Megamind stares at Roxanne.

actually.

stares is….

…probably not a strong enough word.

boggles.

Yes. Megamind boggles at Roxanne.

It's most likely not his most visually appealing expression, because Roxanne sort of flinches and her eyes flick away from his face before darting back.

"Um," she says, "It's—it's okay if you don't want to date me, obviously; it's not something that you need to feel pressured about, and even if you don't, the—" she gives him an uncertain smile that trembles slightly around the edges, "—the seduction thing is—still definitely an option—"

"No, no!" Megamind blurts out, "I mean—no!—I mean, yes, I—I mean—yes I want to date you Roxanne oh god help—"

She takes a sharp breath, her fingers tightening over his, color blooming gloriously in her cheeks like roses and she's too beautiful for words how can this possibly be real?

Megamind makes an undignified and involuntary noise, a cross between a squeak and a croak.

"—are you really sure you want to date me?" he asks in near-hysterical disbelief. "I mean I'm—you know—"

He has to let go of one of her hands to gesture wildly, vaguely, at himself.

"You know how what I'm like," he says helplessly.

Roxanne catches his fluttering hand and gives a soft, affectionate laugh.

"Yeah," she says, "I do know what you're like, Megamind. That's—that's why I want to date you."

She brushes a kiss across his knuckles and Megamind's breath catches.

"Oh," he says, rather inarticulately.

Roxanne smiles at him and releases his hand, reaching out to cup his face instead as she leans forward to kiss him.

This kiss—it isn't like the kiss earlier. Oh, it has all the same components, of course, and it knocks his mental processes for the same sort of loop as the kiss before, but it's—gentle, and that—the gentleness of it—it's even harder to understand than the passion of the first kiss, even more difficult to know how to respond to—

Roxanne breaks the kiss, leaves her hands on his face as she pulls away enough to look into his eyes.

There's an odd, unreadable expression on her face—oh no; he's done something wrong, hasn't he—

"…you've never been kissed before, have you?" she murmurs.

Megamind winces.

"That obvious?" he mutters, his hands balling into fists on his thighs, his eyes avoiding Roxanne's.

"No," she says, and he makes a face because she's clearly lying, "no, I—I mean I can tell, yeah, but—" she strokes her thumbs over his cheekbones soothingly and he meets her gaze again "—but it's not a bad thing."

Megamind gives her an unconvinced look.

"Really," she says, voice and eyes soft, "I—I'm just feeling a little bad, now, about earlier; I didn't know that was your first kiss and it was probably kind of—"

"—perfect?" Megamind says, reaching up to touch his fingertips lightly to her cheek.

Roxanne's eyes go round and he feels the heat rise to her skin this time as she blushes—oh, wow, that is a fascinating sensation and definitely one he wants to explore further—

"—um—I mean I sort of…" she says, "pounced on you and—"

"—swept me off my feet?" Megamind says.

He feels her blush deeper and, feeling terribly daring, arches an eyebrow and does his best to give her his most wicked smirk. Her gaze drops to his mouth and his stomach flips over.

"Please feel free not to apologize for that," he says, and bites his lip, still smirking.

"Oh, that is not fair," Roxanne says breathlessly, and kisses him again, hard and fast and forceful.

Megamind lets his eyes flutter shut and melts into the kiss.

She kisses him like it's a conquest and he is more than willing to be conquered. He moves closer when she pulls him forward, parts his lips for her when she flicks her tongue over them, and when she breaks the kiss and pushes him down on the bed, he obediently lets himself fall backwards.

"You," Roxanne says in a frustrated tone, hovering over him, one hand planted on his chest, as if to hold him in place, "you are—unfairly sexy and it is unfair."

Megamind laughs, startled.

"If you say so," he says, and looks up at her through his lashes.

Roxanne's eyes narrow and she growls at him under her breath and—holy hell—that sends a shiver up his spine in a pleasurable thrill.

"I am trying to go slow and be gentle with you, and you are being difficult," she says, half-laughing, half-scolding,

"I'm always difficult," he says, and, remembering how well it worked the last time, bites his lip at her again.

She makes a noise that's half growl and half laughter and she bends over him—and then she stops, blinking, understanding dawning in her expression.

"You're doing it on purpose," she says, frowning. "Aren't you? You're trying to get me to be rough."

"I—"

She straightens up, frowning at him.

(damn damn damn why does she always have to be so damn smart—)

"—yes," Megamind admits.

"Why?" Roxanne asks, still frowning. "Why don't you want me to be gentle with you?"

"It's—it's not that I don't want—" Megamind flounders for words for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain this, "—it's not that I don't—want that, it's just that it's—easier, um. For me to figure out how to respond—it's easier for me to—to t-tell what you want?…the other way."

He looks up at her, not sure if he's making sense, not sure if this is weird or somehow bad.

Roxanne's frown clears and she rubs her thumb over his sternum.

"You're such a dork," she says, voice warm with so much affection that it's nothing like an insult.

"Um," Megamind says.

"What I want," Roxanne says, her fingertips trailing down his chest, "is to take my time with you." She lifts her hand and strokes over the curve of his head, "And enjoy you."

Megamind draws in a sharp breath as her fingers graze his ear and Roxanne, catching the reaction, smiles and traces the curve of it.

"There's no wrong way to respond, Megamind," she says softly as he gasps for breath. "You don't have to worry."

"I—just don't want to mess this up," he says helplessly, "I want to be able to—to do this right for you, Roxanne; I want to be able to give you what you want—"

"Well, that's easy, then," Roxanne says, smiling at him and stroking his face, "all you have to give me is you."

"God, I love you," Megamind blurts out.

Roxanne freezes and Megamind's heart freezes, too—oh no; he shouldn't have said that; normal people don't say things like that out of the blue after they've only been dating someone for five goddamn minutes—

"You don't have to say it back," he says quickly.

"—you—really?" she says.

Megamind flinches.

"Of—yes, really, you don't have to say it back," he says. "I just—sorry—I—I'm screwing this up already, aren't I—but—I—I do love you, Roxanne, and I'm sorry—"

Roxanne touches her fingertips lightly to his lips and he falls silent.

"—hey," she says, "—shh, no, you don't have to be sorry Megamind. I meant—you—really love me?"

Megamind blinks at her.

"Yes, of course I love you," he says, "how could I—how could I possibly not?"

"Oh," Roxanne says, smiling down at him radiantly. "Oh, that is—such a relief, Megamind, because I love you, too."

—she—

Megamind's heart seems to stop in his chest; the entire world seems to stop around the two of them for a moment—

"—really?" he says.

Roxanne laughs.

"Yeah," she says, looking so happy that she's practically shining with it, and—

(he did this; he made her this happy. she's happy that he loves her; she's happy that he loves her and she loves him, too)

"Wow," Megamind breathes.

"Yes," Roxanne says, "yes, it is, isn't it?"

(and that—that doesn't really make sense, except for that it totally does)

Roxanne laughs and collapses onto the bed beside him; Megamind turns to face her and she mirrors the motion.

"New plan, okay?" she says. "So that you maybe don't feel so nervous. We're going to kiss—just kiss—until you feel like you've got the hang of it and want to move on or until you want to take a break. That sound good?"

"That—that sounds amazing, Roxanne," Megamind says. "You're—you're okay with the—the just kissing, though?"

(she'd seemed ready, earlier, to take things much farther than that, and it's not that Megamind doesn't want that with her—he wants, oh he wants, quite badly, but—)

"Megamind, I am so excited that I get to kiss you; you have no idea," Roxanne says, still smiling widely at him, without a trace of unhappiness or uncertainty in her face.

"God, Roxanne; you're incredible," he says, and then, because he has always, always wanted to, he strokes his hand through her hair, tangles his fingers with the silky strands, marveling at the texture, at the fact that Roxanne is here, with him, in his bed, letting him touch her hair.

Roxanne makes a happy noise and leans forward to kiss him.

(He loses track of how many times they kiss somewhere around seventeen, loses track of time in general soon after that.)

Everything that's not Roxanne sort of fades away, unimportant, distant, so that he can focus his entire being, every one of his senses and all of his thoughts, on her, on this, on kissing Roxanne.

She's so—she's just—everything; she's everything. Soft and warm in his arms, beneath his hands, against his lips, pressed against him. She makes approving noises—several different types of approving noises—when he does something that she likes, laughs against his lips when the two of them bump their noses awkwardly together, when he tries to slide the hairpin from her hair and ends up yanking at it awkwardly.

"Seriously?" he mutters at the pin, "You didn't want to go in and now you don't want to come out, either? You're making me look—oh come on, you—ah-ha! Victory!"

Roxanne laughs harder as he places the damned pin on his dresser.

"You're ridiculous," she says, and he makes a noise of agreement as she goes back to kissing him, both his hands tangled up in her hair now.

She bites down on his lip, which catches him off-guard with how good it feels. He makes a startled noise of pleasure and she does it again.

Megamind is the one to growl at her, this time, and Roxanne seems to find it every bit as sexy as he did when she was the one doing it—he feels her shiver in his arms, and press closer to him, and it makes him feel invincible.

He—he moves without thinking, actually, moves the two of them so that Roxanne is lying on her back and he's lying on top of her, his body pinning hers to the mattress as he kisses her harder.

(the nerves hit a second later, of course, and he pulls back quickly, automatically, not wanting to make her feel trapped)

Megamind glances worriedly at Roxanne's face, but—well, going by her expression she doesn't seem to be upset with him at all.

Her cheeks are flushed and her lips are reddened and smirking and her hair—

—god, her hair is in absolutely gorgeous disarray from the way he's been running his hands through it, fanned out over his pillow and Megamind's breath catches.

"Beautiful," he whispers, "you're so beautiful."

She smiles up at him and he reaches out to brush a strand of her hair behind her ear, traces over the curve of it, then lets his fingertips trail down the column of her throat. She tips her head to the side for him, humming approvingly, baring her throat for him.

(not just letting him touch her, but wanting him to touch her; it's hard to believe that this is real)

Megamind lets his fingers rest a moment in the hollow of her throat, then strokes over the edge of her clavicle, the way he imagined doing earlier—the way he's imagined so many times, and the reality is so much better.

Roxanne makes another pleased humming sound and he moves without thinking again, pressing his lips to her throat, wanting to feel the vibration of it. Her hands slide up to cup the back of his neck in response and he shudders in pleasure at the sensation, pressing kiss after kiss to the skin of her throat, working his way upwards. When he reaches her ear, he kisses his way up that and she actually moans, her grip on his neck tightening.

Megamind gasps and presses his face into her hair, breathing in the scent of her. It's intoxicating; it makes his head spin. Roxanne seems to notice his distraction because she takes advantage of it, pushing him over, flipping the two of them so that he's the one pinned to the bed and she's the one lying on top of him.

She looks down at him, eyes sparkling.

"My turn, yeah?" she asks breathlessly, "If that's okay?"

(her—? oh, she must mean—she must want to do something like what he did to her—)

Does this count as moving on? The implication of that makes him just a little nervous, but his nerves are mostly drowned out by how much he wants, by the heady feeling of wanting and being wanted.

Roxanne is still looking down at him, waiting patiently for him to answer, and that—the way she's clearly willing to stop if he asks, calms his nerves into an almost-pleasant fluttering in the pit of his stomach.

"Yeah," he says, "yeah, that's okay."

Her face lights up like he's given her a gift, and then she leans down and licks up the side of his neck in a hot slick slide.

The sensation of it actually whites out his thoughts for a moment; he hears himself make a noise that is definitely nowhere near human. Roxanne pulls away and looks at his face.

"Still okay?" she asks.

"Y-yes, that's—god, yes, I just—m-my neck is really—ah—sensitive—"

Roxanne licks her lips and he swallows.

"Is it?" she murmurs in a dark, wicked tone, her eyes on his throat, watching his adams apple bob as he swallows. "That's terribly interesting. Especially since it's so—damn—distracting—"

She punctuates the last three words with a series of firm kisses up the length of his throat; Megamind gasps at each one.

When she reaches his ear, she kisses it, the way he did hers, and he can't stop himself from making another of those obviously alien noises. Roxanne doesn't seem to mind the sound, though; if anything, she seems pleased. She makes a happy humming sort of sound and then he feels—oh evil gods—feels the pressure of teeth on the edge of his ear, feels her carefully take it between her teeth and tug at it gently.

He moans and Roxanne releases his ear and runs her tongue along the edge of it.

"Oh," he says breathlessly, "oh."

He grabs blindly for her waist, wanting to pull her closer, and the fingertips of his right hand happen to fall just at the place where the edges of her shirt and her trousers overlap. And that's—something about that is—she's right there, her skin is right there; close enough to touch if he just slid his hand up a little. And she's lying on top of him, pressing kisses to the curve of his head now, and—

His head, god, he never thought she'd ever be willing to touch—any of him, really, but especially that part of him, one of the most visible indications of the fact that he isn't human, but she's kissing his head now like she thinks it's beautiful.

He slides his hand up, slips it beneath the hem of her shirt, and touches her skin.

She's so soft and so warm, and as soon as he touches her, he wants more, more of her skin, more of the softness and the warmth, more of Roxanne. He slides his other arm around her waist, wraps his hand around her hip, smooths his other palm up her back, feeling the curve of her spine. Roxanne makes a sound of approval and turns her head to bring their mouths together, kissing him as he strokes up and down her back.

The movement has rucked her shirt up enough that when she leans against him he can feel the skin of her stomach against his own abdomen and the complete and utter deliciousness of that sensation just about drives him out of his mind. He tries, surreptitiously, to push her shirt up just the slightest bit more, so that he can feel just a little more of her skin on his.

But evidently he isn't quite as surreptitious as he intends, because Roxanne laughs and breaks the kiss, and he can feel himself blushing.

"You know, you can just take it off of me," she says.

Megamind forgets how to breathe for a second.

"If you want," she says quickly. "Sorry. Trying not to be pushy."

She makes a face, apparently at herself, and sits up, ducking her head a little, hair falling over her face.

"You're not—you're not being pushy," Megamind says, sitting up as well. "Really, I—suggestions are good; I don't know what I'm doing so they're really quite—helpful in general and—may I? Um—"

He reaches for her, a little uncertainly, touches the hem of her shirt again, and she looks up at him.

"May I?" he asks again, voice low. "I'd really love to see you, Roxanne."

Roxanne takes a sharp breath.

"God, Megamind, yes," she says.

The shirt she's wearing has a series of buttons up the front of it; he's not really sure if he's supposed to start with the top button or the bottom button, so he compromises and undoes the button at the top—then the button at the bottom—then the second button from the top—then the next-to-last button—

Apparently he's hit on the right approach, because Roxanne's breathing picks up with every button he unfastens, until he reaches the final, center button that lays between her breasts. Megamind touches it, and then hesitates, glancing at Roxanne's face, making sure this is still all right, and she gives him a look of such pleading desire that it shocks him.

He fumbles the last button open and pushes the edges of her shirt apart, uncovering her, sliding the material over her shoulders, down her arms.

She's—

(god)

He's always tried to be as respectful as possible while—well, while fantasizing about Roxanne, has always attempted to restrain his imagination to images of her fully dressed, has never really allowed himself to picture her taking her clothes off. Much less her letting him take her clothes off, letting him see her like this, touch her like this.

"You're so beautiful," he says, his voice rough to his own ears. "So beautiful. Can I—"

"Yes," she says. "Please, Megamind, yes."

He touches her shoulders, slides his fingertips down her bare arms, and she shivers. He touches her throat, the hollow of it, wonderingly, watching her swallow, brushes his fingertips out over either side of her clavicle, then traces down her sternum, down the center line of her body. His fingertips sketch over the curve of her waist, her hips—god, how many times has he looked at her and longed to put his hands on her waist just so, just like this? And now he can.

Roxanne makes a noise in the back of her throat; he looks up at her inquiringly.

She bites her lip, clearly torn about something—and then she climbs into his lap, her legs straddling his hips, her weight resting on his thighs and her hands on his shoulders.

"Can I just—is this all—I just want to be closer to you," she says. "Is—that okay?"

"This is amazing and I literally cannot believe that it is happening," Megamind says fervently, wrapping one arm around her waist, holding her close.

Her expression lightens with relief and she laughs.

"Yeah," she says, "I guess this probably isn't what you were planning on happening today."

Megamind, kissing down the side of her neck, makes a noise of agreement and she laughs again.

(He nearly died of happiness when she asked him to brush her hair out of her face, and now she's sitting, shirtless, in his lap and laughing; how in the name of evil heaven did he manage to get so lucky?)

"You were probably," Roxanne says, "thinking it was going to be the usual—ah—the usual—menace Miss Ritchi—monologue about the—evil invention of the day—"

"Something like that," Megamind agrees, pushing the strap of her bra down over her shoulder so he can kiss her skin there.

"Mmmm," Roxanne says.

"Thank god the Cumulous Accumulator is defective."

"Is that what it was?" Roxanne asks, laughter in her voice, "you know, you never even got around to telling about it to me today."

Megamind rolls his eyes.

"Ugh, yes, that's because it's a piece of useless junk," he says. "The atmospheric vapor condenser was meant to use infrared radiation to force the air around the target to reach the dew point artificially, but my calculations were off and really there's no way to fix it now without completely starting over or possibly…rerouting the condenser to…operate through evaporative cooling instead…"

He trails off, feeling his eyes go wide. That's—oh—that makes sense; it would work if he—and it wouldn't be that hard to do, he'd just have to—

"…did you just figure out how to fix it?" Roxanne asks, her voice pulling him back into the moment that is happening, the moment with Roxanne half-naked in his lap what is wrong with him, thinking about atmospheric vapor condensers at a time like—

"Er—yes, but it—it doesn't—"

(he can see it, can see how to fix it; and it would be easy, so simple—)

"…do you want to go fix it now?" Roxanne says.

Megamind groans, leaning his head against her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he says, hiding his face, "I don't know what's wrong with me—"

"—hey," Roxanne says, voice soothing, but with laughter at the edges of it. "I told you, Megamind, I know what you're like."

He lifts his head and looks at her uncertainly. Her eyes go soft as they meet his.

"I know what you're like," she says again. "And it's what I like about you."

She kisses his temple and climbs out of his lap, reaches for her shirt.

"Come on," she says, "let's go fix your machine."


...to be continued.

notes: I hope you are all continuing to enjoy the story! The next chapter is going to be a rating increase; to find the story in the main listing, you'll need to change your settings to include 'stories rated M'.