"Oh this is so hard," she whines, when she manages to scrape up enough willpower to pull back. It - it takes a while. Kisses are very compelling. Very compelling.

He smiles at her. "You're lovely. Mm. Want to find out what messing with your slave-marks is like or will that just tempt you further?"

"It might tempt me further. ... But now I'm kind of curious about what it's like. Mmm." Snuggle. "The curiosity is tempting me to do stupid things."

Snuggle.

"We could go back to the kissing." Pet pet. "The kissing is good."

Giggle.

"It is," she sighs, dreamily. "But I think there's - I have more trouble stopping something I'm in the middle of than I do resisting something tempting. So that might not actually be better."

"Aw." Pet.

Thoughtful (and vaguely appreciative) hum.

"... Let's go with the slave-marks test, because otherwise the curiosity will bother me until I either get you or decide to get experimental on my own. And we know what kissing does to my self control."

"...well all right then."

He hmms thoughtfully, then sits up and gently tugs her into his lap.

Eselle cooperates with this move! She even rolls down a sleeve so the mark is visible and helpfully presents it to him.

He runs his fingers lightly over the mark, which does nothing at all; then he presses down on it with his fingertips, which after a few seconds makes it tingle strangely.

"Not the fun part yet," he murmurs.

She shivers and leans on him.

"Oh, I don't know, the anticipation's kind of fun."

He laughs and kisses the top of her head and strokes the mark again, and then digs his thumbnail into it. Not even hard enough to hurt, if this were anywhere else, just enough to leave a little dent in the skin—

—and it feels like being on fire, like needles of ice jabbing through her skin, like lightning flashing up her forearm, like shockingly intense heat and cold and pain pain pain pain pain—

—he lets up almost immediately.

This earns him a startled squeak of pain and an involuntary twitch from the woman on his lap. But then it's over, almost just as it began. She blinks back a hint of tears and slumps into him.

"Oh," she gasps, a quiver in her voice. It does not sound like a bad quiver. "T-that, that, ah. Certainly explains why it's not common to slice it off, doesn't it."

"Oh, cutting it is much worse."

"Is it," she murmurs, sounding a bit too interested in the answer. Or perhaps just the right amount of interested, for him.

"Want to see what I mean?"

She considers the question seriously, nuzzling him absently as she thinks.

"... Yes." The word is a little daunting now that it's hanging out in the air like that, but she doesn't want to take it back. Shivering a little, she nestles closer to him and closes her eyes.

He cuddles her and pets her hair and picks up her arm and kisses the Imperial sun and then gently brushes his thumb across it, opening up a tiny cut.

—pain, burning freezing smashing slicing pain, not just in the mark or even just in her arm but everywhere, singing raw and wild along every nerve—

It fades out after half a second. There is a single round drop of blood beading on her arm, and no sign whatsoever of damage to the mark.

It's so fast that she doesn't, actually, have time to properly scream. Instead it dies half formed in her throat, coming out as a strangled high pitched whine. Her entire body flinches as if to get away, pain pain pain overriding all else.

Then it's over. Just like that. Nothing's wrong at all.

She cries anyway, clinging to Solekaran and trembling.

He holds her in his arms and kisses her forehead.

"Fuck," she pronounces after several sobs, still trembling.

"You're lovely."

Eselle barks a little quiet laugh that's half a sob, then leans up to kiss his jaw.

"Thank you." She sniffles again, then reaches up to scrub at her tears. "Damn. That was intense."

Snuggle. "Did you like it?"

"Not - not as a thing to do every day. Or every other day." Snuggle. "... But, mm." A hint of a smile tugs at her lips, and she kisses his jaw again. "Yes."