LotS fic: Out of Leather (Cara/Kahlan)
Dec. 11th, 2009 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Out of Leather
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 5,539
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Kahlan, Richard/Kahlan
Summary: Cara loves a challenge and Kahlan can’t be touched.
Kahlan had her doubts that Cara was human. The Mord’Sith never ate with the rest of them, saying she needed to stand watch, though she mostly just watched Kahlan eat in a way that made the Confessor feel like she was committing some vague sin. If she defecated, she never needed the others to pause while she found some bushes. She had sex, they were all too aware of that, but lots of things had sex. Kahlan was beginning to wonder if Cara was secretly a really horny gar when Cara said “I need to bathe.”
Everyone stopped. If they were anything like Kahlan, they were wondering if Cara had stepped in something that would kill her if she didn’t bathe immediately.
Realizing that her companions wouldn’t just go along with what she’d said for expediency’s sake, Cara gave a long-suffering sigh and said “My leather is enchanted to neutralize my scent.”
“Making you a more effective assassin,” Zedd rattled.
“And it smells nicer,” Richard said defensively, while Cara just nodded to Zedd’s initial response.
“But magic can only do so much, and skintight leather doesn’t exactly breathe while you’re fighting the forces of the Keeper. Thus, I need to bathe. And have my leathers washed.”
“Right now?” Kahlan asked, in the tone she used to repeat things like ‘a dragon killed your neighbor with your knife?’ or ‘that sheep came on to you?’
“Unless you want to ride upwind of me to the Stone of Tears.”
Kahlan fisted her hands on her hips, her fearsome expression undercut by Richard saying, diplomatically enough, “We’re all starting to smell. There’s a lake over the next hill, we can stop there.”
Kahlan’s face fell at another concession being made to the (admittedly ripe) Mord’Sith. Sometimes she felt like Richard would let Cara ride him like a pony if she asked. Then she pictured Cara riding Richard like a pony and quickly thought of something else.
***
Richard had found the lake by the trails of animals using it as a watering hole. The animals had good taste. Wisps of fog hung over it like frosting on a pastry. They gave the water a thick lather, and the other shore was only visible in glints. The water, where it was visible, looked cool and inviting, as clear as crystal with sandy shores and nary a ripple between them.
Kahlan didn’t notice. “I’m not bathing with her.”
“Kahlan, it’s too dangerous to be alone and you know it. Trust me, I’m getting the raw end of the deal,” Richard said.
Nearby, Zedd was gearing up for a running leap into the water. He didn’t let the presence of a woman impose any modesty on him.
Kahlan conceded the point when the wizard ran past them. “If Cara drowns me, I’m coming back as a Baneling to say I told you so.”
Richard laughed as he began to undress.
Kahlan slowed down as she walked to the women’s side of the lake.
Neither of them suggested bathing with each other.
***
In a lagoon of dogtails and mouse-reeds (as Richard had named them), Cara was waiting for Kahlan with statue stillness, looking like a doll that’d been soaked in blood then left to dry in an unblinking sun. Kahlan felt a flash of unfair irritation. Cara hadn’t even started? Did she want them to be sitting, naked ducks when the sun went down?
“Finally,” Cara said, with the same indignation Kahlan was trying not to indulge. “I was beginning to think you were rolling around in the mud like a child before bathtime.”
Kahlan’s face flushed, both with anger and the memory of what she had been doing. It involved a very concealing bush, and Richard’s very good backstroke. But she refused to be baited. She reminded herself that deep down, Cara was a scared little girl who’d never learned how to interact with people who weren’t pain-loving assassins. “Can we just get this over with?”
“Certainly.” Cara turned her back on Kahlan. “Undress me.”
“I will not!”
Cara looked over her shoulder. She had the self-aggrandized look of a Mord’Sith who’d failed at her chosen mission. “I’m sorry. Please undress me.”
Scared little girl, Kahlan reminded herself. “Cara,” she said in an exasperated tone usually reserved for small children and dogs which hadn’t been housebroken. “I’m not your servant. You’re no longer leader of the Mord’Sith. You’ll have to do this yourself.”
“I can’t, Mother Confessor.” Cara said the title like she wanted it to end with another word. “My clothes aren’t designed that way. We’re not supposed to be on our own. In the Mord’Sith, I had slaves, lovers… sometimes both in the same skin.” She greeted the memory with a fierce smile. It died quickly. “Now, all I have is you. Unless you’d like me to ask Richard for help.”
Kahlan kept her face resolute, not showing how the thought infuriated her. How intriguing it was. “You owe me one,” she said simply, and made a gesture that was one part ‘turn around’ and one part ‘let’s get this over with.’
Cara busied herself with the lacing on her limbs. The process disturbed Kahlan, reminded her too much of a man who had slit his wrists rather than face her touch, his veins slicking out much as the laces that had constrained Cara’s gloves now did. Kahlan couldn’t hold that thought as a glove came off and Cara’s fingers were revealed. They were long and slender, the kind of fingers Kahlan wished for when she touched herself, and just as Kahlan wondered where the fabled Confessor control was she felt her magic trill and had to close her eyes to restore it to its proper place.
“Mother Confessor?” Cara said, and Kahlan could’ve become addicted to the haughty tone Cara affected when she said the title, respectful but not in a fawning way, in a ‘we are two of a kind and that makes us dangerous’ way.
Kahlan found her center and opened her eyes. “Where do I start?”
Kahlan could hear but not see Cara’s smirk. “My collar. Unbuckle it, then undo the laces.”
She was probably referring to the neck guard that topped her uniform. Kahlan reached out with steady hands, even for her, and snapped the buckles one by one. Cara’s bare hand flexed as Kahlan started on the laces. As Kahlan undid them, she couldn’t help but notice that Cara had finished with her sleeves, unbinding her arms. They were rippled columns of muscle, thickening at the bicep like tree trunks. A bruise ran down the forearm and Kahlan’s heart panged unexpectedly. She hadn’t even noticed Cara had taken a hit. When had it happened?
“Now lift,” Cara said, and Kahlan realized she had finished with the collar. She held it up and Cara stepped out of it. “Thank you, Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan reached for the leg holster which held Cara’s Agiels and started when the Mord’Sith whirled away from her, hand automatically dropping to her weapon. Kahlan did the same, grabbing her dagger. There was a tense moment as they eyed each other.
Richard’s high-pitched scream broke the tension. They were in the first steps of their run when he shouted sheepishly “There are fish! Just so you know!”
They relaxed. Kahlan put her dagger away and Cara did the same with her Agiel.
“No one touches them but me,” Cara said. She sat down to tug off her boots.
Kahlan stood there, feeling a fool. “What next?”
“The lacing on my back. It starts at the neck. Undo it to my ribs.”
That was all Kahlan could undo. There, it disappeared into Cara’s corset, a heavy piece of leather armor that further reinforced the Mord’Sith’s vulnerable organs. Cara took it off herself, popping the buckles with practiced ease now that her hands were bare. With it gone, Kahlan could see that the back lacing continued all the way down over Cara’s shapely ass.
She started down as Cara loosened the laces at her thighs. Then she heard Cara’s belts crack open and whisper out of their loops. Cara’s back was being exposed like an artist was painting over an old picture, replacing the harsh leather with smooth, luscious skin. Kahlan could just begin to see the swell of her ass, exposed by her own hand, when Cara stood up and shimmied out of what was left of the leather with all the modesty of a snake shedding its skin.
Cara’s body was beautiful for a weapon. There were a minimum of scars, owing to the great skill Kahlan had witnessed for herself in battle, and her muscles were perfectly proportioned to her slender frame, making her look like she had been sculpted rather than grown up. Or perhaps carved, out of some sharp and poisoned metal that was finally heated enough to be polished into something beautiful. More than that was the musk. It wasn’t just sweat. It was blood and sex and violence, all the things that a Confessor trafficked in while remaining above them. But Cara wasn’t above them. She swallowed in brutality and eroticism, mixed them together into a potent wine.
“You have strong hands,” Cara said with a distinct purr. “You would’ve made a good Mord’Sith.” She faced Kahlan. “It must be easier to get out of that dress with help. And I do owe you one.”
Kahlan blushed fiercely, trying to keep her eyes off Cara’s compact muscles, her surprisingly full breasts. After the business with the Agiels, she didn’t want to ruin an overture from Cara. “The lacing on my back. It’s a little hard to reach. I usually just undo the front.”
“I’ve noticed,” Cara said with a delicately raised eyebrow.
She spun Kahlan around and began to efficiently demolish the laces at back of Kahlan’s dress. Kahlan ignored the manhandling to loosen the laces at her cleavage, then gasped when Cara pulled her dress down off her like she was pulling a tablecloth away for cleaning. Despite the fact that she still had her bodice and breeches on, Kahlan crossed her arms to cover herself.
“You have a magnificent body,” Cara noted. “It’s no wonder that the Lord Rahl wishes to mate with you.”
Kahlan started for the lake. “The water’s not getting any warmer, you know.”
“That was a compliment. Do you not feel flattered?”
“Yes, that was very kind of you.” Kahlan stopped, looking down at her boots as they sunk into the mud.
“And do you intend to wash your clothes while you’re still in them?” Cara asked, sounding genuinely curious.
Kahlan simmered so hotly she thought the lake would boil.
“I said I would help you and I will. Unless you’d rather have Richard do it.”
Kahlan admitted defeat. “Fine. Just take it slow this time?”
“Funny. I usually hear that from men.”
Cara was brisk in undoing the bodice, but not mechanical. There was little warmth to her touch, but if Kahlan had wanted that, Richard was right across the lake. She shivered. Her open bodice had let in a sudden breeze. Cara rubbed some warmth into her back before pulling the bodice away, as delicate as a schoolgirl plucking flower petals.
“Need any help with your breeches?” Cara asked. Her tone insinuated something, a pleasure for one of them in that act. Or perhaps they would both enjoy it, was that what she was implying? Offering?
“I can handle it.” Kahlan loosed her belt, didn’t take it off before she wiggled out of her breeches. Cara’s eyes followed them all the way down. “Must you look at me?”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen in a mirror.” Cara didn’t stop looking at Kahlan, but she did shift her gaze to the brunette’s eyes. “Except for that scar.”
The arrow in Kahlan’s leg had left a memento, a vivid scar on her thigh. It was red as a Mord’Sith’s leathers.
“Does it hurt?” Cara continued, a note of yearning in her voice.
“No. But it tingles occasionally,” she mollified.
“I’m glad it doesn’t hurt,” Cara said neutrally. She walked past Kahlan, into the water.
Kahlan grabbed up a bar of pink soap and followed her in. They only had one, so Kahlan gave Cara the first shot while she splashed around, enjoying the chance to luxuriate in the cool water after a hard day of riding. Cara didn’t seem one to like swimming unless there was someone to kill or fuck on the other shore, so it seemed rude to make Cara wait for her to finish. Besides, the thought of Cara floating beside her, watching with that raptor gaze as she cleansed herself, made Kahlan tense like she’d gotten too close to a fire.
“You are very beautiful,” Cara said, and the flame leapt up to consume Kahlan. The Mord’Sith was washing herself with slow caresses of the soap over her skin, and her eyes clung to Kahlan like the water she was swimming through. The water clear enough to display Kahlan like a picture frame. “We both are, yes, but I’ve always been an admirer of your species of beauty. So soft, delicious really, but on the inside, enough steel and fire to make you more interesting than just another sweet face.” The soap dipped lower, losing itself in the ripples of the water, merging with Cara’s deadly body. “We’re not so different, stripped bare. It’s why you would have me be more like you, while I’d settle for merely having you.”
Kahlan couldn’t have drawn less breath if she were on the bottom of the lake. “Are you going to seduce me?”
“That’s your choice. I’ve made mine.” Cara swam closer. Gentle, sultry strokes that barely creased the water. “Turn around. I’ll do your back. You can think about it.”
The slippery touch of the soap, as wielded by Cara, was worlds away from Richard. In their moments together, stolen from the Spirits, Richard was more than gentle, he was a beggar, a missionary. He had coaxed pleasure from her, cajoling her moans and sighs.
Cara browbeat her into ecstasy, demanding her enjoyment, forcing her desire to the surface like a Confessor spelled love. Beneath the temperance of washing her, Cara was rough and fast. Her only affection was that she didn’t go faster.
“I… we can’t…” Kahlan sputtered, reminding herself She’s a Mord’Sith, she’d kill me as soon as look at me if her Lord Rahl ordered it.
But, no. Cara had helped kill Darken Rahl. She had a mind of her own. Kahlan just didn’t know what was going on in there.
“You have needs, Kahlan. Needs that many could capitalize on. If you were distracted, lost control, then your prudishness could doom the world. That strikes me as embarrassing. Get your love from Richard and your pleasure from me. A simple choice for the Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan looked down to see how Cara was tending the fire through her body and gasped. Soap suds covered her like a second skin. “Is that why you’re doing this? To protect the Lord Rahl from me ‘losing control’?”
Cara hid the soap between Kahlan’s legs, finally touching her where she needed it most. “I don’t need an excuse to enjoy myself. But killing two birds with one stone means there’s more to eat.” The soap moved deeper, rubbed harder. “Are you hungry, Mother Confessor?”
Starving.
The water churned with how fast Kahlan whirled around, and Cara’s eyes betrayed shock as she was claimed, put about new business like a sword beat into a plowshare. Soap-slick bodies clasped together, spreading the suds as they groped and rubbed, a perverse kind of cleanliness. Kahlan had an impression of Cara’s smile, her widest yet, and then the inkling of a gratified rush to the blonde’s breathing, like she was scenting perfume after nothing but sulfur. Their mouths met, more teeth than lips, and Kahlan tasted blood. Cara’s.
“Patience, Mother Confessor,” Cara chided. “We wouldn’t want you to get dirty again so soon after your bath.”
“Don’t you want me to lose control? Cleanse myself of all my urges?” Kahlan spoke in a husky tone, a half-hearted parody of Cara’s seduction.
Cara licked the blood from her lips. “Even without my Agiel, I’m still Mord’Sith. I’d break you.”
Kahlan’s eyes were darker than they’d been a moment ago. “Try me.”
Cara kissed her then, forcing the taste of blood into her mouth. The bar of soap dropped to the bottom of the lake like one more discarded garment, Cara’s hands replacing it with shameless efficiency. Cara’s feet touched down on the lakebed and she hoisted the floating Kahlan, holding her in place with one arm supporting her back and the other gripping her throat. Kahlan looked down at the hand around her throat and let the magic surface just enough to turn her eyes black.
“Sorry,” Cara said unapologetically. Her hand swept down Kahlan’s body. “Force of habit.”
They moved at the same time, with the same thought. Cara’s hand locked between Kahlan’s legs, squeezing as hard as she ever held an Agiel, and the pressure of her rough palm on Kahlan’s clit was divine after so many months without respite. Kahlan dragged her hand through Cara’s hair, forcing their lips together again and again. Any misgivings flickered and faded. The pleasure of it was glorious, no worry, no niggling doubts, just temptation fulfilled.
Kahlan groaned as the heel of Cara’s hand pressed down harder, assaulting her with sharp, harsh ecstasy. Her body rebelled; hips bucking, she writhed in Cara’s strange embrace. Cara laughed, harsh and loud, and Kahlan was about to hush her lest the others hear, lest Richard hear, when Cara’s fingers went inside.
Kahlan threw her head back, making a beautifully undignified noise from somewhere deep in her chest, and the back of her skull slapped the water. Cara laughed louder, added another finger. It was the happiest Kahlan had ever seen her outside of battle.
Kahlan felt an orgasm flare within her, like the ones she’d given herself only so much bigger and louder, a bomb that would explode the walls she’d spent years building. “Cara, stop!” she ordered, just barely coherent.
Cara paused. Her pistoning fingers stayed in Kahlan’s cunt, an aching reminder of the past few minutes. “You may be the Mother Confessor, but I am a Mord’Sith. You can’t control me.”
“Please,” Kahlan added, somewhat irrationally. “I’m about to… go.” Cara smiled at that. “You’ll die.”
“I love a challenge,” Cara replied, and her fingers curled.
Kahlan moaned as Cara carried her out into the water like a husband with his blushing bride. Her fingers worried at Kahlan, a chisel at her walls, pinching her clit, keeping her on a plateau of almost-not-quite-more. Her gasps were getting louder.
“It’s such an amazing sound, hearing you get fucked. You like that, don’t you, my dear?” Cara mocked, but with some perverse fondness behind it as she carried Kahlan deeper into the water. “What a curse to have to be in control all the time. What a curse to always have to look after others’ needs instead of your own.”
For a moment, Kahlan didn’t know who she was talking about, and she felt an unexpected sympathy for Cara, this strange woman who could see sex as both a favor to a friend and a contest for dominance. Cara gave her a deep, yearning kiss and released her. For a moment, they floated there, the mist swirling around them like veils cutting them off from the world. Kahlan catching her breath and Cara implacable, watching the Confessor like she was categorizing everything she had done to her and thinking of what was left.
Kahlan finally closed her eyes, unable to look at Cara’s naked form, her half-smile, without the fantasy playing out in her body. When she opened them, Cara was still there.
“Thank you for that,” Kahlan said consolingly. “It was very good of you.”
“We’re not done yet,” Cara said, simply. She didn’t follow that up with any action, she just kept looking at Kahlan, seeking something. Then she slipped down into the water with barely a ripple, to be replaced by the haze of the mists.
Kahlan looked down in the water, trying to see her, but the lake had become frustratingly opaque, reflecting the mists that roiled overhead. It was like she was suspended in space with her dying arousal as her only companion. Then she felt lips kiss her stomach, as intimately as Richard ever had.
“Oh!” Kahlan exclaimed, a simple little noise that she’d never recalled making before. The lips touched the scar on her treading leg, possessively. “Cara…”
That was all the warning she received. Cara’s lips touched her folds, kissing her there for long, delicious seconds. Kahlan felt herself convulse, the water splashing around her as she tried to stay afloat. Then Cara took hold of her legs and spread them forcibly. Kahlan windmilled her arms desperately to keep from sinking, even as Cara’s tongue swiped at her clit, making her sob for relief.
Cara surfaced, even more alluring with sparkling droplets catching Kahlan’s eyes, dragging them down to watch the drops of water roll over her body. Kahlan thought she would have a moment to regain her equilibrium, but Cara was insatiable. She devoured Kahlan’s lips, her fingers thrust into Kahlan. Kahlan tasted herself on Cara’s tongue, the salt in the freshwater lake.
“Please, Cara, please!” Kahlan begged, as Cara bit at her neck, her shoulder, leaving marks like an artist signing her work.
“I know what you want,” Cara replied, but Kahlan had no idea whether she wanted Cara to keep going or stop. It was dangerous, so dangerous, she was right on the edge, her eyes entirely black save for a thin ring of white by her eyelids. “But what I want is for you to come like the horny little animal you are.”
She slipped under the water again. Kahlan faced herself, ferociously trying to bring her magic back under control as Cara physically picked her up and lifted her out of the water, her legs on Cara’s shoulders like a picture in a sex scroll. The water was now at her waist, and her nipples hardened as the breeze hit them. But under the water, Cara’s tongue was making her body warm and perfect.
Wetly dark hair floated between Kahlan’s spread legs. Kahlan grabbed it in both hands and pulled, still not sure what she was trying to get Cara to do, push her over the edge or let her draw back, but she was so close and she couldn’t stand it. Kahlan howled, head back, hands fisted, and lost her balance. She splashed into the water, taking a gulp before Cara dragged her out. Focusing all her willpower on keeping her magic under control, Kahlan felt herself being thrown over Cara’s shoulder and carried through the water. Her orgasm submerged again and Kahlan realized she wanted it, needed it, at Cara’s hand or Richard’s or her own.
Cara set her down in the sand, not gently, and then bent over her so Kahlan had to look up to see her. “Command me, Confessor,” she said with the deepest sarcasm.
Kahlan stared at her, out of breath. “Do it. Do it to me.” They were the only words she could think of.
Cara dropped to her knees, coming intoxicatingly closer to Kahlan. The Confessor still couldn’t catch her breath. “Return the favor, Mother Confessor. Haven’t I shown you respect?”
Kahlan couldn’t muster up the will to care about such a game. “Please, Mistress Cara.” The words were surprisingly sweet out of her throat, even to her, like the sound of the wrapper coming off a piece of chocolate. “Finish it.”
“Mmm.” Cara ran a hand over Kahlan’s body, from lips to legs. Her thoughts were written all over her face: Mine. “You were right. It is fun to make new friends.” Then she lowered herself onto Kahlan, like an animal moving down on its kill, her thigh on Kahlan’s core, that perfect blissful pressure setting Kahlan on fire again, and her wicked lips at Kahlan’s ear, arousing her as fiercely as any kiss. “You taste very nice, Kahlan. Did you know?”
It was the same tone she used to pay her little compliments earlier, and it turned Kahlan on almost as much as the leg flexing against her cunt. She was screaming now, not caring who heard, scratching at Cara and that only made the Mord’Sith fuck her harder, but not too hard, always teetering on the brink of losing control, an orgasm that had grown and grown inside her until she thought that if it arrived, it would consume her utterly, just like her magic did to others. But Cara wasn’t afraid, Cara was laughing as her fingers and her tongue and her evil, evil voice did things to Kahlan that took hold of her and made her into someone else, someone who writhed and squirmed and whimpered and had never even heard of control.
“Could you do me a favor, Mother Confessor?” Cara asked, hovering above Kahlan, feeling the brunette’s hot, panting breath break across her face, stir her wet hair. “I want you to remember this. Every time you look at me, I want you to remember that I did this to you. I want you to remember that my proper title is Mistress Cara of the Mord’Sith. I want you to remember you begged me for this.”
“I’m coming, Cara!” Kahlan said it beatifically, like she was reporting something wonderful she’d seen. “I’m coming!”
“No, you’re not. I haven’t said you could.”
Kahlan stiffened just from the sight of Cara bending over her, the wet slackness of her hair falling over Kahlan’s hips. Then she gasped as Cara’s tongue laved over her inner thigh, and then Cara was sucking hungrily at her moist labia. The Mord’Sith studiously avoided Kahlan’s clit, refusing to quell the hottest of the fires that were burning Kahlan up. Kahlan tried to grab Cara’s hair, force her to put her tongue at the exact spot it would break through all Kahlan’s defenses, but Cara grabbed both her hands and twisted them painfully, making Kahlan take a step back from the cusp of orgasm where she’d been balancing for as long as she could remember.
Kahlan pulled free as the torture continued, though Cara kept her left hand in a vice-like grip, the only place they were touching aside from down there. Kahlan tried to grab onto something else, rip her own clothes, pull up some grass, but all she could do was scoop up the sand and feel it run through her fingers. Her world had narrowed to Cara and the hot, acidic need that was reducing her, moment by moment, to a white-out of bliss. Her flushed face tensed, teeth coming together hard, trying to hold in a scream as Cara ran her tongue over her folds and just barely nudged her clit. Her hand white-knuckled with Cara’s and her other hand slammed down in the sand.
Cara pulled herself away from Kahlan, her hand leaving Kahlan’s clutching air, her lips absurdly shiny on her now-dry face, dripping with Kahlan’s copious fluids.
Kahlan felt like she was being pulled and stretched and opened in every different direction. She looked down at Cara, not able to tell if she was goddess or devil. “Fuck me, Mistress Cara,” she pleaded in a ragged voice.
“Yes. You’re ready,” Cara said, her voice cracking just a little, displaying just the tiniest hint of the lust that must’ve been raging inside her.
In one smooth motion, almost as if she’d practiced for it, she picked up her Agiel from nearby and touched it to Kahlan’s clit.
It was either the greatest suffering of Kahlan’s life or the best thing she’d ever felt. She strained off the ground so hard she could’ve sworn she was floating, held up on feet and shoulders she couldn’t even feel. Her muscles knotted themselves up like she was lifting an impossible weight, while something hot and wet cascaded out of her. It was like her orgasm had seized control of her entire body, making it convulse and dance to the tune of the pleasure that rippled through her. She was, on some level, aware that her hips were thrashing, her voluminous breasts shaking wildly, that she was screaming herself hoarse, and that Cara was watching her. She managed to see Cara lowering the Agiel to her own lap before whatever strings held the Mother Confessor up were cut. She felt the sand splash under her, gripping her wet flesh, then she stopped screaming.
Slowly, she became cognizant of Cara laying down beside her, breathing with forced control, her breasts rising and falling to a meticulous rhythm.
Kahlan broke the silence first. Something in her needed to know what Cara was thinking. “I think I’m still coming…" she sighed.
Cara’s reply was tonelessly guarded as usual, with her even more usual edge of sarcasm. “In certain circumstances, pain and pleasure can overlap considerably. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to distinguish them. I’m not the great love of your life either. I’m sure we can blame a recent lack of stimuli for you coming like a street whore…”
“You don’t have to do that,” Kahlan said, turning onto her side, facing Cara.
Cara let her head loll to the side, returning Kahlan’s gaze. “Is the Mother Confessor offended by my wicked tongue?” she asked with a leer.
“I mean push people away. You’re one of us. You don’t have to make yourself an outsider.”
“I am an outsider, Mother Confessor,” Cara replied. She stood up, the sand clinging to her body like armor. She considered that the end of the exchange, which meant she was surprised when Kahlan laid a hand on her shoulder. It was gentle, not firm at all, she could’ve dislodged it by merely shrugging. Maybe that was why she didn’t.
“You don’t have to call me that,” Kahlan said, surprising herself a little. “Please, call me Kahlan.”
“I can understand Richard’s reluctance to be called the Lord Rahl… his predecessor was a brutal man, even to those who served him… but you are the Mother Confessor.”
“No. The Mother Confessor is what I do. Kahlan is who I am. I’d like it if I could teach you the difference.”
Cara got the inference. “Mistress Cara is who I am and what I am. There is nothing else to know.”
“You didn’t have to do that. I know you enjoyed it, I know you made a point, but you also helped me take my dress off.” Kahlan smiled. “And you asked for my help with your leathers. You could have just asked Richard. Or Zedd. You asked me.”
“If you want me to fuck you again, you just have to ask. You don’t have to sweet-talk me like a silly little virgin.”
Kahlan stepped closer. Gently she began to brush the sand off Cara’s body. There was an obvious eroticism to her touch, but more than that, it was comforting, natural. Like Kahlan was combing a friend’s hair. Cara shuddered at the touch, finding it slightly harder to breathe with Kahlan touching her so intimately, then she reached out and cleared some sand off of Kahlan’s shoulder.
Kahlan smiled at her nicely. “If you want to be friends, I’ll be here for you.”
Cara exactingly cleared her shoulder of sand, then looked at her suspiciously. “Do we have to hug?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“Cuddle?”
“No.”
“Does this preclude having sex?”
“Certainly not.”
“Fine. I’ll be your friend,” Cara said, as if she were doing Kahlan a huge favor. “You can help me clean your leathers, if you like, though I can’t imagine—“
“Sounds like fun,” Kahlan said, daringly brushing some of the sand from Cara’s ass.
Cara rolled her eyes. If Kahlan didn’t kill her as an enemy, she certainly would as a friend.
***
Their hair still wet from recovering the soap, they met up with the men where they’d left the horses to graze. Cara kept glancing at Kahlan, on guard for any attempts at holding hands with her or resting her head on her shoulder.
If he noticed, Richard didn’t say anything. “Kahlan, if you ever do confess me, please order me to forget this ever happened.”
“We’ll see if you look as good when you reach a hundred and twenty-seven years of age, Richard!” Zedd replied.
“I’ll look great with clothes on. How about you, Kahlan? We heard shouting. Fish nip at you too?”
“Yes,” Cara said quickly. “They smelled terrible.”
Kahlan kicked at her.
“Glad to see you two have buried the hatchet,” Richard said, mounting his horse.
“Or buried the Agiel,” Cara replied.
Kahlan kept her head down, hiding her blush.
Zedd grunted disparagingly and Richard held the reins to Kahlan’s horse as she climbed up onto it. She kissed his cheeks in thanks, he made a surprised sort of sound, Cara rolled her eyes and then started riding.
The others followed, leaving the lake to settle like its waters had never been broken.
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 5,539
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Kahlan, Richard/Kahlan
Summary: Cara loves a challenge and Kahlan can’t be touched.
Kahlan had her doubts that Cara was human. The Mord’Sith never ate with the rest of them, saying she needed to stand watch, though she mostly just watched Kahlan eat in a way that made the Confessor feel like she was committing some vague sin. If she defecated, she never needed the others to pause while she found some bushes. She had sex, they were all too aware of that, but lots of things had sex. Kahlan was beginning to wonder if Cara was secretly a really horny gar when Cara said “I need to bathe.”
Everyone stopped. If they were anything like Kahlan, they were wondering if Cara had stepped in something that would kill her if she didn’t bathe immediately.
Realizing that her companions wouldn’t just go along with what she’d said for expediency’s sake, Cara gave a long-suffering sigh and said “My leather is enchanted to neutralize my scent.”
“Making you a more effective assassin,” Zedd rattled.
“And it smells nicer,” Richard said defensively, while Cara just nodded to Zedd’s initial response.
“But magic can only do so much, and skintight leather doesn’t exactly breathe while you’re fighting the forces of the Keeper. Thus, I need to bathe. And have my leathers washed.”
“Right now?” Kahlan asked, in the tone she used to repeat things like ‘a dragon killed your neighbor with your knife?’ or ‘that sheep came on to you?’
“Unless you want to ride upwind of me to the Stone of Tears.”
Kahlan fisted her hands on her hips, her fearsome expression undercut by Richard saying, diplomatically enough, “We’re all starting to smell. There’s a lake over the next hill, we can stop there.”
Kahlan’s face fell at another concession being made to the (admittedly ripe) Mord’Sith. Sometimes she felt like Richard would let Cara ride him like a pony if she asked. Then she pictured Cara riding Richard like a pony and quickly thought of something else.
***
Richard had found the lake by the trails of animals using it as a watering hole. The animals had good taste. Wisps of fog hung over it like frosting on a pastry. They gave the water a thick lather, and the other shore was only visible in glints. The water, where it was visible, looked cool and inviting, as clear as crystal with sandy shores and nary a ripple between them.
Kahlan didn’t notice. “I’m not bathing with her.”
“Kahlan, it’s too dangerous to be alone and you know it. Trust me, I’m getting the raw end of the deal,” Richard said.
Nearby, Zedd was gearing up for a running leap into the water. He didn’t let the presence of a woman impose any modesty on him.
Kahlan conceded the point when the wizard ran past them. “If Cara drowns me, I’m coming back as a Baneling to say I told you so.”
Richard laughed as he began to undress.
Kahlan slowed down as she walked to the women’s side of the lake.
Neither of them suggested bathing with each other.
***
In a lagoon of dogtails and mouse-reeds (as Richard had named them), Cara was waiting for Kahlan with statue stillness, looking like a doll that’d been soaked in blood then left to dry in an unblinking sun. Kahlan felt a flash of unfair irritation. Cara hadn’t even started? Did she want them to be sitting, naked ducks when the sun went down?
“Finally,” Cara said, with the same indignation Kahlan was trying not to indulge. “I was beginning to think you were rolling around in the mud like a child before bathtime.”
Kahlan’s face flushed, both with anger and the memory of what she had been doing. It involved a very concealing bush, and Richard’s very good backstroke. But she refused to be baited. She reminded herself that deep down, Cara was a scared little girl who’d never learned how to interact with people who weren’t pain-loving assassins. “Can we just get this over with?”
“Certainly.” Cara turned her back on Kahlan. “Undress me.”
“I will not!”
Cara looked over her shoulder. She had the self-aggrandized look of a Mord’Sith who’d failed at her chosen mission. “I’m sorry. Please undress me.”
Scared little girl, Kahlan reminded herself. “Cara,” she said in an exasperated tone usually reserved for small children and dogs which hadn’t been housebroken. “I’m not your servant. You’re no longer leader of the Mord’Sith. You’ll have to do this yourself.”
“I can’t, Mother Confessor.” Cara said the title like she wanted it to end with another word. “My clothes aren’t designed that way. We’re not supposed to be on our own. In the Mord’Sith, I had slaves, lovers… sometimes both in the same skin.” She greeted the memory with a fierce smile. It died quickly. “Now, all I have is you. Unless you’d like me to ask Richard for help.”
Kahlan kept her face resolute, not showing how the thought infuriated her. How intriguing it was. “You owe me one,” she said simply, and made a gesture that was one part ‘turn around’ and one part ‘let’s get this over with.’
Cara busied herself with the lacing on her limbs. The process disturbed Kahlan, reminded her too much of a man who had slit his wrists rather than face her touch, his veins slicking out much as the laces that had constrained Cara’s gloves now did. Kahlan couldn’t hold that thought as a glove came off and Cara’s fingers were revealed. They were long and slender, the kind of fingers Kahlan wished for when she touched herself, and just as Kahlan wondered where the fabled Confessor control was she felt her magic trill and had to close her eyes to restore it to its proper place.
“Mother Confessor?” Cara said, and Kahlan could’ve become addicted to the haughty tone Cara affected when she said the title, respectful but not in a fawning way, in a ‘we are two of a kind and that makes us dangerous’ way.
Kahlan found her center and opened her eyes. “Where do I start?”
Kahlan could hear but not see Cara’s smirk. “My collar. Unbuckle it, then undo the laces.”
She was probably referring to the neck guard that topped her uniform. Kahlan reached out with steady hands, even for her, and snapped the buckles one by one. Cara’s bare hand flexed as Kahlan started on the laces. As Kahlan undid them, she couldn’t help but notice that Cara had finished with her sleeves, unbinding her arms. They were rippled columns of muscle, thickening at the bicep like tree trunks. A bruise ran down the forearm and Kahlan’s heart panged unexpectedly. She hadn’t even noticed Cara had taken a hit. When had it happened?
“Now lift,” Cara said, and Kahlan realized she had finished with the collar. She held it up and Cara stepped out of it. “Thank you, Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan reached for the leg holster which held Cara’s Agiels and started when the Mord’Sith whirled away from her, hand automatically dropping to her weapon. Kahlan did the same, grabbing her dagger. There was a tense moment as they eyed each other.
Richard’s high-pitched scream broke the tension. They were in the first steps of their run when he shouted sheepishly “There are fish! Just so you know!”
They relaxed. Kahlan put her dagger away and Cara did the same with her Agiel.
“No one touches them but me,” Cara said. She sat down to tug off her boots.
Kahlan stood there, feeling a fool. “What next?”
“The lacing on my back. It starts at the neck. Undo it to my ribs.”
That was all Kahlan could undo. There, it disappeared into Cara’s corset, a heavy piece of leather armor that further reinforced the Mord’Sith’s vulnerable organs. Cara took it off herself, popping the buckles with practiced ease now that her hands were bare. With it gone, Kahlan could see that the back lacing continued all the way down over Cara’s shapely ass.
She started down as Cara loosened the laces at her thighs. Then she heard Cara’s belts crack open and whisper out of their loops. Cara’s back was being exposed like an artist was painting over an old picture, replacing the harsh leather with smooth, luscious skin. Kahlan could just begin to see the swell of her ass, exposed by her own hand, when Cara stood up and shimmied out of what was left of the leather with all the modesty of a snake shedding its skin.
Cara’s body was beautiful for a weapon. There were a minimum of scars, owing to the great skill Kahlan had witnessed for herself in battle, and her muscles were perfectly proportioned to her slender frame, making her look like she had been sculpted rather than grown up. Or perhaps carved, out of some sharp and poisoned metal that was finally heated enough to be polished into something beautiful. More than that was the musk. It wasn’t just sweat. It was blood and sex and violence, all the things that a Confessor trafficked in while remaining above them. But Cara wasn’t above them. She swallowed in brutality and eroticism, mixed them together into a potent wine.
“You have strong hands,” Cara said with a distinct purr. “You would’ve made a good Mord’Sith.” She faced Kahlan. “It must be easier to get out of that dress with help. And I do owe you one.”
Kahlan blushed fiercely, trying to keep her eyes off Cara’s compact muscles, her surprisingly full breasts. After the business with the Agiels, she didn’t want to ruin an overture from Cara. “The lacing on my back. It’s a little hard to reach. I usually just undo the front.”
“I’ve noticed,” Cara said with a delicately raised eyebrow.
She spun Kahlan around and began to efficiently demolish the laces at back of Kahlan’s dress. Kahlan ignored the manhandling to loosen the laces at her cleavage, then gasped when Cara pulled her dress down off her like she was pulling a tablecloth away for cleaning. Despite the fact that she still had her bodice and breeches on, Kahlan crossed her arms to cover herself.
“You have a magnificent body,” Cara noted. “It’s no wonder that the Lord Rahl wishes to mate with you.”
Kahlan started for the lake. “The water’s not getting any warmer, you know.”
“That was a compliment. Do you not feel flattered?”
“Yes, that was very kind of you.” Kahlan stopped, looking down at her boots as they sunk into the mud.
“And do you intend to wash your clothes while you’re still in them?” Cara asked, sounding genuinely curious.
Kahlan simmered so hotly she thought the lake would boil.
“I said I would help you and I will. Unless you’d rather have Richard do it.”
Kahlan admitted defeat. “Fine. Just take it slow this time?”
“Funny. I usually hear that from men.”
Cara was brisk in undoing the bodice, but not mechanical. There was little warmth to her touch, but if Kahlan had wanted that, Richard was right across the lake. She shivered. Her open bodice had let in a sudden breeze. Cara rubbed some warmth into her back before pulling the bodice away, as delicate as a schoolgirl plucking flower petals.
“Need any help with your breeches?” Cara asked. Her tone insinuated something, a pleasure for one of them in that act. Or perhaps they would both enjoy it, was that what she was implying? Offering?
“I can handle it.” Kahlan loosed her belt, didn’t take it off before she wiggled out of her breeches. Cara’s eyes followed them all the way down. “Must you look at me?”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen in a mirror.” Cara didn’t stop looking at Kahlan, but she did shift her gaze to the brunette’s eyes. “Except for that scar.”
The arrow in Kahlan’s leg had left a memento, a vivid scar on her thigh. It was red as a Mord’Sith’s leathers.
“Does it hurt?” Cara continued, a note of yearning in her voice.
“No. But it tingles occasionally,” she mollified.
“I’m glad it doesn’t hurt,” Cara said neutrally. She walked past Kahlan, into the water.
Kahlan grabbed up a bar of pink soap and followed her in. They only had one, so Kahlan gave Cara the first shot while she splashed around, enjoying the chance to luxuriate in the cool water after a hard day of riding. Cara didn’t seem one to like swimming unless there was someone to kill or fuck on the other shore, so it seemed rude to make Cara wait for her to finish. Besides, the thought of Cara floating beside her, watching with that raptor gaze as she cleansed herself, made Kahlan tense like she’d gotten too close to a fire.
“You are very beautiful,” Cara said, and the flame leapt up to consume Kahlan. The Mord’Sith was washing herself with slow caresses of the soap over her skin, and her eyes clung to Kahlan like the water she was swimming through. The water clear enough to display Kahlan like a picture frame. “We both are, yes, but I’ve always been an admirer of your species of beauty. So soft, delicious really, but on the inside, enough steel and fire to make you more interesting than just another sweet face.” The soap dipped lower, losing itself in the ripples of the water, merging with Cara’s deadly body. “We’re not so different, stripped bare. It’s why you would have me be more like you, while I’d settle for merely having you.”
Kahlan couldn’t have drawn less breath if she were on the bottom of the lake. “Are you going to seduce me?”
“That’s your choice. I’ve made mine.” Cara swam closer. Gentle, sultry strokes that barely creased the water. “Turn around. I’ll do your back. You can think about it.”
The slippery touch of the soap, as wielded by Cara, was worlds away from Richard. In their moments together, stolen from the Spirits, Richard was more than gentle, he was a beggar, a missionary. He had coaxed pleasure from her, cajoling her moans and sighs.
Cara browbeat her into ecstasy, demanding her enjoyment, forcing her desire to the surface like a Confessor spelled love. Beneath the temperance of washing her, Cara was rough and fast. Her only affection was that she didn’t go faster.
“I… we can’t…” Kahlan sputtered, reminding herself She’s a Mord’Sith, she’d kill me as soon as look at me if her Lord Rahl ordered it.
But, no. Cara had helped kill Darken Rahl. She had a mind of her own. Kahlan just didn’t know what was going on in there.
“You have needs, Kahlan. Needs that many could capitalize on. If you were distracted, lost control, then your prudishness could doom the world. That strikes me as embarrassing. Get your love from Richard and your pleasure from me. A simple choice for the Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan looked down to see how Cara was tending the fire through her body and gasped. Soap suds covered her like a second skin. “Is that why you’re doing this? To protect the Lord Rahl from me ‘losing control’?”
Cara hid the soap between Kahlan’s legs, finally touching her where she needed it most. “I don’t need an excuse to enjoy myself. But killing two birds with one stone means there’s more to eat.” The soap moved deeper, rubbed harder. “Are you hungry, Mother Confessor?”
Starving.
The water churned with how fast Kahlan whirled around, and Cara’s eyes betrayed shock as she was claimed, put about new business like a sword beat into a plowshare. Soap-slick bodies clasped together, spreading the suds as they groped and rubbed, a perverse kind of cleanliness. Kahlan had an impression of Cara’s smile, her widest yet, and then the inkling of a gratified rush to the blonde’s breathing, like she was scenting perfume after nothing but sulfur. Their mouths met, more teeth than lips, and Kahlan tasted blood. Cara’s.
“Patience, Mother Confessor,” Cara chided. “We wouldn’t want you to get dirty again so soon after your bath.”
“Don’t you want me to lose control? Cleanse myself of all my urges?” Kahlan spoke in a husky tone, a half-hearted parody of Cara’s seduction.
Cara licked the blood from her lips. “Even without my Agiel, I’m still Mord’Sith. I’d break you.”
Kahlan’s eyes were darker than they’d been a moment ago. “Try me.”
Cara kissed her then, forcing the taste of blood into her mouth. The bar of soap dropped to the bottom of the lake like one more discarded garment, Cara’s hands replacing it with shameless efficiency. Cara’s feet touched down on the lakebed and she hoisted the floating Kahlan, holding her in place with one arm supporting her back and the other gripping her throat. Kahlan looked down at the hand around her throat and let the magic surface just enough to turn her eyes black.
“Sorry,” Cara said unapologetically. Her hand swept down Kahlan’s body. “Force of habit.”
They moved at the same time, with the same thought. Cara’s hand locked between Kahlan’s legs, squeezing as hard as she ever held an Agiel, and the pressure of her rough palm on Kahlan’s clit was divine after so many months without respite. Kahlan dragged her hand through Cara’s hair, forcing their lips together again and again. Any misgivings flickered and faded. The pleasure of it was glorious, no worry, no niggling doubts, just temptation fulfilled.
Kahlan groaned as the heel of Cara’s hand pressed down harder, assaulting her with sharp, harsh ecstasy. Her body rebelled; hips bucking, she writhed in Cara’s strange embrace. Cara laughed, harsh and loud, and Kahlan was about to hush her lest the others hear, lest Richard hear, when Cara’s fingers went inside.
Kahlan threw her head back, making a beautifully undignified noise from somewhere deep in her chest, and the back of her skull slapped the water. Cara laughed louder, added another finger. It was the happiest Kahlan had ever seen her outside of battle.
Kahlan felt an orgasm flare within her, like the ones she’d given herself only so much bigger and louder, a bomb that would explode the walls she’d spent years building. “Cara, stop!” she ordered, just barely coherent.
Cara paused. Her pistoning fingers stayed in Kahlan’s cunt, an aching reminder of the past few minutes. “You may be the Mother Confessor, but I am a Mord’Sith. You can’t control me.”
“Please,” Kahlan added, somewhat irrationally. “I’m about to… go.” Cara smiled at that. “You’ll die.”
“I love a challenge,” Cara replied, and her fingers curled.
Kahlan moaned as Cara carried her out into the water like a husband with his blushing bride. Her fingers worried at Kahlan, a chisel at her walls, pinching her clit, keeping her on a plateau of almost-not-quite-more. Her gasps were getting louder.
“It’s such an amazing sound, hearing you get fucked. You like that, don’t you, my dear?” Cara mocked, but with some perverse fondness behind it as she carried Kahlan deeper into the water. “What a curse to have to be in control all the time. What a curse to always have to look after others’ needs instead of your own.”
For a moment, Kahlan didn’t know who she was talking about, and she felt an unexpected sympathy for Cara, this strange woman who could see sex as both a favor to a friend and a contest for dominance. Cara gave her a deep, yearning kiss and released her. For a moment, they floated there, the mist swirling around them like veils cutting them off from the world. Kahlan catching her breath and Cara implacable, watching the Confessor like she was categorizing everything she had done to her and thinking of what was left.
Kahlan finally closed her eyes, unable to look at Cara’s naked form, her half-smile, without the fantasy playing out in her body. When she opened them, Cara was still there.
“Thank you for that,” Kahlan said consolingly. “It was very good of you.”
“We’re not done yet,” Cara said, simply. She didn’t follow that up with any action, she just kept looking at Kahlan, seeking something. Then she slipped down into the water with barely a ripple, to be replaced by the haze of the mists.
Kahlan looked down in the water, trying to see her, but the lake had become frustratingly opaque, reflecting the mists that roiled overhead. It was like she was suspended in space with her dying arousal as her only companion. Then she felt lips kiss her stomach, as intimately as Richard ever had.
“Oh!” Kahlan exclaimed, a simple little noise that she’d never recalled making before. The lips touched the scar on her treading leg, possessively. “Cara…”
That was all the warning she received. Cara’s lips touched her folds, kissing her there for long, delicious seconds. Kahlan felt herself convulse, the water splashing around her as she tried to stay afloat. Then Cara took hold of her legs and spread them forcibly. Kahlan windmilled her arms desperately to keep from sinking, even as Cara’s tongue swiped at her clit, making her sob for relief.
Cara surfaced, even more alluring with sparkling droplets catching Kahlan’s eyes, dragging them down to watch the drops of water roll over her body. Kahlan thought she would have a moment to regain her equilibrium, but Cara was insatiable. She devoured Kahlan’s lips, her fingers thrust into Kahlan. Kahlan tasted herself on Cara’s tongue, the salt in the freshwater lake.
“Please, Cara, please!” Kahlan begged, as Cara bit at her neck, her shoulder, leaving marks like an artist signing her work.
“I know what you want,” Cara replied, but Kahlan had no idea whether she wanted Cara to keep going or stop. It was dangerous, so dangerous, she was right on the edge, her eyes entirely black save for a thin ring of white by her eyelids. “But what I want is for you to come like the horny little animal you are.”
She slipped under the water again. Kahlan faced herself, ferociously trying to bring her magic back under control as Cara physically picked her up and lifted her out of the water, her legs on Cara’s shoulders like a picture in a sex scroll. The water was now at her waist, and her nipples hardened as the breeze hit them. But under the water, Cara’s tongue was making her body warm and perfect.
Wetly dark hair floated between Kahlan’s spread legs. Kahlan grabbed it in both hands and pulled, still not sure what she was trying to get Cara to do, push her over the edge or let her draw back, but she was so close and she couldn’t stand it. Kahlan howled, head back, hands fisted, and lost her balance. She splashed into the water, taking a gulp before Cara dragged her out. Focusing all her willpower on keeping her magic under control, Kahlan felt herself being thrown over Cara’s shoulder and carried through the water. Her orgasm submerged again and Kahlan realized she wanted it, needed it, at Cara’s hand or Richard’s or her own.
Cara set her down in the sand, not gently, and then bent over her so Kahlan had to look up to see her. “Command me, Confessor,” she said with the deepest sarcasm.
Kahlan stared at her, out of breath. “Do it. Do it to me.” They were the only words she could think of.
Cara dropped to her knees, coming intoxicatingly closer to Kahlan. The Confessor still couldn’t catch her breath. “Return the favor, Mother Confessor. Haven’t I shown you respect?”
Kahlan couldn’t muster up the will to care about such a game. “Please, Mistress Cara.” The words were surprisingly sweet out of her throat, even to her, like the sound of the wrapper coming off a piece of chocolate. “Finish it.”
“Mmm.” Cara ran a hand over Kahlan’s body, from lips to legs. Her thoughts were written all over her face: Mine. “You were right. It is fun to make new friends.” Then she lowered herself onto Kahlan, like an animal moving down on its kill, her thigh on Kahlan’s core, that perfect blissful pressure setting Kahlan on fire again, and her wicked lips at Kahlan’s ear, arousing her as fiercely as any kiss. “You taste very nice, Kahlan. Did you know?”
It was the same tone she used to pay her little compliments earlier, and it turned Kahlan on almost as much as the leg flexing against her cunt. She was screaming now, not caring who heard, scratching at Cara and that only made the Mord’Sith fuck her harder, but not too hard, always teetering on the brink of losing control, an orgasm that had grown and grown inside her until she thought that if it arrived, it would consume her utterly, just like her magic did to others. But Cara wasn’t afraid, Cara was laughing as her fingers and her tongue and her evil, evil voice did things to Kahlan that took hold of her and made her into someone else, someone who writhed and squirmed and whimpered and had never even heard of control.
“Could you do me a favor, Mother Confessor?” Cara asked, hovering above Kahlan, feeling the brunette’s hot, panting breath break across her face, stir her wet hair. “I want you to remember this. Every time you look at me, I want you to remember that I did this to you. I want you to remember that my proper title is Mistress Cara of the Mord’Sith. I want you to remember you begged me for this.”
“I’m coming, Cara!” Kahlan said it beatifically, like she was reporting something wonderful she’d seen. “I’m coming!”
“No, you’re not. I haven’t said you could.”
Kahlan stiffened just from the sight of Cara bending over her, the wet slackness of her hair falling over Kahlan’s hips. Then she gasped as Cara’s tongue laved over her inner thigh, and then Cara was sucking hungrily at her moist labia. The Mord’Sith studiously avoided Kahlan’s clit, refusing to quell the hottest of the fires that were burning Kahlan up. Kahlan tried to grab Cara’s hair, force her to put her tongue at the exact spot it would break through all Kahlan’s defenses, but Cara grabbed both her hands and twisted them painfully, making Kahlan take a step back from the cusp of orgasm where she’d been balancing for as long as she could remember.
Kahlan pulled free as the torture continued, though Cara kept her left hand in a vice-like grip, the only place they were touching aside from down there. Kahlan tried to grab onto something else, rip her own clothes, pull up some grass, but all she could do was scoop up the sand and feel it run through her fingers. Her world had narrowed to Cara and the hot, acidic need that was reducing her, moment by moment, to a white-out of bliss. Her flushed face tensed, teeth coming together hard, trying to hold in a scream as Cara ran her tongue over her folds and just barely nudged her clit. Her hand white-knuckled with Cara’s and her other hand slammed down in the sand.
Cara pulled herself away from Kahlan, her hand leaving Kahlan’s clutching air, her lips absurdly shiny on her now-dry face, dripping with Kahlan’s copious fluids.
Kahlan felt like she was being pulled and stretched and opened in every different direction. She looked down at Cara, not able to tell if she was goddess or devil. “Fuck me, Mistress Cara,” she pleaded in a ragged voice.
“Yes. You’re ready,” Cara said, her voice cracking just a little, displaying just the tiniest hint of the lust that must’ve been raging inside her.
In one smooth motion, almost as if she’d practiced for it, she picked up her Agiel from nearby and touched it to Kahlan’s clit.
It was either the greatest suffering of Kahlan’s life or the best thing she’d ever felt. She strained off the ground so hard she could’ve sworn she was floating, held up on feet and shoulders she couldn’t even feel. Her muscles knotted themselves up like she was lifting an impossible weight, while something hot and wet cascaded out of her. It was like her orgasm had seized control of her entire body, making it convulse and dance to the tune of the pleasure that rippled through her. She was, on some level, aware that her hips were thrashing, her voluminous breasts shaking wildly, that she was screaming herself hoarse, and that Cara was watching her. She managed to see Cara lowering the Agiel to her own lap before whatever strings held the Mother Confessor up were cut. She felt the sand splash under her, gripping her wet flesh, then she stopped screaming.
Slowly, she became cognizant of Cara laying down beside her, breathing with forced control, her breasts rising and falling to a meticulous rhythm.
Kahlan broke the silence first. Something in her needed to know what Cara was thinking. “I think I’m still coming…" she sighed.
Cara’s reply was tonelessly guarded as usual, with her even more usual edge of sarcasm. “In certain circumstances, pain and pleasure can overlap considerably. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to distinguish them. I’m not the great love of your life either. I’m sure we can blame a recent lack of stimuli for you coming like a street whore…”
“You don’t have to do that,” Kahlan said, turning onto her side, facing Cara.
Cara let her head loll to the side, returning Kahlan’s gaze. “Is the Mother Confessor offended by my wicked tongue?” she asked with a leer.
“I mean push people away. You’re one of us. You don’t have to make yourself an outsider.”
“I am an outsider, Mother Confessor,” Cara replied. She stood up, the sand clinging to her body like armor. She considered that the end of the exchange, which meant she was surprised when Kahlan laid a hand on her shoulder. It was gentle, not firm at all, she could’ve dislodged it by merely shrugging. Maybe that was why she didn’t.
“You don’t have to call me that,” Kahlan said, surprising herself a little. “Please, call me Kahlan.”
“I can understand Richard’s reluctance to be called the Lord Rahl… his predecessor was a brutal man, even to those who served him… but you are the Mother Confessor.”
“No. The Mother Confessor is what I do. Kahlan is who I am. I’d like it if I could teach you the difference.”
Cara got the inference. “Mistress Cara is who I am and what I am. There is nothing else to know.”
“You didn’t have to do that. I know you enjoyed it, I know you made a point, but you also helped me take my dress off.” Kahlan smiled. “And you asked for my help with your leathers. You could have just asked Richard. Or Zedd. You asked me.”
“If you want me to fuck you again, you just have to ask. You don’t have to sweet-talk me like a silly little virgin.”
Kahlan stepped closer. Gently she began to brush the sand off Cara’s body. There was an obvious eroticism to her touch, but more than that, it was comforting, natural. Like Kahlan was combing a friend’s hair. Cara shuddered at the touch, finding it slightly harder to breathe with Kahlan touching her so intimately, then she reached out and cleared some sand off of Kahlan’s shoulder.
Kahlan smiled at her nicely. “If you want to be friends, I’ll be here for you.”
Cara exactingly cleared her shoulder of sand, then looked at her suspiciously. “Do we have to hug?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“Cuddle?”
“No.”
“Does this preclude having sex?”
“Certainly not.”
“Fine. I’ll be your friend,” Cara said, as if she were doing Kahlan a huge favor. “You can help me clean your leathers, if you like, though I can’t imagine—“
“Sounds like fun,” Kahlan said, daringly brushing some of the sand from Cara’s ass.
Cara rolled her eyes. If Kahlan didn’t kill her as an enemy, she certainly would as a friend.
***
Their hair still wet from recovering the soap, they met up with the men where they’d left the horses to graze. Cara kept glancing at Kahlan, on guard for any attempts at holding hands with her or resting her head on her shoulder.
If he noticed, Richard didn’t say anything. “Kahlan, if you ever do confess me, please order me to forget this ever happened.”
“We’ll see if you look as good when you reach a hundred and twenty-seven years of age, Richard!” Zedd replied.
“I’ll look great with clothes on. How about you, Kahlan? We heard shouting. Fish nip at you too?”
“Yes,” Cara said quickly. “They smelled terrible.”
Kahlan kicked at her.
“Glad to see you two have buried the hatchet,” Richard said, mounting his horse.
“Or buried the Agiel,” Cara replied.
Kahlan kept her head down, hiding her blush.
Zedd grunted disparagingly and Richard held the reins to Kahlan’s horse as she climbed up onto it. She kissed his cheeks in thanks, he made a surprised sort of sound, Cara rolled her eyes and then started riding.
The others followed, leaving the lake to settle like its waters had never been broken.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 06:01 pm (UTC)Oh sweet...wow. Just wow. My speech capacity is not working very well right now, so ... wow.
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Date: 2009-12-11 06:28 pm (UTC)Totally AWESOME!!!
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Date: 2009-12-11 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 09:14 pm (UTC)Seriously, fantastic! Thanks for sharing! ^_^
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Date: 2009-12-11 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 01:01 pm (UTC)LOVED it when Richard screamed because of the fish and then tried to cover it XDDD
It was blood and sex and violence, all the things that a Confessor trafficked in while remaining above them. But Cara wasn’t above them. She swallowed in brutality and eroticism, mixed them together into a potent wine.
Fantastically put, wow.
Kahlan simmered so hotly she thought the lake would boil.
Haa!!
HOT.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 04:47 pm (UTC)And you have to admit, if the show didn't want me to think about Cara manhandling Kahlan, they probably shouldn't have had her carry her around like a caveman dragging someone back to his hut :)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 02:22 am (UTC)Absolutely amazing. Incredibly hot and sexy but actually also very sweet and tender. The characters were dead-on too.
Quite probably the best Cara/Kahlan fic I've read.
Thank you!
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Date: 2009-12-13 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-15 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 01:35 am (UTC)Are there be more to come? (no pun intended) I hope so.
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Date: 2010-04-14 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-02 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-12 08:54 pm (UTC)