain liberties.”

Her skin tightened all over.

“I woke and… and you were in my arms.” Cesare paused, sighed, shivering as if reliving the memory. “I’m sure it was more complicated than that but if it was I don’t remember. We… you were so sweet, I couldn’t… but I…” He blew out a frustrated breath, wincing. “Inferno santo, why is this so impossible?”

For her part, Lena was frozen. The hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up.

“I stopped myself,” Cesare hurried on, putting up a hand as if that might keep her from jumping to any unfortunate conclusions. His expression softened, the earthen color of his eyes growing wet and gleaming. Lena’s breaths shortened, seeping out in a weak stream as she stared up at him. “Of course I stopped myself. But… if we were to somehow find ourselves in that position again I should like for you to be awake and I should like to continue. Good lord, I… this is no longer a confession, Lena. I’m asking, no, God no, I’m begging - ”

Later, she would blame her sudden passion on the wine. Her feet lifted and Lena was on her toes and her arms went about his neck. Their lips met, hard, and Lena felt one strong, supporting arm slide around her back. Cesare’s mouth slanted, opening to her, a rough, rolling groan rumbling through his body and into hers. She touched his hair, carefully, running her fingertips through the inky strands gathered at his neck. Warm… bold… masculine… his taste was like nothing she had experienced before. It pried apart some steely, hardened core in her stomach, releasing a delicious ache that spread rapidly through her arms and legs.

In Name Alone 74/?

[(Anonymous)]

His tongue fenced hers playfully, sparking a sensation that almost tickled and Lena couldn’t help but laugh into his lips, unbound, slightly crazed, but unwilling to disentangle even for a second.

Cesare crushed her to his chest, thrusting his tongue into her mouth with more and more purpose until the lusty implications could no longer be ignored. Her insides melted, heat scorching through her veins, burning a path to her belly, where a knot began to grow. Nothing, save perhaps the rhythm of his tongue against hers and the feel of his hard chest pressing against her breasts, could dislodge the tangle of emotions in her gut. She would burst, she decided, if she was made to release him and lose the feverish beauty of his kiss.

But at last he pulled away, gently, planting one last grateful kiss on her swollen lower lip.

“And you are not angry about the… about my little confession?” he asked shyly.

“I allowed you to stay. You may have misbehaved in dreams, but you were a gentleman when you woke.”

Cesare’s chin dipped in a shaky smile.

“My little flower,” he murmured, tipping his forehead against hers. His voice lowered, rough and smoky. “Shall I pluck you at last and keep you for my own?”

Lena smirked, delirious, and let her hands drop down around his shoulder to rest on his chest. “Can we stay?” she asked, her fingertips finding the gap in his shirt collar. She traced along the edge, feeling the warmth of his skin and the raffish curls of his chest hair. “Could we dance?”

Cesare’s cheeks flamed, his eyes darting quickly to the side. “I can walk and stumble, cucciola mia, but little else. I would embarrass us both.” He took in her crestfallen expression and hastily added, “But we could perhaps dance here, in the shadows. Just the two of us, mm?”

Lena nodded, chewing coquettishly on her lip. “I… think I could use another cup of wine.”

“Be swift,” he replied, resting his shoulder against the cobbler’s workshop. The way he beheld her, with so much barely-contained pride, sent a tingling arrow to her heart. “And fetch me a cup too, eh? Perhaps it will keep my hands from shaking.”

Lena floated to the tables, her toes only brushing the ground, her fingers numb with giddiness as she threaded through the villagers to seek out the wine jugs. Her lips still burned pleasantly, branded with the fire of his embrace. She wanted to shriek, scream, pressure and joy and elation building to a boil in her breast. Nothing could have prepared her for the slew of conflicting emotions still knotting in her belly – she wanted him, craved him, and knowing that a potentially deadly beast lay caged in his mind somehow only made her burn for him that much stronger. It was silly to court danger, to find a sensual thrill in the unknown, but it was unavoidable in this case; she sensed the darkness in him, how could she not? And yet she knew it was dormant for now and – hopefully – forever. But no man, Lena decided with a blushing smirk, could kiss like that and be entirely innocent at heart.

She reached the wine at last, finding that the jugs that had been laid out were empty. An enfeebled man tended the table, begging her forgiveness as he waved in the direction where the wagon, carrying more wine, waited. He volunteered to bring over another jug for her, but the poor man looked ready to collapse under the weight of his bald head. Lena followed his pointed finger, trotting off into the darkness, down a shallow path of uneven gravel, to the promised wagon. She groped in the shadows for the wine, finding that there were also crates of cheeses and vegetables heaped high on the boards. The wine, in fact, was toward the front of the wagon, hidden behind a series of empty barrels. Lena hoisted herself into the cart, mindful of her new dress and Silvia’s feelings, and scampered over a box of leafy-topped carrots.

The smooth handle of the wine jug was in her hand when she felt the faintest, lightest prick of pain in her ankle. But she started and dropped the earthenware jug, shocked, knowing at once what it was.

“Lucio,” she whispered, the world already swimming in front of her eyes. “Please,” she added, knowing her words would be ignored, “not now… not tonight.”

In Name Alone 75/?

[(Anonymous)]

-~-

Lena jolted awake on a dirty floor scattered with hay. The air around her was thick with the uric smell of horses and fur and she groaned, unsurprised when no sound came out. It was, ironically, a poison she had devised, more sedative than weapon, a concoction used to immobilize victims, usually for transportation or to keep them silent without resorting to murder. Of course all members of the Order would have access to it or could, if they were gifted enough, learn to make the potion themselves.

Straining her ears, she listened for any signs of life around her. A low hum of sound ran beneath the silence of the building… a rhythmic percussion and mumbling roar. The festival. If the party was still going, then it couldn’t have been long since Lucio found and poisoned her. In fact, there was no way she should be waking yet – either he had used an extremely low dosage or he had bungled the ratio of ingredients.

That gave her a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the effects of the poison would wear off sooner than Lucio expected.

Dazed, she stared out at the dark room. Judging from the high ceiling and smell, it was some kind of stable or small barn. She tried to move her arms. Nothing. Lena could not even tremble, locked into her body, capable of seeing and hearing and feeling but not moving. Her insides churned, the potion leaving her sick and unsteady. Given the sharp burn in her wrists and ankles, she could imagine that Lucio had tied her up, but for what purpose she could only dare to think.

A light flickered in a distant corridor and then grew, coming nearer. Lucio’s heavy footfalls echoed on the floor against her head, and she watched, helpless to do otherwise, as he approached, a carriage lantern swinging from his fist. He lit a wall sconce and then another, the flames leaping sharply up toward the ceiling. He was dressed in his assassin whites, a wide, black scarf obscuring his mouth and nose beneath his pointed hood. A paper parcel lay folded over his arm. Lena squinted at it as he knelt beside her.

“Did you think I could let you continue on in that humiliating way?” Lucio hissed, fussing with her bonds. Whether he freed her or not, it did not matter. She had no choice but to lie there, still as a corpse. “It doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter. Everything will be as it was. It’s all prepared… You will see, Lena. You will see how much better this is for everyone.”
She wanted to argue, kick, rip the lying tongue from his mouth. Her eyes followed his hands as they opened the parcel, an outfit matching his own inside.

“You have no idea the trouble I went through to get this,” Lucio continued, indicating the assassin robes. Below the white cowl, his face poured with sweat. Her internal panic grew to a fever pitch as he began unlacing her gown, tugging savagely at the strings, the boning in the bodice cutting into her skin. “I’m taking you away from here. It’s… It’s destroying you. You were a woman of honor, Lena, and you can be again. This will all be forgotten when we return to Rome.”

His hands worked with devilish efficiency. Soon the dress lay loose about her arms and shoulders. Lena eyed the assassin clothes meant for her. Calm down, she told herself, calm down, keep your wits about you. Perhaps he only meant to change her clothes. Giving in to fear would only deaden her instincts and make the poison more effective. Lucio gave another quick tug and the corset came free about her waist, sliding down and down, over her hips, until there was nothing but her thin chemise between her skin and Lucio’s hands.

Breathe… wait… wait… don’t panic… all is not lost…

Blood roared in her ears as he picked up the fresh assassin whites and shook them out. “There is nothing for you here now, Lena. Can you not see? I will not have you making Perotto’s mistakes. We must look out for each other. I’m your friend, Lena, your savior. That’s what the Order is for. We will return to Rome. You mustn’t worry. You mustn’t. All is taken care of, Lena. You… me… the Borgia pig…”

Cesare.

In Name Alone 76/?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh God, he was probably still waiting for her under that single lovely lantern. Lena felt a tear rush down over her cheek. He probably thought that she had fled, a coward, abandoning him to his doubts to pass a lonely evening in disappointment. The fire in her veins leapt, scorching, flooding her body with righteous fury. The poison would wear off eventually. If she could just keep him from sticking her with it again, she might be able to fight back. And if the dose was low and the potion brewed incorrectly, then there was double the chance that her limbs would come back to life soon.

“The letter is away,” Lucio went on absently, sweating more profusely. “Soon they will come and there’s nothing to do about it now. We can only pray the Order is not upset with us. I have faith, Lena, I do. We will pray together, yes? When we are safely away from here we will pray.”

The assassin tore at her chemise, ripping it in half over her body. Again Lena tried to wriggle and struggle, more tears stinging her eyes; it wasn’t much, but her toes strained, twitching at her command. Humiliated, Lena watched Lucio’s gloved hands hesitate near her breasts, no doubt his honor warring with his baser desires. With one hand he picked up the clothing intended for her and with the other he gently, slowly, caressed the trembling curve of her right breast. Lena clenched her eyes shut, too horrified and enraged to summon the energy to observe her own defilement. She would kill him. Today or the next day, she would destroy him for this indignity. Her fingertips bent. Soon! Soon, if she could just hold on she might yet see him punished for this.

The bastard had not just stolen something from her, but from Cesare as well.

A crackling boom deadened the air. Lucio gasped, lurching forward, a spray of blood arcing up and out of his shoulder.

“Fuck! Merda!”

Lena felt a warm splatter land across her cheek. Crying out, Lucio fell back onto his haunches, placing a trembling hand over the bubbling wound that spread a scarlet stain across his white vest. He fumbled for his weapons, remembering himself, dropping his dagger and cursing, his hand too slick with blood to grasp it properly.

Lena’s eyes shifted beyond him, to the corridor, where the lanterns glowed around a tall figure, his silhouette backlit by the golden flames. His hand still held out the slender pistola, a thin vapor of smoke coiling from its end.

One step, two, and both accompanied by a distinctive thump and scrape. Relief… fear… Lena struggled to breathe.

“Ahh Lucio,” Cesare purred, his voice soft with velvety malice. “You should not have interfered. Lena and I were passing such a pleasant evening together…” He clucked his tongue, approaching at a languid pace. “I do so hate interruptions.”

Then Cesare’s gaze shifted momentarily to Lena and she shivered, his eyes taking in her small, naked form and the blood dotted across his face. His eyes narrowed, all but burning her with their shrewd intensity. He would assume, naturally, that Lucio had not only stripped her but perhaps done far more. She wanted to call out to him, warn him, tell him that she would take care of Lucio, that he shouldn’t get involved. But her jaw locked, unresponsive, and she could do nothing but watch and curse her wretched state as Lucio crawled to his feet only to receive the carved end of Cesare’s cane across his face.

Lucio spun from the power of the blow, crumpling to the floor.

“I warned you, did I not?” Cesare grasped the wolf’s head on his cane, giving a short twist before pulling, a blade emerging from the cane as if from a slim scabbard. “I warned you never to find yourself at my mercy…”

Cesare advanced on him, aiming the blade for his throat. Lucio back-crawled away from him, panting and sputtering.

“Putana! You armed him? You… you… how could you?”

Lena had to wonder if she knew this Cesare or if the scent of blood reverted him to the violent animal he had once been. But this was not the man from Rome that she had watched rail and throw a tantrum as the papal guards arrested him. He was contained, purposeful as he aimed both the pistola and blade at Lucio.

“No,” Cesare said in a haughty rasp. “I armed myself.”

In Name Alone 77/?

[(Anonymous)]

“Bullshit!” Lucio stopped, backing into a sagging pillar. He clasped his wound, fading.

“I know you’ve been watching me,” Cesare said calmly. “I know you followed us on our walks… assassin.”

At last Lena felt her jaw move, just a bit, but enough for her to squeeze out a few urgent words. “Don’t… don’t kill him. Let me do it… Let me.”

Cesare turned at the waist, his expression softening as their eyes met. He looked back at Lucio, smirking. “Michelangelo was good enough to fill in the gaps for me. So I’ve come prepared, Lucio. I know now what to expect.”

“It doesn’t matter what you do!” Lucio shouted, spittle running down his chin. “It doesn’t… It… The letter is away. It’s already done.”

Cesare shrugged, turning the cane-blade this way and that, the lantern light catching its edge and glinting. “I ought to do so much more, Lucio, but I will deny her nothing. She will be the one to kill you.”

“Finish me,” Lucio pleaded, the spit running out of his mouth becoming tinted with red. “Just do it… now, you coward, kill me now.”

“I think not.”

Lena flinched, unable to tear her eyes away, as Cesare’s blade sank into Lucio’s gut. He twisted the cane, just a little, before pulling it out with a sick, squelching sound. Cesare stood back, staring down impassively at Lucio as he struggled to cover both his bleeding shoulder wound and his pierced stomach.

“There’s the medico,” Cesare murmured. “See if she will heal you.”

Lucio flipped onto his side, wailing from the pain, his assassin whites now more red than ivory. He reached toward her, his hand opening and closing as he whispered, “Please… Lena… I’ll leave. You’ll never see me again, just… please. I beg of you - help me. I’ll do… anything… I’ll do anything you want!”

“You’re hardly in the position to bargain,” Cesare mused, wiping the soiled end of his blade on Lucio’s pant leg. He sheathed the blade back into the cane and walked as quickly as he could toward her. Lena tried to cover herself, ashamed of her nudity and the ignominy of lying on a dirty barn floor with Lucio’s blood painted across her cheek.

Lucio continued to plead. She ignored him.

“My s-shift is ruined,” she said as Cesare reached her. She nodded awkwardly toward the clean assassin whites. His hands, large and warm, enveloped her face.

“Did he harm you?” Cesare asked, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. “Was I too late?”

“I’m fine,” Lena murmured, shivering and squirming until she could cover her bare chest with her arms. “The poison is wearing off.” She managed a thin smile. “You were just in time.”

Cesare leaned lower, grunting from the strain on his still-mending legs. “Let me help you dress,” he said, “and then we will leave this horrid place.”

Lena nodded, not caring if Lucio spent the night in agony. He would die. Gut wounds were notoriously difficult to treat and Lena had no interest in dulling his pain. At that moment, she wanted only a soft place to rest and perhaps a warm cup of wine to ease her unsettled stomach. Cesare lifted her arms gently, averting his eyes with a wan half-smile.

“I was so… And when I saw you… I thought he had…”

“He meant to change me into these clothes and take me back to Rome.” She decided it would be unwise to mention Lucio’s brief foray into assaulting her. One glimpse of Cesare’s temper was more than enough. Cesare tipped her forward into his arms, settling the fitted linen shirt around her middle and tugging on the matching vest. More and more feeling returned to her muscles and soon she was doing most of the work, pulling up her own breaks and doing the frogs at her waist with tremulous fingers.

“Thank you,” Lena murmured, pressing her forehead to Cesare’s jaw. “I’m sorry.”

His breath skittered down her neck, tickling the sensitive skin over her collar bone. Then his arms were about her and together they stood.

“Do not apologize, girasole,” Cesare said, anchoring her with one arm wrapped firmly around her waist. “The night is long and I mean to spend it at your side.”



Where is everyone? It's lonely in here. :(

Re: In Name Alone 77/?

[(Anonymous)]

OH MY LORD. Three whole parts waiting for me when I get home? CHRISTMAS ALMOST-NEW YEAR'S MIRACLE. XD

You had me quite worried for Lena's virtù. Thank goodness her knight in nonexistent shining armor came along!

Re: In Name Alone 77/?

[(Anonymous)]

We are still here, lurking in silence while eagerly awaiting your next post

Re: In Name Alone 77/?

[(Anonymous)]

Awesome. Just checking to see if readers were still hanging about. :) Will try to update lots today...

Re: In Name Alone 77/?

[(Anonymous)]

I think everybody is sitting in front of their PC being rendered speachless by the overload of awesome that is your story ._.

In Name Alone 78/?

[(Anonymous)]

All-aboard the smut train. Toot-toot!


-~-

“This doesn’t seem right at all,” Lena said, staring down at her clothes as Cesare held the door for her. She limped inside, her movements strained and ungainly as Lucio’s poison continued to wear off.

“What would that be?” Cesare asked.

“Wearing this,” Lena replied. Silvia had left a taper burning for them and Lena did her best to light the other candles in the room. He knew better than to offer help. The poor thing had just been at the mercy of a mad kidnapper, she didn’t need to feel helpless again so soon. Cesare lingered in the doorway, fingering the edge of the cloak draped across his shoulder. He ought to give her privacy, make one last check to be certain that she was feeling well and let her rest until the poison’s effects were completely gone. But he was rooted to the spot. His heart had not slowed since their kiss, its erratic speed stuck between panicked and elated.

Cesare held out the blue gown folded over his arm, spying a dark stain along the bottom half of the skirts. Silvia would forgive them; she would be glad, or at least mollified, to know that the wine stain there had led Cesare to Lucio’s hideaway. He tried not to think what might have happened had that one jug of wine not broken and left the droplets that trailed from the wagon to Lena.

Lena rounded the bed, the cozy room now glowing with the presence of dozens of flickering flames. Even so, a strange chill resonated from the window and door. Her braids hung loose, kinked and undone but still dotted with tiny flowers. She smiled up at him shyly as she took the gown, frowning at the stain. Cesare dug into his doublet, producing the small pistol he had taken from her trunk.

“I believe this is yours,” he said. “I would not have looked through your things but…”

“I’m glad you did.”

Silence. This was where a dose of bravado would serve him well. If only he had Lena’s bravery he might lean down and kiss her and banish the awkward stillness between them. He did not say that the smell of gunpowder on his hand made his head dizzy with half-remembered images and sounds. A man’s voice, familiar and yet completely alien, telling him sternly that a weak man would only be pitied and never respected, not even by women and fools. And when that voice faded others came - screams of battle, of anguish, and a buzzing in his brain as if cannons had detonated mere inches away…

Lena tucked the dress away and the gun, her movements more fluid and natural as time tripped on and he continued to dawdle like a fool in the doorway.

She stood at the foot of the bed, pulling gently at the loose strings on her vest.

“Could you turn around?” she asked, gazing at him with those disarmingly wide eyes. “I’d like to be rid of these clothes.”

Cesare nodded, doing as she asked, and then stopped. Just those imprecise, hazy memories alarmed him. What if it was a herald of more to come? And if he remembered more or anything or - God forbid – everything, Cesare understood it would not take Lena’s poisons or knives to end him. Guilt and self-loathing killed as surely as steel. Time, it seemed, was against them. He turned back to her and Lena froze, her elbows midway in the air as she lifted them to remove her vest. Tossing his cane onto an empty chair, Cesare took two long strides and herded her into his embrace, holding her warm little body to his chest, exalting in the pulse he felt thrumming violently beneath her soft skin.

“No,” he said, kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her nose… “I can’t turn away.” He tugged at the vest and her shirt. “I won’t.”

It seemed silly then that he had waited so long to submit to the roaring in his head, the savage whisper that urged him to take her, possess her, find every spot that made her gasp and writhe. This… this passion was native to him, emerged like a breath, a sigh, a groan. Lena arched into him, pressing insistently against him, her hands ripping the ribbon from his hair. Her sharp nails scraped across his scalp, spreading the strands of his hair before combing over and over again, sending hard shivers down his spine.

In Name Alone 79/?

[(Anonymous)]

Lower he dared and lower, Lena’s breath came in one gasp that made her chest leap beneath his touch. Ticklish, he thought, smirking into her skin. He felt her pulling at his clothing, strong fingers plucking at cape, shirt, doublet… Cesare stilled, his cheeks flushed and tremendously warm as he leaned back to kneel between her thighs. He ignored the dull roar in his legs, the throb of pain that almost distracted him from the delicious sight before him. She was slimmer than her clothing let on, not frail, but all sinew and bone. Cesare fought a hiccup of distress as he tangled with his own clothes, knowing now why Silvia was always going on about making Lena eat more. And it upset him that she had lost her appetite on his account. No one so pretty ought to worry so much.

“Let me help,” Lena murmured, yanking at his cloak.

“You’re poisoned,” he grunted, smiling in response to her yelp of outrage. “You’ll only make the knot worse.”

“Perhaps if I am so enfeebled it would be better for you to go.”

“I sense a challenge in your tone, madam,” Cesare replied hotly, “and I will not hesitate to meet it.”

“No challenge. Only admonishment, you big oaf. Here…” Her help was welcome, efficient, and he marveled at the way she undid the ties of his cloak and tossed it aside, her hands falling at once to the toggles on his doublet. Cesare watched, still, his hands falling to his sides as he simply enjoyed the sight of his half-naked nymph undress him. Smooth and young and fresh everywhere. Had he known something so basic would give him such a surge of lust, he would have begun all his daydreams this way, with her long fingers skimming down his shirtfront. His eyes roamed to her breasts, his mouth flooding at the notion that soon, unbearably soon, he would taste the sweet buds that had plagued his nights and given his hand a nasty cramp from overindulgence. Unable to wait until she had divested him entirely, Cesare lunged forward with his shirt still halfway over his shoulders.

“Impatient boy,” Lena teased, but her arms slid encouragingly around his neck.

“You are the wicked temptress,” he returned smoothly, “and I merely the hapless dupe caught in your thrall.”

“Oh yes, and you are perfectly innocent, signore.”

He meant to respond but found his mouth too full to accommodate words and too pleasantly engaged around her breast. Heat coasted through his veins, setting alight sensations long dead. A beast stirred in him, one Cesare was not certain he could not control. Lena arched into his mouth, her nipple hardening between his lips as he bathed it ardently with his tongue. This he knew. This he understood. Though he could not remember his teachers, their lessons remained, ingrained deep in his instincts. She contorted beneath him as if struck by a bolt of lightning, a low, mewling sound dripping from her lips as he began to suckle more intently at her breast.

“Cesare…” Lena’s voice was music, soft and graveled, roughened with abandon. “I dreamed of this.”

Her fingers tightened in his hair.

“Liar,” Cesare murmured, kissing across her collarbone to her other breast. He licked a broad stripe up the center of it.

“I did,” she insisted. “Though in the dream we were both wearing less…”

“My only desire, dear heart, is to make your fantasies come true.”

It drew a bubbly giggle from her throat, the quick, sure way he drew down the loose assassin trousers. There would be time later to dwell on the morbidity, or perhaps the eroticism, of his removing those clothes from her. For now, Cesare was content to have more of her skin exposed to his eager hands.

In Name Alone 80/?

[(Anonymous)]

Sighs, beautiful and escalating, drifted down to him from above. She felt tiny in his arms, smaller now stripped of her clothing and her bravado. Perhaps Lena was realizing the same thing, that in their humblest element they were changed, not brought low, but simplified. It was the difference between a cup of wine and the ripe grape from which it was made – one was pleasurable, certainly, but the grape was the more miraculous, sprung of soil and sun and water, a tiny, perfect orb that contained volumes of possibility. Cesare sucked noisily at her breast, curious to find what possibilities lay within Lena, within the intriguing woman squirming and gasping beneath his touch.

Her stomach tightened, flexing under his fingertips as he directed his attention lower. The muscles spasmed violently, her entire body giving a sudden lurch.

“Sensitive,” Cesare murmured, fluttering kisses over her saliva-slicked bosom and down to her waist. “Or nervous?”

“B-Both I think,” Lena whispered, clutching his neck.

Cesare glanced up at her from where he was busy dipping his tongue into her navel. He stopped, pausing at the shadow of fear that flickered across her features. By now she trusted him, he depended on that fact, so what could halt her now…?

“Oh tesora, this is new to you.”

Lena pulled her lower lip between her teeth, staring down at him with her eyebrows tented and her hands trembling on his scalp. “I’m not… entirely without experience. But I… I never reserved much time for lovers, you see and… well, I don’t feel like I should need to make excuses. It’s nothing to be a-ashamed of, it’s not! Oh Cristo, don’t look at me that way.”

She took her hands away, using them both to cover her flaming cheeks.

Cesare tugged gently at her elbows, missing the rasp of her nails across his skin.

“What way?”

“Like I’m… some sort of glass bauble you might shatter.”

“Glass is hard, cold,” Cesare purred, nosing against the indentations of her stomach. “You are warm, dear one, and alive, but shall I treat you tenderly all the same?”

“Yes, please.”

“And considering I cannot remember any kiss but yours, this is a first for me as well.”

Lena snorted, drawing a punishing pinch from Cesare. “Your scandalous conquests were the talk of Rome for years.”

“Scandalous, perhaps,” Cesare growled, narrowing his eyes, “but clearly not very memorable.”

“You don’t seem unskilled,” Lena replied gently, finally returning her fingers to his hair. She pushed the waves off of his face, one pink fingertip prancing across his cheeks and nose, no doubt pressing against each of his many freckles. Cesare caught that finger in his teeth, sucking it into his mouth and rolling his tongue against it. Lena’s eyelids fluttered shut. He noted, with her hand so near to his eyes, a grisly burn scar on her left ring finger, where a wedding band might go.

“Michelangelo spoke of this,” Cesare said, pulling her finger from his mouth with a wet pop. He studied the burn more closely, despite Lena’s efforts to draw it out of his grasp. “It is the mark of your Order, yes? A symbol of your commitment.”

“I don’t want to talk about that right now,” she replied, breathless.

“Why not?”

Lena glared, a frosty brightness glowing in her big eyes.

“There are other marks,” Cesare continued conversationally, continuing his expedition south. Her glaring stopped, her thick eyelashes lowering like a pair of lady’s fans as he planted lingering kisses on the tops of her thighs. He grinned, finding that she was as blonde above as she was below. Moisture glinted in the pretty curls sprinkled demurely over her womanhood. Lena tried to jerk his head away but Cesare persisted, intently observing her sex, his tongue burning to taste her.

“W-What sort of marks?”

“I thought you weren’t interested in talk…”

“Cesare.”

He relented with a smooth chuckle, pressing one hard, possessive kiss into her soft yellow curls. “Invisible marks,” Cesare said in a husky whisper. Her scent was making it difficult to form a coherent thought. How long had he imagined this moment? This sweet pause before the moment of discovery? “Marks that we wear inside, on our hearts…”

In Name Alone 81/?

[(Anonymous)]

That was the most he could offer, drugged by her proximity and the endearing way her thighs twitched open, a silent invitation. Cesare took it, reminding himself sharply that haste was not acceptable, that she deserved to be savored. The snarling, snapping beast would have to remain in its cage, locked up until he was certain such brutish behavior would not alarm her. Yet he could not contain the lusty groan that followed the first touch of his tongue to her slit. She was soaked, dripping for him, and Cesare buried his face in her wetness and her scent, hunger made human, passion gripping him like a fist and shaking until he felt sure his bones would rattle apart.

“Oh God,” Lena’s hands turned to fists around his hair. “You mustn’t… You… I…”

Cesare smirked, peeling her apart with fingers and tongue, delighted to find that his fantasies were shadowy imposters of the real thing. No dream, however vivid, could rival the rich tang of salted arousal that flowed ever more swiftly as he delved into her. He lost himself, articulating his satisfaction at finding her so wet and willing by humming low in his throat, moaning when her body began to work back against him, grinding into the thrusts of his tongue. Lena’s hips rose up clear off the bed when he sank a finger into her molten slickness, a cry muffled as she seemed to finally remember there were others in the house.

“As loud as you like, girasole,” Cesare whispered, twisting his finger within her. “I am not ashamed of our desire.”

“I – oh!” Lena arched again, her words falling short as he pressed deeper, deeper… seeking to draw more of those delicious cries from her lips. She was devilishly tight, but Cesare wasn’t interested in only feeling her shallows. His firmness was rewarded with a particularly vulgar cry as his tongue slipped over a hidden pearl within her folds. Flickers of memory guided him, inspiring him to lick her there again and again, swirling his tongue and pumping his finger until her cries became one long wail of pleasure, her hips jerking against his face with bruising force.

“You’ll break my nose,” Cesare teased as her body grew still and quiet, her panting hitching as she laughed.

“Forgive me,” Lena said, blushing. “It… H-How did you do that?”

“You require a second demonstration, madam?”

“Yes.”

Cesare found it far more difficult to concentrate the second time around. Her moaning and writhing was making for a very strained situation in his drawers, which was the last piece of clothing to remain, inexplicably, in place. The friction between his waist and the blankets was becoming troublesome, spurring him toward a release he was determined not to spend in his underwear. Perseverance won him another dazed, incredulous expression from Lena, who looked for all the world as if she had just discovered fire for the first time in human history. Cesare was given little time to gloat, a pair of fiendishly strong hands grabbing him by the hair and yanking him upward.

“Lena, I - ”

Her kiss silenced whatever nonsense Cesare was about to spout, banishing words to hell as her tongue slid against his, her intoxicating taste shared between them. Perhaps he was not the only one with a caged beast waiting inside, he mused. Her hands pushed and pushed until she could wriggle out from under his weight. Quickly and before he could protest, Lena snatched up his shoulder and flipped him. How a woman of her diminutive size could manage such a thing he didn’t know. Cesare didn’t particularly care of the ‘how’ of the thing, not when Lena was scooting down his body and unlacing the ties on his braies as if it were a matter of life and death. He swallowed thickly, bracing for her reaction.

“Cesare,” she whispered, her eyes growing wider as his erection pushed free of the loosened fabric. “My God.”

“You’re…” Cesare winced, focusing entirely on her face. “Pleased?”

In Name Alone 82/?

[(Anonymous)]

Lena’s answer was more gratifying than any gush of spoken praise. She reached for him, gingerly, her hands wrapping around his length and squeezing experimentally. In her delicate hands he looked freakishly large and Cesare hoped the hitch he heard in her breathing was a sound of appreciation and not fear. His eyes clenched shut, blood thundering in his ears as she pulled her fists up and down his generous length. It went on for what felt like forever, her careful exploration, gentle strokes that became steadier, his cock leaping in her grasp, desperate for more, for release…

Cesare’s eyes snapped open, his fingers balling in the sheets on either side of his waist as he felt a hot, wet tongue licking along the underside of his erection. He almost blurted out that this was not necessary, that he didn’t expect or demand perfect reciprocity, but Lena hardly looked put upon, smiling dreamily as she tasted him. She made a soft, sweet mm’ing sound that shot straight to his spine, tingling jolts of excitement skipping down his back before settling in his gut. Carefully, Cesare cupped her face, feeling the tendons in her jaw begin to work as she opened her lips and took the head of him into her mouth. He clamped down on the urge to shove his hips forward, trembling with the force of his need as she took as much of him as she could, which wasn’t much, admittedly, but enough that his toes curled and bold, liquid warmth flooded his chest.

“Is this… Am I doing this properly?” she asked in a voice so tiny and timid that Cesare couldn’t help but laugh. She blushed at the sound.

“Your hands more like this,” he instructed gently, shifting his fingers to wrap tightly around hers. “You needn’t…” Cesare paused, mourning that there were no elegant ways to phrase such things. “Your tongue is enough, mm? Don’t worry about… about putting it all in your mouth.”

Lena nodded, still flushing to the tops of her ears. Her soft breasts brushed his thighs and he gulped, praying for strength, for just a few more moments of this before his body overthrew his will. With a firmer grip on his shaft and her tongue working in enthusiastic circles around his pulsing head, it wasn’t long before Cesare felt the telling tug of pressure in his gut, the one that intensified in strength and pleasure until he was nearly tearing the blankets in his fists as he tried to keep from reaching his crisis. He might have held back, too, but for the expression of interest on Lena’s face. The sight of her sprawled in his lap, happily stroking and lapping at his cock was too much to stand.

“Dear God,” he murmured, his head dropping back uselessly on the pillow. “Stop,” Cesare added weakly, “you must… stop before I… Lena… I said stop - ”

She did, but too late, the sensations building on top of one another, mounting until he watched, self-loathing and ecstasy vying for dominance as his hips jerked into her grasp, pearly strands of liquid spurting against her still-opened lips. His vision toppled. Surely this was a hallucination and not reality. His body jolted with another spasm of delight as Lena’s lips sealed over him, the last pulses of his release landing across her tongue. Breathing raggedly, Cesare stroked his thumb across her cheek, wondering when she would spit and twist her expression into one of disgust. But that look of revulsion never came. Lena swallowed, tentatively, a fresh blush spreading across her chest and cheeks as he gaped at her.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” Cesare admitted hoarsely. “You were simply too good, felt too good…” Her tongue darted out along her lower lip, capturing the last of his spent seed. Cesare groaned. “What divine hand forged you, tesora?”

“It’s only fair,” Lena said sensibly, still cradling his softening prick. It wouldn’t be limp for long, he mused, hot blood still spiraling through his overstimulated body.

“I said you need not reciprocate.”

“I wanted to.”

Her wide eyes drifted to the gleaming organ in her grasp, her mouth pulling up on one side as if to ask, 'What now?'

In Name Alone 83/?

[(Anonymous)]

“Don’t worry,” Cesare said in response to her silent question. “You do unholy things to me. It won’t be long until I’m ready again.”

“How long?” Lena asked, heeding his hands, which pulled her up to lie snug against his side. Her thigh crooked over both of his in a gesture that struck him as sweetly intimate, a lover’s pose.

“That depends,” Cesare said, chuckling. “What naughty ideas are hidden in that beautiful mind of yours?”

If she blushed any redder or hotter her face would turn to cinders. Cesare stroked her hair fondly, settling the knots that had formed from her writhing against the pillows. He plucked a single lost flower from her unraveled braids and teased it along the tip of her nose.

“I can hardly think,” Lena said. “My head has turned to mush.”

“Happy mush?”

“Oh yes,” she breathed, gazing up at him with gleaming eyes. Cesare hugged her little form to his body, unable to suppress the desire to slip one arm around her and cup a bee-stung breast. “Can… we do more of this tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter,” Cesare replied simply. “You won’t be allowed to leave this bed until we are both satisfied, and I suspect that will take more than just one splendid night.”

“We will have to eat eventually,” she pointed out smilingly.

“Eventually, si, but not yet.”

His words, it seemed, fell on deaf ears, or the ears of a woman who had found an engrossing distraction. Cesare hummed quietly with contentment, a sound so low and pleasurable it might have come from a happily scratched cat. Lena brushed her fingertips idly through the thick, coarse hairs of his chest, tracing the scars that cut pale lines here and there, her touch running in circles and then down, following the dark, sprinkled trail of hairs to the dunes of his stomach and lower. Pale, slender fingers tangled in the ebony thicket of curls above his groin, her intent apparently nothing but pure curiosity.

“This must be what a painting feels like,” Cesare purred, “under the critical eye of its artist.”

Lena smiled crookedly, nuzzling into his shoulder. “I did not create you. And besides, paintings do not have feelings.”

“I should like to learn to paint,” he said, squeezing her breast playfully in his palm. “Then I could immortalize you, like this, forever.”

“Me? Like this? You couldn’t display it anywhere! It would be indecent…”

The laugh that rumbled through his chest seemed to please her as she snuggled closer. He circled her budding nipple with his thumb, lazily thrumming her until she began to squirm against him, a growing wetness evident where her sex lay snug against his thigh.

“I would not share it,” Cesare said lightly. “But it would look fetching, yes? Over our bed perhaps, or in a private study…”

“We’ve no study here.”

“No,” he agreed, his throat constricting with unwelcome nerves as he added, “but we might. Someday.”

Lena looked up at him, her attention drawn away from the motion of her hand. For a moment, Cesare was convinced the mounting tension in the air portended a cold rebuttal. It was too soon to suggest such things… Idiota… Talking of leaving, of making something together when he hadn’t even completed the act of love with her…

“I still wouldn’t allow you to hang it up,” Lena said finally.

He tried desperately not to show his relief. “But… you would let me paint you?”

“I didn’t say that…” Lena looked back down at his groin, gently caressing the base of his shaft. Cesare sucked down a gasp, a heady twitch resonating beneath her touch.

In Name Alone 84/?

[(Anonymous)]

“It deserves to be captured,” he said with some difficulty. “Naked and flushed, your flesh bruised with my kiss, my seed still drying upon your lips as you lay resting on the bed, too exhausted and ravished to rise…”

Lena shuddered, pressing her chest insistently against his side.

“Your words and your body are not in agreement, sweet one,” Cesare teased. “Or am I misinterpreting that delicious little shiver of excitement?”

“You could not paint that anyway,” Lena said at last, gazing up with him with her eyes half-lidded. “Nobody could - I’m not nearly exhausted yet and I most certainly haven’t been ravished.”

“An oversight I plan to correct presently, girasole.”

-~-

Lena understood that she ought to be more afraid, that this was the sort of thing her mother would scream at her over. She wasn’t married, she wasn’t even betrothed, and there she was, lying prone and bare beneath a man she had once professed to despise. Those feelings of hatred and mistrust were distant now, hardly a nasty shadow on the horizon. No man of evil intent could treat a woman so kindly when he might simply take his pleasure and be done with her. Lena didn’t say it, but the fact that he had mentioned a future - a future in which they had a home and a study, a future in which he learned to paint – made her just as excited as the sight of his naked body.

And what a sight it was.

She banished all thoughts of doubt, of motherly scorn, focusing instead on the hot plains of muscle rippling beneath her hands. Cesare was almost feverish to the touch, a faint sheen of sweat covering his entire body as the candlelight caught him and held him like a jewel under glass. The strangest part was how many contradictions he offered – rock hard sinew beneath the almost feminine-softness of his skin; dark, dark freckles and hair on pale skin, freckles that she now knew were not confined to his cheeks; and the biggest surprise of all - the sensation of touching his manhood, hot steel encased in velvet, simultaneously intimidating and vulnerable, responding to every one of her lightest brushes.

Cesare kissed her, prolonging the moment when he at last took her virtue. He tasted familiar now, no longer a shock but a comforting familiarity. Lena wrapped her arms around his neck, unwilling to let him go and lose the intense sensation of his wiry chest hair tickling her breasts. Every part of her ached for him, though the greatest pang of all had made its home in her belly, a forlorn emptiness driving her curiosity and her fear. Would it hurt too much? He looked far too… too… enormous to enter her comfortably. Lena whimpered aloud.

“Sh-hh,” he whispered, dragging his lips from her mouth to her ear. His warm breath ignited the sensitive shell of her ear. “Gently… You have only but to ask, and we will stop.”

Lena nodded, worried that if she cracked her lips something embarrassing and weak would come tumbling out. His eyes sought hers out, the deep brown of his gaze soliciting a wan smile. Cesare prodded his nose against hers, licking sweetly at her lips before kissing her more resolutely. His teeth clacked against hers as he pushed against her in a sudden surge of passion. Lena gasped, fingernails digging into his shoulders as she felt one long, thick finger drag up and down the soaking cleft of her sex. His thumb teased that marvelous little nub at the apex of her folds, shivery excitement overtaking her fear. Lena couldn’t help but grind against him, moaning as first one finger and then two stroked deeper into her, a small frisson of pain bubbling below the pleasure as her untested body stretched for him.

The feeling of emptiness in her gut redoubled as Cesare continued to ease his fingers in and out, in and out, the rhythm becoming faster and more deliberate until Lena arched and bucked, desirous of more but uncertain of how to go about getting it.

“Soon,” Cesare whispered into her hair, kissing her ear soothingly. His thick fingers scissored in her channel and she cried out, tossing her head.

“God,” she moaned, delirious. “Please, Cesare…”

His other hand molded around her breast, squeezing roughly.

“Please what?”

Re: In Name Alone 84/?

[(Anonymous)]

This is so worth the wait, anon. SO worth the wait. Not that the wait was any hardship, but this is so good.

SO. GOOD.

Re: In Name Alone 84/?

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks. =D I admit, I had to fight a bit of performance anxiety - 75 chapters of build up was a lot to deliver on. These two show no signs of slowing, though, so I hope you're all ready for tons-o-sex.

In Name Alone 85/?

[(Anonymous)]

“I need you,” Lena huffed, her face scorched and burning. “I need you inside… God… God… please!”

Cesare’s chuckle was not mocking but gently amused. He kissed her jaw and chin until she turned her head to face him, his fingers withdrawing from her sex, leaving her wretchedly empty. Smiling down at her, he shifted his hand from her chest to the mattress, bracing. His fingers lifted, hovering in front of her eyes; Lena’s slick shone on his skin, her scent almost overpowering. Cesare licked unhurriedly at his hand, sucking the wetness from his fingertips as if savoring the last of an excessively enjoyable meal. And Lena watched, eyes wide and mouth slack, sighing when that hand disappeared again, sandwiched between them.

“You taste of heaven,” Cesare murmured, kissing her with lips moistened by her arousal. “You taste of all the things I’ve long yearned for and been denied. The vile man I used to be must be going mad with envy in his exile. Perhaps he would have flung himself from that tower by choice if he knew this would be his reward.”

Lena stole another kiss, gasping quietly as she felt the unmistakable touch of his erection against her sex. He rubbed her with it, hardly even penetrating her slit as he teased her. “Heaven,” Cesare said again, blinking rapidly, “I’ve tasted it. But I’m a greedy man, Lena, and I want more. I want to sink into it forever.”

“Cesare,” she whispered, fidgeting, widening the spread of her thighs to show her readiness. “I won’t let anything happen to you… I promise it. I promise.”

“Even if I get us into trouble?” he asked, chuckling.

“Yes.”

“Even if I am very naughty and demanding?”

Lena slapped his shoulder. “Yes. But don’t make me change my mind.” She sighed. “I was trying to be serious.”

“And I was trying to make you laugh,” Cesare riposted, pressing the length of his prick firmly against her sex. Lena obliged him, giggling breathlessly as she anticipated his first thrust. “I want to have you smiling, little flower, when you get your first glimpse of love.”

They were the last words she heard as a maid.

One instant he was sliding against her, slicking himself in her ample wetness, the next he was shifting their hips, using his hand to guide his thick, blunt head to her opening. Cesare was patient, nudging against her tight body until at last his persistence gained him entry. It was not, at first, smooth and perfect. Lena clutched Cesare to her breast, shocked and fascinated by the way he gradually eased her wider, his shallow, controlled thrusts allowing her the time to adapt, to feel the jolts of pain lessen to hot, decadent friction.

This was new. This, Lena thought with a groan, was going to be impossible to give up.

A slow rhythm established, Cesare planted both hands on either side of her head, rolling his hips against hers with a short, quick snap on the end of each push. The sensation of her virtue tearing for him was a dull stinging that lasted until his searing breath fell across her neck and chest, his head dipping as he pulled a throbbing nipple between his lips and sucked. That was the last of the pain and it was soon forgotten, drowned beneath the tides of sensation rippling up and out from her sex. Cesare covered her, surrounded her, enormous and obliterating, a solid mass of muscle and brawn that afforded all manner of tantalizing curves and angles for her fingers to explore. Her fear faded, her body sparkling to life as the once uncomfortable thickness of his cock became a cure for that gnawing emptiness she had felt before.

In Name Alone 86/?

[(Anonymous)]

“Lena,” he whispered, peppering feather-light kisses across her breasts. “How do you feel, little flower?” His voice was strained, still musical in its elegant hybrid of Spanish and Italian, still rasped with his usual hoarseness, but now he was fighting to get out every word as he carefully pumped into her. “Tell me… tell me I haven’t hurt you…”

“No,” Lena replied, finding she too was having difficulty forming words. “I’m fine,” she laughed, exultant, “more than fine - meraviglioso.”

And even that felt like a severe understatement. There was no encapsulating the unbelievable sense of fullness and excitement, the gathering knot of heat and light and tension in her belly. But her reassurance seemed to embolden Cesare, who nipped at her, growling low in his throat as his teeth scored love bites into her breasts. Lena gripped his hair, tugging, a feeling of savage excitement accompanying the scrape of his teeth across her skin. Her hips rose to meet him, crashing against his, heedless of discomfort as their angle changed, subtly, but enough to aim his erection against a breath-stealing spot deep in her body.

“Fuck.” Her head felt as if it weighed too much and her neck had turned to jelly. Spots trickled across her eyes as Cesare brushed her there again. It wasn’t right. Ludicrous. Too good. If she pulled his hair any harder she might tear it all out. She tried to calm down but found it impossible as her cries of pleasure drove his hips ever faster.

“Like this?” Cesare whispered, snapping his hips against her. “Is that what you want, my wanton little temptress?”

“Yes,” Lena cried, kissing blindly at his face. “Yes… Cesare…”

“Forget yourself,” he murmured frantically. “Forget everything. Cry your ecstasy to the angels.”

She did, moaning higher and lower as his pace increased, driving her toward a release that she wanted and feared, hating that this torrent of feeling and pleasure must come to an end. Lena would just have to savor every second, she decided, relishing that she could squeeze his massive girth with her inner muscles. Cesare cried out raggedly in response. They clamored together, kissing, sucking, biting at each other’s mouths. Lena wrapped her thighs tightly about his middle, shuddering and shrieking as he slid yet deeper, entering her to the hilt, plumbing a place that was hidden and primal, dangerous but aching to be found. Surprise and a resounding pleasure-pain drew a halting scream from her throat as her crisis crashed down around her, sound and color bleeding together, inextricably bound up in the confounding, sensual, gorgeous creature stroking into her heat.

Cesare held her, swearing an unbroken litany of curses and prayers as his face tightened, the cords of his neck standing out as he shouted a throaty, inarticulate sound and swelled within her. His release came immediately after, a warming gush of liquid deep within her that coaxed Lena into a bubbly, shivering aftershock.

They gripped each other for a long moment, both of them panting, wet with sweat and rapidly-drying saliva. His hair stuck to her chin and neck, the gusts of his breath falling across her moist collarbone and shoulder. Then Cesare peeled himself away, gathering his strength with one last shiver before kissing her sweetly, gently, as if they had been having a chaste, romantic flirtation and not a furious, exhilarating romp.

“I should have taken more care,” he said, frowning. He tucked a piece of stray hair behind her ear. “Forgive me, you… released something in me.”

“It was just right,” Lena said quickly. “And I won’t accept any apologies.”

Cesare smiled, his cheeks dimpling boyishly. “And do you regret becoming my lover?”

“Not unless it was just the once,” Lena replied. “I might go mad if I cannot have you every day.”

“A woman after my own heart then.”

“I think so, yes.”

They kissed lazily and Lena whimpered softly into his mouth, feeling the sad, chilling sensation of his spent prick sliding from her sex. A steady stream of his seed trickled from her ravaged body. It felt like a loss. Lena squirmed under the weight of his chest, determined to make her disappointment known.

Re: In Name Alone 77/?

[(Anonymous)]

Trust me, we're here. Just the holidays got in the way. This is, as always, MAGNIFICENT. Who thought a prompt would've turned into such a long, amazing fic? And now I fell like I should be looking for Lena and Lucio among my recruits whenever I play Brotherhood. PLEASE, keep going, as I really want to see where these two end up!

Re: In Name Alone 77/?

[(Anonymous)]

Ach, sorry again for the delays. I should have some new sections ready for you all this evening! Thanks for being patient!

Re: In Name Alone 77/?

[(Anonymous)]

I need this fic like burning. NEED. NEEEEEEEED.

Sorry I was quiet; been distracted over the holidays and came back to find eight MILLION chapters had been posted. /me faints