She smiles, just a breath a way from kissing him again, and pulls away to recline again. She stretches her moon-pale limbs and arches her back entirely for Gale's benefit.
"There isn't much of a story behind most of my ink. I'll still tell you anything you want to know, but." She reaches up to tap a finger once against the tip of his nose. Boop! "You have to kiss the tattoo before I say a single word about it."
When she pulls back, he follows, drawn like a magnet, but stops short, grinning. "You drive a hard bargain," he replies, in a way that suggests it's probably not the bargain that's hard.
He drifts lower, his mouth always close enough to bare skin that his breath tickles, but he finally places a kiss down on that mermaid tattoo. "This one covers something else up, doesn't it?"
She had to talk about it, him, eventually. Might as well be while she's fully naked. Maybe the absurdity will keep this from getting too fraught.
Harley hums a soft confirmation and traces the mermaid's tail with a fingertip.
"The letter J. He called himself the Joker." Her voice is quiet and even, and her eyes carefully track his expression. "I couldn't get rid of it, so I made it into a little friend."
What an ironic name. Or perhaps not, when one considers the nature of the Joker in a lot of card games as the arbiter of chaos. Joker, jester, harlequin -- it's certainly all starting to paint a thematic picture. His features go stony and he frowns, eyebrows furrowing, wishing he was better at keeping such things hidden.
"Well, I like the mermaid." He traces the lines of the tattoo, and with a little illusion magic, she seems to flick her tailfin. "You don't have to talk about any of this if you don't want to. I don't want to hurt you."
"Old wounds can still ache if they're prodded," he replies. He thinks of all the missing pages in her journal and wonders whether she's as settled with the past as she claims, or too afraid to reset the bone. He wouldn't blame her either way.
Gale turns this information over in his mind. He never wanted tattoos, but if Mystra had asked him to put ink in his skin instead of a hole in his ear, he would have leapt to do it. "Would you want them gone, or covered, given the opportunity? Or do you prefer keeping them?
She blinks in surprise, and looks herself over. The question had never really occurred to her, in that way. The glamour ring made it easy to ignore, a trauma to resolve another day.
"Some I'd keep, some I'd erase or get something else instead." Harley turns her arm and considers her mermaid. "She can stay. You know what to do to find out about each one."
She tips her head and peers up at him through her lashes. "Do you think they make me ugly?"
"Gods, no! I didn't mean to imply that at all, I'm so sorry," he says with
a tinge of panic. Gale sits back a little, feeling as though he's lost the
right to her space. He reaches up to fiddle with his earring, pressing it
between his thumb and forefinger until he can feel the points digging into
skin. It's an old habit, done unconsciously.
"You're beautiful. More beautiful every time I see you, in fact." He
reaches for her hand, turns it over so he can kiss her palm. "I was just
curious. I don't have any tattoos, only this wretched mark. I would erase
that in an instant.'
"Let me see it again." Harley moves to sit primly on her knees in front of him. She runs her hands up his thighs and catches the hem of his shirt in her fingers. "Don't make me the only one sitting here with my tits out."
She loves him, she really does, and is generally charmed by the way he can keep a conversation, but he is really not staying on track for the mood she's trying to set.
Gale flinches back at first, his instinct to be embarrassed of being naked in front of anyone, but he eases quickly. As she says, it's only fair. He laughs, and the tension ebbs out of him, the way it always seems to do around Harley. "Of course. Your wish is my command."
He lifts his arms so that she can peel him out of his shirt, wondering if he should offer to take off his pants as well, whether that would be fair, whether that would be too far over a line they cannot cross. It doesn't stop his thoughts from drifting elsewhere, particularly when her bare skin brushes his. Even the barest touch of her fingertips is electric, invigorating every nerve ending. His hands itch with the desire to explore her, so he cups her jaw to keep from reaching for anything else.
Harley slides her hands up his sides to ruck up the fabric and is practically on his lap again after pulling his shirt over his head. She tosses it aside and runs her hands down his back, mapping out the planes of his shoulder blades and the ridge of his spine.
Her gaze is heated and intensely focused as she takes in the sight of him half naked in her arms. The path of her touch continues down until her fingers dip under the waistband of his trousers, and the struggle to stay within appropriate boundaries is clear on her face. She allows herself to briefly palm his ass over his clothes before bringing her hands to rest on the neutral zone of his shoulders.
She turns her face into his palm and licks at his thumb. "Even marked, I love this body." She pushes him back onto the mattress and leans over him, her nipples barely skimming his chest hair. "My favorite person lives in it."
Gale inhales sharply as her hands travel over his skin, then holds his breath when her hands barely dip below the waistline of his pants. He doesn't tell her no, isn't sure whether he'll be able to if she pressed the matter. All he knows is that he is hers, and she may do with him as she wants. All he wants is to be everything she desires, and the fire of frustration that he can't be continues to burn in his core. He runs his thumb over her lower lip, adoring and passionate and fierce. "Gods, you make even self destruction seem tempting, if you hadn't also given me a reason to live again. Paradoxical, I know."
His shoulders hit the bed with a huff of air that turns into a laugh. His grin is soft as taffy as he looks up at her. There is so much he wants to say, but for once, the words simply aren't there in the abundance he's used to. "Consider it yours to to-- well, almost anything with."
She draws his thumb into her mouth and sucks the digit while holding his gaze. She releases his thumb with a wet pop and nudges his legs apart to settle between his thighs.
"You shouldn't give me that kind of power," she scolds with absolutely no conviction, leaning over him again. "Each and every one of my ideas is terribly mean."
Her hands catch his wrists and pin him to bed. A soft and pleasant jail. She dips her head to press heated, open mouthed kisses to his throat. "How close are we to the line?" she murmurs against the flutter of his pulse.
"I might like them anyway." He releases a shuddering breath, letting his eyelids flutter closed. His hands flex in her grasp, but he never tries to break her hold. She's strong enough that he doesn't like his odds even if he really wanted to. Anything that prevents him from casting would ordinarily make him nervous, but even though his heart hammers against his ribs, he finds it thrilling not to be in control. They play a dangerous game, that's true, but let someone else be the one to set the rules this time.
She kisses his throat and he moans, squirming not for escape but in search of more. "Ahh... probably closer than we ought to be." There is an ache high in his chest, but not the sharp stabbing pain of imminent danger. They should absolutely stop, and yet, "But we could probably get a little closer, still."
"You would like them very much," she sweetly promises, "which is what makes them so terrible." She trails more kisses across his collar bone, pausing here and there for a gentle press of her teeth or pass of her tongue.
Harley sits back to admire him with an adoring sigh. He's so beautifully desperate and near ruin already, and they've barely done anything. Something about it feels so tender, so precious, like the first shy fumblings of youth. All need and want and absolutely no clear direction for any of it.
"Keep your hands on the bed," she tells him, "and don't move. I stop the second you so much as twitch." She leans over him again on her knees, bracing herself on her elbows, and gives him one lingering kiss before pulling back to look into his eyes as one hand trails down her own body and disappears between them. Her lashes flutter and she sighs his name like a prayer as her fingers dip teasingly between her own thighs.
She kisses him like someone deserving of love, even that blighted mark, and for once he feels what it is to be the one who is worshipped. Anyone who experienced this kind of devotion and didn't treasure her is far worse than a fool.
It turns out that Gale takes orders well. His hands stay right where she left them, as surely as if she were still pinning him with her invisible mage hand.
"Wait, you shouldn't--" he starts, scared that she is reaching between them to touch him, that it will be too much, but the contact doesn't happen.
Oh. When he realizes what she's doing, he sucks in a sharp breath, but he doesn't dare move.
"Gods, but you truly are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Wickedness and salvation in one. You are a lightning strike splitting the deepest darkness, and the first brush of dawn after the storm." Speaking will just have to not count as movement, because while he can stay still, he cannot remain silent. "A sweeter sight I've never seen, but still I would trade every book I own for the chance to touch you myself, unhindered by the threat of the orb. I would learn every way you like to be touched, like learning an instrument- no, like learning a spell. I wouldn't rest until I could conjure every pleasure you desire."
When she shivers and swallows a needy whine it's more about the fantasy his words are building for them than physical sensation. Harley knows her body and how to bring herself to climax with efficient ease, but now she tries to touch herself the way she thinks Gale might if only he could. Gentle, loving, a little hesitant. Sweet and aimless. Her own pleasure doesn't matter to her as much in the moment as capturing his attention.
"Gale," she sighs again. The back of her hand shifts almost close enough to brush against his erection straining his trousers, but the pressure is so light that it might have just been imagined. "Gale, tell me how you'd touch me. I'll do it exactly the way you say. I want you to talk me through it."
He gazes up at her enraptured. She is the moon and all the stars. She is the sea, and if he drowns in her, he'll thank her for the honor. "Harley," he whispers like a prayer.
But she has a request of him, and he would give her everything he can, even if it can't be everything they want. Gale licks his lips and clears his throat, and when he begins again, his voice is husky and honeyed. "Slowly. Begin slowly, but not uncertainly. As I said, I would want to learn. I want to hear every moan and sigh, discover every sweet noise you might make. I would touch you softly at first, because you deserve to be treated gently. Will you do that for me, love?" His voice remains warm and encouraging, but his hands ball into fists from the effort of restraining the desire to reach for her himself. "Would you sit up, please? I want to see, and I want you to put both hands to good use."
Her eyes, dark with lust, track the motion of his tongue and she draws her own lower lip between her teeth. She bites down on a moan.
"The problem," she sighs, "is that if I do this one thing for you, I'll do everything for you. I want you too much to behave once I give in." Her fingers draw a circle around her clit and that makes her breath stutter. "And I don't know if you could either."
Her accusation draws a breathy little laugh out of him, not because she's wrong, but because she knows him so well. "Have you no faith in my self restraint?" A rhetorical question, of course. He hums, a deep and thoughtful rumble not entirely unlike purring. He flexes his hands against his imagined bonds "Perhaps. Perhaps not. But isn't the taste of a little danger delicious?"
"A taste," she echoes breathlessly, and with a new gleam in her eye. "Yeah, I can give you that." Her hand withdraws from her folds and she holds her slick fingers between them for him to see. She feints to offer them for him, but then takes them into her own mouth instead and greedily sucks them clean. She pulls them out with a wet pop and bends down to lick the taste of her into his tempting mouth.
With his mouth still open waiting to accept a withdrawn offering, he watches her with dark eyed fascination. "I will gladly accept anything you're willing to give, though I wish I could worship you properly."
He kisses her like they're underwater and she is his only source of air, lifting his head up from the bed to meet her, press as close as he is able without breaking the agreement. His hands flex beside his head, wanting so badly to touch her, to do anything at all, that the Weave gathers and sparks around his fingertips.
He kisses the air from her lungs and pulls soft, needy moans out with it. Her tongue explores inside his mouth until her body burns with the need for breath, her hands trailing over his arms until their fingers link together. She can feel the gathering magic licking against her skin, like the buzz in the air before a storm. She breaks away with a gasp.
"We have to--" She licks her kiss-swollen lips and tries to catch her breath. "We should stop," as she swoops in for another attack.
Maybe she was right about his self control after all, because he meets this kiss too with enthusiasm. He squeezes her hands, and the magic sparks and pops like static shocks. Who needs air when you can have this?
"I love you," he murmurs on breaths between kisses. "But we... have to stop."
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"There isn't much of a story behind most of my ink. I'll still tell you anything you want to know, but." She reaches up to tap a finger once against the tip of his nose. Boop! "You have to kiss the tattoo before I say a single word about it."
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He drifts lower, his mouth always close enough to bare skin that his breath tickles, but he finally places a kiss down on that mermaid tattoo. "This one covers something else up, doesn't it?"
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Harley hums a soft confirmation and traces the mermaid's tail with a fingertip.
"The letter J. He called himself the Joker." Her voice is quiet and even, and her eyes carefully track his expression. "I couldn't get rid of it, so I made it into a little friend."
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What an ironic name. Or perhaps not, when one considers the nature of the Joker in a lot of card games as the arbiter of chaos. Joker, jester, harlequin -- it's certainly all starting to paint a thematic picture. His features go stony and he frowns, eyebrows furrowing, wishing he was better at keeping such things hidden.
"Well, I like the mermaid." He traces the lines of the tattoo, and with a little illusion magic, she seems to flick her tailfin. "You don't have to talk about any of this if you don't want to. I don't want to hurt you."
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"The hurt already happened," she says with a tiny resigned sigh. "I don't mind talking about it except that it makes you so sad."
The distance between them is easy to close. She presses a soft kiss to his temple, and very heroically does not palm him through his trousers.
"Almost all of this," she makes a broad sweeping gesture down the length of her body, "is because of or about him."
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Gale turns this information over in his mind. He never wanted tattoos, but if Mystra had asked him to put ink in his skin instead of a hole in his ear, he would have leapt to do it. "Would you want them gone, or covered, given the opportunity? Or do you prefer keeping them?
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"Some I'd keep, some I'd erase or get something else instead." Harley turns her arm and considers her mermaid. "She can stay. You know what to do to find out about each one."
She tips her head and peers up at him through her lashes. "Do you think they make me ugly?"
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"Gods, no! I didn't mean to imply that at all, I'm so sorry," he says with a tinge of panic. Gale sits back a little, feeling as though he's lost the right to her space. He reaches up to fiddle with his earring, pressing it between his thumb and forefinger until he can feel the points digging into skin. It's an old habit, done unconsciously.
"You're beautiful. More beautiful every time I see you, in fact." He reaches for her hand, turns it over so he can kiss her palm. "I was just curious. I don't have any tattoos, only this wretched mark. I would erase that in an instant.'
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She loves him, she really does, and is generally charmed by the way he can keep a conversation, but he is really not staying on track for the mood she's trying to set.
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He lifts his arms so that she can peel him out of his shirt, wondering if he should offer to take off his pants as well, whether that would be fair, whether that would be too far over a line they cannot cross. It doesn't stop his thoughts from drifting elsewhere, particularly when her bare skin brushes his. Even the barest touch of her fingertips is electric, invigorating every nerve ending. His hands itch with the desire to explore her, so he cups her jaw to keep from reaching for anything else.
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Her gaze is heated and intensely focused as she takes in the sight of him half naked in her arms. The path of her touch continues down until her fingers dip under the waistband of his trousers, and the struggle to stay within appropriate boundaries is clear on her face. She allows herself to briefly palm his ass over his clothes before bringing her hands to rest on the neutral zone of his shoulders.
She turns her face into his palm and licks at his thumb. "Even marked, I love this body." She pushes him back onto the mattress and leans over him, her nipples barely skimming his chest hair. "My favorite person lives in it."
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His shoulders hit the bed with a huff of air that turns into a laugh. His grin is soft as taffy as he looks up at her. There is so much he wants to say, but for once, the words simply aren't there in the abundance he's used to. "Consider it yours to to-- well, almost anything with."
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"You shouldn't give me that kind of power," she scolds with absolutely no conviction, leaning over him again. "Each and every one of my ideas is terribly mean."
Her hands catch his wrists and pin him to bed. A soft and pleasant jail. She dips her head to press heated, open mouthed kisses to his throat. "How close are we to the line?" she murmurs against the flutter of his pulse.
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She kisses his throat and he moans, squirming not for escape but in search of more. "Ahh... probably closer than we ought to be." There is an ache high in his chest, but not the sharp stabbing pain of imminent danger. They should absolutely stop, and yet, "But we could probably get a little closer, still."
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Harley sits back to admire him with an adoring sigh. He's so beautifully desperate and near ruin already, and they've barely done anything. Something about it feels so tender, so precious, like the first shy fumblings of youth. All need and want and absolutely no clear direction for any of it.
"Keep your hands on the bed," she tells him, "and don't move. I stop the second you so much as twitch." She leans over him again on her knees, bracing herself on her elbows, and gives him one lingering kiss before pulling back to look into his eyes as one hand trails down her own body and disappears between them. Her lashes flutter and she sighs his name like a prayer as her fingers dip teasingly between her own thighs.
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It turns out that Gale takes orders well. His hands stay right where she left them, as surely as if she were still pinning him with her invisible mage hand.
"Wait, you shouldn't--" he starts, scared that she is reaching between them to touch him, that it will be too much, but the contact doesn't happen.
Oh. When he realizes what she's doing, he sucks in a sharp breath, but he doesn't dare move.
"Gods, but you truly are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Wickedness and salvation in one. You are a lightning strike splitting the deepest darkness, and the first brush of dawn after the storm." Speaking will just have to not count as movement, because while he can stay still, he cannot remain silent. "A sweeter sight I've never seen, but still I would trade every book I own for the chance to touch you myself, unhindered by the threat of the orb. I would learn every way you like to be touched, like learning an instrument- no, like learning a spell. I wouldn't rest until I could conjure every pleasure you desire."
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"Gale," she sighs again. The back of her hand shifts almost close enough to brush against his erection straining his trousers, but the pressure is so light that it might have just been imagined. "Gale, tell me how you'd touch me. I'll do it exactly the way you say. I want you to talk me through it."
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But she has a request of him, and he would give her everything he can, even if it can't be everything they want. Gale licks his lips and clears his throat, and when he begins again, his voice is husky and honeyed. "Slowly. Begin slowly, but not uncertainly. As I said, I would want to learn. I want to hear every moan and sigh, discover every sweet noise you might make. I would touch you softly at first, because you deserve to be treated gently. Will you do that for me, love?" His voice remains warm and encouraging, but his hands ball into fists from the effort of restraining the desire to reach for her himself. "Would you sit up, please? I want to see, and I want you to put both hands to good use."
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"The problem," she sighs, "is that if I do this one thing for you, I'll do everything for you. I want you too much to behave once I give in." Her fingers draw a circle around her clit and that makes her breath stutter. "And I don't know if you could either."
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He kisses her like they're underwater and she is his only source of air, lifting his head up from the bed to meet her, press as close as he is able without breaking the agreement. His hands flex beside his head, wanting so badly to touch her, to do anything at all, that the Weave gathers and sparks around his fingertips.
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"We have to--" She licks her kiss-swollen lips and tries to catch her breath. "We should stop," as she swoops in for another attack.
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"I love you," he murmurs on breaths between kisses. "But we... have to stop."
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