This was supposed to just be a quick break from homework, but I really liked it, so here it is.
Emma's hand feels like home, Regina concludes.
Her hand is so soft as it curls around hers, and so warm. Those fingers that she can practically feel stroking her cheek, running through her hair, sliding up her thigh, going other places, fit perfectly between hers. The metaphor is so cliché, but the way their hands fit together is like a puzzle, the two pieces feeling so right as they snap together. Somehow Emma's grip is both strong and gentle at the same time, Regina notices—the way her hands gently cup her face as they kiss, and the might with which Emma protects her, all at once.
She breathes in deeply, contentedly, thinking of nothing but the woman standing next to her—their love and the heat of their closeness that she can practically feel flowing between them, passing through their interlocked fingers. Emma squeezes her hand lightly, but Regina tightens their grip further. A passionate embrace of their hands, a wanting to hold more of the other, to hold the other tighter. But Regina is satisfied with holding only Emma's hand. It's personal in a way that the lustful couple rarely is, and there is something enticing and sensual about becoming so intimately familiar with what she thought was already a well-known part of her lover.
She maps every inch of Emma's hand with hers. Her palms are somewhat calloused, but Regina likes the way that it makes them feel protective. No far-from-subtle angry glances at the two, no cruel mother or evil spell can hurt her when Emma's hands are holding hers so securely. But the skin on the back of her hand is smooth and Regina's thumb rubs lazy circles into it. If Emma's palms are Emma the Sherriff, and Emma her White Knight, then the backs of her hands are Emma the mother, and Emma the lover—smooth like skin of her back and her thighs and her breasts, which Regina can practically feel against her body right now. And she strokes Emma's short, tough fingernails with their chipped red nail polish. She remembers painting them for her, after Emma had had a long, tiring day at work and was frustrated when she couldn't paint them neatly herself. Emma was never one for doing things neatly, but despite Regina's immaculate nature, she found it an appealing trait.
But it's the warmth of Emma's hand that Regina can't avoid focusing on, though it is Emma's warmth that is most familiar to her. Emma has always been warmth to Regina, ever since she barreled her way into her life. And it was so unfamiliar at first, as Regina's life had been without warmth for so long. And it drew her in, like a moth to a flame; so intoxicating that Regina wanted nothing more than to bathe in it. Though the warmth from her hand is only a spark compared to the flames of having all of her, pressed as close to Regina's skin as possible, it's enough. It's different as well, less a blaze and closer to soft waves flowing between their skin—not crashing and burning, but flowing.
And Emma's warmth is like no other, Regina concludes.