The Last Time (2/2)

Writers: Dana, Eimi
Date Posted: 6th July 2006

Characters: Traelyn, B'ram
Description: Traelyn comes to B'ram to forget her toubles, and he tells her that this is the last time--and means it
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 12, day 26 of Turn 3

B'ram

Feeling him shift in her arms, she slowly moved her body closer against his, his back braced against her chest, one of her long legs thrown across his. She wondered if he was stirring. Traelyn nuzzled against the curve of his neck and shoulder, her lips lightly kissing him there. He still tasted of salt.

When she had come to earlier in the candlemark, a part of her mind had urged her to leave--and to leave quickly. To disappear like a shadow before the sun rose too high. To follow the example B'ram had almost set the last time they'd been together in _her_ weyr. But as he had shifted towards her, murmuring in his sleep, she couldn't bring herself to leave--couldn't bring herself to escape. But she should have before she was forced to face him in the harsh light of morning when all the shadows had disappeared...when she'd be forced to see him for who he was; B'ram, the brownrider, the sharding ass who hurt her, twisted her with his words and plagued her with scorching memories she'd rather forget; not L'kub.

But she didn't.

The feelings that had rushed through her as he had turned in her arms, cheek sliding along her skin, had been so good... She'd felt the panic urging subside and had let herself bask in the languid warmth spreading throughout her body--as it always did after a night of loving. And even though she knew the night was over, and he wasn't who she wanted him to be, she couldn't help but hold him to her, her touch tender as she stroked, kissed and caressed.

Sighing, her breath warm on his skin, she kissed him at the base of his neck.

Her kisses and caresses were slowly coaxing the brownrider's mind into consciousness. It felt so good to feel the tender touches. Her fingers on his skin, her lips softly exploring. B'ram knew they were not meant to be seductive. She believed him to be asleep, she expected nothing from him in response, and yet she still touched him, for no particular reason, just an unexplainable need to feel him under her skin. It had been a long time since anyone had touched him like that. B'ram couldn't help but see the irony in it, even as he lay there, determined to stay asleep and just feel... wanted... by the one person on Pern he knew he never would want.

She heard the change in his breathing and she paused, fingers hovering briefly over him as she waited for him to say something--murmur anything, whether it would be a sound of encouragement or anger... But he didn't make a sound. Frowning slightly, Traelyn pressed her brow to his shoulder, her fingers slipping to the side of his chest, running through the stiff hairs there. Why wasn't he saying anything--or protesting? Or was he truly still asleep?

B'ram also was wondering why he was playing this little game with her. Wasn't it a little wrong for him not to say something, to just pretend to be asleep just so he could enjoy the feeling? And yet, the whole situation was wrong. They both just wanted to pretend they were in love once more. That was all it was - just pretend. And yet, somehow that was what made it all right. He used her, she used him. There were no empty promises, or hollow declarations of feelings that were full of lies. As sick and twisted as their relationship was, at least it was honest. Except now, as he lay there, pretending to be asleep. But it was just another part of the game... wasn't it?

Her hand slid from his chest to his hip, then lightly down his thigh before pausing, letting it rest there. She couldn't make herself stop touching him like this. Traelyn couldn't remember a time when she'd touched a man like this to just...touch him. Not to tease--not to arouse.
Just touch for the love of it.

It was addicting, this game they were playing. Addicting, and painfully sweet.

She closed her eyes, lashes brushing against the back of his neck as she let her nails begin to trace designs on his flesh. Never had she let it last so long. She never saw him after the sun hit the Weyr's ridges. But now she'd broken that. **He's not L'kub... And you hate him, Trae.** But it didn't sharding matter. Not now.

Shards but it was hard not to touch her back. It was aggrivating on so many levels. He could remember doing the same thing to Atryen - running his fingers along her skin, through her hair, kissing her softly - not enough to wake her, but enough that he could feel her. Wrapping his arms around her and marveling and how she filled all the empty spaces... But this was _not_ Atreyn. It was _Traelyn_, and she might be able to fill the physical space, but there were places that she just couldn't touch. She was just... very good and making him forget them for a while. And sometimes he knew that was just as good.

It was good not to be alone. Even being with B'ram--though it didn't banish everything from her thoughts--she was able to ignore some things and just concentrate of the feeling of touching him, rubbing her skin along his, his red hair spikey on her brow, muscles hard against her body... He seemed to shift in his sleep, pressing back even further against her, and she held on tighter with a sudden, wild tenderness--something akin to what she'd only felt when she'd cling to L'kub.

Traelyn wanted him to wake up, she realized. She wanted him to love her again.

B'ram could feel the way she held tight to him, the way her fingers were growing a bit bolder, a bit needier. He began to wonder, had she lain like this with L'kub? Oh shards... L'kub. If he could see his friend now... What would he say about all this? The brownrider always hated her for the unconscious effect she had on men, from the time they were kids and into adulthood. He hated her for what she did to his friend before, for what she was doing to him now. B'ram had berated her for her sleeping with any male who would have her, called her unspeakable names to her face and behind her back, and yet now here he was, laying in her arms, contemplating making love to the very woman he had always professed to hate. A hole was opening up inside him, a pit of shame that he just wanted to run and hide from. Feeling cold and alone was hard to live with, but this was even worse.

No, he had said last night was the last time, and he had ment it. He had truly _meant_ it this time. She could not tempt him again! The brownrider summoned his strength and rolled away from her warm, loving arms. "I have a busy day today," he almost growled, as his feet hit the cold stone floor. "I have to get ready."

Her blood ran like ice. So. He'd been awake. Her expression hardened as she rose up on a forearm, staring at his back, trying to shove away the sudden, burning shame within. She should have fled when she had the chance. She _should have_. She'd let him have the upper hand in this--again! And why? Her jaw tightened. "So why didn't you say something earlier?" Traelyn's voice was very quiet, but more rough than smooth.

"I told you already. Last night was the last time." He walked into his closet and grabbed a towel from the rack. Coming back into the room, he refused to even look at the woman still stretched across his bed. "I trust you can use the bathing pool in your own weyr?"

Her temper flared, and with it, her words. "You scorching _ass_."

"Are you going to pull rank on me and order me back to bed? What, do you think you're _entitled_ to screw every man in the Weyr whenever you feel like it, Weyrwoman?" And after all that she has to gaul to act self-righteous?! His opinion of her was only being confirmed, and it seemed to just add to his shame. He had been such a fool to allow her into his bed _again_.

She gave a bitter, humorless laugh. Oh, yes, he _would_ think that about her, wouldn't he? How else would he try to desperately justify _his_
actions? How else would he try to desperately justify last night? Traelyn--the Weyrwoman with no respectability. Traelyn--the whore. Whenever _I_ feel like it, brownrider?" She sat up, holding the sheet to her breasts. "Then what do you call the last time this happened--the time when you were laying in wait with every intention of taking me to bed? Or does that night of loving in my weyr not count?"

"Well, I seem to remember that in the end you _chose_ to come into bed with me. Shards, you couldn't get enough of me. Both times I tried to pull away _you_ were the one who pulled me back, daring me to... to _service_ you!" Yes, that was it. He had convinced himself that it was about lost love, loneliness, painful emptiness that they both shared. But it wasn't. For her it was all about carnal lust. She liked the way he could make her feel, she liked the way he responded to her, and now, because he had let her have her way with him, she felt she had a right by precedence to have him whenever she felt like it. What a sharding _bitch_! "Well, I _choose_ to end it now! I will not play your personal stud anymore!"

Trembling with fury, she rose from the bed, her fists clenched so tightly that her nails bit hard into her palms. "And you didn't _have_ to!" she growled at him as the words "service you" kept on echoing through her mind. "Don't you _dare_ make all of this _my_ fault! Don't you _dare_
twist all of this scorching mess into what you think it is! What you've _convinced_ yourself it is! How can you be my 'personal stud' if you wanted it too! Runners have no choice, B'ram. They're stupid animals and can't make choices. But you did! Oh yes, you had plenty of choices." Snarling, she approached him. "And you chose my bed. _Me_. I can still remember how much you sharding wanted it! How you sharding _pleaded_ with me, caressing me, kissing me... And even though you were moaning my sister's name most of the time, you whimpered for me too. So _don't_ act self-righteous!"

"But I would have let you go," he replied quietly. What good was it to fight her? She's right. B'ram _had_ convinced himself it was different.
He had agreed to it, enjoyed it, craved it, based on that lie that he had told himself - that she had felt the same as he. But now he was sure she had no feelings except those that originated and ended between her legs.
"And now, as a stupid _man_, I choose to end this now. Please get out of my weyr."

He didn't have to ask her twice.

Last updated on the July 9th 2006

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The Last Time (2/2)