Trompe L'Oeil

by Inverse Calico

She wanted flesh and blood and bone and heat. She wanted to divest him of his clothing to reveal the marvels underneath and to free him from his silence with cries of pleasure. If he named her goddess, then a goddess of passion she would be.

Please heed the M rating! This fic does contain content of a sexual nature, although it has been edited to comply with FFN regulations (around 650 words gone bye-bye). The full version can be read on my livejournal at inversecalico DOT livejournal DOT com/375118 DOT html, on Archive of Our Own, or at Blissful Ignorance.

Written for the 2012 Church of Lemons on the Love Reflection II mailing list. Hope you enjoy it! All comments and criticisms are welcome so feel free to rip it up in every possible fashion and critique it to pieces if you are so inclined.

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is owned by Sunrise and Sotsu Agency and distributed in America exclusively under license by Bandai Entertainment. It's not mine. Believe me, I could use the cash.
Completed: February 26, 2012

Trompe L'Oeil

by

Inverse Calico

"Could I see just a little more leg, please?"

In a room drenched with summer's light, Relena rolled her eyes heavenward, mentally cursed the natures of lecherous men, especially talented and famous ones, and pondered how best to politely respond to the query.

A small movement from the corner of her eye drew her attention away from a certain world-renowned Alonso Kline's impertinence. She turned her head just slightly to the left, noting Heero in the northeastern corner. Always unmoving while on guard in this room, he had gone even stiller. It was a subtle difference, like that of the predator before the strike. He stood straight and intense and far, far too still, even for him, with a pinched, disapproving quality to his mouth and hard, threatening eyes.

x_x_x_x_x

Many had looked at her in admiration, adoration, amazement. No one looked at her quite like Heero did, however, that time so many years ago when he clutched her hand in the shuttleport as they parted, calling her name and then spinning her into the shock of his mouth. His hand tightened on hers to the point of pain, but she did not care. He was hot and reckless and dangerous and completely unskilled in kissing, so she taught him quickly with the pressure of her own lips and tongue that gentleness could be even more pleasurable than sheer intensity.

They pulled apart far more slowly than they had come together, and Relena licked her lips, tasting him still. She looked into his dark, fierce, beautiful eyes, trying to understand the tangled emotions gleaming there. He released her hand, lingering over the skin where bruises would later form in the shape of his fingers. He did not speak, simply looked at her, quivering minutely as if he would shortly come undone. Relena felt she already had. She swallowed and tried several times to form words before she could trust her voice.

"I will see you again."

She watched with dreamy fascination as his Adam's apple bobbed. Heero, too, required effort to put together speech, a single monosyllable finally emerging on a hoarse rasp.

"Yeah."

x_x_x_x_x

Relena allowed her eyes to connect with Heero's, feeling the spark that always seemed to leap between them flare brighter. Her breath caught and heat pooled low in her stomach at the possessiveness in his stare. She rubbed her fingers across the fine hairs of her arm near her wrist, now standing at attention, and pulled her lower lip between her teeth. Quickly, subtly, maintaining an outward composure that was nearly painful under his dark gaze, she shook her head. His eyes narrowed, but he settled back against the wall without a complaint.

The same, however, could not be said for her most diligent admirer.

"Miss Relena, about those legs..." Alonso's voice intruded again, smooth, cultured, and slightly plaintive.

Relena sighed internally, exasperated but nevertheless thankful for the distraction from her own desires.

"No, Alonso, you may not."

She cast the man a dryly amused look, allowing her eyes and lips to crinkle but remaining carefully immobile through all her larger muscle groups. Alonso always spent such long minutes each session perfectly posing her to appear alluring but strong, proud but welcoming, gentle but defiant, and so many other contradictory adjectives that she was unwilling to disturb the perfection of his vision. She supposed it couldn't be helped that his idea of perfection involved wrapping her in a sheet and then leaving her perched upon a tall stool and hanging off the side of a cocktail table with the promise that the furniture would be replaced by lovely plant life in the finished painting.

Becoming a portrait was certainly one of the most tedious and uncomfortable duties of her entire career. Even with scads of perfectly decent pictures of her to choose from in every possible lighting, season, and most possible poses (the ones suitable for public display anyway), her governmental peers had nevertheless insisted that a proper portrait artist paint her, and so here they were: Relena, Alonso Kline the famous painter, and her security du jour.

x_x_x_x_x

His hand rested, searing and electrifying all at once, on the bare skin of her lower back as he escorted her in the darkness through the maze of hallways behind the stage. The presence of other people filtered out rapidly the further from the stage lights they went, and Relena mentally counted the seconds, wondering how long it would take a seasoned politician to spontaneously combust. If she had only known Heero would be her guard that night, would she have worn a less daring dress or one cut even lower?

"It's good to see you. I hadn't known that you were part of the security detail on this trip."

Desperate to break the tension building with each idle trace of his fingers across her exposed skin, Relena resorted to rambling in the most inane way. Heero did not seem to notice.

"I hear the baked chicken that will be served at the dinner is quite good. Apparently, it's some proprietary herb mixture that really only grows properly in this climate. The weather has been quite nice while we've been here, hasn't it? I could never have worn something like this comfortably at home this time of year."

She squeaked as she found herself pressed to the wall, her bare back rubbing against cold plaster, a shocking change from the warmth of Heero's hand. He braced his arms on either side of her, caging her within the confines of his body but no longer touching her in any way.

Fully conscious of the fact that they could be interrupted with only a few seconds' warning, Relena placed one hand flat against the hard planes of his abdomen and felt his muscles shiver beneath his shirt. He must be glorious with no clothing. Oxygen seemed suddenly in short supply, but that didn't stop her from curling her other hand around the back of his neck and drawing his face to hers.

"So you like the dress?" she whispered just before their lips met.

x_x_x_x_x

"Come now, Miss Relena, I wish only to accurately portray the smooth glory of your skin."

Relena tapped her thumb against her lips, as if considering Alonso's reasoning. She had been sitting for him for weeks, and by this point in time, it was an old argument, though not one that Alonso had ever won and not one for which Heero had been present.

She infused her voice with the droll, lazy sarcasm. "Oh, by all means, let us not deprive the people of their titillation. Do take careful note of my shoulder blades, Alonso, as they're so rarely exposed to the sun like this. The skin there must be nearly flawless."

"I do indeed take careful note, believe me," Alonso hastened to assure her, with what he no doubt thought was a charming smile. "It's just that the texture of the skin across the body is not uniform, and I do want to be sure I get all the littlest details right."

"Be careful, Alonso," Relena rebuked him softly, again noting the subtle shifting of Heero from unobtrusive to threatening. "You push against the bounds of propriety. I should hate to feel so uncomfortable that I must leave."

Alonso followed her gaze this time and paled noticeably before sitting to sudden attention behind his easel.

"No, of course not. That is the last thing I'd want! The painting is so nearly done, you know."

The painting proceeded in silence for long minutes afterwards, until Relena shifted on her stool and inadvertently granted the painter's request when she stretched out a leg to ease the tight muscles there and the silk wrapped about her rose above her knee.

A low whistle and happy hum signaled a new burst of activity behind the canvas.

"I hope that's not going in the official portrait, Alonso. I had thought it was mostly done except for the detail work."

"You are exquisite," he agreed readily.

There was an audible snort from Heero's corner, and Alonso put down his brush to glare at him. "You," he pronounced, "you security guard, surely even you would not dare to disagree!"

Relena inclined her head to Heero with curiosity, remembering in vivid detail his appreciation of her body.

x_x_x_x_x

Once, on a whim about two years ago, she invited him to picnic with her on her mother's estate. Heero being Heero, there was never any guarantee that he would show up, and she spent the day with her stomach in a knot of anxiety until the intercom at the gate crackled and his voice requested entrance.

Together, they dragged an overstuffed picnic hamper out into the expansive yard and beyond easy viewing from the house. Together, they dined on cold chicken and warm touches, taking turns feeding choice morsels to one another. Relena learned then to love the salt of his fingers and that he had a fascination with her lower lip.

When a brief spring rain caught them talking after the meal, she curled into the meager protection of his body. His mouth chased the water, drifting first across her eyelids, then her cheeks, then her lips, and then ghosting, oh so softly and warmly, down the side of her neck.

Somehow, Relena found herself in Heero's lap while he sprawled in abandon on the wet grass and fumbled his way into her clothing. For once, years too late, they felt like the teenagers they had never been allowed to be. That day the hunger truly started and never abated.

x_x_x_x_x

"She is young, healthy, and conventionally attractive," Heero conceded.

Heat flooded Relena's face. Heero being Heero, he might as well have said she was gorgeous.

Something close to equilibrium restored between all parties, the session continued. Feeling content and more than a little predatory herself, Relena slipped back into the recesses of her mind, spinning small, glittering fantasies in the air between them as she watched Heero where he patiently waited in his corner, one more shadow among the many beginning to stretch across the floor.

As the afternoon waned, the shadows grew inch by inch, painting bars across their bodies and throwing the firmness of Heero's facial structure into high relief. Alonso worked feverishly, racing against the setting sun, while Relena and Heero remained locked in the cages of one another's eyes, a crackling tension thrumming through the very air between them.

Soon Heero moved from his corner and began pacing restlessly along the perimeter of the room. Under normal circumstances on his days for portrait security detail, that was the surest way to know that the sitting had come to an end. Heero would be rock still and patient until the moment when Relena thought she just could not stand it anymore herself, and then, as if he knew of the frustration building in her, he would begin to move. Although Relena's pride refused to allow her to ask for an ending for herself, she was not above demanding one to ease her guards.

"That's enough for today, Alonso."

The painter did not argue, looking weary and drained himself. "Indeed, Miss Relena. Just a bit more work, some polishing of the details. One more sitting, and I think it shall be ready for the public unveiling."

"Then I will see you again soon. Have a good evening," she dismissed him.

The shadows progressed beyond the point of drama and on to dimness while the painter cleaned and packed his supplies and covered the portrait with a dust sheet. In the twilight Heero escorted Alonso from the room and out of the house. From her perch Relena listened to the polite, stilted words of their parting and let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding at the shutting of the door and the clicking of the locks.

Heero reappeared silently in the doorway, and his eyes bored into hers. She had not moved and was no more dressed than before. This was not the usual state of things.

Her heartbeat surged as her eyes drank in his figure, standing so warily in her home. For so many years they had danced around one another, sticking to public proprieties and private interludes: hurried fumbles in darkened places or to take the edge off tense moments, a slow burn of connection stoked by stolen glances and casual touches, quick caresses and quicker kisses. Although it had been happening gradually for three years, the changes in their relationship, the new physicality, still seemed a little new, still a little raw and rough around the edges.

Relena's difficult schedule dictated that she saw Heero generally when he was on security rotation and usually in the presence of other people. They spent far too much time together trying to mislead the eyes of others, and that needed to change, immediately.

x_x_x_x_x

"Don't be so upset," Heero murmured, cutting his eyes to the side to check that the hallway was still empty of prying ears and eyes.

"Upset? I am not upset. I am furious! As if it wasn't bad enough that every single one of those men in that room considers me an untouchable paragon of virtue with no desires of my own beyond the greater good of humanity, you... You!" Relena, shaking with barely restrained emotion, hissed in his face because she could not scream it. "I thought you at least saw me as a person now, not just a figurehead."

He stepped closer, and she stepped back. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and she welcomed the sharp prick of her nails biting into her palms. It was all just too much too soon, and she was tired, so tired of being strong, and so damned tired of near never-ending travel. The pressure of her nails, at least, was something she could fully control.

"What? Don't you have anything to say? Don't you care?" Her voice broke. "Heero, I'll be gone for months!"

His face remained immobile, expressionless, though so much feeling that she could not get a clear read on danced in his dark eyes. Later, they would never be sure who moved forward first, but their bodies rushed together across the gap between them, and the anger and frustration turned into something savage in a completely different way. Her hands buries themselves in his hair as she writhed against him, and he pushed her toward a deep window, slipping her out of sight behind the curtains as she lifted one leg to twine around his hip, and he pushed his fingers beneath her skirt and into her welcoming heat.

"I know," he panted into her hair as her teeth closed over his collarbone to muffle her cries. "I know, but you'll come back."

x_x_x_x_x

As if he were unable to bear the intensity of her gaze and the memories it conjured, Heero's eyes dropped from hers, and he walked over to the nearly completed canvas. She saw his eyes widen when he pulled the sheet back.

"Tell me, Heero, is it an acceptable likeness?" Relena asked as she hopped from her perch and wobbled towards him on stiff legs. Curiosity could indeed be a pressing drive, especially when Heero looked at a painting like that.

"He is known as one of the best of his kind."

Relena laughed, taking the hand he offered to steady her. "As are you and as am I, but we're also in the business of propaganda. Is it real?"

"You're an idealized version of yourself."

"But of what kind? A grace, a muse, a fury?"

"All three."

Heero shrugged and stepped aside as she came to stand in front of him, looking at the portrait of herself for the first time. Modeled heavily upon a long-ago Alphonse Mucha print of Summer, Alonso had aged her down in the painting to be the girl she was during the wars. So vividly realistic that she seemed rendered in three dimensions, the younger Relena sat in alluring but defiant repose on an overgrown riverbank at dawn with her feet in the water. A simple but luxuriously draped length of cloth held by cords was all that clothed her body, and a wreath of red and white poppies for remembrance and peace adorned her loose hair. In the sky the original colonies glittered like stars in the formation in which they were visible from earth.

Relena sighed at Alonso's undeniable talent. "It's gorgeous, but it still seems so strange to be a painting. I'm lucky he decided to model me on a lesser masterwork. No Mona Lisa, no Botticelli Venus."

Heero laughed suddenly, and Relena turned to him in amazement. Eyes gleaming with open pleasure, he reached out and tweaked a strand of her long blond hair.

"You'd make a good Venus. You look like her."

Feeling the flush of raw desire spread through her body once again, Relena stepped closer with a rustle of cloth. "I'm a bit less naked than Venus."

He shrugged and repeated. "You look like her."

Although his voice remained level, in a quick glance upwards she watched his pupils dilate and noticed the slight flaring of his nostrils as he unconsciously searched for her scent. She closed the distance between them, feeling the heat from the length of his body reaching out to caress her skin and aware her own eyes must be dark with desire. For long enough, she had craved his touch. For long enough, they'd behaved as polite acquaintances for prying eyes.

"But not a Mona Lisa?" She cocked her head to the side, putting on her best enigmatic smile and staring up at him through her lowered lashes.

"You're not as inscrutable."

"No?" It came out on a husky laugh. Fever burned beneath her skin, and she felt ridiculously daring and joyous.

Relena slid her eyes to his, allowing her gaze to linger, to beckon. Without touching him, she stepped back just enough to miss his heat. She waved her right arm down the side of her sheet-clad body, encompassing the curve of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, and then the long, smooth expanse of her legs. She watched his eyes follow and darken to midnight pools at the movements of her hand and slid her hand to rest upon the expanse of her thigh, subtly hitching the fabric upwards, wanting it to be his touch there instead.

"Then how am I now?" she breathed, barely audible.

Heero swallowed, and she once again delighted in the entirely masculine bobbing of his throat. His hands clenched and released at his sides and a vein throbbed along his clenched jaw as his body began finely vibrating with barely leashed control.

"Tempting," he said finally.

Relena stroked her hand further up her thigh, exposing more of her skin, and used her free hand to caress the side of her neck and curl down to her collarbone.

"But not irresistible?"

"I wouldn't say that."

Her chin tilted back as Heero took one large stride toward her. He had grown taller in his late teens, peace and adequate nutrition being good for him. She did not step back, and her breath ghosted across his lips as he loomed over her. A fistful of sheet bunched in his palm as with almost mechanical precision he eased the length of silk down her body and exposed her breasts and stomach to the twilight. For a time he just stared, silent except for the raggedness of his breath.

Relena felt beautiful beneath his scrutiny and unashamed. Her nipples puckered proudly in the evening air, and she remained hyperconscious of how close and immovable he was, turned to a stone Adonis before her. She wanted flesh and blood and bone and heat, enveloping her, inside her. She wanted to divest him of his clothing to reveal the marvels underneath and to free him from his silence with cries of pleasure.

If he named her goddess, then a goddess of passion she would be.

One hand coiled seductively through the valley between her breasts while the other reached to catch his belt. She yanked him to her as their mouths crashed together and his hands took the weight of her breasts. Tongue sliding against tongue as hands stroked greedily over skin, they staggered backwards and narrowly missed the easel. Heat and wetness flooded between Relena's legs with each frantic kiss, and she twined one leg up around his hip, whimpering with the need for more contact. Heero hefted her in his arms, one hand kneading the nape of her neck while the other kneaded the firm roundness of her buttocks. He gasped her name against her lips and pressed more firmly against her, rocking into the core of her body and out again through the barrier of their clothes. Relena moaned in response and arched against him, her memory flashing with brief visions of the riches hidden beneath his uniform.

How she enjoyed him. How she wanted him. How she would pleasure him.

She pushed her hands against his chest and leaned back, panting as she stared into his beautiful eyes. His closed, and he pressed his forehead against hers, breathing her breath while his hand continued slow caresses across the curve of her spine, down the side of her hip, and beneath the bunching of the sheet to her thigh.

Relena shivered in his arms and bit her lip as those gentle, calloused fingers slipped closer to their destination.

"Wait, Heero. I want you to paint me."

Heero froze in place, looking thoroughly startled as he glanced back to the portrait on the easel. Slowly, he released her, sliding her down the length of his body and steadying her when her legs refused to hold her. He tried to move away from her, to go sit stunned and lost in front of the canvas, but she stopped him with her hand on his.

Relena brought his hand to her mouth, kissing the scarred palm, and then opened her lips and twined her tongue around his fingers. She held his attention with warm suction and the gentlest play of her teeth against his fingertips before shaking her head.

"Not like that. Paint me. I want you to paint me with you." She cupped her breasts in her own palms, then skimmed her hands along the gentle curve of her belly before slipping them down across the silk between her legs. "Here and here and here."

x_x_x_x_x

PLEASE SEE NOTE AT THE TOP REGARDING ACCESS TO THE COMPLETE, UNCENSORED FIC.

x_x_x_x_x

She draped her hands around his neck, still heated with her own desire and quivering a bit at how close she had come to her own release simply from touching him.

"No one's shaped me more than you have, Heero. Your touch is always upon me."

She took his hand and glided it across the line of her jaw, rubbing her cheek into his palm and staring at him with her heart in her eyes, and then she took his hand to the ache still between her legs. Gazes locked on one another, he rubbed his fingers across damp, heated skin. She fought to keep her eyes open as he dipped his fingers inside her but lost her battle when he then took them wet and glistening to his mouth.

"Stay, Heero," she whispered. "Let's not hide anymore. Stay always. We're not finished."

She swayed against him, and he kissed her suddenly, fiercely, their combined tastes merging in a way that had her heart thumping as it never had before. He bent unexpectedly, scooping up the trailing silk and cords and sweeping her off her feet into his arms. Relena bubbled over with mirth as he strode off with her to her bed, she naked from the waist up, he naked from the waist down, leaving his discarded trousers and underwear for the cleaning staff to find in the morning.

And with that, everyone of any consequence would know that they were officially lovers by lunchtime.

x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x

Author's Notes: Oh my goodness, it has been ages since I've written smut. This was such a bizarre experience, haha!

Trompe l'oeil is French for "deceive/fool/mislead the eye". You get the idea. It's a pretty good summary of how Relena and Heero were going around in their private versus public lives in this story. It's also an artistic term meaning to create such realistic imagery that there is the optical illusion that a two-dimensional work appears to be three dimensional.

You can view the work I based Relena's portrait off of at my livejournal. In search of inspiration and because I had it from the library at the time, I turned to an enormous artbook of Alphonse Mucha prints. Lots of pretty women there. For some reason, this particular image made me think about Relena hanging out in the jungle in the ending credits of the series. Obviously, it isn't done with a trompe l'oeil technique, but Heero and Relena aren't three dimensional to start with so I'm sure it'd look quite realistic to them!