reignfall | 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔟𝔬𝔯𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔫.

𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔟𝔬𝔯𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔫.

"We need to talk about the conditions."

To talk is not the same as to put them into ink, but she does not want a contract, hasn't wanted one from the start. For every other thing – every sponsorship, every appearance, every minute detail, she wants a contract, but in this instance, it would make her feel cheap. Sold, even if she is the seller. Perhaps this would be a good moment for regret, but regret does not come easily to her, and this is no exception. Her father would rage, if he knew she did not mean to get anything in writing, but, and it bolsters her resolve, her father would rage as well. Casimir Zarek is closer to his age than her own.

This isn't, she reckons, all that unusual for people like them. Both the situation and the age gap, but mostly the situation – what was the name of that actor, the one from the cult? Rumour him and his ex-wife, or at least one of them, did it on some kind of contract, too. Hell, it's probably more common now, where anyone could get famous on social media and numbers were everything. It will be good for both of their brands: she has missed out on the health craze, she has never posted pictures of herself exercising or eating clean or sipping juice cleanses, though she has done it all, because her body is as much, if not more, an asset than her mind is on some days. It would give her a boost, as would that hint of a scandal, the talk and the drama. Those who come only to see more of him, too.

He will get a new slew of followers as well: men who believe he'll get them a girlfriend half his age, then a number of her own followers, more deals for his own brand. It'll be worth every second in gold.

So here she is, in his minimalist haven, sipping one of his teas and finding herself enjoying the taste and view alike. If it must be anyone, she thinks, it might as well be someone as attractive as Casimir Zarek.

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His smile - sidelong, sarcastic - is a tacit agreement with her remark. She is, after all, right. Virtue is something that neither of them seems to hold particularly highly. That is as it should be. There is only one virtue, power, and that virtue does not fade with impatience.

So long as the impatience is somebody else's, in any case.

Her hand, slim and warm, falls into his, and he allows himself to be drawn forward, although not down. Instead, he moves to pull her up, not particularly gently, his other hand snaking out to wrap around the back of her neck, beneath the golden silk of her hair. He will allow her to think this is her idea, yes; he will let her initiate and prove that this is something she wants. But there are limits, and there must always be a point - and it must come early - where she is also reminded of who is in charge of this situation. He is not unduly rough with her (yet, he thinks, and smiles a foxlike smile), but the message is still there: he means to decide how this proceeds, not her.

And if she lets herself be drawn up against him, if she allows him to press his body close to hers, she will be rewarded with the kiss she was seeking in any case, his lips finding hers with undisguised passion from the beginning.

She had meant to incite hunger, and so she does not fight him when he draws her up – she is often blind still to machinations that are not her own, and she sees but her own will. Her will was to kiss him, to draw him close in a way that might leave him surprised, and that he matches her energy seems appealing, rather than a warning sign.

It is worse once they kiss, for she meant, perhaps, to see him warm, and was unprepared to already find him as passionate as he had been in the daydreams she had permitted herself at the sight of some of his more provocative pictures. The bait is laid out, and she takes it unthinking, meets him with her own greed and hunger, one hand still a twisting hold on his shirt to support her stumbling rise into his arms, the other now tangling in his hair with little consideration.

Her lips part beneath his, an invitation for a more fiery taste, and if her teeth, once they must part, nip light at his lower lip, she means it as play.

He catches her easily enough, tugging her up against him until their bodies lie flush against one another, the heat of his body baking through the fine silk of his shirt. His hand, freed from hers, finds its seat on the small of her back, palm flattened against the curve of her spine as he parts his own lips in turn, his tongue running against hers.

Her teeth graze his lip, and this, too, he will happily allow. If there is a disappointment in it, it is only that she is so light and playful in her approach - but that will be rectified soon enough, he is sure, once she understands his tastes. Once he shows her that he is not afraid to play rough. His hand trails lower down her back, onto the curve of her ass, almost incidentally hitching her hem just a little higher, as his other thumb caresses the soft skin behind her ear, an intimacy at odds with the rough press of his body against hers.

When he nips at her lip in turn, it is not so lightly, and his eyes are dark as he draws back a little way, dragging at her lip as he does. That smile still lingers, creasing the corners of cold brown eyes. "You seem like a woman who knows what she wants."

It dawns on her that her own frame of reference here may be slimmer than his, that he easily has more than a decade of casual encounters to fall back on now. She knows her worth, of course, she knows no one else can compare to her, that she is the sort of woman he might have pictured while he was in bed with someone else entirely. Emboldened by her vanity and unwilling to show even a hint of nervous curiosity, that, if she stopped to dwell on it, might be a natural reaction, she answers to his rougher calls, her own hands' roaming taking a possessive turn. She groans as he gropes at her ass, but that is fine, all fine, when posed against the sigh he draws from her with that more intimate caress to the side of her head.

It does not help that her head is swimming with lust; how is she to work on a strategy when her mind's unhelpful calls merely crave more of the same? This is not the sort of dance she has danced before, with partners of her own degree of experience (or lack thereof). But bait has ever worked on her, it works just the same now.

"I get what I want." It is more important to hiss that to him, so he knows that she is the one being victorious here, that she has gotten what she came to him for. It is not just knowing and empty musing and wishing. Her next kiss is rougher, consuming, and this time, she draws blood at his lower lip. The pause once she tastes it is distinct – this was not, after all, discussed. She means to tide it over as intention, though, and she arches herself against him, her smile bloodied, but winning. "Now what?"

He laughs, low and throaty, his tongue darting out to lap the blood from his own lip, and then, without hesitation, from hers. Judging from the hardness that presses now against her hip, through the fine cotton of his trousers, he doesn't at all object to that undiscussed violence; his own smile, sharp-toothed and dark-eyed, is heavy with both desire and dark amusement.

"Now what, indeed?" His hand slides up from her ass to the hollow of her back, fingers splaying against the soft arch of her spine. His eyes find hers, a glint of mocking humour in their depths. "Should I not ask you that, since you so proudly get only what you want?"

When he leans in to press his open mouth to her throat, it leaves a tiny smear of crimson on the white skin of her neck. It suits her, he thinks, and smiles a predator's smile. "Tell me what you want, then, Miss Lannister."

It could have been an overstepping that means the end of their tryst before it even has a chance to begin – instead, she feels him hard against her, as though roused by the taste of blood. The red flags are raised high, then, and all she is thinking of is how very much red is her colour.

"I want to know if you usually get this hard when there is blood at play." She fails, then, to reject his mockery. Her curiosity might be less evident to someone less astute, but she has no doubt he will scope out her tells – the flicker of it in her darkening eyes, the way her breath catches when his mouth is at her throat, as though she is concerned he might bite. Her nails are sharp, even through the fabric of his shirt, and then one hand is at his neck, as if meaning to encourage him to leave his mark at her throat.

He can feel her pulse beneath the skin, a bird beating its wings against the walls of its confinement; her breath hitches beneath his lips, and even if he could not see her curiosity and her desire in her face, he hears it in her voice, and smirks. It was not unthinkable, until this moment, that she would flinch: that in this moment, propriety or fear would get the better of lust and this whole arrangement would fall apart. It would not have been a disaster if so - she has nothing that can harm him - but it would have been a shame.

It no longer seems probable that she will flee. Not when she is so pliant against him, and not when she was the one who bit first. He does not leave a mark, no matter how her guiding hand might invite it, but only nips playfully - albeit hard - at her neck, then draws back with a smile.

"You hardly seem disturbed by the idea," he muses aloud, and brushes a lock of gold back from her temple.

If she were disturbed by it, she thinks, she would be no different from any other dull, unimaginative girl. She fancies herself different: smarter than the rest, more daring, cutting edge, a revelation even while balancing along the tethers of tradition. It is something she believes in with a shocking confidence, and also something that must all the same be half a lie – if she were so convinced of it, after all, would she need to dive into something that anyone else would readily declare unsafe?

"A little blood does not scare me." His smile, on the other hand, does send a chill down her spine, but it's more of pleasure than fear. He does not scare her, not truly, not so much as he tastes of something forbidden and exhilarating, and certainly not enough to have her rethink her idea of proving her maturity to him. There is something especially delightful about the idea of testing such boundaries while their public image would likely need to remain as pristine as can be. It's ever appealed to her, to carry out her affairs in secret, to mock every fool who thinks her pure in the arms of a lover she should not have in this way.

Her fingers edge beneath his shirt now, eager to feel more of him. "Why don't you show me to your bedroom?"

He has always felt that the art of seduction - the art of managing people at large - is in teaching people what it is they should desire; and she is, if nothing else, a quick study. She moves so quickly into the place he has set for her, and with such enthusiasm; and how, now, can she back away from where she has put herself with such aplomb? Her hands are hot and fine against the flat muscle of his belly, a tempting reminder of her willingness to give way to his desires.

His own hand shifts to her thigh, his touch light enough to be almost teasing as he plucks at the hem of her skirt. "Why not, indeed?" he purrs, leaning in again, his breath ghosting against her cheek. "Perhaps because I had thought you might want to look out over the city, to see the world at your feet when I make your knees weak. The view from my room is slightly less spectacular."

There is little so tempting as the grace of his touch at her thigh, and she wonders instantly what it would be like if he went from this casual teasing to a more conquering approach. Her own fingers loop in his belt, before she begins to open it with deft expertise, and she doesn't much hesitate when he suggests that his bedroom might not be so grand a sight to see.

Not that this constitutes agreement. She swallows, and her own breath is hot and asking at his throat, and she presumes, as she has done before, that these things are entirely negotiable. He says he thinks she might enjoy the view – she has, in fact, no interest to find herself exposed in front of his window. They are too high up to give a passing stranger a show, yes, and still – there is the slight jerk of her head as she means to judge those overlarge glass panes – the thought of such openness is discomforting. Her voice, then, is low, persuasive. "I have all the view I need in this moment. The rest of the city can wait while we become acquainted."

He notes, with that detached part of himself which specialises in noting such details, how experienced her movements are and how readily she makes them; her body is pliant and willing in his grasp, delicate enough to be a sweet reminder of how easily it could be broken. She has not yet grasped her position, aims to negotiate out of discomfort, and there is a thrill in the question that poses itself: whether to disabuse her of that illusion now, or wait until she has signed herself away? She will have to learn, one way or another, whose decisions will carry more weight here. She will have to learn who is in charge.

Teach that lesson too soon, too aggressively, and she may still flee. Teach it too late, and she may balk, betrayed. It is a knife's edge, this kind of choice, and knives' edges have always appealed to him.

He nips at her ear, and the hand under her skirt continues to rise, still light in its touch. "The rest of the city will wait, regardless," he murmurs; and when he moves, it is snake-swift, as he twists and pushes her with sudden force up against the counter, yanking her shirt open. Turnabout, after all, is fair play. His mouth finds hers, rough and claiming, and he has her pinned for the moment between himself and the glass-topped counter, his hand cupping the swell of one full breast.

The time for delicate consideration is slipping fast through her own fingers. She fancies herself in her father's image, cool and calculating, playing a situation to her own advantage, and neglecting to pay heed to the side of her that has long since overtaken this conversation. The part that is selfish and pleasure-seeking, blind to consequence where her myriad of petty lusts are concerned, and, worst of all, the part that is convinced a man this much older than her would be as easily out-witted as her most tried lover.

He nips at her ear; she moans her response, until her shirt is torn open and she can hear the tell-tale clutter of buttons falling to the floor. It's nothing compared to the sudden impact, the roughness with which he's shoved her into place, and perhaps part of her response means to restore some sort of balance in power. "You'll replace that," she hisses, and bites back another hungry sound from her throat. No rewards for manhandling her, she thinks, for about as long as it takes for her to grab at the hand at her thigh, meaning to finally force him to touch her where she needs him most. In spite of her sudden lurch in frustration with him, she is wet and waiting between her thighs, and her fingers dig sharp nails into his hand where she means to take some semblance of charge, even as he has her pinned and half-bared.

There is a dance here, a fine balance between her desire and her fury, and both of them are sweetly intoxicating. Her vitriol is every bit as satisfying as her lusty moans, and he laughs low in his throat as her long nails claw against his hand.

"I can afford it," he assures her, and the smirk is as clear in his tone as it is on his face; a joke with himself, a smug reassurance of how little he need care about such petty things. She drags his hand higher, and he can feel in the slick, smooth heat of her cunt just how little she actually minds this frustration. He can be kind, too, he decides, and takes her clear demand, pressing manicured fingers against her entrance and seeking out, with the pad of his thumb, the hood of her clit. His mouth wanders down again, teeth scraping the hollow of her collarbone, his fingers kneading roughly against the soft weight of her breast.

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𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔟𝔬𝔯𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔫.

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