The knock comes at the same time it always does. Three taps, a pause, two more. A pattern she fell into without meaning to, a habit born of anxiety after weeks of standing outside his door in the dark.
Cullen opens it before the second pause, he's been waiting.
She knows because the candle on his desk is already burned halfway down, and there's only one book open on the table instead of the usual stack. He wasn't reading. He was listening for her.
"Come in."
The room smells like him, the bed is made. He looks at her.
"Close the door."
She reaches behind her. The latch clicks. The sound is small and final, and every time she hears it, something in her chest flutters like a bird that knows the cage has shut.
Cullen doesn't move from where he stands. He's in shirtsleeves, bracers off, the laces of his collar loose enough that she can see the hollow of his throat. His hair is slightly damp. He bathed before she came. She doesn't know why that detail always catches her, but it does, the idea that he prepared for this the way he'd prepare for anything else. Methodical and deliberate.
"Take your hair down."
She reaches up. The tie comes loose, and blonde falls past her shoulders, down her back. She feels it settle against her neck, and she resists the urge to comb it with her fingers. He doesn't like fidgeting.
"Now the rest."
She undresses the way he taught her. Slowly. Not a performance, he made it clear early on that he wasn't interested in seduction. He wants to watch her strip away the armor of who she is during the day. Hawke the rogue. Hawke the mage sympathizer. Hawke who walks through Kirkwall with her chin up and her daggers visible. Piece by piece, he wants that woman dismantled until there's nothing left but skin and nerve endings and the need to be told what to do.
The tunic goes first. Then the bindings beneath. Then the trousers. She folds each item because he told her to, once, and once was enough. She stands barefoot on the stone floor, arms at her sides, and waits.
He looks at her.
That's all. He looks. His eyes move from her face to her throat to her chest to her stomach to the place between her legs and then back up. Slow. Thorough. The same way he'd inspect a blade for flaws.
She feels the flush crawl up her chest. It never stops happening. No matter how many times she stands here, naked, while he's dressed, she can't control the heat that spreads across her skin. Her freckles disappear under it. She knows they do because he's mentioned it.
"Turn around."
She turns and faces the door. Hears him move behind her. A chair scraping. He's sitting down. She can picture him, leaning back, legs spread, watching her from across the room like she's something on a training field. A recruit who hasn't earned approval yet.
"Bend over. Hands on the door."
She places her palms flat against the wood. It's cool. She arches when she does it, not dramatically and not for show, just the natural curve of her spine as she leans forward, and she hears him make a sound. Not a word. Just a low hum in his throat. Approval, maybe. Or consideration.
"Spread your legs."
She shifts her feet apart. The stone is cold under her toes. She can feel the air on her exposed cunt, and she clenches involuntarily, and she hates that she does, because it means he was right, she's already wet. She's been wet since the walk here. Since before the walk. Since late afternoon when she caught herself looking at the Gallows and her body remembered what happens in this room.
She hears him stand. His footsteps. He comes close but doesn't touch her. She can feel the warmth of him at her back, the displacement of air, and her skin prickles with anticipation and anxiety.
"Look at the door," he says, even though she already is. "Don't move your eyes from it."
She stares at the wood grain. A knot in the center. A scratch near the handle. She memorizes these details because she's looked at this door so many times from this angle, and focusing on them is easier than focusing on what he's about to do.
His hand settles on her lower back. Just rests there. His palm is warm and dry and enormous against the small of her, and the weight of it makes her legs go slightly weak. He slides it down, slow, so slow, over the curve of her ass. He pauses, his thumb traces the cleft, and she tenses.
His hand continues down. Between her legs from behind. His fingers find her, and she hears the sound before she feels it. the slick obscene wetness of her body against his fingers. He just holds them there, cupping her, feeling the heat and the mess of her.
"You're soaked."
She doesn't answer. It's not a question.
"I haven't touched you yet tonight. I haven't done anything. And you're already like this." His fingers shift. One slides along the slit, not penetrating, just parting, just feeling. She bites her lip. "Why?"
She doesn't know if he wants an answer. Sometimes he does. Sometimes he asks questions and then punishes her for responding. She's learned to read the weight of his silences, the particular tilt of his head, and right now, right now she thinks he wants her to speak.
"Because I knew I was coming here."
"And that makes you wet."
"Yes, ser"
"Being here. Standing naked in front of me. Bent over like this." His finger dips inside. Just the tip. She gasps and her hips jerk forward, and his other hand comes up to press against her hip, holding her still. "That makes you wet."
"Yes."
He withdraws his hand. She hears him step back. Hears the sound of him bringing his fingers to his face. She doesn't turn around, she wasn't told she could, but she hears it, the faint wet sound, and she knows he's tasting her.
"Go to the bed. On your back."
She moves. The bed is large and firm, sheets pulled tight. She climbs onto it and lies down, and the air hits her skin everywhere at once, and she feels more exposed on her back than she did bent over. On her back, there's nothing to hide. He can see everything.
Cullen removes his shirt. He does it the way he does everything, without hurry, without self-consciousness. He's broad. Muscled in the way that comes from years of training rather than vanity. Scars she's memorized. A line of hair from his navel downward. He unlaces his trousers and pushes them down, and his cock is already hard, thick against his stomach, and she looks at it and feels her mouth go dry and her cunt clench at the same time.
He sees her looking.
"You want that."
She meets his eyes. Green to amber. "Yes."
He climbs onto the bed and kneels between her legs. Pushes her knees apart with his own, wider than comfortable, and she lets him. He reaches for the pillow beside her head.
"Lift."
She lifts her hips. He slides the pillow under them, elevating her, tilting her pelvis up. She knows what this means. The position. The angle. He's done this before. Her stomach tightens.
He reaches past her to the bedside table. The oil is there, he pours some into his palm. Warms it between his hands. She watches his fingers glisten, and her pulse is so loud she can hear it in her ears.
He reaches between her legs again. His fingers slide past her cunt, pressing agaisnt her ass.
She flinches. She can't help it. Every time.
Cullen pauses. Looks at her. "Breathe."
She breathes. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Her hands grip the sheets.
His finger circles. Slow. Patient. Coating the area with oil, loosening the tension with steady pressure. He doesn't push in yet. He's learned her body well enough to know that rushing makes her seize up, and a seized-up body fights him, and he doesn't like when she fights. He doesn't like it because it's inefficient. Because it means she's not submitting properly.
"Relax."
She tries. She genuinely tries. She unclenches her jaw. She lets her shoulders drop. She focuses on the ceiling and breathes.
His finger pushes in.
Just the first one. Just to the first knuckle. It burns. It always burns at first, even with oil, even with patience. Her body wasn't built for this, or if it was, it doesn't remember how. She makes a pained sound.
"Good," Cullen says. He pushes deeper. To the second knuckle. All the way in. She feels the fullness of it, the strange wrongness of being penetrated there, and her breath comes faster. "Breathe."
"I am breathing."
"You're holding your breath."
She exhales. She hadn't realized.
He starts to move. In and out. Slow. Stretching. The burn fades slightly, replaced by a deep, heavy ache that she can't decide if she likes. She's never been able to decide. That's part of what keeps her coming back, the not knowing. The way her body responds to things her mind hasn't fully consented to.
A second finger joins the first.
She whimpers. The stretch is sharper now. He scissors them slightly, opening her, and she feels her body fighting it and his free hand presses flat on her stomach, just below her navel.
"Stop."
She doesn't know if he means stop clenching or stop moving or stop making sounds. She tries to do all three. Her body stills. Her sounds cut off. She breathes through her nose and stares at the ceiling and lets him stretch her.
"That's better." His voice is low. Even. He could be commenting on a training exercise. "You can take more than you think you can. You always fight it at first."
She doesn't answer. Her eyes are burning. Not crying, but the pressure is there building behind her lids.
He adds more oil. The slick sound is obscene. His fingers slide easier now, and the burn has shifted into something else, a fullness that radiates upward, into her belly, into the base of her spine. She's still wet from before. She can feel it, her cunt aching and empty while he prepares her.
"Cullen—"
"What?"
She doesn't know what she was going to say. Please. Stop. More. All three. None of them.
He withdraws his fingers. She feels the emptiness immediately. He shifts on the bed and she hears him coat himself, more oil, the wet sound of his hand on his cock and then he's there. The blunt head of him pressed against her entrance.
He pushes in.
The first breach is always the worst. The widest part of him, forcing past the tight ring of muscle that she's spent the last ten minutes trying to relax. She cries out. She can't help it. Her hands twist in the sheets and her back arches and a sound comes out of her that's too raw to be called a moan.
Cullen stops. Just the head inside her. He lets her adjust.
She's panting. Short, sharp breaths through her teeth. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and tears have escaped, tracking down into her hair.
"Open your eyes."
She does. The ceiling wavers. She blinks until it focuses.
"Look at me."
She drops her gaze to him. He's above her, braced on one arm, looking down at her with that expression she can never read. Not cruel. Not kind. Assessing. He's checking. Making sure she's present. Making sure she hasn't gone somewhere else in her head.
"Good," he says. And pushes deeper.
Slow. Relentless. Inch by inch. She feels every bit of it, the stretch, the burn, the deep internal pressure that builds as he fills her. It's too much. It's always too much. Her body tries to push him out and he doesn't stop, just keeps that steady forward pressure until his hips are flush against her and he's buried completely inside her ass.
She's sobbing. She didn't realize she'd started. Silent tears to start, now running freely, her mouth open and her chest heaving.
Cullen leans down. His face is close to hers. His breath is warm against her cheek. He doesn't kiss her. He doesn't wipe her tears. He just holds still, filling her, and waits.
"Are you alright?"
She nods. She doesn't trust her voice.
"Words."
"I'm—" She swallows. "I'm alright."
He studies her for another moment. Then he starts to move.
Not fast. Not rough. Long, deliberate strokes. Almost all the way out, then all the way back in. Each thrust pushes a sound out of her, a gasp, a whimper, a choked cry that she tries to bite back and can't. The rhythm is merciless in its steadiness. No variation. No surprise. Just that same slow, deep, unavoidable fuck that makes her body sing with pain and ache.
"Do you think about this during the day?"
She can't answer. She's crying. Her hands grip the sheets and her back arches and she can feel every inch of him every time he moves. The question lands somewhere in her fog of pain and sensation, and she tries to process it, tries to form words, but her mouth won't cooperate.
He stops. Stays buried inside her, perfectly still. Waits.
The silence is worse than the movement. When he's moving, she has something to brace against. When he stops, all she has is the fullness, the enormous, inescapable pressure of him inside her and the question is still hanging in the air.
"I asked you a question."
"Y-yes." She gasps it out.
"When?"
"All..the time. All the time."
She feels him shift inside her. Just slightly. Just enough to make her clench and whimper. "All the time. You're walking through Kirkwall, talking to your friends, fighting, shopping, doing whatever it is you do during the day and you're thinking about this."
"Yes."
"About me. Inside you. Here." He pushes slightly deeper. She whimpers. "In your ass."
Her face burns. The tears make it worse, she can feel herself flushing red and wet and she knows she looks wrecked, destroyed, and he's barely breathing hard. "Yes."
"What do you think about?"
She shakes her head. She can't. She can't say it. If she says it, it becomes real. If she says it, she can't pretend anymore that this is something happening to her instead of something she's choosing.
Cullen pulls almost all the way out. She whimpers at the relief, the sudden emptiness, the way her body unclenches for one blessed moment and then he pushes back in. Slow.
She sobs.
"What do you think about, Hawke?"
"You." The word comes out broken. "I think about you. About..about this. About what you'll do to me. What you.. what you might.."
"Might what?"
"What you might make me do." Her voice cracks on the last word. "Whether you'll want me. Whether you'll..whether you'll let me come. Whether you'll.."
"Whether I'll hurt you."
She nods. Her face is wet. She can feel her tears pooling against the pillow, soaking into the linen.
He starts moving again. Steady, deliberate rhythm. Each thrust pushes a sound out of her that she can't control. She's shaking underneath him, and he's barely breathing hard. His hand slides from her hip to her stomach again, pressing just below her navel, where she can feel the pressure of him inside her from the outside. The dual sensation makes her gasp.
"You come here every night." His voice is conversational. Calm. "You let me do whatever I want. You cry, and you beg, and you come back."
His mouth is against her ear now. His breath is hot. She can smell him, skin and sweat and oil and she turns her face toward him instinctively, seeking.
"You want me to hurt you. You want someone to take the choice away from you so you don't feel guilty about wanting this."
She sobs. Because it's true. Because he's right. Because he's inside her and he knows her better than she knows herself and she can't hide from him. She's never been able to hide from him. Not from the first night, when he looked at her across his desk and saw something in her that she didn't know was there.
"Say it."
"I want..,I want you to…"
"Say it."
"I want you to hurt me." The words tear out of her like something with claws. "I want you to.. to use me. I want.. Maker, I want you to make me…make me feel like this, I want.."
"Good girl."
She breaks completely now. The admission cost her something. Not her body. Mentally. Something deeper. Some wall she didn't know she was still maintaining. The last piece of herself that she'd been holding back, the part that thought I'm not really this person, I'm just doing this because he wants me to, I'm not really a woman who begs to be hurt, I'm not really…
It crumbles. And there's nothing underneath it. Just a girl on a bed with a man inside her, crying, and she doesn't know where she ends and his pleasure begins.
Cullen fucks her through it. Doesn't stop. Doesn't slow down. The rhythm stays steady, inhale, thrust, exhale, withdraw and she dissolves into it. Her body goes limp. Her hands release the sheets. Her legs fall open wider, not because he pushed them but because she stopped holding them together. She's not fighting anymore. Not the sex, not the questions, not the truth of what she is.
He leans down again. His lips brush her temple. Her ear. The corner of her mouth. Not quite a kiss. Almost.
"There," he murmurs. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"
She shakes her head. Because it wasn't. Because he's right. Because agreeing with him is easier than fighting, and fighting hurts more than anything he does to her body.
He shifts his angle. Deeper now. The head of his cock drags against something inside her that makes her whole body jolt, makes her gasp, makes her pussy clench around nothing and drip onto the sheets. He does it again. And again. Finding that spot, that deep, devastating place within her and pressing against it with each thrust.
"Cullen—"
"What."
"I need.."
"What do you need?"
She doesn't want to say it. She's already said too much. Already cracked herself open and shown him everything ugly and desperate inside her. But her body is climbing toward something, building toward a peak that she can feel but can't quite reach, and the need is louder than the shame.
"I need to come. Please. Please let me ser"
His hand moves from her stomach. Slides down and his fingers find her clit. She jerks like she's been struck. She's so sensitive that the first touch is almost painful, and she cries out and tries to close her legs and can't because he's between them taking up every inch of room and pushing for more.
"Look at me."
She opens her eyes. He's right there. Inches away. Amber eyes, steady, focused entirely on her. His fingers circle. Slow. His hips keep moving. The dual sensation of his cock in her ass, his fingers on her clit is too much. It's a sensory overload that short circuits something in her brain, and she can feel the orgasm building like a wave gathering offshore.
"Say it again," he says.
"I..what?"
"What you are. What you want. Say it."
She stares at him. Her eyes are wet. Her lips are parted. She's panting, and each exhale is a small desperate sound, and she can feel herself clenching around him rhythmically as her body climbs higher.
"I want you to hurt me," she whispers. "I want you to use me. I'm..I'm yours. I'm..”
"Whose?"
"Yours. I'm yours ser."
"Good girl."
His fingers press harder. His hips snap forward, faster now, the rhythm finally breaking, and she can see it in his face, the first crack in his control. His jaw tightens. His breathing changes. He's close. The knowledge sends a jolt through her knowing that she did that, that her body and her words and her submission brought him to this.
"Come."
The word is a command. It lands in her chest like a fist, and her body obeys before her mind can catch up. The orgasm crashes through her, a deep, devastating sensation unlike anything she feels when she touches herself. It starts in her clit and radiates inward, meeting the pressure of him inside her, and the two sensations merge into something that makes her scream. She screams and clamps down on him and her back bows off the bed and her vision whites out.
She hears him. Distantly. A low groan, almost involuntary, almost surprised and then his hips jerk forward one final time and she feels it. The pulse of him inside her. The heat. The fullness that goes deeper than physical.
He collapses. Not all the way, he catches himself on his elbows but his weight settles on her, and she takes it, and his face is in her neck, and his breathing is ragged against her skin.
For a long moment, neither of them moves.
She can feel him softening inside her. The pressure easing. The stretch becoming discomfort instead of fullness. She's sore. She'll be sore tomorrow. She'll feel it when she walks, a deep, internal ache that reminds her of this room every time she shifts in a chair or climbs a set of stairs. She revels in it.