A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

Exactly What I Hoped For

16 Wintersend, 9:42

"Well," Antonia said brightly, when she could speak again. "That was what I wanted. I'll be off, then." She pushed playfully at Cullen's shoulders, grinning at him.

He growled deep in his throat. "Oh, no, you won't. I'm not done with you yet." He kissed her long and deeply, until she could feel the heat beginning to spread through her again.

"If you're going to put it that way, I suppose I can stay a while," she said. "But I've heard rumors that you have a bed up in that loft there—on behalf of those of us getting splinters, what would you say to moving?"

Cullen chuckled, and with a last, lingering kiss he got off her, giving her a hand to help her up. "Watch out for the broken glass."

"Sorry about that."

He held on to her hand, pulling her to him. "Is there—anything else you regret about tonight?"

Antonia cupped his cheek. Even in the darkened room she could see the uncertainty in him, and she wanted to make it go away for good. "No, Cullen. No regrets."

"Even that it took this long?"

She pressed her forehead against his, kissing him tenderly. "You don't think that was worth the wait? I certainly do."

His arms tightened around her, pulling her close. "This is more than I ever thought I could hope for."

"This is exactly what I hoped for." A cool breeze wafted over her, reminding her that they were standing naked in the middle of his office, a room people felt free to enter at all hours of the day and night. "Although perhaps in a slightly less public location next time—like upstairs?"

Cullen chuckled at that, letting go of her.

The loft was not what she'd expected. The bed looked surprisingly comfortable, given how little time she knew he spent in it, and there was a small pile of clearly well-read books in a protected corner. Otherwise, especially for a man with such neatly regimented habits, holdover of his years as a Templar, it was a disaster. Quite literally, too—where the roof should have been were vines and branches, and building materials lay piled in the corners.

"Cullen," she said, looking around her in dismay. "You're going to freeze to death some night."

"Not likely."

"Do you really never get cold?"

"Not often, no. And the cool air and the light in the morning—they help. With the nightmares." Cullen reached for her hand, tugging her toward the bed. "And that's as much as I want to talk about that right now, if you don't mind."

Antonia pushed him back into the pillows, straddling his thighs. "I don't mind at all," she whispered, leaning down to kiss his mouth, and then his throat and collarbones and the muscular lines of his shoulders. She ran her hands over his chest and stomach. Between kisses, she said, "I've been wanting to do this since the first time I saw you with your shirt off on the training grounds. There were times I thought you trained shirtless just to torment me."

"Sadly, no." Cullen gasped, his fingers tangling in her hair as she found a particularly sensitive spot. "It wouldn't have occurred to me that you felt that way. To tell you the truth, I thought at first Josephine was more your type."

Antonia chuckled. She bit him just under the ribcage, admiring the red mark her teeth had left behind and soothing the spot with her tongue, to Cullen's evident pleasure. She and Josephine had indulged in a mild flirtation at first, but only for fun. As their friendship had grown, the need to test it that way had receded. She rested her chin on Cullen's sternum, looking up at him. "Were you jealous?"

"It's foolish to be jealous over something you don't think you can ever have."

"But you were anyway, weren't you?"

His blush said enough.

"Can I tell you how much I hated watching you with all those women at the Winter Palace?"

"I had no interest in any of them, you know that." Cullen sat up, lifting her chin on his fingertips so he could look into her eyes.

"I did know that, and I still ... I didn't like it. That's probably terribly petty and and possessive of me."

He smiled, his eyes warm on hers. "Strangely enough, I don't think I mind."

"Good. Because next time we're invited to a ball at the Winter Palace—"

"I would be perfectly happy never again setting foot in the Winter Palace," Cullen said. "It wasn't even so much the gossip and the backstabbing—even I know what the Game entails. But the indifference to it all ..."

"At least there was dancing." Antonia shifted next to him so she could tuck her head against his shoulder, remembering how it had felt at the end of that long and miserable and altogether too exciting night to find herself safe and cared for there in his arms.

Cullen chuckled, but he put his arm around her, resting his cheek against her head. "Or an attempt at it, anyway."

"I thought it was perfect."

"Then I am grateful for your poor taste in dance partners." He kissed his way from her temple to her mouth, a sweet but passionate kiss that had Antonia melting back into the mattress, pulling him down with her.

Words and time were forgotten in their eagerness to kiss and taste and touch. Antonia could feel the ache and the emptiness building inside her, her body moving ever more restlessly under Cullen's caresses. At last, much as she didn't want this ever to end, she didn't think she could take much more. Reaching between them to take him in her hand, she whispered, "Cullen, I need you."

He groaned at her words and her touch, poising himself just above her. Antonia closed her eyes, anticipating his entrance—

And below them, the door opened. "Commander? Commander!"

Antonia had no trouble placing the voice as Eustace's. There was a pause while she and Cullen lay frozen in what might be the most awkward position possible and Eustace below was evidently looking around and seeing their clothes strewn across the office and the contents of Cullen's desk on the floor.

Finally, he said, "Oh, sod it," and they could hear the door shut as he left the office.

She couldn't help but laugh, and Cullen chuckled, too, kissing her nose and her forehead. And then he pressed inside her and all the laughter faded. Antonia arched against him, taking him as deeply as she could. "You feel so good."

"So do you." He moaned into her ear, withdrawing and plunging in again. He went slowly, taking his time.

There was a weakness in her limbs, a spreading pleasure that she wasn't sure she could take much more of. Cullen was kissing her throat, her ears, her jaw, still moving in that maddeningly slow pace that felt amazing and yet kept that sought-after goal just out of reach.

Antonia clung to him, her teeth finding a sensitive place in his shoulder, nipping and then outright biting, and with a cry of pleasure he went over the edge, the rapid snapping of his hips in response catching Antonia just where she needed, and she tumbled over after him, calling his name.

The little tremors of after-response seemed to last forever, as they lay sleepily exchanging kisses and endearments. As Antonia shifted at last to pull the blankets up over limbs gone chilled from the open air above them, Cullen reached for her, holding her tightly. "You'll stay?"

She cuddled against him, as she had in the cabin in Ferelden. "I'm not going anywhere."