A|N For wickedshenanigans. Many thanks to queenoflocksley for being a great and most inspirational beta!
Now
She's not entirely sure what had come over her, or how she'll explain herself to the others when she and Robin eventually turn up, wanting for answers if not feeling thoroughly satisfied in…other ways.
One moment, Regina had been more or less minding her own business, dutifully poring over yet another dusty tome that would prove equally useless as the last one (this castle has its finer points, no doubt, but its libraries don't exactly give the impression that the crowns of Camelot devote much of their time to reading).
Her eyes had nearly crossed over complicated tree diagrams and all the favorable weather conditions for achieving optimal height, but none had strongly resembled the one in King Arthur's courtyard, nor given any indication of what to do should a sorcerer's spirit become trapped inside.
She, quite frankly, had been getting annoyed.
The next moment, the door had opened without any preceding knock, and Robin—presumably there to admonish her for letting dinner grow cold (again)—had loitered at its threshold, hardly shy about enjoying the candlelit view of her leaning carefully over ancient books and scrolls.
Her velvet gown, already clinging in places she's no longer used to, had held her curves too-tight then, catching flame from his gaze though he did not move forward, clearly loath to disrupt her work.
He wore his own garments with ease, leather vest fastened with thin bronze buckles, tunic sleeves rucked casually up to his forearms. She'd had the fleeting thought that this, this was what suited him best, more than zip-up jackets and button-down shirts (and towns paved in concrete and lamplight, with streets of storefronts obscuring every turn of the sun).
But it would also do him just as well to wear nothing at all.
She'd maybe gone a little overboard at that point. Now was not exactly the time to indulge in each other—not when their love was only one of many at stake, not when home itself had darkened from the threat that loomed within.
Still, their moments together had been so few, and the look of him so inviting, that Regina reasons she can't be the one to blame, for shutting that door with a fistful of magic and slamming his back with a startled oomph against its wood-paneled surface.
The thud of their bodies colliding rattles bookshelves, toppling more than a few priceless heirlooms from their stands.
She only kisses him harder.
Robin's answering groan spreads shivers to her very fingertips as she endeavors to remove every offending article of clothing, to rip them in half, if she must.
She revels in the pressured heat of his palms scouring her backside, cupping her bottom, settling at her waist, lifting until her heels leave the floor and the hard length of him pulses against her center, and she—mmmm—she—
But her thief has skilled fingers and a wandering tongue, creating magic of his own and robbing her of breath and sight and all sense of control.
Which is how she winds up splayed over-table, the tower of books she'd accumulated for research purposes knocked to rubble at Robin's feet.
The smug bastard buries a grin between her heaving breasts as she struggles in vain to divest him of his pants, but there are so many more ties than she's ever had to deal with, and his warm-mouthed kisses are so very distracting.
With each second she loses to another inch of knot unraveled, he only makes quicker work of her gown (yet how he gasps to her throat when her knuckles brush against him, rigid and wanting for her). Uncovering her shoulders and freeing her arms, he tugs her sleeves to gather, useless, at her sides before bending her backward and trailing kisses like wildfire down the slope of one breast.
A lick of desire arching her spine, Regina braces one hand to the table, liberating stacks of parchment from under their glass paperweights, while she threads the other through locks of Robin's hair. He presses his tongue to her nipple, teeth and stubble scraping in turn, and damn it how will she get the rest of his clothes off now?
"If you're in need of assistance, milady," he murmurs, with that teasing tone she loves and loathes in equal measure, and she swats at him irritably when he reaches down to undo his trousers.
"I don't recall asking for your help," she hums reproachfully, rubbing him with the heel of her hand in a punishing manner.
"That you didn't," he says, agreeable as ever, though his jaws come slightly unhinged and he looks properly dazed by the ruthlessness of her touch. "But I—" there's a noticeably ragged edge to his voice now, and Regina makes no effort to hide the triumph in her smile, "—could hardly call myself a gentleman if I did not at the very least make some offer."
"Could a thief ever deign to call himself a gentleman?" Regina wonders fondly, dotting a kiss to his nose. He concedes her point with a rakish grin and a playful squeeze of her bottom before scooting her flush with the table's ledge, nestling himself firmly between her thighs.
"Perhaps someday we'll even make it to a bed," his gruff chuckle reaches her ear. The truth of it twists at her insides, memories of shadowed vaults and kisses stolen wherever they could, for fear of another inevitable something that would strip them of hope for a next time.
But now is all they have at the moment, so a bed will simply have to wait.
She might have thought to make light of it, perhaps mock him for his forest manners, if he hadn't chosen that moment to defy her and untangle the last of the laces himself.
And then she finds it difficult to think anything, period.
His pants drop past his hipbones. He's thick, throbbing, in her hand as she coaxes him close, and his palms slide upward, bunching her skirts at her waist and sending her pulse skyward.
"You know," Robin muses, hot and breathless and rough with arousal, "a simple thank you would—"
But she's remiss to give him the last word, let alone one he'd used against her when more than distance had kept them apart, and a groan lodges deep in his throat as she guides him to slide, slowly, into her.
Her mouth falls open on a silent Oh, a splintered gasp, and he is too good to her, too reverent, too tender in the way he loves her, and oh how terribly she had missed him.
"Gods," he utters as he rocks himself in to the hilt, "I've—"
Regina cuts him off with a well-angled kiss, palming his cheeks, thumbing their dimples, and his lips part to taste her in kind. Now is not the time to dwell on the mistiming of things, of maybes and moments they might have shared had another not taken so much from them.
Now is no longer theirs to waste.
He stills predictably inside of her, and her eyes crack open on a glare, mouth leaving his to scowl and say in her most menacing tone, "If you don't—"
But he does, oh does he, pulling out to the tip before surging back in. A moan tumbles out of her, low and heady, and she clenches around him, drawing him deeper. The table protests loudly, legs skidding on stone floor from the force of his thrusts. She vaguely registers the sound of shattering glass, and the fragrance of rosewater, before Robin breathes her name and slows his hips, meaning to properly steady his lips over hers for another lengthy kiss.
There will be time to slow down later, there must be, he's ruined her and taught her to accept nothing less than that now.
Displeased with the progress of things, she digs a heel commandingly into his back; he moves accordingly, warming the space between them with husky sighs and hoarse whispers of how good (fuck, Regina) she feels as he fills her over, and over, and over. There's the sensation of falling, God she could fall forever in this man's arms, and he anchors her close at the waist, snaking his other hand up her bare back to tangle with her sideswept hair.
"Robin," she gasps when he reaches down where their bodies are joined and curves a finger against her just so. Her head drops sideways, ecstasy loosening her, exposing her neck, and he drags wet, open-mouthed kisses across her skin, muffling his groan into the dip of her collarbone.
He ruts into her once, twice more (unh—Regina, I'm—), his motions growing frantic, desperate, his kisses sloppier, her name strangled by desire low in his throat, and she's teetering, off-balance, on the brink of something exquisite—there—yes—don't stop—(gods, Regina)—and she cries out as he grunts and spills into her, shuddering, coming to pieces as one.
A lingering euphoria rings in her ears while her breathing evens out. Robin, groaning quietly, bands his arms around the small of her back, forehead pillowed against her chest. Air heats the center of one breast at shaky, irregular intervals, and a toe-curling pleasure has her shifting unsteadily when he brushes lips and stubble across its pebbled surface.
They've made a mess of the King's library, she thinks through a rapturous fog, blurred eyes casting about their surroundings while Robin lazily works his way to her jawline. Shards of a bell jar here, a bent quill there, and a bottle of ink overturned to stain the pages she'd been studying, blotting out tree branches in permanent darkness.
Inexplicably, a single rose has established residence amongst the books and broken glass, its petals still dewy, blackened where they've fallen to soak in a puddle of ink.
Her stomach opts to voice its hunger then, and Robin laughingly tongues the shell of her ear, suggesting they scavenge whatever's left of dinner. He tugs her to stand, folding her easily into his arms when her knees give and threaten to pitch her forward on her heels.
"That tree is not going anywhere," he reminds her gently, not missing her guilty glance at the signs of their negligence littering the table. "Nor are those books."
"No," she agrees, but doubt wrinkles her forehead, and he presses a kiss there to smooth it back.
"Even heroes deserve a break now and then." She frowns her misgiving, but he is, as always, undeterred. "And I'd say we've worked up quite the appetite." He offers her a smile, half-crooked and entirely impossible not to return, though she'll roll her eyes all the same and pretend it doesn't warm her cheeks, or any other part of her, for that matter.
"However," and he lowers his tone to a rumble while she shrugs her gown back on, "don't think I don't intend to take my time with you later."
Regina hasn't yet figured out how to respond when he chooses to flirt with her so outrageously, but perhaps there will be time for that yet.
He sets about straightening his clothes while she does the same to her workspace, tidying books and gingerly lifting the rose between thorns, setting it aside next to scribbled notes on the Dark One's dagger.
She will right this once she's recharged, ready to take another stab at yet another crisis hell-bent on destroying things she hardly feels she deserves.
But for now, she will take this, whenever she can, and walk with a full heart and shoulders perfectly fitted for every curve of Robin's embrace.