Doing anything with a broken bone is excruciating at the best of times. Doing it with a whole lot of broken bones in the middle of your body is a whole new level of discomfort and pain, and when she pulls my pants off I’m damn glad that I have a mix of Skills, buffs, and her Boon damping the pain into insignificance.

You’d think that it would still be profoundly unsexy. I’m pretty surprised when it’s not; the heat in her gaze, the warmth in her touch, and the obvious care she’s taking despite how much of a rush she’s in goes a long way to turn me on.

It helps that she’s managed to shuck the chainmail and most of the intermediate layers in amazingly short order, and oh yeah, she’s absolutely gorgeous. There’s a substantial pile of metal on the floor, thick cloth padding or armor in its own right joining it, and she’s standing there, poised in nothing but what amounts to linen briefs. I’m sitting mostly upright, which puts face about level with her hips; my eyes track upwards, and she leans forward a little, hands on the wall a bit above my head.

What that does to her tits, arms pushing them together and a little upwards, is nothing short of gratuitous. They don’t need the help. I appreciate the hell out of it anyway if only because she’s making a point of it, and something about the way she does it, the way her hips move from side to side when she sees my reaction, sparks a heat in me that might match her own.

Guess we’re doing this, then.

“Let’s get you fixed up.” Her voice is a husky murmur. “Kazir bless me with at least that much patience.”

“From your lips,” I say to her cleavage as she drops to a knee, “to His ears, I guess.”

[Healing Touch]. She doesn’t vocalize it, obviously doesn’t need to. One of her hands is up at my hip, and one pulling down near my knee, and the shock of pain fades almost instantly. “Clean break, this one.”

“Mathilda knew -” I pause, because Amber is running a hand up my thigh. It takes everything I have not to react with my upper body. “Nng. Knew what she was doing.”

“Mmm.” I’m still letting my eyes run across her chest, but I can hear the smirk in her voice. “Arms up. Let’s get that shirt off of you.”

“I don’t think I can,” I admit, and I tilt my head up enough to meet her gaze. “The pain’s handled, but I can’t lift them. Too much broken structure.”

There’s an apology in my voice and one about to form on my lips, but she kisses me, and I shut up. It’s slow and gentle, her lips barely touching mine before her tongue parts them and then withdraws, teasing me. I shudder when she breaks it, and that’s enough pain that it breaks through the wall of System-granted bullshit.

Her eyes narrow at that, and she makes a fist. One pass of it, with a translucent blade coming out from her knuckles, and she’s got my shirt open at the chest, and her skill’s silent invocation ripples and echoes across the room as she walks her hands up my chest. I lose myself in her touch, face centimeters away from her breasts, drinking in their swell and the way they move as she breathes in and out. The heat of her is palpable and I’m enthralled enough that I don’t feel the bones shift, enough that I barely recognize the notification boxes from the System that I can’t get out of my line of sight fast enough.

It’s seven breaths, seven slow and steady breaths before she speaks. “Arms up,” she says again, smirking again, and I smirk in turn as I bring my arms up to her body, running my fingers up her belly to her breasts. She gasps a little, shivering in a ridiculously enticing manner as my hands spread out to try to encompass them, and I give up and just cup them while I lean forward those few, previously insurmountable centimeters to leave a trail of kisses across their slopes. I work my way down to the valley between them, and then back up to run my tongue gently across a nipple.

Her moan makes me breathe a little too deep in response, and the spike of pain breaks me out of the moment, hands dropping off her breasts.

“Hey. None of that.” She puts a finger across my mouth and I stifle the cough, and her touch settles me. “Five breaths. In for three, deep as you can; hold for three, out for three, empty as you can.” I eye her skeptically, which she pointedly ignores, dropping onto her knees in a straddle over my thighs, one hand light but firm on my shoulder and the other cupped around my chin. “Ready?”

I give up on the skepticism and eye her appreciatively instead. My face is close enough to her breasts that I can watch a droplet of sweat work its way from her collarbone downwards, and I bring my hands back up to cup them, feeling their softness and warmth. They’re fucking glorious, and I’d nod, but it would mean looking away from them and I can’t besides; I’m pressed up against the wall, head and shoulders and legs pinned, immobile.

I take a deep breath for three instead.

It hurts, oh, it fucking hurts, but I can hear and feel the magic working its magic, and my world is made up of Amber’s tits and the heat of her touch. The pain hits its peak around two seconds and I managed to breathe, shuddering a little, until three, and she tilts my chin up and kisses me. No coyness, no gentle teasing touch this time; her tongue parts my lips and traces circles on my soft palate, and her hips rock down and forwards to press against me.

This time it’s me moaning, or maybe both of us moaning together.

She gives me space to breathe out, a moment to catch my breath with her body pressed up against mine and my face buried in her cleavage. As close as she is, and with the way my shoulder is pushed against the wall, I’ve got one hand meandering up and down her side and reaching up to stroke the side of her breast while the other walks its way down her back towards her ass, but before I get there she’s backed off again, and I take another deep breath.

I manage to make it to three without a stutter, with a hell of a lot less pain. She kisses me again, and I drown unresisting for three seconds in the tacky, sticky texture of her lips and the salt taste of the sweat from the battle. Out for three, another pause, and this time she barely shifts up and not at all back, my hand still on her ass and my her body pressed up against mine.

In for three, with barely any pain. This time, she lets go of my shoulder and chin to tangle her fingers in my hair. My breath whuffs out my nose as she gently twists, and she shakes her head.

“In for three, hold for three, I said. My lord.” She gives the title every drop of dryness she can, and it’s an ocean of it. I can’t help but snicker, grinning up at her downturned face, and she raises an eyebrow. “It’s for your own good, you know.”

Her tone, husky and heated, is like fire down my nerves. “I’ll do better this time.”

“You will indeed. For five; in for three, hold for five, out for three, now.”

I breathe in. Three seconds, not a hint of pain, and then she kisses me. I can feel something grab - her fingers, I can feel her fingers pinch my nose shut, and I almost laugh and at the same time almost panic, but she grinds her hips into mine with my cock between us and all I can think is fuck that feels good while I kiss her back and hold my breath.

Out for three seconds. Her face was half uncertain and half smirking for a second, but now it’s all cocky smirk, looking down at my grin. In for three, without a need for a break; there’s no pain, no feeling of injury, just her lips on mine and her body against mine, pressing, soft breasts and hard muscle.

Out for three seconds.

“In for five, hold for five, out for five, this time.” I nod at her. “Actually, wait. Hips up.”

“Ah?” I blink at her, confused. After a second, I push back against the wall to thrust my hips up and into her, not minding how it feels in the slightest; she responds by pulling my underpants down from my waist to past my knees in one motion, and then tosses hers - fastened with a string, it looks like, not elastic - to the side.

“Now.”

I breathe in for five. My judgment on how fast to do it is off, probably because she’s slick against my cock and her breath is hot against my ear, or because my hands are trying to pull her ass closer to me as though we aren’t skin pressed against skin. My chest keeps expanding anyway, filling with air past what feels like my physical limits, and I make it to the kiss; and from the kiss I make it the five longest and shortest seconds of my life.

The five longest and shortest seconds of my life so far, I’m thinking for the five seconds after that. She’s working her hips in a circle against the head of my cock, one hand pulling my face to a nipple with her other hand between her legs, and her groaning in anticipation is driving me wild.

On five, Amber drops onto me and in concert I thrust into her, sliding into her silken slickness. She’s tight and warm, almost uncomfortably warm, and my face is buried in glorious softness as I take her nipple into my mouth and run my tongue over it, sucking gently.

She raises her head to the ceiling and screams when the orgasm takes her, between my thrusts, her fingers on her clit, my mouth on her nipple, and whatever else. The aftershocks are still shuddering through her when I reach up to pull her mouth down to mine and my body arches like a bow, driving into her as deep as I can, tongue tangling in hers, body a wire pulled tight as I hurtle off the cliff and feel the motionlessness before the fall.

My orgasm joins the aftermath of hers, and I have just enough sense in me to roll us sideways so I can wind up on top, face in her breasts, twitching uncontrollably.

I don’t think either of us says a word before I settle into relaxation and then, without thinking, into sleep.