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Astarion is well-acquainted with being touched. He’s an expert at detaching himself from it all, to pretending it’s happening to someone else. How else was he supposed to bear it? The sloppy, unappealing drunks. The sweaty brigands who would force themselves on him. The sappy romantics who were too moony-eyed to see the teeth of the trap they were walking into.
But Tav is nothing like all the poor bastards he brought to Cazador. She has seen the teeth. She’s let them dig into her sweet flesh, she knows what she’s facing. She knows Astarion could drain her dry if he wished. She knows she could, just as easily, kill him in an instant with a pointy stick through the ribs. And yet, she doesn’t let that phase her.
Her touch is no less gentle when she helps him up after a battle. Her hands never wander, never linger on his chest or slide down his abdomen in a clumsy attempt at seduction. He’s been touched like that so many times, it’s jarring when Tav doesn’t.
Even the sweetest people he lured back home, their touch would linger on his body. Their warm and clammy hands betrayed their true intentions. He could pretend all he wanted, even just for a night, but love was never in the equation. People only ever want his body.
Maybe that’s why he decides to seduce her. Not the only reason, of course; he needs to make sure someone is on his side, when someone inevitably tries to take his head. If he’s good at anything at all, it’s manipulating fools into wanting him more than their own safety.
But with her, there’s another layer. The way she touches him is always so…achingly gentle. It makes his heart seize, like it’s threatening to beat again.
He can’t take it. He needs her to drop the act. He needs to sweep her off her feet and make that delicate guise melt away. He needs her to touch him the way everyone else does. Anything to stop the way his skin lights up at her touch.
He needs to fuck her, before he deludes himself into thinking she would want anything else from him.
Eventually, he finds an opportunity. The grove has been saved - because of course her stupid bleeding heart couldn’t let those tieflings suffer - and the camp is alive with revelry. With everyone in such high spirits, coaxing her into his bedroll is easy. Not that they end up using the bedroll in the end. Once they’re alone together, her lips pressed against his, it’s easy to forget anything else in the world exists. This is just what he does. What he’s used to.
Or at least, it’s meant to be. He kisses her with fervor, rocking his hips against hers. He expects her to follow his example; to melt into him, to dig her nails into his back and grab at him with heat and desperation. None of this gentle, cautious exploration. Her fingers travel up his sides slowly, leaving trails of warmth, of pleasure. Astarion shivers, and her fingers stop.
“Too much?” she asks, furrowing her brow.
Astarion shakes his head. “Not enough,” he lies, before kissing her again.
She sighs into his mouth. Their movements continue effortlessly. He disrobes her, she removes his trousers. He pins her against a tree, she wraps her arms around his shoulders. The dance of passion is one he’s performed thousands of times, but it’s different with her. She keeps pausing, her eyes searching his. She asks questions.
“May I?” as she’s about to untie his trousers.
“Is this okay?” before she grabs his cock.
“Does this feel good?” when she starts stroking him.
“Can I kiss your neck?” Why are you asking permission?
“Am I doing this right?” No, you’re not. You’re not supposed to care.
“Do you like that?” Gods, more than anything. Stop it. I’m supposed to be pleasuring you.
Her body is warm like the sun. Every point of contact has her heat seeping into him. He presses his face against her neck. Her scent is all-encompassing, heady and inviting. Her hands are steady against his back, pressing into him like she wants to hold him close, like the scars aren’t even there.
She envelops him so completely. More often than not, he’s had to fake his pleasure during these trysts. Here, his hips stutter, and his thighs shake with the effort it takes to stand. Has it ever felt this good before? He feels breathless, and he doesn’t even need air, but he gasps for it all the same. Her blazing heat ignites his body, and he almost feels alive again.
It’s terrifying. He doesn’t want it to stop.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he pants. It’s a line he’s used a thousand times on a thousand people, yet he's never sounded so ruined, so honest as he says it.
In response, she reaches up, burying her hand in his hair. She tugs, gently, and Astarion groans embarrassingly. Tav gazes at him with hooded eyes and parted lips, clearly as lost to the pleasure as he is. A small victory, but one he’ll gladly take.
Then she tilts her head, baring the expanse of her throat. “Are you hungry?” she asks.
Astarion wheezes. His legs give out, and he barely maintains enough balance to protect them both when they fall into the grass. Tav sits above him, bathed in moonlight, shock evident on her face.
“Are you alright? What happened?”
In the second or so before his mind processes her words, all he can think is, ‘She’s wonderful.’
In lieu of a response, he flips them both over. She laughs; a light, breathy sound that makes his heart seize. He presses her gently into the grass as he reinserts himself, and her laugh transforms into a soft moan.
As soon as he bites her - her hot, heady blood rushing down his throat - he knows he’s done for. He finds his release pitifully fast, unraveling like a cheap purse. Hers isn’t too far behind. Her body tenses around him, too intensely for words.
He’s spent. Utterly satiated in a way he hasn’t been in a long, long time.
They hold each other on the forest floor as they come down from their high. Her hands are still warm, steady on his shoulders. She kisses him softly, languidly, in a way that’s impossible not to reciprocate.
He feels safe in her embrace.
The epiphany echoes through his mind like a death knell.