So sorry for the delay guys. Hopefully this nearly 4500 word chapter will make up for it. As always, you can send me messages here of things you would like to see happen between our two ladies, leave it in a review, or you can find me on Tumblr at ThatDamnCajunGirl. Happy readings!
She hadn't meant to fall asleep after her shower while waiting on him, but she had as she relaxed against the pillows, wrapped loosely in her robe. There had been a noise after a while, but she had only shifted and snuggled down against the mattress to get comfier. She felt a slight chill ghost across her naked skin as the robe began to part. One more readjustment of her body and the robe fell open completely. Shivering slightly, she blindly reached for the blanket when she felt the bed dip and a light scratchiness move across her belly. With eyes still closed, she smiled.
"I tried to wait up for you," she said softly, hand moving to the back of Daniel's head to play with his hair. There was a low chuckle as lips pressed against her skin just to the side of her navel.
"You know you don't have to wait up for me. I know our little one tires you out." Daniel pressed his unshaven cheek to her belly once more and nuzzled it, grinning when he felt the muscles contract and her the giggle from above.
He turned his head to look up at her, letting the other cheek rest against her warm skin. Regina had propped her head up on her other arm, looking down at him. His state of undress matched her own and she rolled her eyes playfully at the realization that he had been the one to untie her robe.
"I think that our little one just missed their Daddy," Regina said, watching as a grin instantly spread across Daniel's face.
He moved from his spot at her side to lie between her parted legs, his face still even with her belly as he caressed the slight bump. Regina watched in awe as Daniel whispered his love to their unborn child, deciding at the last second to grab her phone and snap a quick picture as he planted one last kiss on the soft swell.
"While Daddy loves his buddy very much, he also loves Mommy just a little bit more." Daniel looked up at Regina as he said the last few words. "And he wants to show her just how much he loves her."
He began to move up her body, dropping kisses along the way as the woman giggled, watching his slow advances.
"This is how we got pregnant in the first place," she laughed, looking into his eyes as he finally hovered over her. She reached out to rest her hand on his hip, her thumb brushing back and forth.
"It's always good to stay in practice. You know, for next time."
Regina opened her mouth to make a remark when his lips covered her own. Suddenly she agreed with his proposal. Practice would indeed make perfect for the next time.
Regina sat cross-legged on her bed with the old box of photos sitting next to her. She stared sown at the picture from so long ago and let her finger trace Daniel's features. It had been a while since she had pulled out the box and had been even longer since she had studied the picture that was currently in her hand.
When her and Robin had moved in together, she thought it would have been bad manners and poor taste to have so many pictures of her and Daniel around. So she had settled on just one; a simple selfie that they had taken one sunny afternoon. That had been the only one she hadn't packed away into the attic. Instead, that one had resided on one of the end tables in the living room, somewhere easy for Henry to reach in his younger years when he needed to see his father. But now that Robin was out of the house and had been for the last few months, Regina had taken the box down from the attic and had once again filled the walls with pictures of her first love.
In the midst of her redecorating, she hadn't removed all of the pictures from her and Robin's marriage. After all, Robin was Roland's father and the young boy deserved the same as Henry had at his age. Henry hadn't exactly agreed with the sentiment, claiming that his father had only died too soon while Robin was the asshole who cheated. After Regina had reprimanded him for his obscene language she had to admit to herself that he did have a point, but she refused to treat her boys any differently. And so the pictures of Robin had stayed on the walls as well.
A sudden vibration upon her thigh caused Regina to jump and drop the photograph on the bed. Placing a hand over her rapidly beating heart, she looked down to see Emma's name appear across the phone screen. Sliding her thumb across the glass, she lifted the phone to her ear.
"Hello, Miss Swan."
"Oh, I love it when you talk all professional to me."
Regina couldn't help but laugh at the blonde's words. In the two weeks that had passed since their first date, the two women had talked nearly every night. It had made Regina feel young again, like how she had felt when she was with Daniel. Perhaps that was why she had pulled out the old box in the first place.
"Do you have a reason for calling, or did you just miss the sound of my voice?" Regina teased, leaning back and stretching out on the bed.
"Perhaps both," Emma replied. "But really, I miss you." Regina felt her stomach flip at the sincerity in Emma's voice. "I was actually calling to see if you were free tomorrow night so we can have that second date."
Regina bit her lip as she tried to remember her schedule for the next day. "I think my meetings finish around three. Then the boys are going over to Robin's for the weekend."
There was a short pause. "So you're free?"
"Yes, Emma," she said with a small laugh. "I'm free. So what do you have planned for this second date?"
"If I tell you that then it won't be a surprise, now will it?" It was Emma's turn to tease. "Don't worry. I have everything planned. You can expect me to pick you up around five."
"I'll be expecting you. Remember, Miss Swan, I like punctuality."
"Here we go again with the 'Miss Swan' thing. Is that like a kink for you?" Again, there was a pause as Regina gasped at the words. She had never been asked that before. "That was a very poor joke. I'm sorry."
Regina took a moment to collect herself. "No, it's fine, Emma." And really, it was. "I've just never had anyone say that to me before."
"Really?" Emma asked curiously. "So the prim and proper mayor has never been asked how she likes to get down and dirty?" Regina could hear the wicked grin in the blonde's voice and could only roll her eyes.
"We've talked about this before, Emma. Robin and I hadn't been physical for a while. And before that it had been…" She trailed off as she snapped her fingers, trying to think of the word. "What was it you had said? It had been fairly chocolate?"
The laughter that greeter her from the other end of the line let her know immediately that she had said the wrong word. She slumped down further on the bed with a pout as she waited for Emma to gather herself.
"The word you were looking for was vanilla," she said as her laughter finally got under control. "But you were close. I'll let it slide."
It was at times like this that Regina really felt their age gap. She couldn't even remember simple ice cream flavors to describe her past sex life while Emma was up to date with the all the lingo of today's youth. She let out a small huff, not realizing that she had until Emma spoke up.
"Hey, you okay? Tell me what's going on in that beautiful head of yours?"
Regina cracked a small smile at those words before a frown replaced it. "Do you think I'm too old for you?"
"I think you are just the right age for me," Emma said before continuing in a softer voice. "Babe, why would you ask that?"
The brunette ran a hand through her hair with a sigh. "Because I am older than you, Emma. I'm older than you by eight years."
"So?"
"So? So! So that means…." Regina trailed off when she couldn't think of anything to further her argument.
"Uh huh. Exactly. You can't think of a reason because there is no reason."
"But you use all of those terms that the kids use."
"If Henry uses vanilla to talk about anything other than ice cream, I would be concerned."
"Emma!"
"I know what you are saying," Emma laughed. "Don't worry about it. I can teach you. It's what I do for a living."
"You teach math and coach baseball," Regina said, a hint of a snort evident.
"I can still teach you other things."
"Like how to not be vanilla?"
Regina was sure that she had stunned Emma with her last remark. To be honest, she had shocked herself when it had popped into her head. Yet she had said it anyways.
There was the sound of Emma clearing her throat on the other end. "I mean, if that is something you would like, then yes. I might be able to teach you that."
Regina felt her cheeks heat up with a blush. Now she definitely didn't feel her thirty-six years. She felt seventeen again. "Well then. I look forward to our lessons. And our date tomorrow night. I'll talk to you tomorrow, Emma. Good night."
[SQ]
Emma was always thankful for Fridays and she enjoyed them even more when her boys didn't have a game on the Thursday before, Just like this week had turned out. Fridays always meant no practice, allowing the team to start their weekend as soon as the bell dismissed them. This particular Friday, Emma was also thankful that her coworker's husband had allowed her to borrow his truck for her upcoming date. It allowed her to start setting everything up as soon as the last of her class left the room. Unfortunately, it had taken her longer than she had anticipated setting up and she found herself rushing to make it to the mayor's house on time.
She pulled up behind an unfamiliar vehicle and killed the engine, wondering if it was Ruby or Kathryn that had dropped by for a small gossip session. Regina had once mentioned how the two women were prone to doing that.
As she walked up to the front door, she could hear muffled arguing and instantly knew that something wasn't quite right. Instead of knocking, she twisted the knob and opened the door, the muffled arguing now sounding much clearer. The first voice she heard was Henry's. Then an older, deeper voice met her ears and she knew that the vehicle out front belonged to Robin and not one of Regina's friends. She followed the voices to the living room.
Robin stood against the right wall, his back towards the entrance way where Emma stood looking into the room. Henry stood next to the fireplace away from Robin. Regina was between the two, facing Robin as Emma stood looking into the room. She tried to calm the man down.
"I'm not going to your house while she is there!" Henry spat, disgust evident on his face.
"It's her house, too, Henry. I can't tell her to not be there!"
"I'm not going. And I'm not going to be a part of your wedding either. I don't want anything to do with you!"
Henry moved away from the fireplace quickly, passing Emma without a second glance as he ran up the stairs to his room and slammed the door loudly. Regina sighed, one hand on her hip and the other running through her hair.
"He is just going to have to get used to it," Robin told Regina, making the brunette's head whip around to him.
"Why do you keep forcing this upon him? You are the one making him rebel, Robin."
"I'm not making him to anything."
"Yes you are!" Regina shouted, startling herself and everyone else in the room as she did so. "Robin, if you keep this up then I fear you won't have any relationship left with your son."
Emma turned her attention away from the arguing adults when she felt a small tug on her shirt. She looked down to see Roland gazing up at her with wide eyes.
"Does this mean that I can't go with my daddy?" he whispered. The sad look in his eyes nearly broke Emma's heart. Taking his hand in her own, she led him to the foot of the stairs and sat down with him. "I really want to go with my daddy."
"You can still go with him. I just don't think that Henry is going to be going with you." Emma tried her best to say positive for the young boy.
"Henry doesn't like going to Daddy's when 'Lina is there. He said it's her fault that Mommy and Daddy don't live together anymore."
Emma really couldn't argue with that. The teenager wasn't entirely wrong. But she knew that she couldn't tell that to Roland.
"You know how mommies and daddies love each other very much and that is how babies are made?" she began. Roland nodded his understanding. "Well, sometimes mommies and daddies fall out of love with each other and when that happens, they can't live in the same house anymore."
"Like my mommy and daddy?"
Emma nodded. "Just like your mommy and daddy. Any sometimes mommies and daddies find new people to love. Your daddy found Zelena to love."
"And Mommy found you!" Roland looked up at Emma with an instant grin. She put her arm around him and laughed, pulling him closer for a side hug.
"Something like that. But sometimes when parents find other people to love and have babies with, their kids don't like that too much. And that is why Henry gets angry when Zelena is around."
"But 'Lina is nice to us. Daddy said all she wants to do is love us and we just have to let her."
"Your dad is right. All you have to do is let her love you. How cool is it that once your dad gets marries, you'll have two mommies to love you."
Roland seemed to think it over for a minute before nodding. "Mommy gives the best good night snuggles and bed time stories. 'Lina isn't so good, though."
Emma chuckled again. "That's because Zelena hasn't had a lot of practice. Your mommy had practice with Henry before you came around. Now Zelena has to practice with you before the baby gets here. That way she can be good at it for the baby."
"So I'm helping her learn how to be a good mommy?"
"You sure are. Doesn't that make you feel good?"
Roland nodded before he threw both arms around Emma and squeezed as hard as his little body would allow. Emma returned the hug with a smile.
"Thank you, Miss Emma. I'm going to be a good big brother and help 'Lena."
The clearing of a throat made both Emma and Roland look up. Robin as standing there with Roland's bag in his hand, looking a bit awkward. "Go put your bag in the car, Roland. I'll be outside in a minute."
Roland jumped up and hugged his mom before grabbing his bag and running out to the car. Emma stood up, shoving her hands in her pockets. Robin turned to face her, taking a deep breath before extending his hand. Emma eyed it for a second before cautiously reaching out to clasp it in a handshake.
"I may have had the wrong idea about you, Swan. Seeing you talk with Roland like that made me see that maybe you aren't do bad."
Emma just nodded, leaving it at that. She felt that it wasn't really Robin's place to say what he did about her, but she also knew that it meant a great deal for the man to give his approval of her. Robin let go of her hand and walked out the house, closing the door behind him. Regina stepped out into the foyer, two fingers pressed to her left temple as she willed the stress headache to go away.
"How much of that did you hear?" she asked, looking at Emma with an apologetic expression.
"I came in right around when Henry stormed off. Then Roland tugged on my shirt and we came sit on the stairs to talk."
"I heard you talking to him. You explained everything really well."
Emma shrugged as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. "It was nothing. Just something I learned back in college when I took adolescent psychology."
Emma smiled softly when she felt Regina reach out and grab her hands, bringing them up to plant a small kiss on the knuckles.
"I really appreciate it," the brunette said with complete sincerity. "But I fear we may have to cancel our date for tonight."
"No you don't!" Both women looked up at the unexpected voice to see Henry leaning over the banister looking down at them. "You can still go on the date. I can stay here."
Regina opened her mouth to say something, but Emma gave her hands a small squeeze to get her attention. She looked away from her son and back at the blonde.
"I have an idea. I can go get everything and just set it up in the backyard."
"I can help with that!" Henry chimed back in. He quickly moved down the stairs to appear at Emma's side.
Regina alternated her gaze between the blonde woman and the lanky teen standing beside her. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"
"Not really." Emma leaned forward to place a kiss on her cheek. "We'll be back soon. Go change out of your fancy Mayor clothes and into something more comfy while we are gone."
With that said, Emma and Henry moved from the house to the borrowed truck quickly, both determined to still make the date happen.
[SQ]
The last time Regina remembered being this nervous for a date had been when she was fifteen and Daniel had asked her to the movies. And just like she had done then, she paced the length of her room as she waited for her cue to go downstairs. Back then it had been her mother calling her name from the root of the stairs. Now it would be Henry knocking on her door. She took a deep breath, holding for a few seconds before releasing it, in hopes of calming her racing heart.
The minutes felt like that had turned into hours. Regina stood in front of her full-bodied mirror and scrutinized her image once more. She didn't own much in the way of comfy clothes. Not anymore, at least. But in the depths of the closet she had managed to find an old t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants that had been a gift from Ruby a few years prior. Perhaps it was too comfy, she thought as she played with the hem of the shirt. Maybe she should change. Her motions were stopped by a knock on the door and Henry's face peeking in.
"You can come downstairs now."
Regina hesitated for a moment before her confidence came back to her. This was something she wanted, and she was going to go after it and enjoy every bit of it. Taking one last breath, she followed her son downstairs. He gestured for her to head out the backdoor into the yard, saying that Emma was waiting for her out there.
She didn't know what to expect when she stepped foot into the backyard, but she knew it hadn't been this. A small multitude of pillows had been arranged on a blanket just a few feet away from the patio. An ice chest rested next to the makeshift nest with a few candles nestled in small jars surrounded the area.
"It was supposed to be a small fire in a clearing by the woods. I improvised." Emma walked up behind Regina, offering her a wineglass filled with a dark liquid before sipping from her matching glass.
"Emma, it's wine!" Regina gasped, reaching for the one Emma was holding instead of the one being offered to her. She cared for the blonde too much to let her throw away her sobriety. Emma shook her head with a laugh, re-offering the glass to Regina. The brunette took it with a skeptical look before taking a sip. "Grape juice?"
"Alcohol-free wine," Emma corrected with a grin. "I told you to trust me. I've thought everything out."
She gestured to the nest of pillows before taking Regina's hand and walking over to it. They settled down comfortably, both women laying back and looking up at the night sky.
"How long have you been planning this?" Regina asked.
"Since I realized that I had a chance with you."
Regina turned her head to show Emma her raised eyebrow. The blonde woman grinned innocently. With a roll of her eyes, Regina took a sip of the juice and set the glass off to the side, rolling onto her side and propping herself up on her elbow.
"Tell me something about yourself that I don't know."
Emma mirrored Regina's position, letting her eyes trail over the woman before her before thinking of something to say.
"Hmm. Well, we talked pretty deep at the pizza place after the first baseball game. Let's see what I can come up with." She wet her lips with a taste of juice. "I used to be a foster kid. I was with my last family until I aged out of the system. They never adopted me, but they are the closest I've had to a real family."
Regina was shocked. Of all the things that she had expected Emma to say, that definitely wasn't on the list. She looked up at her green-eyed blonde who just smiled back at her. "I'm sorry," she whispered, not knowing what else to say.
"It's okay. I found a family who showed me what love felt like, what it's like to be part of a family. Now I know what to look for to have my own." Emma tilted her glass towards Regina. "Your turn."
Regina bit her lip as she thought. There had indeed been a great deal that she had already shared with Emma. But there was one thing that she hadn't shared. The one thing that she never really talked about. But this was Emma, someone she could trust and who cared about her just as much as she cared about them.
"Do you remember when we first talked after the baseball game? How you told me about Lily and I talked about losing Daniel?" Emma nodded, staying quiet. "And how I said there had been another day equally as bad, but I wasn't ready to talk about it?" Emma nodded again, reaching out to link their fingers together, giving a small squeeze of encouragement. Regina looked down and felt a small smile tug at her lips from Emma's gesture. She knew she could trust the blonde.
"If it's too much, you don't have to tell me," Emma said softly.
Regina shook her head, looking back up at Emma. "No. I want to tell you. I… Three years ago, I had a miscarriage. That's when things began to fall apart between Robin and me."
There. She had said it. With a sigh, she dropped her head to look down at the blanket. She felt Emma squeeze her hand gently.
"I know," came the soft whisper.
Regina's head shot up, eyebrows furrowed together. "What? How?"
Emma ran her thumb over the top of Regina's hand. "Townspeople talk. I overheard someone say that you used to be a nice mayor until it happened. After that, you turned a bit to the dark side."
The brunette bit her bottom lip. It wasn't exactly a lie. She had been a cheery mayor in the beginning. But after that day, that dreadful day that her life changed, she had sealed away her cheerfulness, reserving it only for her children and sometimes Robin.
"But you want to know what else I heard?" Emma asked, bringing Regina back to the moment. The brunette nodded slightly. "I heard that ever since the mayor started seeing the sexy baseball coach, she started to warm up a little bit."
"Sexy baseball coach?" Regina raised a brow.
Emma grinned, finally setting down her wineglass and scooting closer to Regina. "Yeah. You know that one. Talk, athletic, and blonde. Has a scar on her right shoulder. Drives a bright yellow death trap."
As Emma spoke, she steadily moved closer to Regina. The brunette giggled more with each inch Emma would move closer to her, trying to back away slightly before she rolled over onto her back. Emma took the opportunity and threw her leg over Regina, grinning down at the woman she now straddled.
"Sounds to me like this baseball coach is a good looking person with a poor taste in vehicles," Regina smirked, looking up at Emma.
"She might be. But you see, she is totally crazy for the mayor. It's a lost cause, really." She punctuated the last sentence with a shrug.
"Maybe it's a lost cause for the mayor, too," Regina said as she reached up to tangle her fingers in Emma's hair and pull her down for a kiss.
Emma went willingly, bracing one hand beside Regina's head to hold herself up while the other caressed a tan cheek, quickly moving to cup her neck as their lips parted and the kiss grew deeper. Emma groaned softly when Regina bit at her bottom lip, the groan soon fading to a whimper as the brunette's tongue darted out to sooth the abused flesh.
Regina felt her body responding to the depth of the kiss, felt it coming alive for the first time in years. She couldn't remember the last time that she had felt like this, but she did know that it felt like this with Daniel all the time and rarely with Robin. Regina gasped as a small gust of cold wind blew and danced across her flesh. She then gasped as she felt Emma's hand at the waistband of her pants, slowly making its way under the fabric.