Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Because I love you.”

The words fall between them like overly stale bread crashing to the floor. The impact of them seems to hit Rayla in a similar way; her breath whooshes out and she takes a step back.

“Because you… What?”

Callum has to fight back a fond smile, her incredulity makes her accent even thicker, but he thinks that his usual goofy grin might not make the situation better. Well, he’s on this path now, he may as well charge forward. He holds his hands out to his sides in a gesture of ‘What can you do?’ and says, “I love you, Rayla.”

Her cheeks are so bright he can see them even in the low light of the coming evening. Her mouth opens and closes over and over. She looks around his bedroom, looks at her hands, doesn’t look at Callum. What words finally make it past the threshold of her lips still sound strangled, “Are… Are you sure?”

To be fair, no one has asked him this question. When he told Ezran, his brother had only clapped his hands in joy -- maybe not the attitude the king he now was should have, but some things would never change.

Callum’s brows furrow and his posture pulls inwards a bit, more defensive. “I… I think so.”

He lets the conversation rest there for a bit, waits for her to say something, and, when she doesn’t, he continues, “You… You can say no, you know? You don’t have-”

He expects a lot of things from Rayla. He expects her to try and let him down gently, to fail, to lovingly shatter him, then awkwardly shuffle out of the room. What he doesn’t expect is for her to cross the room in three quick steps, grab the front of his robes, and yank him in to a kiss.

The action is so violent, his first reaction is to pull away, but then it hits him. Rayla isn’t turning him down. Rayla is kissing him. His Rayla. Is kissing him.

He scoops her closer, encouraging her assault. She folds against him and he can barely recall the days gone by when he had to look up to speak to her.

She rips her mouth away as harshly as she had pressed them together, “I don’t want… I don’t want to-to… if-if you’re not sure.”

His mind is cloudy now, but he plows on anyway, “I’m sure. So sure. The surest.”

She nods once, decisively, and kisses him again. Softer. Less like she’s trying to fight him. She lets go of his robes and winds her arms around his neck, using the leverage to roll up on her toes.

Reasonably sure he isn’t dreaming -- and if he is, then it’s a better dream than most -- Callum reaches to tangle the fingers of one hand in her silver hair. Soft. Sleek. Silken. What he’d imagined, no, fantasized, it would feel like.

She gasps at the feeling, and he takes the opportunity to trace his tongue along her lower lip. She makes a sound in the back of her throat and through their closeness, he feels her shiver. She pulls away, breathing heavy, shaking, and Callum can’t stop himself from leaning down and kissing the pale pink column of her neck. He flicks his tongue out, tasting her.

She whimpers, one hand finding its way into his hair as she tilts her head, giving him more access. He murmurs the words again, breathing his adoration on her skin.

“I love you.”

“Callum…!” she squeaks as he bites down on her, suckling a bruise to the top of her skin. He wants her to know his feelings. He wants to know that this happened, that it wasn’t a dream. He wants to remember this. Wants her to remember this.

He pulls back to examine the mark, a soft violet amongst the unmarred pink. He returns his gaze to her face, manages to meet her eyes. She stares back, eyes hooded, cheeks flushed. He’s never seen her like this, overcome with emotion, affection… love? It slams into him like a wave. He wants to worship her.

He has to put a step between them to put his thoughts in order, “I want… I mean, can I- can I touch you?”

He can’t tear his gaze away from the plushness of her lips, the way she flicks her tongue along them and worries them with her teeth as she thinks. It’s all he can do not to grab her back to him. Run his tongue along her mouth. Nibble at her lips. But no. He wants her permission. He wants her to be as sure as he is.

She steps over to his desk and hops on to it, sitting on the edge. Something she has done a million times before, a pose he’s sketched just as many times. She reaches up and starts to tug at the straps on her armor, letting the leather fall around her. She’s done this before, gotten comfortable in his space, made it her own. But this time. This time she pulls off the thin cotton tunic underneath the leather, revealing the bindings on her breasts. Then she undoes those as well.

Once she is bare, her clothes scattered around her, she returns her gaze to him and nods. He rushes to her, preparing to explore all of the previously taboo skin, when she holds out a hand.

“Now, I can’t be the only one, you know…” She gestures to her naked top half, and Callum agrees to the suggestion so vehemently he almost rips his robes trying to get them off.

She laughs at his excitement, and some of the nervous tension he’d noticed in her shoulders dissipates. He feels himself blush, “Sorry, I’ve just… Wanted this for a long time.”

Her laughter stops and her flush deepens. He can feel her gaze drag over his naked chest, not anything she’s never seen before, but the tentative fingers tracing the lines of his body are new. He inhales a sharp breath. She grabs the waistband of his pants and tugs him closer, widening her knees so her can slot himself between them.

After the pause she took to undress, he has lost some of the confidence and urgency her original kiss had spurred. He looks at her, shy and unsure, hands dancing around her form but unable to alight. She grins at him, brow quirked, and, like that, they are just Callum and Rayla again. Old friends. Good friends. Best friends. More than friends?

“What? Was I not worth waitin’ for then?” she teases, her blush betraying her own nervousness.

He captures her grin with his own, opening her mouth with his. She wraps her legs around his waist and her arms around his back. His hands rove her, mapping the topography of every scar. She’s softer under his hands than he thought she’d be, not only the feel of her, but how she reacts. She is pliant under him, not anything like he thought. Even in his most adventurous fantasies, she made him him work for it; here, now, in reality, she craves his touch.

The soft groans and whimpers she tries to smother in his mouth embolden him. He curves a hand around a breast. She whines as he explores the weight and warmth, running gentle fingertips over her peaked nipple. He places his palm over it and gives a small squeeze.
She arches against him at that, pulling their mouths apart. “Callum…!”

He goes for her ear, mouthing at the pointed tip and tracing his tongue along the hollows and curves. “You were so worth waiting for.”

Her hold tightens, pressing the entire length of their bodies together. She leans back, drawing him down over her onto the desk. At this angle he can’t quite reach her mouth without crawling up himself -- and, if he’s honest with himself, the desk can’t handle that -- so he settles for tracing every dip and rise of her collarbone with his lips. One hand slides into his hair, scratching his scalp with perfectly trimmed nails. He sighs in pleasure, hot air ghosting over her nipple, and she tries to smother her sounds.

Intrigued, he sneaks his tongue out, circling the dark rose peak. She lets out a cry, which she tries, in vain, to cut off. He nuzzles her and murmurs, “You haven’t said it back.”

“Huh…?” Her voice is thick and slow.

“I’ve said it, like, a bunch, you haven’t said it back.”

She stiffens, “Callum.”

He pulls away, something is wrong. Her eyes are unreadable, no longer the warm oases that had been regarding him. He bites his lip, “If you don’t, you don’t have to say it, obviously, but, I thought-”

And she’s crying.

His heart breaks, “Rayla.”

“I don’t understand. The night we met I came to kill your family. Why don’t you hate me?”

“We’ve talked about this, it’s-”

“No, Callum, how can you overlook that? I was an assassin. I would have killed you. Killed Ez.” She’s shaking, sobbing quietly. “I don’t deserve- Deserve this. Deserve you. After that -- after that, how can you still look at me like this?! Like I’m… Perfect.”

He makes an executive decision and kisses the tears away, “If you hadn’t come to kill us that night, things would have been so much worse. As far as I’m concerned, all is forgiven.”

She’s still crying, but she isn’t pushing him away.

“You know, the night you came to murder me and my family, that was… The second best night of my life.”

A breathy chuckle breaks through, “Second, then what’s the first?”

“Uh, right now.” He makes sure their eyes have met before going on. “Rayla, you don’t have to shoulder those burdens anymore. All is forgiven. All is well. And I love you. You don’t have to love me back, but --”

“Don’t be daft,” she interrupts. “Of course I love you.”

Her eyes are still shining with tears, but they’re back to the warmth and love he’d seen earlier.

Callum has to swallow the lump of his heart in his throat, and his voice still breaks on his next words, “Oh, great.”

He takes her left hand, kissing the pale white scar around her wrist. She sighs, carding her fingers through his dark hair, “You’re good, Callum. So good. Always so good.”

His body heats at her words, coming alive. When he speaks his voice comes out husky, surprising both of them. “I want to touch you more. Please.”

She assess their situation.“If you want to do much more, I’d suggest we adjourn to the bed.”

Callum can’t stop the groan that escapes him. He wraps his arms around her and lifts her up, her legs still solidly locked around his hips. He stumbles a few steps, the backs of his knees hitting the bed, and they collapse in a tangle of limbs. She crouches over him, like a predator about to pounce.

“I rather like this view,” she says, all traces of her hesitation gone. This is the confident Rayla of his fantasies. “So pretty.”

He blushes. No one had ever called him pretty before. He can only stare up at her, entranced by the silver sheen the burgeoning moonlight painted across her. The MoonShadow elf in her natural element; fierce, but just as lovely.

She leans down to breathe in his ear, “Loss for words, eh, Callum? Why don’t you go back to using your mouth for other things?”

He kisses her breasts with a reverence he once reserved for gods. He nuzzles his face between them, licking and sucking, as Rayla pants into his shoulder.

“Gods, Callum,” she moans as he rolls his tongue around her nipple. Her accent wrapped around his name sends heat shooting through his body. She arches her back, pressing against the front of his trousers.

He gasps, harsh and fast, before grabbing her and flipping them over. He holds her wrists at her head and kisses his way down her body. He stops at her leggings, nosing the sensitive skin on her hip bones.

“Can I use my mouth here?” he asks, winding the ties at the front of her leggings around his fingers. “I want to know what you taste like.”

He watches her irises shrink to a thin shore of color around the dark lake of her pupils, “Please…!”

He makes swift work of the knot and drags the fabric down her legs, kissing each inch of skin as it’s revealed. He kisses his way back as he finally deposits the article off the side of the bed. He works her slowly, achingly, taking his time wandering back to the juncture between her legs.

She’s gasping his name in anticipation as each press of his mouth climbs higher. He grips the back of her knees and tosses them over his shoulder, startling a laugh out of her, before kissing his target: the pair of lips feathered in a cloud of silver hair.

She throws her head back, arching her hips for more. He has to hold them down before he can continue. He licks between them, exploring her core, the thick musky taste of her. He stretches his tongue inside her, her moans muffled by her thighs clamped around his ears.

He feels her hand grab his hair, and looks up to see her other hand toying with something just above where he’s licking. He playfully nips at her fingers, and she removes them. Cautiously, he examines the bundle of flesh, before flicking his tongue against it. He is rewarded by a high pitched cry and another jerk of her hips.

He kisses it, licks it, sucks it, enjoys Rayla’s writhing as she whines and whimpers. “C-Callum, I’m close!”

Now, Callum isn’t exactly sure what that means, but he chooses to believe it means he’s doing a good job. He continues working the bundle with his tongue, as he slips his fingers inside, rubbing, exploring, crooking. He wants to memorize which movements make her cry out, which make her whimper, and, most of all, which make her scream. He revels in the feeling of her fingers tightening almost painfully in his hair.

Just as he’s found a rhythm, she stiffens, quakes, her inner wall rippling around his fingers. He continues his ministrations until she lays back, weak and boneless. He rolls her thighs from his shoulders, and pulls back to look at her naked form. Bleary eyed and smiling, she holds her arms out to him, and he falls into them. She curls into his chest as he wraps his arms around her, stroking her hair.

“Moonberries,” he murmurs into her hairline. “You taste like moonberries.”

“Do I, now?” She looks up at him, voice syrupy with satisfaction. She seems to come back to herself as he holds her. One of her hands wiggles underneath his trousers, bringing his hardness back to the forefront of his mind. Involuntarily, he bucks into her hand, her skin cool against the unbearable heat. Her other hand strokes the hair from his eyes, “Aw, Callum, too busy taking care of me to take care of yourself.”

His breath shudders.

She pushes him onto his back, straddling his hips. She kisses him, languorously, lazily, rolling her hips along his hardness. She leaves open mouthed kisses down his body, biting, sucking, marking, even as she pulls his pants down. He flushes and refuses to meet her eyes when she reveals his hardened member.

“Just as pretty underneath, I see.” Her fingers dance up his shaft, teasing and exploratory. She gives the leaking tip a kiss and a kitten lick, before returning to her task of fully removing his pants. He tries not the thrust up to her. She tosses his pants with a dismissive flick of her wrist, and drags a nail down the center of his chest, hovering her body just above his erection, “Look at the princeling, at the mercy of the scary MoonShadow assassin.”

She slides her wetness along his length, making broken groans crawl out of his throat, “Rayla… Teasing? Now?”

She smiles, dropping an open mouthed kiss on his lips, “You’re right, you’re right. You’ve been good, and I ought not tease you when you’re so wound up.”

She reaches under her to grab him, lining him up and nudging the tip inside. His hips jerk and she presses a hand down on his stomach, “Easy, Callum, you’re a bit bigger than I thought. I’ll need a minute. Here.”

She takes his hands and puts them on her hips. He grips them as he fights the urge to thrust into her. She braces her hands on his chest as she works her way down, inch by tortuous inch. He’s trembling by the time she’s fully seated, breath coming in desperate huffs.

Experimentally, she rises and falls, slow and steady. Callum whines at the wet heat, “Rayla, Rayla, you feel so good, I love you, I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She brushes sweaty locks of hair from his forehead, “You can move now.”

He bucks into her, and they find an awkward rhythm of rolling hips and slapping flesh. There’s a coil inside him, twisting at each meeting of hips, each pleasured whimper, each bounce of warm flesh. He watches the movement of her breasts like a man starved, and he is possessed with the need to make her go limp with pleasure again. He traces a hand along the line where her hips meet her body, searching amongst the pale curls for that sensitive spot. His efforts are rewarded by a squeal and her tightening around him.

They gasp together and she pants, “Fast learner.”

He works that spot with his thumb, taking his other hand and palming a breast. Her breathing quickens and her hips begin to falter. “Again, Callum? You’re too good.”

With those last words, she tosses her head back on a choked sob. She tightens on him impossibly, and the coil snaps. He clamps his arms around her, pulling her down onto his chest as his hips spasm, pouring into her. The waves of sensation begin to peak with less and less intensity until his muscles give out, his arms falling from around her.

He feels her hands come up to hold his face, and he is startled to realize he had closed his eyes at some point. He peeks them open as she pulls him into another kiss.

“I love you, Callum,” she murmurs. “I should have said it earlier. Feels a bit silly now.”

“S’all good,” he slurs, feeling drunk. No, better than drunk. The last time he was drunk he didn’t have a naked Rayla on top of him and that is an infinite improvement. He nuzzles his face into the crook of her neck, “I love you, too.”

She draws absent swirls on his shoulder, letting him come down from his high, “Was it worth all the waitin’?”

He pulls her mouth back to his, “You have no idea.”

“I think I have some.” At his bewildered look, she smiles and clarifies, “What? Did you think you were pining all alone?”

“You mean -- you --?”

She bumps her forehead against his, “Obviously, dummy.”

She pulls off of him, and they groan at the separation. He leads her to the bath and they take their time rinsing off the evidence of their activities. She lets him wash her, taking his time exploring every inch of her nakedness without the fog of lust and need. Afterward, she insists on doing the same for him, and giggles as his body rouses to her touch.

“Ready for round two so soon, eh, Callum?” she teases, then kisses the pouty blush from his face. “Don’t give me that look. It’s flattering… And it bodes well.”

He grabs her to him, running his hands over her wet skin, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He eventually releases her, and lets her finish washing him. Once they leave the bath, Callum goes to pick up his discarded robes and pants, but Rayla grabs his hands and drags him to the bed.

“Rayla…” He halfheartedly complains as she pulls them both under the covers and curls against him.

“I don’t know how you humans do it, but MoonShadow elves always make time for a proper cuddle,” she informs, winding her arms around him and tangling their legs.

Callum knows he has things to do, that they both do, but the bed is soft and Rayla is warm and his eyelids are drooping. So, he rests his chin on top of her head, kisses her horns, and wraps her in his arms.

“I have to say, if we make time for a proper cuddle after every time, I don’t think we’ll ever leave the bedroom.” He twines his fingers in her hair.

She lets out a groan and laughs, “Callum, why are you like this?”

He echoes his answer from earlier, “Because I love you.”