"You're a bad man."
"The worst."
"I love it," she sighed.
The words slipped from his mouth completely by accident. "I love you."
Shenko and those three words. Mild-ish smut. Kaidan and Shepard are terrible with words: the drabble. Cross-posted from tumblr.
Kaidan snuggled further against the sun-kissed shoulder pressed to his cheek. The woman whose shoulder it belonged to mumbled and rolled over. He made a faint oomph of displeasure. He liked that shoulder where it was. It was warm and he was sleepy and he would very much like to continue being those things.
"Kaidan, I'm hungry," she said.
"Mmpf."
She poked his cheek. "Wake up."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're too cuddly," he said and grabbed the hand that made to poke his cheek again. She laughed that soft secret laugh he loved when he brought his lips to her hand and kissed it, as an old fashioned knight would.
He opened his eyes and found Shepard watching him. Her hair was a wild halo around her face, out of control from her sleep and tossing and turning. Her eyes had flecks of sleep in the corners and she had a line from the pillow imprinted on the side of her cheek.
Kaidan Alenko had never been so in love with anyone in his life.
"C'mere," he growled and pulled her down with him, pressing his lips to hers. She sighed and wrapped her arms around him.
He didn't know what he was doing, only that he couldn't go back to being normal after this shore leave. These short days seemed to consist of everything good in his life. Shepard, jokes, good food, better sex, and sleep. He'd never been much of a hedonist but he'd gleefully become one for her.
She was naked as usual as they slept, too enamored with each other to even bother with clothes much anymore. Intai'sei was dry, hot and sweating even in the climate controlled apartment was the norm. Her skin molded to his every night and he'd never been so glad for the burning, cruel sun.
"I'm not cuddly," she pouted as he kissed her neck, her chest and then drew a sigh from deep in her throat when he tongued her nipple. "Kaidan…"
"Hmm?"
"You're a bad man."
"The worst."
"I love it," she sighed.
The words slipped from his mouth completely by accident. "I love you."
She stilled beneath him and he realized his mistake. He felt as though he had just missed a step in the stairs, and there it was, that horrible sinking feeling.
She sat up and pushed her hair out of her face, an expression there that could only be described as a terrified, skittish deer in the headlights.
"I'm… going to get dressed," she stammered. "We should go out for breakfast. Yeah. Let's go out. Into the settlement. Bacon. I really want bacon. Bacon would be great."
She crawled out of bed as quickly as she could and practically leapt for the bathroom door, as if suddenly ashamed of her nakedness in front on him.
Kaidan slumped on the bed and considered punching himself in the face. He knew she wasn't very good with saying words aloud. He knew that they'd never really come out with it before. He'd promised himself he wouldn't say it first, that he would wait for her to feel comfortable, that he would keep things light and easy between them, even when he felt that inexorable pull towards her, the pounding of his heart that could only be one thing.
Irrevocable, dangerous, selfish love for everything she was.
Kaidan sighed and began to get dressed.
They found breakfast at a small café in the settlement. A slow tune played on the radio. A dog lay near the door as they walked in, basking in the cool air from the climate control vent near him.
Shepard bent down beside the animal and scratched his ears, momentarily forgetting her silence she had been giving him in the drive over. She looked beautiful. Something selfish and caveman in him was proud that she was at his side. She wore a pair of tight pants, sandals, a shirt that fitted her like a second skin, and her hair loose around her face. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat and he would never have believed that he ever thought her anything other than gorgeous.
"Kaidan, look. An actual dog. I haven't seen one in years." She turned to look at him, her smile wide. "Not a proper one anyway. Everyone has varren or pyjaks or whatever those trendy things on the Citadel are with all the fuzzy fur."
He bent down beside her, bumping her hand as he patted the dog's head, too. The dog watched them balefully, tired and lazy in the heat.
"Yeah, he's a good dog. I used to have a dog when I was a kid."
"Did you?" she asked. "Wow. I love animals."
"You do?"
"Why do you sound so surprised?" she said, frowning and standing up. She adjusted her sunglasses on her head, using it as a hairband to push her hair off her face. "I can't like animals just because I kill things for a living?"
"No, of course not," he said, knowing she was just spoiling for a fight. He didn't know why. So what? He loved her. He told her that. Why did that seem to mean he had done something wrong to her?
He didn't know why that seemed to scare her so much. He wouldn't hurt her.
Hell, he was scared she'd hurt him.
She settled into one of the little café's chairs and he sat beside her. Soon, the lone owner shuffled out to take their orders and they were able to get their bacon.
He sipped his orange juice, watching her carefully.
"About this morning…"
She froze again. "Listen… you don't have to say anything. Let's just leave it alone. I'm sorry about getting snappy. You surprised me. That's all."
He pushed the bacon on his plate around, no longer feeling very hungry. "If you don't…"
"Kaidan-"
"If you don't feel the same, that's OK, you know? I know what this is and it's-"
She sighed, grimacing. "Shit. No, no. It's not that. I mean-"
She dropped her fork onto the plate and looked away from him. The dog watched her and whined. The owner of the café hummed a jaunty tune along with the radio. Kaidan looked out the window to the heat shimmering outside and wanted to pretend he had never told her that he felt love for her. Why not leave it at good food and better sex? Why couldn't he have been content to just be with her without putting labels on everything? Why did he have to be so fucking terrible with words?
He placed his hand on his nose and tried to massage away the oncoming migraine.
"I'm done," she said and his heart stopped.
"What? I'm sorry. Look we can just pretend-"
Her eyes widened. "Oh no! I mean, I'm done with breakfast. Shit, Kaidan. I didn't mean-"
His heart returned to normal rhythm. "Shit. You scared me, Shepard."
She managed a small smile. "Kaidan… this isn't… this isn't a game for me. You mean a lot to me."
He reached for her hand across the table and she took it, smiling shyly.
The drive back to the house was quiet. A strange tension had taken root between them and he didn't know how to breach it. He was comforted that she didn't hate him or want to end it because of his slip of the tongue, but the words still hovered between them, like a spider web in an otherwise pristine room. She shifted in her seat awkwardly as she drove as if uncomfortable.
Eventually she broke, in the way Shepard always did.
"Fuck this," she muttered and pulled the heavy vehicle to the side of the dusty track. She yanked her seat belt off, leaned across, and kissed him full on the mouth. It was hungry, like she had been waiting since their aborted foreplay this morning, thirsty for him like a drop of water in the desert.
He kissed her back with the same fervor, slipping his tongue into her mouth when she allowed and drinking his fill.
"Fuck me," she said, in the same desperate tone she kissed with and he didn't know if she was damning herself or begging him. She climbed across the handbrake and settled in his lap, pressing herself against him.
"Shepard…" he said in question and confusion. "Shepard." In comfort.
He slipped his hand up her shirt and gently palmed one of her full breasts and she groaned, bucking against him.
"I want you to finish what you started," she said. "Right here. Right now."
His lips found her neck and he sucked the pulse point there, while his hands unbuttoned her jeans and slipped inside. He ran his fingers over the edge of her panties until she groaned with his teasing. He could feel her, already hot and wet.
He breached the final barrier and ran his finger up her, hot and slick and wet. The air in the car heated quickly without the running engine and air conditioning. She gasped into his mouth, half with want and half with the heat.
His clothes became damp as he fingered her slowly, dragging it out, making her moan and wiggle on top of him.
He had to pause to pull his shirt over his head and she whimpered, pouting at his inattention to her. He took the opportunity to pull her shirt off along with her bra and toss them on the back seat of the vehicle.
He almost laughed to himself. When his father told him as a teenager to not go parking with girls, he didn't think this was what he had in mind.
His breaths were heavy in his chest, the air full of arousal. His cock throbbed with need. This morning seemed so very far away now. It didn't matter that he fucked up and broke the spell. It didn't matter that he said the words she wasn't ready to hear. What mattered was here and now, that she was unbuckling his belt and sliding her hand up her cock, stroking so slowly he thought she must have a degree in torture.
She smiled at him, all crooked teeth and crooked intentions. "Do you want this, Kaidan?"
"You're a bad woman," he gasped.
"The worst."
She swallowed his gasp with her hot and wet mouth and shimmied her pants down. Her underwear got caught on her knee and she dissolved into frustrated giggles.
"Not the most comfortable of places I could have chosen…"
He helped her pull her pants down in a series of rocking movements and reaching around her. It was almost erotic to help her undress, limbs bumping against each other, hips making painful contact with his erection, hot and sweaty skin sliding together.
She finally guided herself onto him, impaling herself slowly, and sighed into his neck.
"Kaidan…"
He wrapped his arms around her as she began to ride, letting her set the pace and only bucking up into her when it became too much. She was so tight and slick, the best kind of heat. His cheeks flushed, the heat in the vehicle almost unbearable, but pleasantly so. They smelt like sex. They smelt like sweat. He could just catch a whiff of the shampoo in her hair, something floral, and it shot straight to his groin.
He loved her. Even how she smelt when heavy with sweat.
He palmed her breast as she threw her head back, short snarls of hair falling onto her shoulders in a brown wave. She looked ragged, hot, and wholly his own private destruction. Something animalistic curled in his belly, something that said he wanted her and no other, he didn't want her to be with anyone else, or let anyone else touch her. He just wanted to be like this forever, inside her and with her, as close as he could get.
She'd probably try and rip his balls off for the thought so he bit his tongue and willed away his streak of possession.
He stubbornly kept his eyes open, watching her even as her eyes shut, losing herself to their rhythm completely. He watched her breasts bounce gently on her chest, her small nipples harden and felt his mouth go dry.
That could have been the rapid dehydration but he wasn't going to say anything. Not when she was bouncing on his cock just like that, at just the right angle, just the right pressure.
His fingers moved down her body, tweaking a nipple, massaging down her stomach to feel her abdominal muscles shifting as she worked herself on him, and then down to her curls at her sex. He ran his thumb at the bundle of nerves at the top of her slit and she cried out a little, teetering on the edge of orgasm. She held herself still and he didn't move his fingers.
"Are you alright?" he asked roughly, voice as dry as the surface of Sol.
She squeezed her eyes together tighter, whimpering on the edge of her peak. "You're such an asshole. I hate you."
"No you don't," he returned, putting his lips to her nipple and biting down gently. She growled. "You don't hate me a little bit. Not at all."
A tear of frustration leaked from the corner of her eye. "I hate you. You know why I hate you?" she gritted out, rolling her hips in a circular pattern. He looked to where they were joined, glistening wet in the hot sun, saw her pink and engorged and knew she was nearly done.
"Tell me," he said, rubbing his fingers around where he entered her, half stroking himself and massaging her lips. "Tell me why you hate me."
She pumped her hips down onto him, hard and almost painful, their thighs slapping together. Once, twice and she came with a yell, burying her head into his neck, saying something that he couldn't catch.
"I fucking hate you," she said again. "I fucking hate you," she repeated as he pumped up into her and came with a groan, claiming her mouth and shoving his tongue inside roughly. He rode out his orgasm by taking her hard, riding out the last of his pleasure. He liked the end, when she let him take control, let him take her body after her mind exploded.
She put her lips to his ears and said in the smallest voice he had ever heard her use, "I hate you because I love you, too."
She climbed off him and grabbed her discarded shirt, wiping herself clean of his come. He raised an eyebrow as she leaned over to clean him and she shrugged.
"Who the fuck cares? I'll throw it in the wash later. It's too hot for a shirt and no one's around." She finished fastening her bra and he pulled up his pants, weak-limbed and confused.
"Shepard…" he started.
She turned the key in the ignition and squinted out at the sun, flaring in the distance, beating its cruelty onto the land. "Let's just pretend that we haven't done this, OK? Let's pretend we can go back to work and look Pressly and Wrex and Garrus and the rest of them in the eye and say 'we never fucked in a car. I never drove home to our apartment in nothing but my wrinkled stained pants and a bra. Kaidan didn't fuck me in the middle of a desert. And we most certainly do not love each other in a way a subordinate and superior aren't meant to.' Can you do that?"
"No," he answered honestly. "I can't pretend I don't love you."
She turned her face to him, sunburned, flushed and too honest. "Can you try? Can you at least try as fucking hard as I am?"
"Yes," he said and kissed her.
