So it's been a long dry spell for me, which was really difficult, and I apologize for it. I'm still so amazingly grateful for and stunned by everyone who has favorited any of my stories or my account - you guys are amazing.
This piece felt like the right one to complete once the dry spell was over, especially considering the thresholds the fandom itself has recently crossed (the true, full end of the game; the first anniversary of the core game's release).
I hope you guys enjoy this as much as you have the others. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me through the lack of any new works I've put out recently.
And if anyone's interested, I'm going to be finishing Come Home hopefully soon, starting with a rewrite of Chapter 2.
As always, Mass Effect, its characters, and its universe are Bioware's sandbox. I'm just playing in it.
Kaidan's kisses are tender, soft, as his fingers curl into her hips. Shepard slides her palms up the front of his dress blues, her fingers barely stumbling each time they brush up over a closure of his jacket.
He plies her with his lips and his tongue, his own fingers sliding under the hem of her jacket, tugging her shirt free from her pants. He slips his hand underneath, his palm warm and rough against her skin, the metal of his ring solid and smooth and barely discernible from his finger where his hand glides over her, and her stomach flutters under his touch.
She can't help but giggle against his mouth, and she feels him grin in response. She hasn't been this nervous in years. Not since Ilos. But at least then they'd had the excuse of imminent death hanging over their heads.
Now, everything is different and yet nothing has changed. And it makes her feel like a teenager all over again.
"I know fifteen hours isn't much of a honeymoon," Kaidan says with a self-deprecating grin. "And I'm sorry it isn't more-"
Shepard presses a finger to his lips, and the muted light from the fish tank catches on her ring, making the platinum shine an ethereal blue.
"It's not much," she agrees softly. "But it's ours." She drags her finger down from his lips to his chin, slides her fingers tenderly along his jaw, feeling the catch and scrape of his stubble, feels the bare, telling twitch of his fingers against her sides as she watches his pupils dilate. She trails her fingers down the side of his throat, down his hammering pulse, to the top of his collar, and rises up on her toes to kiss him again. "And I intend to make the most of it," she breathes against his lips as she pops the top closure of his jacket open.
Her fingers are trembling with want and need and nerves as she works the second closure, which is silly. Because it isn't like she's never seen him naked, and this isn't anything they haven't done a hundred times over.
But that doesn't mean this time isn't different.
She kisses him, her tongue in his mouth and his sliding against it, her fingers gradually growing more steady as she undoes each closure slowly, purposefully, one at a time, until the jacket hangs open from his shoulders. And then she greedily slides her hands under his shirt and up his stomach, desperate for the feel of his skin under her palms and her fingers.
He returns the favor as she stands there tracing her fingertips over the ridges of his abs, running her palms up his chest so she can flick at the hardened nubs of his nipples. She notices that his fingers don't shake, that he's guiding himself by touch alone - the soft click of his ring against each closure of her jacket measured, precise. But then, he's always been that way: steady and solid when she can barely stand, falling back on rules and order and procedure when inside he's falling apart. When he finally opens the last closure of her jacket, his palms skim up her back to cup her shoulderblades, his fingers pressing against her, urging her closer.
They stand there, kissing and touching and stroking fingers against skin until it's nearly unbearable, until she's nearly moaning into his mouth when his fingertips brush along her jaw and blue flames flicker and glow behind her closed eyes every time her teeth graze against his lower lip.
He pulls away first, but his eyes, dark with want and need, never leave hers as he shrugs out of his jacket and lays it carefully across the desk. She sheds her own jacket, laying it next to his, and then reaches for him, her hands running up under his shirt, the hem catching on her wrists and dragging up until he obediently lifts his arms and pulls it the rest of the way off.
His dogtags dance across his chest, the silvery metal a sharp contrast to his bronze skin, and there's just something about the sight of him shirtless with his tags on that just undoes her. That makes her smile up at him as she reaches for the chain, tangling her fingers in it and using it to tug his mouth toward hers.
He smiles as he presses a quick kiss to her lips, a chuckle rumbling in his chest. He takes her hips in his hands as he flutters a kiss against the corner of her mouth, starts walking her backwards as his lips brush against the edge of her jaw. Before she's even truly aware of how close they really are to the corner of the desk, Kaidan effortlessly turns them both around and takes the first step down the small set of stairs, his fingers pressing into her waist and steadying her, encouraging her to follow.
As if she'd willingly do otherwise.
He leads her toward the bed, carefully turning them again just before they get there so that the backs of her knees bump into the mattress. She gratefully sinks down onto it, her fingers already spearing through Kaidan's hair, urging his mouth to stay where it is, for his hands to keep running over her skin, for him to follow.
And he does.
His lips skim over her as she sinks back into the mattress, his kisses feathersoft and fleeting as he fluidly crawls up over her body, his mouth trailing upwards as he settles between her thighs. His weight presses her into the bed even as he keeps his hips deliberately away from hers. She arches against him, seeking the heat and the friction, needing it, tries to draw him in with a leg wrapped around his waist.
He refuses to be budged, instead shifting his weight back, away from her, and rubbing his thumbs in slow, deliberate circles against her stomach. His lips brush down the pulse of her throat to her collarbone, even as his hands drag up her ribs, his fingers spread wide, touching as much of her as he possibly can while he slowly, gradually pushes her shirt up.
She props herself up on her elbows, to help him, to watch, to revel in the contrast of his olive skin against her pale stomach, in the stark black of his hair against the harsh white of her shirt. In the heated look he gives her as he finally, slowly tugs her shirt over her head. And as it falls, discarded and forgotten, to the deck, it's like he's stripped away more than her clothing; he's taken a good piece of her bravado, too.
She reaches for his tags again with slightly hesitant fingers, sliding her fingers under the chain and pulling it over his head. She lays them on the nightstand as his palm slides under her own tags. He runs his thumb over the metal, over the letters that proclaim her SHEPARD.
She hadn't asked the minister to file paperwork to change it. She'll do it herself when they've defeated the Reapers. If they survive.
He leans into her as he slips the tags over her head, and his breath ghosts over her collarbone, his lips not far behind. He sets her tags down on top of his with a muted click and the light, zipping rattle of the chains coiling and rubbing together. His hands come back to her waist, his palms large and warm and gentle as he caresses and strokes against her belly, her back, the swells of her breasts, against all the places that make her arch into him, that make her head fall backwards so that his lips have greater access to her neck.
He stokes a fire in her that she hadn't realized had banked, embers flaring anew as he suckles lazily on the pulse in her throat. She runs her fingers up his arm, over the tattoo on his shoulder. Emotion swells in her chest at the fleeting thought that it marks him as hers as surely as the ring on his hand does. That he's always been hers.
That she's just as surely always been his.
But then he steals her ability to think at all as his hand slides up her spine, the gentle pressure making her arch into him, the familiar calluses on his palm and fingers thrilling and intoxicating, sparking heat and a fresh surge of dampness between her thighs. The rise of her hips from the bed is involuntary, proof of how badly she needs him.
And, as always, he obliges her, his hips rolling down to meet her as he undoes the clasp of her bra. The heat and weight of his erection presses against her, dragging a ragged, needy groan from her throat. He's still kissing her wet and openmouthed and slow and lazy against her skin, his tongue flickering and pressing against the pulse thundering in the hollow of her throat, his teeth gently scraping at the swell of her breast as her bra straps fall down her arms, his breath hot and tantalizing as it ghosts across one of her nipples, still hidden behind the lacy fabric of her bra.
He pulls her arms free from her bra straps and then carefully dips his fingers into the cups of her bra, peeling it away from her skin and dropping it carelessly to the deck. His fingertips skim up the outside of her breasts, tracing the shape, testing the weight in his palms, and then his lips wrap around one of her achingly hard nipples, his tongue swirling around it, flicking across it, his teeth closing carefully on it with just the barest pinch of sharp, painful pleasure, and then there's nothing but the sweet draw of warm, wet suction.
She can't think, doesn't want to. It's all a haze of want and desire and the sound of her blood thundering in her ears and the gentle sting of her teeth sinking into her lower lip and her entire body arching into Kaidan's mouth and hands as he lays the buckle of her belt open with slow, measured movements.
But in one dazzling moment, as Kaidan backs away from her again and his fingers dance across her lower abdomen and his chuckle tingles against her skin when her stomach flutters and clenches under his touch, as the warmth of his hands drifts lower and lower still, his callused fingertips gently scraping against her flesh as they slip under the waistband of her panties, as her hips lift off the mattress again to grant him access and her thighs quiver and shake when Kaidan runs the pad of his index finger lightly along the length of her sex, teasing and probing and so soft there's no real pressure to it at all and her hips push against his hand, desperate for him, the pleasant fog of desire crystallizes into a bone-deep need. An urge that cannot, will not be denied.
She threads the fingers of her right hand through his thick curls and cradles the back of his head, urging him closer, begging him for more. His tongue laves and presses against her nipple, and she curls her fingers into his scalp, seeking that one spot at the base of his skull.
She hadn't had much time to explore this in their life before.
The first time she'd found it, in fact, had been a surprise - they had been laying curled around each other, sated and content and happy, and he'd initially ducked out from under her questing fingers and gently pulled her hands from his hair, cupping them and rubbing his thumbs across her knuckles as he pressed her palms to his chest. Later, as the steady thump of his heart and the quiet rush of his breath began lulling her to sleep, her hands had wandered again - sliding up over his chest, along the outside of his throat, burying in his curls, seeking out that little spot. When her fingertips had brushed hesitantly against it, Kaidan had sucked in a breath through his teeth. When she had applied gentle, rolling pressure, stroking it carefully, the reaction it had earned - Kaidan's full-body shudder and the brilliant flare of blue across his skin, the sparks that had licked down his arms to his hands pressed against the small of her back, the tightening of the tendons of his neck, the gentle roll of his hips from the mattress, the groan that had rumbled up from deep in his chest - had been unspeakably erotic.
In the end, they hadn't gotten any sleep that night.
She wants that for him now. She's practically aching for him, wants him so badly she can't even think straight. She wants him to feel the same. For reasons she can't fully grasp, doesn't even want to begin to comprehend, she wants, needs, to watch his control fray at the edges and then snap.
He's gorgeous, when he lets himself go. When he stops worrying about breaking her, about scaring her, and just lets himself be with her.
And she needs it, needs to feel all of him tonight.
He seems to know what she's after, what she's wanting - it's in the flexing of his fingers in the bedspread by her hip, the even more insistent pressure of his tongue against her nipple, the ripple of muscle under his skin as he rolls his shoulders, almost pushing himself into her hands. And then her fingers slide just far enough and brush oh-so-gently against his amp port and fresh heat pools and coils in her stomach at the tense of his body and the short, sharp draw of breath through his nose.
Shepard presses two fingers against Kaidan's amp port - not hard enough to disengage his amp but firmly enough that it stimulates the implant site - and applies that easy, rolling pressure she'd learned so quickly all those years ago. Blue flames bloom in flickering waves across Kaidan's skin. His fingers tremble, and Shepard sucks in a gasp of her own when static crackles and buzzes intimately against her sex.
She stops breathing at all when one of his fingers plunges into her and static shoots through her entire core. Her hips snap up against his hand, desperate and greedy for more of him. He moans openly against her skin, his eyes hot and nearly black as they lock onto her face, and if her head hadn't already been spinning from the static sparking sharply through her, from the way he touched her, from the way his fingers pressed and curled and pulled against her, it would have been from the look on his face alone. Like he couldn't get enough of her. Like he'd never tire of seeing her exactly like this, falling apart in his hands, his name and harsh, greedy gulps of air the only sounds to cross her lips.
Kaidan trails ragged, open-mouthed kisses from Shepard's breast down her belly and farther, shimmying her clothes off of her as he goes, until he's sunk down on his knees between her thighs and his hot, damp breath ruffles the thatch of curls there. He's working with the desperate rhythm she's set, driving his fingers into her with the rise and fall of her hips, static sparking and curling and shooting through her like fireworks, blue flames dancing openly across his skin, the edges of the bedspread lifting and fluttering around her, and she can feel the tension mounting, can feel herself tightening around those glorious, magnificent fingers, can feel the sharp uptick of the static current as he feels her growing closer, and all it takes is one look betwen them, one single moment, and he stops.
Kaidan's free hand digs into her hip, stilling her, slowly pressing her into the mattress in time with the fingers that he slowly, carefully slides as deeply as he can into her core. Shepard can't help the pleading whimper that builds in her chest, doesn't even try to. And then, with one long, slow exhale, with one rolling curl of his fingers, his mouth is on her, the flat of his tongue working in broad swipes against her clit and dragging a guttural 'Oh, God' from her throat.
She bends her head to watch him, to see the heated look he gives her across the planes of her stomach, to see his eyes close in enjoyment, to watch his back roll as his hips work against the edge of the mattress in time with his fingers and his tongue. Her knees fall open impossibly farther and her fingers curl against his scalp, threading into his hair and tugging, urging him closer. Because it's all she can do.
She lets him set the rhythm this time even as he groans against her, even as he gives in to her unspoken demands and laps at her, suckles her; he's thorough - slow and languorous and working in gentle waves to bring her to a tightly cresting peak. Until all she can feel is the crackle of static sparking through her and the tension and heat coiling and pooling in her belly, until her entire world is nothing more than his fingers curling and pressing inside of her and his tongue flicking and sliding against her.
Until she comes, his name falling in ragged gasps from her lips and her hips arching into his mouth. Her head is spinning and her breath isn't coming fast enough but it doesn't matter. She wants him. Needs him. She tugs at his hair, his shoulders, and his fingers slip from her, his knee pressing firmly between her thighs as he surges back up her body, his lips crushing against hers, her own taste thick and heavy on his tongue as it delves into her mouth. Her legs wrap around his waist, dragging him close, riding out the end of her orgasm, and she can't be bothered to care that there will be a smear on the knee of his dress pants in the morning.
Shepard slides a hand down the side of Kaidan's throat, fingers trailing past old scars and tripping over hard lines of muscle, his stomach jumping and twitching under her fingertips as they glide toward his belt buckle, his arms trembling where they box her in against the mattress.
She wastes no time unlatching his belt, her fingers already seeking out the zipper of his fly even as the buckle falls open. Tonight isn't about teasing, not for her. It's about the culmination of everything they've been through together to this point. The manifestation of what he means to her. Of what she feared she'd never have again. It's about love and hope and being human together. There isn't room or time for teasing. Not tonight. So she undoes his fly and shoves his pants down over his hips until he kicks them off, and then she pushes at his shoulders, rolling them so that he's on his back beneath her.
She straddles his hips, his hands coming up to wrap around her waist and steady her, and the length of his erection presses, hot and hard, between her folds. She takes a moment to revel in the sensation, at the warmth and fullness of him pressing so intimately against her.
And then she slides back, just barely, coating his length in her own slick. She pushes her hips forward, moaning at the feel of him pulsing against her. Back again, and her teeth sink into her lower lip as the fat, broad head of his cock nudges at her sensitive clit. She drops one of her own hands between them to wrap around his erection, and the heat of his skin is nearly scorching against her fingers and he throbs in her palm as his cock rhythmically twitches and jerks in time to his pulse. She thumbs the thick vein on the underside, a rolling pressure that she takes from root to tip, a touch that makes him hiss in a breath through his teeth and push his hips into her hand.
She works with him, gently, slowly pumping him, watching as precum beads at his tip at the apex of every stroke, sticky and thick and slick against her hand as it slides back down his length, feeling his fingers clenching and releasing against her waist with every rise and fall of his hips, and then she lets him go, planting her hands firmly on the broad wall of his chest as she slides forward against his thighs, her ring sparkling in her peripheral vision as blue fire crackles across it. She lifts and shifts her hips just so, and then the head of his cock presses against her, and her mouth falls open at the sensation. She slides back just enough to take him in, and she feels his breath catch in his chest under her palms.
Her own breath comes heavy and slow through parted lips as she slowly takes him in inch by inch. She can't look away from his face, can't take her eyes from his for a moment.
This is no different from every other time they've made love, and yet it is.
When he's finally fully seated inside her, when their hips have met and she feels him stretching her, filling her, touching the deepest parts of herself, emotion wells up in her throat.
Nothing has changed between them, but nothing will ever be the same again.
She moves slowly at first, hips rising and falling in measured, even movements, savoring the sweet aching sensation of fullness every time she takes all of him in. His hands roam over her skin, in turns gentle and demanding, crackling and alive with static and sending shivers of sensation up her spine. He caresses her back, her shoulders, urging her down to meet his mouth.
When she kisses him, she can still taste hints of herself, but that isn't what she seeks out as her tongue strokes against his, delving into his mouth. What she's looking for are hints of him. She wants to be consumed by him, wants as much of him surrounding her as she can get. She sucks his tongue into her mouth, desperate for any bit that might be pure, unadulterated Kaidan.
Kaidan moans into her mouth, his blunt fingernails biting into her back, and then he lifts and shifts his hips, driving up into her, and it's almost too much, too deep, but then he slides his hands down to wrap around her waist again, tilting her hips, and he hits that one spot on the next thrust, the one spot that makes her back arch and her toes curl, and her teeth sink into his lower lip and her fingers curl into his hair, seeking purchase.
She kisses him until she has to tear her mouth away, gasping for air. She pushes herself up, her back arching, rising and falling with him, letting him lift her hips and bring her slamming back down onto him, letting herself feel his hot, rigid thickness pushing into her again and again. She's so unbelievably tight around him, every one of her nerve endings sparking and lighting. She's so close, so very very close, her fingers curling against his pectorals, scrabbling at his chest as their hips meet again and again.
"I love you," she breathes just before stars explode behind her eyes and her stomach pits as gravity shifts - Kaidan truly, fully, letting go, and she knows he's reveling in how she feels clenching around him, how she sounds panting out his name.
It's as gorgeous as she remembers; sweat beading across his brow, teeth gritted, eyes blazing like blue coronas, fire dancing brightly across every inch of him. His jaw works as he slams her down harder onto him, his body coiling, tensing, the static almost biting into her skin as he brings a thumb to her clit and rubs in small, tight circles, pushing her to another orgasm. Her back practically bows from the pleasure, her fingernails scratching into his ribs, trying to hold him as close and as deeply inside of her as she can.
Kaidan's hand shoots out, tangling in her hair, cupping the back of her skull, yanking her mouth back down to his. Her insides are flooded with warmth as their lips crash together and his tongue thrusts into her mouth. The bedsheets rise and flutter around them, and both of their nightstands shudder and skitter across the floor. His hips work against hers until he's spent himself fully, and the flames slowly begin to die across his skin.
When the kiss has finally gentled, when Kaidan's hips have relaxed and fallen back to the mattress, when it doesn't feel like her heart is trying to hammer its way out of her ribs any longer, she lays her head on his shoulder, nuzzling her forehead into the corner of his jaw. He slides a hand up and down her spine, lazy patterns of touch and reassurance as he slowly goes soft inside of her.
"I love you, too," he finally murmurs before turning his head and pressing a kiss to her hair. She closes her eyes and revels in it. In this moment. In this intimacy with her husband.
Nothing has changed, but everything is different.
And, with light from the aquarium glinting off of her ring, she can't help but feel that everything between them is as it should be.