Tales from a Lewd Fantasy World – Tale 2 – The Hero from Another World (Patreon)

If you expect me to begin this by being run down by a runaway truck, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Because we all know how that shit goes, don’t we? A loser with a face so generic anyone can self-insert in it dies through some set of contrived circumstances, and some kind of deity (or Being X, if we’re feeling particularly spiteful) decides to give them a second chance at life. Except it is in a world so radically different from the original one, it’s a wonder how some skills even manage to carry over.

The fact that said skills tend to be the very same that power-fantasy lovers would have realistically developed through a lifetime of playing games and reading enough Wikipedia articles to gather some ammo for their pointless flame wars is not sheer contrivance designed to help with their self-inserting on the pointlessly bland protagonist, no, it’s just the way things go. Everybody would be a badass if transported to a fantasy world, rather than generic peasant number 23 who dies at the start of the first arc to show the real hero there are consequences for their actions.

So, screw you. This isn’t going to start with me dying through some Rube Goldberesque event that wouldn’t be amiss in the Final Destination series, nor with an unearthly beautiful goddess telling me my mission in this new life. And I’m obviously not going to go through life as a baby again, because having a fully developed intellect while you’re unable to control your sphincters and need a woman who, at least biologically, is your real mother to put her tit in your mouth regularly sounds like the stuff that makes therapists start signing book deals after your first session.

No, this is going to start with me getting drunk in a tavern with the red-skinned, raven-haired, big-titted demoness.

Much better, don’t you think?

“I just don’t get it,” I say, not yet slurring my words, but not for lack of trying. Enhanced metabolism is a bitch, not to mention a considerable financial drain. The bartender is looking at me in awe, though.

“What? You actually don’t understand something? Where’s that college education you’re so proud of now?” Zhandra mocks me.

“I don’t know. It depends on whether the bank can claim it after I die without paying my student’s loan.”

“Ah, right… Are you worried about your parents—” And now she’s showing concern. All right, that’s the camel-breaking last straw.

Hopefully not mind-broken camel. I have my limits.

“Look, can you just explain to me how are you a demoness again? Because this isn’t, at all, what Sunday school would have had me believe.”

“You… Had a school that only opened on the day of the Sun?” She blinks in confusion. I groan at the fucking lost in translationness of it all.

“Something the church did for kids. My most benevolent interpretation is that it was a way to allow the stressed-out parents another chance to actually try to have another kid.”

“Ah, so you had churches dedicated to—”

“No. No, fuck, that would’ve been far more interesting than what—I’m getting sidetracked. Again.”

“Not my fault you never get to the point,” she says with a playful smirk. She’s also leaning forward, her arms pressed so that her red cleavage bulges out of the low cut, crème vest she usually wears beneath her leather armor that’s not fetish gear at all, no sir. So, basically? Her mouth says one thing, her body says another—that is, that it very much is her fault that I get sidetracked this often. My willpower only stretches so far, and the temptation is pretty apparent.

Like usual. Because fucking (literally) lust demons have to act the part, don’t they?

I grumble as I rub my temples out of habit, seeing as I no longer get headaches that aren’t induced by mana strain (and how fucking chuuni is that?).

“I won’t even dignify that with an answer other than to say I won’t dignify that with an answer. Now, seriously, why the fuck is a demon accompanying the chosen hero to vanquish the Demon Lord? Because that sounds like treason waiting to happen, yet nobody ever bats an eye at it.”

“How racist of you,” she says with a bored, droning tone. And raises her hand to ask for another mug of mead.

By the way, mead? Fucking delicious. I prefer the drier ones rather than the sweeter ones, but if beer was like this, I would have gone out to drink far more often in my past life. It would certainly have made college more appealing.

The tavern wench (I won’t call her waitress as long as she keeps ogling my frie—companion like she wants to dress her in a saliva suit) swiftly brings her the refill, and Zhandra takes a long, drawn-out gulp out of it, her eyes closed in pleasure, and a happy, barely decent hum on her lips.

“I don’t even know enough about your race to be racist about it—”

“Ah, but isn’t bigotry usually the product of ignorance?”

“Shut up. And if you don’t want me to think about ‘harmful stereotypes’ or whatever, shouldn’t you stop trying to make absolutely everything into something sexual?”

At this, she stops her hand, the rim of her mug barely grazing the bottom of her dark, red lip, glistening with the wetness of the drink and—for fuck’s sake. This cannot be an accident.

“I’m not trying to do anything.”

“Sure could’ve fooled me.”

“Indeed, it seems like I have.”

“Uh?”

And she sighs and lowers the mug to the table.

“Look, Adrian—”

“Not my actual name,” I answer automatically.

“I know, but you also know we have to call you something other than the chosen one or whatever ridiculous title you got after the summoning.”

“Still don’t know why I had to lose my name—”

“Magic has a cost, which neatly brings me along to my own circumstances.”

“Really? Because that sounds awfully convenient.”

“I don’t want to hear that from the guy who never had to train a day of his life to have the kind of power you have. Now, are you going to let me answer your own question or not?”

“Meh…” I start to eloquently tell her what I think about her pedagogical skills.

And she flicks my forehead.

Heh. A classic.

“All right, you bigoted, insufferably rude, ignorant human—”

“And who’s being a racist right now—” Ah. A kick to the shin from beneath the table. Also a classic.

“First, I’m not an actual demon; the technical term would be demon-descended—”

“You mean like a tiefling?”

“I don’t know what that is, but if you interrupt me again, I’ll feast on your soul.”

“Can you actually do that?”

“You’ll find out if you let me finish.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Oh for—! Fine, be that way!”

And now she’s sulking.

Which is still a sight to behold, seeing as she’s basically what a pornstar body would be like if it was actually… Not natural, because I’m pretty sure natural skin isn’t that elastic, and the way she sways when she decides to add a little extra to her steps is much, much bouncier than she has any right to be, and—damn it.

All right, she’s a strange combination of sultry and cute whenever she pouts that, while hitting all the right buttons, still manages to leave me feeling more guilty than enticed, so…

“Sorry… I actually want to learn more about you. I’ll shut up.”

And now her pointy ears are twitching as she tries to hide a smile. Also, I’m pretty sure that’s a slight blush, though I admit the color palette has me a bit confused on that point.

“Right… Well, listen attentively to Miss Zhandra’s lesson, and you too can leave this tavern without being a racist piece of shit.”

“Oi. Don’t push it.”

“You’re right, sorry. I should add that the results aren’t guaranteed.”

…

Fine, I’m laughing. It was funny. Shut up.

“Right, with the disclaimer out of the way,” she says, acting inordinately pleased at her small victory, “The first thing you should know is that gods are bastards.”

“That checks out.”

“No, I mean literally.”

“… And now you’ve lost me.”

Also, you shouldn’t smile like that at my admission of ignorance, Zhandra. It’s not like you’d do much better at Trivial night back home.

“Right, back to even more basics: there are gods with a capital ‘g,’ the Never Born, and those are basically unreachable. They are more like things that are just therethan actual people. Witches say they can commune with them, but everybody knows they are a bit… loopy, so it’s not like their opinion holds much weight.”

“Wait, wait, wait, so witches commune with gods, while demons don’t know what’s their actual deal?”

“Uh, yes? Why?”

“No, just thinking that some ladies back home are owed an actual apology.”

“… You had witches back home.”

“No. We had people who claimed to be witches. Also, we had people other people claimed to be witches. The last group got kind of a rough deal.”

“In the world without magic. With churches that taught you about demons.”

“No, look, it was mostly superstition. Even people who believed in that thought most of it was just, I don’t know, metaphorical or—”

“You do realize magic exists, don’t you?”

“Well, sure, here.”

“And that your soul came here. Your already existent soul.”

“Right, but if magic back there existed, people would know about it. Nobody believed in—I mean, most people didn’t think it was real. At most, I don’t know, astrology… which all major newspapers had… and that almost every girl I dated had a book about… and fucking Claire left me after she checked our astral charts compatibility…”

…

Fuck.

“So. You had magic.”

“I’m ready to accept the possibility of some cultural bleed-over. I refuse to believe I lived in a world with actual magic hidden from muggles,” I say, my voice as level as the current amount of alcohol in my blood allows it to be.

Which must come across as more obstinate than anything else, because my companionis rubbing her temples.

It’s also unfair what the slight, subtle, languid, circular motions do to someparts of her anatomy pressed between her elbows.

And that tavern wench better not be expecting a tip, because she’s getting her money’s worth with every eyeful.

“Why is it so hard to get a conversation going with you that doesn’t end up in one of your ridiculous derails?”

“Oh, so you have trains in here?”

“Of course we do; why else would I use that expression—see?! That’s what I mean! I ask a rhetorical question about—”

“And I gave you a rhetorical answer,” I say, my smile so beatific it could be used for a portrait of the Virgin Mary. You know, if I shaved beforehand.

“That’s not what that word means!”

“Oh? Well, then I guess Miss Zhandra’s lessons must leave something to be desired.”

“I’ll show you fucking desire, you piece of—”

And… Well, it may be the alcohol.

It may be that she’s, other than Elena, the closest thing to a friend I’ve had since I got here.

It may be that I‘ve always had a thing for belligerent girls who can keep up with my snark.

Or it may be for a thousand other reasons (none of them being that I’m lonely, horny, and trapped in hentailand), but our eyes meet, and we both remain silent for a moment. Just for a moment, seeing her violet irises on black sclera barely wavering from mine, her throat seductively moving as she swallows during the prolonged silence, her ears twitching in a way that just makes me wonder how much control she has over them.

I end the moment by smirking at her, the right corner of my mouth rising in an insolent, almost insulting gesture that I know drives most people mad with the urge to strangle me.

“Show me, then,” I say.

And she smirks back.

Also, the tavern wench suddenly looks a bit sad.

***

I open the door to my room by the very unorthodox method of pushing it with my back as Zhandra’s finger keeps pressing on my chest, her eyes never leaving my own as I almost tumble to the floor.

The back of her heel catches the edge of the door as she walks by, and she shuts it with a graceful movement of her leg that translates to an undulating ripple across her bare thighs. At least, the part that’s shown between the top of her knee-high boots and her very short shorts.

Her eyes are glowing. They are barely enough for me to make up the contours of everything in the small room, and that’s only because of how much my own eyes have changed since I leaped worlds.

“So… About your lesson…”

“Are we actually doing this?” I ask, not at all nervous or apprehensive. No. I’m just… concerned about team cohesion. Yes, that’s it: a sane, responsible worry to have when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders.

Zhandra walks closer, her arm bending until only her finger separates our chests. No, I’m not staring. Shut up.

“So. Gods are bastards,” she murmurs, so low I wouldn’t catch it if she was even a bit farther away.

“Are we reallydoing this—” And I moan.

Because she just cut me off by leaning forward, her chest finally—I mean actuallypressing against mine, and her pointy fang nibbling on my earlobe so lightly it almost tickles.

“But that’s the small ‘g’ gods,” her voice burns as it slinks past my wet ear, “the ones that have names, that answer prayers. They are bastards, because they aren’t actual gods, just shattered fragments of a mask. We have Selene and Artemis, but none of them are Moon. They are children of a single parent. Bastards. The Bastard Gods. Understand?”

I nod, my Adam’s apple bobbing far more energetically than my own head.

“Good.” She pushes me until the back of my knees hits the edge of the bed, and she forces me to take a seat while she bends down, her mouth still by the side of my ear. “Good, Adrian, you are a very good student…” Oi, don’t push it! “Now, much like there was Moon, there was Sun, and Light, and Darkness… and Sin. The bastards of Sin were the first Demon Kings.”

“This is all very interesting, but—” Her finger goes from my chest to my lips, closing them. Silencing me.

And she straddles me.

“The Bastard Gods could interact with the world in a way the Never Born didn’t. They had actual personalities, names, ways for people to talk to them. Lovers.”

Ah. Of course.

“That’s where demigods come from. And angels. And demons.”

She smiles when she says it, but… Not like she usually does.

And when did I start learning her smiles?

“And those demons… Well, they all descended from one of the bastards of Sin. Envy. Greed. Wrath…”

I lean back just a little, just enough that her finger doesn’t chase my lips even as her chest keeps pressing on mine.

Yes, I’m weak. Like all the great tragic heroes. Which I am. Obviously.

“I refuse to believe you have the same seven deadly sins we do. Also, I find it highly suspicious that the goddesses you named come straight from Greek mythology.”

“You do remember you are no longer speaking English, don’t you?”

“I’m American; I rarely spoke English before.”

“… I don’t really know what that means,” she says with a sigh. A sigh that I feel very physically.

A sigh that I react to. You know, below.

And she smirks.

“Back to our lesson—”

“You can’t just lead me around by my dick and expect me to—”

She kisses me.

Her lips taste… There’s a warmth in them that is beyond body heat, something that I feel inside me rather than on my skin. A hint of spice, something like cinnamon if cinnamon had a fling with black pepper…

I moan against her, and she reciprocates before leaning away, her finger once again intruding, impeding me from chasing her.

“It’s not just your dick I’m counting on,” she says with a smirk that…

That isn’t a smirk. Not with the way her lips softened right at the end before she caught herself.

“Anyway… There are many sins beyond the main seven, and, from time to time, a new Demon King will be born after some culture or another discovers a new way to taint their soul, but… Lust. I am descended from the demons of lust.”

Her hips settle down on my lap. She doesn’t even need to sway or grind them for me to ache for the heat that radiates between her legs.

Her finger twitches as she shivers, and I take it into my mouth.

Zhandra’s eyes widen, the purple light coming from her slitted irises momentarily brightening, and I twirl my tongue around the tip of her finger before raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“It’s… It’s not as straightforward as being an elf, a dwarf, or a human. Demon descendants can have blood from any of the main races, but… Our flesh has something of the Bastard Gods in it. We are… attuned to our concept, and our actions, our character, our self, reflects it.” Her throat bobbles up and down after the words, and she keeps looking at me with a hint of fear. The kind one has when facing something new.

I move my hands to her waist, my fingers splayed to catch as much of the soft, wonderful, smooth touch as I can, and then I grip her, pulling her against me.

She moans, and both the sound and the image make sparks go off inside my head.

“And…” she hesitates, going momentarily still, “And of all the demons and demon descended… Lust demons are…”

Her eyes are nailed to my own, her pupils so dilated they are almost round.

I let go of her finger.

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” I ask, as gently as I can.

And she laughs.

First incredulous, then she keeps going, not knowing what else to do.

“I… I’m not a virgin, Adrian,” she finally says, tears in the corner of her black eyes, slightly out of breath.

I feel a bit of the familiar anger, the one that raises when someone laughs at me, not with me, but…

Not the time.

“This is new to you. I don’t know what is, but—”

She kisses me.

This time, her lips open, her tongue comes out to meet mine, and she starts out forcefully, but… It soon softens, the movement slow, tender, and her hips making small circles over mine.

My left hand travels up her back, enjoying how much of it is bare between her shorts and her vest, and then tangles through the black hair cut in a small, straight bob that sometimes turns wavy with humidity or after a rough night.

She arches her back, leaning against my touch, against the fingers digging into her scalp, and she moans in relief.

“There’s… There’s something wrong with you,” she whispers, her eyes regretfully opening.

I lean forward and kiss her neck, sucking on the small, concave spot that—

She moans.

Yeah. That spot.

“You are gonna need to narrow that down,” I say, now nibbling on her earlobe as she did at the start of her lesson.

She almost chuckles, but I pull on it with my teeth, and she lets out a sharp hiss.

“I... I feel the lust building in you. Embers stoking in your chest, sparks flying off you and being drawn to me, but…”

I wait for her to finish, but only a quickening of her breath answers me, so…

“But?” My right hand, still at her waist, travels a bit forward until my thumb is resting along the crook of her spine, and I pull her against me once more, her body flush against mine.

Zhandra moans yet again, her hips grinding against my hardness.

“It’s… not a sin…” she finally says, her voice barely audible.

“… What?”

“Your… Your lust. For me. It’s not a sin.”

Her arms are around my neck, and I don’t know when she has embraced me, but I feel them as I lean back from her ear so I can look once again at her eyes.

“Zhandra… Have you ever had sex with someone who…” The words get stuck in my throat.

Great. I’m back in high school. Can I get someone to pass her a note?

“Someone who…?” But she’s disoriented and…

Damn it.

Of all the bullshit I expected to deal with after being dragged to a fantasy world, this was very low in my list of terrible, awful, likely outcomes.

“Who…” Come on, Adrian, if that’s your real name—it isn’t—just one last push! “Someone who… This is fucking embarrassing, and I expect you to be very appreciative if I ever manage to finish the bloody sentence.”

“Moreappreciative?” she has the gall to ask, something burning and wet resting against my straining cock.

“Not like that. Seriously, this… Ah, fuck it: have you ever had sex with someone who cared for you?”

She stops.

Not just the breathy moans, the small circles, the lingering looks, the pressing of her chest on mine. No.

She stops even breathing.

And then her eyes flash, bright enough that a normal person may have been able to see the whole room for the short duration of it.

Which means I have to close my own in literally blinding pain, because I was looking right at them—

“What does that even—”

“Maybe it isn’t a sin if it’s part of something else,” I grit through clenched teeth.

“I… Adrian, what are you even saying?”

That you are one of two people in this whole plane of existence I actually care about, that I love your sense of humor, that I literally owe you my life after those bandits last week, that if I only cared for extraordinary breasts and swaying hips, there were quite a few on display at the palace I fled from like the place was on fire…

I open my eyes and see her own. Guarded.

“I’m saying you have shitty taste in men. And women.”

She laughs.

Because, apparently, she also likes my sense of humor.

Then she grabs my cheeks and kisses me.

Her tongue is a whirl of motion, exploring every corner of my mouth as her whole body presses against me, every possible point of contact relentlessly exploited, every burning patch of her skin feeling like it’s branding me, like I’m no longer allowed to ignore there ever was a moment where we touched, and everything changed after it.

Then the kiss… It’s not so much that it stops, but that it gets rescheduled.

“Yes. Yes, I certainly do,” she says with that cocky grin of hers, looking down at me.

Mana heats up and rushes along channels I only recently became aware of; then, with a strength that has very little to do with my newly lean muscles, I grab her hips (appreciatively) and stand up.

Her legs automatically wrap around me, her fingers now digging into my scalp.

Then I turn around and lower both of us to the bed, my own arms supporting me above her.

“I’m going to make you swallow those words.”

“Oh? Is that the only thing I’ll be swallowing tonight?”

Her cocky tone, her insolent eyebrow, her twitching ear…

I smile.

She answers.

And I lean down.

The kiss is rough, my hands wandering up her belly until they get beneath her vest, and I finally get a taste of what has been so often proudly displayed to my errant forays into the male gaze. She’s as soft as I expected, her flesh molding to my touch, undulating beneath my massage until her hands leave my hair, and she writhes beneath me, pulling the piece of clothing off, showing me what I’ve only imagined after the fabric cuts through our kiss.

Her nipples are a darker red, almost black, and they stand up between my fingers, tempting me to grab them and pinch them.

I think it’s already been pretty clearly illustrated that I’m awful at resisting temptation.

“Ah!” temptation moans.

And then she cuts herself off, looks at me with surprise, and then looks away in embarrassment.

…

“Seriously, just how selfish were your previous partners?”

“It’s… not so much that they were selfish, but that when a lust demon takes you to bed, there are certain… expectations.”

I lean down and kiss her between her breasts, trailing a rising line to the hollow of her throat.

“Not having lovey-dovey sex, I can get, but you can’t tell me you never did this with somebody whose fetish was to take an uppity lust demon and make her cum her brains out until she forgot how to even form coherent syllables.”

Hands stronger than they usually are grab my head and push it toward her left nipple. I take the invitation—well, order—for what it is and start licking and sucking.

“You won’t stop taking your damn detours even in these circumstances?”

“On the contrary: these are circumstances that very much force me to take some very enjoyable detours.”

“What does that even—ah!”

That cute, startled moan? That was me sucking on her nipple right as my hand reached the natural endpoint of its detour and squeezed that ass that’s been tempting me with every excessively swaying step whenever she decides to ‘scout ahead.’

It’s everything I ever wanted, except for all the other things I still want very much.

“Very illustrative…” she mutters.

“Yep. Unlike a certain someone, I don’t feel the need to avoid answering the damn question.” To make my displeasure known, I flick the nipple I’m not currently engaging in a romantic kiss with.

“Fine! Fine, some tried, but…”

And now she’s squirming.

Let me repeat this: Zhandra, the lust demon who has been making me take extensive ‘toilet breaks’ every time we have camped outside since this whole thing started, the experienced adventuress who knows far more about mana channeling and blade work than I ever will, the woman whose ass could sail a thousand ships, is half-naked, squirming beneath me.

…

I don’t think I’ve ever been harder. Fourteen-year-old me, I’m sorry, you just lost your long-standing record.

“But…?” I almost growl the question, and the wet skin around her nipple raises in some very intriguing goosebumps.

And she moans.

Seriously, is she doing this on purpose? Because I am halfway tempted to—

“It never works! The lust keeps growing, and they get weaker as I get stronger! I feedon this!”

Oh.

Oh.

Right, I should at least try to hide my wicked, Machiavellian smile.

“So… As my lust isn’t a sin… You’re getting stronger, but I’m not getting weaker?”

She’s… covering her face with her hands.

And nodding.

Fuck it, this is too unfair.

I take off my shirt as fast as I can without ripping it, then I tear my pants off without that much care, because mauve. Who the fuck thought that was an adequate color to dress me with?

Ah, right. Elena.

… Tomorrow morning is gonna be awkward, isn’t it?

I look at the still overcome by a bout of shyness demoness and decide that I can deal with tomorrow’s reproachful, hurt looks as long as I don’t screw up today’slooks of something that better not include reproach.

Before Zhandra has any chance to recover, I undo her belt and…

Whoa, these shorts are tight.

And somewhat stretchy. Uh. I guess alchemists managed to get a lycra-analog somehow.

Which neatly explains the almost-painted-on purple panties with a wet patch that smells a bit like nutmeg if nutmeg was something you used in a campfire.

… All right, I’m inordinately proud of myself. This never ends well.

So I slide both the shorts and the panties off (and she’s shaved or bald, because of course she would be), roll them down her boots (that I leave on for… expediency), and…

Well, this is about new things for her, isn’t it?

So I kiss her thighs, caressing every hint of uncovered skin I can reach. I try not to hurry, even as my own body screams at me in betrayal, because she’s right here, and I want her so, so much—

I circulate my mana, allowing it to trace newly learned patterns around my head, then around my mind, and don’t stop until the flow is smooth and unimpeded.

“You are aphrodisiac, you know?” I comment as dispassionately as I can while I lovingly kiss the taut tendon that goes from her leg to her pelvis.

“Uh... Thanks?” she says, still embarrassed for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand.

“No, I…” Damn it, she should learn this. “I mean this literally. I just purged external influences from my mind. My body wanted me to drill you through the bed.”

Her leg stops twitching.

And her hands drop from her face, lying by her side.

“Damn it, mom…” she mutters.

I… I think I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.

“Do you want me to stop?” I, trying not to sound despondent, ask.

“What—you mean you don’t want to stop?” she says, raising up on her elbows, the bed shifting beneath me.

And brushing my still geologic hard-on.

“Why would I?” I don’t tilt my head cutely, but only because it’s resting very comfortably on soft, fit thighs.

“You… Didn’t you just purge the influence?”

“Well, yeah,” I reply. Then I raise up and crawl up her body until my erection is right above the heat wafting off her sex, and her eyes are glued to it. “But I didn’t purge being here. With you.”

She looks up at me, at the cocky, provocative grin that mostly lifts the right side of my mouth.

And at eyes that I’m pretty sure don’t match it.

So, she smiles a smile that I am yet to learn, but that is soft and warm, and her legs wrap around me.

“Tell me again, why did Claire break up with you?” I frown at the non-sequitur.

“Apparently, Mercury was in conjunction with Sun, so I’m far too cerebral for a free spirit like her.”

“What about Venus?”

“I… Don’t know?”

And that soft, warm smile widens, and her pupils once again get rounder as the light she emits takes on a tone that… I don’t have the word, I’m not a painter, but… It’s like the room is bathed in a morning haze, only it’s somehow both moonlight and warmer.

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

And she kisses me.

Her tongue drags mine into her mouth, rubbing up and down along its side, and her hips shift so I’m at the verge of entering her, warmth and slick wetness brushing against my tip, and…

She does something, a movement involving her whole body, and she’s flat against the mattress with me just caressing her past her outer lips, her own sex almost kissing me, almost pleading with me to enter.

And, using all the strength I have learned since I came here, I pull my head back.

“Zhandra, I… I know this is new. You don’t have to feel like this is expected. If you want to stop. I will. I will spend the rest of the night jacking off, but I will, because I…”

Tender fingertips brush against my cheekbone, right above the line where my beard starts.

“Because…?” she asks. And there’s wonder in her eyes.

I swallow.

It’s not the ‘L’ word. Not yet, and maybe not ever. But…

“Because I care for you. A lot. A lot more than I care about getting my rocks off. So… God, this is mortifying. Can we pretend I pawed at you like a horny teenager and just ruined the mood? I have more experience with that than with… This.”

And she laughs. Of course she does.

Except it’s… lighter than usual. Freer.

“You could have never done anything farther from ruining the mood than this.”

She kisses me once again, and it’s slow, languid, and the room is bathed in darkness as her eyes shut fully. Then, her hips undulate beneath me, and suddenly I’m surrounded by that slick, warm wetness, the undulations of her body transmitted to me, rushing up my spine, setting sparks off behind my own eyelids.

Then I thrust for the first time, and she opens at the merest hint of my presence, tight around me, yet accepting all that I can offer her until my pelvis grinds against hers and another moan, slower, deeper, bursts from her lips and into mine.

I lean back, and her eyes open to meet mine, and it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time, except there’s not a trace of the jaded pall that gave her that wondrous, acrid sense of humor. No, she’s…

Innocent.

I draw back, and she bites her lip.

I push forward, and her mouth opens in a silent plea.

“You are so beautiful right now,” I tell her before I can stop myself.

And her smile this time…

I haven’t learned it yet, no.

But I’ll never forget it.

I kiss her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, her eyelids, and she giggles, and then I move, and the giggle turns into something deeper, yet still playful. The leather of her boots brushes against my skin as I go back and forth, as her fingers go from my face to my back, as she kisses my neck and bites my shoulder when the first shuddering wave of sensation makes her briefly incoherent.

And I don’t even remember to be proud of making this woman cum, because I’m slightly disappointed that I haven’t seen how she looks when she does it.

But then her face drops to the pillow, and looks up at me in wonder and I…

“You’re beautiful,” she says before I can do it.

“I… Zhandra, I…”

“No… Not your body, not even your mind, it’s… You. Just you.”

She kisses me, and a warmth that screams ‘other’ to my senses invades me.

She taught me how to fight it, how to avoid the mana from others contaminating my own, how to harden my channels and rush my own reserves if a direct method was my only recourse.

I don’t.

No, instead, I let my own energy do what it feels like it should do, and it cascades down my mouth and into hers.

Then her energy, the thing that all of us breathe and take in, but that then becomes ours until the day it is spent, reaches my sex, and my own energy reaches hers, and…

There’s a circle that isn’t a circle, because it’s two and never was. A connection I couldn’t have forged on purpose. A thrum of emotion that isn’t mine, but that has wonder, and admiration, and tenderness, and yearning, and it is verymuch like mine.

I pull out, but not entirely, and the sensation of her clinging to me resonates through the glowing line inside me. Her eyes shoot open, and I can see how my own pleasure, my own desperate hunger for her, is echoing inside her.

Our lips part. The connection holds.

And I speed up.

I feel her pleasure spike, and she feels my hunger abate for a moment, the need not so frantic now that I’m feeding it what it wants, now that I’m taking from her body as much sensation as I can handle.

Her nails dig into my back, hard enough they would have drawn blood at any other moment, and she shivers, clenching down on me so hard I almost stop, but then I see her face, desperately trying to remain expressive and not just come undone, and she urges me.

Then the short heels of her boots spur me on. Literally.

I grin down at her, at the wonderful woman, at the way she manages to slip a pun into my internal monologue.

She smiles in turn, then throws her head back, her throat standing out on her taut neck, so I lean down and bite on it, her silent moan vibrating into me, her thrill at being taken beating into my chest.

“Please!” she yells.

And, at this moment, I don’t need to ask her what she wants, because I feel her pulling at me, claiming her stake, demanding.

So I roar as the world flashes in a white so intense I don’t know whether it’s her own light or my orgasm tearing my mind apart.

I lose count of how many jets of liquid heat burn through me and into her, her arms tightening around me with every shot, her breathing stopping each time I shudder anew inside her.

The circles spin faster and faster, and then something that isn’t just liquid bursts forth.

And the world burns away.

***

When I wake up, I’m lying on a wet mattress, my head resting on a pillow that smells like spicy cinnamon.

There’s a hint of light that allows me to make out the shapes in the room, but not the colors.

And there’s a back in front of me.

An upright one.

“Zhandra?” I ask with a voice that feels like it hasn’t been used in years.

The back stiffens, marvelously defined muscles shifting under soft skin.

“Adrian? Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up, I was just leaving—”

“Stay,” I tell her before I even realize I mean to do so.

For once, I don’t regret it.

She slowly turns around, her left breast shown in profile, a playful look directed at me over her shoulder.

“Oh? Didn’t you have enough already—”

She’s joking.

I love her sense of humor.

I hate her self-deprecation.

So I grab her forearm. Not hard enough to hurt her, never that, but my fingers dig into hard, toned flesh.

Tense flesh.

“I don’t think I’ll ever have enough. But that’s not what I mean.”

“Adrian, what are you…”

“Stay. With me. Please.”

Something flashes across her eyes, and her face firms.

“You don’t mean—”

“Let me hold you tonight. Everything else can wait.”

And the firmness melts away and, hesitating, not quite smiling as her mouth wavers, she lies on her side, facing me.

I cup her warm cheek with my hand, looking into eyes whose light seems a bit clearer.

“I care for you. I won’t ever use you and throw you aside.”

Something beats inside me. Something that is not mine, that is other.

Something that she has given me and that I’ll always treasure.

“I don’t need a white knight to rescue me.”

“Good thing I refused the title, then.”

My lips twitch, and so do hers.

“Certainly. Gods know what your sense of entitlement would be like if it was made official.”

I laugh. So does she.

“My entitlement? Remind me who decided reward money should be allocated in equal portions?”

“Gasp! Gasp, I say! And after I so generously split my bounties with an unexperienced upstart!”

“Or, in other words, after I rescued you from chronic unemployment.”

“More like forced me to deal with a lost puppy.”

“You leave Elena out of this.”

“I didn’t mean—oh, you’re bad.”

“And yet, you’re the demonic one. Guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

She hugs me to her and kisses me thoroughly, each movement sure and deliberate, managing to rub her body against mine with every undulating step of the dance.

“No. No, you certainly can’t,” she murmurs after leaving me gasping between her arms.

I smile back at her, my own face likely as mushy as hers.

Then we keep bantering between each other’s arms until the night is long and we finally fall asleep.

And, in the morning, I regretfully tell Elena that I had an unfortunate accident and will need to buy a replacement for those mauve pants she so enthusiastically suggested I buy.

Throughout the entire bizarre conversation that involves quite a few longing looks from the tavern wench, Zhandra laughs her head off.

And I’ve never been happier I got dragged to this crazy world.

=================

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Tere! Finally done! Last month’s chef’s choice that was supposed to be 4k and ended up being almost 7k. Sorry about the delay, you all; this really fought me and ended up not being, at all, what I thought it would be. Yet another lesson in not forcing stories when they want to be different.

I will set up the polls tomorrow, because I was supposed to get some kind of sleeping schedule this weekend, and I’ve already managed to wreck that, let me know what you think!