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“Dorothy.” Scarlet found her that evening in the common room, perched delicately on one of the seams of their recently repaired couch. She looked up at the sound of her name; nominally, from the files she was reviewing, but Scarlet had been watching for long enough to know she was more preoccupied with the slight remainder of a stain on her dress, right beside the ruffles on the chest. She would never admit to being herself preoccupied with that same spot.
“Yes? Did you have a mission question?” Her dark, sparkling eyes narrowed. “Or, don’t tell me—You’re angling for another sparring session already?”
“Neither,” Scarlet replied. “Rather, I have a proposition inspired from our conversation this afternoon. Seeing as you never noticed the tea herbs I have in my room, I’d like to offer to show them to you now.”
Dorothy hesitated to answer. Scarlet could guess why, and she intercepted the problem as swiftly as she was able.
“The pelts in my room have all been properly treated by a professional, and are hardly different than any leather product you may see in a store. If they truly bother you that much, however, I could put them away for a spell.”
“No—There’s no need,” Dorothy said. “I should learn to get over myself, since it’s cause such a blindspot. And… It does help, knowing they’re clean.”
“I surmised it would,” Scarlet grinned. Dorothy scoffed at her and stood, the back of her skirt springing into place from where it had been folded against her. Scarlet sheathed that thought and led the way to her room.
She could not understand what about her room would lead Dorothy to calling her a slob. Her furnishings were simple: A bed with sheets and a pillow, a tea garden shelf, and a stand to hold her sword. The pelts were modest, too, despite how Dorothy would describe it. There were only two deerskins on the floor, to prevent chill, and a sheepskin at the foot of the bed. Even still, she tiptoed around the rugs as she entered.
“You don’t have a single chair in here. I can’t believe I never noticed that.” Dorothy made her way to the tea shelf. Her eyes instantly locked onto the marigolds, and she bent down to inspect them. Scarlet forced her eyes upward. “So these are the flower from our tea this afternoon.”
“The very same plant, though our tea was made from dried blossoms.” How ridiculous she was, to get excited at the word ‘our’ in this context. “And you’ll remember it was blended with goldenrod.”
“Yes, the flavors balanced each other surprisingly well. Where’s your goldenrod plant?”
“Goldenrod grows too tall for me to raise it here,” Scarlet answered. “There are many botanicals I have to order if I am to blend tea as I please.”
“I’ve never heard of rosemary tea,” Dorothy said as she straightened, eyes now fixed on the top shelf filled with small herb pots.
“It’s a very smooth drink.” Scarlet moved to stand just behind Dorothy, careful not to touch, and began pointing out her other plants. “I quite like it with lemon balm. For something slightly sweet that compliments those flavors, marjoram is surprisingly effective.”
“If you’re trying to offer me a cup of tea, you’re making quite the pitch,” Dorothy teased.
“That would be easily achieved.”
“Then, by all means.” Scarlet had merely to reach to the right to turn on her kettle, which she had filled beforehand. She had a teapot sitting beside it, as well as a pair of mugs, both stolen from the kitchen so they would match. Beneath the ceramics were the shelves that held her dried herbs. She took the lid off her teapot and held it with her right hand while her left sorted through the drawers, pinching out the leaves by instinct rather than strict measurement. Rosemary, lemon balm, and—
“What’s this flower?” Dorothy pointed inside one of the drawers. “It’s not one of the ones you’re growing.”
“It’s hawthorn.”
“This may sound funny, but it looks a bit like my skirt, doesn’t it? All white and fluffy like that.”
“A shame hawthorn is a tree, else I would grow it in abundance.” Dorothy’s brows furrowed, but for once it was not the annoyed glare she had gotten so used to. Her eyes were wide and sparkling, and her pink lips had even parted in confusion.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much to do while we wait for the water to boil.” Scarlet had to look away. She focused on adding the marjoram and placing the tea pot back on the shelf. “You’re welcome to sit wherever you please.”
“So you say, but there’s nowhere to sit!”
“There is the bed.” Scarlet knew better than to suggest sitting on the floor.
“I wouldn’t—It’s your bed!” Dorothy flustered. Scarlet took pity on the poor thing, so hung up on propriety, and sat first. She even sat at the foot with the sheepskin, sparing Dorothy that additional dilemma.
“A bed is merely another piece of furniture. I won’t have you accuse me of being a bad host for making you drink tea while standing.”
She hovered for a moment longer, and then, finally convinced, she lowered herself delicately onto the bed. Her skirt floated down a half-second delayed, a perfect ruffled circle around her. The layers of tulle brushed against Scarlet’s thigh, burning like no fabric would be capable of. It was purely a result of knowing the skirt was attached to Dorothy. Her patience was wearing thin, all through events that she herself had devised.
“Why are you staring at the wall?” Oversensitive as she was, Scarlet could feel the slight shift as Dorothy turned towards her. “I’ll call you a bad host for ignoring me.”
“You complained that I was observing you overmuch,” Scarlet admitted. “I am attempting to make up for the privacy I have robbed from you.”
She scoffed, and shamefully, Scarlet had memorized her eyeroll and could envision it perfectly.
“Eye contact is a world away from stalking me. I was mostly joking back then, anyways.” She chanced to look, and was met with the full force of Dorothy’s gaze. Dark as twilight, shining with stars, unyielding in their intensity. So enraptured with that gaze was she that she felt, rather than saw, the movement of Dorothy’s diaphanous sleeve. With all the grace and elegance that was synonymous with her, Dorothy placed her hand in the small gap between them. If she had placed it a few inches farther from the edge of the bed, it would be atop Scarlet’s left.
Or, as she quickly discovered, if Scarlet slid her hand a few inches closer to the edge. Dorothy would lift hers to accommodate.
“Am I to understand, then, that my attention towards you is not unwanted?”
“That depends,” Dorothy replied coyly, lashes fluttering. “What type of attention is this?”
“I confess,” Scarlet began, with her right hand raising. Slowly, kept in Dorothy’s line of sight, so she could watch the touch coming. “My observation of you is of a different nature than for any other person. You were right to accuse me of being obsessive. While I do respect you as a highly skilled combatant, your fighting prowess isn’t even half of what compels me to learn more about you.”
Dorothy did not move away from the encroaching touch. In fact, her head canted ever so slightly towards it. Scarlet brushed her thumb down her cheek, and then her hand lifted furter, towards the delicately twisted rose in her hair. The pink strands were softer than Scarlet ever expected synthetic hair could be as she plunged a finger into its center.
“Speak clearly for once—” Her voice caught on a sigh as Scarlet pulled on one of the rose petals. She had already felt the elastic band holding the flower together, could snap it and watch it fall apart whenever she wanted. Instead, she traced the twist of one petal into the next, and tugged again.
“Scarlet,” Dorothy breathed, cheeks as pink as her rose. “What are your intentions?”
“At one point, I was committed to breaking you.” Scarlet leaned in close. She had worked the end of Dorothy’s hair out of its sculpture, and she wanted to watch as it collapsed. “The sentiment behind that commitment now has very little to do with fighting.”
“Is that so?” Dorothy’s hair cascaded down her shoulder as the rose came undone. The elastic, with nothing to grip, fell halfway down, bringing the ribbon and kerchief attached to it. Dorothy pulled it free and rolled it down her hand to hide in the wide cuff of her sleeve.
“You’re very confident, to think that you’d be the one breaking me.”
Scarlet suddenly knew that Dorothy's pink lips were as sweet as they looked, because they were on her mouth, sucking on her bottom lip fit to leave a bruise. She had no recourse but to respond in kind, lapping at those sweet petals to open the kiss further. Her hands found purchase where they had wanted to be all evening, the bare skin of Dorothy's back. Their chests molded together as Scarlet held her close. She wanted to hold her tighter, feel as much of Dorothy pressed against her as possible, encircle her as much as she could with only two arms and two legs. She wanted it almost badly enough to break the kiss.
Oh, but the kiss. Valiantly as she fought, she could not find a way into Dorothy's mouth, for Dorothy was too insistent on exploring hers. Every twist of her tongue and twitch of friction of lips on lips sent molten iron to her core, the heat radiating through her limbs until her skin tingled. So absorbed was she in this that she forgot when she had closed her eyes. Scarlet lost herself in this gentle, pleasurable battle until she heard a click.
Her breastplate fell down to her lap, and likewise her breasts fell more heavily against Dorothy's. The unexpectedness of it pulled a pathetic sound out of her, quickly followed by the sound of her belt unlatching. Freed from her stupor, Scarlet could now feel that it was Dorothy's hands working deftly to undress her, now resting at the back of her neck to begin unpeeling her bodysuit.
She pulled away from the kiss just far enough to pant, “Unfair.”
“What was it you said earlier?” Dorothy teased, just as breathless. “The edifying pleasures of one's own body. Something like that.”
“That is not at all what I said.”
“I think my version fits better.” Dorothy found the latch to remove her gorget and tossed it aside. Zipper now revealed, she wasted no time pulling it down Scarlet's back, her other hand feather-light against her spine on the freshly bared skin.
Not one to be outdone, Scarlet quickly found the zipper of Dorothy's much simpler dress and pulled it as fast as she dared. Dorothy had pulled her bodysuit down to her elbows and had moved on to hot, bruising kisses on her neck and chest. With how little focus Scarlet could scrape together under such treatment, she had to be cautious not to rip the dress.
Beneath the zipper, Scarlet discovered the clasp of a bra. She dashed the idea of unhooking it now before it could fully form. She wanted to see. Instead, she walked her fingers back up Dorothy's back to her necklace, which was fastened quite similarly to the bra. Scarlet unhooked it, and the front of Dorothy's dress fell forward until it was stopped by where their chests pressed into each other.
Gathering her willpower, Scarlet placed her hands under Dorothy's arms and pulled her away from where her mouth had been doing beautiful things on her neck. Scarlet stood, lifting Dorothy in the air so her dress slipped off her body in one neat little pile.
“You brute!” She yelped, which did nothing to deter Scarlet from the visual feast of Dorothy's body. Her bosom was held in a white strapless bra, with a V of sheer fabric cutting a window at her cleavage. It led the eye down her slim waist, which bloomed into the roundness of her hips finally unobscured by that cloud of tulle. There was a white stripe running along either hip bone, and a triangle of similarly sheer material marking the division between her thighs, which were still encircled with the lace of her stockings.
More than satisfied with her prize, Scarlet turned and tossed Dorothy back onto the bed, calculated so her head landed on the soft wool, her hair fanning out around her. Pink, white, and softness; how very Dorothy.
“You’re still so uncouth!” she complained. “There’s no need to move so fast.”
“Blame me not for being eager when something so tantalizing is presented before me,” Scarlet retorted, stripping her vambraces as quickly as she could while stepping out of her shoes. “Or would you like to take back your advancements towards me in the past several minutes?” The vambraces fell to the floor, and she practically ripped off the sleeves of her bodysuit.
“Absolutely not. Just slow down, would you?”
“I intend to savor this as fully as I am able.” Her greaves were too much to bother with. Bare from the waist up, Scarlet knelt on the bed and crawled her way up Dorothy’s body, shoving her belt and tattered cape off the edge as an afterthought. A lock of her pale hair fell across Dorothy’s flushed cheek, giving her a spot to aim the kiss that began her trail back to Dorothy's mouth.
As their lips locked once more and Scarlet let the sensation envelop her, she let her body sink atop Dorothy's. Freed from clothing, she could now feel the brush of skin against skin, each minute twitch setting alight her nerves both synthetic and organic. The softness of their chests pressed together in mirror images, and the fabric of her bra was silky and warm against her nipples.
“You're heavy,” Dorothy turned her head to the side to complain. Scarlet took the opening to nibble softly at her earlobe, then kiss the slight jut of her jawbone.
“Did you hear me?” Scarlet continued trailing kisses in lieu of an answer, one quarter inch at a time. “I want you to—ah!”
A weak point. Scarlet attacked that part of her neck with all the bruising intensity Dorothy herself had employed earlier.
“Sca–ahh! Scarlet, get off of m–mmmh! Of me!”
“You hardly sound displeased.” Oh dear. She sounded just as undone as Dorothy.
“How attentive.” If they must converse, Scarlet could at least raise herself and watch those pink petals form the words Dorothy spoke. “My point is, we can’t get much further while you’re crushing me.”
“Weren’t you the one who requested to slow down?” Scarlet smirked.
“And you’re the one who’s surprisingly good at riling me up.” Taking advantage of Scarlet lifting herself, Dorothy slid her fingers under her bodysuit and rolled it slowly down her hips. “If you’d bothered to take this off, I would have flipped you over already.”
“You wish to be above me?” A half-formed imagining of what that would look like sprung to mind, and Scarlet licked her lips. “For a haughty ruler such as yourself, then, it’s only right that I prepare a throne.”
“What on Earth are you talking about?” Scarlet’s bodysuit had fallen to her knees, revealing the metal plate at her crotch. She turned herself over according to Dorothy’s wish, leaning back on her elbows, and found the disused mental trigger for one of her more frivolous modifications. From a disc in the center of the metal plate, four inch-long segments telescoped out, topped with a smooth cap and all the same bright red as her sword.
“Take your seat of power, alongside your right to direct my every move.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Dorothy said, the flush on her face not fading in the slightest. “Who would ever take the time to design that?”
“Are you implying you do not have the complementary parts?”
Dorothy said nothing, instead pushing herself off the bed and hooking her thumbs into her waistband. As she pulled down her panties—agonizingly slow, from Scarlet’s perspective—there was a thin strand of lubricant that stuck to the fabric.
“Your compliments are received with the greatest honor,” she teased.
“I’ll make you eat those words,” Dorothy threatened warmly. She let her panties fall down her long stocking-clad legs and stepped out of them, then was bold enough to copy Scarlet’s earlier maneuver of crawling up her body. With one knee positioned on either side of Scarlet’s hips, Dorothy lowered herself down.
“What kind of throne makes you kneel?”
“One that you judge favorable, I hope.”
“That depends.” Dorothy narrowed her eyes so sharply that Scarlet wished they were a blade with which she could cross. “I don’t recall that thrones speak. Or move.”
Dorothy moved then, using nothing but the strength of her own legs, and Scarlet was thankful for every second she had waited on the installation of the synthetic nerves that allowed her to feel how warm and slick she was around her. She tensed her body to hold back against the twitches and sighs being summoned by the gift Dorothy was giving her, as slow and sweet as honey.
“Well done,” Dorothy smiled sharply. “You may be up for an actual challenge.”
She began raising and lowering herself faster, and out of anything she could use as a place to anchor herself, she chose to grab Scarlet’s breasts. Her throat was thick with the effort of choking back a moan. Dorothy’s grip was as punishing as any other touch she had bestowed that evening, and each motion of her body shifted Scarlet’s chest just enough to result in additional, compounding pleasure.
“Let it out,” Dorothy said, voice high as her own pleasure built. “One sound.”
As she was bidden, Scarlet gave voice to the moan she had been holding back.
“I liked that, actually. You may speak.”
“Dorothy,” she heaved out. Her breath had escaped her lungs and her thoughts her head. There was nothing else worthy of her focus than the sensation of Dorothy sliding against her, the sight of the diamond lace of her stockings shifting as her thighs flexed, the bounce of her clothed breasts now that she moved at speed. And Scarlet rejoiced for every engineer that had studied how a Nikke was made, for Dorothy’s flush was now spreading down her chest and shoulders.
“You can do better,” she panted. Her hands shifted, the kerchief on her hair tie brushing skin, and her fingers pinched around Scarlet’s nipples.
“Dorothy!” she moaned.
“Good.” How odd, after the combative start of their relationship, that such simple praise would spark such pleasure in Scarlet. Especially with Dorothy’s voice tinged in the notes of her own moan.
“Scarlet.” How blessed was she, to here her name from those petal-pink lips, in such pleasured, breathless tones. “Scarlet, I need you to—ah!”
“Anything,” she swore.
“I—I’m close.” Her wavering voice made Scarlet’s hips shoot upwards against her will. “Yes! Scarlet, move! Higher!”
In a flash, Scarlet had her feet on the bed for purchase and was thrusting into Dorothy, angling for the front of her pelvis. Enough slick had dripped down that there was no friction between Dorothy’s buttocks and Scarlet’s thighs, and soon her every breath became a moan. So lost in pleasure was she that Scarlet’s vision was fading to grey, and her fingers were fuzzy and numb. She persisted even as the lack of feeling spread, for it could not diminish the pleasure she was chasing; Dorothy’s and her own. Her determination lasted until the experience of pleasure fully disconnected from her body, and she was distantly aware that she had fallen into the mattress.
As the fuzziness gave way to sensation, Scarlet noticed that Dorothy was laying atop her, face pressed into the bed just above her soulder. She mentally fumbled for the trigger to retract from her, then indulged herself by wrapping her limbs tightly around Dorothy.
“We forgot the tea,” Dorothy said softly.
“Breakfast,” Scarlet mumbled. “Spend the night in my arms. Please.”
“Not even a shower first?”
Scarlet nuzzled into the crook of Dorothy’s neck and squeezed her tighter.
“You’re lucky I’m tired,” she sighed. “And that I like this so much.”
“No other words could make me happier.” Scarlet closed her eyes, soaking in all of Dorothy that she could before sleep claimed them both.