That's during the part of the afternoon when they're talking more than kissing. But by the time the sun gets low in the sky, more of their words than not are spent, and the kissing is getting more intense, all over each other's faces and necks, with their hands going everywhere on each other's bodies, though they're both still completely clothed. More and more, Vax finds his hands straying to her breasts, encouraged by how she presses up into them, and even through her robes the feel of them is sending hot desire shooting through him.
Which is the main reason he's not stopping. Though he knows they shouldn't go much further without talking about it first, at least a little, if only to establish how far each of them is willing to go tonight. There's his concern about her, of course. Already they're in new territory for her, and he's even worried she might push herself to take more than she can handle at once. Though he may or may not refuse her one thing for his own reasons.
This is pretty big for him as well. Sure, Vax has bedded plenty of women and men in his life. He's also genuinely cared for quite a few of them. There have even been a handful where he's cared very deeply, loved them in his way. But Keyleth...she's beyond all that. Apart from his mother and sister, noone's ever meant as much to him. The wildest nights of passion he's known in the past haven't made his heart and hands tremble the way having her in his embrace does.
Finally Keyleth pulls away, and asks, "Are you, um, comfortable taking your armor off tonight?"
It's a fair question on her part. Since being attacked Vax has practically lived in his armor, taking it off only to wash himself. And the thought of taking it off for more than a few minutes does now make him anxious.
But then he looks down at Keyleth, and thinks of the powers she possesses under that deceptively small frame. How she can and will and has literally fought tooth and claw and elemental alongside him. He's already loved her all the more for how powerful she is, but now he realizes how safe and protected her love can make him feel. It's a feeling that's been in short supply for most of his life.
"If you're willing to stay here tonight," he says to her, "I might leave it off until morning."
"Oh, of course I'm staying!" she says, and kisses him again. "And before you ask, I want everything with you. I've made you wait long enough and I've made myself wait long enough, too. If you don't feel like you can do it tonight I'll understand, but I'm ready to."
"It's not quite that." And now he does have to explain, at least his side of it. "There's something you have to understand, Kiki. Vex and I spent years with a father who made clear we were the unwanted consequences of a bit of fun he'd had with a woman without even a thought of how it might affect her-and while our mother always insisted she was happy to have us, being the unwed mother of two half-Elven children wasn't easy for her. And before we left Syngorn, I heard my peers talk about behaving in the same way. I even saw one or two of them make advances on Vex, knowing that to them, she was just some lowly half-blood where they didn't have to care about her honor or if she suffered-and believe me, if she'd gotten pregnant there, she would have suffered."
He has to stop for a moment, with the early memories of fear and rage, the feelings that still fuel his mistrust of Percy beyond what the man actually deserves. Then he finishes, "Shortly before we left, I swore to myself that I would never risk getting a woman with child unless she was my wife, and we were damn well ready to have one. And I'm sure you have plenty to say to me right now about how you're sure I'd handle such a situation better than they would, but when we don't know if I'd even live to...I won't risk it. Not ever."
Keyleth's face has gone from sad to horrified, but now it goes incredulous as she demands, "You've really never fucked a woman? Ever?"
"I'm willing to if there's some form of magical prevention in place. There's a potion I've used in the past, and the next vial of it we see, I'm ready to buy, so we can do that eventually. Just not tonight, unless you happen to have a spell prepared."
"There is a spell I know of," she replies. "If we have a day where we don't expect to be doing much, I can have it ready. But that doesn't help us tonight either." She sags into the mattress, obviously disappointed, but maybe still a little relieved.
"It's okay, Kiki," he murmurs, pressing another kiss to her face. "There's still plenty we can do tonight."
But she looks wary, and then says, "What exactly do you have in mind? I, uh, did hear once that when men have sex with other men, they, um, put it...in...in...." She drifts off, very red-faced.
"Sometimes we do, yes," Vax tells her. "But actually, doing that without someone getting hurt takes a lot of care and preparation, and you have to know what you're doing. It's not something I'd try with you tonight. Or at all, if you don't ever want to." Although he definitely wouldn't mind if, at some time in the future, she might be willing to penetrate him. But that's a discussion for much later.
She definitely looks relieved at that. "Then...can we at least get naked? I...kind of want to see you."
"That will do for a start," Vax says, and sets to work on his armor. "I'll be happy to see you too."
They maybe both steal glances at how to unfasten each other's armor; he knows he'd like to undress her sometime. But for now it's easier to undress themselves, and soon enough she's getting off the bed to fold her robe up, and also grab her headdress, which fell off some time ago and has just been lying there near the pillow. His clothing takes a little longer, but he's naked by the time she's placed them down on a chair.
He takes a moment to run his eyes up and down her before getting up to follow suit. They've both seen a lot of it already, but he never dared look too much. He didn't quite realize how many scars she has; less than he does, but a significant amount of them. Maybe she'd let him kiss all of them, among other things?
She looks too, sitting herself back down on the bed as he bundles up his armor and other pieces of clothing and places them down on the table, looking both nervous and hungry. "Could you...lie down on your back for a bit?"
He can't help but feel a little self-conscious doing so, especially when she's looking over him as if torn about where to touch first. More than once she looks to where his erection is just bobbing there, almost looking silly. But her hands finally land on his chest, roam around and up and down. When they brushed over his nipples he let go a gasp, and then another one when she presses her face down to his skin, murmuring, "I can hear your heart. It's beating so fast..." She kisses the skin above it, and Vax can't hold back a tiny moan.
"I like that sound." Her voice has gotten thick. "I like this. I..." She suddenly jerked her head back up, and exhaled fast several times.
Possibly too fast. "Kiki?" he asks, worried. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, yes, just...this is a lot. I mean, I never even had...lustful thoughts...over a man until a month or so ago. You're only the second person I've had them over at all. I remember when I first read about sexual desires and their variations and how some people didn't have them, and I thought I didn't for nearly two years." She's babbling now. "Then there was this girl who was forced to study with me for a few months for her misbehavior, and we got kind of close, and I had....thoughts...about her...but I hadn't since and this is more intense than that. I suppose that's all kind of strange, that I didn't, and then I did, and then I didn't, and now I do again..."
"But you're sure you want me," Vax asks, because he doesn't have to care about the rest, but he does have to care about that.
"It's one of the things I've been most sure about in my life," and she reinforces it by kissing him hard; for a moment they can forget all else, let the passion rise. "I'm sorry, I feel like such a mess right now."
"You should've seen me the first time I had sex," he tells her gently. "It was with another boy, and I got so wound up I went and came in his mouth without any warning like an asshole..."
"In his mouth?" Keyleth pulls up, looking utterly shocked. "Was he trying to eat you or something?"
Vax can't help a chuckle. "It may sound gross. But having someone's mouth on your genitals actually feels really good-for both sexes; the women who've had mine on theirs have made that very clear to me. And I find for my part that I very much enjoy pleasuring people in that way."
"So you've done this a lot," Keyleth says, before, "Wait, do you want us to do that?"
"Not if you're not comfortable with it," he assures her. Her reaction seems pretty much just shock, not necessarily repulsion, but she clearly still needs time. Except now he's starting to recognize another problem, one that might even stop them from doing much tonight. "How much have you thought about this?" he asks carefully. "I don't want to do anything you don't want me to do, and if we have to stop and talk about this to maybe figure out what you might want, we can do that."
Throughout this speech she looks pensive. When it's done, she says, "Well, there is one thing...this is probably silly."
"Tell me it anyway. It might not be as silly as you think."
It takes her a few more moments to start. "I think I had...feelings for you for longer, but I didn't *want* you like that until...it was about a week after we defeated the Briarwoods, and I had this dream about you...taking me...and it was like what had happened with Ellaila, except more." Her voice is getting thick again, and when Vax looks he can see her thighs twitching. "I started thinking about you when I touched myself-and doing that a lot more of that than usual, too.
So when I do that, I often put my fingers...inside. And I imagined it was you, that it was you inside me. But there was one time where..." And this is where she finally turns red. "I pretended it was your fingers. That you'd just put them in me, just like that. I thought about that a little with Ellaila-I mean, I couldn't think of anything else we could've done, but to a man I suppose that really must sound silly..."
Then she stops suddenly, looking at him. Maybe she's noticed how his breathing was getting much, much harsher while she's been telling him this. "You really think I would find that silly?" he pants. "That I wouldn't absolutely love to do that to you? Hells, Kiki, just the image you've painted in my head of you doing that to yourself...it's far from silly anyway; I've done exactly that to women before, but I think even if I'd never heard of such an act before I'd still want to do it right now."
"You've done that before?" Once again he's stunned her.
She really doesn't know. Her studies obviously informed her about how to make babies and, apparently, at least general information about sexual attractions. Scurrilous gossip might have also revealed a thing or two to her since. And he's hoping her explorations of her body has left her knowing something about how she could experience pleasure-at her own or someone else's hands. But there's been no source to give her any real idea of how many things two people willing to share their bodies with each other could do together in bed.
She hasn't even known what she hasn't known. But she must be getting some idea of that now, and meanwhile, she's continued to think. "I don't just want your hands there," she blurts out. "I...kind of want them everywhere."
It's starting to sound like things are going to work out fine tonight. After a moment's hesitation, Vax asks, "Can I put my mouth on your breasts as well? Maybe your chest in general? I can keep it above the waist if you want."
She's nodding. "Yes, that sounds good." Then she looks over to where his erection is starting to get painful. "Can I touch that, too? Would that make you feel good?"
"Do very much of it and it'll probably make me come, honestly."
She shuffles herself backwards, and says, "Tell me how you want it."
"Just take a firm grip and move up and down," he hisses. "Men are fairly easy to please."
Then there's a hand on him, not quite as firm as he'd like but he doesn't even care, because it's still enough to rock through his body, his head thrown back with pleasure. It feels even better when he hears Keyleth's, "Oh, I like this, I like this..." her tone low and delighted. When her free hand covers his chest again, and her mouth finds his, he rises up into the ardor of her kisses, her hands, his hips bucking upward until he comes, moaning into her mouth even as she moans back.
"Vax," she gasps his name in between kisses; she's still kissing him like she can't stop. He raises his hands to her back, and at last gets them onto warm, sweaty skin, and can feel her squirm.
He pushes her up long enough to suggest, "Your turn?" She grins, and moves with him as they roll over. And then, at last, he has her underneath his hands, a hungry man at a feast.
Vax takes his time, laying more kisses from her forehead down, lingering over one high-placed scar and her Slayer's Take brand, his hands going ahead of him, his fingers running over her soft, pale breasts before stroking her stomach, her sides, her hips, then back up to hold her as his mouth reaches her chest. Keyleth sighs as he suckles and licks at her breasts, working them until she whines. Still he lingers, licking his own semen off the skin just below her chest, kissing another scar there, then a third on her side. When the brush of his lips against the last makes her shiver, Vax licks again and she gasps. He runs a hand up and down her, and flicks his fingers against her thighs.
He does it again, and again, until she pants out, "Please, Vax, please, I'm aching down there, please, I want you so badly, I feel like I'm going to go crazy if I don't get something in there."
He pulls himself up, steals another fierce kiss, and puts a hand in hers. Her hand is unnaturally hot, though not enough to burn. "Put my fingers where you put your own," he murmurs. "Put them where you fantasized about them being."
Her hand shakes as she moves his, guiding it between her legs and flame red hair. "Put two fingers in." She's a little small, but so wet they go in easily. Inside she's soft and hot, and Vax gives himself a moment to just feel as he slides in as far as they'll go. "Press there," she whispers, "little further up-oh, there, right there," and she guides his thumb over her clit until he has the rhythm, her rocking into it as he thrusts his fingers in and out. More soft cries escape Keyleth, fueling the tenderness with which he kisses his way back up her body.
It takes him a couple tries to kiss her face, the way her head is bobbing about, but he doesn't mind. Not when he gets to see her lost in pleasure, her eyelids fluttering and her lips parted. Vax licks his way up her ear before murmuring to her, "You're so beautiful, Kiki, I love you like this, love how you feel around my hand, so perfect, I could do this forever, I love you so much..."
"Vax..." Keyleth's pushing back against him faster, and her arms fling themselves against his back, though she seems to be keeping her hands off him. Using his free arm, he pulls her close to him and speeds his fingers up, holding her as she bucks up against him. "Your hands are so....didn't know....could feel this good...going to..."
"Yes, yes, Kiki, want to feel you come against me, let me drown in your pleasure..." Two more thrusts of his fingers into that exquisite heat, and he feels her spasm around his hand, and she cries out his name one last time and shudders through her release. He can also feel the heat from her hands even without them touching him. They'd burn him if they were, no doubt. Vax would gladly let them. He kisses Keyleth as she comes down and keeps working her through it, pressing his fingers up inside her a few more times, until she goes limp.
For several minutes they stay like that, Keyleth letting out only a little sound when Vax carefully pulls his fingers out and clasps her to him with both arms. At first she just lies there, breathing still fast, looking a little overwhelmed by what's just happened. When one of her hands, now cooled down, moved to touch where he's half-hard, he gently bats it away with a, "That won't do anymore tonight, I'm afraid."
She actually giggles at that. "We should sleep anyway, shouldn't we? In each other's arms again. Maybe if I clean us up a little first, we can sleep naked?" More giggling.
It's awfully tempting, but even if he's foregoing his armor tonight, Vax's not yet ready to sleep again that bared to the world, even with Keyleth there to protect him. "I think I'll still wear my sleepwear. Though you can, if you don't feel like getting yours?"
She considers it for a moment, then says, "I might, except Whitestone nights really are cold. Speaking of, I suppose we should get cleaned up; I'm getting chilly."
That's a good idea, especially since some of Vax's semen landed on his own torso, and it's starting to feel uncomfortable. He forces himself to let Keyleth go and watches her hands as she magically cleans them, then goes to dress.
As she puts her headdress back on, she pauses, then says, "The thing you were talking about earlier, with the mouths. I'd like to try that next time."
Vax grins from where he's dressing for bed himself. "I'll look forward to that very much."
"Good." She opens the door, looks down the corridor, then says, "I'll go faster as Minxie." He watches her transform and take off.
Just a few minutes left alone, enough time to fall back on the bed and try to take it all in, everything that's happened since Keyleth had come to his door. Also everything that's happened that day, so his joy is still layered with his grief, and yet he can't help but feel giddy. It's still a little hard to entirely believe, that she actually just said yes, that she loves him, that they did everything they just did. Let alone that there will be more days and nights ahead, provided they both lived to see them, where he'll have her by his side.
That for the third time in the past month, his world has been shaken to its foundations and completely changed-only this time, it's undisputedly for the better.
Keyleth, it seems, changed into her sleepwear in her room before transforming again to come back. Nor did she change back into herself immediately upon entering the room, but instead kicked the door shut and shuffled her way to the bed, and stood there. Probably the enormity of this is hitting her hard too. It's got to be easier to process things with Minxie's simpler mind.
And Vax has been more than good with her animal shapes, so he says to her, "I don't know if you want to sleep like that, but I wouldn't mind cuddling with Minxie for a few minutes."
Up she jumps onto the bed. For a moment Vax worries about the weight, but while the bed sags a bit as she settles, it holds, and continues to even as she rolls onto her side. Vax scratches her belly as he moves in. Minxie purrs and rubs her head against his, before he moves it down, and happily buries his face and arms in warm fur.