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seriousficI was kinda worried when I wrote the last part that people would go "What, are you HIGH, Kahlan would never do that to Cara!" And instead they went "Yeah, Richard and Kahlan treat Cara like shit, poor bb!" I will never again underestimate the power of the woobie.
Title: Choose me
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,407
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Kahlan, Richard/Kahlan
Previous: Part 1
Summary: Before Kahlan can tell Cara how she feels, she has to find out for herself.
Kahlan returned to her room a drained woman. Richard was still in bed. Seeing her expression, he sat up and reached for his sword. As if this trouble could be dispelled with a sword stroke. "What is it?"
"Cara," Kahlan said. "She's in love with me."
"What?" Richard had never looked more baffled. "As more than a friend?"
Kahlan nodded and sagged against the wall, denying herself the comfort of Richard's touch. "It makes a cruel kind of sense. We've been close in the past few months. I thought it was just that I was her only real friend, but there was a reason she ignored you and Zedd. I was just too blind to see it."
Richard nodded, visibly fitting the information into his worldview. But as naïve as he could be at times, he knew people, and he knew Kahlan best of all. "And how do you feel about her?"
The notion was absurd. "I love you."
"I know," Richard said guilelessly. "But how do you feel about Cara?"
Kahlan couldn't answer. Richard was asking her to be honest with him, with herself, and she couldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand. It was true she worried for Cara, no matter how well the Mord'Sith could take care of herself, and as impossible as it sounded, Kahlan even enjoyed her company. But that didn't mean anything more than friendship. Only… with Cara mad at her, she felt as lonely as she ever had separated from Richard, even though her lover was in the same room as her. It was as if Cara were the wind on a hot day-—out of mind until she stopped, and the world turned dry and arid.
Richard completed her thoughts even as she reached them. "Kahlan, I love you. As long as I have you, I don't need to even look at another woman. But the day after we first made love, you wanted another person in your bed. I don't think that's because of sex. I think it's because of Cara."
Kahlan didn't know quite what to say about that. There was more truth there than she'd care to admit, but as to how much… all she could think of was Richard looking at her like Cara had, hurt and betrayed. "Richard, I would never do anything to hurt you."
Richard rolled out of bed to take her hands, kissing each in turn. "Dear, you're the Mother Confessor. I'm used to the idea of sharing you with the entire Midlands. I like Cara a lot more than the Midlands. If you're happy, and she's happy, than I'm happy."
Kahlan smiled a little. "You deserve so much better than me."
"There's no such thing."
***
Cara hadn't gone far. She had taken over a whole inn, a stream of evicted patrons leading right to her. Kahlan walked right through the warnings of the city guard, who had cordoned off the area, to find Cara at the bar with an impressive array of bottles, full and empty, lined up in front of her.
Kahlan sat down at a different table from Cara, a respectful distance between them, and hated the way Cara stiffened anyway. "I wish to speak with you."
Cara poured herself another drink and tossed it back as Kahlan tried to think of something else to say.
"I'm sorry," Kahlan said finally. Cara poured more liquor from the bottle, dousing the bar liberally. "I didn't consider your feelings… I didn't even consider my feelings. I do care for you, Cara, you must know that!"
"No, I mustn't," Care replied, her voice tightly controlled but still slipshod, tumbling over syllables. "I'm jes' your pet Mord'Sis freak that doesn't know anything about people 'cept how t' hurt them or get 'em off."
Kahlan blinked. "Cara, are you drunk?"
"You're drunk!" Cara shot back, now openly slurring her words. She poured another drink into her full glass and drank it. "Lemme alone…"
"Cara, I think maybe… I just didn't let myself see how you felt about me. Because then I would have to see how I feel about you."
Cara guzzled the rest of the liquor from the bottle, cutting Kahlan off. "Feelin's… ya know what I hate about feelin's? They're all… touchy-feely."
Kahlan snatched the bottle from her, having to wrench it from her grasp, knocking over another few bottles in the process. They smashed on the floor and the sound must've triggered some instinct in Cara, because she went for her Agiels. But all the drink had dulled her Mord'Sith reserve; touching the Agiel made her cry out in pain, almost falling over when Kahlan caught her. They went down together, lying side by side on the weathered floorboards. Cara buried her face in the wood.
"Cara, I love you," Kahlan said, rubbing Cara's arm. "I swear I love you. I'm so, so sorry that I didn't tell you like you deserved to be told."
"Flowers and dancin' an' telling me how beauuuutiful I am," Cara muttered. She rolled over onto her back. Tears weren't streaming down her cheeks, but they were stillborn in her eyes, straining her voice. "You have Richard. You don't need me."
Kahlan got her arms around Cara and trying to convey in pressure and warmth what words couldn't. Cara always had been better at communicating on the level of blood and bone. "I do need you. When I was with Richard, I felt something missing. Then when I woke up, the first thing I thought of was you. I think my heart was trying to tell me something my head wasn't ready to hear. What's your heart telling you?"
Cara didn't say anything, so Kahlan just held her. Cara's body was shaking with the hitched breathing of sobs, even though she wasn't crying. She didn't get it under control, it just seemed to subsume on its own, like a poison that Cara wholly breathed out. Kahlan petted her back and felt Cara inch closer, angling into the contact at a subconscious level.
She'd done this for Richard, when he'd been broken by Denna, and he'd done it for her, when she'd watched friends die. But she'd never thought Cara might need this, or even want it. It was good to give it to her. For long minutes they laid like that, in each others' arms. Cara's arms weren't tightly bound around Kahlan like Kahlan's were around her, but Kahlan had the feeling that Cara would cling to her if she tried to get up.
Kahlan wasn't going anywhere.
She felt herself drifting to sleep on the floor of the inn. Being so close to Cara was as comforting as any bed, and she hadn't gotten much sleep with Richard, back when there was only one person in her life she loved. Her caressing of Cara's spine slowed, and finally stopped, while her head rested on Cara's arm. It was surprising how cozy leather could be.
She awoke to a bright sunbeam hitting her in the eyes. She covered her eyes with her arm, then shot up as she realized Cara wasn't lying across her arm anymore. A moment's frenetic searching found Cara leaning against the stairs, in position, waiting to defend her.
Kahlan sat up, eyeing Cara for any sign of emotion. But Cara had her armor back on, with nothing so much as a hangover visible past her Mord'Sith control. "Richard came by," Cara said. "He paid the innkeeper for our use of the tavern. I believe the blanket was his idea as well."
Kahlan looked down to see a snug blanket over her legs, one big enough to cover both women, at least until Cara had gotten up. She took it with her as she stood up, clutching it as lovingly as she would Richard. "Where is he?"
"He thought we needed to be alone," Cara said, her voice hinting at disdain. "Now he's giving a speech about peace and love somewhere. He also left some soup in the cauldron."
Kahlan looked over to the fireplace, where the last flickering embers did their best to heat the cauldron. She neatly folded up the blanket, then got a bowl from behind the bar and filled it with soup. It was warm enough, and smelled delicious. She brought it to Cara, whose body language was raging with the desire not to let one more word past her lips or admit another sentence into her ears.
Cara stared at the offering as Kahlan sat nearby, as quiet as her. Her lips worked noiselessly for but a moment, then she turned to Kahlan. Kahlan met her gaze with some surprise. She stared, stricken, and watched Cara force herself out of the comfort of her control, putting care into each word like someone speaking their first sentence in a foreign language. "My heart spoke to me."
Kahlan remembered her question the other night, her admission that something was missing. She wondered what Cara was missing. She wondered if she could give it to her. "What did it say?"
"That you, and Richard, are worth getting hurt over."
Mindful of the last time they'd kissed, Kahlan took Cara's gloved hand and raised it to her lips, kissing it, trying to imbue the simple gesture with all the longing she had for Cara. Cara fisted that hand in Kahlan's hair and pulled her in close. When they kissed, Kahlan felt more than the longing she had before, she felt Cara's happiness, her relief, something close to giddiness in how exuberant she was. It wasn't tightly controlled passion and it wasn't wild sex… it was a lake of all the feelings Cara kept hidden, one Kahlan was just starting to wade out into.
"The whole inn is ours," Cara said, no longer kissing Kahlan, just caressing her face, as if she couldn't bear to stop touching the Confessor. "There are beds upstairs."
"There's a carpet here," Kahlan retorted.
She kissed Cara again, and kept kissing her as the Mord'Sith undid her neck guard. It was her fingers that ripped it away from Cara, her lips that explored the subtle differences between the skin of her face and that which was hidden away by the leather.
"What next?" she asked against Cara's jugular, the blood pounding to the tune of her words. "How do I get these clothes off?"
"Start with…" Cara stumbled over her words. She couldn't find the right ones, couldn't fit them together. In a fit of desperation, she took Kahlan's hands and pulled them behind her neck, where the lacing began. "Just keep pulling."
"Tug-of-war?" Kahlan rose from Cara just enough for Cara to see her smile. "Lucky I've gotten used to that." Her fingers brushed against the nape of Cara's neck, warm and soft, as she began to take away Cara's leathers. "Would you like to kiss me, Cara?
Cara had no more problems with words. "Always."
Kahlan paused in unlacing Cara, now only tugging at the laces like she was playing with a marionette. "I'm right here."
Cara kissed every bit of Kahlan that had enthralled her, day after day. The curve of her jaw and the tug of her smile and the grace of her ear. She traced the paths Richard had taken and rediscovered everything he had found before blazing new ground, her teeth nipping at an erogenous zone that made Kahlan weak at the knees. She almost fell, but Cara caught her and bore her down to the carpet. The coals of the fireplace lent them a feverish heat, the occasional spark pinging off Cara's skin, urging her on.
She straddled Kahlan. The fall had made her uniform bunch, yawning open to expose the curve of her spine and hint of her shoulder blades. She was about to return to that erogenous zone, to see what further havoc she could wrack on Kahlan as she laid there with her hair spooled out to the four corners, when Kahlan stopped her.
"Your corset," she said, and Cara felt a little tug. Kahlan had gotten the lacing all the way down to her midsection, where it disappeared under yet another bit of armor.
Cara took Kahlan's hands and pushed them above her head, holding them against the brick of the fireplace as she kissed Kahlan. The heat of the fire made Kahlan's breath catch, made sweat tickle her skin. Cara kissed her again, again, until Kahlan's lips tingled like they'd taken a slap. It was something Cara could give her that Richard couldn't, something she needed as much as Richard's casual touches and open affection.
Cara rose up and guided those long, slender fingers to the three belts across her belly. Each one that Kahlan snapped open made Cara feel like they were lengths of rope binding her chest, being drawn tighter and tighter. When the corset finally yawned open, Kahlan ripped it away from Cara.
Cara ran her hands over Kahlan's body, wanting to rip her clothes away, to plunge her fingers deep inside, to leave welts that would last for days. But she couldn't. Not with Kahlan. She tried desperately to somehow get at the essence of Kahlan without pain, trying to feel it out by touch alone.
"Take off your gloves," Kahlan begged, before her voice lowered to a smoky whisper. "Save them for later."
Cara gave two deliberate tugs to the lacing on her arms, preparing to separate her sleeves from her gloves.
"No," Kahlan said, rearing up. "Let me."
Neither of them could resist another taste of each other with their lips within a foot of each other, but Kahlan had the control to pull herself away, only to bite down on Cara's forearm. Cara felt the sting of her teeth, even through the leather. Then Kahlan pulled away with the end of a lace gripped in her mouth, pulling on it so it spooled out of Cara's leathers. Cara could've growled at the sight of Kahlan getting further away, even as she stripped away another layer between their flesh. Kahlan ended up leaning against the bricks, her hair reflecting the firelight. She pulled on the lace with both hands, and with it having run through all the grommets, Cara felt a physical tug to go with the deep-seated need to be against Kahlan, on top of her, inside her.
She resisted, taking control where she found it. Cara pulled off her glove, letting Kahlan see her long callused fingers as she curled them in and out of a fist. When she spoke, her voice was low but even. "Your turn."
"My turn?"
"You've been in that dress for too long. You've been wearing white for too long." Cara let her voice drawl over the last sentence, insouciantly glancing down Kahlan's body.
Kahlan grinned, full of relief. It was good to have her friend back. It was good to be in love. "Blunt as always, Cara. How many times have I wanted to put a stopper on that mouth of yours?"
"You're close to getting your wish. I want the gown."
"You mean this gown?" Kahlan asked, running a finger over her cleavage, tugging at the fabric, letting her breasts fidget in their confinement. "You mean like this?" She untied the first lace strung over her breasts, giving them more room to quake with her unmistakably quickening breath.
Cara couldn't take any more. A need she hadn't been aware she carried with her had grown exponentially in the last few moments, fanned by its indulgence. Thinking of Kahlan this way led to more thoughts of her, led to actions, led to Kahlan. Everything led to Kahlan. Cara threw herself on top of her, knocking her away from the fireplace, but the friction of their bodies against each other was warmth enough.
She ripped the dress open along with the corset underneath, letting Kahlan's breasts bounce loose. They were exactly as Cara had imagined them, only more so. Even bigger than Cara would've thought, verging on excess, but still perfectly suited to Kahlan's physique, from the slight pinch of her waist to the thick muscle above it. Cara put her gloved hand to Kahlan's throat as her bare one trawled over Kahlan's back, feeling out each muscle and each scar. Heavenly.
"Take my glove off," she ordered, for the moment just feeling the warmth of Kahlan's breasts against her face.
Kahlan took her hand and pulled at the laces constraining it and Cara rewarded her with a gentle kiss over her rose-colored nipple. The more cool air she felt get into her sleeve, the more she treated Kahlan, switching to Kahlan's other breast and running her tongue around the areola, letting her tongue slip over the nipple every so often to see how it hardened. Kahlan groaned in pleased agony and worked faster. When she pulled the glove off, Cara took her nipple into her mouth and sucked hard, clamping down with her teeth and pulling hard enough to make Kahlan cry out in startlement.
"Oh, Cara…" Kahlan moaned a moment later, and just the sound of her name being spoken that way, with so much emphasis on each syllable that is was almost pornographic, was enough to shock Cara from Kahlan's breasts. She could've spent an hour just charting the best way to touch them, their weight and heft and warmth in her hands, but they weren't enough now. She needed Kahlan to say her name again.
And she needed something that wouldn't bruise Kahlan as she fucked her against it. Grabbing Kahlan by the scraps of her dress, Cara threw her over her shoulder. There was a padded bench nearby, leather cushioning gleaming in the sunlight. It was right under a window, and Kahlan belonged in the light.
Cara threw Kahlan down on it so she landed flat on her back, bouncing and giggling. Cara smiled too, as she threw Kahlan's skirt up so it was pooled over her belly, one great mass of half-discarded clothes clinging to Kahlan's midsection in a last-ditch attempt at modesty. Cara left them on. It just made her hotter, fucking Kahlan as she wore her Confessor's dress.
"I've waited so long for this," Cara said, as she tensed two of her fingers and thrust them into the Mother Confessor. It was almost as big a shock for her as it was for Kahlan. Kahlan was so wet, so hot, and there was so much of her, all around Cara's fingers. And the way her face lit up, her mouth forming a tight 'o' of surprise that soon became a smile, then her lips shooting open again as Cara dragged her fingers out and shoved them back in.
"Cara!" The single word was like the starting bell at a race. Cara pistoned her fingers into Kahlan, needing to see her face twitch with every barrage of pleasure and hear every little sound she made, right down to the small moist noise of her cunt around Cara's fingers.
For blissful minutes she plied her trade on Kahlan, using everything she knew of the human body to thank Kahlan for this, for returning her feelings, for deigning to love a Mord'Sith when she had a Seeker perfect and whole and not haunted by ghosts of the past. To show that she forgave her and to ask for forgiveness, for everything that had come before and all the time she'd wasted being pigheaded and lashing out. To show Kahlan that she loved her.
In the old days, Cara would've insisted that her lover do something for her as well, or have a third partner to pleasure her, or at least have the knowledge that everything she did would be returned to her later on. She didn't need that now. Kahlan could take everything Cara had to give and never touch her, and it would still be pleasure enough just to see her in rapture.
"Cara," Kahlan breathed. "Caaaaaraaa!"
Cara pushed in a third finger and watched Kahlan's head toss from side to side, her silky hair getting everywhere, crossing her face and running over her breasts and covering the cushion like a dark flood.
"My love," Cara replied, as Kahlan orgasmed.
It wasn't like with Richard. Not better or worse, just good. Just perfect.
"Kahlan," Cara said long minutes later, when she could bear to disturb her lover. "Could you ask Richard something, the next time you see him?"
"Certainly."
"Would he like to join us?"
Title: Choose me
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,407
Characters/Pairings: Cara/Kahlan, Richard/Kahlan
Previous: Part 1
Summary: Before Kahlan can tell Cara how she feels, she has to find out for herself.
Kahlan returned to her room a drained woman. Richard was still in bed. Seeing her expression, he sat up and reached for his sword. As if this trouble could be dispelled with a sword stroke. "What is it?"
"Cara," Kahlan said. "She's in love with me."
"What?" Richard had never looked more baffled. "As more than a friend?"
Kahlan nodded and sagged against the wall, denying herself the comfort of Richard's touch. "It makes a cruel kind of sense. We've been close in the past few months. I thought it was just that I was her only real friend, but there was a reason she ignored you and Zedd. I was just too blind to see it."
Richard nodded, visibly fitting the information into his worldview. But as naïve as he could be at times, he knew people, and he knew Kahlan best of all. "And how do you feel about her?"
The notion was absurd. "I love you."
"I know," Richard said guilelessly. "But how do you feel about Cara?"
Kahlan couldn't answer. Richard was asking her to be honest with him, with herself, and she couldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand. It was true she worried for Cara, no matter how well the Mord'Sith could take care of herself, and as impossible as it sounded, Kahlan even enjoyed her company. But that didn't mean anything more than friendship. Only… with Cara mad at her, she felt as lonely as she ever had separated from Richard, even though her lover was in the same room as her. It was as if Cara were the wind on a hot day-—out of mind until she stopped, and the world turned dry and arid.
Richard completed her thoughts even as she reached them. "Kahlan, I love you. As long as I have you, I don't need to even look at another woman. But the day after we first made love, you wanted another person in your bed. I don't think that's because of sex. I think it's because of Cara."
Kahlan didn't know quite what to say about that. There was more truth there than she'd care to admit, but as to how much… all she could think of was Richard looking at her like Cara had, hurt and betrayed. "Richard, I would never do anything to hurt you."
Richard rolled out of bed to take her hands, kissing each in turn. "Dear, you're the Mother Confessor. I'm used to the idea of sharing you with the entire Midlands. I like Cara a lot more than the Midlands. If you're happy, and she's happy, than I'm happy."
Kahlan smiled a little. "You deserve so much better than me."
"There's no such thing."
***
Cara hadn't gone far. She had taken over a whole inn, a stream of evicted patrons leading right to her. Kahlan walked right through the warnings of the city guard, who had cordoned off the area, to find Cara at the bar with an impressive array of bottles, full and empty, lined up in front of her.
Kahlan sat down at a different table from Cara, a respectful distance between them, and hated the way Cara stiffened anyway. "I wish to speak with you."
Cara poured herself another drink and tossed it back as Kahlan tried to think of something else to say.
"I'm sorry," Kahlan said finally. Cara poured more liquor from the bottle, dousing the bar liberally. "I didn't consider your feelings… I didn't even consider my feelings. I do care for you, Cara, you must know that!"
"No, I mustn't," Care replied, her voice tightly controlled but still slipshod, tumbling over syllables. "I'm jes' your pet Mord'Sis freak that doesn't know anything about people 'cept how t' hurt them or get 'em off."
Kahlan blinked. "Cara, are you drunk?"
"You're drunk!" Cara shot back, now openly slurring her words. She poured another drink into her full glass and drank it. "Lemme alone…"
"Cara, I think maybe… I just didn't let myself see how you felt about me. Because then I would have to see how I feel about you."
Cara guzzled the rest of the liquor from the bottle, cutting Kahlan off. "Feelin's… ya know what I hate about feelin's? They're all… touchy-feely."
Kahlan snatched the bottle from her, having to wrench it from her grasp, knocking over another few bottles in the process. They smashed on the floor and the sound must've triggered some instinct in Cara, because she went for her Agiels. But all the drink had dulled her Mord'Sith reserve; touching the Agiel made her cry out in pain, almost falling over when Kahlan caught her. They went down together, lying side by side on the weathered floorboards. Cara buried her face in the wood.
"Cara, I love you," Kahlan said, rubbing Cara's arm. "I swear I love you. I'm so, so sorry that I didn't tell you like you deserved to be told."
"Flowers and dancin' an' telling me how beauuuutiful I am," Cara muttered. She rolled over onto her back. Tears weren't streaming down her cheeks, but they were stillborn in her eyes, straining her voice. "You have Richard. You don't need me."
Kahlan got her arms around Cara and trying to convey in pressure and warmth what words couldn't. Cara always had been better at communicating on the level of blood and bone. "I do need you. When I was with Richard, I felt something missing. Then when I woke up, the first thing I thought of was you. I think my heart was trying to tell me something my head wasn't ready to hear. What's your heart telling you?"
Cara didn't say anything, so Kahlan just held her. Cara's body was shaking with the hitched breathing of sobs, even though she wasn't crying. She didn't get it under control, it just seemed to subsume on its own, like a poison that Cara wholly breathed out. Kahlan petted her back and felt Cara inch closer, angling into the contact at a subconscious level.
She'd done this for Richard, when he'd been broken by Denna, and he'd done it for her, when she'd watched friends die. But she'd never thought Cara might need this, or even want it. It was good to give it to her. For long minutes they laid like that, in each others' arms. Cara's arms weren't tightly bound around Kahlan like Kahlan's were around her, but Kahlan had the feeling that Cara would cling to her if she tried to get up.
Kahlan wasn't going anywhere.
She felt herself drifting to sleep on the floor of the inn. Being so close to Cara was as comforting as any bed, and she hadn't gotten much sleep with Richard, back when there was only one person in her life she loved. Her caressing of Cara's spine slowed, and finally stopped, while her head rested on Cara's arm. It was surprising how cozy leather could be.
She awoke to a bright sunbeam hitting her in the eyes. She covered her eyes with her arm, then shot up as she realized Cara wasn't lying across her arm anymore. A moment's frenetic searching found Cara leaning against the stairs, in position, waiting to defend her.
Kahlan sat up, eyeing Cara for any sign of emotion. But Cara had her armor back on, with nothing so much as a hangover visible past her Mord'Sith control. "Richard came by," Cara said. "He paid the innkeeper for our use of the tavern. I believe the blanket was his idea as well."
Kahlan looked down to see a snug blanket over her legs, one big enough to cover both women, at least until Cara had gotten up. She took it with her as she stood up, clutching it as lovingly as she would Richard. "Where is he?"
"He thought we needed to be alone," Cara said, her voice hinting at disdain. "Now he's giving a speech about peace and love somewhere. He also left some soup in the cauldron."
Kahlan looked over to the fireplace, where the last flickering embers did their best to heat the cauldron. She neatly folded up the blanket, then got a bowl from behind the bar and filled it with soup. It was warm enough, and smelled delicious. She brought it to Cara, whose body language was raging with the desire not to let one more word past her lips or admit another sentence into her ears.
Cara stared at the offering as Kahlan sat nearby, as quiet as her. Her lips worked noiselessly for but a moment, then she turned to Kahlan. Kahlan met her gaze with some surprise. She stared, stricken, and watched Cara force herself out of the comfort of her control, putting care into each word like someone speaking their first sentence in a foreign language. "My heart spoke to me."
Kahlan remembered her question the other night, her admission that something was missing. She wondered what Cara was missing. She wondered if she could give it to her. "What did it say?"
"That you, and Richard, are worth getting hurt over."
Mindful of the last time they'd kissed, Kahlan took Cara's gloved hand and raised it to her lips, kissing it, trying to imbue the simple gesture with all the longing she had for Cara. Cara fisted that hand in Kahlan's hair and pulled her in close. When they kissed, Kahlan felt more than the longing she had before, she felt Cara's happiness, her relief, something close to giddiness in how exuberant she was. It wasn't tightly controlled passion and it wasn't wild sex… it was a lake of all the feelings Cara kept hidden, one Kahlan was just starting to wade out into.
"The whole inn is ours," Cara said, no longer kissing Kahlan, just caressing her face, as if she couldn't bear to stop touching the Confessor. "There are beds upstairs."
"There's a carpet here," Kahlan retorted.
She kissed Cara again, and kept kissing her as the Mord'Sith undid her neck guard. It was her fingers that ripped it away from Cara, her lips that explored the subtle differences between the skin of her face and that which was hidden away by the leather.
"What next?" she asked against Cara's jugular, the blood pounding to the tune of her words. "How do I get these clothes off?"
"Start with…" Cara stumbled over her words. She couldn't find the right ones, couldn't fit them together. In a fit of desperation, she took Kahlan's hands and pulled them behind her neck, where the lacing began. "Just keep pulling."
"Tug-of-war?" Kahlan rose from Cara just enough for Cara to see her smile. "Lucky I've gotten used to that." Her fingers brushed against the nape of Cara's neck, warm and soft, as she began to take away Cara's leathers. "Would you like to kiss me, Cara?
Cara had no more problems with words. "Always."
Kahlan paused in unlacing Cara, now only tugging at the laces like she was playing with a marionette. "I'm right here."
Cara kissed every bit of Kahlan that had enthralled her, day after day. The curve of her jaw and the tug of her smile and the grace of her ear. She traced the paths Richard had taken and rediscovered everything he had found before blazing new ground, her teeth nipping at an erogenous zone that made Kahlan weak at the knees. She almost fell, but Cara caught her and bore her down to the carpet. The coals of the fireplace lent them a feverish heat, the occasional spark pinging off Cara's skin, urging her on.
She straddled Kahlan. The fall had made her uniform bunch, yawning open to expose the curve of her spine and hint of her shoulder blades. She was about to return to that erogenous zone, to see what further havoc she could wrack on Kahlan as she laid there with her hair spooled out to the four corners, when Kahlan stopped her.
"Your corset," she said, and Cara felt a little tug. Kahlan had gotten the lacing all the way down to her midsection, where it disappeared under yet another bit of armor.
Cara took Kahlan's hands and pushed them above her head, holding them against the brick of the fireplace as she kissed Kahlan. The heat of the fire made Kahlan's breath catch, made sweat tickle her skin. Cara kissed her again, again, until Kahlan's lips tingled like they'd taken a slap. It was something Cara could give her that Richard couldn't, something she needed as much as Richard's casual touches and open affection.
Cara rose up and guided those long, slender fingers to the three belts across her belly. Each one that Kahlan snapped open made Cara feel like they were lengths of rope binding her chest, being drawn tighter and tighter. When the corset finally yawned open, Kahlan ripped it away from Cara.
Cara ran her hands over Kahlan's body, wanting to rip her clothes away, to plunge her fingers deep inside, to leave welts that would last for days. But she couldn't. Not with Kahlan. She tried desperately to somehow get at the essence of Kahlan without pain, trying to feel it out by touch alone.
"Take off your gloves," Kahlan begged, before her voice lowered to a smoky whisper. "Save them for later."
Cara gave two deliberate tugs to the lacing on her arms, preparing to separate her sleeves from her gloves.
"No," Kahlan said, rearing up. "Let me."
Neither of them could resist another taste of each other with their lips within a foot of each other, but Kahlan had the control to pull herself away, only to bite down on Cara's forearm. Cara felt the sting of her teeth, even through the leather. Then Kahlan pulled away with the end of a lace gripped in her mouth, pulling on it so it spooled out of Cara's leathers. Cara could've growled at the sight of Kahlan getting further away, even as she stripped away another layer between their flesh. Kahlan ended up leaning against the bricks, her hair reflecting the firelight. She pulled on the lace with both hands, and with it having run through all the grommets, Cara felt a physical tug to go with the deep-seated need to be against Kahlan, on top of her, inside her.
She resisted, taking control where she found it. Cara pulled off her glove, letting Kahlan see her long callused fingers as she curled them in and out of a fist. When she spoke, her voice was low but even. "Your turn."
"My turn?"
"You've been in that dress for too long. You've been wearing white for too long." Cara let her voice drawl over the last sentence, insouciantly glancing down Kahlan's body.
Kahlan grinned, full of relief. It was good to have her friend back. It was good to be in love. "Blunt as always, Cara. How many times have I wanted to put a stopper on that mouth of yours?"
"You're close to getting your wish. I want the gown."
"You mean this gown?" Kahlan asked, running a finger over her cleavage, tugging at the fabric, letting her breasts fidget in their confinement. "You mean like this?" She untied the first lace strung over her breasts, giving them more room to quake with her unmistakably quickening breath.
Cara couldn't take any more. A need she hadn't been aware she carried with her had grown exponentially in the last few moments, fanned by its indulgence. Thinking of Kahlan this way led to more thoughts of her, led to actions, led to Kahlan. Everything led to Kahlan. Cara threw herself on top of her, knocking her away from the fireplace, but the friction of their bodies against each other was warmth enough.
She ripped the dress open along with the corset underneath, letting Kahlan's breasts bounce loose. They were exactly as Cara had imagined them, only more so. Even bigger than Cara would've thought, verging on excess, but still perfectly suited to Kahlan's physique, from the slight pinch of her waist to the thick muscle above it. Cara put her gloved hand to Kahlan's throat as her bare one trawled over Kahlan's back, feeling out each muscle and each scar. Heavenly.
"Take my glove off," she ordered, for the moment just feeling the warmth of Kahlan's breasts against her face.
Kahlan took her hand and pulled at the laces constraining it and Cara rewarded her with a gentle kiss over her rose-colored nipple. The more cool air she felt get into her sleeve, the more she treated Kahlan, switching to Kahlan's other breast and running her tongue around the areola, letting her tongue slip over the nipple every so often to see how it hardened. Kahlan groaned in pleased agony and worked faster. When she pulled the glove off, Cara took her nipple into her mouth and sucked hard, clamping down with her teeth and pulling hard enough to make Kahlan cry out in startlement.
"Oh, Cara…" Kahlan moaned a moment later, and just the sound of her name being spoken that way, with so much emphasis on each syllable that is was almost pornographic, was enough to shock Cara from Kahlan's breasts. She could've spent an hour just charting the best way to touch them, their weight and heft and warmth in her hands, but they weren't enough now. She needed Kahlan to say her name again.
And she needed something that wouldn't bruise Kahlan as she fucked her against it. Grabbing Kahlan by the scraps of her dress, Cara threw her over her shoulder. There was a padded bench nearby, leather cushioning gleaming in the sunlight. It was right under a window, and Kahlan belonged in the light.
Cara threw Kahlan down on it so she landed flat on her back, bouncing and giggling. Cara smiled too, as she threw Kahlan's skirt up so it was pooled over her belly, one great mass of half-discarded clothes clinging to Kahlan's midsection in a last-ditch attempt at modesty. Cara left them on. It just made her hotter, fucking Kahlan as she wore her Confessor's dress.
"I've waited so long for this," Cara said, as she tensed two of her fingers and thrust them into the Mother Confessor. It was almost as big a shock for her as it was for Kahlan. Kahlan was so wet, so hot, and there was so much of her, all around Cara's fingers. And the way her face lit up, her mouth forming a tight 'o' of surprise that soon became a smile, then her lips shooting open again as Cara dragged her fingers out and shoved them back in.
"Cara!" The single word was like the starting bell at a race. Cara pistoned her fingers into Kahlan, needing to see her face twitch with every barrage of pleasure and hear every little sound she made, right down to the small moist noise of her cunt around Cara's fingers.
For blissful minutes she plied her trade on Kahlan, using everything she knew of the human body to thank Kahlan for this, for returning her feelings, for deigning to love a Mord'Sith when she had a Seeker perfect and whole and not haunted by ghosts of the past. To show that she forgave her and to ask for forgiveness, for everything that had come before and all the time she'd wasted being pigheaded and lashing out. To show Kahlan that she loved her.
In the old days, Cara would've insisted that her lover do something for her as well, or have a third partner to pleasure her, or at least have the knowledge that everything she did would be returned to her later on. She didn't need that now. Kahlan could take everything Cara had to give and never touch her, and it would still be pleasure enough just to see her in rapture.
"Cara," Kahlan breathed. "Caaaaaraaa!"
Cara pushed in a third finger and watched Kahlan's head toss from side to side, her silky hair getting everywhere, crossing her face and running over her breasts and covering the cushion like a dark flood.
"My love," Cara replied, as Kahlan orgasmed.
It wasn't like with Richard. Not better or worse, just good. Just perfect.
"Kahlan," Cara said long minutes later, when she could bear to disturb her lover. "Could you ask Richard something, the next time you see him?"
"Certainly."
"Would he like to join us?"
