"Fuck."
Prophia is still pitch black as I stop a few feet from Andrius' home. Misremembering the travel time between the sword marker and the actual town has left me with a couple hours between now and dawn. I take my time bringing the horse behind the house, removing all her tack, and draping a blanket over her back. She follows me around as I fill a bucket with well water and pour a serving of sticky oats out of a saddlebag. I wonder what the odds are of the front door just being unlocked. Somewhere out in the dark streets, I hear someone guffawing and a door slamming. The sounds cut easily through the cold, clear night.
Worst case scenario, I think to myself as I walk back around to the front of the house, I could always go to the pub and see if Ares is still there. He'd probably have a key.
It's a relief when I try the front door and it opens. I'm glad that I won't have to go hunting for Ares. Or wake Andrius up knocking on doors and windows to be let in. I kick my boots off on the porch and lower the flame in my lantern just enough to see the inner layout of the house. Once I reach the bedroom door, I blow the flame out. I'm happy to go the rest of the way by feel.
The frame of the bed nearly trips me as I walk forward with my arms outstretched. I strip off all my layers and drop my backpack on the pile of thick fabrics. Heat warms my fingertips as I crawl onto the bed, before I've even reached him. As I find the fur-skin line of his body, I crawl forward and throw a leg over him. He flinches awake under me so violently that I reach back and grab his forelegs to not be thrown off. When he stills, I lean forward to lay my upper half over his. I hear him suck in a startled breath at the same time that his hands grip my hips and feel along my thighs.
"Flora?" he mumbles tiredly.
"You should really lock your door," I murmur as my lips press to the base of his throat, "who knows what kind of creeps could get in while you're sleeping?"
He pulls my higher and kisses around my face until his lips find mine in the dark. I sigh happily at the feeling of his hands stroking everywhere they can reach, as if to assure himself that I'm solid and real.
"Maybe there are some creeps I wouldn't mind having sneak in during the night," he whispers during the split second our lips spend apart.
"I missed you," I repeat as I pull away to kiss his neck and slide my hands under his head to comb through his hair.
"Wait," he pulls away and pauses for a moment, "are you early or have I gotten really bad at counting?"
"Some plans got cancelled. So Claudius sent me home early."
"That's surprisingly nice of him."
"Yeah. It was."
Andrius pulls my flat against him as he smooths his hands up and down my back. The embrace loosens just enough to allow me to crawl upward to press my lips to his. His tail flicks and the very tip of it snaps against my ankle. I let my body go slack to move freely as he wants me to as he grips my hips and grinds me against his body. His lips and teeth trail lower, kissing and nipping at my neck. Hot gasps huff out in the dark and turn cold on my skin. A pleasant shudder rumbles through me, leaving waves of goosebumps in its wake.
Soft moans slip past my lips as his fingers dig deeper into my flesh and my sex is rubbed against the fur-skin line. As I turn over to put my back to his chest, Andrius' fingers momentarily dig deeper into my hips to still me. But a shiver runs through his body underneath me as he seems to glimpse through the trance and his hold on me relaxes. Slowly, I stretch out my legs until the tips of my toes meet the slick, extended flesh of his cock. Those days of having every inch of my skin scrubbed raw and slathered with whipped lotions may as well be useful for something in my real life. Andrius sucks in a breath at the contact. His hands loosen their grip just enough that I can slide lower on his body and reach more of him.
"No plans to stop me this time?" I ask, all my movements paused.
"None at all," he breathes out.
His cock jumps at the first touch of the ball of my foot. Silky wetness tickles my foot as it drips down from where they touched. His lower chest swells with a deep breath as I align the arches of my feet on each side and begin to stroke up and down. Around me, under me, I can feel his body tensing with each slide along the wet length. Biting my lip, I slide a hand down and sink two fingers into my pussy. My soaked thighs clench together, trapping my hand. As I close the arches of my feet around his cock again, the hand he's securing me with flexes and the nails rasp across my skin.
The pulse in him grows stronger and insistent, hammering against the soles of my feet. I slowly slide my fingers out, bringing wetness up to rub against my clit in time with the motions of my feet. Above me, I can hear his growling sounds of pleasure escaping through clenched teeth. I turn my head and bite his bare skin as my own orgasm goes taut and pops explosively through my muscles. I pant as my hips thrust up again and again. Pain just barely slips through the sensation as Andrius' hand digs into the soft flesh of my breast. The burning hot, slick flesh jolts between my arches. Cum splashes against my legs and slides down between them, soaking his fur.
"When did your feet get that soft?" Andrius asks as he walks back into the bedroom with towels for him and myself.
Light from the lantern hanging outside the bedroom door streams in just enough that I can make out the glint on the edges of stickiness on the inside of my legs.
"You have all that hoity-toity pampering for my fake wedding to thank for that."
"And they weren't even freezing cold for once, I guess I should thank them."
The sight of Andrius trying to reach his own underside with the towel makes me snort out a laugh. I quickly finish wiping my own legs clean so I can take the towel from him and rub his fur.
"Okay, okay," he shivers, "that tickles now."
"How do you ever do this without me?" I toss both towels into a hamper beside the door and begin searching through my backpack.
"If you must know, I usually take a bath after. Or drape a wet towel over something that I can rub my lower body on."
"Oh, that makes sense."
Andrius takes the silk ribbon from me as soon as I retrieve it and twirls his finger at me until I turn away from him. His fingers comb gently through my hair before he bundles it all up and secures the ribbon.
.
"You arrived really late, are you sure you don't want to sleep in?"
Tiny drops of water fall from Andrius' hair and slide down his bare chest as I finish hopping my way into my riding pants. The way his eyes settle on my breasts bouncing under the thin fabric of the sleeves undershirt as I jump one last time makes me contemplate tackling him back into bed. But probably no amount of lust can make me capable of overpowering a centaur. Much less one so devoted to his work schedule. I bite my lip and look away to find a tie for my own damp hair instead.
"You can't imagine how bored I was back in Leaven," I groan, "I need something for my brain to do or it's going to atrophy!"
He chuckles and turns to leave for the bedroom, "Okay, fair enough. I just wanted to offer."
Instead of a tie, I spot an off-white square of paper pinched between the frame and mirror of the vanity. I reach up to press the paper flat enough to read from my angle and smile at the familiarity. And at its place here across from his bed. Even my attempt at pretty writing is sloppier than I'd like, but at least the berry color didn't bleed so much that the kiss mark was indiscernible.
The interior of this house is so cozy compared to the wide openness of the mansion in Leaven, even the room that was filled with my own possessions and colors. I sit on my knees on the countertop and look out the window as Andrius prepares tea. The scent of hot ginger mingles with the smell of him. I close my eyes and pull in a deep breath, refilling myself with the comforting perfume of him and here.
Andrius wraps an arm around my waist when I hop off the countertop, letting me steal more of his warmth as we stand silently together in the morning light streaming through the window. A few big bites of thick, buttered toast sprinkled with something spicy warms me more from the inside. Ceramic clinks against stone as he sets down his empty mug and wraps the other arm around. I lick my fingers clean so I can hold his forearms and run my hands along them.
"You know," his newly free hand settles flat against my stomach and slides down until his fingertips meet the edge of my pants, "I felt so abandoned when you left that I needed a distraction. So I caught up on a lot of work in the last week."
"Oh?" I say casually, as if the feeling of his hands isn't already driving me mad, "So, you have an excess of free time now?"
