Side-Story 1. The Witch and the Brute (II) (Patreon)

Morning found them tangled up in each other. Eudora woke first; she’d also slept first, in a manner of speaking. Her last waking hour was hardly conscious; she spent it in some addled haze of pleasure, limp, letting him do what he wished to her before he, too, keeled over at last. She was long past spent by then. They’d gone at it most of the night. Her legs and back had taken a beating; she was bruised all over. Even shifting a leg sent a thousand pinpricks of sore pain stabbing into her, but she was thoroughly satisfied. She curled up against him, smiling, sighing happily. “Ah…”

He hadn’t held back at all; he’d unleashed the full brunt of his formidable strength on her poor body, driving so deep into her it she was worried he’d break her. At its most intense, when pain and pleasure twined to excruciating heights, she thought he might snap her in two. He was still snoring, sprawled out spread-eagled. He deserved some rest. She cupped his cheek in one hand, adoring him, and sighed again. A stellar performance, darling. One of your best. No-one fucked like her Fei-Fei.

She surveyed the room, dappled pale orange by the rising sun. It was as though a hurricane had swept through the room. Not a thing was upright. The sofas were broken. The walls were cracked. Mirrors were shattered. The chandelier had lost half its candles. Even the bed was tilted to one side; one of the legs had been shattered, and she couldn’t remember when it happened.

Her Fei-Fei was exhausting at times. But he was worth it in the end. She admired the way the sunlight played off his face, limning the edge of his stubborn nose. Absently, she twirled a lock of his hair.

So cute! On a whim she leaned forward and kissed him softly on the forehead. She could stay here, like this, by his side, forever. She wished this moment would never end.

She frowned. Last night she’d been pent-up. Frustrated. Maybe she’d gone too far with him; maybe she’d said some things she hadn’t meant.

Why was she with him? Was it only his body, or was there something else?

She thought about it. She felt warm. Good. Cared-for when she was with him. Even just looking at him, she longed to be in his arms. She knew he’d want nothing more than to keep her safe in his embrace.

That was her Fei-Fei—possessive, coarse, with his temper on a tight leash, but he’d defend her until his dying breath. He was caring and kind, but strong-willed. Powerful, but not in a crass way; his was a strength so absolute it seldom needed flexing. When he was in a room, everyone knew who the most man among them was. He was strong of body, sure; but he was also strong of soul.

Unless it came to her. The he exposed his soft underbelly. Swept up in the heat of the moment she’d said she found it repugnant, but that wasn’t quite right. In truth it was endearing to see him brood, get angry, get stupid over her. She wanted him to open up to her and only her; she wanted to be the only key to his lock. Slowly she caressed his sleeping face, feeling her heart melt in her chest.

There was a face she could stare at for ages. She wanted him all to himself.

A humiliating, awful thought struck her. The moment it did she knew it was true. She blushed, sitting bolt upright, mouth stuck in a small o.

“My gods,” she whispered. “I do love him.”

She whirled back to him as soon as she said it, scanning his face. She let out a breath. Still asleep. Thank the gods. How embarrassing! She could never tell him. He’d be insufferable if he knew.

She snuggled back into him and let her eyes drift shut.

A sniffing sound. Then a spot of wetness touched her temple. She frowned. What?

She looked up. Oh… he must’ve heard me after all.

Tears were trickling slowly down Fei-Fei’s face. They slid down from his shut eyes, flowing down the scars on his cheeks like glacier-water filling riverbeds after a spring thaw. His chest was shuddering, his lips trembling. His breaths heaved in and out of him. He tried disguising it with a groan and a turn away from her—as though he were simply shifting naturally in his sleep. He buried his face into a pillow; he was trying so hard not to make a sound, to keep up appearances. To hide his anguish. She felt it wrack him through the shudders of his back. Soon he couldn’t hold back his sobs anymore; they leaked out of him, such tender, shaky sounds. It felt perverse for a man as big and strong as him to cry. It made her squirm. In that moment he looked so fragile—like even a touch might shatter him.

Oops…? She supposed she’d done this to him. She’d broken him. It’d come so easily last night, in the heat of the moment.

In hindsight, maybe laughing at his confession was slightly overdone. Sure, Fei-Fei might’ve been confused about his feelings, but it was only natural. The last and only time someone ever loved him was his father; that same man had kicked him out, whipped him half to death, and left him to bleed out in an alley at age seven. Of course the boy had strange ideas of love. She’d seen how he’d hardened up over the years, shielded his heart with scabs and scar tissue.

And the one time he’s opened up again, I went and stuck a knife in him.

To her surprise, she felt it in her chest too. A sudden, horrid tightness, like an eel eating her up from the inside. It made no sense. Why did she feel bad now? It was hardly the first time she’d played with a man’s heart; hardly the first time she’d played with Fei-Fei, even!

A sharp pang of something uncomfortably close to guilt struck her. She sidled up to him, not knowing what she was doing. Her Fei-Fei was hurting; he needed her. She pressed up into him and held him in a soft embrace, like he was a precious, delicate thing. She stroked his hair as he wept. “Shhh…” she cooed. “I’m here, darling….I’m here…” All the while, she was utterly befuddled at herself.

How many men had she left in wrecks? She was a typhoon. She came and left. If men were stranded or broken it was hardly her business. It’d be the easiest thing in the world to rise and stalk off. She’d nearly done it last night. But now, in the sober light of the morning, she found her chest constricted horribly every time she so much as thought of letting him go.

It was like his pain was seeping into her through the touch. It was strange, confusing even; she felt him more deeply in that moment than she ever had when he was inside her. It took a long while before his shuddering ceased.

“Do you really love me?” his words came out in a low, hard growl. Suddenly and fiercely.

She was tongue-tied. What?! She panicked. Then she laughed again, a high-pitched, tinkling sound. “Silly, silly Fei-Fei! What could possibly make you think that? You must’ve misheard me. I said—“

He whirled back to her so fast he almost upended the whole bed. The breath was driven out of her in an instant; then he was on top of her, pinning her down with all his massive weight, his ferocity radiating from him like a storm of heat. Her heart quivered in her chest.

“Do you love me?!” He roared, domineering as a god, and she couldn’t stop the word from escaping her lips like a reflex.

“Y-yes,” she gasped, wide-eyed, softly, so softly she could hardly hear it. Her heart was hammering so fast it threatened to leap out of her. Then, tears still streaming down his face, he smothered her in a kiss. She breathed him in, matching his intensity, and they were lost in a tangle of limbs again.

***

He took her again on the bed three times, and afterwards they lay panting for a full quarter-hour, simply recovering. She’d thought he’d reached his peak last night. She was wrong. He’d outdone himself. This morning he’d made her feel things she hadn’t thought were possible. It was so good she’d almost blacked out thrice.

Now she was hobbling awkwardly, tugging on her dress. It’d be stairs for her today. Her legs scarcely obeyed her enough to hobble-walk.

“Satisfied, darling?” she giggled.

He took a deep, heavy breath before answering.

“No.”

She frowned. “Well, I’m far past spent. Make a date with your left hand if you wish.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, frowning. His face was deadly serious. He sat up on the bed and looked her square in the eyes; she saw in them a fierce resolve.

“If you really love me—if you are to be my woman—you must respect me.” He spoke with a slow, certain gravity; she felt his voice deep-down in her. “No tricks. No more playing games with me. I won’t stand for it any longer. That is not how lovers treat each other.”

He’d set a red line in the sand. He was taking a firm hand with her. She paused; then her lips quirked up. She rather liked it.

“You want me on a leash,” she purred. It was rather hard to act sultry when she was halfway-dressed and most of her body wouldn’t listen to her, but she managed. “You want me to belong to you.” She licked her lips. “I can do that.”

“No…”

She stilled at the hurt in his red-rimmed eyes. What?

“Don’t you see?” He whispered. “If you truly love me, treat me with love. Is that too much to ask?”

She considered him in silence. His words hovered in the air between them, and she hadn’t a clue what do with them. Her mind had gone blank.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t know what that means, darling.”

He swallowed. “Can you learn?”

“…Maybe,” she said, hesitant. She held her arm, suddenly self-conscious. “Maybe you can teach me.”

She said it so honestly it startled her. It was the sort of thing she’d have added a wink or a saucy grin to ordinarily, but she was in no ordinary mood.

She looked up to see him smiling faintly through his tears. It annoyed her to no end how much it warmed her to see that smile. “Say it again,” he said. “Say you love me. Please. Say it to my face—I must see you say it.”

She swallowed, crossing her arms. Her first overpowering instinct was to shoot him down then and there. But something about his face… about the childlike hope in that beautiful face… Damn it all!

“I… love you.” Her tongue felt woollen in her mouth. Her face burned so hot she was shocked it wasn’t literally on fire. She wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole. She wanted to bury her face in her hands. “There! Satisfied?”

She felt more naked than she’d ever felt while naked. It was like she’d extruded some raw part of her heart out of her chest, into the open, without protections. It was frightening. What if he sank his teeth into her? This was no good. This wouldn’t do. She had to get back at him.

She sniffled. “You’re an awful brute, you know that?”

“And you’re a horrible witch.” He stood up, naked body glorious as any sculpted hero in the morning sun, and strode over to her. The gods could put the sun away for today. This smile would suffice to light the world. She was weak at the knees again, and not from the pounding she’d taken.

He wrapped his arms around her naked body; she leaned into his chest, hugging him back, breathing in the musky scent of him, feeling all his hardnesses and softnesses, sinking into his embrace. She held him tight. It was a body she knew nearly as well as her own; she’d mapped every inch of this huge body with her tongue alone, but she felt somehow like she was encountering it anew. It was the most un-erotic erotic thing she’d ever done. She didn’t need him inside her.

It was bizarre. Standing there, basking in each other’s arms, was enough to make her feel whole.