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“You know, I'm not usually the kind of girl to leave a party early,” Karlach said.
“To be honest, I'm not usually the sort to make it through to the end of one most of the time,” Dammon admitted, following along as close to her heels as he dared. “My forge is usually the most company I keep this late in the night.”
“Cheers to doing something new for both of us, then, mate,” she replied without the slightest pause, raising the bottle of wine they'd made off with. A pair of good, sturdy bronze chalices hung by the bases from her other hand—something that wouldn't catch sparks no matter how fired up she got, unlike tankards, and something that wouldn't shatter no matter how rowdy things ended up, unlike glasses.
He just laughed, soft and warm as the caress Karlach couldn't have. Gods , she wanted to feel him in a thousand ways, and only about three-quarters of them were depraved. She wanted to run hands down the kind of thick forearms of a man who swung a hammer from sunup to sundown every single day, wanted to cup those gorgeous cheekbones in both hands and pull him into a deep kiss, wanted to feel just how tightly those clipped-short tradesman's claws would dig into her thighs when she climbed on top of him–
No. Bad Karlach. Cool your heels. So he says he wants to head off from the party alone with you and some wine and go somewhere private. Don't go reading too deeply into it.
Not that there was any other way she could think to take his suggestion. Dammon had been the one who fixed her engine enough that she hadn't burnt out a piston and collapsed before they'd made it that far, but he still knew she ran hotter than Zariel's steaming armpit; even coming near her for too long left the tips of his cute ears, which stuck out at an almost perfect ninety-degree angle from his head, singed after just a few seconds. Yet he'd still been the one who made the suggestion, his voice low and a lovely smile reflected in eyes as blue as the hottest of flames. Damn it, Karlach was only mortal. How in the hells else could she interpret that? How in the hells could she say no?
“There's an old bear den out here in the cliffs. It's not much, but it should be quiet, and most of all, largely fireproof,” Dammon said with a conspiratorial grin. His tail stayed tight and close to his body as if so many years of working the forges had quelled that part of his body language, or maybe he'd learned all at once when he'd gotten the burn scars near the tip. Would his feel different than the tight, gnarled skin along her own chest, where Zariel's infernal engineers had snapped her ribs open and forced in hellish machinery in place of her heart? Did they still hurt him, or would he find the brush of her fingertips soothing?
“Wouldn't want me to get too keyed up, would you?” she asked, aiming a playful punch at the air right near his shoulder. As she'd gotten too used to doing, she pulled short right before, conveying gesture if nothing else.
“Well...with the stone and dirt, it wouldn't matter if you did,” he replied, his smile only broadening as he shrugged. “And my blacksmith's apron is from Avernus. It was enchanted down there to withstand the flames of Carixim's forge itself. Even you're not so hot you could damage that. So...it'd be a spot of comfort for you to drink and enjoy yourself.”
That radiant smile of his lit up the night, and the charm of him alone sent heat pooling in her stomach.
“Is it gonna let me put you down and fuck your brains out, Dammon? 'Cause if you keep talking like that, fire or no, I might just end up there anyway,” she replied with a shake of her head.
It gave her the (frankly adorable) sight of a blush painting itself over his tanned cheeks.
“Well...no,” he admitted as he lead her to the semi-secluded cave he'd scouted out. She had to stoop to fit all seven feet of her own massive frame through the entrance without knocking her remaining horn on the overhang, but it was a far cry from the worst place she'd snuck off to. “But I've got an idea. Maybe it's not entirely perfect...but maybe it's something.”
True to his word, he untied the thick leather apron that he'd brought with him and spread it out for her, far more gentlemanly than Karlach was accustomed to. She grinned back and popped the cork on the wine bottle with her teeth, then poured out the contents into a generous glass for them each, raising hers in a toast.
“To you and your brilliant mind, then,” Karlach said, nothing but earnest in it.
“To you and saving us all, I say,” Dammon replied, tapping his chalice to hers. Their fingers came so close to brushing that it sent a shiver down her spine, and she threw back her wine too quickly.
“That's the easy part for me. Point me at a threat and ol' Karlach's a one-woman army. It's all the damn waiting that doesn't sit so easy. Leave the planning and the talking and all that to Gale and Wyll,” she groaned.
“I don't think you give yourself enough credit. I don't know if I could do it. When Elturel fell into Avernus, I didn't fight. I just...put my head down and did what I was told. You were so brave,” Dammon murmured, the admiration so thick in his voice he sounded almost starstruck in it.
“We both did what we had to, right? We both got out. We both made it. And we're never fucking going back.” She fought down the surge of heat that rose through her, even as Karlach could feel her engine kicking up higher. Smoke discharged in a hot burst from the vents along her shoulders, but she kept her temper down and her skin from bursting into flames. “I'd rather not talk about that right now, if it's all the same to you. Tonight's for good fun and good drinks, right?”
Dammon's eyes flicked to the red-hot exposed metal embedded in her skin, then back to her face. He smiled in understanding. “Right. Sorry. Old habits die hard and all.”
“Water under the bridge. Now, what's that killer idea of yours? Come on, I'm dying to hear it, Dammon,” she goaded, leaning forward and resting her arms on her drawn-up knees.
He laughed softly and rubbed at the back of his neck. Her eyes followed the movement, imagining too easily that she could touch, too. Dammon kept the sides of his head and the very nape of his neck shaved to stay cool by the heat of the forge, but vanity kept the rest of his ash-blond hair long and streaked through with pale red like cooled coals in a muted mirror to the vibrant crimson of Karlach's own. She imagined the prickle of freshly-shorn hair under her hand, then the soft brush where his shaved sides had just barely grown out, trailing her fingers up to the smooth ridges along the short, upswept horns along his brows. They'd make good handholds to press his head down between her legs and—
Whoa, Karlach! Whoa! Let the man speak! This isn't the time...is it?
“...Well, the thing is, I still haven't gotten a satisfactory answer to the problem of your engine. I've been working on plans, testing out schematics, thinking of, you know, perhaps a liquid metal cooling function, or maybe...” Dammon trailed off, gesturing with his wineglass. He took a drink. “The point is, nothing's come up conclusively. At least, not that you or your engine would survive. But that doesn't mean you can't have fun, in a way.”
He shifted his weight, watching her with those heart-melting blue eyes. He looked like he was fighting to find his own courage, poised on a precipice he couldn't quite manage to leap over, and Karlach happily took the initiative for him.
“Not telling me anything I don't already know, Dammon. But anything you've got to offer is something I didn't have before. Listen, you've already given me a new lease on life and one hell of a nice evening even before this. Couple pints and tearing up the dance floor out at the party was damn fine. This? This is just the icing on the cake, baby,” she promised with a smile.
The other tiefling let out a breath, an answering smile tugging at his lips. Gods , he was gorgeous.
“Well, I can't touch you, and you can't touch me. But we can both still talk and watch, can't we? Would it be too much of a tease to touch ourselves?” he asked, and that smile was nothing but sly, a certain masculine confidence gleaming in his eyes. “I could show you and tell you exactly what I feel like so you can imagine it for the time it takes for me to make it a reality.”
“Fuck,” she breathed. “Fuck, Dammon, yes. That's genius.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far,” he said, but his smile hadn’t let up.
“It’s a pretty slick idea. Nowhere near as good as the real deal, but it’s the closest I’m going to get right now. It’s…I dunno. Fuck, it’s almost like it’s not just me, you know? For the first time in a damn long time, it’s not just me, alone,” Karlach told him, face softening. She held out her hand, fingertips seeking his.
With a bittersweet look on his face, Dammon mirrored her, pausing with an inch between them. Karlach’s tiger-paw mitts reached farther than even his broad hands, not even counting the claws–hers worn long, save the first two fingers trimmed down on her right hand, and his filed as short as possible for better dexterity at the anvil. She angled her wrist, imagining twining her fingers with his, gripping his hand tight.
“If I learned anything in Avernus, Karlach, I’ll put it to use to fix this. I promise,” he said, slowly drawing his hand back.
“And if I’m any good at finding trouble, I’ll dig up half the hells for more damn infernal iron myself. Enough to fix this hunk of junk and plenty leftover for you to play with,” she replied. Karlach pounded a fist to her chest to emphasize her point, making the engine lodged behind flash molten yellow and growl a mechanical retort.
His eyes widened, and for a moment, she thought it was fear in Dammon’s eyes. Fear for himself, fear for her, she wasn’t sure…until her tipsy brain parsed the expression a little more clearly.
“Hey, is this thing why you got the hots for me so fast? Couldn’t resist a gorgeous woman with a piece of infernal machinery as part of the sexy package?” she teased.
He looked very much like if could have summoned the devils to drag the entirety of Elturel back to Avernus, he would have just to have them take him with it; his shoulders hunched somewhere around his ears and his tail hugged his boots, that rugged square jaw clenched tight. Bullseye.
“Karlach, that’s not–”
“Aw, don’t take it like that. Hells, this thing means I’m gonna always have a piece of your work inside me,” she continued, smoothing over Dammon’s embarrassment. “I don’t even have an excuse! Just put eyes on you and ‘hell- o , handsome, bye- bye Karlach’.”
She grinned at him, and, mercifully, Dammon smiled back. Karlach so hated seeing anyone upset that it eased the brief tightness in her chest, made the whole night feel lighter already.
“If it were just your engine, I’d be interested, but it really is…well, it’s you. You’re stunning, Karlach. I want you like I haven’t wanted anyone in…all right, I can’t remember a time. If you hadn’t agreed to all this, I’d probably be doing much the same thing, just by myself.”
“Yeah?” she goaded, teasing her lower lip with her teeth.
“Mmhm.” His brows rose, that conspiratorial look sparking in his eyes. “But just between us, I’d still be thinking about you.”
A ripple of heat ran over her skin, matching the shudder that rolled down her spine. “Fuck, baby. Let’s get these gods-damned clothes off and get a good look at each other before I blow out a piston ring just from frustration.”
Dammon didn’t seem to need much urging, though her clothes came off quicker than his did. He had too many clasps and straps on his vest alone, to say nothing of the other layers he’d worn to look his best; she had patchwork metal-and-leather garb that had quite literally been through the hells and back, and which slipped on and off her as easily as crawling out of bed in the morning. It let her enjoy the view of the smith still in his neckerchief and his underwear when she had already gotten entirely naked, and the way the fabric of the latter clung to his almost obscene bulge made it worth every second of waiting Karlach still had to endure. She watched with rapt attention as he finished stripping, her own fingers splayed between her legs to draw the eyes.
“ Fuck . I know you make and sell weapons, but you could’ve mentioned the damn orcish greatclub you kept for yourself,” she exclaimed, staring at the thick heft of cock that somehow managed to make even his broad hand look undersized.
“Karlach, please!” he protested, cheeks heating. But before she could tell him to loosen up and take the compliment, Dammon continued, “I’ve sold a greatclub or two in my time, but they’re crude weapons, barely past something improvised. Could you at least pick, I don’t know, a…cornugon-styled hellsblaze-alloy claymore, or, or–”
“You can call it whatever you want, baby. But you could do some serious damage with that,” she assured, tail curling in anticipation as she leaned in to take a better look. Like many of their people did, he bore ridges along his length that promised to stimulate so wonderfully inside her–it made other tieflings such a wild ride compared to some of the other peoples of Faerûn. No two men were quite the same in that regard, but Dammon’s subtle protrusions looked like exactly what the doctor ordered, if Karlach could say so herself. “Now’s when you tell me you have a full-body suit made out of that apron leather or something, right, mate?”
His eyes roved over her body in turn with nothing shy of wonderment. Tattoos mixed with battle-scars and burns, dark metal enmeshed with deep red skin, all of her built with the solid strength of a warrior, a brawler, a survivor . From the way Dammon couldn’t seem to help himself from palming over his erection, he more than liked everything he saw–he wanted more.
“I’m afraid I don’t, but…oh, that’s a beautiful sight.”
He still hadn’t taken his bandana off for his own distraction, and it gave a splash of faded green against the tanned bronze of his bare skin. Karlach drank in the sight of his muscle–practical, befitting his work, as powerful over the chest and shoulders as she’d guessed, yet less defined through the middle and legs. She wanted to run her hands over the corded strength of those blacksmith’s shoulders and feel just how much force he could muster. Could he flip her if he tried? Could he hoist her? Could he get her against a wall and pound her fucking brains out with that gorgeous whatever the fuck he compared it to cock of his? Or would his arms just feel like solid steel and his shoulders tense and firm when she dug her fingers in and held on?
A girl could imagine, and she would, her fingers dipping lower into herself just to wet the tips. No surprise he’s already got you that wound up. Guy doesn’t look like that and have moves like that without getting a reaction, she thought, lips parted.
It didn’t really matter that Dammon hadn’t finished his wine or that either of them had intended to talk a little longer. Not once they both had hands on themselves and eyes on each other. Karlach leaned back against the cavern wall, just watching her companion with a lazy smile as she worked slow strokes over her clit.
“Enjoying the view, hot stuff?” she asked, voice low and playful.
“You certainly won’t hear any complaints from me,” he replied with a soft huff of a laugh. He settled in opposite her, legs spread to give her a damn fine look if she’d ever seen one, and flashed her a smile. “How’s that for you?”
“Could do with some real hands-on, but short of melting your dick off? That’s aces,” Karlach agreed, making a show of licking her lips.
The smith just shook his head and laughed harder.
“My hands are…very calloused from my work,” he started, holding up both for too short a time for Karlach to get a good look. Not that she was really looking at his hands when the rest of him proved so damn distracting. It took a moment for her brain to catch up as he drifted one down to take hold of his length. “They’re probably rougher than you’re expecting when I finally do get to touch you. Gods, Karlach, I know you want to touch and be touched so badly, but I want to touch you, too. Kindly and romantically, yes…but also, I want to make you feel good.”
There it was again, that quiet confidence of his that made her blood burn. She didn’t feel the slightest bit shy about making her appreciation vocally known.
“Yeah? Where’d you start?” she prodded, voice already gone husky-thick with her own want.
He grunted softly as he firmed up his grip and started to stroke himself, but he matched Karlach’s pace–slow, easy, more to tease than to actually get himself anywhere. The sight still went straight to her groin, making her clit throb hard. Fuck, she needed him in her right then, or at least her hand on him. Something. Anything.
“Normally, I’d say I’d take it slow and do it right for you. Give you every one of those touches you haven’t been able to have…caress you, hold you, treat you like the wonderful woman you are…”
“Normally?”
“But you’d never let me wait that long first off, would you?” Dammon continued, his smile showing too many lovely sharp teeth. “...and maybe I couldn’t wait, either. Maybe I’d just kiss you and see how long it took before we were tangled up together.”
Karlach pressed her fingers harder to herself, faster, and moaned. There was no helping how the engine in her chest revved up, flames licking her skin as her pulse raced. Dammon’s words in that low, mild voice painted a better picture in her head than her own imagination possibly could, and the sight of him pumping his thick cock in front of her only made it better.
“ Gods , baby. You’re not far off. At this rate, the second you’ve got me fixed, I’m riding you on the damn workbench in your own forge,” she agreed.
“Move my tools first?” Dammon teased.
“Only if you asked real nice,” she replied. “Fuck, Dammon, I want to feel all of it. Every calloused touch you want to give me. Just means we might need two or three or twenty rounds to get there.”
He groaned softly in return, though at her words or just the sound of her voice, Karlach didn’t know. It sounded so sweet to her ears anyway, and came with the delicious look of him tightening his grip on himself. She watched with heavy-lidded eyes as his fingers played over each of those tantalizing ridges that she so badly wanted inside her instead.
“I won’t say no to that, either.”
She slipped her hand lower, pressing two fingers into herself at the very thought. Ten damn years in Avernus with only her own touch, and even if Karlach knew better than anyone else how to get herself off, her hand made such a poor substitute for anyone else. The curl of her fingers couldn’t reach near as deep as she knew Dammon could, either with his cock or those hammer-calloused fingers of his. She worried her lower lip with her teeth at the very thought.
“I bet even when I can touch people, I’m still gonna run hotter’n your smelter inside, too,” Karlach told him.
“That is a risk I will gladly take,” he assured, biting back a quiet sound of his own pleasure. He followed her lead, quickening the movement of his hand up and down his firm shaft, eyes slightly unfocused. “Oh, thinking of you warm around me…”
“Yeah. Yeah, Dammon. Think you could lift me? Put me up against that wall right there and fuck me stupid?”
“Maybe. How much does…an infernal engine weigh?” he asked, sweat beading on his brow; the fire rolling over Karlach’s skin made the cave in which they’d set up sweltering in no time, and if she weren’t so focused on the look of his fingers gliding over the slickness of his precum on the head of his cock instead, maybe she’d have it in her to apologize.
“A lot,” she admitted. “Okay. All right. I’ll put you against the wall and fuck you stupid. How’s that sound?”
Both his brows shot up, but then Dammon groaned and nodded. It didn’t really matter to Karlach either way at that point, hypothetical or not. Just getting him tangled up with her, as much skin against skin as she could manage, sounded like the way to go. Pressing her chest against his, her strong arms around his thighs, hoisting him up and holding him to her while she let a toy and her hips do the work…fuck, that would be great, too. Karlach was nice and easygoing as long as everyone was having fun and she could kiss that handsome face of his so much her lips felt numb by morning. She’d even take just grinding on him like teenagers right then for the feel of Dammon’s body against hers.
Her breath left her in a growl, a moan, the line got really damn blurred when she got going–the only real constant was that Karlach stayed loud .
“Oh, you, you sound good,” he panted, and it took until she heard the strain in his voice to realize how much everything had gotten to him. His ridges stood out just a little more against his fingers, enough that even she could see them catch on the backhand.
“We’d both scream…until the whole celebration came to see what was, what was what if we had at each other proper,” she returned, pounding her fingers harder into herself. The quick press of her thumb to her clit just made it better, adding onto the urgency. Karlach could imagine just what it’d be like, feeling the texturing along his shaft become that much more prominent right as he was taking those last strokes, as if trying to push her over with him. Fuck, she’d have to pace herself not to come around him first when he had her, because damn if she was going to miss letting him tip her like that.
“Not…far off from it as is,” Dammon warned.
“Then come on! Let’s fucking do it!”
She half closed her eyes and tipped her head back, curled horn knocking against the cave wall. Karlach grinned sloppy-loose back at him and let go of any inhibitions she had left, moaning deep for them both. Her engine roared in her ears in a dogfight of sound that resonated through metal-bolstered bones, chewing through oil and spitting out flames with a power only matched by the wildfire of pleasure that threatened to consume her any moment.
Release slammed into her like a charging wardevil, leaving Karlach crying out Dammon’s name as she seized around her own fingers. Scant feet away, she heard him groan in answer, brought to ruin along with her, and if she hadn’t already been blissed out of her mind and coming her brains out, seeing her blacksmith spilling over his own hand would have sent her then and there. Her moans smothered his quiet sounds of pleasure as he stayed still and shuddered through his climax and she rutted against her fingers, eking out every last bit of pleasure she could possibly get.
In the quiet after, the thrum of Karlach’s engine shifted down to a low mechanical purr. Dammon grinned a disheveled grin and groped for a rag to clean up with all the grace of a concussed ogre. The last sips of his wine seemed to help ease the discomfort of the heat she’d put off, and he joined her in the sort of comfortable lassitude only shared in mutual afterglow.
“That’s enough material to keep my hand moving for the next decade,” she laughed, flopping back onto his apron with her arms folded behind her head. It smelled like the forge, yes, but also like him .
“If I’m half as good as I think I am, it won’t be anywhere near as long,” he promised. Carefully, so carefully, Dammon settled on his back beside her, scant inches between them. “Ten days, maybe. Not ten years.”
Karlach didn’t mention that ten days was about at the outer limits of where time meant anything to her–past that, everything got so fuzzy it all might as well have been the same anyway. But under two weeks, she could work with. That felt real enough.
She wanted to throw a leg over him and sprawl on Dammon like a severely touch-starved starfish. She wanted to sling an arm around him and pull him onto her so he could rest his head on her chest and listen to the steady chug of machinery in place of a heartbeat and have someone who would be soothed by it and not unnerved. She wanted to roll on her side and have him flush to her back or her stomach or anywhere at all, just to hold and still be with her when nightmares of a dark-eyed man and cracking ribs and raining blood still woke her, shivering, in the dark of night.
All she could do, though, was butt her remaining horn against one of his, the closest to real contact either one of them could get. Karlach couldn’t feel it in truth, but the shock of vibration down her skull sang to her like homecoming. She thought he understood anyway.
“I’ll hold you to that. Ten days ‘til I can touch you?”
“Or sooner, I hope. We’ll be in Baldur’s Gate right at the same time, won’t we? We can catch up then.”
“Drinks are on me if you can manage that one. I’ll meet you after the detour in Moonrise, all right? Once I get this thing in my head sorted, it’s smooth sailing for me,” she told him, flashing a smile.
He returned it, seemingly as content to bask in her easy confidence as Karlach herself was.
“It’s a date. I wouldn’t miss it for a lifetime.”