The bonds around her wrists and ankles disappear, vanishing back into the air with a flash of purple smoke, and she is adrift, untethered. She cannot move, can only concentrate on catching her breath. Her clenched fists clutching the bedspread feel like the only thing keeping her from simply floating away into nothingness until he settles them both, guiding her onto her side with one hand on her hip and curling around her back. She lets herself release her white-knuckled grip on the bed, trusting the weight of him, his heavy arm on her waist and his leg thrown over hers, pinning her to him, to keep her in place.
For a while there is nothing but the sound of her own breathing and his contented humming sounds as he toys with the loose hair spilling over her shoulders and breasts, suddenly playful. He curls it around his fingers, giving one lock a teasing tug before tickling her nipple with the ends.
She isn't quite sure how she feels, in this moment. But then, she hasn't felt much of anything since Daniel's eyes closed to her forever.
His hand drifts lower, fingertips dancing playfully across her cooling flesh, trailing along the curve of her shoulder and down her arm. It tickles, leaving a path of gooseflesh along her skin in his wake. One finger traces a slow line across her ribs, the barest hint of a touch down her flank. Regina realizes distantly that even these tiny touches, exquisite along her bare skin, are nearly enough to excite her again, were she not so exhausted.
She's unprepared, her breath catching, when this ghost of a caress suddenly becomes pain. His nails are sharp as they bite into her flesh, scouring red lines down her hip and the top of her thigh, then back up again and around in little patterns. Still playful, almost teasing, but now just on the far edge of pain.
She suspects she's covered in such marks, red and angry on her pale skin. Like a visible corruption. The thought almost excites her. She will have to hide them later, with one of the endless jars or vials of face paints mother was always forcing on her – 'a lady should always look her best'- or else with magic. There's a spell in the book somewhere.
A part of her- that dark, wicked part- wants to leave them. Let King Leopold see when he undresses his bride that the pretty trinket he has bought for himself isn't as pure and untouched as he'd hoped. A smile twists her face at the thought.
Rumplestiltskin's loops and whorls suddenly resolve themselves into recognizable shapes, and she realizes that he is scratching his name into her bare flesh. The thought, and what it means, makes her shiver in his arms and dig her nails into the coverlet.
Kept. Mine. Loved.