In Which Rona Is Without the Word

So, funny story--this post also has nudity! And this time, it's definitely sexual! And the god-awful smutty prose doesn't help at all! So unless you've been blessed with an incredibly lenient boss (or perhaps you are the boss?), really don't read this at work.

June 9, 1180

Electra probably deserved a raise just for figuring out how this thing fastened. She probably deserved it for the sheer indignity of having to help Rona put it on at all. How the hell did Asalaye manage to wear such a thing without so much as a pink tinge to her cheeks? Never mind half the other women in Naroni, if her claim was true.

Rona flicked a curl away from her eye and tried to compose herself. Objectively, she didn't look bad, she guessed. She'd been plump as a girl, but the rough pregnancy--though far from an ideal way to lose weight--had remedied that. It had been a while since Yvanette had been weaned, but for all her breasts felt back to normal, there was still enough of a swell that they almost burst out of the bodice. She still wished her hair were more interesting, but short of fiddling with dyes, what could she do? At least it was a slight improvement on her father and brother's washed-out, colorless blond.

Hardly perfect, but she wasn't about to do better.

She settled herself on the bed, trying to make herself as comfortable as she could in the confounded thing. Or was she supposed to be comfortable? No, she was just supposed to look comfortable. Looking comfortable while posed uncomfortably was sexy, apparently.

She tried a few different positions--on her stomach with her legs and ankles crossed, on her back with her head hanging off the edge of the bed, one leg slung suggestively over the headboard--but they all felt so damn silly! Silly was about as far from sexy as a person could get.

Ah, who was she kidding? It wasn't the positions. It was her. She was as inherently sexual as a handful of frogspawn. No wonder no one had wanted to marry her before Ashe had come along. No wonder he couldn't be arsed to initiate sex with her now that he had. No wonder...

"Rona? Rona, are you all right? Electra said--"

"Darling!" She sprung from whatever embarrassing stance she'd last found herself in and bounded into her husband's arms as he stepped inside. Or... was that a mistake? Was she being too forward? Should she have teased him a little? "I was wondering when you'd be back."

"Well, here I am." He flashed a quick grin before his eyes swept downward. "Uh, is that a new, um..." He paused, unsure of the right word. "...outfit?"

It was probably the most specific noun she herself could have applied. "It is. Do you like it?"

Slowly, he nodded. At least Asalaye had guessed correctly there.

"You know... Yvanette's asleep." She winked, just in case the hint hadn't been obvious enough.

Ashe's eyes darted from Rona's face to the window to the bed and back. "In the middle of the day?"

Rona shrugged. "Asalaye and Lonriad do it."

"Of course they do."

He sounded almost... nervous? Rona's heart faltered. Maybe Asalaye had been right about that too--about Ashe being embarrassed. "Look, if you don't want to, we don't..."

"No, we can." He didn't look too convinced of his own statement. She gave him a silent couple seconds to reconsider, but he didn't take them. "If you want to, that is."

"Well, I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't." He blushed; at least the pink flattered his green eyes? "And you know, you're allowed to bring it up too, if you want it. I trust you not to press if I say no."

"All right." Now that he knew it, she wondered if he would. A little soon to be thinking about that, though. "So... now?"

Rona nodded. She'd been the last of her core group of friends to marry, not to mention the only one to wait, and the way they'd all talked about sex, she'd assumed it was this common-yet-spontaneous occurrence, something that was bound to happen every day but never clear on the exact time until it was happening. Not even two and a half years married and something like that had yet to happen. She supposed she didn't blame Ashe--he was a good enough husband otherwise--but she supposed that brought the blame back to her.

What was she doing wrong? She'd wasted most of her youth, it seemed, dreaming of some perfect romance and all the mysterious physical pleasures that came with it, whether it was covertly admiring Jadin's ass as he danced with her sister at their wedding or listening wide-eyed as Riona recounted her sexual exploits or studying Aspen's lips as she slept beside her and wondering if it would be strange to kiss a girl. How had she done it? Sure, she'd been frosty with Ashe during their courtship, but before that? Back when she'd been young and wide-eyed and waiting with open arms for somebody--anybody--to love her? Had she been too open, too available? Had her desperation leaked with every swoon and sigh, clinging to her flesh like some foul odor?

Or perhaps there hadn't been much to gain from simply waiting? Perhaps she had expected to hold without ever having reached.

She grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him with the same reckless abandon she'd found the first time, that last fighting passion one found at the point when they ought to have given up and stopped caring. She bit his lip and ran her tongue along his teeth and slipped it past to twist about his and broke away just long enough for him to pull his shirt over his head before swooping her up with an arm behind her knees and laying her on the mattress. As soon as he'd joined her, she'd pulled him down upon her, lapping up the roof of his mouth like some lost desert traveler crouched at the shores of a long-south oasis spring. His own tongue folded beneath and ran back and forth along the length of hers and she didn't know what to do other than to keep doing what she was doing.

They'd never kissed like that.

He wasn't a bad kisser--they'd had enough practice there--but he was a safe kisser. He always paid too much attention to angles and approaches to ever surprise her, soft lips landing on hers just when she'd been led to expect them, his tongue only breaching her mouth if hers breached his first. This time was different. All she'd had to do was ease him into it, and he wasn't so cautious any more.

And she liked that.

A sticky moisture welled between her thighs as something inside of her stirred. Ashe kicked off his boots and pulled back a hand to tend to his belt, the metal buckle clanging as it hit the floor and his slacks rustling as they followed. The tip of her tongue ran laps around his teeth as his cock stiffened against her leg. She tried to pry her legs apart, more than ready for him to enter, but couldn't.

Something was in the way.

"Ashe? I don't know how to get this garment--"

But he'd beaten her to it, his hand slipping beneath her, finding by instinct all the cleverly-concealed buttons she'd lost track of in a matter of minutes. It was mere seconds before the piece had formed a heap on the floor with his shirt.

"Seriously, how the hell do you know your way around all my clothes?"

He didn't answer, or at least not unless he counted an awkward grimace as an answer. Shit. She knew that awkward grimace. "Um... ready?"

Rona nodded and watched helplessly as the passion slipped back to whatever lifeless vacuum had spawned it. Ashe took his time lining up as he always did, even when she helped him by placing a leg on either side of his and attempting to hold him down for another kiss. He managed keep his head some inches above her, green eyes flitting down to the rest of her body, sizing her up as if he feared he might break her. She knew what would come next. He'd be slow at first, careful but clumsy, prodding her at different angles each time until he found what he guessed to be the optimal spot--and what never was. He'd then commit to a series of jerky, mechanical thrusts that made her feel more like a piston pump than a woman, and that wouldn't end until he came, his face strained because why would an orgasm ease his tension if nothing else in the world could.

Rona had never had an orgasm. By the time the sex was over, she couldn't even care. She was just glad to be done with it.

"All right. Just a sec..."

She didn't want to be glad to be done with this. "Ashe, wait."

He sprang back, alarmed. "Are you all right? Did you change your mind? I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"No, no. You didn't do anything wrong." Or... not wrong in the way he must have feared, at any rate. "I just thought that maybe we could ease the transition between the the sex and the foreplay a little? I mean, it won't be perfect the first time, but there's really no need for a pause. It's a bit..."

Now she was the one without the word. "...jarring."

"Oh." He slumped back against the headboard. "Am I a bad lover?"

Shit. "Um... maybe a little?"

"Oh." Eyes like she'd torn him to shards, he turned away, his legs falling off the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry."

"Ashe--"

"No, it's all right." He stood with the limp resignation of a marionette and fished up his slacks from the floor. "I don't know what I'm doing. I have no business doing it."

"Ashe, wait!"

Rona clamored off the bed and dashed around the footboard, pressing herself into Ashe's warm, slightly shaken body when she reached him. His pants grazed her side on their way back to the floor. "It's not your fault. I can't be much good either."

He swallowed. "I like it."

"Not as much as you might if I was better. All I ever do is lie there." She kissed him on the cheek and laid her chin on his shoulder. "But I think we could both get better if we worked at it. If we weren't afraid of trying new things, or if we weren't so concerned about making mistakes, maybe..." She lifted her head and trailed off. She was so tired of living in a world of maybes. "I want to be closer to you. I want us to have what everyone else has."

He nodded. "I want that too."

She kissed him again, a gentle denouement for a bittersweet note. At least it had been said. Now they could work on it. "I think we need some time to cool down, but... tonight?"

He smiled. It was a jagged, splintered smile that barely cracked the rock of his face, but she'd take it. "Tonight."

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