Regina's closet is filled with designer labels. Gucci, Burberry, Donna Karan. Names that hold no meaning in the Enchanted Forest, but names that she's come to recognize in Storybrooke. The wardrobe of the Evil Queen was delicate and detailed, all jewels and feathers and form-fitting velvet. The wardrobe of the mayor is a different thing entirely - simple, understated, bold and intimidating black balanced with vibrant slashes of color. The same palette, but a modern approach. Regina can barely remember the days of the innocent girl who loved powder blue satin, and most of the time, she doesn't want to remember it.
Sometimes, though, she does remember. Her underwear drawer is filled with lace and satin in pastel colors. Delicate panties and intricate bras, designed to be seen, designed to entice. Regina doesn't own underwear in black and red; underneath her clothes she is soft and feminine, light and beautiful. It's the secret she's hidden from Storybrooke for 30 years. Even Graham, her most constant lover, knew nothing of the delicate palette of her intimates. When they came together, it was in the dark, bodies meeting in shadows, hands groping to find each other across a chasm of blackness. Graham didn't know Regina, not the real Regina, and she wasn't about to let him in.
Robin, though...Robin day in her office, he'd kissed her over the picnic she'd spread out, his lips tasting of a dusty Malbec and creamy brie. He'd urged her to the couch and pulled the zipper of her gray and black dress down slowly - so slowly - his fingers ghosting against her skin as he'd tugged the bit of metal. Underneath she was wearing a bra and panties of delicate embroidered pink lace, and as he'd pulled the dress from her shoulders, he'd shuddered at the sight of her. "So beautiful," he'd whispered, as his thumb stroked her nipple through the transparent lace. "You are perfect, Regina."
And she'd been perfect, that day. She'd been everything he wanted, everything she never knew she could be. He'd slid the dress and her pantyhose slowly over her hips, reveling in the feel of her skin against his callused hands. He'd pulled her hips tight against him as he bent down to kiss the swell of her breast, one finger curling lazily into the cup of her bra. He'd eased the straps down her shoulders, taking his time to uncover the prize he'd won by fighting so desperately to protect her heart. And though she'd been terrified to expose herself so fully to him - to let him see her in the warm glow of the evening, she'd forced herself to keep her eyes open, to relish every sigh, every flick of his tongue, every stroke of his fingers against her bare skin.
Never in her life had she felt cherished. Never had she felt so loved, or wanted. Never had she felt that she was enough, that what she offered would be taken with whispers of gratitude and love and promises of a future that would give her everything she'd never dared to hope she could have.
That afternoon Regina saw everything in bright, vibrant colors. The blue of Robin's eyes, the rosy pink of lips stained with her lipstick. The red of her own desires and the bright white of her own passion coming to a head under his skillful hands and his tongue. The sultry steel gray of lying, wrapped in his arms, whispering to each other of fate, and timing, and second chances. The gently cresting orange of a sun setting on the life she'd lived up until this point.
The dark, all-encompassing black of watching him take Marian in his arms. The black that she could never escape, no matter how hard she tried.
The black of a sharply tailored pair of pants, stitched to hug every curve of her body. She pulls them over her legs, slides them over a midnight blue pair of panties. She zips and buttons and pulls a dark green sweater off the shelf to complete the look. The mayor is back, dressed in an armor of light wool and cashmere, and she has things to do. Demons to face, as always. She shakes the matching jacket off the hanger and pulls it over her arms. She smoothes her hair and slips into a pair of black boots. Armored to face the day. Perfect, as Cora always wanted her to be.
A hand snakes over her waist and slides underneath the soft cashmere.
"You're dressed again," Robin says, and she can't tell if his voice was thick with sleep or disappointment.
"You can sleep all day, but I can't. Someone has to run this town."
He hums appreciatively in her ear. "Someone yes, but does it have to be you? I'd rather you spend the day with me." His other hand slides down her hip, squeezing flesh under wool. She sucks in a quick breath.
"You knew who I was when you met me," she whispers as she turns her lips to his. They've had countless arguments since he returned about her dedication to her job. That she loves him, loves him with everything she has, but that she won't abandon her responsibilities. He understands, has always understood that she is her own person and that he is lucky to have the parts of her that he can claim for his own, but he hates to see her leave the bed in the morning (her bed, their bed, all running together in the dark of the night). Her hands reach behind her to find him, skin and cotton and heat. She tucks her fingers underneath the elastic of his boxers and rakes her nails along his hip. "This is my town, and I have to go."
He gently turns her in his arms. "I know," he says sadly. "And I hate to see you dressed up to leave me, but milady…I love to see you dressed up to leave me."
She laughs at that. In the weeks since Robin had returned to Storybrooke, in the weeks since she'd set aside her own reservations and welcomed him back into her home (into her bed), he'd never said that he liked seeing her fully dressed. And if his actions were any indication, it seemed he preferred taking her out of her clothes rather than admiring her in them.
"I think you're full of shit," she whispers softly, stroking his cheek.
"I think you're amazing," he replies, and he tugs at the lapels of her tailored jacket. "This you. This is who I fell in love with."
Fell in love with. She can't believe it still, can't believe that he'd looked under the myth of the Evil Queen and seen something worth knowing. Can't believe that he'd chosen her. Can't believe that she'd forgiven him when every instinct had told her to incinerate him. And yet, he had. She had. They had. And he is still here, day after day, curling up to her in the dead of night, cooking her dinner when she is too tired from a day at City Hall to even contemplate a sandwich, teasing her her when her moods grow dark, inky purple swirling into blackness, searching for a release that will further blacken her already taxed heart.
Kissing her, red and white-hot and the brilliant blue of his eyes, eyes that brush her skin when he thinks she's not looking. Pine and fir and dirt, forest green that clings to him even now when he is barely dressed.
"You fell in love with my wardrobe," she laughs. "That's hardly flattering."
"I fell in love with you, Regina," he replies softly. "The rest is just window dressing. But," he continued, as his hand slides down her waist and comes to rest on her ass, tugging it a little closer to him, "I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that the sight of you like this turns me on."
She scoffs at that, her eyes dropping to his chest. Men. Anything turns them on if they think about it hard enough.
"Don't you dare laugh at me, Madam Mayor. This is hardly a laughing matter."
She shakes her head, pressing her lips together in mock seriousness, and one of his hands come up to still her, his thumb delicately tracing the line of her cheekbone. "I look at you in these clothes, and all I can think of is what you're wearing underneath them. And how quickly I can find out."
Her head leans forward, touching his forehead with her own. In her heels, the heels designed to bring her to a height that intimidates the men that challenge her authority (and there are so many – Storybrooke really isn't so different than the Enchanted Forest) they are almost at eye level. And she feels in her element, that they are equal players in the game, and that she has maybe a better than good chance at winning while he's stroking the curve of her ass through her black wool trousers.
"And how quickly can you find out?" she whispers. She has things to do, she has a meeting in an hour, but she can't bring herself to care. She stands in her closet, surrounded by a wardrobe designed to intimidate and impress, but all she wants is to be slowly stripped bare. To be seen as Regina, to be loved and cherished , to be adored and celebrated, to be brought to a fever pitch over and over again, and for the first time in her life, the man who can do all those things is right here holding her in his arms.
Holding her with one hand while the other tugs her suit jacket away. He drops the jacket at her feet and pulls at the hem of her sweater. "Not so quickly that you won't relish every moment of it," he says, and she loses herself in the kisses he planted, tongue tracing skin, along her neck. Red, pink, blue, green, white. Colors fading into each other with every breath she takes until they explode, all together, shooting through every fiber of her being with Robin crying out her name.