“My lord shall rest,” Amber proclaims, “and those who wish to watch Flight and Order shall do so without him.”

There’s a round of murmurs, and my body goes sort of boneless as relief floods me. There’s a little bit of shame in there, sure, but mostly it’s just the profound sense of not needing to subject myself to another round of unnecessary violence, to further bury the self I’m supposed to be in the viciousness of fighting. And I would have, would have made myself do it, instead of suggesting that maybe it wasn’t necessary, if only out of what might be some twisted, misplaced sense of solidarity, to suffer through what brings joy to others.

No need for that, now; no need for reasons or excuses, since my Paladin has decided otherwise.

I’m still on top of her, semi-sprawled in her lap with my hands in hers, which makes rising a bit tricky. Not physically, in a sort of tactical or mechanical sense; more that she’s warm and soft and touching me, and as much as I want to be elsewhere, not that I know where elsewhere is, I don’t want to get out of her lap, getting out of her lap would require paying attention to myself instead of to her, and that would be terrible. So a moment passes, and, having clearly noticed my hesitation and the circumstances causing it, she takes matters in her own hands.

Quite literally.

I make something halfway between a squeaking noise and a murmur of delight when Amber stands up, taking me with her. She’s got one arm under my shoulders and the other under my knees, and her body heat is a furnace even through the padded linen gambeson she’s wearing. The blood rushing to my head is making my ears ring loud enough that I can’t make out Zidanya’s words, but her tone is clear, and Amber’s reply is just as indistinct but just as clear as to her intentions.

I haven’t figured out how I feel about that by the time she’s carried me through a door I hadn’t noticed and into a room that’s both small and implausibly large given the surroundings. Spatial magic, I remind myself, and then Amber’s laying me onto something and I realize that I’d stopped being embarrassed and had been leaning into the strength of her arms like they were structurally load-bearing.

“Eyes on me, my lord.”

My eyes snap open at the command in her tone, which is about when I realize that they’d been closed, that I’d been lying curled up on a bed like I’m trying to burrow into the memory of her arms. I’d lost at least a few moments, obviously, since Amber’s wearing nothing but a thin linen shift that looks like it’s about to have a total structural failure, but I see it without seeing it, without really noticing it, and she frowns. I’m pretty sure I should be reacting pretty emphatically to her, reaching out or sitting up or at least feeling a throbbing heat flow through my veins and fill me with hunger as her hips sway from side to side. I know I should be appreciating the way her breasts sway in time with her hips, the way her nipples deform the fabric of the shift, the tension in the line of her shoulders that speaks to her own hunger and need.

“You know, my lord, that you delight me?”

I can’t really process the notion, and certainly can’t respond. Well, I can process the notion; she was made to be delighted by me, that was almost certainly in the set of constraints that either propagated backwards in time or rippled out into the world to modify the memories and lived experiences of the people whom her creation affected.

“There is such preciousness in you. In this, in what you’ve done and what you will do.”

Her fingers are busy with my clothes, and it’s a matter of moments to strip me out of them. I can’t help her, my body isn’t responding, but when I’m naked and she pulls the shift off of herself and straddles me, a deeply atavistic part of me thrills in the heat of her and I feel myself start to relax, start to respond.

“Every time you twist the very fabric of mana to annihilate something that should have been beyond your grasp, I want to kiss you up against a wall, to feel the heat of your body surge. And every time you rage or despair at the necessity of violence or at its glory, I want to do this.”

She rocks her hips slowly against mine, and I feel the heat in my body respond. She’s wet against the curve of my hardening cock, and her legs slide under my thighs, her knees hugging my hips and her ankles twining with mine. Her elbows hit the bed above and to each side of my head, breasts dangling just millimeters from my face, and she lets some of the weight of her body fall onto me. It’s not so much that I’m uncomfortable, carefully positioned so that my breath comes unimpeded, but it’s enough to be a reminder of the sheer physicality of her presence.

“Is it because violence is in my blood, to glory at it is in my blood, and still you love me? Is that why every flinch of yours at the thought of it drives me to cherish you, to show you how glorious you are in your wish for a better world?”

My body is responding without my conscious involvement, hips shifting, legs sliding, giving her a more stable mount. She slides up and down, painting my shaft with her arousal, and when my hands come up to caress her breasts, she gently laces her fingers in mine and pulls my arms up above my head. Her breath is unsteady, but her grip, soft though it might be, is unwavering and stronger than steel.

“And I shall be by your side, your shield and your sword, your hearth and your heart-keeper.”

Her hips rock just so, and I can feel myself being enveloped in the furnace-heat of her. She grips me with a smooth, even pressure from top to bottom and presses herself forwards and down to grind her clit against me, her breaths coming more raggedly and her breasts pressed against my face. I feel my body arch against her, feel my mouth open to take in her nipple and suck, running my tongue around the length of it as she lets more of her weight come down onto her hips and hands instead of her knees and elbows.

“Is it… not so?” She breathes the words into my ear, running her tongue along the helix and then retracing the curve lower. “I want… this, you, to take you, to fuck you. And if I am made your home and ideal…” Amber traces the antihelix down to the earlobe, sucking and nibbling. “It must be what you need. Is it not so?”

I hear myself moan into the curve of her breast, feel myself trying to thrust, to reciprocate, to put action to the heat that’s filling me as I fill my senses with her. I can’t; with my ankles locked around hers, with the way her hands are holding mine down, with the way her weight lies on me, all I can do is suckle or nuzzle at whatever part of her breast happens to brush my face.

Or you can ask, I think to myself, and it’s like my eyes are blinking open, crusted with sleep. I try to form the words, try to ask for what I want when I don’t even know what that is, but she preempts me, rising up and forwards on the curve of my dick and sliding back down, gripping with the muscles that I can recognize as her pelvic floor even as my brain seems to gibber in delight.

“Hello again, Adam.” Her voice in my ear is throaty and low, thrilling and all-encompassing. “Welcome back, my lord.”

“Amber.” I breathe it into the crevasse between her breasts as she rises back to center herself, starting to ride me in earnest.

“So close…” Her weight comes off of her hands, my hands, as she rises onto her hips, then comes back down part-way, questing for the right angle even as she rolls her hips forward and back to ride the length of me. “So close. Need… want you, don’t know…” My hands come up and around, and my world narrows, or maybe widens, to how amazing she feels riding me, the pressure that travels slick and hot up and down my shaft, the heavy softness of her breasts. I angle my hips, working with her to get an angle that presses her clit against what I’m pretty sure is my pubic bone, and that gets me pressing at exactly the right place inside her, and I can feel the change in how it feels to her through the way her body tenses and melts at the same time.

“Amber. Amber, fuck, you’ve gotta hurry.” I’m grinning at her, in the moment before my hands slide up her breasts to bring my thumbs to her nipples. I was lost in the glory of her, but now I’m here, trying to memorize every millimeter of her through my skin, trying to commit to memory the rippling tension in her thighs and the way she’s quivering, like every muscle in her body is at once a drawn wire and threatening to turn into liquid. “Come for me, Amber, do it now, I wanna feel you.”

It’s like a sledgehammer strike. I chose my words on purpose to try to trigger Instrumental, to try to turn her orgasm into a furtherance of my will, my desires, my plan, and by the looks of it, it works. By the feel of it, too; I’m laughing, laughing at the absurdity of everything and at the beauty of her, laughing while I arch against her and feel the edge of orgasm looming, and then she shoves a nipple into my mouth and pins my hands against the bed. Something about the hardness of her nipple and the feeling of it against my tongue does it, or maybe it’s the way she’s clenching me while rising up and slamming back down, or the way my wrists strain against her hands without the slightest motion, and I hurtle into that space where there’s no thought, only the feeling of pouring myself into her and the way her body feels against mine.

It lasts, and it lasts, with my legs locked like every muscle wants to hit maximum tension at the same time, and then it’s suddenly over and lasted no time at all, and I’m pushing her off to the side, back to laughing.

“I’m back, thank you.” I kiss her, then pause for a moment while my body shudders from my feet to my auriculars. “That was great.” I kiss her again, and then I’m on my feet, bending my knees and feeling the cracking and popping of my joints and the pulling of my just-barely-not-spasming muscles.

“My lord is most welcome,” she says, and I catch the barely-there quaver in her voice and smirk.

I look at her, a long, gleeful look. She’s caught her breath, caught it far faster than I have, but under my gaze she deliberately arches her back and breathes deep, and my eyes trace her stunning figure, noting the way she’s still shaking a little bit as she props herself up, the way her areolas crinkle deeply, the stiffness of her nipples.

“Dibs on the shower,” I announce, and despite my head start I barely make the few steps to the tiny bathroom before she does.

There’s not really enough space for both of us. We shower together anyway, for all of our haste.