Delle Seyah frowned at the invitation hovering over her desk, waiting for her response. It wasn’t unexpected, nor was it out of place—every year, the Nine held a celebratory gala to honor the the Nine’s founding accomplishments on Qresh, and the day had come around again.
The problem wasn’t the invitation.
The problem was that all of Delle Seyah’s plans had been laid and were nicely working their ways to fruition, so the gala itself was a mere formality. She still needed to attend, however, to remind the other families of the Nine of the threats she represented to their interests.
Also, she didn’t want to spend the effort to threaten them. Even veiled threats, at this point, were boring and—even worse—plebeian.
So Delle Seyah watched the glittering holographic letters of the invitation hover over her desk, and thought. Slowly, a smile formed on her lips. She had a thought, and if she could pull off the plan—
Safe to say she wouldn’t be bored, if her plan was successful.
* * *
The first part of this plan, of course, was to surprise Dutch. Without a warrant to draw her to a known location, and faith that all of Dutch’s easily findable locations were either warrants (and therefore dangerous) or a bar (and therefore incredibly low-brow), Delle Seyah turned to the tasteless art of finding her ship and waiting, like a poor Westerlyn solicitor. It was unseemly for someone of her status.
It also didn’t help that as soon as Dutch saw her, she scowled and started walking past as quickly as she could.
“Hear me out.”
“Or how about not.” Dutch continued up the ramp.
“A favor for a favor.”
Dutch stopped moving.
“Your favor to me.” Delle Seyah clasped her hands tightly behind her back. This should work. “Attend the Ancestral Gala with me.”
“With you,” Dutch repeated. She glanced back. Somewhere under her mess of hair (more of a mess than usual—had she been in a fight, or was this a disguise?), Delle Seyah was sure her eyebrows were raised in mock surprise. “I’m acceptable as something other than a bodyguard?”
“To the Nine?” Delle Seyah shook her head. “No. Yalena Yardeen, however...”
Dutch snapped around in a single movement, closing the distance between them before Delle Seyah could draw breath. “You did your research.” There wasn’t a knife in her hand, but Delle Seyah had no doubt that if she misspoke one would be at her throat in a moment.
“Of course.” She met Dutch’s eyes calmly. It wouldn’t do to allow Dutch to think she could get the upper hand simply by being aggressive. “Only the best, for the best.”
“Huh.” Dutch snorted and stepped back, crossing her arms. The threat quieted. For the moment. “And in return I get...?”
“More information on the Nine. I’m sure you have uses for that.” Delle Seyah smirked at Dutch’s minute head tilt of acknowledgement. “Also, I’ll owe you a favor.”
There was a brief glimmer of true interest, there. Delle Seyah’s heartbeat sped up, and she let herself smile, as honest a smile as she knew how to give, using that pleasure.
Then Dutch said, “I’ll think about it,” and the illusion that perhaps she’d get what she wanted easily and without a fight faded.
Delle Seyah sighed and extended her hand, holding a true-paper letter with gold-edged embossing spelling out Yalena Yardeen’s name. “For when you accept my offer.”
Dutch looked between her hand and her face, scowled (again; it was a miracle her face didn’t stick that way all the time), and snatched the paper. “Fine,” she snapped. The letter crumpled a little in her hand, and Delle Seyah winced, holding back the urge to scold her for harming such an expensive artifact. It’d only make her take more pleasure in the act of dismantling it in front of Delle Seyah’s face.
“Please contact me with further details as requested,” Delle Seyah said. She strode away before she had to listen to Dutch insult her family in her typical overbearing manner, just for being a “presumptuous asshole”.
That part, at least, Delle Seyah could smile at—just a little, in a stately fashion.
Being a presumptuous asshole wasn’t what she called it, or what her mentors had called it; they’d just called it being part of the Nine, status and self-assurance coming as easy as breathing. A useful skill, even—especially—when it riled up Killjoys who could’ve known a much grander world.
Dutch would never live in her world full-time, but oh, seeing her there even for a single night would be a treasure.
* * *
Dutch, unsurprisingly, hated the dress because it wasn’t her choice or her usual deeply saturated colors.
Dutch, equally unsurprisingly, loved it as soon as Delle Seyah had her attendants show her all the hidden pockets.
“It’s still an expensive monstrosity,” Dutch said. Her hands told another story: callused fingers that held guns and knew brawls inside and out moved gently on the expensive velvet as if she’d known it her entire life. The ripples she left behind on the black panels shimmered faintly red; bloodstains like those Delle Seyah wondered if Dutch thought were ingrained into her soul.
Delle Seyah reached out and held one of the fine-woven sheer sleeves up against Dutch’s face, letting a lazy smile play over her face. Dutch wouldn’t believe it to be real anyway, and the gilded embroidery (flowers that looked almost like explosions; a private amusement) did look lovely on her skin. “It’s your expensive monstrosity.”
Dutch’s hands stilled on the velvet, clenched into fists. She pulled away, both from the dress and from Delle Seyah herself. “You aren’t buying me.”
“No.” Delle Seyah dropped the sleeve and stepped back, folding her hands at her waist. She’d researched Dutch’s history. Of course she had. Yalena Yardeen, however, was an enigma. Royalty, to be sure, elsewhere in the J; however, nothing else was clear-cut, and she hated that. She let her voice flatten out: not honest, precisely, but nothing that said I’m actively trying to manipulate you, either. “You accepted my offer, and I am holding up my end of the bargain by making sure you’re attired like a princess.”
She couldn’t see Dutch’s face well, not turned away as she was, but Dutch’s shoulders still hunched reflexively before returning to her normal brazen posture. So fast. So controlled. She wanted to dig into that flinch and learn how Dutch worked, what secrets Yalena Yardeen hid behind the facade of a careless Killjoy.
“Do you need anything else?” Dutch growled, and it didn’t exactly spoil her mood but it did put a damper on it.
Delle Seyah sighed. Her attendants shook their heads at her glare, though, and so all she said was, “Please arrive at the proper time.”
“I will.” She shoved her feet back into her scuffed-up boots, swept her equally beaten-up jacket on, and stomped out of the room. One of the Land Kendry attendants scuttled after her, to make sure she left.
Delle Seyah sunk back into her plush chair and settled in, closing her eyes. She didn’t pray. That would be unseemly in this era.
Still, she hoped, dearly and with all her heart, that this wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake.
* * *
Dutch’s body language changed abruptly as they stepped off the Land Kendry shuttle.
Gone was the grouchy Killjoy whose armor was an aura of potential violence, and in her place was a noble lady, graceful and aloof; the makeup that looked jarring on Dutch’s face (too subtle and too overbearing all at once to Delle Seyah’s eye; smooth was never a look that Dutch could love, even with dark green coloring her lips) fit perfectly on Yalena Yardeen’s; the dress that hampered Dutch’s broad strides billowed behind Yalena’s strutting, swinging hips.
It was, much to Delle Seyah’s internal irritation, hard not to stare.
That was part of the point, she was sure; she’d been trained in the arts of seduction, as much so that she could spot someone else using them as to ply for her own gain. The theory was that if you knew how they were used, you could resist their effects better. And, in the past, Delle Seyah had found that to be true.
She clicked her tongue and strode ahead of Dutch, offering her arm. Dutch took it with a too-sweet smile that Delle Seyah matched as they approached Capital Hall’s doors.
A polite amount of attention turned to them as the crier announced, “Delle Seyah Kendry, of Land Kendry!” and “Her companion, the Lady Yalena Yardeen!” Some nods, directed wholly at Delle Seyah; some covert stares, directed at the pair of them; some pointed looks, directed at either Yalena (for being new, and not Qreshi) or at Delle Seyah (for bringing an unknown element).
Delle Seyah ignored all of them. Dutch, as Yalena, smirked at a few of the least subtle, and then tossed her head and followed Delle Seyah into the slowly circulating dance of Company politics.
* * *
Two hours later, Delle Seyah turned from her latest fleeting admirer to the floor of elegantly parading members of the Nine and the swarms of bodyguards that trailed behind them, shadows like buzzing insects. Her own choice to be here without any visible guard, and with a foreign person of noble blood... Delle Seyah smiled to herself. She did like making an impression.
Dutch snorted behind her. An unbecoming sound, but quiet enough that Delle Seyah was sure none of the Gala’s attendees could hear. The snort was for her alone. Delle Seyah turned slowly, raising one eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”
“Everyone here is scared.” Dutch flicked a gilded fingertip towards one of the clusters of bodyguards. Ugly leaves. Beautiful flowers. “Why aren’t you?”
Delle Seyah laughed and wrapped a hand around Dutch’s arm. If she watched closely enough, she could see one of the nearer clusters of gossips turn to follow her motion. She let herself smile, satisfied with both the rumor mill and the feeling of Dutch’s muscles tensing under her fingers, and leaned closer to Dutch’s ear. “That’s because I have you by my side, Yalena.”
Muscles twitched against her, but Dutch’s face remained a picture of languid aloofness. “That isn’t all of it, is it?”
“It isn’t enough?” Delle Seyah guided Dutch along the edge of the room. Dutch didn’t even make an abortive gesture to shake her off, which Delle Seyah counted as a success. “A strong and beautiful woman by my side? What more could I wish for?”
Dutch glanced at her. Her face looked so different, covered in makeup, colors adding depth and contrast to her lips and eyes that made them shine, and dangling earrings that she’d never wear in daily life. Her lips curved, and Delle Seyah saw the tip of her tongue, just for a moment, bright against Dutch’s dark lipstick. Her eyes narrowed, and just for a moment Delle Seyah saw Dutch’s own expression, amused and frustrated in equal measure, beneath her mask of Yalena’s haughtiness and boredom.
Then she looked away again, and that brief flash of humanity was gone.
Delle Seyah swallowed and continued talking, light banter to tell her foreign date about the great Hall of the Nine and the stained glass images lining the windows and casting jeweled light across the floor. She was here with Yalena, and for all that Yalena might like her, Dutch would never allow herself such vulnerability or care. She’d made her disdain clear, and everything Delle Seyah knew of her emphasized how stubborn she could be and how hard she was. Emotions were a problem that she wasn’t going to solve.
So instead, Delle Seyah talked about the history of the Nine and the families’ founders who lined the walls. Kendry, resplendent in plum. Lahani, dark-skinned and aglow in white. Simms, red hair and sky-blue robes a comet across the floor. Derrish, composed and contained in grey. Hyponia, blood-red and alight with laughter. Trus, iron-forged and watchful. Nenodall, shining silver with her spaceships. Traclus, planting a tree as green as his robe. Rinn, maroon-robed and holding a scroll aloft.
She was sure Dutch knew the history, but it was something to talk of, and it was meaningless enough. Dutch could respond as Yalena, Delle Seyah could cement the superiority of the Nine and its Quad over other noble lines and make eavesdroppers happy. It was simple.
It was also hellishly boring.
Delle Seyah steered Dutch to one of the waitstaff circulating along the edges of the room. This one held little pieces of fruit topped with chocolate. Delle Seyah plucked one—a strawberry filled with white chocolate—and held it out to Dutch.
Slowly, and without breaking eye contact, Dutch bent forward to take it, not with her fingers but with her mouth. Delle Seyah froze. She could feel her mouth drop open a little (unseemly, the part of her mind ever-concerned with the appearance of the Nine chastised her), and she swallowed. Dutch’s mouth was warm against her fingers, and when Dutch’s teeth grazed her skin she shivered. The lick of Dutch’s tongue against the her fingertips as Dutch straightened and, after a brief moment of chewing, swallowed, made heat bloom through her. Dutch’s predatory smile, made sultry by her soft-lidded eyes, just added another spark.
Delle Seyah breathed out, and smiled back at Dutch. Hers wasn’t nearly as controlled, though, either as Dutch’s or as she wished she could be. “My dear,” she drawled, “I thought we were waiting until later for such things! The sun has only just crossed the horizon.”
Dutch giggled. Giggled. “Oh, darling, I’m sorry—have I embarrassed you? I forget, sometimes, how the Nine feel about public displays.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” A facade, if presented strongly enough, could become true. Delle Seyah trailed her fingers up Dutch’s arms, so that her hands framed Dutch’s neck. Dutch’s heartbeat sped up, and Delle Seyah’s smile firmed up. A victory. Small, perhaps, but present. “I just don’t believe this is where we should conduct such acts.”
The lazy affect Dutch projected didn’t waver. Neither did the steel underneath. “That’s a very fancy way of saying you’re embarrassed.”
Delle Seyah scoffed.
Dutch shrugged, and took Delle Seyah’s hands. “Come, my dear. How much more of this Gala must we be present for? I’m sure I can think of better ways to occupy your time.” Her thumb rubbed against Delle Seyah’s palms, and Delle Seyah quieted the urge to return the gesture. This was not the time. Or the place. This wasn’t even real; Dutch just knew a weak spot when she saw one.
“I suppose...” Delle Seyah glanced around. The rumor mills were very quiet. She’d set them all astir. She smiled, wide and proud and true. That had been her goal. And the way each movement of Dutch’s thumb against her palm sent shivers up her arm was... distracting at best. “We can make our excuses,” she allowed.
“Oh, lovely.” Dutch smiled, sweeping her up in a flurry of gold-and-black. And then, whispered in her ear: “I’m enjoying your reactions.”
“Enough to come to my bed?” Delle Seyah shot back. A moment later, she pulled back, away from the swirl of cinnamon-cardamom perfume and almost-scrubbed-away gunpowder and grease and the aura of bad decisions that surrounded Detch.
Dutch met Delle Seyah’s eyes and almost-gently jabbed her dark-painted fingernails into Delle Seyah’s hands. Jolts of pain and lightning jittered up Delle Seyah’s arms, and she locked her joints against a reaction greater than her eyes dilating and her stomach clenching, since she couldn’t do anything about those. Then Dutch nodded, a too-sweet smile of Yalena’s curving her lips.
Delle Seyah nodded back, an echo buying time to gather her own thoughts. “I just need to pay my respects to the heads of houses,” she said, once she could speak easily again. “You’re welcome to join me—or I’ll meet you at the door.”
“I can wait.” Dutch squeezed her hands one last time—without the nails this time—before releasing her.
The sudden absence of warmth on her hands was much more of a shock than Delle Seyah had expected. She nodded, and turned to do her duty as a head of the Nine. A breath steadied her. She had made her impression.
She would make even more of one, fearless enough to leave early, confident that no backstabbing would follow.
Delle Seyah bared her teeth, and went forth to do political battle.
* * *
Dutch did not touch her again until they reached her bedroom.
That, Delle Seyah thought, should not be infuriating.
That Dutch also refrained from speaking likely helped.
That Delle Seyah knew all the tricks she was employing didn’t.
So as soon as they entered the room, Delle Seyah shoved Dutch up against the wall. The Killjoy moved with her, lips parting in delighted laughter even as her back pressed against the real wood lacquered shining and smooth and a bare few shades lighter than Dutch’s skin.
(Two seconds later, Delle Seyah’s brain caught up with her, and said, She’s letting you do this. The rest of her, gut and cunt and the heat pooling between them, retorted, I don’t care.)
In those two seconds, Delle Seyah grabbed hold of Dutch’s hair (elaborate braids, woven in a crown on her head, torn out of place now and that must hurt but Dutch’s expression didn’t change a whit—bright eyes, predator’s smile), pulled her head back into the wall, and kissed her. Biting, teeth on lips and their lipstick (blood-red, night-green) had to be mingling into poison-frog patterns and Delle Seyah didn’t care because she could breathe the silken heat of Dutch’s mouth and the iron of her blood and the faint hint of ionization that spacers could never rid themselves of.
In those two seconds, Delle Seyah’s heart beat fast and true, and her other hand grasped at Dutch’s waist and remembered how much of it was muscle and how little would give under her touch. Her fingernails caught against gilded embroidery, and she rushed them along, ignoring the damage they would do because feeling the curve where Dutch’s hips rounded into her back was vitally important, especially if she could just get the right angle to fit her body against not that curve but the flatter one in front.
The third second brought Dutch’s own hands into the mix.
Delle Seyah gasped into Dutch’s mouth at the bright explosion of sensation that only resolved into pain half a heartbeat later. Dutch’s fingers dug into her ass and the back of her neck, hard and sharp and she could barely think about anything else. Then Dutch bit her, tugging on her lips and drawing a whine from somewhere deep in her throat. Tongue followed teeth, gentle and still too intense on freshly-swollen flesh, and then, in one smooth motion, Dutch spun so that Delle Seyah was the one caught against the wall, not her.
Then she said, “Do you really think you can pin me?” and her voice felt like a just-fired gun held by Delle Seyah’s head, stroking her with quiet promise and warmer than she’d ever expect.
“No,” Delle Seyah said. She met Dutch’s eyes, dark and framed darker by gilded night-green eyeshadow, and forced herself to breathe in enough to say more than the half-spoken refutation. Honest words for the predator’s ears, not simply what she thought Dutch wanted to hear (though that was also true, also buzzing in her chest). “Not unless you let me. I do not have the training you do.”
Dutch smiled, sharp-toothed and pleased, at her words. The fingers at the back of her neck stroked higher, tangling in her hair and pulling it out of elaborate curls. Delle Seyah felt a hairstick tumble out, tapping her shoulder before silently striking the carpeted floor. “Good,” Dutch whispered, the word caressing her ear just as Dutch’s fingers smoothed the nape of her neck. “Very good.”
Every time Dutch breathed the inhalation pressed ever-so-slightly against her, forcing her just a millimeter closer to the wall. The hand caressing Delle Seyah’s hip slunk up, curving around her stomach and past her breasts until it reached her collarbones. Dutch’s fingers lingered there, teasing the chain of her necklace and letting the rich gemstones tap her skin in almost-patterns, before moving up to her throat.
Delle Seyah heard herself gasp, quiet and restrained but still there.
Dutch’s smile widened. “I wondered how you would react.”
“Fuck you,” Delle Seyah managed as Dutch’s fingers spread across her throat and pressed gently inwards. Not enough to do any damage, but enough that Delle Seyah held herself very still even as Dutch withdrew, no longer holding her in place with anything except a palm burning against Delle Seyah’s attention, cool and soft and smelling of cinnamon and cardamom.
“Earn that chance, Kendry.”
Before Delle Seyah could articulate an answer, Dutch grabbed her by the front of her dress—but not quite the breasts—and yanked her deeper into her own bedchamber. Delle Seyah stumbled and braced herself on Dutch’s shoulder with a snarl. Unbecoming response. Appropriate reaction. “Why must I earn it, Killjoy?” she growled. Dutch’s hand was still on her throat. She could feel it with each word she spoke, and it jolted uncomfortably with each out-of-sync step she took. “I invited you here.”
“I am here of my own free will, and you cannot touch me unless I wish it.” Dutch tossed Delle Seyah onto the bed, disturbing the neatly-made layers of down-stuffed linens.
Delle Seyah growled deep in her throat, viscerally glad to be free of the pressure of Dutch’s hands and missing the warmth of her body all at once. She pushed herself upright (ignoring how the smooth lines of her bedchamber were disturbed by Dutch’s strides, and the way she was a dark shadow in the midst of the orchid-painted walls and pearlescent decorations), and smoothed out the crinkled lines of her dress, trying to regain her sense of composure, especially in contrast to Dutch.
Dutch stood, unruffled (but for the braids falling down her back instead of twining around her head) and immaculately made-up (but for the single smear of their mingled lipstick). “Do you doubt me?” she asked, words soft enough that Delle Seyah leaned forward instinctively to heard them. “You cannot do a single thing to me without my permission, Kendry.”
Delle Seyah straightened her back. She was not going to be cowed. “I hear you.” Each word had to be clear and precise. A strike just as powerful as Dutch’s. “You will give me the same honor.”
“Of course.” Dutch reached forward and gently touched Delle Seyah’s cheek. “I want to hear you beg.”
Delle Seyah grabbed Dutch’s wrist and said, very calmly, “Why?”
“You want to touch me.” Dutch twisted her wrist out of Delle Seyah’s grip without a thought. “I want you to stop being on your pedestal all the time.” She grinned, and Delle Seyah breathed in, telling herself that wanting to wipe that smile off her face was only going to feed straight into Dutch’s desires. “I think this works out.”
“Fuck you,” Delle Seyah said again. Her breathing wasn’t more ragged than before. That was just the adrenaline wearing off as she controlled herself again.
“As I said—” Dutch traced a swirling line over just the hairs on Delle Seyah’s exposed arms. “—earn the right. Beg me for it.”
Delle Seyah raised her arm, experimentally, and Dutch’s finger stayed right where it was, so that it now pressed into her skin. The nail scratched her ever so lightly, and she suppressed a shiver. “What will you do, to make me beg?” She looked up at met Dutch’s eyes, ignoring how her hair swept behind her neck and over her shoulders, where it wasn’t supposed to be. She had to be in control.
Dutch’s smile spoke of how she believed she was in control. Delle Seyah had to admit, with that fingernail trailing a bright buzz behind it, it was growing harder deny that, to think about something other than that sensation and the way Dutch’s eyes burned.
“What will you let me do?” Dutch asked. Purred, almost.
“You may touch me,” Delle Seyah allowed. Hard to deny her something she was already doing, and which Delle Seyah had leaned into already. “You may undress me, and kiss me, and—”
Dutch kissed her.
Chastely, almostly, compared to the kiss against the wall. No tongue, nor teeth; just the solid, precise pressure of Dutch’s lips on hers, warm and lipstick-smooth. Delle Seyah reached up, instinctively, to hold the back of Dutch’s head in place and extend the kiss.
As soon as her hand touched Dutch’s hair, Dutch pulled away, smirking. “Remember,” she said, “I want you to beg.”
“You’re an ungrateful asshole,” Delle Seyah hissed, Dutch’s spell broken with the reminder. She dug her fingers into the blankets underneath her. “I allow you into my bedroom, and now you must be in charge?”
Dutch shrugged. Her hands were busy wrapping her braided hair back around her head, into a new—and less elegant—coronet. “You came to me,” she pointed out. “You asked, and you told me you would owe me a favor.”
Delle Seyah stared in dawning realisation. There was a weight in the pit of her stomach, and she wanted to call it horror that set her hands trembling and sped her heartbeat. The heat and pull of Dutch’s eyes belied that, especially as Dutch smiled, very gleeful and almost malicious, and said, “This is your favor called in, Kendry. Tonight, you are mine.”
She could say no, Delle Seyah told herself. She could. Tell Dutch that this wasn’t the kind of favor she meant, and that a favor was meaningless if only the two of them knew that one had ever been owed and called in.
Except it wasn’t meaningless, and it was all the more meaningful that nobody else would know what had happened.
So instead, she relaxed her jaw enough to speak, and said, “Very well.” She bit off the ends of her words, met Dutch’s eyes, and focused on the strain on her fingers as she clutched the blanket. “I accept your terms. I will submit on this night, and I will owe you nothing more.”
Dutch smiled, sharp and proud, her dark hair a circlet once more. “Good.”
She held out a hand, which Delle Seyah shook to seal the deal, quick and businesslike. Then Dutch’s hand slid onto her wrist and pulled, and Delle Seyah caught her breath and registered what was happening just fast enough so that she didn’t slam face-first onto the bed—she just fell.
Delle Seyah turned her head to the side so that she could breathe, and said, “Really?”
“Shh,” Dutch whispered.
She got as far as opening her mouth and saying “M–” when Dutch casually shoved blanket fabric into her mouth. Delle Seyah reached up to pull it out, but Dutch lightly tapped her hand with a sharp nail and said, “No. Not unless you can’t breathe, or it actually bothers you.”
All of this bothers me, Delle Seyah didn’t point out. Including how this is going to stain my bed.
She did move her hand back, though. And left the fabric where it was, despite it being uncomfortable and the amount of saliva she was going to get on it.
“Good,” Dutch said. She caressed Delle Seyah’s cheek briefly, and Delle Seyah closed her eyes to help herself resist moving into the touch, and then Dutch’s weight finally dented the bed. Delle Seyah could feel her moving and breathed slowly and carefully, waiting for the inevitable. Dutch sat on her, holding a good portion of her weight on her own legs, which were settled alongside Delle Seyah’s own. The rest of her weight, which was still more than enough to be noticeable, rested on Delle Seyah’s ass.
Delle Seyah pressed up against her solid warmth,, and was rewarded with first a laugh, and then Dutch’s hands on her upper arms, pinning her to the bed. Delle Seyah gasped, muffled as the sound was by Dutch’s makeshift gag, and worked her fingers into the blanket. If she wasn’t going to be allowed to touch Dutch any other way...
She felt Dutch’s bare feet slowly sliding along her legs, first down towards her feed and then back up again, catching the hem of her dress and pulling it up. More and more of Dutch’s weight pressed down on her upper body as the hem of her dress slid further and further up, until it paused at her thighs and Dutch let her chest rest wholly on Delle Seyah’s back.
The warmth and weight together were more maddening because there was no weight, or even contact, on her lower half anymore. Delle Seyah bit down on the gag as she felt Dutch’s breath on the nape of her neck, and rolled her hips up as Dutch’s hands trailed across her ass. Dutch didn’t seem to notice—or at least, she didn’t seem to care—and her hands continued down the backs of Delle Seyah’s thighs, surprisingly gentle and light on top of her thin dress.
Then Dutch grabbed the dress and pulled it all the way up past Delle Seyah’s waist in one quick motion, and Delle Seyah hissed. She held herself still through sheer force of will as Dutch gently kissed, and then sucked a hickey into, the back of her neck. No other motion on her body. Just that one thing to keep her focus, and Delle Seyah was uncomfortably aware of how much she wanted more than that, and how it was unbecoming of her to bow her head and arch her neck for a Killjoy’s mouth.
Not that knowing that stopped her from doing it. It just made her angrier about liking it.
Dutch shifted her weight again, one of her legs sliding over Delle Seyah’s. Distantly, Delle Seyah wondered when Dutch had pulled her own dress up and out of the way so that their legs were both bare and only underwear lay between them. Without even thinking, Delle Seyah pushed back against her and moaned at the heat and dampness that shoved back, forcing her hips back into the bed.
Delle Seyah shuddered. She couldn’t get any closer, the way Dutch had pinned her, but she wanted to. Especially as Dutch leaned down again, and her breasts drifted over the parts of her back the dress left exposed, and then Dutch’s lips and tongue and teeth started doing the same, tiny kisses and looping lines and the barest nips to shock her and send sparks rippling across her skin and down into her cunt.
And Delle Seyah couldn’t move, or do anything other than leaning her abdomen into Dutch’s hips and trying to tilt her cunt closer to Dutch’s solidly muscled thigh. Dutch kept tensing herself, smooth and controlled, rocking into and away from Delle Seyah. With each repetition, Delle Seyah found it harder and harder to keep herself from whining, letting out muffled noises she didn’t bother trying to suppress. If she did, Dutch would just take even more pleasure from wringing them out of her.
After an interminable amount of time that was probably closer to five minutes, Dutch said, “Turn over.” Her voice was deep, rougher than Delle Seyah would’ve expected from how few noises she’d heard Dutch make. Before Delle Seyah could protest that she couldn’t move with Dutch on top of her, Dutch raised herself up, hands and legs planted firmly right beside Delle Seyah’s body so that she couldn’t go anywhere else even if she wanted to.
Delle Seyah pried her fingers open and spat out the soaked and bitten part of her bedsheet she’d never be able to look at again. More slowly than she wished, she turned herself over. Her dress spread out over her stomach, and before Dutch could settle back down, she pulled it up and away from her hips, arranging it mostly-evenly upon her ribs. Dutch smiled at her, and Delle Seyah actually took in the way the Killjoy looked.
“Unfair,” she said, before she could realise she should’ve thought better of it. It was, though—Dutch’s face was flushed, and her lipstick was slightly smeared, but otherwise Delle Seyah would’ve been hard pressed to find any evidence of what they were doing on her.
“Uppity,” Dutch returned. She dropped herself back onto Delle Seyah, kindly catching herself before she knocked the wind out of Delle Seyah’s lungs. Her hands caught Delle Seyah’s, and pulled them up, pressing them against the bed. “Still no touching, not unless you beg for it.”
Delle Seyah scowled.
Dutch laughed, and Delle Seyah lifted her head to see if she could catch Dutch in a kiss.
She couldn’t, but that didn’t matter, since Dutch was pressing their hips together and thrusting against her properly now.
Delle Seyah dropped her head back to the bed and panted. Her shoulders burnt with the angle Dutch was holding them at, and that burn melded with the force of Dutch’s movements and the way Dutch was kissing and tonguing her collarbones, her neck, her ears. Even her breasts, though the fabric—Dutch’s tongue was still warm, still wet, and she ruined the dress by sucking on Delle Seyah’s nipples and making her cry out at the intensity of sensation.
Delle Seyah gave herself into the movement and sensation of Dutch on top of her, matching her force and slowly increasing rhythm with her own body. When Dutch finally—finally—kissed her again, Delle Seyah pressed into that too, breaking off in a gasp and a moan only to let Dutch capture her mouth again, and again, and again, until her lips were tender with the sensation and all Delle Seyah could do was shudder as Dutch slowly and inexorably worked her towards an orgasm.
Distantly, somewhere behind the haze of pleasure, Delle Seyah thought about how long it had been since someone had tried to fuck her without ever touching her cunt. There was, she thought, some advantage to having sex with someone who didn’t follow society’s rules.
Dutch released her wrists, and Delle Seyah sighed, bringing them back to her side and then, slowly, gently, reaching and settling her hands onto Dutch’s own arms.
“Okay,” Dutch said softly, breath ruffling Delle Seyah’s thoroughly disheveled hair. “I think you asked for enough, even if you didn’t beg.”
“Thanks.” Delle Seyah closed her eyes. She could fall asleep. Let this be a dream, a too-real fantasy. Give Dutch a chance to slip away, unnoticed in the night.
Dutch hummed softly, a lullaby Delle Seyah had never heard before, and she let it lull her to rest.
She would have the memories of the night, regardless.
And, perhaps, someone to wake up to in the morning.
(Hope, after all, is eternal.)