Chapter Text
"Chapter Four"
The air of the garden is crisp with the approaching winter and a few autumn leaves crunch under his booted heel, but the fire in Cullen is blazing hot enough to warm a world as he pulls the Inquisitor across the courtyard. The garden is blessedly empty, with only the songs of a few nightbirds disrupting the stillness before he reaches the door of the chantry chapel and wrenches it open.
A serving girl and a guard are inside, kissing, and they fly apart like someone has cast force magic between them. The girl, with her bodice loose and her hair mussed, titters nervously before brushing past them, murmuring about checking on the stores of incense. The guard – and here Cullen notices that of course it is the guard from that day on the battlements, James? Jim? –he is looking at the Commander agog, barely forcing out a “Ser?”
“Get. Out.” He growls, and the man flees, leaving them alone in the room, with only the flickering candlelight and the twining smoke from the incense burners in the air.
And then Cullen has the Inquisitor’s spine pressed flat against the door as his mouth slants over hers. She grips the fabric of his lapels as his hands press to the wood on either side of her head. He draws her full lower lip between his teeth and her mouth parts as he exhales, gusting, through his nose. She tastes of Orlesian champagne and temptation and he is blind with the need of it. One hand drops to wrap around the curve of her waist and pull her flush against him as the other cradles the back of her head, anchors her lips to his. He strokes her tongue with his own and she sags against him –
Before he draws back, quick as a shot, and spins her around so her cheek is pressed to the wood of the door.
“Cullen,” she begins, her voice questioning, and he covers her smaller frame with his own, pressing her hands over her head.
“Shh,” he whispers. He keeps her wrists trapped between his fingers and with the other hand he plucks her glittering earrings away, deposits them in his pockets. Then he loosens the diamond pins in her hair, letting the curls which smell of roses and Antivan sandalwood tumble loose and against her back as he pulls each shining jewel free. Cullen lifts the fragrant weight of her hair away with the hand not pressing hers against the door, and clutches her tresses almost too hard as he growls, “Dorian mentioned that you may not be satisfied.”
Her breaths are coming in hard, short pants and he notes how her breasts strain against the edges of her dress, how if she craned just a little more they would spill out and free into the night air, and she impertinently rubs the curve of her ass against him before he pulls the hand in her hair fast, baring the curve of her neck to his lips as he grazes his teeth against the soft flesh there, his stubble rasping over her tender skin. His teeth sink a little harder than he intends where her neck meets her shoulder, and the noise of pleasure she makes at his boldness sends heat arcing straight to his groin.
“Oh, Cullen,” she sighs, and he cups the curve of her rear and squeezes, hard.
“You think you can tease me without punishment, love? Think you can make promises that your mouth cannot keep?” He rucks the outer layer of her skirt up, pulls back, and flattens his palm before he brings it back to the soft curve of her rear, hard. The sound of his hand against her flesh, even through her petticoats, is almost as delicious as her gasp when she moans, “ah, sweet Maker. Again, please.”
“Since you asked so nicely,” he replies, tongue drawing her earlobe into the wet heat of his mouth as he smacks her rear again, harder, one, twice, and three times, and when she jumps and sighs out, “Andraste’s ashes I’m so wet,” he thinks he might have died and gone to the Golden city.
“You will not take your pleasure yet, my love. I recall you saying something,” he growls against her throat, and gods and goddesses above, her body is so yielding, so languid, when his hand drags from her hair down her back to twist in the laces of her gown, to pull her closer, her is skin so sweet as he edges his teeth along the nape of her neck, breathing “something about your mouth…”
And she whispers, “yes,” before his hands are on the arc of her waist, curving so beautifully in her corset, as he maneuvers her so that her back is pressed to the grain of the wood. It takes only a gentle push downward for her to respond, to lower herself to the flagstones, skirts pressing against the carpet as Cullen moves to fill her vision. Her hands now released from his grip, she grasps the edges of his trousers between her fingers, peeling them slowly down along with his smalls, and he revels in the white-hot heat of her gaze when she looks up at him between her lashes.
Cullen thinks he will go up in flames as the air of the chantry chapel hits his overwarm skin, as the soft cloud of her breath caresses the flesh she reveals between the hem of his shirt and his trousers as she slowly pulls the fabric down his thighs. And his cock is out, free, hard and aching for release, and he needs her touch on him more than he needs air. She wraps her hands around the backs of his knees for a moment, and when her eyes meet his they are pools of heat, so hot and so deep he thinks he might drown. Slowly, deliberately, she wraps her hand around the base of his cock, and the cool feeling of her palm against his overheated flesh is torture.
“Love,” he chokes out, suddenly desperate to draw lines before they cross the point of no return, “you don’t have to…we can…if we keep going, I won’t be able to stop.”
Her voice is silk as she runs her thumb lightly over the tip of his cock, replying, “Foolish man. If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have wound you so tight.”
She pulls gently, and he steps closer. She slowly, oh so slowly, draws the flat of her tongue against the place where his hip presses up against the skin, grazing her teeth gently there where the bone lies shallowly beneath his pale flesh. Kissing the pink mark of her mouth, she continues, “The word is ‘phylactery’; until I say it, I want all of this, your hands on me. I make important decisions all day long, but for tonight, for always, I am yours. Use me, my love.”
Her eyes spark, hard and glittering as she continues, “now if I recall, I made a promise my lips must keep, and I am a woman of my word.”
And he twines his clever fingers in her tresses and her lips part, and she licks her way from the base of his cock to the head, swirling her tongue against the slit there where his pleasure gathers in a pearlescent bead. She parts her lips just enough to suck the tip of him into the wet heat of her mouth before withdrawing, whispering, “oh yes, love.”
Trevelyan draws him between her lips and back, taking him a bit deeper each time, and her hands at his knees drag up the skin of his thighs to grip his ass, to press him closer into the divine, tight heat of her mouth and it is all he can do not to thrust hard into her, to let her fulfill the promise of swallowing his need whole. She is making the most divine noises of contentment in the back of her throat, the sounds she makes when she is enjoying a Fereldan honey cake, like he is delicious and desirable and as she pulls back so that she can lick the sensitive head again she groans out, “oh yes, my love, my dearest love, I need you…”
“Fuck,” he manages between gritted teeth, pressing his forehead, now damp with sweat, against the wood of the chantry door. “I want to- I need-”
He sees the column of her throat constrict then, swallowing and suddenly it is so tight and need is blooming at the base of his cock and her nails are pricking at his skin and sweet Maker her other hand is cupping his balls, pressing gently and oh fuck
And he is shaking, coming undone, as his hips piston into the warmth of her mouth and his hands buried in her hair anchor her head against him as he moves, stuttering, as she swallows him. And he is softening, now, spent, but still in the heat of her mouth. He tightens his grip in her hair and pulls up and his cock slips from between her lips as she rises from the floor.
Cullen’s fingers in her hair loosen when she stands, still pinned between his body and the chantry door, and he cups her face in his callused palms. Sweeping his thumb over her lips, he whispers, “good girl,” and the Inquisitor presses her thighs together, seeking some relief for the aching throb at the juncture of her legs.
“But,” he murmurs against her skin as he slowly drags his hand up the curve of her waist, and she tries not to whine when he bypasses her breasts, “I don’t think you’ve fully made up for your behavior in the ball, dearest. It will take more than my cock in your mouth to get back in my good graces.”
Maker, the man is sin and his voice is torture and she bows her back against the door, presses her chest into the darkened air. If she could just have her breasts free- the rasp of the fabric, the press of the boning has her so tight and they could so easily spill out-
But Cullen puts a hand to her belly and pushes and she is flat against the door again, chest heaving as he growls, “Such wanton behavior, darling. Don’t you recall that this type of conduct is how you got into such a mess in the first place?”
“Yes,” she breathes, lips parted softly, “yes.”
She is standing there pressed to the grain of the wood as he steps back, pulling up his smalls and trousers from around his knees, making himself presentable. When he is fully dressed again, not a curl out of place, he steps closer, and she can’t help the way her breath hitches as he leans into her, as his lips ghost over her throat, as he licks the purplish mark blooming at the juncture of her shoulder and her neck.
“Think of it, love,” he murmurs, his breath hot against her ear as he speaks, and she can feel gooseflesh rising unbidden over her skin, “think of all the noblemen in the ball whose eyes rest so heavily on you. What will they say when they see the bite on your throat?”
She is playing with fire, she knows, but like Andraste herself, fire is her water, and Maker help her she loves his power, the way he moves like a lion stalking its prey, and she wants more.
“Five of them have made formal proposals of marriage,” she whispers, and thrills at how his body goes rigid and angry.
His hand presses her between the door and his fury, and his voice is stern. “Marriage?”
Cullen laughs harshly and desire unspools low in her as he says, “They propose marriage to one they do not know. Would they believe that just this evening the lovely, noble-born Lady Inquisitor took my cock in her mouth? That like a wanton you swallowed my seed in an empty chantry?”
His hand splays against her, fingertips ghosting over the edge of the gown where her breasts threaten to spill. “Would they believe how beautifully you beg for me to be inside you? How completely I’ve plundered every place where your pleasure lives?”
He drags his hand up, and she bites her lips not to moan in disappointment when he does not touch her breasts, and he ghosts his fingertips over the bruise at her throat and whispers, “could they do what I do to you, love? Even now, you are so close to release. I can see it; tight as a drawn bow and ready to snap, and I am not even touching you. Tell me.”
“Maker yes,” she breathes, and with his fingertips splayed against the nape of her neck he presses his thumb against the mark of his mouth. Her legs go weak, but he catches her around the waist when she falls.
Laughing, Cullen turns her against the hard planes of his body, so her spine is pressed against his chest and his mouth is hot and open against the back of her neck, his tongue darting out to taste her skin when he whispers, “Are you wet, love? Aching?”
“Yes, Cullen,” she replies, and blessedly, finally, the hand of his arm not around her waist dips beneath the neckline of her gown, pressing her closer to him as he squeezes a breast in his palm.
“Touch yourself,” he commands, lips moving against her skin, “touch yourself and tell me how it feels, what you want.”
“Oh,” she breathes, clutching her skirts and hauling the fabric up to her waist, and he takes the bunched silk beneath his arm. His hand at her breast teases her nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger and when she gasps he chuckles darkly.
Trembling, she slips a hand beneath the delicate Orlesian lace, finding it already drenched with her arousal.
“Speak,” he commands, and she speaks.
“I am so wet, Cullen,” she whispers, parting herself with her fingers as he continues to palm her breast, grazes his teeth against her throat, “I am so very wet for you, and so tight. I need- I need…”
“Shh,” he whispers against her skin, “I know what you need, my love. Press your fingers inside yourself. Slowly.”
She does as he says, and gasps “oh” as she tightens around the two digits, as her thumb sweeps against the bundled nerves at the apex of her thighs.
“Tell me,” he says, squeezing her breast.
“It isn’t enough,” she moans, “your fingers are so much bigger, Cullen, and your cock, oh…”
She can feel him growing hard anew against the curve of her ass, and she wriggles back against the stiff jut of his need, seeking friction and relief.
“I took you for the first time and there will never be another,” he growls. “Tell me you’re mine.”
She is blind with the want of him as she responds instinctively, “yes, only yours, only ever yours, Cullen…please”
His arm at her waist slackens as he grips her wrist within his fingers. He pulls her hand out of her drenched smalls, and she moans at the emptiness within her before his other hand spins her so she faces him. Cullen’s eyes are a roiling storm of desire and power and she can’t stop herself from shuddering when he draws her fingers, glistening with her need, to his lips.
“This is mine,” he whispers, before he sucks the digits into the hot cavern of his mouth, his tongue laving the skin as he cleans them of her arousal. He keeps her hand encased within his fingers as he moves, maneuvering her away from the door and further into the chantry so she is pressed over the back of a pew. The wood bites into her belly, but even that sensation is wonderful, as starved for his touch as she is.
“Cullen,” she moans, as he takes the wrist in his hand and pairs it with her other wrist behind her back, and his hands are large enough that he can hold her pinned like this with just the one.
“Your beautiful, full breasts, and the way they move when I am deep inside you are mine,” he growls against her ear with his chest pressed close against her spine, “the tight, wet heat of your cunt is mine, and the way you tremble when you come.”
She nods her head vigorously, desperately, and she just knows she will come apart if he doesn’t touch her soon. She will burn until all that is left is ashes and she is vaguely aware that she is speaking, babbling, “yes, Cullen, yes, all yours, please…”
He is moving behind her, and his hand skims up the backs of her legs as he pulls her skirts up to bunch around her waist. The calluses on his palms rasp on the silk of her stockings, his hand finally cups the curve of her rear, and his sigh is beautiful.
Cullen draws taut the thin pieces of ribbon holding her stockings up and releases them, and the snap against her flesh is perfection and then his fingers are untying the laces at the sides of her ornate Orlesian smalls, and the drenched fabric parts and she is bare to the night air of the chantry.
“Cullen.”
“Maker you are so wet,” Cullen whispers, and he sees her tremble at the ghost of his breath against her skin. Such great and beautiful power here, he thinks. He has her bent over a pew in an empty chapel, aching for him, and he wants her undone.
His fingers brush over her, and she arcs hard against the wood. She is close, and it would be so simple, so easy, to forego control, to unmake her. But she has been teasing him all evening, and he is no quitter.
“Beg me,” he whispers, and when his exhalation hits her exquisitely sensitive skin she tosses her head.
“Cullen, please. Please touch me I need you to, I need-”
He presses his lips to her core, and she shakes as he draws his flattened tongue roughly from her pearl back towards her entrance. The thumb of his free hand circles her clit as he dives within her heat, and she is close. He presses his tongue against her and she gasps, bucking hard and back against him, seeking to draw him further within.
But he swats her bare behind at her impertinence and withdraws from her tight warmth, rocking back onto his heels, and she almost sobs.
“Please Cullen…”
“My dearest love,” he whispers against her flesh, pressing hot, open mouthed kisses to the tops of her thighs, to the dimples at the base of her spine, “tell me what you need.”
Her arms within his grip flex and she moans, “fuck me, Cullen. Fuck me hard and fast and don’t stop.”
He releases her wrists then, and fumbles with his trousers and smalls, pushing them just far enough down his thighs for his cock to spring free, and he presses his length against her slit, not entering, and she whimpers.
“Say ‘please’,” he whispers.
The word on her lips is holier than any prayer.
“Please”
He surges forward, hilting himself within her so deeply he thinks he might die. She screams, and she is coming, so hot and so wet and rippling around his length, her whole body shaking and her nails scrabbling against the wood of the pew, seeking purchase.
Cullen doesn’t stop, drawing back and plunging back in, hard, and she presses back against him as he moves, gasping “more, Cullen.”
He folds his upper body over hers, his chest to her back, and he lifts her breasts out and over the neckline of her dress, pinches the peaks, rolls them between his fingers as his hips snap hard against hers, and she reaches behind to grip his rear, to pull him deeper within her.
“Is this what you want?” he growls against the nape of her neck, and she sobs out “yes.”
Her breasts are heavy in his hands and his grip is almost too hard but she is keening and so blissfully tight and wet and his whole body is alive with sparks and need forming at the base of his cock as she says, “please fill me, Cullen, please please I want you in me, all of you I want to be yours, I want to bear your child…”
And something primal, something even more base and even more true and undeniably male is unlocked in him at her words and he winds his fingers in her tresses and hauls her up against his chest, grazes his teeth over the darkening purple rose at the juncture of her neck and shoulder and he is pounding, rutting into her as he groans, “Maker yes. Yes. I want you filled with me, and my seed planted and your belly swelling with our child and no one will doubt to whom you belong. Fuck.”
He releases her hair and she twines her arms back around his neck as his hips rut desperately into her heat. Cullen grips her hip bruisingly hard in one hand, and with the other he works the place at the jointure of her legs, where she is so very slick and warm, where he knows she needs him most.
And she is chanting, “yes yes yes” and then she bites down on her full lower lip, hard, and suddenly her sheathe is almost painfully tight, clenching around the length of his cock as she sobs his name, back bowing and her breasts pressing out into the dim light of the chantry and the only thing Cullen can think before his vision goes dark at the edges is mine.
His hips stutter against hers as she goes limp in his arms, bent over the back of the pew again as he sinks his fingertips into her skin and presses himself as deep within her as he can manage before he, too, comes undone, and she sighs in pleasure.
She is breathing hard, and he is as well, gulping in lungfuls of air that smell of sex and chantry incense as he softens within her. She sighs when he slips out, and Cullen’s cock twitches at the sight of their mingled arousal on her thighs.
He picks up the scrap of Orlesian lace which forms her smalls from the floor and cleans her skin, reverently, worshipfully, kissing the marks he has made on her body, whispering, “my heart, my dearest love,” against her flesh.
And he tucks himself back into his trousers and straightens his coat as she readjusts her corset and gown, her breasts now hidden from his gaze. There is no help for either of their hair, he knows; his curls are unruly with their exertions, and it took Vivienne and Leliana working in concert to get Trevelyan’s hair done for the ball.
Her lips are kiss-swollen and soft as he brushes his mouth against hers, as he holds her in his arms.
“Was I too rough?” he asks, and her fingers dance against the nape of his neck.
“Maker no,” she says, smiling. “That was fantastic.”
He grins and kisses her forehead, whispering against her skin, “Did you mean what you said? About a child?”
She stretches up to capture his lips with hers and then says, “I did. I love you. I want to have your child. And if your nephews are any indication, Rutherfords make beautiful babies.”
“You’ve clearly never tried to put Thomas down for a nap.”
She laughs as his fingers flutter over the mark on her neck, and he says apologetically, “I don’t think there’s much we can do for this, love.”
Her shoulders rise and fall in a careless shrug as she replies, “let them see, let them know. If nothing else, it should cut down on the unsolicited proposals.”
He laughs and gently kisses the purplish bruise before they return to the ball.
As the evening goes on Dorian congratulates Cullen for the glow he’s put on the Inquisitor’s cheeks, Josephine is positively scandalized at the mark on the Trevelyan’s neck, and Varric agrees not to include it in his book only under threats of violence. Leliana laughs and thanks him for not destroying the dress, though it will need a deep clean, and Mia seems to know far too much for her own good already.
Later, as Cullen and the Inquisitor lie in their bed and the shouts of Iron Bull and Sera, who are still drinking, drift up from the Great Hall, she curls into his side and says, “This evening has helped me come to a decision.”
With eyes closed and an arm around her, he sleepily murmurs, “mmm?”
“We’re eloping.”
He knows his grin threatens to split his face in half as he kisses her.
“As my lady wishes.”
-FIN-
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