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Hungry Eyes and a Blade of Steel (NC-17) 
Written by December16 June 2018 | 18315 words | Work in Progress
Chapter 11.
Author’s Note
If you had started reading this story prior to June 2018, please note that the earlier chapters have been edited. This does not change the plot in any significant way, but you may want to start on the previous chapter to give you context.
Faramir sighed.
“Aragorn, please, I know you mean well and I thank you, but this will not solve anything.”
“Really, Fara? Is that so? And what you’re doing, how well is that working?”
“You call him Fara?” She had tried that once, on the spur of the moment, but Faramir had looked at her so strangely that she never did it again.
“Yes, I… call him a number of things, my lady.”
“Aragorn, we must do what is right.”
“So we must, my darling, but your definition of right might not necessarily be aligned with the prevailing sentiment in the room.”
“That arithmetic only works if you count your own opinion as three.”
“I do not believe it need be three, but technically I could – one for me, one for the royal plural, and one for this poor fellow down he–”
“For Valar’s sake! Not in front of my wife. Is it not bad enough that you are… that we are…” Faramir gestured with exasperated hands at their shared nakedness.
“I beg to differ on that, too. You are jumping to conclusions. In the time that you two were busy being grave and dire, I could not fail but note a thing or two. You do not see the full picture, and neither does the lady, and a decision such as this cannot be made in the dark.”
“Will you two stop speaking of me in front of me as though I am furniture! What else is it that I do not know, and how dare you assign opinions to me.”
Faramir sighed again. “Forgive me, Éowyn, I meant no disrespect. It had seemed to me beyond question where you stood on this, basing on… well, on your reaction to… how you found us.”
“My reaction? Oh, so that is what the problem is, my reaction? What in the hell did you expect of me? To knock on the door and say, excuse me my lords, I can see you are a little bit busy and it’s nice that you are keeping each other company in my absence, but I was going to come lie in this bed, so mind if I do?”
The men exchanged glances.
“Don’t you dare,” Faramir said under his breath.
Aragorn’s face lit up with mischief and he laughed. “Well, actually –”
Faramir widened his eyes at him.
“Oh, Fara, come now. We talked about this. If ever there was going to be a fitting time, one would think it is now.”
“None of that has any bearing on the situation.”
“But of course it does.”
“Stop speaking in riddles, both of you! What is going on, what do I need to know?”
Faramir turned to her. “Very well, but not in front of Aragorn.”
“Is that so? Anything you have to say to me, do it in front of him.”
Faramir looked from one to the other, then away. “Forget it. It does not matter,” he said quietly.
Aragorn raised his eyes to the heavens. “Lord Steward, I have said this before, and I shall suffer to repeat myself. Sometimes, you have more backbone than is good for you. But so be it, do not say it. I shall tell what I see instead.”
He turned to Éowyn, and held her gaze unwavering as he spoke. “Your wife has ridden through miles of pouring rain that no cape would protect from – and yet her hair is dry. Only time indoors could do that – how do you think she had spent it? She would have found us right away, so why not make herself known for so long? Do you know what that noise was – the lady had come with a sword, which she dropped, but I do not think that out of astonishment at seeing me in your bed. Forgive me the discourtesy of pointing this out, but the silk of her undergarments tells a different story. It is rather dark between the legs.”
Éowyn curled her lips, realising then that the source of her shivers was indeed a wet patch of fabric clinging coldly to her inner thigh.
There did not seem much left to lose.
“So these are the cues that a Ranger looks at whose arousal has not been sated,” she said. “I dispute none of what you say, it is true. I had headed to my husband’s bedroom looking for enjoyment, and saw no reason to miss out just because he was unavailable to receive me.” She could feel with her skin the intensity of Faramir’s eyes upon her, but would not meet his gaze. “This, however, addresses only what he did not know – what is the rest? What do I not?”
“That he will need to tell you himself, my lady. And indeed you would like it better if I were not here for it.”
“I would definitely like it better if you had not been here at all – but we don’t always get what we want. You are only making me all the more curious, what could it be such that would embarrass you so much more than you already should be?”
“It is not for his benefit that we ask it of you, Éowyn – nor is it for mine,” Faramir said. “But you have made your position clear, and I shall insist no more.”
She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. “Go on then.”
Faramir smiled.
“I know, Éowyn.”
“Oh.” The way he said it, there was no need to ask what he meant. Her face burned so much it stung. Was Aragorn looking at her? She searched for something to reply. “How long?”
“I must have always known,” Faramir said quietly, “but it had been easy to write off your feelings on youthful infatuation when he was far away and I was beside you every day in the Houses of Healing. When he had returned, and with the crown of Elendil upon his brow he rose up before us on the Pelennor fields in his full glory such as had not been seen before, did something not stir in you still, Éowyn?”
She blinked, and her lips parted as though to answer, but nothing came forth.
“Did it not?” he went on. “For I looked upon you in that moment – not to check, it had not occurred to me to check – but to share in the wonder of his glory.”
She remembered that moment well, the coronation day outside Minas Tirith. There stood Faramir whom she knew and loved, whereas Aragorn beside him was but a vision of what had once moved her – and yet did something not stir, still?
“And what… what did you see?”
“That you were not looking at me in return. An expression was upon your features that I do not think even you knew you had. Your face had lit up, as a sky kissed by sunrise, and I saw that your breath was caught high in your chest. I knew then that while you may have come to love me, I would never be the only one, and that although it was me you had chosen, in some ways what you had for Aragorn would be the greater, even if only because he was greater than me.”
“And you… you still went ahead with it, to be with me.”
“I did. Had there been a chance that he might yet be available to you, I would not have gotten in the way, but that did not seem the case.”
“That’s not what I mean. You wanted to wed me even though I looked at another with desire, and was not honest with you.”
“I suppose I did not see it quite that way. Yes, you looked at him with desire – which you had warned me about when I first courted you, and these things have a way of lingering.”
“And you never spoke to me of it.”
“I thought you deserved your privacy.”
She grinned without mirth. “Just that?”
“Nay, not just that. I hoped that perhaps with time, through intimacy and a shared life with me, you would grow closer to me and the longing would leave you in peace. As I hoped that it would leave me in peace also, for had I not fallen for him myself, in a way that no man should for another.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works, with the peace.”
“Indeed not, for in the time that followed, my longing grew only greater, such that I could neither think nor sleep. And so at last I went to the King, and begged once again to surrender my office – not because the king had returned, but because I was unfit to be steward. Only he looked upon me then as no man had done before or since, and under his gaze the blood in my veins turned to fire, and he took me in his arms, and I remembered no more until the morning came. And after that… after that there was no going back. So who am I to hold it against you that you try to catch his scent on me when I return from riding with him in the woods.”
She looked away.
“What do you say to this, Éowyn?”
“I… do not know.” She could sense Aragorn’s presence beside her, but would not look up at him. She was not sure she could bear what his eyes might show, but trying to look at him without looking in his face would only lead to staring at his erection instead. So he had known of this, too – did he scorn her? Was it a burden, a nuisance for him to catch her wistful glances on him? To pretend that he was not aware of them?
“I am sorry, Éowyn, I see that this distresses you. As I said, I would have preferred to deliver it alone, if at all. And please know, I said none of it with the intention to somehow mitigate what I have done, it –”
“But no,” she raised her head at last. “It does. Your fault and mine are not the same. It would be – had I lusted after a woman, one of my own make who would not be a rival to you.”
“Aragorn is not a rival to me,” he said quietly. “I do not resent what you feel for him, and even had you wanted to share your bed – or our bed – with him, I would not stand in the way of that.”
Éowyn tilted her head to the side.
“What do you mean – if I wanted to?”
Faramir seemed confused in turn.
“Well, simply that you had not done it, so I presume you had decided not to.”
She stared at him. When he did not flinch, she stared at Aragorn too, to see if he was also keeping a straight face. He was.
Éowyn narrowed her eyes.
“Are you… are you two mocking me?”
“Éowyn, I don’t…” Faramir spread his arms helplessly. “I do not understand…”
“Oh, for… You make it as though it is by the grace of my virtue that nothing has happened between him and I! Are we to ignore the fact that our king here prefers your arse to this,” she gestured at her frilled breasts and down along her body. “I never had a chance to be unfaithful to you, you don’t know what might have happened if I did!”
Aragorn snorted. “My lady, I have given you plenty of chances. It is not my fault that you have chosen not to see them.”
“I… I really am at a loss what you are talking about.”
He raised his hands as though to placate her. “I will be the first to admit it was never overt, nothing in poor taste. But had you been looking for it, you would have noticed. Just earlier today, in fact, I had you walk into me in the corridor.”
“You ‘had me’ walk into you?”
“I may be King now, but I have not lost my hearing, my lady. I do not collide with people who are coming around a corner unless I choose to.”
“But you… you had touched me then – on purpose?”
He glanced apologetically to Faramir. “For the record, it was a very light touch. Just here, on the ribs. Nothing happened, she pretty much ran away, would not even look at me.”
“Why are you explaining yourself to him?”
“Because he did not fully approve of me trying to bring you in. But as he refused to broach the subject himself, and you were too loyal or too convinced of my disinterest in you as a woman, I felt that someone must do something – before things escalate and we find ourselves in a situation such as this.”
She raised her fingers to her temples, shut her eyes for a long moment.
“So… let me get this straight. You are effectively saying that rather than use your royal authority to grant myself and my husband a separation on the grounds of his infidelity, you are instead inviting me to…” she searched for the word with her hands.
Faramir smiled tentatively.
“To join us, Éowyn. If you wish it.” He exchanged another glance with Aragorn. “In whichever way you may wish it.”
To Be Continued
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This is simply fantastic! I really do have a soft sport for Eowyn and you’ve written her wonderfully, I love how she goes from anger to disbelief to curiosity right through to arousal!
— Eora Monday 13 September 2010, 19:35 #This was very hot ;), and beautifully written, and I can’t wait for this to continue (I want to know what happens when Faramir and Aragorn realise they were being watched!)