Every single muscle in her boy had gone rigid as soon as she had dispensed with the cloth. Why she had done it, she couldn't rightly give a defiant and logical reason for. What she had felt, in that moment, was that she wanted to be real and honest with Iason and allow some kind of connection between them - a meeting of real people. Of Iason and Persephone. Not Lord Iason of Dimitrou and Princess Persephone of Xanthos. And as they had communicated on more than one occasion in an open manner without ever touching the personal, it was as if they were never going to break through that barrier unless she shared something with him that no-one else had ever seen. Something that was purely herself and not her role or position. Another alternative might have been letting her read her journal perhaps. It had to be something so truly personal and intimate that it might break the shell of decorum that she had constructed and that he agreed to follow.
Bizarre as it might have been as a choice; this was the closest and quickest option her mind had come to for sharing something purely herself with the man.
Under his scrutiny her body changed a little. Her shoulders drew in, her arms came together across her torso, her fingers entwining awkwardly. Her breasts were pressed together by the action and her knees drew in, turning her hips and bottom into her a perfect heart. One of her feet braced down on the other as she stood nervous and a blush crept over her collarbone and face as he complimented her. At first she had called herself every name for idiot she knew as she had clearly shocked him; his mouth hanging open as his eyes moved over the curves and lines of her body, but as soon as he offered her a positive word that was truly her own to hold - not something he was simply saying to flatter a monarch, her temperature rose in her cheeks just as the chill hit her skin and the peaks of her breasts reacted accordingly.
Swallowing nervously, Persephone unlocked her hands and held them up a little bit as if she wanted to touch him or ward him off or something in between but not sure what to do with her hands to achieve any such goals.
"Can you just... stay really still for a second..." She asked him, as she took a step forward, encroaching on his personal space. She swallowed, her chest inhaling strongly. "The only times I've done this with you - with anyone - I've not really been thinking so... I've probably done it all wrong. Let me just..." Her gaze dropped to his lips. "You... you said you liked this before so... I er... I hope you don't mind me doing this but I... I want to try and do it right this time." Swallowing again and nervously brushing several long and damp locks behind her ear, Persephone stepped in again and went up onto her toes.
Iason was tall but, so long as she extended her feet to their full length and tilted her head back, she could get to a point of aligning her mouth with his. She hovered there, their lips an inch apart: him holding true to her request to stay still; her uncertain at how to handle it...
She moved to bring their lips towards, their faces flush but backward away a few centimetres upon realising it was the wrong angle, she tilted her head and this time managed to touch their mouths before realising it wasn't quite right again. By this time, she had made it awkward and no matter how she adjusted to tried to close the inch of distance between them, it didn't seem quite right. Shared air played and twisted between their lips; her own breathing had escalated. She bit her lower lip, she tried again, brushing their mouths together but their noses bumped a little. She backed off again. All the while remaining on her toes and keeping them close as she sought the perfect and right way to kiss him.
In their kisses before, they had bumped noses, pushed lips into teeth at one point. She had pulled his hair, scratched his neck (she had noticed it when he had removed his second towel to dry his hair). She had done it all wrong and now she desperately wanted to do it right. She wanted to see what it was like to kiss someone in that way.
With an exhale of frustration and another swallow that send the column of her throat shifting, Persephone dropped her heels back down and was suddenly very awkward at her failed attempt. Folding her arms across her chest and bending one leg over the other a little, as if to try and shield herself from view, her womanly confidence (not that she had much to start with) no longer giving her the burst of adrenaline she had felt when removing the towel, Persephone glanced down at her own toes which curled into the floor.
"I'm sorry... I'm not..." She waved a hand uncertain of the right words, before tucking it back into her folded arms. "Very good at this..." She glanced up at him through her long lengths of her eyelashes. "Perhaps um..." She glanced down again and flicked a hand between the two of them. "Perhaps you're better off initiating..."
Iason nodded at her request, mouth opening once again to reply before he shut it and simply remained where he was. She’d asked him to do this once before and it had ended with their first kiss and her crying, and he could feel his heart beating hard in his chest for fear it would end the same way. It had been a day of madness, so many ups and downs and they had been making such progress, he hated to think anything might turn it on it’s head.
Her insistence that she would do it right this time brought a small smile to his face and he relaxed somewhat, though he was still very much on edge with their current state of dress as it was. If anyone walked in on them now they would have very little excuse for it if at all, and if she was uncertain about marrying him to be found like this was compromising indeed. Still, he didn’t stop her as she stood on her toes and leaned close, the heady sensation of her breath and his own twining in the air, being so close their lips nearly touched hitting him with the lack of material between their skin.
The attempts she made weren’t bad, weren’t wrong, but she barely gave him a chance to return any pressure before she was pulling away and trying again. He could count the number of kisses her been part of on one hand, but he’d seen and heard tales of his fair share. She seemed to have that idea of perfection stuck in her head again and he wanted to find a way to break her out of that.
Persephone’s sudden frustration and embarrassment was obvious and he hated seeing her this way, so unlike the confidence she always showed before. There was a difference between discomfort and being oneself. As she asked him to try instead, he stepped back and reached for one of the discarded towels, returning to her and drawing the cloth around her torso to cover her up more, pulling her to him in the process.
”You want me to kiss you?” He waited for her nod of confirmation before holding closed the cloth behind her back with one hand. ”I would prefer you be comfortable, not afraid or ashamed around me.”
This was the most physical contact they’d had, aside from him carrying her frozen body inside, and Iason kept one arm around her waist to hold her close. The other hand lifted slowly to touch her cheek, brushing back pieces of her damp hair out of the way and drawing a soft circle on her cheekbone with his thumb. This was upsettingly close to how his father had said he should behave, gentle, quiet, so as to avoid startling her like a deer, and he made a mental note to one day tell Gavriil he was right.
Closing the space between them Iason didn’t allow himself to overthink, just pressing his lips to hers and shifting slightly when their noses bumped. Her mouth was soft against his, and the way her body felt against his sent another rush of heat to his core. This was not the wisest choice he’d made, giving in to this, but he was determined to keep his cool, and he would push no further than this.
”I might not be any good at this either...you’ll have to let me know.”
That first kiss was brief, a test of angles and pressure, when he parted them for a quick breath it was a test of his willpower to move slowly again, tipping her chin up in adjustment and leaning in to brush his lips to her own again if she allowed him.
Persephone felt a strange conflict of feelings when Iason moved to cover her with one of the dry clothes from the bed. A moment of feminine pique felt a shock of uncertainty regarding her appearance - but she pushed it to one side - the other was a moment of warmth as she realised she was touched by his care of her. She pushed the thoughts aside annoyed that she seemed to have, over the course of one evening reduced her confidence and self-control down to a puddle of raging feelings and girly emotions. She felt awkward and stupid and gangly but she was determined to push through it.
When Iason commented on how her awkwardness seemed to be about him and his presence, she shook her head.
"I feel unfamiliar, Lo-" She stopped herself and nodded as she stated his name with a little nod, as if affirming it in her mind as she did it - "Iason..." She glanced back up to him as she felt the towel around her fingers and helped to hold it close as he did. "Unfamiliar... not uncomfortable."
At least, she thought that was the case. It was hard to know when her feelings felt as jumbled as they did.
And then Iason was leaning in to kiss her. As is usually the way with feelings of failure or awkwardness, Persephone was hyper aware of any nose-bump or apparently lacking in her own attempts to kiss the man, but nearly noticed anything of the sought when the action was before by him in turn.
His lips joined with hers, soft and careful. He seemed nervous of how she might respond to his touch and so didn't push or press the connection into something passionate or overwhelming. Persephone felt her lips turn sensitive and hyper aware. They tingled a little and she felt heat creep up her neck. She gasped as his fingers drew light circles against her cheek, the touch grounding her as his mouth moved against hers.
Persephone found that, with the kiss already begun, her lips seemed to know what to do from that point onwards, moving instinctively to his. If he pressed closer or became bolder, her lips caved to his, softened against him and allowed him dominance. If he softened his touch, it gave her the chance to be a little bold; her mouth lingering and chasing his.
Heat was rapidly curling down Persephone's spine and her toes turned in towards in the fur of the rug beneath her. Her arms were pinned inside the towel so she couldn't reach in the way he could. Couldn't touch him as he did her. The hand at her waist pressed the cloth closer, her sensitive skin picking up each rough divot in the fabric.
By the time Iason had pulled away for a moment, Persephone felt her breathing to have escalated. Like she was breathless with exertion.
Iason murmured something calming and comforting against her mouth and then leaned into kiss her again. Persephone was naturally raising her mouth to meet his, eager to repeat the kiss, when her brain then sluggishly realised what she said and she stilled momentarily. She smiled with light amusement.
"None of the women you've known before have given you any feedback, Lord Iason?" She asked, this time using his title as a tease, as she hovered with her mouth beneath his, curious as to his answer, as a curling feeling was starting up in her stomach. One that tried to tell her she was being mocked for her inexperience...
He didn’t want her to feel unfamiliar with him either. If they were going to keep doing this, if she was going to agree to marry him after everything, then he wanted them both to be familiar, friends. He could almost hear some of his friends and cousins mocking him for the girlish fantasy of marriage he was allowing himself to long for, but he had seen that friendship in his own parents and there was nothing he wanted more.
There was an exhilaration in the way their mouths seemed to slowly find a rhythm, and Iason was thrilled that she didn’t seem to find any complaint if her eagerness was any indication. It suddenly felt as if there was too much space between them, even the cloths between them were an annoyance as the scratch of the material felt rough in comparison to her skin. Never before had he felt such a rush from being close to someone else, none of his previous experiences had held this sort of weight to them.
When she asked her teasing question his breath matched her own, and he bumped his nose against hers intentionally this time, tempted to ignore her comment and claim her lips again. He had to say something though, couldn’t let her go on with her apparent assumption that he had been with others before. That was a difference between him and most other men his age, he’d never sought out the company of maids or whores or anyone else, he’d rarely had such a need to be with another person unlike what he felt now. Love, or lust, either way it was new and exciting.
Iason gave a sheepish sort grin and tilted his head away, allowing her room to adjust the cloth around herself as he traced his fingertips along her right arm. It wasn’t quite shame, or pride, but somewhere oddly in the middle as he looked back to her, watching her reaction carefully.
”Ah, I’m sure they would. But I haven’t..” His hands lifted free and made a sort of gesture in what little space there was between them, an uncertain movement to convey his own inexperience. ”I haven’t known any other women. Aside from a few innocent kisses when I was young. Nothing like this.”
Mentally preparing for her to mock him or suddenly find him an oddity, he took a few steps back, finding a seat on the bed instead and resting his elbows on his knees as he watched her. Perhaps he could play the game, perhaps not. Smiling softly his fond expression didn’t exactly match the tone that held a slight nervousness, a slight jest as he used her proper address.
Surprised to a point of... well, surprise for want of another word, Persephone wasn't quite able to bring her thoughts back into line quickly enough to disengaged her arms from her towel and stop Iason as he moved away. His confession that he had never been with a woman was not an... unpleasant one, necessarily. But it was certainly unexpected. It was starting to become rare that a woman of her own age would still be virginal upon her marital union, but to have a man of Iason's still be chaste was unheard of. At least as far as Persephone's limited knowledge on the subject went.
When he asked if this was a problem, it was the first time Persephone realised that she had been silent since his confession and she was instantly contrite. Realising that she had made him feel awkward as he sat down on the end of the large four poster bed. The man looked uncertain in a way that he hadn't before. Awkward he had appeared, apologetic or unsure of her responses with regards to her own feelings and behaviour: absolutely. But he had never seemed uncertain before regarding her judgement of him in this manner. Except perhaps on their first meeting... but then this topic was one of a far more personal nature than whether or not a man was of adequate stock for a political union.
Finally unhooking her arms from where Iason had wrapped her up in the towelling cloth, Persephone secured it under her arms and around her small bust-line before stepping forwards towards the man who had been so kind to her over the last few hours. Pausing for a moment, when she reached him and unsure how to best approach, Persephone then arranged the overlaps of her covering and found a way to kneel between her intended's knees. She kept her body straight from head to knee, instead of sitting back on her heels so that their faces were at an even keel.
"I guess it depends on your reasons." She told the man with a soft smile. Reaching up, she stroked a few pieces of his hair that had gone every which way as he'd dried them. She sucked her lips in and the tip of her tongue poked between them as she concentrated for a moment. She then looked back to his face and her smile broke out again. Her tone was teasing as she pursed her lips and tilted her head to give him a sideways look, a flash of her old confidence starting to shine through... "Have you been laying with men?" She asked in a scandalous question turned into a joke through the flashing of her eyes.
She didn’t seem recast to laugh at him, and he watched as she approached with a hesitant smile. Sitting up slightly as she stood before him, he wasn’t sure what to expect, for her to sit beside him or continue standing perhaps. What he least expected was for the queen of Athenia to kneel before him, much less for the way she adjusted herself between his legs.
Trying to keep his composure as she rested against his knees, Iason had to fight back thoughts that were exceptionally inappropriate, and he cursed Emilios silently for even putting them in his head in the first place. They were talking. This was a good step in their relationship. And he owed it to her to be focused as she let her guard down.
Iason bent his head into her touch as her fingers brushed through his hair, eyes closing in enjoyment at the warmth the simple gesture brought him. No one had touched him so gently before, save perhaps his mother when he was young and upset, but with the exhaustion of the day he found himself thinking he could easily fall asleep to the soothing motion. She said it depended on his reasons for staying chaste and he shrugged, ready to give his usual response when instead she shocked him again.
Blinking his eyes open rapidly he leaned back and made a face at her to indicate how wrong she was. Men had never held an appeal for him, but then again the desire he felt for women had always been especially selective. He supposed it made sense for her to question him but with how very close and intimate they were, had been, at the moment, the question was like being doused in cold water.
”No, I haven’t.” The glimmer of amusement in her dark eyes sent him grinning again and in a bold move he reached his arms around her shoulders and planted a kiss on her cheek. It was almost more informal, simply a moment of enjoying her presence and contact though he was sure he would get a complaint from the scratch of his beard against her soft skin.
”I’ve been tempted, by other women.” He put careful emphasis on women combined with his smile just to tease her slightly, speaking softly against her ear. ”But, I have never met anyone I’ve truly wanted. And so, I’ve waited.” Until you. The hidden words hung between them as he pulled back enough to search her gaze again, hoping the word love hadn’t frightened her off again.
As Iason leaned in towards her, Persephone naturally stayed still, a little unsure of the break in her personal space that was done so rarely and by so few. Her hands naturally fell to rest on Iason's turned out thighs - so gentle they would barely be noticed through the rough material of the towel around his hips. Her chin naturally dipped down in a manner that was almost coy as Iason leaned in to kiss at her cheek, his beard rough against her jaw line and his hair fluttering around her nose. She found herself smiling at the almost ticklish sensation his touch caused down the side of her face and neck. She felt as much as hear the words he murmured into her ear and her smile broadened at the intended compliment of attentions. He had been tempted before but never enough to draw him towards action. But he had done so with her... The clear definition of difference had a strange sensation curling in the bottom of her chest. Something that felt oddly like pride.
The timbre of his voice in her ear sent several shivers down her spine and, as Iason pulled away from his murmurings, she couldn't resist tilting her chin back up and claiming his lips with her own - just for a moment - as they passed.
It was there that they hung. Their faces so close, their eyes focused on one another... Persephone trailed the palm of her hand back and forth over his leg... Iason secured the fingers of her other to intertwine with his.
It was a strange sort of moment. Neither speaking, neither pushing. Their eyes strayed to look over the other, then would find one another again... As if they were both shy to stare for too long. As time ticked by - a fact of life that seemed to be entirely escaping the both of their attentions - Persephone felt her skin growing hot again. As if it were shrinking and tightening over her body under Iason's scrutiny. She felt her breathing - which had calmed down as they talked - move back to an erratic pattern. She swallowed back her nervousness.
Her gaze darted to over Iason's shoulder, her vision taking in the wide and carefully made up bed behind him. It was the bed that she would be sleeping in that night regardless; for this was the room she had been assigned but she found her mind whirling at the idea of perhaps not spending it alone...
Large, dark eyes turned back to the man who had promised to be her husband and she opened her mouth, the words late in leaving her lips but there all the same.
"You're welcome to stay the night with me, if you wish." She told him, her lower lip trembling only once as she suggested the offer, not sure if she was more nervous at the idea of him accepting it or declining in favour of his own chambers...
The stolen kiss as he started to move back sent a spark of heat through him and Iason found it was difficult for him to stop smiling. The brush of her hand against his leg, fingers of her other hand twined in his own, if her question about his possible interest in men had doused his desires this quiet moment between them allowed that flame to burn again. It was such a contrast to the way he’d felt earlier, the fear and annoyance and worry had all melted away to be replaced with affection for her and a desire he hadn’t ever known before.
He brought her hand to his lips, settling kisses against her palm and fingertips that had been blue with cold when he’d found her. It had only been a short while, but it felt like a lifetime since he had found her in the woods. Only a short time when he’d thought that she hated him and wanted to be free of any connection. And now he couldn’t imagine walking away.
Following her gaze over his shoulder to the expanse of the bed he tried to keep his expression neutral, her offer sending another surge of heat and a fluttering excitement mixed with nerves in the pit of his stomach. He was sure his face was red again but at this point he couldn’t seem to care. They were on the same page with this, equals now in everything all but bared before one another.
”I do. Wish it, I mean.” Reaching for her other hand he tried to draw her up so that she was off the ground, either standing or now seated on the bed with him and adjusting so he could face her properly. He didn’t want to leave her, not after everything that had passed between them tonight. ”Though we shouldn’t, I suppose.”
Words were hard to articulate, especially when stating that they should be careful how they proceeded when all he wanted was to be entirely reckless for the first time in his life. He knew enough to be curious, to want to explore the depths of what they could be, but given how long the day had been for them, and everything else she had been through, it wouldn’t have been his finest moment if he gave in to instinct.
He brought both hands up, brushing them through her hair to move it from her face, catching hold of her jaw and closing the space between them once more. This time he was less cautious, more curious as he tested the way their lips moved together. It was the most extended study he’d been able to conduct, and with her hands now free he found himself eager to learn.
As Iason drew her hand to his mouth, Persephone smiled at the touch of his lips against her palm. She had always assumed a beard to be rough but it was softer than she had expected. Still, it could not match the silken texture of his lips as they played over her palm and then across the back of her knuckles. Persephone watched with curiosity as the skin over her arm rose up in little pinpricks at his touch.
Being drawn up from her knees and guided to the mattress beside him, Persephone allowed the man before her to lead them. When he commented on how he wished to stay with her but the fact that they shouldn't, Persephone's mind seemed to negate the contradiction quickly. If he was saying such words for her own prudence and reputation, he needed not have worried, for she had none left to protect. If he was saying it for himself, his own lips were betraying him as they moved in to take her mouth again, rendering his concerns equally moot.
The kiss he offered her this time held more confidence than the exchanges they had shared before. Perhaps it was her invitation to him, perhaps the admittance that they were both to learn and experience such things for the first time together... perhaps it was simple familiarity and practice that now made him more confident and exploratory in their connection. Either way, he took a command of her mouth that he hadn't before and Persephone's breath shot inwards on a sharp inhale through her nose. Her lips parted a little beneath his and Iason seemed to swallow her exhale, the two of them already, now intimately connected.
Taking a moment of confidence for herself, Persephone leaned into the kiss and offered her own pressures, shifted herself to an angle she thought worked well - that shot heat over her cheekbones and down the nape of her neck and line of her spine. She felt Iason's breath catch - or was that her own? - and they seemed to move with more speed, the kiss gaining momentum.
Breaking free for a moment to breath properly, Persephone's eyes flew wide that such an experience could take such a toll on her lungs. She had never before considered the idea that a kiss could involve full body participation.
Swallowing, Persephone placed a hand on the arm that had raised to touch at her hair and pushed it away for just a moment. In being drawn onto the bed with him the cloth around her hand become pinned between the back of her knees and the mattress, limiting her movement.
Reaching down, Persephone shifted the pseudo-garment, the hem coming up to above her knees and then lifted her feet onto the bed until she was knelt beside Iason, sitting on her own heels. She then took his hand back and with a soft smile draw it to her neck where she guided his fingers into her hair. Almost immediately she was closing her eyes to enjoy the sensation of his touch over her scalp and into amongst her locks. She felt positively feline, smiling under his attentions and becoming instantly calm - and warm - at his pampering.
This time, it was Persephone to initiate the kiss. Leaning into offer him the same as they had before, starting already with heated momentum and harder breathing but still soft and sweet upon each other - as if neither were willing to take anything further when they were so enjoying what they yet had.
Reaching up - blind, for her eyes were closed, Persephone made to touch Iason's hair but paused as she brushed several locks, wondering if men were less interested in such things. Women spent hours of attention on their hair, it made sense that they would like to be touched and preened. Perhaps men were less sensitive to such things? She moved her hands lower, the finger hovering and shrinking back every time they made contact with the bare skin of his neck and chest.
Frustrated at her nervousness and lack of knowledge and suspecting Iason was wondering secretly what in Hades she was doing, Persephone broke their kiss long enough just to murmur against his mouth.
"What..." She started but changed her mind on the wording. "Where do you want me to touch you?" She asked, her eyes still closed and her lashes casting shadows over her heated cheeks before she looked up to meet his eyes, their faces a breath apart, his hands at her hair and neck, her own hovering uselessly in the space between them...
Before, he hadn’t understood why so many men were willing to pay or make fools of themselves to spend time like who’s with a woman. He’d understood affection, that was never lost on him, even desire had stirred him before, but this was an entirely different beast. Whether this new lust was emotion or physical instinct, he couldn’t decide and had little wish to think much on it when his body was so otherwise preoccupied.
Where their first attempts had been all awkward, bumping noses or clacking teeth, their tentative practice felt as if it had all just been a warm up for this. He happily would have stopped breathing if he could if only to make each moment last longer, taking in a harsh breath as she pushed away slightly with a gasp of her own. The world felt as if it had taken on a different feel, and in spite of the cold that they had been dealing with prior seemed to be nonexistent. Heat burned through him and made him immune to any chill and everywhere she touched him it felt as if his skin were ten times more sensitive than before.
He hesitated, feeling as if he had been panting like a dog and wondering if that was why she had taken his hands off of her. Catching his breath as she shifted, he tried to calm his racing heart and adjust the cloth about his hips. Somewhere in their movements it had come undone and he was dangerously close to being exposed. Not that there was much hiding exactly how his body had reacted.
Letting her draw his hand back to her hair he was relieved and for a long moment simply slid his fingers through the damp strands, smiling fondly as she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. He could have sat and watched her expression all evening but as she leaned in to offer him her lips once again he took the opportunity eagerly, accidentally drawing his teeth against one and pulling back briefly for a breathless apology. Further distracted by her hands in his own hair, every touch and press of her fingertips against him sending sparks across his skin.
It took a moment to register her question, his mind felt completely fogged of reason and sense, his lips broken from hers had begun to explore the elegant curve of her neck and he could only manage a breathless reply. ”Everywhere..”
Persephone didn't know what was happening. She didn't recognise it or understand it. But her body seemed to. Her skin was heated, her breathing laboured and a sort of stress or tension was curling in her lower belly. The warmth that Iason's touch was sparking beneath her skin seemed to have a drawing effect; it drew her towards him. Like moth to flame, her physical being seemed to naturally lean in towards the source of that warmth.
When they broke apart for her to adjust her towel, Persephone was so focused on maintaining her own dignity that she didn't notice the potential loss of Iason's. Instead, she was immediately distracted by his hand in her hair and around the back of her head, her eyes closed as they kissed once more. This time as he leaned in to claim her mouth, he caught her lower lip between his teeth. A murmured apology, so light it was practically breathed across her lips, followed but it wasn't necessary. The little nip it had caused had made the muscles in her lower abdomen tighten, her thighs draw together and her tongue feel heavy in her mouth. Her breath had caught and held for a moment beyond her control and set her heart pounding.
Her passion - for that's what this had to be, surely? - was unable to be shown when she went to kiss him again, though, for his attentions had moved on. His hand had shifted to her neck, encouraging her face to turn, his lips finding a path down her neck.
She found herself naturally leaning into the palm of his hand, exposing the line of her throat to his seeking lips and a soft and strange noise - somewhere between a sigh and a whimper - passed her lips without intent. She pressed them closed in a moment of awkwardness, sure that the sound was in some way embarrassing, but the action only served to push her breathing through her nose, limiting her air still more so.
When Iason reached the base of her neck, where her heart rate fluttered beneath her skin, her control over her own mouth was lost and her lips parted on a gasp. She wasn't sure which of Iason's touches were destroying her ability to breathe - or even think – the most: the pressing and tender lips that moved down one side of her neck, or the softly calloused fingertips that caressed and commanded the other.
Touches...
He had said he wanted her to touch him...
Swallowing, the gesture more intimate now that he was so close to her throat, Persephone reached up to place a hand to the back of Iason's head, touching his hair and unsure how to give him pleasure...
When the brush of his fingers flickered over a sensitive part of neck, however, instinct took over and her fingers gripped deep into his locks as her breath caught in her lungs before expelling on a sigh...
Unaware that her lids were now hooded and her pupils wide with new sensations, Persephone opened her eyes to find herself looking down the long line of Iason's spine. The two of them had moved close, his mouth to her neck, and now she watched over his shoulder, noticing the notches and shapes of his spine and shoulder blades. His skin was a little tan, used to the sting of the sun, while a softer and lighter shade lurked nearer the edges of the towel wrapped around his waist.
With even the slightest movements at her neck, Iason's back flexed and shifted in a way that had Perse's mouth water...
Reaching around him, she smiled as she took the tips of her fingers and gently stroked them down the central line of his back, lingering over each rise and dip of his spine. She leaned forwards and pressed a closed mouth kiss to the smooth dome of Iason's shoulder and tasted water and a little salt. She kissed him again, this time with lips parted her tongue reaching to test itself against his skin, as her hands grew more confident; one holding him in place amongst the locks of his hair and the other reaching to splay its palm and fingers across the muscles of his back.
It was as she was curling her lower body around, drawing him closer, in a movement that was so slow and seemed so utterly natural she barely noticed it, she became aware of the sensitivity in her breasts, the roughness of the towel now obvious in her mind. She felt wonder as she realised she could feel everything... the pinpricks of sweat on her skin, the tickle of Iason's beard... the softness of his lips, the individual rises and falls of his muscles... she could hear her breathing - his heart beat... the two of them and how they seemed to escalate each over.
She remembered the nip to her lips that had sparked so sweet a reaction and took a chance, nipping at the swell of Iason's shoulder, where she could then mask the action with a kiss...
The little noise that escaped her had him worried for a brief moment that he had somehow caused her hurt, but the way she leaned into his supporting palm and whispered an apology of her own proved him wrong. He wanted to say that she didn’t need to apologize, that the way her breath played against his skin and those soft sounds sent shivers through him in the best way, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull his mouth away from her. Pursuing his course down to the joint of shoulder and throat, he had to pause for a moment and simply bury his face against her skin, trying to catch his breath and slow his beating heart.
They couldn’t do this, should certainly not be spending time together like this until they were married. Even if she thought she now had little reputation to protect if the gods were kind she would still be his wife, and that was enough of a reason for him. At least, in the rational part of his brain that was certainly doing very little to control his movements.
Her fingers scraping through his hair and down his back drew a hum of pleasure from him, spurring him to action once again as he dared to move lower, the top of her chest peppered with kisses. His hands itched to drag away the cloth barriers between them, to see what this would be like if they could truly touch and feel one another in their entirety. But he had wrapped her back up and she had adjusted herself to ensure she remained that way.
Iason felt himself go nearly dizzy as she bit into his shoulder, this time the sound that left him was less a hum and more a moan, a foreign noise echoing back to him. He dropped his hands to rest on the bed behind her, catching himself as he fell off balance against her and staring down at her with blue eyes darkened by arousal, his breathing harsh as he tried to keep hold of any sort of control he had. He’d never wanted anything more than her, and his body seemed to be trying to guide him towards it, but the frustration of uncertainty and conflicting reminder of his duty pulled him back from catching her lips once again.
”I’m sorry…”
His voice was strained and he could feel his arms trembling as he hovered above her, and he knew he should sit back, make himself presentable, and walk away, but part of him wanted her to pull him back down with her into that temptation.
As they had kissed, each finding a journey over the other’s skin, they had naturally begun to sink backwards, Persephone had used her hold on Iason to support herself, but Iason had had nothing. So, at the moment their centres of gravity couldn't hold and their journey towards the mattress was too acute to keep himself in place, Iason had fallen against her, breaking his connection from where he had been trailing soft kisses over her collarbones - touches that had sent her eyelashes feathering back down over her cheeks and drawn a soft purr from her tongue - and upsetting his balance. The disruption had Persephone falling back from where she had held onto him, her back dropping the last few inches to the mattress. Disorientated from the slight fall, Persephone's eyes flew wide and the first thing she noticed were Iason's arms shooting out on either side of her, to brace his weight above and save the both of them from a collision of bodies.
She noted the shape of his physique then, for the first time. The strength that corded his arms, the tendons that ran from wrist to elbow, the swell of his biceps, the sweep of muscle that filled out his shoulders and banded over his chest... The ribbed, secular muscles in his lower belly, the shape of each pectoral. With his hair over long and his beard grown in from their voyage, Iason hardly looked like a nobleman... But he had hardly gained his strength in but a week. What had he been doing - toiling with the common man? Performing manual labour? How had he carved his body into such a shape of fitness?
Persephone felt the very foreign and entirely bizarre desire to taste the strength from his very skin...
A desire that was only encouraged and set aflame as her gaze came level with his. His eyes; a soft sky blue that were almost startling in their paleness against his dark brows, had deepened in shade. The pupils of his eyes expanded to engulf the blue, his gaze hooded and his lips parted. She noted the speed of his pulse in the hollow at the base of his neck, the way his chest rose to draw closer to her and then fell back away. Over and again. He was breathing as hard as she was.
"I'm sorry..." He said now, as they had shifted, his hip pressing into the bed beside her own and his body turned to hover above hers. His arms held her captive and his gaze even more so... A strange sort of discomfort had started to heat something between Persephone’s legs and she felt a natural urge to part her thighs, to cool the warmth that bloomed from within...
Whilst her hold on Iason hadn't kept her upright, her touch had never left him. She moved her hands over him: the one from his hair shifted to his shoulder and slowly stroked its way down his arm. The other moved down and over his spine, where it found a home in the small of his back.
"For what?" Persephone asked with a soft smile before, in a moment of pique, she followed her instincts and allowed her knees to fall apart. The cloth wrapped around her frame was pushed up by her movement, rolls of white now wrinkled around her belly and hips, hiding her exposure from both their gazes, as she pulled forwards and guided Iason to naturally fall in the opening cradle of her body.
The collision of the two held no impact for they had moved bare inches but the effect seemed to hit both of them hard. Persephone gasped at the sensation of a man's weight upon her frame, supported by her hips. Her breasts felt on fire with the friction from her towel as they seemed to want to nothing more than to meet with Iason's bare chest. The space between them had become but an inch between torsos and suddenly Iason was everywhere. His frame above her, his arms either side of her, his lips a breath from her own, his...
Her eyes widened as she felt... something... clothed in towelling, meet up against her bare womanhood. She gasped and her breathing hitched in her throat. She tried to swallow but there was a lump there now... A moment of panic tried to creep its way in. A nervousness that she wouldn’t allow at the feel of a man’s body against her own. For that was what she could feel. She knew enough to know the shape to be Iason’s… but she hadn’t thought it to be so… firm…
To avoid the worry and the virginal dread in the back of her mind, Persephone’s only thought and instinct seemed to be to hold onto this man and reach up to seek his mouth with hers, searching for that connection again... The one that felt safe, secure and fiery enough to burn away all doubt…
This time when they came together, there was more noise... gasps, moans... as if she had done away with all embarrassment and was a victim to vocalising her physical reactions to his touches. Which left, for the first time during their kisses, her mouth open to his ministrations...
Iason closed his eyes and let his head hang as she ran her hands along his arm and shoulders, trying to continue slowing his breaths and heart rate while she made it increasingly difficult. Opening his mouth to respond he instead inhaled sharply as she shifted beneath him, parting her legs and drawing him closer. This was becoming much more difficult.
Resting now on his elbows, the material between them all that was keeping any kind of decency, not that it was hiding much. It felt so incredibly right, framing her body with his own like this, and another flash of his father’s words before he’d left Taengea came to mind, about how he ought to make love. It took only her lips pressed again to his to send the embarrassment of that conversation from his mind and draw focus back to what was at hand.
With each motion it seemed more and more impossible for both of them to keep quiet, and with every soft gasp and purr that he somehow elicited from her he was only spurred on. An awkward clash of mouths as her lips parted resulted in the brush of their tongues and without conscious thought his hips rocked against her own. And suddenly the cloth between them that he’d been barely tolerating was too much.
He didn’t want to just touch her through the material they’d wrapped around themselves, he needed to feel her skin on his, was desperate to devour as many kisses as he could. One hand reached between them, yanking at the towel and shifting his own weight to remove it easily, discarding his own in the process. The other hand still braced to keep his weight from crushing her entirely slid back through her hair as he took a moment to look over her in awe. He’d already seen her disrobed, but seeing her here beneath him in the throes I’d desire was entirely different.
She was still so thin from her lack of proper meals on their way here, and as he brushed his fingers along her side he could too easily feel her ribs. Her chest was not as ample as some, but full and very much fitting for her, like everything else about her that was perfect. Sliding his hand up her side, he found the curve of her breast in his hand along with the overwhelming urge to toy with the peaked nipple, drawing his thumb along it before lowering his mouth and tracing his tongue against it with a hum.
As Iason kissed her, Persephone kept her eyes closed. Not only did blindness feel more natural in such moments - so that the mind could focus inwards on the delicious sensations such connections fraught - but it also helped her to block out distraction. To close off the world from her mind. To think only of this moment. To think not at all, in fact. Her twenty-two-year-old and, so far, untouched body was now in control and it seemed to know what it wanted. It moved and drew itself towards Iason as if he were some goal. As if he held an answer that she sought without ever realising the question it belonged to. How could it be that she physically behaved in a way that suggested knowledge when she herself had no idea what she was doing; no experience or rumour to rely upon?
Repressed and controlled since long before her years of puberty, Persephone had not even exercised the scandalous notion of touching herself let alone allowing a man to do such a thing...
As they kissed, the exchanges turned harried. The lack of air and pace of breathing that seemed to torment the both of them had them gasping around each other's lips, the moans that she could hear, pulled from Iason's mouth began as groans that she could now feel reverberating against her chest, through the single layer that separated their skin. With a need to break away to illicit such sounds and claim the air they both craved, the kiss had lost all structure. Instead, they came back to each other with open mouthed need.
It was in one of these meetings that Iason deepened the kiss. There was a wetness as his tongue touched her lips and her own instinctively moved to meet it.
It was in that moment that the kiss suddenly turned carnal.
Persephone reached up and drove her fingers into his hair, her mouth turned strong against his, giving as much as she was taking. Her body seemed to shift beneath him, writhing to get closer in a manner she never knew, her legs spreading wider. She felt his body respond in kind and push forwards up against her pelvis in a way that had her break their kiss, a noise more guttural than she'd ever made before, breaching her lips.
Embarrassed by the noise, Persephone flushed and turned her face to the side, one of her hands moving to place her knuckles over her mouth as she gasped for air.
But odd exclamation seemed only to excite Iason though as, suddenly, he was ripping away the fabric from her body, as if he couldn't stand to be without skin to skin contact a moment longer. Blushing deeper, any of her concerns and fears were soothed away as Iason reached into her hair, his stroking touch bending her nerves into submission as she braved to open her eyes and watch him as he stared down at her in turn. She smiled with womanly pleasure as he trailed a finger down her side, appearing to pause at each dip of her ribs as if he were counting. His gaze trailed over her breasts, across the flat belly - a little hollow from the stress of the last few weeks and down to the soft swells of her thin thighs and the womanly V where they met.
His gaze journeyed back up her body and Persephone felt herself wriggle a little in anticipation of the lack of touch - even if it was only for a few heartbeats. Soon he was taking her back in hand - literally - as he reached up to cup her breast. A gesture she had not expected! A woman's breasts were for feeding the young were they not? What was to be done with them in such a moment...?
But Persephone soon realised that this was a miscomprehension as Iason lowered his head to suckle against her. The draw and suck of his lips around her nipple had her gasping - "Oh m-" - words and phrases stilted by the shock of sensations. Heat darted from where he drew upon her, down to burn in her lower bell and fan the flames hotter between her legs. Sweat broke out on the small of her back and Persephone gasped at the heat of it.
It was only then that she noticed Iason pulling at his own covering, rocking in the cradle of her hips to remove the last barrier between them. Unable to see him, nor where they came together over Iason's attentions to her chest, Persephone was unprepared when she felt the man pressing up against her most private place. Her eyes shot wide, her senses seemed to all zero-in on either her breast or her female core as she felt something impossibly silken and yet firm and hard pressing against her pelvic floor. She wasn't entirely sure where he was aiming for down there but something told her he had only to move an inch and both of them would be virgin no more...
And Persephone found that she wanted it.
She wanted to give it away to this man. To be irreparably tied to him. To be bonded and connected with Iason in a way that nothing - not future plans of marriage, or a future separate with other partners... not the reality of her new status or the persistence of his duty - could remove or erase. Sleeping with him now, becoming one being with him now... it would give her something; a connection in this world that she had none of anymore. Not family, not house, not kingdom. But she could have this. She could have this man, and this connection, here.
Her body cooling at such thoughts but her resolve becoming stronger, Persephone closed her eyes to focus on the feel of Iason's lips as he nuzzled at her breasts, his hands strong and commanding. She felt him - his... his manhood, up against her and shifted her hips in a way that had its tip brush along the crevice of her pelvic floor - a sensation that had her gasping. Her hand tightened in his hair, her body rocked up to meet his.
Persephone felt herself writhe and push and show more eagerness and passion than she had yet to embrace. She found her lower body thrusting down upon Iason’s manhood, seeking whatever it was he needed to give in order to complete things between them. Had their angles been right, her movements would have had them joined already but she needed his help for the sharp movements to bring such a union into fruition. She lifted her back from the bed, raising her breasts to his mouth and hands, and opened her thighs further to secure her knees on either side of his hips. offering herself to this man in every way she could, desperate to share with him this moment and this connection. So, that she wouldn’t be alone anymore.
What she hadn't realised, in her shifting and mewing of need, was that she had started to cry...
With every sound and motion between them heat built in his core, desire driving every sort of sense from his thoughts as she writhed beneath him. They were so close in every sense, and though he was unfamiliar with the mechanics of it all, his body and hers seemed to be eagerly guiding their innocence through. As her hips lifted to his he could feel her, what he wanted most parted for him in invitation. Everything about her was temptation and his body screamed for him to give in, but for this he wanted to look at her, meet her gaze.
Tearing himself away he lifted his head, words dying on his lips as he saw the wetness on her cheeks. He was sure he’d been through things more difficult in his life, but in that moment it seemed as if nothing else could compare as he drew his hips away from her and landed on his side next to her with a groan.
”Persephone..”
Iason wrapped his arms around her, laying his head in the crook of her shoulder as he forced himself to inhale and exhale as he supposed he usually did. His heart was still racing, but she was upset and he’d known this. Shouldn’t have pushed for this, should have left her long ago. He couldn’t leave her now, and pressed a kiss to her shoulder of a much more chaste variety as he waited for a response.
”It’s alright. This was too much, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. We shouldn’t, yet.”
Reaching for the towels he’d so recently discarded, he draped one over himself as a barrier and searched for the blankets of the bed to pull over her. She needed rest, they needed time. For all the past felt so distant, it was all so close and raw for everyone involved.
When Iason said her name, she had been expecting it to be in a tone of desire... words laced with temptation and seduction. A husky timbre and a deep resonance of a man in the throes of passion. Instead, it drifted to her ears in a calming rhythm, with control and a sheerness... a stark openness that seemed to pop the intimate bubble of heat and arousal they had spun around themselves.
At the sudden change in tone, Persephone's eyes popped open and salty tears fell back form where they had been caught in her lashes, stinging her eyes as she looked up at the ceiling of the chamber. Her lashes were long, long enough to brush moisture to the hollows above her eyes, the spiky tips damp on her skin. It was only then that she realised what Iason had seen, what had caused his desire to melt away and bring a cooling breeze of realism to the room. A change she wanted desperately to revoke but had no control over stalling.
Within two heartbeats - his and hers - the room had stopped being one of private intimacy and simply become a bed chamber once more. Looking around, Persephone have expected condensation to be rolling down the wooden panelling in the walls they had been so heated only a moment ago, but the room was as it had always been, besides the fire now being a little lower in the grate. The flames would see them through the night but be burnt out by morning. A morning that couldn't be more than a few hours away now...
Realising that she had ruined it. That her tears - a stupid reaction she hadn't realised she had been making - had instantly quelled Iason's arousal for her, Persephone went still and limp with resignation, allowing him to roll from her body and draw her in close.
Without saying anything of clear understanding, Persephone cried in Iason's arms. It didn't matter that they were near enough naked - despite Iason's attempt to draw one of the cloths back over his hips, nor that they were still laying on top of the covers - at least initially. As Iason drew her in close and pressed his face to her neck, Persephone did the same naturally in return, her own features buried a little lower where she could place her brow against the hollow where thick neck plugged into broad shoulders. There she found her own private space, hidden in shadow, and she cried.
Unlike the desperate tears and panic that she had engaged in a few hours earlier, or the silent numbness of the forest before that, this time, Persephone cried healthily. They were her feelings of grief, of regret, of loneliness... They were for what she had lost and for who she had once been and could not be again.
Her arms folded up to her chest, her hands at her throat. Her body turned in on itself as is to protect her from the world. And Iason wrapped himself around that; an additional layer of protection, making a secluded space of comfort. Which only made her feel worse for having failed him in what they had both so clearly wanted. The words "I'm so sorry..." and "I wanted to, I did..." Kept puncturing her sobs here and there as she attempted to apologise for the lack of completion in their moments together.
At some point during her tears, Iason managed to negotiate the two of them under the covers of the bed. Both naked - where the towels now were, Persephone had no idea - but certainly not engaging in what either of them had expect to be a part of only moments before - Persephone felt the awkwardness try to settle but was chased away by the cosiness that Iason had created. Here she lay, in bed with him... He was going nowhere and they would simply lay here together this night. No pressure, no loss. Still laying in the same position, Persephone's tears slowly ran into hiccups which ran into sniffles and were finally spent into simply the heavy exhales of an emotionally spent girl.
Swallowing nervously and placing a hand to Iason's chest, Persephone felt his heart beneath her palm. It was no longer erratic and heavy as it had been when they were... engaged... but instead offered a strong and calm beat that was very reassuring to feel beneath his skin...
Glancing up but only able to see the underside of his jawline from her position, Persephone instead, spoke to one of the light whorls of hair peppered across his chest as she calmed her breathing and tried to steady her voice.
"Are you staying?" She asked... meaning the room, meaning that night. Beyond that she suspected neither of them had any idea of what to expect.
Iason simply held her, allowing her to cry and gently shushing her as she made excuses. It had been obvious that she desired him as much as he wanted her, that to him at least had never been in question. The feeling of her tears against his skin weren’t the most comfortable, but there was a warmth in the way Persephone had tucked herself against his neck that he allowed himself to enjoy.
Slowly but surely his heart and breathing returned to normal, his body relaxing as the exhaustion of the day and fall from the high of their previous actions left him. His eyes closed and fingers absently traced along her back, relishing how easy this felt. In previous moments when she had shed tears and been uncomfortable she’d hidden from him, and now here she was holding him as close as he had her.
He’d nearly dozed when her palm flattened against his chest and he tipped his chin down slightly to look at the top of her head. His lips grazed the dark hair that had mostly dried since their time in the rain and bathing in another gesture of comfort. Smiling at her question, he nodded before realizing he ought to actually vocalize it.
”If you’ll let me.”
When he received no protest, Iason shifted his arms around her and tucked her head beneath his chin, eyes closing once more as he measured out his breaths to keep them both calm. The feeling of her naked body pressed to his own was still a distraction, but in the end the strain of the day won out. It was impossible for him to say who slept first, he was so secure in this embrace and the comfort they had managed to cocoon themselves in. His breathing evened and his grip loosened slightly as he finally drifted off, though he still kept hold as long as she allowed him.
Iason's murmured offer of her permitting him to stay in the room only had Persephone reaching down to where his hand was rested at her waist, in order to interlock their fingers. Her features still leaning in close to his neck and collarbone, so as to avoid awkward eye contact, she joined their hands and shifted closer, indicating her answer to him physically. She wanted him to stay.
Noting the brush of his lips over her hair and closing her eyes to the sound of his breathing, Persephone sighed slow and long. On her next inhale she took in the scent of Iason, of the balmy summer air and rain, of the bath, of their sweat... of everything that had occurred between them in the last few hours. She felt the warmth of his touch, of his hold, of the fire heating the room... of the blankets around them creating a cocoon of safety and privacy... Persephone had no idea who fell asleep first because she couldn't recall when she herself slipped into unconsciousness. Either way, the pair of them were asleep quickly, the exhaustion of the day and the tensions of the last few weeks, seeping from their bones and sending them into slumber.
Persephone, for her part, slept hard. Unlike every other night since she had left Athenia, this time she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep without fit or starts. She was able to sleep soundly and thoroughly for several long hours before she naturally awoke, instead of being startled away by bad dreams or shallow dozes.
Initially, Persephone was entirely disorientated. A deep sleeper at the best of times and impossible to wake up until her standard and exact time every morning, this time, she was even more lost in the fog of recent sleep than normal. For a moment, she couldn't comprehend where she was, what she was doing, why she was without clothing or - most alarmingly of all - who the person was lying in bed with her. Luckily, having finally gotten some decent rest, her mind began to work only a moment after her eyes and she was quick to recognise the room and recall the events of the previous evening that had led her to slumbering in the nude.
As she surveyed the room, Persephone noticed everything slowly, her senses becoming more attuned the longer she was in the world of the conscious. Sunlight was creeping in through the edges of the wooden storm shutters pulled over the windows and the fire had gone out. The candles, however, still burned, down into their stumps and cast the room in a balmy, open light.
Sometime during the night - though she had no memory of it - Persephone had clearly turned in her sleep. No longer facing Iason, she felt his front snugly fitted up against her back, the two of them curled into one another. Iason's arm lay heavily over her waist, his fingers curled softly against where they fell on the bedding. Her feet were free from obstruction but she felt the bumps and edges of Iason's ankles and heels tangled with her own. And behind her she felt-
For a brief, heartbeat of a moment, Persephone's mind - still uncharacteristically slow from her finally sleeping deeply enough for the adjourn to be restful - panicked that Iason was attempting something far outside his character. Feeling the soft press of his primed flesh in the crease of her bottom, Persephone's protective instinct was quick to condemn the man for attempting something sexual while she had been asleep!
Luckily, her reaction to the affront had been to freeze solid, rather than to flail, because a moment later Persephone's ears picked up the gentle and rhythmic breathing of the man she lay with and she was reminded again of the heaviness of his arm, thrown across the dip of her waist. Iason was most certainly asleep, which meant the reaction she could feel against her backside was one that had occurred as he dozed. Something she did not know could happen. Her own ignorance to blame once again, no doubt.
For a moment, Persephone was tempted to be something she had never before thought herself to be as a characteristic – and that was mischievous. As a sense of devilish curiosity stole over her, Persephone recalled how she had yet to look upon Iason - or any man for that matter - entirely naked. Whilst she had opened tournaments and arranged games in the gladiator arcus, she had never been permitted to stay within the stadium for any event that required full nudity. Instead, she had been whisked back to the palace and there she had stayed in her ignorance. Last evening was the closest Persephone had ever come to seeing the male shape in its entirety and even then, she had been blocked from gazing upon it, either by cloth or by the way in which their bodies had come together.
Curiosity curled itself in her lower belly. She wanted to see what it was she could feel pressed against her bottom.
Years of self-discipline, however, and the fear of waking Iason from his sleep with her twisting to see, had her remain where she was and, instead, settle down into the bedding once more and look out over the soft white pillow to the strip of light beneath the storm shutters. She lay there, in a moment of repose she had never been allowed before. Always, at the palace, it had been time for her to immediately rise and dress the second she awoke. There were always too many tasks to be completed and too few hours in the day to get them done. She had never permitted herself to lounge or luxuriate in the moment upon waking. Now... Now, she had nowhere to go and no activity to see to beyond anything her own body and mind dictated. A strange reality for one whose life had been so carefully planned ever since her mother's passing.
Laying there for some time, considering the options that now befell her life, Persephone felt herself becoming more in keeping with her own nature once more. The mad and chaotic woman of the day before seemed to have been permitted her moment to scream like a banshee and the princess trained young woman was coming back to the surface. Only this time, she had been moulded a little differently by life's experiences.
Neither aware nor deliberate in the action, Persephone shifted the tips of her fingers up and down the tan forearm that had been lounged over her, clearly holding her tight at one point in the night but had slackened against the mattress as its owner slept. The pads of her fingers moved with and then against the grain of the hair on his arm and moved in circles, as she thought. It was near an hour of her thinking before she noticed the first signs of Iason stirring to consciousness. She did nothing to feign sleep, as she continued her subconscious touches and the journeying of her thoughts...
After restless sleep on a ship for weeks, Iason slept well in a solid bed with his arm wrapped tightly around Persephone. Holding her now felt secure and whole and even in his unconscious state he was loath to let go. Dreamless as usual, he barely felt when she began to stir against him, turning and burrowing his face against her hair before he stilled in sleep for another hour or so.
It wasn’t until the light peeking through the window grew a bit brighter that he finally woke, smiling at the feeling of her body pressed to his and the way her fingers played along his arm. Stretching in his subdued state, he tightened his hold and gave a hum of satisfaction, one leg adjusting to slip between her own in a possessive move. Still not quite himself, he forgot any sense of propriety that might have governed his fully conscious actions.
”Good morning..”
Nuzzling at the shell of her ear, he placed a kiss against her neck and breathed out in contentment. This was how he wanted to wake up for the rest of his time on earth, with her in his arms and a gentle rise from sleep to waking. Iason’s hand traced against the soft skin of her stomach, following a path down her hip and thigh before returning back to its original place.
Her hips pressed against his though brought him reminder of what his body did on occasion when he slept, and he pulled back with a red face. He’d never shared a bed with someone else, and so never thought much of it until now. Shifting his hips back from hers, he kept an arm around her, unwilling to lose that contact.