It's nothing like the first time.
For one, he knows what he is doing. Her thigh is pale in the darkness, all taut tendons and muscle and soft skin pressing right against his ear. If he pauses, he can see the muscles flex and dance with his movements, tight little convulsions in time with the slick thrust of his fingers. Her breathing is a battlefield of contrasts, all of her control lost within short sharp gasps of approval and long, tense pauses, where it's like she is so gone she has forgotten to breathe. He grins against her, placing a kiss on the damp skin of her inner thigh. Lan Fan seems to notice. In a second, she has forced herself upright, propped up on her elbows and glowering at him.
"What is it?" she demands, her eyes a dark glow against her pink cheeks. Her thighs are at either side of his neck, heels resting on his back and she is near-enough naked, his robe falling off her shoulders. In the past she would have scrabbled to cover herself, would never have removed her chest bindings in the first place, never quite convinced they wouldn't be disturbed by some friend or foe unknown. At his ear, though, the leather band that holds her kunai is tight and ever-present.
He doesn't answer her, but twists his fingers deeper, still smiling as her face relaxes and her head tilts back, throat contracting to release a soft, strangled groan.
He loves this. Loves making her wriggle and flex and push her hips against his mouth. It's almost too much and yet not enough, all at once. The scent of her when he's right there, working his fingers inside her and suckling insistently at her skin; it sticks to him and every time he does it he wants more and more of it. Sometimes it scares him, how much he wants to have every little bit of her for his own, but when she's like this and so completely open to him he realises it's an anxiety born of falsehoods and traditions and people who are not Lan Fan.
Pulling back momentarily, he feels Lan Fan's fingers - flesh and metal and warmth and cold - pressed against his neck, raking upwards to tangle fiercely in his hair. When she'd first touched him like this, she had been gentle in her anxiety, too used to using her automail as a weapon. He recalls a dizzying moment after presenting the stone to the Emperor, the both of them sitting outside in the palace gardens, when in a fit of exultation he lay back on the grass, resting his head on her lap. She had frozen, in a moment becoming a statue beneath him, until he reached out his hand and grabbed both of hers, pressing a proud kiss to her knuckles. The strength in those fingers now is expected, welcome, and nothing like restrained, and she growls lightly above him as she does it, once again rising up to face him so that her body is almost bent in two.
"Please don't stop," she says, using her grip on him to bring his face up from between her thighs. He knows she can taste herself on him when she presses her lips to his, and the thought makes his blood rush and his limbs tingle and all he wants to do is laugh with delight. He remembers how she wouldn't even let him look at her to begin with, would cover her face and toy with her collar, and now here he is with his face wet from her and her mouth on his.
"You made me stop," he points out cheerfully when she pulls away, but he bends his head and does as she asks, taking up the rhythm with his tongue this time, pushing her open and slipping it into her again and again until she is whimpering and hissing and moaning above him. He feels a shift of movement on his left, and she relaxes her leg slightly, bringing it down before tensing it punishingly around his torso, her heel digging hard into the small of his back. The way she's wrapped around him now, he couldn't move if he tried; it becomes obvious that this is precisely what she had hoped for when she brings the other leg down and locks it similarly, pressing his whole body inwards on her. He doesn't stop, doesn't let up on her, only pausing when the nails on her right hand engrave a series of rivets down his shoulder blade. The sudden bright, cold burn of sensation makes his cock twitch, and when he looks up at her, she is smiling slightly, almost shy if it weren't for the heavy-lidded and knowing way her gaze fixes between their bodies. Her hands leave his shoulders, falling away to grip at his back, and she pulls him up flush against her.
He can only assume, when suddenly he's underneath her with her knees on either side of his hips, that she has grown tired of his teasing. Between them, she is wet and slippery, and her eyes roll slightly when he manages to take advantage of it by pulling her tighter against him, letting his skin slip-slide against hers.
"Stay still, young lord," she says sharply, and he looks up at her in amused surprise, his smile unfaltering. Her tone reminds him of when they would train together, and it's only her naked shoulders and the press of her breasts against his chest that reminds him they are not. She reaches down, raising her own hips to allow her hand in between them. When her fingers find him, the command becomes a struggle.
"I thought you were enjoying yourself," he says, almost petulantly, "Why stop?"
Her lips meet his again, hard.
"Because I want to do this for you," she replies when they draw breath, and her fingers guide him to meet her, and then she's sliding down on him and she's warm and wet and he couldn't find words in all the world with which to argue with her. When she's on him finally, pressed down so close and so tight he can barely breathe, she meets his eyes again, a little smile on her lips. "Stay still," she repeats, and then she starts to move.
He tries, heaven help him, he really does try. But the third or second time she rises, pulling herself all the way upright and hovering over him, he can't hold back any longer. Her face is against his neck, nestled in the curve where everything tickles and she's kissing him, licking and sucking gently on the point where his collar bone dips. His hands move of their own accord, fumbling in a fretful rush from her face down to the small of her back, and he lets his fingers spread and holds her there, pushing himself as far into her as he can get while she grinds her hips furiously against him.
"Lan Fan," he mutters, but he doesn't really know why, only that he needs her to hear him. Her eyes are closed, black lashes flush against her cheek, but she opens them in response to his voice; one thing that has never changed. She brings her lips to meet his, and he stops thinking, just closes his eyes and feels her move and sigh and the scrape of her nails on his back when she hits just the right spot. She's beginning to tense around him, and he revels in the little flutters of her muscles squeezing down, the way her movements get more erratic and the tightness of her grip on his shoulders. He worms a hand between them, difficult with the way she is melded to his body, and pushes a finger right against her, where he knows she can't ignore it.
It all gets a little hazy after that. Her movements become frantic, and he matches them, hypnotised by the way her body moves and her thighs tense and her breasts sway. His lips drift downwards and meets one, tugging her into his mouth with an intensity that makes her yelp, surprised. For a moment he is concerned, but then she encloses him in her arms, clutching him to her in a way that makes his hips jerk, makes him want to pull her down on him over and over until she's undone. She's at his ear then, must know he's close, her lips soft and wet.
"Ling," is all she says, a tiny, visceral groan of his name, nipping gently at his earlobe. He remembers the first time she said it, the flush of her cheeks and mortified expression on her face, shocked by her own impudence, and he can't believe how easy it sounds coming from her lips now. And then just like that it's him that's undone, him that's moaning against her neck and squeezing his eyes tight shut and clinging to her like he's scared she'll disappear. She holds out for a second or two longer, gently rocking against his hand and his softening cock, and then her eyes slip shut and she drops her head and the clench-clench-release of her insides against him, the rush of wet and warmth when he's so sensitive almost makes him buck her off.
They stay like that long after she's still, Ling with his head on her chest and her soft against his shoulder, sticky and sweaty and exhausted, and it's so different from the beginning; in his mind's eye he sees her coming back to her senses and throwing herself out of bed, jaw tight and face white with anxiety, and he remembers trying to tell her it was okay, that they hadn't done anything wrong, that he loved her and he was Emperor and it would be okay, he could make it okay, he was sure of it, if she would just stop and let him think -
She moves now, but with none of the urgency of then, sliding herself on to the bed at his side and pulling him down with her. He only realises he is grinning when she looks up at him and returns his smile from where she lays, cocooned at his side, with her hand clasped protectively over his heart.
It's nothing like the first time because she stays with him, and that can only be better.