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Once, Sylvain had declared to her that no woman could ever give a better handjob than a man could give himself.
Mercedes never liked those kinds of statements: they were limiting, and unimaginative, and she didn’t like to think about the pleasure one could deny themselves by mouthing off like that. Not everyone took it as a challenge like she did. How many times had he inadvertently talked himself out of a lovely experience? But, he argued, he had a lot of experience with girls pawing at him — he was the expert. Mercedes was not convinced.
He’d bet her a whole cake when she’d called his bluff, and then she’d let him have a lick of frosting when after she’d soundly taken him to task for it. It served him right. Sugar was more expensive than most things, by the pound, and only a nobleman could afford to be that confident, especially over something so trite.
After that, he’d brought her a cake every few weeks.
Sylvain’s usual cocksure nonsense faded quickly in her hands, though. His expression slackened and his body laid boneless. Mercedes continued to stroke him as he calmed, just with her fingertips, and when his breath slowed she reached for a cloth to mop him up for the fourth time that hour.
He found her gaze and he sighed. She smiled.
“I adore you,” he said, voice a little lazy. He closed his eyes and sank into the pillows. Mercedes eased herself down at his side, pressing the length of her body against his. He got an arm around her. He always liked to cuddle, and his little shivers felt delightful up against her.
“You’re doing so well,” she said, pleased. “Rest a moment, and then we’ll do one more.”
“One more?” he repeated, cracking an eye open. He almost laughed, just a sleepy huff off his teeth. “I don’t think I’d survive.”
“Nonsense,” she replied, kindly. “I know you have it in you.”
Sylvain groaned, stretching himself out a bit. His cock seemed as tired as the rest of him, but Mercedes was used to soldiers eschewing their training, citing another war, another time. Total nonsense. She knew exactly what he was capable of.
She kissed his chest. He chuckled again.
“Let’s just lay here,” he suggested. “I love having you all mashed up against me... I love your tits...”
Mercedes let her forehead fall against his shoulder, exasperated but wholly used to the foolishness that tumbled from his mouth after a handful of orgasms.
“Oh, really?” she teased. “Is this enough for you?”
Sylvain groped for her, a big palm finding the breast easiest to his reach. He gave her a tweak, and then he pushed the mass of it up against the wall of her chest. Boys! Mercedes let him carry on for a minute, a smile on his wicked mouth, and then she stilled him with a hand to his wrist. He gave her a pout. She knew she was the only woman on earth to see that face. She also knew she was the only woman on earth who wouldn’t budge under those warm, honey-brown eyes. He knew it, too.
“I want one more out of you,” she told him.
“What do I get out of that when I’m already done?”
“Other than coming again?” she asked.
“You’re being so mean to me today,” he said.
Perhaps true, but Sylvain was quick to call anyone who was stern with him names. It was a defensive impulse, and sometimes the last means he had of protecting himself when everyone already wanted so much out of him — things that he often gained nothing from, personally. She smiled, and she sat up a little on her elbow.
“Perhaps if you’re good and give me one more, next time I’ll let you come on my breasts.”
That changed his tune. He sat up a little too, just barely — his arms tried to hold him up, but the rest of him was so languid that he just ended up draped above the pillows instead. She watched the apple of his throat move as he swallowed his breath, his eyes fixed on her.
“I can give you one more if I can come on them now,” he offered.
“I’m much too dressed for that,” she said. She was, of course, fully dressed, save for the top of her dress being unbuttoned to the ribs, letting her full breasts spill out. She wasn’t about to risk having to wash her dress out if he got sloppy, not after last time. Mercedes insisted, softly, as sweet as she was firm: “Sylvain, if you come for me one more time, I will let you do more than just come on them next time. I’ll lay on my back and hold them together and let you rub yourself between them.”
Sylvain sighed. It was not exhausted anymore— it was the sigh of a man who was about make a deal. Mercedes took the opportunity to slide her hand down the hard ripple of his abdomen and to his cock, which she stroked with the flat of her palm as it lay against his belly. Sylvain drew a deep breath.
She knew why he was hesitant, but he’d been very sensitive the past few weeks. She thought that he needed the opportunity to be vulnerable, even if he would never ask, even if he would gently resist all attempts to pry it from him.
She felt him growing hard again. She gently ran her fingertips up to the head of his cock, and then back down again. She smiled at him, and he closed his eyes and nodded.
“Okay,” he breathed. “But after that, no more. I’ll drop dead.”
“No more after that,” she agreed.
She directed his hand to his cock and he held himself while she got up off the bed and crossed the room to her sewing kit. He was even too tired to pump himself, but that was alright by her. She did want him to relax, after all. She rummaged through her sewing box until she found a couple lengths of sturdy ribbon, each in satin, one in red and the other in green. She held them up.
“Which one?” she asked.
Sylvain laughed.
“It doesn’t really... uh, red,” he said.
She smiled and replaced the green ribbon in the box, and she unwound the red ribbon between her hands as she returned to the bed. With a swift and silent obedience, he lifted his balls for her and she neatly looped the ribbon underneath, and once he moved his hands away entirely, she tied it snugly around the base of his cock. He inhaled sharply as she finished with a bow, and reached for her face. She let him, leaning in close enough that their noses could bump, and for a moment he just lingered there.
Probably best, she decided, if he had his space and didn't have to look at her the whole time. He needed that today as much as he needed a fifth orgasm.
“Why don’t you sit up?” She said. “I’ll sit behind you.”
Sylvain made a big show of pushing himself up to sit, but he held out while she climbed in behind him and arranged her skirts across her lap, and then she took him by the shoulders and eased him back. He was a titan of a man, and his weight was heavy enough to effectively pin her against the headboard, but it was a pleasant feeling, and he slouched just enough to the side that she could reach around him properly. He relaxed into her like he was made of warm dough, his head falling against hers.
“One more?” he repeated, like he wasn’t really sure. She ran both hands down the length of his chest, slow and soothing, but her smile was firm.
“One more,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m taking care of you.”
He nodded, just a curt little bob of his head, and then sighed when she took his cock in the fist of her hand and began to pump him. Her grip was warm, a magic sort of warm — as a general rule she did not use her faith to renew him, as she did not want him to believe he was not capable of lasting by his lonesome, but she did like to soothe him. Sylvain gasped a little, something she felt through his back and into her own chest, and she pumped him a little faster.
“You know, I’m always impressed with how much you endure,” she said, softly, as she pumped him. “Whenever anyone needs something, or is hurt, or needs someone to be there for them, there you are. You don’t even ask for anything in return — you care a lot about people, Sylvain.”
Sylvain nodded numbly, but his hand found her forearm and swallowed it up between his fingers, bracing her. She continued to pump him, and she watched his toes curl.
“But I know it gets hard sometimes,” she said. She slowed for a moment when she felt him tense, but then it abated just as quickly. “And sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are people around you who care very much about you, and will do anything to make you happy.”
“Mercedes,” Sylvain breathed. He sounded a little breathy, but not in the way he might on a first or second round, or even a third. His swagger was long gone, his penchant for slipping naughty words in her ears a distant habit.
“You don’t have to worry about any of that when I’m with you,” she promised, lips near his ear. He slouched a little more at that, a gasp popping out of him, and she readjusted her grip on him without faltering. “I’ll take care of you, just for a little while, as long as you need me.”
“I can’t,” he said. Overstimulation was a wicked thing.
“You can,” she promised, warmly. “Doesn’t it feel nice, to be taken care of?”
He nodded again, and he brought his free hand to his face. He drew in a sharp inhale, one that shook him in a way he fought to control, but he was too tired to make much of it. Mercedes shushed him, and his feet flexed so tightly that she thought he was about to come, but he wasn’t quite there yet.
“Sylvain,” she murmured, “what do you need from me, sweetheart?”
He didn’t reply for a moment. A tear slipped down his cheek. She kissed it away as she continued to stroke him, and she felt his grip on her tighten. He was close, but she slowed a little. He needed to tell her.
“Sylvain.”
“You like taking care of me?” he asked. His voice had grown small, almost timid.
“I do,” she said. She kissed his cheek again, softer. “I love taking care of you.”
His spine straightened out and his mouth dropped open as he came in her hand, hard and tense for a moment and then soft and yielding, melting into her. Mercedes smiled, kissing his cheek once more, and Sylvain said nothing, just breathing out as if all of the air could finally leave him. For a moment, the two of them were quiet, Sylvain trembling, and Mercedes wiped her hand off so she could pet him, her palms coasting over his fire-hot skin until he was relaxed enough to look at her.
His eyes were teary.
“Thanks,” he said, a little embarrassed. “And... sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” she said, stroking his bangs from where they stuck to his face. “You were so good today. I knew you had it in you.”
He gave another one of those laughs, just the humor sliding out of him in one slow, languid breaths, and he said: “Yeah? Well... can’t be belligerent all the time, I guess...”
Mercedes smiled and stroked his hair back one last time.
“Would you like some cake?” she asked. “When you feel like getting up, of course.”
He didn’t feel like he would be getting up any time soon, but that was alright. He chuckled — a real one that time.
“Yes,” he said, “I’d like some cake.”
