A/N: Content warning!!! (Please notice the three exclamation marks.)

Chapter 14: Luxury

Zuko knew Katara was stalling.

At first she had seemed delighted at the sight of the bed, but as soon as he had taken her hand and tried to lead her there, it had suddenly occurred to her that they were sweaty and unkempt and should take a bath first. And – of course – they needed to eat. No need, she had pointed out with a telling look at him, to have growling stomachs interrupt them at a critical moment.

He had given the bed a regretful look, and had suggested that he go first, knowing from experience that girls needed ages to get ready.

After scrubbing himself squeaky clean, combing assorted pieces of Earth-Kingdom flora and fauna out of his hair, and washing it thoroughly, he stepped in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at himself. It would take some getting used to this younger version of his father looking back at him.

In addition to a mountain of fluffy towels, the bathroom also offered two silk bathrobes and one pair of drawstring pants that reached to his knees. He put the bathrobe back on the shelf after unsuccessfully trying to put it on. All Earth-Kingdom men had to be skinny weaklings.

Katara's gaze immediately fixed on his naked chest when he stepped out of the bathroom, and the pink in her cheeks was so telling, he didn't need their mental bond to know her thoughts.

And he liked her way of thinking.

She carefully skirted around him and locked the bathroom behind her, after telling him to order some food, because she was at a loss as to what to choose.

During the weeks he had spent in Ba-Sing-Se, he had learned which Earth-Kingdom dishes were delicious. He rang for the butler, who hastened to him only seconds later, and ordered a bit of everything.

As the food arrived, smelling spicy and appetizing, he had to admit that bathing and eating first wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Deciding not to use the formal dining-table, he carried the food to the low table in front of the fireplace, so that they could lounge on the couch while eating. They hadn't eaten at a proper table for days now; there was no reason they had to start with that tonight.

With a flick of his wrist, he started a low fire in the fireplace and stretched out comfortably on the couch.

Drowsiness settled over him as he lay there, but, as he heard the bathroom door creak open, he was wide awake again.

Katara had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and wore one of the hotel bathrobes. It reached down to her ankles, where he glimpsed matching satin slippers.

He smiled at her encouragingly.

She averted her eyes.

"The food smells wonderful," she said, circling around the couch just out of reach of his arm, and then sat down in a single armchair.

He frowned, trying to find out what had prompted her changed behaviour, her sudden anxiety. Surely he hadn't given her any reason to be afraid of him.

While they ate, Katara complimented his choice of food and remarked on its deliciousness, but otherwise they were silent.

"So, Katara," he said in an attempt to bridge the rift that seemed to gape between them. "You owe me a story."

She looked so flustered, he had to chuckle.

"About how you always wanted to be with a prince."

"Oh… that," she said slowly.

Brushing a few invisible breadcrumbs from her robe, she settled back into the chair. With some satisfaction he noted that the thin fabric slid back from her body to reveal a generous amount of a long shapely leg. She caught him staring, but instead of reacting like he had expected in her current mood, hastily covering herself properly again, she moved just a tiny bit and the fabric slipped to expose even more skin.

Tendrils of heat began to spread through him as he remembered the feeling of this skin under his hands.

"Gran-Gran had this book which she would read to us every night when we were kids," Katara began. "A really old book, and the stories were so fabulous, with all sorts of fantastic creatures: horses, unicorns, ogres, dwarves, elves and fairies. In almost every story, a handsome, brave prince came to rescue a beautiful princess from a dreadful situation. He fought dragons, cut through thorny hedges and kissed her awake, or he just recognized that under the filthy clothes of a housemaid was the woman he truly loved."

A strange longing was in her eyes, and he could guess at what these stories had meant to her.

"I always imagined that, one day, my prince would come for me. Riding up on a white mount, whisking me away from my boring life, showing me places I could not even imagine, taking me on adventure after adventure. I hoped he would love me just like I loved him and that we would live happily ever after."

Heavy dread held his heart in a tight grip as he saw her eyes moisten, her gaze directed to a place where he could not follow her.

"And he came," she whispered. "He was a prince to his people, to all people on this earth, and he came on a white flying bison. He took me away to adventures and greatness. He showed me the world, and he gave me his heart. I have known for a long time that he loves me."

His heart stopped beating, but he had to ask. He knew it was like placing the tip of a knife to his own throat and asking her to cut away, but he had to.

"Do you love him?"

She seemed startled by his words, and he saw how she struggled to get back to the reality of the here and now. Her eyes misted over as she looked into his eyes. She had to know how much she was hurting him.

"Yes, I love him."

He closed his eyes, fighting the tears that threatened to spill. There was one thing he would have begged her for had he known sooner what it was. Now that he knew that it was her love that he needed, she told him it could never be his. Everything they shared was meaningless now, a forced closeness that would torture him with glimpses of what could never be.
He wanted to be angry with her for telling him now of all times, but he couldn't even muster the energy for that anymore. It bled out of him with every beat of his wounded heart.

"But I don't love him the way he loves me. I love him like Sokka, as if he were my little brother."

Fine tremors of relief ran over his skin, carving deep fractures into the emotionless exterior that he forced himself to present.
Suddenly, he desperately needed to change the topic of conversation. This night should have been about exquisite pleasure, not emotional pain. He needed to get a grip on his feelings.

"Since we are on the topic of princes, do you know how one recognizes a Fire-Nation prince, a true member of Fire-Nation royalty?"

She lifted her gaze to his and smiled.

"Your eyes. I have only met three people with golden eyes, and they were all Fire-Nation royalty."

He smiled back, still inwardly trembling. She called his eyes golden, where most people just referred to them as yellow.

"There's another sign," he said. "The males of our family also have the breath of fire."

"Why is that?"

He folded his hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling.

"Legend says we are descended from dragons."

"Please tell me," she said eagerly, leaning forward in her armchair. "I love legends."

"In ancient times, on the volcanic islands of what is now Fire-Nation territory, dragons lived in peaceful harmony with the few humans that populated the islands, peasants with no special skills.

"The dragons lived in caves high in the mountains, where the females laid their eggs and cared for their offspring. Because dragons have hearts and souls like humans, they mate for life.

"And so a dragon named Zu mated in this way with a she-dragon named La. They were a young couple and fiercely in love with each other, but Zu felt he couldn't express his feelings the way he wanted to, he felt as if his heart – the biggest organ in a dragon's body – would burst with what he could not put into words or actions. Restlessly he roamed the skies over the islands, until, one day, he saw a couple of humans making love on a deserted beach. He watched them kissing, touching, caressing, giving and taking exquisite pleasure, whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears. His heart filled with longing and envy at the way humans could show their love.

"He found a mighty sorcerer who gave him the power to change himself and his mate La into human form at night. But the sorcerer warned Zu that once one of them failed to turn back into a dragon before the sun stood full in the sky, the spell would be broken, and they could never change forms again. The love-crazed Zu was sure it would never come to that and hurried away to find his mate.

"Night after night, Zu and La turned into humans and made love until the sun rose in the sky, and then they changed back into dragon form. But one morning, only Zu changed back while La stood there in her human form, her eyes anxiously on the half-circle that slowly rose over the horizon. Angrily hissing at her, Zu tried to force her into changing, but she just couldn't. The sun rose higher, and tears of anguish and happiness streamed down La's face as she suddenly understood why she could not change. While in human form, La had conceived a human child, and because of that child her body refused to transform.

"She tried to tell him, but Zu – being a dragon – could not understand her words. Only a tiny piece of the sun was still hidden behind the horizon when he roared in outrage and pain.

"As the sun stood full and round in the morning sky, it shone down on a human woman, tightly wrapped in the scaly coils of a male dragon, both of them weeping hot tears. Legend says it was the first and only time a dragon ever cried.

"Nine months later, La gave birth to a baby boy. The boy had his father's yellow eyes and his ability to breathe and bend fire. With his superior abilities, and protected by his father and all of their dragon kin, he soon became ruler over the peasants of the neighbouring islands. He became the first Firelord. He taught his subjects firebending and led them to wealth and prosperity."

Hushed silence fell over the room, only interrupted by the crackling of the fire in the fireplace. Zuko stared at the ceiling, still trying to tame his raging emotions. As a child, that old tale had never affected him in any way, other than that he thought it pretty awesome that his ancestors had been dragons. But on recounting the legend now he could feel Zu's pain as if it was his own.

Katara stared at him with awe and wonder.

"Of course it's just a legend," he said to make light of it. "For all I know—"

"No," Katara cut him off. "It's not just a legend."

She rose to her feet and slowly walked over to where he lay stretched out on the couch. Sitting down beside him, she put soft fingertips on his face and traced the lines of his brows. Her fingertips travelled over the bridge of his nose, down to his lips.

Then she cupped his face with both her hands and leaned closer, so close, he hoped she might kiss him. Her hands wandered down the sides of his neck, and he hissed when unexpected, sharp pleasure tore through him as her fingers probed the bite-mark on his neck.

With soothing pressure, she let her hands roam over his shoulders and down his arms, then back up again, stroking over his upper chest, her fingers digging possessively into his muscles.

"You are the most magnificent creature I have ever seen, Zuko," she breathed, leaning closer, her lips almost touching his. "I don't doubt for a second that you are a descendant of a magical beast that gave you your strength and your beauty."

As a prince, Zuko had learned early on how to deal with all sorts of flattery. But he had no defences against her. Katara was not the kind to lie or flatter, not even for a good reason; there was no false bone in her body. Her words quite simply left him breathless.

"Katara," he whispered, but was cut off when her lips softly descended on his.

They kissed for a while, with her leaning over him, half-sitting, her hands still roaming his chest with maddeningly sensual caresses.

We could move this to the bed.

He half expected her to balk at the suggestion, and was therefore a little surprised when she slipped her hand into his and helped him to his feet, almost dragging him behind her on the way to the bedroom.

A single, scented candle burned on one of the bedside tables, emanating a faint orange glow and a heavy fragrance of cinnamon and amber. He moved his hand to light a few more candles, but Katara stilled his movement by pushing him flat on his back, looking down on him.

"What was his name?" she asked. "The son of Zu and La, what was his name?"

Zuko winced. He had omitted that part of the story on purpose.

"He was called child of Zu. In the ancient language of the Fire-Nation that'd be…"

Katara smiled and finished for him. "Zuko."

She kissed him before he could say anything else, and in the heat of her kisses rational thought melted away. Gone was her anxiety from before, as if her taking charge of this encounter had squashed whatever fears she might have had. She dragged her soft lips down the side of his neck, nipping at the over-sensitive bite-mark, sending another bolt of pleasure directly down to his groin.

"It changes," she whispered before kissing the mark again with much the same result.

He had noticed the changes in the mark, too. Parts of it started healing like any other bruise, but a few lines had turned a dark purple, almost looking as if it was turning into a circular sign.

His train of thought came to an abrupt halt as Katara's exploring mouth wandered over his chest, and her teeth slightly scraped over one nipple.
At his moan, she repeated the action, and when she lifted her face to his again her eyes shone with female pride at having such power over him.

He reached toward the sash of her robe, but she drew back from his searching grasp.

Can't… can't take much more of this, he silently pleaded with her as she resumed her scorching kisses.

She ventured even further down, and when she reached his navel, playfully circling it with the tip of her tongue, he shouted hoarsely and gripped the bars of the headboard above him with both hands to keep himself from grabbing her and ending the delicious torture she was inflicting on him.

When she looked at him again, the flickering light of the candle created no reflection in the bottomless darkness of her dilated pupils.

"I want to see you," she whispered.

An uncharacteristic bout of insecurity swept through him as she hooked her fingers under the waistband of his pants and began to tug them down. He watched her intently, desperately wishing for more light, when she discarded the clothing beside the bed and let her eyes languidly wander over his body, her gaze lighting on the erection jutting out from between his slightly spread thighs.

She reached towards him with trembling fingers, and, while he wanted to sob with relief that deliverance from his painful arousal was near, a tiny movement caught his eyes.

He might have missed it had he blinked, but he had not imagined the tiny flick of her tongue across her lips as she eyed him without the slightest sign of fear or repulsion.

His cock twitched in helpless arousal at the sight, as he fought the fantasies that threatened to rush to the surface of his thoughts.

One of her hands closed firmly around him, stroking too lightly to bring him anywhere near his release, but firm enough to drive him mad.

With a curiosity that he might have found endearing if his blood wasn't boiling his veins, she fondled the soft pouch beneath his shaft, causing his lust to batter with renewed ferocity against the thin walls of his self-control.

Because he had squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the barrage of sensations, he noticed too late when she took her exploring a bit farther.

Soft, cool lips gently pressed against the tip of his burning flesh, ripping a pained shout from his chest. His hips bucked against her in helpless supplication.

His eyes flew open in time to see her draw back.

"Did I hurt you?" she whispered.

No-no-no… please… please.

A barrage of pictures flooded his mind, and Katara's eyes widened with shock.

You don't have to, he tried to communicate. Just touch me like last night.

Her eyes narrowed a little, and a dangerous glint of determination glittered in their depths.

Agni help him.

She bent down again, and he lost the will to battle anything, as the tip of her tongue slowly circled the engorged head of his cock.

He lost his knowledge about how to function on a normal level, how to breathe, how to think, how to remember even so much as his own name, as her velvety lips closed around him, lightly suckling.

It was too much. Too much sensation, mixed with emotions he had never before experienced, swirling like a maelstrom of molten lava through his veins, throbbing and burning in the place that just received the most intimate kiss possible.

With Mai, he had always been in control of his actions, had always managed to give her a fair warning when he was about to come, so she could pull back.

He tried. With scraps of thoughts, gasped words, and an ineffective tug at her shoulder. But whether it was her inexperience or just plain stubbornness, she didn't move, didn't cease her ministrations until his last wall of control crumbled to dust.

Silvery dots sparkled behind his closed lids. His fists tightened around the bars of the headboard. Sound receded until he only heard the driving drumbeat in his ears. Fiery bliss rioted through his bloodstream, burning away everything that was no ally to pleasure: the sorrow, the grief, the anger. It woke the wild creature inside of him that throve on pure sensation, on pure feeling, and it came to life with a mighty roar.

With every surge of his seed spilling from him, his heart filled and grew until it was the biggest organ in his body, but still too small to contain his joy, his gratefulness… his love.

Just as he thought things couldn't possibly feel any better, he felt surrounded by cool liquid, softly soothing the violent fire in him, bringing him down from the raging heights of his ecstasy.

It felt like meditation. In fact, it was meditation. Water and fire.

The thought of fire gave him pause, and his senses began working properly all at once.

The air was thick with smoke that stood in grey plumes in the air. The bed around him was slightly damp and cool.

"What happened?" he asked, out of breath.

Katara gave him a lopsided grin.

"You set the bed on fire."

He wriggled his fingers and felt the remnants of the wooden bars crumbling to ashes under his hands. His gaze darted back to her, panicked.

"Did I hurt you?"

She smiled, shaking her head. "You could never hurt me," she said with such a confidence, that he forgot their surroundings and basked in the wealth of his newfound feelings once again.

He lifted a hand to her face and traced her bottom lip with his thumb.

"That was…" He trailed off, trying in vain to describe what she had made him feel.

His thumb found a bit of sticky wetness clinging to her lip. He cringed at the thought of what he had forced on her.

"I'm sorry about… not stopping you in time."

She looked at him, a frown of incomprehension steep between her eyebrows.

"Didn't you like it?"

He gaped, completely incredulous that she could even ask that question.

"Of course I did!" he said forcefully and made a sweeping gesture around himself. "Couldn't you tell?"

She smiled.

He tried again. "But isn't it… I don't know… disgusting?"

The steep wrinkle between her brows was back.

"No," she said defensively, but then her expression softened as if something suddenly occurred to her. She put her hand against the side of his face and stroked him tenderly.

"It tastes like tears," she said swiping her thumb over the corner of his eyes were apparently a tear from before had lingered. "It tastes like you. And I love you."

At that, his heart couldn't contain the feelings anymore that had steadily built up in him over the past days. Never in his life had he felt so welcome, so unconditionally accepted. So loved.

He did not fight the tears that streamed down his face.

"I love you, Zuko," she said, as if a bit surprised at her own words.

In that moment, he found he had a new favourite sentence.

………

To Katara, romantic love had always seemed a fickle emotion. Ever since she had become aware of Aang's feelings for her, she had analyzed what was in her heart, had tried to make sense of the ambiguous feelings she had for him, had tried to give them the label that would make Aang so happy. Sometimes, his unmasked adoration woke a faint echo in her, and the fact that he seemed to be everything she had ever dreamed of had her despising herself for being so indecisive.

Only there wasn't anything faint about what she felt for Zuko, nothing fickle or indecisive.

The feeling was there, pulsing through her heart like her own blood, spilling as assured words out of her mouth before she had even time to think about them. But deep down she knew she didn't need to think about them, there was nothing to think about something that was there like an undeniable fact, something that was so tangible, so real, so necessary.

"I love you, Zuko," she said, testing again the sound and feel of the words and found she liked them. Liked to say them, liked to see what it did to him to hear them.

He smiled and cried and looked so unbelievably happy, like someone who had been starved of being loved for far too long, someone who could not be whole without love.

The passionate nature of the descendants of the dragons seemed to make them dependent on feelings, good or evil, and they lived them to the extremes. Apparently only love – or hate – were emotions big enough to fill a dragon's heart.

She was still contemplating his emotions, when his arms wrapped firmly around her and he brought his mouth close to her ear.

"Thank you, Katara," he whispered with a sigh.

His arms still around her, he rolled her over to the undamaged side of the bed, and started kissing her without giving her time to gather her thoughts.

At his untamed ardour, her fears from before started to resurface and she found herself tensing up beneath him. While he still kissed her, one of his hands wandered to the sash of her bathrobe, with the unmistakable intention of getting her as naked as he was.

Panicked, she put her hand over his, and pulled away from his kiss.

"Maybe we should go to sleep," she suggested, trying to sound calm and reasonable. "We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

His eyes narrowed, and she could've sworn that his body turned a few degrees colder.

"Are you afraid of me, Katara?" he asked in a tone that – if she had been afraid of him – would have sent her screaming in terror. "I promised you I would never—"

"No, no… no, I'm not afraid of you," she hastened to assure him.

The look in his eyes softened a little, and the hand that had tried to undress her came up to her face to lightly stroke her face.

"Then what is it, baby?"

She sighed. There was no way she could put in words what it was that bothered her. She barely understood it herself.

"I'm insecure," she tried.

It sounded wrong, even to herself, and if Zuko's knitted eyebrows were any indication, he didn't believe her either.

"It's just, I wonder how I compare. If I… am good enough."

This was horrible.

Confusion deepened the wrinkles on his forehead.

"How you compare to what?"

"To whom," she corrected. "To… to her. To Mai."

His expression froze, and for a second, he didn't move a single muscle. He didn't even breathe. Katara wasn't sure she did.

Then he chuckled humourlessly. "You can't be serious."

She didn't answer, aware that she had made a bad situation just that much worse.

"I love you, Katara," he said, as if stating a fact that should have been crystal clear to her. As if he had said it a thousand times already, even though it was the first time he did.

Her heart leapt despite the utter painfulness of the whole situation and she couldn't stop the happiness from flashing over her face.

"I love you," he repeated insistently. "There is no comparison to what happened before. None whatsoever. And if I could forbid you to think about that, I would. In fact, I do. Don't ever think about it again." He leaned down to her, breathing a kiss over her lips. "I love you, you stupid girl," he whispered hoarsely against her mouth. "And you're mine and nothing else matters."

His hand once again groped for her sash, and once again, almost like a reflex she couldn't suppress, she stopped him.

She could feel his whys pounding against her mind, trying to draw an answer out of her where she had none to give.

He rested his forehead against hers, breathing hard, his hand resting motionlessly over the knot of her sash.

"No lies, remember?" he said softly after a while. "You'll hurt us both."

Was it a lie if she herself didn't know the answer? Or was this another lie she told herself?

"Why don't you want me?" he asked in a half-broken whisper.

He had backed her in a corner, and she reacted like any other cornered creature: she snapped.

"Just a few minutes ago, you had a jolly good time for a poor, unwanted man."

He drew back abruptly, anger slamming into her both from his eyes and his thoughts.

"Do you think that's all I want from you? To get off?"

His anger surprised and frightened her. Tears stung in the back of her throat.

"I wouldn't mind," she offered meekly. "I truly liked it."

As if he suddenly needed space between them, he pushed himself away from her, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed.

"What about you? I thought you liked what happened yesterday?"

She sat up against the headboard and tried to collect her scattered thoughts, trying to ignore how offended and hurt he looked.

"You surprised me yesterday. I didn't know what would happen, and once it did, I was helpless to stop it. It frightened me more than I could ever say."

Again, that wasn't quite right. Yes, the intensity, the inevitability of what had happened had frightened her, as had the loss of her senses, her control over herself. But more than that, she had been frightened of becoming dependent on this, on starting to need it, crave it. And she knew without a shadow of a doubt that no other man would ever be able to give this to her. No one but him.

Suddenly, a slow smile lit his face.

"Do you know what your worst insult is for me?" he asked silkily.

He didn't wait for her to answer the question. "Spoilt prince. I've always thought it was the prince part of it that had you so bent out of shape, but it was the fact that you think me so spoilt. And I am." He chuckled to himself. "Well, I was. Your brother, being the son of the tribe chief, certainly was spoilt to a certain extent as well. And the revered Avatar might not exactly be spoilt, but he gets all the attention."

Katara couldn't quite follow him, but kept listening.

"That blind earthbender…"

"Toph."

"Toph, right, she's a spoilt only child, isn't she?"

Zuko scooted a little closer and started caressing her face again.

"But no one ever spoiled you, right? You were always expected to give. They expect you to be their healer, their mother, their sister, their shoulder to cry on. You mend their clothes, you prepare their food and you settle their differences. They need you to be strong and dependable, loving and kind. It's in your nature to give, you're always there for the people who need you. You've given so much, you've forgotten how to take. It scares you."

His thumb drew a slow circle under her eye and she felt wetness there. Tears.

"You're afraid of being spoiled. Of liking it, needing it."

She shuddered as his lips, hot and insistent, kissed over her face, kissing away the trails of her tears, his tongue darting out from time to time to catch a stray drop. Wrapping one arm around her waist, he lowered her into a prone position again, never stopping to shower her face with kisses.

"I'll spoil you, my love," he whispered as more tears kept leaking from her eyes as if someone had broken a dam. "I will give you everything you need, everything you deserve."

Deep, shuddering sobs trembled through her, but he held her close and secure in his arms, allowing her to fall apart, breaking under the weight of a burden she had carried for so long.

"You're not alone any longer, I am yours just like you are mine, and I can't be happy as long as you are not. I am not satisfied as long as you are still wanting. It's the nature of our bond, and even more than that, it's my nature. Tell me that you understand that."

She nodded mutely, the tears finally abating.

"I'm dying to make you feel what you made me feel before," he whispered hotly against her neck as his kisses moved south. "Will you let me?"

Yes, Zuko.

tbc

So, what do you think? I'm eagerly waiting for your opinions.