Happy 2016! This one has a little something for everyone—romance, sex, even a cliff hanger. Tell me what you think. Love hearing from you. XX
Emma felt so far away, lost in dream, removed from the gravitational pull of conscious life, delightfully warm under the covers. But suddenly there was breath at her neck, curious fingers flitting across her clavicle, and then a hand at the small of her back that brought her closer to the surface of the summer morning.
But Emma still couldn't rouse herself, still semi-conscious and too content to fully ignite her senses. She heard a low murmur and then felt lips behind her ear, a nose grounding into the skin at the base of her skull, and a thigh against her backside. And then a hand was reverently cupping both her breasts, pulling a moan from her semi-conscious lips. Finally her eyes fluttered open, her libido and her brain lettering her know it was time to wake up.
"Good morning, my sweet girl. I want to make love to you, Emma, but you have to wake up a little bit," Regina said, her voice etched with a gravely morning thickness.
Emma felt a hand slide down the flat plane of her stomach, scoot past her belly button, and land teasingly at her pubic bone.
She felt Regina smile into her back at her reaction, and her face flushed with something more than desire. She'd felt this way a thousand times since their relationship began, enough times to know it was more than the physical excitement of the moment. Emma was rapturous, her insides spongy and bloated with affection and love.
It had been this way between them for months.
Once Emma agreed to move in with Regina and Henry, everything had happened in a blink. Despite Regina's offer to pay a moving company, Emma had refused. She really had so few belongings, having moved so often in her life. Plus, she never had the luxury of paying people to do things for her, and she said it just didn't feel quite right to her.
Instead Emma closed the restaurant for a Sunday afternoon at the end of June, enlisting David, Mary Margaret, August, Ruby, Belle, and of course Henry, to get all her things into the house on Mifflin Street "in time for the dinner rush." They worked all morning and into the belly of the summer afternoon heat.
"Jesus, Emma, could you have picked a hotter fucking day to move?" August said, feigning disgust, gesturing to the soaked bandana on his head. In truth, August was happier for Emma than he could find the words for. He loved her like a sister, and he could see with each passing day the impact Regina had on Emma's confidence, her cooking, and even her willingness to take risks.
"If you can't handle it, feel free to find the front door. I'm sure we got this without you, my man," Emma said, stuffing a fist into his shoulder playfully.
"You bitching again, Booth?" Ruby said, as she plowed into the room laden with with boxes, setting one down next to the armoire. Ruby looked around the room in awe. "Man, Emma. This is what I call an upgrade." She tugged at the blonde's ponytail and gave her a loud kiss on the cheek. "I hate to jinx it, but you kind of have everything you've ever wanted."
Emma gaped at her. "What the fuck, Red? You just tempted the gods there. I'm a dead man walking now. Some friend you are," she said with a smirk. "All right, it's hot as hell. Let's finish this."
When the final box was moved into the house and before the Mary Margaret's organizing brigade could begin in earnest, Emma pulled out a 2005 Italian Kurni she'd been saving since graduation from culinary school. Her hair pulled into a high ponytail and her cheeks flushed with exertion, Emma offered a grateful "Salut" and raised her glass to her friends, but Regina held up a hand.
She looked at Emma with a crooked smile.
"That's all you got, Swan?" Regina said playfully. "Before you all leave, I just want to say a proper thank you for all your help today, but also for being such loyal friends to Emma all these years. I know she wouldn't have gotten through the challenges she had to face or become the woman I fell in love with if it wasn't for you, so I just want you to know how much I appreciate you guys," Regina said, a warm smile draped across her face. "You are Emma's family, so now you're my family, too."
"Don't think this means we're forgetting about the Evil Queen business," August said with a smirk.
"Can we drink now?"
"Shut up, you stupid oaf," Emma said, slipping an arm protectively around Regina's waist. "My girlfriend is talking about how amazing I am. You need to zip it."
"Actually, I was talking about how amazing they are," Regina said with a wink. "But you are amazing, too, dear."
Whatever tension or caution had kept them from fully giving themselves to one another in the early stages of their relationship evaporated that day, as if they'd popped a balloon, and there was no longer anything keeping them from holding back.
Regina made every effort to make Emma feel like this was her home now and that she was all in. She invited Kathryn over to the house to get to know Emma a little better, and the two of them had become instant friends, bonding over Regina's odd quirks and habits, to the brunette's dismay.
She cleared out half of her closet, her drawers, and the vanity in the bathroom to make room for Emma's things. She emptied out a guest room for her bedroom furniture, and they went out shopping for some new things that felt a little more like Emma. And she put up almost no resistance (beyond a furtive grimace) when Emma insisted on finding a spot in their room for her favorite chair, which was worn and didn't match the furniture. And despite her dubbing it "The Ugly Chair," when Emma worked late at Saviors, Regina would curl up into it with a book, an afghan across her lap. Because it smelled like Emma.
The summer just melted away, the warm weather and the emollience of falling so completely in love had pushed even the days and nights Emma was at Saviors for long hours into hyper-speed. Henry worked as a lifeguard during the weekdays and hung out with his friends most nights, so they basically had the house to themselves. No matter how late she came home, Regina greeted her with a glass of wine and a long, lazy kiss.
Emma would shower and change, and they'd sit out on the terrace until well past midnight, drinking and laughing, caulking the gaps in their knowledge of each other with stories of their pasts and hopes for their future.
Sometimes Regina would help her write the next week's menu, the two of them pushing the envelope with their shared enthusiasm for food. Regina would often bookmark restaurant reviews and websites when she came across a chef who was innovating, or she'd read her a passage from an article on molecular gastronomy. They'd concoct ways to one-up them, and the results had been outstanding.
One night, they stayed up until 3 o'clock in the morning trying to perfect asparagus ice cream and sea buckthorn sorbet, which had impressed everyone, including August. By adding inventive flourishes to dishes that were already authentic and often rooted in tradition, the restaurant had garnered attention and surpassed expectations.
Emma had become a local star—beautiful, young, and creative. Saviors was written up in almost every newspaper and local magazine within a 200-mile radius, and Emma was booked on an upcoming episode of Chopped. The restaurant was packed every night, while Gold's floundered across town, standing slight and feeble in the ever-widening shadow cast by Saviors.
Regina was inspired by the rising star, and she felt completely revived, her affection for the culinary arts finding new life in the context of her love for Emma. It was a revelation. She found herself driving long distances to buy fermented daikon radish juice and elderberry flowers for their experimentation sessions. For her part, Emma was amazed but not surprised to learn just how good Regina was in the kitchen, how creative, how inspired, and how instinctive. It lit her up, turned her on, to share this passion of her life with the love of her life.
Almost every night, they'd abandon the terrace or the kitchen and head up to the bedroom, often making love for hours, discovering and exploring, pushing boundaries with enthusiasm and devotion. Emma was captivated. She was overwhelmed by everything she was feeling. She'd never really been given the chance to love someone, much less be loved so vibrantly in return. Her mind, body, and heart were engaged and satiated—she had never felt better or happier in her life.
But still, despite the strength of their relationship and the undeniably good byproducts that had come as a result, there was a loud, irritating, petulant voice in her head that she couldn't seem to silence—not with multiple orgasms, not with confessions of love, and not by Regina clearing out the entire left side of her closet for Emma's things. She's tried to drown it out, to smother it with a pillow. But it was needy and demanded to be heard. It told her that these kinds of things don't happen to people like her, not like this, not so completely, and certainly not forever. It promised her that something ugly and ominous wasn't far behind, that it was nipping at her heals.
And yet here she was, being awoken by tender, roaming hands, wrapped up in Regina's arms, coated with supple skin. She was being assaulted by affection from the front—fingers teasing and pinching her nipples—and from behind, Regina's breath was hot in her ear, the warmth of the body she loved adhered tightly to her own.
Emma felt that familiar knocking in her chest, lust and love threatening to split her open, and she began to breathe heavier as Regina worked her up. She let her body relax into what Regina was doing to her, tried to still her mind and give herself over to the sensations.
She watched a stray hand slide down the front of her body, almost like it was happening to someone else. But Regina's voice brought her back to the moment.
"God, I love this body," Regina whispered, turning Emma so she was on her back. She crawled on top of her and straddled her hips, her own body deliciously naked, so soft and lovely in the warm colors of morning. She splayed her hands across her ribs and grazed them across her breasts, leaning down to take one in her mouth, sucking, licking, and nipping at it with intension. She bit down playfully and sat up straight with a grin. She stilled her hands on Emma's stomach and gave her a playful look.
"You see this belly button? I claim this belly button in the name of the Queen," she said, planting a smacking kiss into her tummy.
"The Queen?" Emma said, quirking an eyebrow.
"Yes, of course. The Evil Queen. I stake claim on all of this in the name of Her Majesty," Regina said, waving her hand reverently across Emma's body and then scooting down to her legs so she could wiggle between them.
"Well, while I'm not sure I love this whole ownership analogy, I must say that, as the previous landlord, I'd like to know what your intensions are with your newfound territory," Emma said, a slow smile matching hooded eyes. "Do you have the proper permits?"
Regina's face brightened at the challenge.
"Well, you see, I've been assessing the land for some time now. I've gotten to know it quite intimately already. And I have absolutely no intension of letting go of something so exquisite. So I'm working on getting the necessary paperwork, but perhaps I could give you a small taste of what I plan to do?"
Emma nodded, and Regina immediately ended their teasing by pushing her face into Emma's folds, licking up and down the entire length. She lapped at Emma's clit and then sucked it completely into her mouth and grazed it with her teeth, pulling a long moan the blonde. She continued to lick and tease up and down her pussy, devouring her until Emma was hovering on the edge.
Regina looked up Emma's body with warm, affectionate eyes as she watched her arch and tense and pant her way closer to an orgasm.
"God, Regina. Don't tease. Make me cum."
She could see Emma was just perched on the edge, so Regina flipped her over and coaxed her onto all fours, taking a moment to appreciate how sexy she looked. She gripped her hip with one hand before sinking two fingers into her with her other and pumping a few times and then adding a third.
"Oh my god. You are dripping," Regina said, completely pleased with herself.
Emma was so wet that Regina slipped another finger into her and thrust her hand back into her with force.
Emma grunted and writhed, her eyes clenched so tightly shut, and Regina snaked her free arm around to reach her clit and began rubbing with determination.
"Fuck, yes," Emma panted out. "More, Gina. More, more. I'm so close."
Regina watched her hand disappear into Emma again and again, and she thought she'd never been more turned on, feeling the tightness building in her own groin. She thrust in again, using her hip to push all the way in, and at last Emma began to clench and tighten around her hand, crying out in pleasure, her back arched and her head thrown back. Regina eased her down, pulling her into her arms and kissing Emma's jaw and then her lips. She pulled back minutely, and Emma took a shuddering breath, flopping onto her back, boneless.
Regina giggled, taking in the blonde's doe-eyed expression.
"Are you ok, Em?" Regina said.
Emma propped up on the pillows and gathered herself. But no matter how many deep cleansing breaths she took, she couldn't seem to settle her heart.
"Yes. I just. I'm… I think I… Jesus. I can't even fucking talk," Emma said, shaking her head. Then she looked up at the brunette with more determination.
Regina smiled gently and leaned in to kiss her again. Emma felt a surge of adrenaline, of energy, of love, and she pulled up onto her knees. She grabbed one of Regina's hands and beckoned her closer.
"Come here," Emma said, till Regina mirrored her position, propped up on her knees, eye to eye with Emma. "I'm so in love with you. More than I ever thought I would be capable of loving someone. But also, you've become my best friend in the world. You've become… everything. You're everything to me. You and Henry."
Emma took a steadying breath. Her heart had taken control of her brain, and she couldn't believe how fast the words were flying out of her mouth. But she knew there was nothing should could or wanted to do to stop it.
"Regina, I want this to be forever. I want… I want you to be my wife. I want you to marry me. Would you? Will you?"
Regina's jaw swung open, her eyes pricked with tears. As the brunette opened her mouth to speak, Emma's phone began buzzing on the nightstand.
"I'm ignoring that. Whoever it is has the worst timing in the history of the world," Emma said, but then her phone immediately started buzzing again. "Shit."
"It's ok. Answer it. I'm not going anywhere," Regina said.
Emma picked up the phone and looked at the screen.
"Hey, Rubes…"
"Ruby? What's wrong—you have to slow down. What?"
"Red…. Jesus."
Regina watched Emma's face grow pale, the color draining with each passing second. The phone slipped from her hand and landed on the mattress. Regina reached for Emma's hand and dipped her head to the side to catch her eyes.
"What is it? What's happened?"
Emma willed her chin up, and the look in her green eyes made Regina grow cold.
"F-fire," Emma said flatly. "It's gone. It's all gone."