A/N: I lied! one more to come- my eyes are getting too tired to continue this eve. Hope you enjoy, and comments would be lovely! :)
Watching the slow descent of expert fingers as the Mayor undoes the buttons of her shirt one by one, Emma holds her breath. She'd had a point when reminding Regina that she's simply evening the playing field as the darker woman has seen her without a shirt, but the raw chaos of that previous escapade and the calculated tension of this moment are a world apart, and her eyes flicker as ever more flesh comes into view.
"The rules say what, Miss Swan?"
Regina teases sultrily, shucking plush fabric slowly and leaving it to drape behind her in the seat.
"Never mind. You seem to have grasped them pretty well."
The blonde replies huskily, drinking in soft skin and pretty, magnolia lace. Regina offers her a measured look, before adopting a sly smile. It's on the tip of her tongue to ask the younger woman if she likes what she sees, but the darkness of the Sheriff's expression provides an obvious answer. Licking her lips and settling against the hard backrest of the chair, the brunette lets out a shuddered breath as she offers herself up for display. The aggression and confusion of their recent conversation still sits thick in the air, but their shared understanding that they are playing with fire has set a dangerous, and really quite heady mood, and she meets the younger woman's gaze with fierce anticipation.
"You realise if we do this, it's all going to become real. This time, it's thought out. This is calculated. This is only going to stop when either you or I say it should. This is just you and me, no interruptions, Miss Swan. No one barging in. No awkward encounters to let us pretend it's part of a game... Is that what you want?"
"I thought we were playing the game?"
Emma replies eventually, the darker woman's words taking on the guise of a warning, but she can't help but relish the promise underneath. She knows what the brunette is saying though, and she knows it's true. The idea that they might continue with what they started with full understanding that their passion comes down to wanting, liking, craving terrifies her. But there is something exhilarating in accepting the fact also.
"I thought that's why you just took your shirt off?"
She continues quietly, biding her time, and the Mayor smirks as she pushes her hair away from her face.
"We can do it that way if you wish... But, am I really going to have to wait my turn over and over to get what I want?"
An open challenge, and the blonde swallows, before reaching for the bottle standing between them on the table and taking a swig without bothering to pour it into her glass. She answers thoughtfully; aware that her perceived breeziness has so far rubbed Regina up the wrong way, and trying to avoid doing so again. Right now, that's the last thing she wants to do.
Considering what's at stake.
"How about one final round?"
She proposes, and her smile is all sin, but her eyes convey the truth; that she understands what the Mayor is saying perfectly, and she does feel all of the confusion that the brunette had confronted her about lacking. Regina nods slowly, her expression softening slightly but losing none of its sordid fire.
"You've always been one for games, haven't you dear?"
"Actually, not at all-"
Emma grins
"-I've always been one to like two plus two to equal four, and words uttered to mean what they should mean. It's just not always that way when it comes to you."
"I'm your anomaly..."
Regina muses, and the younger woman nods, admitting softly
"You're my sparring partner."
"I see. Well, dear, that pleasure is- nowadays- all mine."
The brunette smirks, and Emma grins as she pushes the bottle over towards the Mayor and watches her drink from it's rim with a practiced look of distaste.
"So what do you say, Madame Mayor. You have one last go; you can ask me anything. Or tell me to do as you wish. Your move."
"If it's my last, don't I get to choose both?"
"Well, the rules-"
"-Miss Swan. Stop telling me about these so called 'rules'. I have never once known you to spare rules the slightest courtesy, and this hardly seems the time to start! It's your game, Emma. The rules are yours."
"... Fine. What would you like first?"
"Ah, that's not how it works-"
"-You just said-"
"-Truth or dare, dear?"
Regina smiles slyly, and the blonde rolls her eyes, but plays along smoothly
"Dare."
"Kiss me. Again."
The brunette challenges, her voice light and in control, but her heart beating fast as she shrouds her excitement. She almost feels foolish for the sheepishness threatening to pinken her cheeks with her demand; such a trait not suiting her at all, and seeming a little irrelevant given that this is something she has asked for before. She is able to forgive herself when she watches the younger woman's characteristically cool demeanour crack to give away how shy she has suddenly become, and she bites her tongue before she can say something cutting on the matter. She is fairly sure Emma would take it in her stride, but right now doesn't seem the time to test the waters.
Save that for after she gives you what you want.
And, oh, she's beginning to realise that she wants it badly.
Watching as the blonde pushes herself from the stool, she waits as Emma stalks slowly around the desk to where she sits. She supposes this might be less awkward if she were to get up herself, but the younger woman has asked for a final round of their game, and she therefore sees it fit that she maintain her ordinary role of expecting submission. It is an odd thing, but as their relationship as progressed and mended and become amiable, this is something the Sheriff has offered her more and more; seemingly without any conscious thought or consideration of the fact. Emma seems to just genuinely respond to their encounters with a wish to make her happy, and if she does occasionally feel the darker woman is simply testing out her dominance, she hasn't said so.
"Last round, Emma, best make it count."
She breathes playfully, and the younger woman offers her a withering look that is fairly impressive given the fact it is forced to battle with the lust written plainly across her face. Giving in to heated temptation, Emma leans down and brushes pale lips against painted scarlet and coaxes entry. The brunette hums quietly in her pleasure as slender fingers cup her jaw and guide her into deepening their kiss with a passion that speaks of a lot more than a childish game of dares.
Pulling away only when she is unable to trust herself not to take things further, Emma takes a step back; breathing heavily. Laughing quietly as she tries to regain her composure, she reciprocates the Mayor's small smile with a knowing one of her own and perches on the desk.
She really does look pretty like that.
Regina swallows, pressing her finger against the pleasant muscle of the younger woman's thigh before settling back in her chair once more.
"I suppose that was acceptable."
"Acceptable?!"
The Sheriff scoffs, and the brunette licks her lips where the blonde's kiss still lingers with a teasing glitter to her eyes.
"Indeed."
She smirks, and the younger woman rolls her eyes with a good humoured sigh.
"If that were true- and that was all it was- we wouldn't be here."
"You have a rather high opinion of your skills."
"With good reason. Worked to turn you, didn't they?"
"Hmm."
Regina frowns, running her finger pensively over the flawless skin above her navel.
"Ok, I get a truth, too."
"You do."
"You said you never considered me in the same way you considered Hook, and I completely understand that... I think. But, if you weren't completely thrown off by the... Well, me being..."
"The girl thing?"
"Yes. Did you ever think about this kind of thing before? With myself, I mean?"
Cocking her head thoughtfully, Emma challenges back gently
"Did you never think of me in any other way but the Saviour, Regina?"
"Many ways! Most of them negative, though" the brunette smiles, "but as for anything of this nature, I suppose I never really did. That's not to say there was nothing- my infuriation at your very existence was often made all the worse due to not quite understanding some of the residual tension you left me with, and then only grew when I believed maybe I might understand it after all- but I never let my imagination wander as it were. Not to the point of, well... Fantasy I suppose you'd call it... I sometimes found myself watching your mouth while you'd bicker back at me. Watching your lips. Very recently, I suppose I thought about silencing you somehow, and my proposed methods weren't always pure, but vague musings were all they ever were.. But it's not my turn, dear. The question was for you."
"I know. I was just curious."
"Well, so am I. Did it ever cross your mind?"
"Yes... Not to do anything about it. And not for a little while now; it was more something that came to me at night after dealing with your less pleasant sides during the day."
"... At night?"
Regina asks, both smirking and blushing slightly. Emma's cheeks pinken also, but she maintains her composure otherwise; lowering her gaze to the rough seam of her jeans, but keeping her voice level and mild.
"It's still your go, you can reword your question if you'd like, Madame Mayor."
"...When you say 'at night'..."
The darker woman begins, but she trails off as she can't find an acceptable way to word what she now wants to know. The notion strikes her as privately amusing; a woman feared by thousands, who had taken back the throne more or less by force, and here she is unable to ask the blonde whether those 'night time thoughts' were ever taken further.
Acted upon.
When you say 'at night', do you mean you would lie there with thoughts of me?...
Lie there, and perhaps channel those thoughts into a form of release?
Emma seems a couple of steps ahead as she waits with a patience that is more tickled than kind, and the brunette glowers at her haughtily and raises a brow to convey she sees no point in continuing when they both know what it is she really means. Accepting the Mayor's lofty surrender, the Sheriff shrugs and continues awkwardly
"You want to know if I thought about you in the kind of situations we've enjoyed recently and, if I did, whether I, uh, enjoyed those thoughts?"
"Did you?"
Regina pushes, openly intrigued, and her curiosity makes her look much younger. Innocent almost.
"Sometimes."
The blonde nods, shifting her weight on the desk uncomfortably before continuing slowly
"Of course coming here and being suddenly pretty much celibate didn't help. Nor did a lot of the ways you treated me. From your perspective, I guess they were purely spiteful, but from mine... Well, I've always been a sucker for being put through my paces. You did it well, and you looked good doing it. Sometimes I would go to bed and literally lie there almost shaking I was so pissed at you. Other times... I was still pissed at you, but I'd think about how I could go about shutting you up. How I would make my move to really throw you off your game. The idea was appealing in a whole lot of ways. One of those was how I might do it and the noises you might make... It was all in anger, though. All venomous and wanting to teach you a lesson.
After we started to get closer, I guess I thought about serving you up what you deserved less and less."
"... But you did think about it?"
"I thought about you. Occasionally."
"Still at night?"
The brunette teases boldly, and the blonde grins as she muses coquettishly
"Are you asking if I still touch myself thinking about you?"
Dark eyes glitter fiercely as the Mayor's cheeks flush crimson at hearing it worded so bluntly, but she nods and prompts the younger woman to answer her
"Do you?"
"There were times."
Emma admits, and Regina swallows as she asks huskily
"Before or after Hook?"
"... It's my go, Regina."
"Answer me."
"You had your turn."
"So what? I'm asking you as a friend, then."
"Friends don't ask friends if they get themselves off thinking about them!"
"... Friends don't play the games we've been playing in general, Miss Swan... I won't force you to answer me, I simply-"
"-Once. Once after Hook."
"... That you thought about me?"
"That I used those thoughts."
"Hm."
Regina offers primly, but her pupils are blown an impossible black and she regards the younger woman with palpable hunger. Emma meets her gaze easily, despite looking slightly embarrassed.
"Ok, now it really is my turn. Truth or dare, Regina?"
"Ask me."
"Alright..."
Emma nods, before pausing thoughtfully. She has several things she'd like to ask the darker woman, and yet, what keeps bothering her is the topic they have already covered a couple of times this evening. She knows the brunette has told her that she's never thought about her in any fully fledged, physical sense before, and she believes her when Regina says that she's fairly innocent on all of this. What she doesn't quite buy is that there has never been anything more than a faint inkling of something there between them in the Mayor's eyes. After all, in her eyes, it has often been Regina making baited comments and pushing the boundaries. She understands that part of that is simply the darker woman's nature, but she doesn't believe for a second that those antics haven't been entirely- and questionably- personal.
"Have you honestly, hand on heart- or heart in hand for you, I guess!- never had more than an 'understanding' of the tension between us?"
"Have I not said as much?"
"You have. I just don't buy it."
The younger woman admits brazenly, and the Mayor throws her a dangerous look that the blonde imagines would cause many to cower. She simply holds the brunette's warning gaze, and eventually Regina relents and shakes her head.
"I didn't know what to make of it at the time. I'd always found you appealing- it irked me greatly, but it was also a simple fact- but more in a sense where I ached to sneak up on you with a pair of scissors to try and tarnish that attribute somehow. As I said, sometimes being around you would leave me feeling both exhilarated and infuriated. I noticed things about you that maybe I didn't with other people; mostly physical, and I suppose that would suggest I paid keen attention."
"Fair enough-"
"-But, there was one time. When we were in Neverland. You and I had spent a lot of time together, and I'd started to realise that we were forming some sense of true friendship. The idea- I admit- appalled me ever so slightly. That said, I liked being around you, until the whole lot of you became too bothersome. Then, after the worry with David, and watching you fret over Neal... You came to me and told me not to tell anyone but that you'd kissed the pirate and you were worried it was a mistake. I told you- obviously- that it was. But... Then we went to sort out firewood so that we could all regroup, and you were walking in front of me, telling me some nonsense about some band or other you used to like. I don't know. I would be lying if I said I paid attention, dear. Part of that was due to your terrible taste in music, but a larger part of it was... You told me you'd kissed Hook mainly out of sheer adrenaline. That you'd been on edge and hyped up and you'd just needed some form of release... Walking behind you, I kept having this thought. This very clear, very disturbing thought that I wanted to drop the kindling you'd asked me to carry and just grab you. Back you into one of the trees and taste you. Possibly more. I was thinking that I was hyped up too, and that I was angry you let the pirate help you out when we were both in the same boat and we could have helped each other. The thought struck me as entirely inappropriate and I pushed it away... But it was there. And it was clear. It was something I wanted- and imagined what it might be like- to do."
"...I had similar thoughts."
Emma admits quietly, and the brunette raises a brow but says no more on the matter. It's moot now, anyway. She's crossed any boundaries she might once not have realised even existed, and she's enjoyed her spoils. Her worry over her existing relationship lingers, but her confusion in the face of the Saviour has been quite neatly cleared up.
She wants her.
She wants this.
It's terrifying, and as she said, it's going to be real this time, but she wants it.
"That just leaves your final dare..."
She reminds quietly, and the blonde meets her gaze intently before speaking in a low voice.
"I dare you to come with me."
Watching as Emma pushes herself from the desk and stalks slowly for one of the cells, the brunette glances at crisp, clean bedding on the narrow cot and back at the younger woman.
"...In what sense, dear?"
"Both."