Eowyn: The Cage - Ch. 13

For the fifth time in as many minutes, Éowyn fiddled with the buttons on her shirt. Impulsively, she decided to unclasp yet another, fully exposing the smooth inner curve of her breasts. Her nipples further hardened in response to her thrillingly uncharacteristic wickedness, greatly accentuating the effect. This is much more than I've ever revealed to a man with whom I've not actually had sex, she realized, yet she felt no embarrassment. Well, sex does have to be implied for this to work. And who cares whether or not my body is revealed? In a few days it's no longer likely to matter.

Tugging at the ties in her hair until it fell about her shoulders in a carefree tangle, knowing that she looked as if she'd just rolled out of bed, she took a deep breath, checked to reaffirm that no one was watching, and slipped into the tent.

Elfhelm, Marshal of the East-mark, looked up in shock at her sudden and unannounced entry. Clumsily, he leapt to his feet, scattering maps and weapons to the ground in his haste.

Even discombobulated, even distracted by duty, he's as handsome as ever. She remembered the long-ago day that her girlish admiration of his gallantry became an unrecognizable physical compulsion. I was just beginning to go through puberty, though I didn't know it at the time. I couldn't put a name to the feeling then, but it's possible he was the first man for whom I felt a purely sexual attraction. And while those cravings have ebbed and flowed as I've aged, at the moment I find the impulse to act on my urges difficult to put aside. Yet I must...at least until I achieve what I came for. Her sex hummed with arousal and promise. Who knows, Marshal Elfhelm? In the unlikely event that both of us get through this alive, perhaps I'll offer you the body I know you've long coveted. But for now....

Elfhelm's surprise not only didn't ebb, but was magnified by the entirely unfamiliar vision standing before him. Her unbound hair flowed in rich waves of gold and silver. Her riding pants hugged her perfectly formed thighs, accentuating every curve and sinew. Her shirt hung loosely about her shoulders, hanging so far open that it exposed the creamy swells of her breasts...the sight of which had, for him, never been more than an unlikely fantasy...and in an instant he hardened, hoping against hope that she wouldn't notice his arousal.

For he had indeed long harbored a secret desire for the King's niece, dating back to the moment she grew into her womanhood. He'd forcefully put such feelings aside, for she was too young to even think about in such ways, but as she matured into an increasingly ravishing adult he found himself stealing speculative glances whenever she was within sight, and even allowed himself to believe that when their eyes met — as they quite often did — it was because she returned his interest. By all rights her station was too far above his to cling to vain hopes, but the longer she remained entirely unattached to (and, it was rumored, untouched by) any man, the more his loftiest dreams toyed with the reality straining possibility that they might, one day, be together. In sober moments he recognized how absurd such notions were, and though he was a legendarily courageous man on the battlefield, he never found the personal courage to make his interest known. Yet he never quite lost touch with his fantasy, either.

And now she faced him in an outrageously seductive pose, her aura simultaneously bold and vulnerable, and he found himself as unable to speak as ever. It was all he could manage to hold her gaze rather than gape at her carelessly revealed flesh.

"Elfhelm," she purred, drawing uncomfortably close and resting her hands on the table. Her scent was intoxicating, and his peripheral vision assured him that if he glanced downward for even a moment he'd be staring directly at her almost fully revealed breasts. He fought the urge with all his might, sweating with the strain of resistance. "I come to you in humble supplication, for I'm in need a favor."