Dark Heart

Chrysalis had kissed and been kissed many times throughout her life.

She still remembered the way Shining Armor would caress her as he poured his love into the woman he thought was his fiancée. The way his gentle hands cupped the sides of her head, thumb caressing her cheekbones, lips wind-rough from hours spent out on the battlements.

Her first lover was a changeling who preferred biting over kissing, but when they did indulge, there was more tongue than lips. For him, their relationship was a game of domination, and she had been nothing more than a young princess who enjoyed how the bite marks on her neck infuriated her mother.

When she experimented with another woman, everything had been a slow and sensual slide of lips against one another’s most intimate places. The fact that her partner had a tongue piercing made it all the more exhilarating.

But this—this moment where her lips met Sombra’s, she experienced something new. Her skin prickled with a rush of heat that left goosebumps in its wake, the sensation traveling down to pool low in her stomach. At first, it seemed that this would be a one-sided endeavor—which she didn't mind, because it felt so nice just to kiss him—but then he growled low in his throat and changed the dynamic entirely.

The slightest tilt of his head slotted them together with ease: his nose nestled right beside her own, and his teeth scraped against her lower lip. Just the tease of it, the possibility that he could bite her at any moment but chose not to, thrilled her in a way she hadn’t expected.

He exuded dominance and confidence with how he shifted the kiss to be the one in charge of it, pressing into her and guiding her. And yet it remained soft, gentle, and almost—sweet.

She shuddered from the raw want that coursed through her veins. Her hands moved to drag through his hair from root to wisp, trying to predict exactly where it morphed into shadow. What was still solid was thick and brushed against her fingers like coarse wool.

“Untie me,” he growled, the sound rumbling against her lips.

Panic shot up from the back of her mind, and she pulled away to look at him with wide eyes that quickly narrowed. “We have an agreement. If you betray—“

His eyes rolled as he leaned back as well, spreading his legs and angling his head to gesture downward. “Do I appear as if I’m in any hurry to leave?”

She stole a glance at his groin, then allowed her gaze to linger there. The too-tight black leggings he wore outlined him in almost obscene detail. She could even make out where the shaft ended and the head began, and all of it looked thick and hard.

“Oh,” she practically purred, tongue darting out to wet her lips. This was an unexpected turn, but not unwelcome at all, if the sudden warmth between her own legs was any indication.

With a deft flick of one fingernail, Chrysalis sliced the webbing and it fell from him, as harmless as spidersilk. Sombra wasted no time; the moment he was free, he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to him in a rough, needy kiss.

She gave herself to pleasure without hesitation, but she had enough wits about her to tilt her head back and ask while he lavished her jaw with nipping kisses, “I thought your kind—”

A tongue tracing the shell of her ear reduced her question to a moan. “I don’t need a heart to want to fuck you.”

The vulgarity snapped her attention into place: she was a queen, not a common harlot. Her palm found the side of his head and she pushed him away, then forced him to meet her gaze. The fact that his eyes darkened with desire when she did so didn’t escape her notice, but was selectively ignored.

“I don’t fuck,” she said, repeating the word with all the disdain it deserved.

His lips quirked into a smirk. “I do.” He turned his head in her grip and took her thumb between his teeth to first bite and then suck on it.

It took all of her resolve not to shudder at the way he held intense eye contact while laving her thumb before she yanked it out of his mouth. “Need I remind you that you are in my domain, and here, I make love.”

Sombra gave a derisive snort and a roll of his eyes. “Need I remind you that—“

“You don’t need a heart to make love in this sense of the phrase,” she cut in with no attempt to hide the mimicry in her voice, then softened as she stood and offered her hand. “Let me show you.”

There was reluctance in his face, but he sighed and stood on his own. “Very well.”

Chrysalis took a moment to look at him while her head was clear of love and lust. He was little more than a stranger, with the bearing of a king but the look of a scoundrel. There was no need to do this; she could feed him the love he required and provide her people the love they needed.

But, oh how she wanted to do this. A stranger arrives as not only a solution to her problems as a queen, but also has the sex appeal that sets her skin on fire as a woman?

“Lie down,” she whispered as she took a step backwards toward the web-spun bed. When he made to remove his clothes, she stayed him with a hand on his own. “No. Let me have the pleasure.”

His brow quirked with a question that he dismissed with a light shrug. Three long strides brought him to the side of the bed, which he nudged warily with his boot. “This seems awfully like a trap.”

She tutted at him as she stepped up behind him, running her hands down his arms. “A different enchantment than the bindings. Trust me.”

There was a small grunt in his throat, something just shy of a chuckle, before he lowered himself to his knees and rolled onto his back. He blinked up at the rocky ceiling in surprise. “Oh.”

“As firm as cushions yet as soft as silk,” she said, sliding into place above him, her knees on either side of his thighs. Her hair fell all around their faces as a deep blue-green curtain.

Sombra arched one brow. “Well, then. Show me.”

Slowly, she lowered down toward him and pressed her lips to the side of his mouth. As soon as he tried to turn his head to meet her, she moved further down, following the well-defined curve of his jawline.

“Just,” she breathed and flicked her tongue against the dip where his jaw met his neck, “relax.” Her fingers slid under his tunic to glide over his stomach, teasing the trail of coarse hairs she found. “And enjoy.”

He breathed out through his nose, a near silent assent, confirmed when she glanced up to see his eyes closed.

Gentle ministrations became her sole focus. She wanted to know if the crook of his neck tasted different from the crook of his elbow, or what it felt like to nuzzle the places where he faded into shadow.

The firmness of his stomach gave her fingers a wonderful series of dips and rises to explore. Each individual muscle was cherished by a caress until she counted six in total, then brought her hand higher to ruck his shirt all the way up to his shoulders.

When she pulled back to look at him, her breath caught in her throat. Just left of the very center of his chest was an array of pure black marks, thick in the center over his heart and fracturing outward like broken glass.

Her fingertips traced the design to find that it was cold to the touch. There was a heart beating beneath the blackened skin, steady and seemingly unaffected. A glance at his face showed parted lips and furrowed brow; another glance downward showed him straining to full attention.

“Fascinating,” she murmured under her breath, smiled to herself, and leaned down to brush lips and tongue over the very center of the mark.

It tasted divine, a pleasant mix of not only sweat and skin, but uncertainty, intrigue, and desire—the emotions swelled out like water from a cracked vase.

Her fingers curled around his arms as a buzzing sensation crawled along her spine and settled in her chest. She could have spent eternity there, breathing in the feelings he couldn’t contain, but there was a different hunger vying for her attention. Almost reluctantly, she forced herself to sit upright and scoot back.

First, she removed his boots, then his socks. Every movement was slow and deliberate until both his feet were bare. She drew one fingernail along the underside of his foot, tracing the arch and finding exactly the point where his toes would curl.

As she took the foot in both hands and worked her thumbs along the muscle, she heard him release an impatient puff of air.

“This isn’t sex,” he said, voice rough in spite of his words.

Chrysalis smiled. She kept her focus on massaging in long, slow strokes. “Yes, it is.”

He grunted when she pulled her hands away, then groaned when she repeated the attention on the other foot. “You have a strange fetish.”

“My ‘fetish’,” she said, pausing to dig the heel of her palm into his arch, “is pleasure. Given, more so than taken.”

Once the muscles of his feet were sufficiently relaxed, she slid her hands up his legs until she reached his waist. The hard lines of his hips as they dipped below the tight band of cloth demanded exploration, and she was more than happy to obey.

“How did you even get this on?" She teased her fingers at the waistband of his leggings, barely able to wriggle them underneath it.

He managed to get one hand in the air to wave it in a dismissive gesture. "Determination. Now get it off."

Instead, she smoothed her hand over the front to palm his erection; heat radiated against her skin, and she smiled with no hidden delight as he twitched from the simple touch.

“Could you...” Sombra trailed, his head raising, a dark flush crawling up his neck. He stared at her with a mix of bafflement and shame. “What is your name?”

A rasp of laughter escaped unbidden, and she leaned down to mouth his cock through the cloth. “Chrysalis,” she mumbled, lips and the slightest scrape of teeth emphasizing every syllable of her name.

He groaned, dropped back down, and placed his hand on the top of her head, threading his fingers through her hair. “Chrysalis,” he repeated with a tone of reverence, then growled out, “Could you get on with it already?”

“Get on with what?” She licked a trail along his length with only the very tip of her tongue.

He gripped her hair, and she shivered with delight. “Your point is made.”

She relished in the hitch in his voice as she nibbled at the base. “Mm?”

“This has been—” He moaned and gripped tighter. “It’s good, your love-making, but I need more.”

Chrysalis tutted her tongue against the roof of her mouth, sitting up and tugging at his leggings to peel them halfway down his thighs. “Oh, sweetheart,” she cooed when his erection sprung free and jutted into the air, flush and dark and so, so hard. “You have a lot to learn.”

A low growl rolled into a sharp intake of breath as his gaze locked onto the movement of her hands. She pulled her dress up past her hips, shimmied to get it over her shoulders, and tossed it off to the side.

His dark crimson irises were completely overtaken by black, pupils dilated wide with desire. Warm hands skimmed over her skin, fingertips following the rise and fall of her ribs.

Surprise caught her off guard and fell into embarrassment. At some point, her glamour had fallen and she hadn’t even noticed. She sat above him as a gaunt, awful thing; shame cooled her desire.

“I can—” she started, her voice cracking and her eyes unable to meet his while he fondled her breasts. “I can change. I can look however you’d like me to.”

When his hands stilled, she chanced a glance up to see open surprise on his face. He then frowned, grabbed her by the arms, and suddenly flipped their positions so he towered over her.

She gaped up at him, but he spoke before she could. “This is because of you.” He ground down to rut against her, hot flesh pressing into the narrow curve of her hip. “You did this to me.”

Chrysalis melted into a needy shiver and bit her lower lip. She watched as he undressed, clothes torn off in rapid succession until he could press against her, bare skin on bare skin.

His hand snaked between them, and she gasped when a finger slipped easily inside her. “So eager,” he praised, his nose pressed just behind her ear. “Is this all for me?”

“Yes,” she gasped out. Her legs moved to wrap around his waist and open herself up to more of his touch.

The room echoed with the sound of her low moans and the wet slide of his finger pressing in, curling up, and moving back out. When he added a second finger, pleasure bloomed behind her eyes so intensely that she had to close them.

He gave an occasional twitch of his hips whenever he teased a soft cry out of her, whenever the crook of his fingers hit just right. She clawed at his back, turning her head to the side and panting from the effort just to form words.

“Sombra,” she managed in a tight voice.

He hummed inquisitively, lips pressed to the back of her neck.

All of it—his weight above her, his fingers in her, his lips on her, his cock against her—was too much and yet not enough. “Please.”

The slow withdrawal of his touch pulled a whine from her. She waited, both patiently and impatiently, but the movement he made resulted in nothing more.

And then she heard the sound of tongue against skin, and she forced her eyes open to catch sight of him as he licked her off his fingers. His gaze was locked on hers, a smirk on his lips, as if he had been waiting for her to notice.

A broken sound caught in her throat, and she lunged forward to kiss him, tasting herself on him with twisted delight. His hands roamed down her sides while they pressed and bit and breathed one another like starved animals.

He grabbed onto her buttocks, squeezing them once before he canted her hips into the air. There was a blunt press against her entrance, but she was so ready and so eager that he sunk in, inch by inch, with ease.

When he was fully seated inside her, his hips flush against her skin, she clutched at his shoulder blades and let her head fall back, baring her throat to him. The exquisite feeling of his girth filling her completely sent a thrill up and down her spine.

The first few thrusts were shallow, as if to test the angle, but then he pulled all the way out and slid back in, forcing a loud moan from her throat. Though he dug his fingers into her flesh with a tight grip, each movement in and out of her was slow and gentle.

It was equal parts wonderful and strange; she relished how it allowed her to feel every inch of him, but confusion rose up through the haze of pleasure. Her neck had remained untouched despite being on display, so she cracked open one eye to peer up at him.

Every line of his shoulders and arms were tight with restraint, tension beading up on his skin in the form of sweat. His expression was a mix of clenched eyes and parted lips, soft huffs of breath escaping with every carefully measured thrust.

He was trying to make love to her, she realized with a whole-body shudder, eyes going wide.

Something ached deep in her chest, and she blinked away the stray tears that welled up unbidden. She hurt from the intense surge of emotions she couldn't quite put a name to, certainly not when she was half-drowning in ecstasy—most of it hers but some of it, thrillingly, his.

Time stretched on in rolling waves, her skin hot everywhere he touched and tingling where he didn't. His lips ghosted across her forehead, nose buried in her hairline, as if struggling to hold himself up without the increased physical connection.

Sweat dripped off his chin and landed on her cheek. There was a long pause between thrusts, his breath coming in quick, shallow pants. He was so close; she could feel how painfully hard he was, his balls drawn tight where they pressed against her.

Her heart swelled and she raked her nails along his back, one hand going as far down as she could reach and the other curving around his neck. “Sombra.” With a soft tug, she pulled him down closer so she could whisper into his ear, “Fuck me."

The taut wire of his composure snapped. A growl rumbled in his chest and he captured her lips in a rough kiss of teeth and tongue. Then, with sudden movement that startled a near-squeal out of her, he sat up on his knees, pulled her legs up to prop them on his shoulders, and thrust.

Stars filled her vision and her mouth fell open in a soundless cry. She barely had a moment to recover from how overpowering it was before he did it again, and all she could do was grip the webbing beneath her and hold on for dear life.

It was pure rapture as the room filled with the sounds of skin on skin, of her lust-addled cries melting into one long, blissful song. She felt him deep within her, overriding whatever pain may have tried to rise up from being nearly bent in half.

There was a distant, wicked glee in her mind as she imagined how she looked: her breasts were helpless to the vigorous motions as she was practically bounced by the force of him taking her. It was filthily degrading, being used like an object with the sole purpose of chasing an orgasm—and she loved it in spite of herself.

Her arms and legs tingled with growing numbness and her voice became hoarse until she struggled to make a sound. With one final, hard thrust, he shuddered and groaned, the grip he had on her legs tight as he held them almost desperately in place while he throbbed inside her.

They panted together, neither moving, both trying to come back down from the high amidst the smell of sweat and sex. Eventually, he fell onto the bed beside her as if he were as boneless as she felt. There was a rhythmic twitch between her legs, either a phantom sensation of where he had been or a desperate plea for his return.

When she had enough of her senses back, she twisted onto her side and placed her head on his chest, feeling the rise and fall with each ragged breath he took.

"That was—" she began, but found herself still too breathless to speak.

He hummed in agreement and fumbled an attempt to place his hand on top of her head. It flopped onto her cheek, dragged up, and finally settled on her scalp, where he rubbed slow, lazy circles.

In return, she dragged her fingertips along the black marks above his heart. It felt colder than before in contrast to the heat that radiated from the both of them. She closed her eyes and breathed in the emotions that spilled forth, tasting satisfaction, pleasure, and—

Her hand froze, her eyes widened, and she looked up to see him half asleep already. She slowly relaxed into a smile and breathed in again, letting her lungs be filled with the warmth of it.

Affection.