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She was so easy to seduce.
Verso knew he had to start off slow. Tiny little connections: poetry, music, their pasts. Kept nudging up against her, insisting they were similar. Kindred.
And Maelle was falling for it, little by little. Falling for him.
The next step was out-and-out flirtation. Verso peacocked. He revealed his own little sin to her (vanity) and let her tease him, even as the girl’s gaze raked over his bare chest in the mornings.
They were just playing, then. He offered to dance, and Maelle turned him down. That was okay. There would be other chances.
The more they got to know each other, the more he pretended to “slip up” around her. His hands snaked around her waist. An arm went out to stop her before she got too close to the edge of the cliffs. He leaned into their embraces, letting his fingertips rest just above the slope of her buttocks.
There were so many other, smaller, things that he did for her. Anything to gain her trust. Spare food conveniently secreted away somewhere? He found a reason to share it with her.
Maelle soon learned she could rely on him. He became her protector. Her guardian, in place of the one-armed man that had come before him.
Verso tried not to think about him too much. If Maelle ever asked, he would tell the truth.
For now, however, he would keep it hidden. Just like with the food.
Tonight, he let himself bathe near to where she had laid out her bedroll for the evening. He was entirely nude, letting the cold water sluice unpleasantly over his muscles.
The girl emerged from the shadows, her eyes flitting towards him before looking away again. He pretended not to see.
After a few minutes, Maelle cleared her throat. Verso peered over his shoulder towards her.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his lips twitching in amusement.
Maelle twisted a towel in her hands. “May I join you?” she offered, voice shy.
“Of course.” Verso graciously held one arm out to her. Just in case she fell on the slippery rocks. Always a gentleman.
Maelle slid into the water with a hiss. “This is fucking freezing,” she gasped, her breath catching in her throat. Verso tried to tamp down the thrill of arousal her voice was giving him.
“You get used to it.” He took one of her hands and rubbed it in his own, to warm her up a bit.
She was still staring at him. Her eyes had traveled down his torso and to the patch of silver hair between his legs.
Verso could hold his tongue no longer. “See anything you like?” He was only half-joking.
She looked away with a blush. “Sorry,” Maelle mumbled as she pretended to brush invisible bugs off of her arms.
“It’s alright,” Verso replied with a stretch. “I don’t mind. You’re hardly the first young lady to ogle me while I’m bathing. And I’m quite sure you won’t be the last either.”
“Did you have a lot of girlfriends in Lumiere?” she blurted before biting her lip, embarrassed by her own outburst.
He shrugged. “A few, yeah.” He resumed actually bathing, dipping his head into the water to rinse his hair. It had silver streaks sneaking into it – he’d have to return to the Gestral Village for a touch-up before too much longer.
“Were they pretty?” Maelle was half-assing her attempts at bathing. Once he was thoroughly cleaned, Verso moved over to wash her back without her telling him to. She relaxed into him, unprotesting when he swam back to pull her slightly into his lap.
Verso hummed by way of reply, taking a moment to find a convincing answer. “Not as pretty as you” seemed cliché.
“They were alright,” he admitted. “But none of them had your hair. Or your freckles.”
This was a lie. There had been one girl, inside and outside of this Canvas, that had Maelle’s red hair and skin complexion. But that girl no longer let him into her bedroom.
Maelle was not Alicia. She lacked his sister’s wisdom, her steadiness. But she was close enough to the real thing, and Verso missed Alicia too badly to pass this chance up.
“Do you like redheads?” Maelle splashed him playfully, and he returned it. She squealed and twisted in his arms. Verso felt his cock throb when she wriggled against him.
“Very much so.” This was a truth.
“Do you like me?” She pressed her hand onto his chest, pushing him so that he leaned up against a boulder resting along the river’s edge.
“Also very much so.”
When she leaned forward to kiss him, Verso did not resist. He threaded his fingers through her hair, pulling her so that she straddled him. His cock was pulsing between their bodies, though not yet fully erect. Maelle broke for air to stare down at it.
“Oh,” she whispered. “It’s…”
“Big. I know. I can’t pretend I’m not proud of it.” It reached past the girl’s bellybutton. Verso could not wait to see what she looked like clenching around it.
Alicia’s expressions had been subtle when he fucked her. She was quiet during sex; never letting anything more than a few groans escape her lips. Too many years spent sneaking around behind their parents’ backs had trained her to stay silent.
With any amount of luck, Maelle would be different. Maybe he’d have to cover her mouth with his hand, whispering for her to keep it down.
“Can I…?” She was already reaching for him. Verso nodded and leaned back, letting her fumble as her fingers barely wrapped around his length. She tugged once, and he hissed.
“That’s it,” he said approvingly. “Here, like this.”
His hand lay over her own, and they moved together. Her palm was tiny and more calloused than he thought. Her thumb grazed the tip, and he bucked, gritting his teeth.
They had only just started, and already his body was begging for release. Verso itched to bury himself to the hilt inside her, to lose himself in her tight heat and claim her virginity for his own.
Go slow, he reminded himself. She deserves to be spoiled, at least for this first time.
“Let me take care of you,” he suggested, nuzzling her cheek tenderly. Maelle tipped her neck back and gave him better access. Verso suckled at the space just behind her ear lobe, feeling the way she shuddered in pleasure.
Her hand was still on his cock. He removed it and used it to cup her own breast instead.
“Squeeze,” he commanded, and she obliged. Maelle moaned, almost too loud in the quiet evening. He showed her how to tweak her own nipples, how to play with herself.
“You’ve never put your fingers down here before?” He was running one hand through her pubic hair, grazing her clit with each pass.
Maelle shook her head. “Never,” she confessed. “I didn’t want to. I knew what sex was, Gustave taught me about all about that stuff. But it didn’t interest me. I thought….I wondered if something was wrong-“
That damn name again. “Shh,” Verso murmured. He kissed her again to shut her up. “There’s nothing wrong. If you’d never wanted it with anyone, ever, it would be okay. But I think in your case-“
“…I was waiting for the right person to show up.” Maelle whimpered on the last syllable as Verso tested her with his index finger. He dragged it across her slit, enjoying the way her swollen labia felt precisely like Alicia’s.
“I’m going to go in now, alright?”
Maelle nodded hurriedly, eager for him to get on with it.
One finger had her writhing again. A second and she bit off a scream, trying to move away even as he held her hip.
“You’re okay,” he promised. She felt so good against him, even with just his fingers.
After several thrusts, she began to relax. With every pass, Maelle grew looser and wetter. The cold water bothered her not at all now. If anything, it was like a balm against her overheated skin.
Her first time would be in this river. Alicia’s first time had been in her brother’s bedroom.
Maelle would be facing him while he bounced her in his lap. He’d bent Alicia over the mattress, grabbing her hair to give himself some leverage with each thrust.
It had been Alicia’s eighteenth birthday. Maelle was sixteen and a half.
Passion was a poison, in Verso’s experience. As much as he’d loved his baby sister, they had fought too. Endless petty arguments about the way he dressed or smiled at other women or how he drank milk straight from the pitcher instead of fetching a glass. Those fights sometimes turned into arguments, and only grew worse once they were both inside the Canvas.
“You’re helping them kill our mother,” she accused, signing to him and then spitting at his feet.
“I’m trying to give you freedom,” he protested back. “We both deserve to rest!”
Eventually, after decades, she re-joined their father inside the Manor. And Verso became the lone wanderer he was today.
Despite that – despite everything – he missed her like hell. Sometimes she flitted away from him like a doe, evasive and unwilling to talk. Other nights she let him cup her cheek and kiss her forehead, but that was all. The romance between them had dried up like a drought-struck lake.
He was so lonely without her. He loved his friends, and returned to Esquie and Monoco as often as he could. He and Monoco had fooled around together, too, though it just wasn’t the same. Monoco was too rough around the edges. Too interested in being on top.
Verso liked being in control. Liked having someone smaller and sweeter than himself pegged into his dick like a limp doll.
He supposed he should hate himself for that. For this – for manipulating this young girl into letting him do whatever he liked to her.
It was too late to turn back now. Maelle was ready, and so was he.
He pulled his fingers slowly from her dripping cunt. “It’ll be quite a lot at first, I won’t lie to you. But you’ll adjust, I promise.”
“I trust you,” Maelle muttered. She was tracing invisible patterns along his chest. He let that distract her as he slowly lifted her hips and lowered her onto his cock.
Maelle swore under her breath. He held her even as she flinched, unsure about the intrusion. “It feels weird,” she explained when he checked in on her.
“It always does, at first. Then it might hurt. Within a few minutes it’ll start to feel good, though.”
The girl nodded. “Okay,” she said. “You can move.”
The first thrust made her breath hitch as it had earlier. The second dragged a breathy whine from her throat and sent her body into fits around him.
Verso bucked upwards, setting the pace so as not to overwhelm her. “Everything still good?” he asked, but received no answer. Maelle was lost in pleasure, her eyes shut and her voice keening.
“More,” she begged after a moment. “Please.”
He could do more. Verso fucked her harder, brutally plunging in and out as Maelle screamed his name.
If the others heard, they did not bother to come running. Perhaps they noticed the way Maelle sang out his name and knew to leave the couple alone. Perhaps Monoco had explained everything away.
Verso did not care. He let himself fall down the same rabbit hole Maelle was in at that moment, losing himself in the ecstasy of a good rough lay.
He hadn’t felt this good in a long time. Maelle’s cunt was not as used to him as Alicia’s had been, but that didn’t matter. She sounded close enough to the real thing. Smelled the same. Squeezed him the same.
She came twice before he began to slow down. He held her tightly as he met her third climax with his own, gazing at the place where their bodies connected and grinning like a fool at the knowledge that he had claimed her. Marked her as his territory.
He could only hope that she would not leave him as Alicia had.
Maelle was still breathing hard, her hair falling into her eyes. Verso brushed it away so that he could kiss her again. “That was…you’re so…” she shook her head, lost for words.
“Thanks,” he answered. “Was it okay for you?”
“Yes,” she grinned. “It was wonderful. I…I love you, Verso.”
“Thank you,” he said again. “You’re a natural.”
Maelle beamed at the praise, only wincing delicately when he pulled out of her. His spend mixed with the water and was carried downriver. A good thing, his forebrain thought. Less likely to have a slip up that way.
A waste, his hindbrain croaked. Should have shoved it back inside-
That was enough of that voice for one evening. Verso already felt shame creeping into his bones now that his cock was soft. He didn’t need to unnerve himself with thoughts of an unplanned pregnancy on top of it.
He carried Maelle to her bedroll and made to leave. She grabbed his wrist before he got too far, dragging herself into a sitting position sleepily.
“Stay with me?” she asked. “Just for a little while. Just until I fall asleep.”
“Of course,” he agreed smoothly.
They cuddled together beneath the blanket, both of them still naked. Maelle lay facing away from him, her slender frame warm against his own scarred one.
Just as he began to doze, Verso uttered five words that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“I love you too, Alicia.”