Disclaimer: I do not own Emma Swan or Neal Cassidy. If I did, they wouldn't suffer so much, and there would be no Tamara, to begin with.
A/N: We all knew this would happen, didn't we? Here it is. While Tamara makes out with Greg, Neal is taking a shower, but his memories won't leave him alone. Neither will Emma Swan. Angsty SwanFire Smut. Oneshot. M+. If you think you might be offended by graphic language, pretend you never saw this and feel free to check my other two SwanFire fics.
Another warning: angst ahead. Might leave a bitter taste in your mouth. It's always complicated for those two, so... Bear with me!
The only woman he had truly loved
Neal had already undressed when he realized there was no shower curtain in his bathroom.
He shrugged, as he reached out for the shower tap with little, if none, surprise. Such was his luck those days: if something could go wrong, it would. Then, when hell had broken loose, he would only find out there was room for more.
What breakfast had that been, anyway? Emma giving him those looks and cracking jokes about fate, Tamara accusing him of still holding a candle for his ex… He let out a sigh when the warm water hit his chest, and waited until it calmed his nerves.
He closed his eyes and raised his face to the water, wishing his mind would shut up, for once. He didn't want to remember that day when Emma found him in Manhattan and their bitter talk over drinks, he didn't want to remember her giving him back the keychain she had turned into a pendant, he didn't want to remember the disappointed look in her eyes…
And most certainly, he didn't want to remember he was engaged to Tamara. He wanted, and needed, to think about nothing, and no one.
"That's what you get for fucking things up," he muttered to himself, as he lathered his arms and chest and felt a very familiar scent fill his nostrils. He closed his eyes for a second, and tried to remember where exactly he knew that smell from.
Another part of his body was quicker, and throbbed instants before the image of Emma Swan flashed before his eyes.
He reached out for the little bottle at the edge of the bathtub, and his throat tightened.
Bergamot and lillies.
"Fuck," he whispered, not exactly worried that he would leave the shower smelling like a girl. Oh, no. That was immaterial. The problem with that scent was the memories it brought back, and how his body was so awfully eager to revive them.
"Just get a grip on yourself, for fuck's sake," he said, although by now it was rather late. He pressed one hand against the bathroom tiles and lowered his head, feeling the water running from his head to his back, and then down the back of his legs.
He took a long, deep breath and fought the urge to touch himself.
"Just don't close your eyes… Don't go there…" he kept telling himself, as if it was some sort of mantra. He had no right to be thinking about Emma, not like that, not under those dire circumstances. There was no hope for them anymore, and he was the only one to be credited for that. He was about to get married… to another woman. If anything, he should be thinking about Tamara as he threw his head back and let the water run from his chest to his groin, and then to his thighs.
Thinking about fucking Emma Swan until both of them passed out was wrong. Just wrong.
He shouldn't. He wouldn't.
"I will…" he whispered, as his hand closed around his cock, and he closed his eyes, feeling it harden under his touch.
Gods. How he wished she was there.
His mind took him back to the many times he had smelled that bergamot and lillies scent on her blond hair as they made love… And then, there was that look that she always gave him as he penetrated her, no matter how fast, how forceful or how slowly, that look that let him know that she was giving him everything she had, and that she trusted him.
He felt the corners of his eyes prickle as mixed feelings washed over him. Every fiber of his being rejoiced at how blissful those moments were; but his mind was quick to point out that the woman who had given him her body, her heart and her soul had been the very same one he had abandoned.
She had done time because of him. She had given birth to their child in jail.
And now he was touching himself, thinking of her. He was disgusted at himself, especially because he couldn't bring himself to stop.
He was now breathing heavily as his hand slid up and down his throbbing sex. He pressed his forehead against his arm, and his shoulders shook as tears ran down his face. At some point of his life, he had taken a wrong turn and become a man he no longer recognized.
Pleasure and pain jolted through his veins as he picked up speed, running a thumb over the tip of his cock and smearing it with glistening drops of pre-cum. He wished he could heal her. He wished he would heal. But right now, the only thing he was managing to do was to bring himself to another lonely orgasm, knowing that it would only temporarily fill a void that had followed him like a shadow since that night when he let go of the only woman he had ever truly loved.
"Neal?" said Emma Swan, after knocking on his door twice. "Neal?"
She turned the doorknob, only to find out it was unlocked.
"I left my wallet in your room, can I come in?" she asked, still outside.
There was no response.
"Oh, whatever," she whimpered, as she entered the room with another hot cocoa in her hands.
She quickly spotted her wallet on the table around which the four of them had been sitting a couple of hours ago.
"If that wasn't the weirdest breakfast ever, I don't know what was," she muttered, raising her eyebrows as she remembered the looks Neal would cast towards hers, and before that, his fatidic words when he explained why Tamara was coming to town.
He needed her.
Emma shook her head, trying to swallow the huge lump that was suddenly blocking her throat. Just when she thought she couldn't feel worse about everything that was happening.
Too bad that certain wounds ran too deep, and never seemed to heal. Maybe that was what they were meant to be, after all. Parents. Friends. Or, simply two fucked up people who had happened to have a crush on each other many years ago, and had nothing in common anymore.
The truth was that she had hoped she would be able to trust him again. Turns out she couldn't. The only thing Neal seemed to bring into her life was pain, and she had had enough.
She woke up from her trance and picked up her wallet, and halfway across the room, something caught her eye. The door to the bathroom was partially open, and the shower was running. Her heart sank when she heard something that reminded her of a moan.
'Oh please… Please don't be fucking her in the shower,' she thought, going against that voice that urged her to leave and moving closer to the bathroom. 'I think I've been humiliated enough already…'
She stopped dead on her tracks, gripping her cocoa for dear life, and closed her eyes before she pushed the door open, slowly. She had to have some sort of masochist streak in her, if she honestly thought that anything good would ever come out of peeping inside that bathroom.
When she opened her eyes, her cocoa nearly fell from her hands, and she was pretty sure she had let out a very audible gasp.
Luckily for her, Neal was far too entertained masturbating to even notice.
Her mouth went dry as her eyes slowly danced over his naked body, until they fell on his hand sliding up and down his penis. She grabbed the cup even harder as her lips started throbbing at the sight. She hated herself for invading his intimate moment like that. She hated it even more that she couldn't bring herself to stop looking.
She forced her eyes back to his face, and saw that he had pressed his forehead to his arm, leaning against the bathroom tiles as his shoulders shook.
Was he crying?
Her heart skipped a beat, as a mixture of arousal, sorrow and shame clutched at her chest. She suddenly realized that her whole body was actually begging her to drop the act and join him, and kiss him, and have him slide inside her where he belonged.
Why did that man still affect her like that?
She realized his breath was now coming in short gasps, and so was hers. He was the one masturbating, and she was the one on the verge of orgasm. Her nipples were all hard and tingly, and the wetness between her legs was ridiculous.
'You are sick, Emma Swan,' her conscience screamed, before she closed her eyes and all the voices inside her head went silent.
What she was about to do was wrong. She knew it all too well. She knew she would regret it.
She wished she could stop.
She couldn't.
With a swift movement, she opened the door and entered the bathroom.
"Emma?" Neal let out a strangled whisper as he lost his balance and clumsily grabbed one of the racks near the bathtub to stop from falling.
As he looked around for a towel and tried to hide his erect cock, he looked so scared it was almost painful to watch.
Emma stared into his teary eyes for a brief moment, not bothering to explain. The lust, and care, and fear, and longing in her own eyes deemed any word useless.
She quickly took off her boots, and then her sweater, and then her jeans and her underwear in one urgent movement. She climbed into the bathtub, and removed her bra before turning off the tap and standing in front of Neal, completely naked, without saying a word.
His cock was now brushing against her belly, and his eyes were a mix of confusion and desire.
"Emma..."
Before he could say any other word, she covered his lips with hers. It seemed to take him some time to process what was really going on, but when he did, she parted her lips to welcome his eager tongue in her mouth, tasting him, sucking his lips as her tongue covered his in a passionate dance.
His arms were now wrapped around her back, and she shivered in delight when his hands slid across her skin and cupped her breasts, caressing them ever so softly. His lips were now pressing wet kisses down her neck, and when their eyes finally met again she felt her stomach flutter. There it was, the look she had never, ever found in any other man's face. The only one over the years that didn't make her feel like a whore as she let her deepest desires wash over her. The only one that made her feel loved.
She kissed him again, and this time forced his body down the tub so that she could straddle him. His eyes never left hers as she reached out for his throbbing cock, stroking it a couple of times to feel all the heat of his flesh, loving it when it twitched and grew even thicker under her touch. He swallowed, holding her hips with trembling hands as she prepared to take him in, lowering her dripping sex into his, and letting him slide all the way into her in one long, wet stroke.
Neal held the back of her thighs as a moan escaped his lips, and bolts of pleasure ran through his body. They remained completely still for endless seconds, just basking in that glorious reunion, as their bodies finally rediscovered each other. Then Emma started rocking back and forth, clenching his rock hard cock, pressing the palms of her hands over his chest, and lowering herself to kiss him again, to suck on his tongue, to lose herself in his mouth.
Soon enough, he was lifting his hips to thrust into her with more urgency, moaning in her mouth and driving her into a whirlwind of pleasure and ecstasy.
"Emma…" he panted. "I'm gonna-"
"I know," she moaned back, making it very clear she wanted him inside her until the very end.
He brought himself to a sitting position and she readjusted her hips over his, feeling her own orgasm catching up with her as he bit her earlobe and thrust even harder into her.
"I love you," he whispered in her ear, and she dug her nails into his back, rather sure that the tears in her eyes were not only a result of the waves of pleasure washing over her.
"I love you too," she managed to moan back, feeling him press his forehead against her neck as he exploded inside her, shaking violently as he wrapped his arms around her, panting.
When Emma finally opened her eyes, she realized she was still dressed, outside the bathroom, clutching her cocoa with trembling hands. Nothing had happened, and yet her orgasm, and the tears running down her face, were very real.
Not far from her, the same was true for Neal Cassidy, as he cried his way back from his peak of pleasure.
"Oh my God, Emma…" he muttered, feeling incredibly ashamed of himself for everything he had done to her, but still unable to fight the feeling that he knew was still alive inside him, hating himself for still having that bit of hope, hating himself for still wanting her that bad. "I love you."
The splashing sound of a cup falling to the floor brought him back to his senses, and he had to struggle to keep his balance when he saw Emma Swan staring at him from behind the bathroom door.
He clumsily reached out for a towel as she turned on her heels and closed the door behind her.
Emma felt her heart was cracking. She had had enough of all that shit.
Not even bothering to swallow back the tears that were running down her face, she tried to steady herself as her shaky legs refused to move as fast as she wished. She needed to get out of that place, she needed to get herself together, and above all, she needed to be away from him.
Just when she had touched the doorknob, Neal showed up from behind her and pressed the door closed. She took a long, deep breath, trying to ignore the fact his bare chest was almost touching her back, and that her leg had just grazed his groin.
"Neal, please…" she whimpered, wishing he would understand how incredibly hard it was for her not to give in to her feelings. "Please let me out."
He said nothing, and remained still, and so she found herself forced to look at his face. His eyes were as broken and hurt as hers probably were, and yet there was that slight hint of…
"We can't," she said, and every word that left her lips crawled under her skin. "We can't anymore."
And it was not only because he was engaged, although that was something big to consider. It was just that some things could not be mended when they broke, at least not that easily.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and his voice was shaky when he spoke. "I'm so sorry."
She lowered her head, and stifled a sob.
"Me too," she said.
When he finally let go of the door, she went out of the room as fast as she could, still feeling dizzy as the world cracked around her, again.
Inside the room, Neal let his body slide to the floor, as reality slowly sank in.
He had lost her. The only woman he had truly loved.