Last Seen Blogs
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Velka returned to her room earlier than planned, yet she’d been through far more wine than usual. It hadn’t helped, she still couldn’t get the image out of her mind.
The door slammed shut behind her and she lit some of the candles around the room, their soft light reflecting off her pale skin. But not as pale as his, she had noted, her eyes fixed on his hand as he absently fidgeted with the stem of his untouched glass, delicate fingers tapping it softly as if there were some lethargically paced piece of music playing in his head. That was it. That was enough to make her shift in her seat, suddenly hyper-aware that the dress she was wearing left her shoulders uncovered and that there was nothing between her skin and his hands. She had thrown her hair forward over her shoulder and leaned the other way, toward Ciaran, holding out her empty glass to whatever servant passed.
The dead match fell from her fingers and she left it where it was on the carpet, forgotten about already as she moved away to pull the curtains open slightly, letting in a slight breeze from the half-night that wasn’t as cold as she wanted it to be and left her even more impatient, with her thoughts no less fuzzy for her effort. With a frustrated sigh, she began pulling at the lacing on her dress, anything to be able to breathe, but her fingers struggled with the knot until she stood, half turned in front of the mirror so she could at least partly see what she was doing. In her rush to distract herself, she had only gotten hot and irritable. Forcing herself to slow down and focus, she carefully undid the lacing, taking far longer about it than she realised. She held her dress in place with one arm while her free hand pushed her hair back over her shoulder; as her hand brushed her neck, she wondered if his would have felt any different, if her touch was clumsy compared to his. It was easy to believe that might be the case, she thought, as her fingertips traced her neck back down, gently swept over her collarbone.
Realising what she was doing, she paused, a laugh escaping her lips. Instinctively, she reached up to cover it, as she always seemed to when she thought she ought not to be laughing at something, and as her fingers touched her lips she couldn’t help wondering what his kiss would feel like, if he were in a mood to be gentle with her, not like the other night, whatever that was, though she could hardly say it wasn’t strangely welcome. She dearly wished that she could have reacted faster, kissed him back, and that the taste of him would never leave her, nor the sudden force of his hold on her.
Oh, this was all his fault. She had tried so carefully not to think of him so disrespectfully, not to treat him like something that could be thrown away and forgotten about the way she did the others. And he had ruined all of that, in a moment of anger and confusion that she still didn’t fully understand, that she revisited under the pretence that maybe next time she ran over it in her mind, she might pick up on his reason for doing it. It was his fault she hadn’t been able to trust herself to speak to him properly since, it was his fault she had stopped returning the attentions of her usual companions and it was his fault that she was lying with her hair obscuring her face as though it were trying to hide her, her dress still loosely holding to her as her hand dragged her skirt upwards and slipped under it; she quietly laughed, at herself, at how badly she found she wanted it, her mind still blurring her own touch with his, her free hand pulling down at the neckline of her dress. A mild chill made her shiver only slightly as it came away, but she had no focus spare to touch it on her skin, not while her other hand was buried in the heat between her thighs. No one needed to know, no one could read her mind, no one would ever be able to tell she had ever considered it, so she changed the pattern of her movements, pretending she didn’t already know herself, pretending not to know what she wanted, the whole time possessed of an odd certainty that he would hurt her at some point, that his pretty, perfectly kept fingernails would leave scratches in her skin or that his hand would pull her hair back and leave her totally unable to hide or even downplay her half-closed eyes, panting through parted lips, red smeared over her skin where she had forgotten about her lipstick. Hardly aware that she had made a decision to do so, she stopped teasing and slipped one, two fingers inside herself and had to press her other hand to her mouth to keep his name from pouring out of it in a half-moan of mixed pleasure and relief. Until then, her drunk, disconnected mind had refused to acknowledge that she truly was picturing him, but she could hardly deny it when her mouth had betrayed her like that, and suddenly she was picturing him, unashamedly, vividly, his delicate fingers alternating between softly stroking her and mercilessly fucking her while his hair brushed her skin and - and then she remembered her other hand, pressed to her mouth and, inevitably, pictured him forcibly quieting her, perfectly serious, watching her intently as she could no longer speak to him if she needed to, and something about that image was enough to push her over the edge - something inside her snapped and instead of stopping, she forced herself to ride it out, biting hard on her lip even under her hand (because gods help her if anyone heard his name) and by the time the rush wore off, she was half-asleep, exhausted and in faint disbelief at herself. But no one would ever know, so… was there any need to feel guilty? Still… she decided she would make a point of spending tomorrow night with someone, anyone, else. And perhaps she would drink more. Or less. Whichever.
Of course, it didn’t occur to her then that she had already ruined this plan, that she would picture him now even if she was with someone else - but it would.
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