Driven By Instinct

5 - Exposure

-mature content-

Even if she hadn't been tired from tending to Greenshire's fields already, an interrupted and fitful night of sleep under someone else's cloak followed by traveling unfriendly terrain from morning to the afternoon would have been enough to cripple Vica's spirits. She was accustomed to traveling at her own pace, unmolested by external forces. Bandits had hardly been an issue when she was traveling alone in wild country, nearly unnoticeable in the middle of untamed backcountry. She had rested and made camp whenever she desired, pulled forth fruits and berries if she was hungry. She had never known this sense of vulnerability without her magic.

The oppressive fog that stood between Vica and her power remained even now. She glanced at the closed door from where she sat up on her bed, knowing that Constantine was waiting just on the other side.

It was nighttime; the last several hours had passed in a flurry. She had been taken to the tavern since the keeper had several extra rooms on the second floor. His wife had helped Vica to undress and then to bathe - though Vica had gone along with it to give credibility to Constantine's lie that she was unwell, she found out quite accidentally that she would have needed the help anyway. Her feet had swollen painfully from traveling nearly thirty miles, and she had struggled to even climb into the circular wooden tub. The innkeeper's wife, Morra, had scrubbed her back and applied a poultice to her ankles, one of her trusted home remedies for pains and aches.

Vica had been glad that Morra had calmly accepted her feeble excuse that she was too sick and exhausted to use her own magic for such things at the moment. She was sure that Constantine had been eavesdropping somewhere all the while - she could feel the fog clutching at her senses ebb and flow like the tide. All the while her magic remained inaccessible, but she pocketed the information for future use: she could approximate the distance between them based on the pressure she felt from his aura.

"If you're going to come in, then do it," she said tiredly. "I'm going to sleep otherwise."

The door creaked open. "I would have woken you."

"I'm sure."

Constantine quietly closed the door behind himself before moving across the small room. "I think you'll feel compelled to move on in the morning, miraculously feeling well enough to travel all of a sudden. With my help, obviously." He came to a stop by her bedside and dropped something on the floor with a muffled slap. "Travel boots," he explained. "Thanks to your friends. Someone else says they have an extra cloak that's nice and heavy, they've gone to their house to find it."

"Sure." A tight silence fell between them, and Vica chanced a glance at his face. He didn't seem bothered by the barely concealed curt tone of her voice, but she supposed cautiously and with a fluttering heart that she should be more careful. "I understand," she clarified a few seconds later. "I'm not going to make any trouble for anyone." But even that placid reassurance didn't seem to satisfy him. She tensed when she felt the mattress suddenly sink as Constantine lowered himself to sit on the bed next to her legs. His hand, inexplicably, was on her left shin. The warmth sent a tingling tendril of dread up Vica's leg, but she did nothing other than stare at his thumb as it traced a gentle circle into her skin. His fingers rested just above the cloth bandages wrapped around her ankle that held Morra's poultice in place.

"You can make a little trouble if you want," he said softly. "Do you want to?"

Vica's eyes remained pinned to his hand, which had slowly begun sliding up towards her knee. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. She hadn't thought that he would go this far, but she supposed vacantly that a man who would stoop to murdering and k********g for money could find it just as easy to hurt in other ways.

The hand was just above her knee now. It slid down to graze her inner thigh, the callus of his thumb pressing into warm, soft skin. 

Her mind traveled downstairs where she knew nearly all of the townspeople would be congregated. There was little else to do in the evenings here, and of course tonight they would also linger longer than usual in the hopes of spotting Vica and the handsome stranger who had rescued her out in the wilderness. Interesting things happened so rarely here that they would be straining to catch a glimpse of it all while they had the chance. They were good people, honest and simple. They didn't deserve to be forcibly involved in her troubles. Her hands curled into fists under the blanket that now suddenly felt scratchy and hot.

It was when Constantine's knuckles disappeared under the hem of the plain cotton nightgown that Morra had lent her that Vica finally reacted. She drew back against the headboard, breath catching in her throat and toes curling as a shiver traveled from head to toe. She had yet to make a sound, but her mouth was open in the preamble of a - something, whether it was a word of protest or a scream, she didn't know. Her body jerked when his hand suddenly cupped high around her inner thigh in response as if he was about to grab her - but rather than push her legs apart, Constantine patted her with a fond smile on his face.

"Now that's more like it," he said. His eyes gleamed in the candlelight. "I was wondering if there was anything behind the bravado." The menacing warmth on her thigh disappeared, and the mattress springs groaned as he leaned forward to cradle her face between his hands instead. "You should see your face right now. You look like I just killed your dog." His gaze flickered down her torso. "Or cat, maybe."

Vica didn't realize how tightly she had wound herself until after he had disappeared out of the small room. The sound of the door latching shut sent an electric sensation sparking down her body like a wave of static shock, and she slid down the headboard so that she could curl into the fetal position. Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs as she stared wide-eyed at the wall. "Son of a b***h," she whispered, almost too quietly to hear herself. "Son of a bitch." Her fingernails dug into the palm of her hands, leaving deep, moon-shaped indentations in the tender skin.

Why was it so hard for her to remember what kind of disgusting beast Constantine was? Why did she keep forgetting and skirting the line of cheeky banter with him, as if he were simply a misunderstood rogue? Was it just his beauty that made it so difficult to stay on her guard? Surely she wasn't someone so easily swayed by that, she thought, but the ashamed uncertainty even of the voice inside her made her toss restlessly in the bed.

After a moment, she sat up abruptly, staring straight ahead. A few seconds later, she quickly slid out of bed to pad across the room on fleet feet and locked the door.

In the room next to Vica's, Constantine leaned back against the wall. Just on the other side of it was her bed, he knew, and in turn Vica herself. He smiled at the tumult of her emotions. Never had he encountered a mage whose state of magic reacted on such an elemental level to their head state, primal and pure in its intensity. Maybe it had something to do with her arcane strength - she had the strongest magical presence he had ever seen - but he suspected rather that it was simply her personality. How someone who battled her emotions with such faithfulness every waking minute could pass herself off as calm and composed, if maybe a tad saucy...

He absently scratched under his jaw as he allowed his thoughts to wander back. The sensation of being able to almost feel her nervousness, her fear with every fluctuation of her magic as it struggled under his suppression was growing addicting. He remembered the instant she had become wary. He had been staring down at her wordlessly, eyes taking in the smooth curve of the junction between her neck and shoulder. The faded white nightgown was a little too large for her frame, and the opening of the collar sat a little too wide. Her skin had looked soft and inviting in the flickering light of the candle on the nightstand, but it was only when he felt the first spike of fear in her that he had been unable to resist.

Sitting down on the bed next to her had only made it grow. The feel of her magic rousing under his own power, struggling to throw him off - he had tightened the hold of his anti-magic just in case, the thrill of feeling her resistance making his pulse quicken in anticipation.

Constantine's cloak dropped heavily to the floor and landed around his feet in a heap. He pressed back against the wall, feeling every uneven grain of the wood on his shoulder blades, and slipped one hand down his trousers.

Her skin had been soft and warm, the heat of the bath she had taken still lingering on her body. She was so much smaller than he was. He wondered at his sudden cravings - before, his tastes had always tended towards women who looked like they could handle and respond to his rough touches with enthusiasm and fire. Women whose eyes promised to give him as much pleasure as they got, women whose bodies not only yielded but invited him.

It had been a bad idea to accept the job, he thought with a ragged exhale. His sponsor had given him the impression that he thought the rogue mage would be a male - an old man, to be exact. How surprised he would be when he turned up with a lithe little creature in tow. And in the meantime, Constantine was supposed to figure out what exactly to do with her.

He wasn't accustomed to having a woman so close by for hours on end. He was a man freely given to pleasures; he indulged without a second thought when opportunities presented themselves. But in the past few months, the chances had been rare and few since he had had to hasten every day to catch up to his mark, moving from town to town. His late-night encounter with the waitress here in Landon two nights ago had been a decent reprieve from his unintentional celibacy, but that had only stoked the embers after all was said and done. Indeed, sleeping with Vica's small body pressed against him last night had him waking hard and heavy in the morning - much like now.

He wrapped his hand around himself, languidly relishing in the fresh memory. And then he thought back to just a moment ago when he had dragged his fingertips along Vica's thigh, dipping close to her inner curves - he throbbed under his touch, and he adjusted his fingers to hold more of himself. His abdominals twitched in anticipation as he allowed his imagination to roam, as did his other hand now. He could make her touch him like this, he thought with an amused smile as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He let his lower body sag just slightly so that he could tilt his hips forward. Tell her to run her fingers down his chest to his navel and then below that. Or maybe he would tell her to go higher instead, he thought, and then his fingers ghosted across one n****e. It pebbled instantly, hard and dark.

Or maybe he would just take her, he thought, skip the foreplay. He imagined she wouldn't be as cooperative or eager as his other bedmates. He would move slowly at first, dipping inside her only an inch to let her body learn the feel of him. She would struggle, he knew. Try to hold him back by the shoulders, slender fingers scratching at him. He imagined his body pressing heavily on her, her hips held down obediently by his weight. She would try to move her legs, but that would only give him the chance to lean more heavily between them.

He gave himself a teasing stroke at the tip of his c**k. He felt Vica there, as he rolled his hips once slowly, her body still tight and unready for him. It didn't matter. Even if she didn't want to, he could make her body want him, crave him - he imagined how sweet she would taste between her legs. Her hands grabbing his hair, her voice choking as she begged him to stop. He wouldn't stop, grabbing her by the hips as he held her down and pressed his tongue inside her, as he sucked on her clit strongly enough to drag a sudden o****m out of her body. The thought vaguely occurred to him that he didn't know what her scream would sound like, but the image of her arching her back in forced ecstasy, her breasts heaving as she fought for breath came easily to his mind's eye. She would look so good, Constantine thought, his own chest rising and falling rapidly as his breathing quickened. She would feel so good.

He was still in the middle of his reverie - imagining himself moving up after deciding to have mercy on her and stop wringing o****m after o****m out of her with his mouth - when he realized he was already throbbing too hard to last much longer. Half-roused from his daze, he grit his teeth in frustration - he hadn't ever come this fast before, ever - and tried to hasten the pace of his fantasy while keeping his hand still around his c**k, stalling for time. Quickly, he imagined himself laying atop Vica, her twitching body wrecked and bare before him. Her p***y, wet with both his ministrations and the juices he had forced out of her with every o****m, warm and slick. He slid into her, a groan tearing out of his throat as her walls tightened around him and her n*****s grazed his chest and his c**k squeezed tight in her hot, wet cunt -

"f**k!" he snarled, one part frustration and three parts pleasure as his body seized with the intensity of his c****x. His hot seed spilled onto his hand as he milked himself, eyes still closed as he futilely tried to draw out the fantasy in his head despite the pleasure-pain clawing at him under his hand. He didn't even get to f**k her, he thought with disappointment, but he could do this again in a few minutes. As many times as he wanted. He would have come inside her, he thought in a haze a moment later when his vision reverted back to normal. He would have let her have him, made her take him. And then he would have just stayed inside her until he was hard again - ready to f**k his come back into her so hard she could taste it in her throat.

The sudden thought came to his mind so violently that his c**k twitched in rapid interest again already - his come in her throat. He would prefer to taste her, to twist her, to wring every moan and flinch out of her - but her mouth on him, her eyes looking up at him as he took her by the hair and forced her up and down his rigid length -

Constantine's tongue darted out to lick his suddenly dry lips when a sudden knock at the door interrupted him.

"Constantine?" 

He almost groaned in disappointment when he recognized the voice. The waitress, he remembered. He had almost expected it to be Vica herself, perhaps curious about the mild thumping she might have heard. If only. He had put his hand on her to just frighten her earlier, but he hadn't expected to make himself so hungry to touch more of her.

If it had been Vica at the door, he would have dragged her inside and taken her a dozen different times tonight. Contract be damned. It didn't mention anything about not f*****g the mark witless.

But his body was still hungry, already growing hard again, unsatisfied. He only took a second to contemplate whether he was willing to compromise and indulge in a substitute pleasure. The hesitation didn't last long, and he opened the door to let the woman in with a welcoming smile, not bothering to hide his soiled hand. Anything was better than nothing, and as he sank into the waitress's pliant entrance a moment later and felt her wetness slick around him, her loud moans tickling his ear - it was easy to just imagine he was f*****g someone else instead.

He wondered if Vica could hear him through the wall separating their rooms, and then just in case, began pounding into the woman's body below him a little harder.

He was looking forward to this game.