A/N: A prompt from Tumblr: "What about a one shot from the "grinding" Regina did with a stranger while thinking about Robin from the Signed, Sealed, and Delivered." This moment is referenced in the original Signed, Sealed and Delivered. And here it is.
She's tired of those worried looks, the hushed tones of concern asking Are you sure you're alright?
She's tired of Emma Swan looking at her like she sees right through her, offering to stay in and order takeout with her instead of going out for the night with the girls because she knows she's going through a hard time right now.
Regina is going through a hard time right now, of course. She misses her husband terribly, but what's even worse than the dull, and sometimes acute ache of missing him is seeing pity in everyone's eyes, and having to continually answer their incessant questions as to whether she's alright by telling them that she is just fine.
But if she continues to withdraw and avoid all nights out, no one will believe her, and the questions will never stop. If she can't move on, she should at least be able to play the part of a woman who has done so.
The idea of a bachelorette had been….seemingly perfect. A night of ogling beautiful people and drinking and spending time with girls, without any lovey-dovey couples reminding her of what she has lost. Plenty of distractions, with less opportunity for people to focus nervous glances in her direction.
But the thing about bachelorettes is, they are filled with conversations of weddings and marriages and all that stuff that she is really trying to avoid, and she didn't really think this through when she accepted the invitation. Excited talk of marriage reminds her of how lovesick she had been as a young, engaged woman, head over heels for her husband.
So she dulls the pain and annoyance with liquor. Lots of liquor.
It starts with the hotel suite downtown, with the several bottles of sparkling wine she sips between splitting the many phallic shaped food items and effervescent giggles of giddy young girls.
And to be honest,they just make the stripper Elsa has hired so much more tolerable, these drinks. When he starts to dance amongst the crowd of giggling girls, gyrating hips right in her eyeline, a hair's distance away from her forehead…. That's when the night stops being painful.
It's been awhile since she laughed, truly laughed, and she laughs now, throughout the night, exchanging glances with Emma as the stripper encourages them to lick whipped cream off his body. And suddenly things shift from being amusing to downright hilarious.
By the time this entertainer gives poor Ruby a lap dance, she's moved from bubblies to the hard alcohol (she can handle a night of vodka, she'll do it for the bride, afterall), and feeling more than a little buzz.
It's been a night of sexual innuendos, and Ruby is more than a little blitzed even as they ride in the limo to the first club. She's sitting nearly on her lap, giggling one moment, and then serious the next.
"What if the sex is boring after we get married?" she asks of no one in particular, amidst shouts and shrieks of laughter and a very precarious attempt to do a group shot of whiskey.
"It won't be," Regina assures as one of only two married women at the party. It's her duty, right? Emma nods her head vigorously (she's cute when she's drunk) and agrees.
"Really? It didn't slow down for you guys?"
And Emma snorts into her glass of rum as she tries to catch her breath. "We had the kid before the wedding, by the time the wedding came along things were picking back up. We have more sex while married, but that could just be us.
Two sets of eyes turn to her, asking silently for her input. And well, for some reason, that dull ache she always feels when she talks of Robin or thinks of Robin is blocked behind a wall of strong booze and penis shaped baked goods, and it doesn't hurt at all to remember their sex life. In detail.
"We never slowed down," she slurs, "except for those six months when Roland was a baby."
"God you two would do it everywhere," Emma groans, "and he's my brother." She turns to Ruby, clearly not thinking this may dredge up painful memories, and adds, "we used to room together and the number of times you guys caused me to want to burn my eyes or shatter my eardrums…"
"Robin has a strong sexual appetite," Regina agrees. Marian comes to mind for a second, but she beats the memory down with another mouthful of whiskey.
"Regina, he's my brother!" Emma repeats. And for some reason, breaking Emma is fun for her.
"After we got married I think it picked up more," she says to Ruby, enjoying the look Emma is giving her. "He used to pick the most random times to just take me into any abandoned room or bathroom and —"
"Enough!" Emma shouts, muffling her ears, "Please stop, I beg you, please!"
Regina chuckles and then merely adds, "Your sex life will only die down if you let it, Ruby."
And that had been fun, teasing Emma like that, but now there are memories of hot sex swirling in her mind, and that's not good, not in a time when there's no one to relieve the ache these memories create.
The first stop is a burlesque club, where female performers on stage strip down to elegant scraps of lace and satin, and dance in a way that is ungodly arousing, and she's surrounded by sexually charged women and men, and fuck, this would be one of those times. One of those times when she would text Robin and beg him to stay up and wait for her so he could fuck her the very instant she got home. All she had to do was send a text, anything like I need you so bad, and he'd be telling her what he was going to do as soon as he got his hands on her.
Even when they were in separate cities, he'd skype with her if she needed it, telling her every dirty thing that was on his mind as they worked themselves together.
And god, she needs some of that tonight.
By a stroke of fate, she gets a text from him.
By the way, Roland told me to wish Ruby a happy birthday before he went to bed. :) He doesn't know what a bachelorette is, apparently, and thinks you are at her birthday party. I didn't know how to approach that subject.
She giggles and responds I don't think he's old enough to understand why women need a night of strippers and penis shaped cookies, lets leave it at Ruby's Birthday.
Done. Sounds like you are having fun.
It's a lot like Belle's bachelorette. We're at the same place, and I'm even wearing the same dress. She hits send before she can think better of it. They are divorcing and she's bringing up a very particular evening, and this is poor form.
Oh, Regina. That night (and the dress) were lots of fun for me, too. ;)
It's just a black halter dress, but it's tiny and tight and he's fucked her in it often. And just like that, she can add fantasies of fucking her soon-to-be-ex husband in the middle of a raunchy club to the lustful thoughts that swirl her mind.
God, she cannot be this pent up, not when she has to go back and share a hotel room with three other women.
They have bottle service, and a great view of the stage below, but as they begin to kill the drinks the girls grow antsy.
"DANCEFLOOR TIME!" Ashley screams, holding a stack of bachelorette cards. "Everyone take a card! You have to do what is on the card. If you want to opt out, you gotta buy Ruby a drink. Ruby, if you don't do it, you have to chug your drink. Ok?"
She passes the cards out, and asks everyone to reveal their card.
Regina's says: "Find a guy in a white shirt and ask him to dance."
And well, fine.
On the way to the dance floor there's a man in a white shirt, hanging by the bar. He can't stop looking at her, his eyes wandering over her body. And….now's as good as time as any, right?
She sashays up to him, holding out her bachelorette card.
"I'm supposed to ask you to dance," she says in a sultry whisper. He looks good in a white shirt, his arms are strong and defined and toned, like Robin's. He's good looking, not as hot as Robin, but definitely someone she wouldn't kick out of bed.
"I'm Ned," he says, smiling at her, "and you are?"
"Regina," she smiles back, letting her eyes wander up and down his form because what is the harm in looking? "Come dance with me before I owe the bride a drink."
God, she misses being in someone's arms. They've been dancing for a little while, and it's nothing, really, but he's touching her in a way she loves, and his arm is wrapped around her as they dance, hovering over her ass as he stares down at her, eyes wandering to her breasts, and that's not helping how sexually frustrated she is.
She runs her hands down his arms and enjoys them, and then he has a hand on her leg and it's lifting up...up…
God it feels good.
"Okay?" he rasps into her ear as his hand goes further up her thigh, and a his other hand touches lightly over her ass.
"Mhmm," she hums into his ear, and then he holds her tighter.
"Fuck you're sexy," he groans, "I've never been more thankful for this shirt,"
She chuckles at that, looking into his eyes for only a second before the fantasy running in her mind shatters.. In the lustful drunken haze he's not a dark haired stranger but someone more...familiar.
She presses herself against him, closer. She brushes against where he's hard for her, and fuck this is not helping her cool the burning want inside of her.
She should just get off. Should just tell Emma she's feeling ill and go home to her vibrator and work on herself all night. It would feel so good...and she could do whatever she wanted to ease the throbbing need inside her. Her body is begging for attention, and it's Robin's fault, that bastard, he never let her go much longer than a week without sex, and now it's been months and her body is revolting against her, desperate for relief.
This Ned wedges his leg between hers, and suddenly she's straddling it as they dance, her sex just hovering over his leg as they dance to a particular slow, sexy r&b beat where people are doing little of anything besides grinding anyway. She shouldn't, should not but she's been craving touch for so long, she needs it, so she lets herself sink down on top of his leg and oh!
She lets out an audible sigh on contact, can't help herself from rocking on his leg just the slightest bit (she's passing it off as dancing, it's not much, just enough to stoke the flames of her arousal).
"You're hot as shit" he mutters into her ear, and she hums a response. God it feels good to just have someone appreciate her and touch her and want her, she hasn't had this in so long.
She grinds against him a little harder, and he lets out a sharp breath.
She had forgotten how good it feels to have warm palms skim over her ass and up her back. How good it is to feel one of those hands urging her on, encouraging her to rock against his leg more deliberately..
Robin would do this, and more. She grinds harder and thinks about Robin, how he couldn't resist her in this dress, how she'd dance with him and he'd try his best to touch her, to rile her up to where she was so desperate and needy she'd let him convince her to have a quick fuck in a bathroom, or once, god, that corner of the club she'd never go back to, but it felt so good, and…
She lets out a moan, her thighs clench around this stranger's leg as she thinks about how good it would be, if Robin were just here, and they wouldn't have to tell anyone, he would just show up in that shirt she likes and those jeans that make his ass look amazing —
"Fuck sweetie you're killing me," he groans, but his voice is muffled and distant just peeking out beyond the lustful haze of her own fantasy.
— She wouldn't need to rub off on a leg to get off, not if Robin were there, because he'd touch her, he'd slip a hand under her dress, he's done it before, with this dress even, he'd rub her clit with his thumb while his fingers slid through her folds, circled her entrance, and pushed inside her.
She throws her head back before she can stop the movement, but she's getting close now , and these movements are like a reflex, she can't stop them if she even cared enough to try. Thankfully it appears her motion goes with the music, could be mistaken for dancing, and she's able to bite her lip before she lets out a pornographic moan, this man doesn't need to know how close she is, even if he suspects what she's doing on him, she doesn't need him trying to get her to do anymore.
She does hear his breath quicken, and he draws his free hand over her neck and down her chest, tracing the plunging neckline as his fingers wander down her cleavage. His hand ghosts over her left breast before taking its place back at her side, gripping her firmly, and it's electric and thrilling and it would be even more so if it were Robin.
Robin would fuck her with his fingers, hard, over and over, right here, she wouldn't even have to ask him, he'd do that for her, hell, even now, with everything that had happened between them...
She thinks of him showing up, just now, telling her he just needs her, that he's been watching her dance and he needs to feel her, he'd tell her fuck everything else, screw Marian, screw the fact they are broken up, he just wants to feel her again, wants to be inside her. And she'd let him, god, she'd let him, she'd tell him to fuck her hard, just how she craves…
Her thighs clench even hard around this "Ned's" leg, and she feels them start to tremble, feels that loss of control she reaches when she's so close, so she braces herself, hooking arms around his neck as she shimmies hips that are now decidedly completely uncoordinated with the music, but fuck that's good, now each passing drag across his thigh hits her clit just perfectly, just where she needs and—
"Ahh-oh!"
She feels and arm wrap around her tighter, and she likes that, likes the contact. Her eyes are screwed shut now and she needs to come so badly, so close.
"Oh, are you..?"
He's asking her something, whispering it in hot whispered pants in her ear as his fingers stroke and pluck her hard nipples over the thin fabric of her dress and fuck it feels amazing. She isn't listening to what he is saying though, doesn't care, his voice is replaced by Robin's, telling her Come for me darling and just like that, I need to feel you, and he's telling her how good she feels, how wet she is…
"Oh R-Mmmmffff". As she finally lets go she swallows down his name, and other words she wants to say, words of damnation and love, and desire and passion, words that aren't for this man. She may have used his body but he's not the reason she's coming right now, that's all Robin.
But Ned lets her ride her orgasm out, moaning a bit himself as he watches her and runs supportive hands up and down her body. As she comes down from her high it strikes her that she should be awfully embarrassed, but the burning inside her, that sweet, painful throb is finally gone, and she feels like she's soaring, post-orgasm bliss mixing with the euphoria of a boozy buzz, so no, she does not feel embarrassed at all.
As the final trembles leave her body she looks at him with shining, bright eyes and a smile far too innocent for what she's just done.
"Let me take you home," he rasps. And no, she should be ready for that, but she's not.
"I can't…" She says to him, motioning over to the bar, where she last saw her friends. "I'm with the bride."
He chuckles, nodding, and then readjusts himself in his jeans, so his erection isn't as obvious.
"Thanks for the dance," he grins.
"Oh, no, thank you," she flirts, still feeling the delightful humming through her body. It makes her feel bold, sexy and wanted. God, she's missed this feeling.
"Hey, before you go," he takes out his wallet, fumbling for something. and then she feels him place a thin business card in her hand. "If you change your mind and you want…" he shoots her a devilish look "to dance some more, or anything, please call me."
"Maybe I will," she says, smiling as she makes her way back to Emma who, god bless her, doesn't say a thing about the time she has spent with a stranger, or the very erotic movements she was doing against him.
.::.
It's far too bright in the hotel room. It's only 7:00 AM, but the light pierces through her eyelids, heat of the sunbeam slapping her awake as the other women in the hotel continue to sleep.
Lucky bitches.
She wipes a hand over her eyes, rubbing them with a little moan before stretching in her bed and forcing herself to move to the mini fridge where she knows there is some electrolyte-infused drink to help with the obvious hangover.
She lost track of how much she had to drink last night. God, what happened? There was a male stripper in a cop outfit, then a burlesque club with beautiful performers, after that some sort of theme bar where the waitresses walk around in lingerie, Ruby had made out with one of them, she remembers that, but something else...
Thinking hurts. She rubs at her aching temples, and squints around, trying to find her clutch. She threw some excedrin in it, and god, it'll help, it'll do.
In her half-frantic search, a card falls out and into her lap. She finds the excedrin, tosses it in her mouth and chugs her chilled drink with a little whimper.
She buries her head in her hands, trying to stop the room from spinning, and she focuses on her lap, and the card on it. Where did this come from? She turns it over.
Edward Hyde
Research Assistant
Department of Bioethics, NIH
It puzzles her, for a second, until she remembers the bachelorette game with the dare cards, the man in the white shirt, and the panting, shaking orgasm that she thought was a dream about Robin but was actually something she had done on a random stranger's leg.
Shit.
She's mortified at her behavior, but fuck, it did feel good, and thank god she had the good sense to not accept his invitation to leave the club and go home with him, that would not have been wise.
Though, it felt fine in that moment, getting off on him, and he was nothing but polite and respectful, and it's time to move on, it really is. She should call him, get back out there, try to find a way to have a healthy orgasm without turning it into an opportunity to relive a chapter in her life that is definitely closed.
She should call him. He wasn't bad looking, he smelled...nice, he seemed to play along with the festivities for the night and let her leave without being pushy. Still, the idea of being with him seems awful for a reason she can't place (the idea of being with anyone who is not Robin seems awful, right now). But she needs a reason to turn this man down that isn't "I'm not ready to move on from Robin", because that means she's broken, that means she's sad and pitiable. She's weak if she can't move on yet, it's been months, she should…
So she lets her mind replay the hazy memories she has of him, and his smile becomes more sinister, his motives seem off. She remembers how he asked to take her home, and oh, he probably does that often. He probably was luring her into a false sense of security (what man would be that at ease with a woman using his body as a vibrator?) No, there was definitely something off about him. So she won't call him. And it has nothing to do with Robin.
Nothing at all.
"He's probably a serial killer," she mutters to herself, before tossing the card in the trash. And then she closes the blinds and crawls back into bed, hiding her eyes from the pain of the sun, careful not to wake Emma as she snuggles and prays for a few more hours of precious sleep.
She'll move on eventually. With someone else.
