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“Finely formed.”
He knows his smile is a winning one because even as he’s saying the words he can see Azu’s blush brush dark across her cheeks.
“How’s got a good eye for lovely things. Not so good at it, to be honest, but I know what good bones are.”
Barnes kisses her ankle, first, a soft caress of a thing; his lips drag along skin that covers bone and brilliant muscle. He’s holding her calf like she’s made of glass and Barnes wonders if anyone has ever treated Azu with the reverence she deserves.
“I think you are selling yourself short, commander,” she says back, her voice warm and rich, shooting through his chest and curling its way down to his stomach, “I’ve seen the blade you wield. It’s really quite something.”
He kisses again, lower, just where the thickness of her heel meets the delicate, paper thin skin above it.
He’s on his knees and it feels right to be so. Azu reclines above him in a chair that speaks to comfort above all else. Her nightgown is dazzling in its pattern, intricate and every colour of pink imaginable.
Even the colour of her cheeks is in there.
“Didn’t know you were one for weapons, that axe aside, of course,” he says, leaving the pun lingering behind the words. He kisses along the metatarsal bone, tracing the curve of her foot with his lips and lets his tongue flick out to taste her as he does, “but I’ll admit she’s a thing of beauty. Different kind of edge to her though.”
Azu’s breath is level, still, but Barnes can feel the way she tenses and relaxes under his attention. For one so prone to fluster, she seems relatively at ease, but then again, he supposes they both understand that a proper craft takes time.
“I would face you with my axe, if you like, commander-.”
“James.”
Azu smiles as Barnes runs his tongue along the curl of her big toe, his lips pressed to the tip of it. She shivers. The first sign of her lost composure visible to anyone who cared to watch them.
“James,” she inclines her head magnanimously, “if you want to spar you know I’d be more than happy to train against your blade. My lady values kindness and healing above all else, but it is the duty of a paladin to protect. To know how to do so.”
Barnes can see now, where the beautiful blush of her cheek has begun to creep down her chest beneath the gather of her nightgown.
It feels very much like sparing already.
“Good to know,” Barnes replies, breaking contact from her foot for just a moment, and letting his breath ghost hot over the damp mark of his lips, “I’ll know better than t’ assume next time.”
Azu rolls her ankle, slowly, almost seductively, only- only seduction doesn’t fit with the whole of her. Azu is sweet and lovely and strong and beautiful. He knows she may simply be stretching the muscles; but even in that, the deliberate motion, the play of her calf muscle under his palm feels like the movement of a dance that he’s fast learning the steps to.
“So you will.”
He lets his hands move lower, until both of them rest on her foot. His thumbs press into the soft meat of her sole as he takes her toe in his mouth and tastes it properly. Her skin is hot and dry until he wets it with his tongue. He can feel every whorl that prints the earth when she treads it and feels the weight of her step upon him.
Azu sighs as Barnes pulls back, his teeth scraping softly against her nail, then again as he kisses the tip of her next toe and lets his tongue dip between them.
Her thighs squeeze together and the motion travels down her leg and Barnes keeps the movement going, licking down to the ball of her foot, teeth scraping hader now along the toughened skin as he works his way again towards her ankle: searching for a place that he can leave a mark.
Teeth and tongue and lips and suction as he draws the blood to the surface and tongues across it.
He’s hard, where his cock sits trapped inside his loose fitting trousers, but he wants to earn his satisfaction through Azu’s pleasure.
When he looks up, he sees her lip caught tight between her teeth and grins, nipping at her toe and kissing soft to soothe it after.
“Can I…”
The question trails off and Azu lets the plush swell of her lip free to prompt him.
“Can you what, James?”
He swallows, stroking her heel and letting his fingertips trace the places that his lips have left her skin damp and sensitive.
“Can I ask you to step on me?”
Her laugh is bright and Barnes feels his face flush in a sudden rush.
“Of course,” Azu smiles, “ask away.”
He curses himself, swallows again, shifts so her foot drops into his lap, the arch against his aching cock.
“Will you step on me?” He manages, permitting himself a single, dragging rock against her sole, “please?”
“As if I could say no to that.”