Reprisal

CHAPTER FOUR

      One Month Earlier

     Sleepy brown eyes open slowly, nearly widening at the sight of the man asleep next to her.

Bits and pieces from the night come back to her in a blur before her face heats up at the realization that they're both very much naked.

She's got the soft duvet from his bed covering her, she glances at him and blushes, looking away immediately before gently putting a good bit of covers over him.

She doesn't want to wake him or disturb him, their day yesterday having been exhausting.

He needed the rest.

Brown eyes carefully study the sleeping features of the infamous Coriolanus Snow.

He doesn't seem as stoic or iron-fisted when he sleeps, not as impatient or dismissive.

Though she had learned through the weekend that he wasn't always so stoic.

In fact, the motivation for her kissing him in the first place was the wide grin on his plush lips, it made the corners of his icy blue eyes crinkle, and the laugh that followed...she had kissed him first, but he'd chased after her lips when she went to pull away.

It's how they ended up in the floor the morning before, tangled up, spent, and hungover.

But yesterday evening there were no drinks to blame their actions on, nor coax him to grin and smile and laugh as he had when he was drunk.

No, all his smiles and chuckles were a result of her.

Part of her didn't expect him to even enjoy sex.

He always came across too strict to find pleasure in anything other than giving her headaches over work.

She learned quickly that liquor wasn't the only thing that made him grin or laugh.

Her fingertips run along the heavy gold of his wedding band where it rests on his finger, she's sure the shape of it is probably indented into her skin on her throat or her thighs from where he gripped onto her while she pleaded with him.

One moment she would beg for him to stop, that it was too much, then the next she was begging him not to stop, that it was so good.

And it was.

Part of her is tempted to ask him where he learned how to fuck, because she couldn't imagine any hoity toity Capitol big-shots doing the things he did — not even her husband did the things he did.

She didn't even know if Dyess knew how to do some of those things.

Coriolanus Snow was excellent at disguising his filth, she knew that, now, and had added it to the mental list of things he was good at.

Those sharp clothes and styled curls, scent of roses following after him, perfect etiquette and manners, composure...it was all thrown aside, replaced with a greedy man that enjoyed watching desperate and hungry tears stream across her face as he finished himself down her throat, a lazy smile painting his relaxed features at the feeling, long fingers pulling from her hair while he hoarsely whispered, "Good girl," before eyeing her like his prey and returning the favor, devouring her until she saw stars.

That was something else that took Tawny by surprise.

He enjoyed her enjoyment.

It was surely all a rush for his ego, a boost of confidence, to see the sparkle of her big diamond wedding ring — the physical embodiment of her commitment and loyalty to Dyess Crane — as she wrapped her fingers around Coriolanus' length, or touched herself whilst wantonly moaning out his name.