So this starts off super sweet and lovely. And then, I'm not sure what happened, but holy NSFW. But it's almost New Year's, so what else is there to do but kick off 2016 with a bang. (Sorry for the pun.) Love to hear from you guys. So send me some love. Happy New Year, XO.
She doesn't notice it at first. In fact, she doesn't really notice it at all. It is Henry, who mentions it casually after dinner, to make her see.
Emma joined them for Sunday dinner, as she does now, working in tandem with her girlfriend in the kitchen to make the meal, browning the chicken while Regina chops cilantro and apricots, effortlessly talking and laughing over chicken tangine and apple turnovers at the dining room table.
They teased Henry about his new "not girlfriend," they shared their dream jobs (Henry wanted to be a fantasy and sci-fi novelist, Emma said she is living hers at Saviors, and Regina admitted Emma may have her dream job as well). They shared easy smiles, and Regina squeezed Emma's knee under the table when she, momentarily, got lost in thought.
As they finish eating, Henry announced he'd left his Algebra II homework for the last minute, resulting in a deep and scornful frown line breeching the smooth skin of his mother's brow. But before Regina could begin her reproachful refrain—the one that Henry (and now Emma) knew by heart about how being a man means acting like one—Emma jumped up to help him.
"This is going to shock the hell out of both of you, but I'm a freaking wizard at Algebra. Hen, we totally got this. Regina, I'll run up and help him with this and be back down to clean up from dinner in two seconds," Emma said, offering a winning smile on Henry's behalf.
Regina tried. She really did. But in spite of her efforts to keep her cheeks taut and firm, her lips twitched into a smile, and she tilted her face sideways to take in her girlfriend's adorable face.
"Mmmm. We'll see about that, Miss Swan," she said, her breath catching slightly when Emma shot her a wink. She turned back into the kitchen, never feeling Henry's eyes on her, taking in his mother's demeanor with delight and affection.
The pair returned 30 minutes later, chatting animatedly about the new Star Wars movie, which Emma had promised to take him to see on opening night. And then it was Regina's turn to marvel, recognizing for the first time the depth of the attachment her son and girlfriend had developed and how real it had become between them.
Emma announced she had to leave around 9:30. Although she'd been sleeping at Mifflin Street regularly, when she had a big party to prepare for at the restaurant or had to do early inventory, she sometimes still crashed at her apartment.
Henry gave her a hug goodbye, and Regina watched as Emma reached up without much thought and tussled his hair affectionately.
"Later, Pythagoras," Emma said, watching as the teenager bounded out of the room and into the kitchen. Then she turned her attention fully toward Regina, taking in the warm smile that reached up to her eyes.
Just like it had when they first met, Emma's body reacted to Regina, her heart rate inching up a few beats, a warmth spreading across her chest. When she was in proximity, Emma found it hard not to be touching her, a finger grazing a knee, a kiss ghosting her jaw, a hand combing through her hair. No matter how well she got to know her, Emma wasn't sure she would ever settle on the fact that she could call this gorgeous, sophisticated woman hers.
Regina planted her hands at Emma's hips, walking her backward into the wall next to the front door until she had her pinned, diving nose-first into the hollow of her throat to nuzzle and kiss, mumbling sweetly into her warm skin.
"Regi-nah," Emma says in a tone that's more of a turn on than a deterrent.
"Hmmm?" Regina muttered as she nipped at Emma's jaw, kissing lightly up to the corner of her mouth.
"You're not making it easy for me to leave, woman," Emma whispered.
Regina looked at her impassively, thumbing undaunted at the clean line of Emma's collar bone.
"Why would I do that, when all I want is to be the cause of several mind-blowing orgasms, curl up next to your insanely beautiful naked body, and hold you until the sun comes up?"
Emma sighed into her.
"You. Are. Evil. I seriously have to go, though. I have to be at work so early, and all my work stuff is at home. Plus I need to shower and—"
Regina silenced Emma with a heavy kiss, soft, pliant lips moving firmly against her, drawing her in, opening her up.
"On the left side of my wardrobe, there is a drawer. Inside that drawer is a clean uniform, a few of your bandanas, a brand new package of your favorite underwear (not to mention mine), and a pair of your kitchen clogs. Why don't you go on and take a hot shower, and I will finish straightening up? I will bring you a taste of my cider, and I promise not to keep you up late."
Emma went to speak, but the mirth in Regina's expression was infectious, and shook her head and turned toward the stairs, pausing only to slap the brunette's ass as she walked by.
Regina squealed and then watched her ascend up to the master suite. She stood there rooted in her spot for a moment, letting the happiness just lap away at her insides. It had been two months since David and Mary Margaret's wedding, and with each passing week, she felt Emma occupy more of her home, her family, and her heart. This love with Emma, she burned for it.
She gathered herself and returned to the kitchen where Henry was drying the dishes. Regina picked up a towel wordlessly and began drying next to him, the two of them contentedly occupying the same space in comfortable quiet for a while until Henry jostled her from her thoughts.
"You're the same. But you're different, It's weird," Henry said flatly, almost to himself.
Regina turned to look at him, taking in the gentle smile that was settled on his face.
"Different how?" she asked him.
"Like, softer, I guess. Kind of like, the way you always were with me, you're pretty much like that all the time now. It just feels really good to be around you, like your happiness is contagious," he said, a hard period on the end of his sentence.
Regina's expression softened around her eyes and mouth, and she considered his words. She knew he was right, and wasn't the only one who noticed.
Regina's editor wrote her a note highlighted at the top of the last story she filed, on the version he sent with his tracked changes. It read: "R— You've swapped wry and biting for sincere and compelling. Big upgrade. RIP Evil Queen? —GH"
She had scoffed at the note, but looking at the sincerity in Henry's face now, she knew this love had redefined her life.
There had been major changes. In the last two months, Regina was seeing friends more, taking yoga classes at a local studio, and she even started cooking again, delighting in being in the kitchen, conjuring new and creative takes on old standbys. She'd try fusing ethnic influences, adding Thai chilies to Swedish meatballs in what Emma eloquently said was "the best fucking thing she'd had in her mouth all week."
But it was in the tiniest gestures, the ones she didn't think twice about, (that are less about what she can get and more about what she can give) where she had let her guard down most completely.
Tightening Emma's scarf more firmly around her before she braves the cold. Throwing on her Uggs and running out in the freezing cold late on a Sunday night to leave a thermos of butternut squash soup with apple and ginger on the passenger seat of her Bug because she knows Emma forgets to eat on Mondays. Jotting down possible revisions in the margins of Emma's recipe notebooks. Taking note of Emma's nervousness around the mouth when she's stressed or uneasy and mindlessly rubbing the inside of her wrist with her thumb.
Making Emma happy made her feel lighter somehow. After nearly two decades of switching from one antidepressant to another and clawing her way out of prolonged periods of emptiness, Regina felt an ease, a warmth in her belly, that she'd never known. A persistent voice from within pleaded with her to guard her heart, but she emphatically swatted it away, knowing that whatever she was risking was far inferior to what she stood to gain.
Henry watched his mother carefully as her expression registered his words, and then he turned to leave.
"Wait, Henry. What would you think if I—"
A grin split across his face.
"—Ask her, Mom. Ask her."
Regina reached out and hauled Henry in for a hug, burying her head his shoulder. She looked up at him with bleary-eyed gratitude.
"Really?" she whispered.
"I love her too," Henry said. "She's amazing."
Regina gasped and could only choke back her tears, brushing the hair from Henry's face lovingly.
"You're not so bad either, Henry Mills."
He shot her one last toothy grin and then headed up to his bedroom, leaving his mother to wonder if her fortunes had finally changed.
Emma stepped out of the shower, pulled a towel around her body, her eyes sweeping across the bathroom vanity, warming instantly at the sight. Amidst Regina's tidy assortment of makeup, brushes, and hair products were a dozen of her own belongings that had accumulated over recent weeks—her subtler shades of lipstick and eyeliner, a handful of hair ties, her curling iron, and two bandanas she liked to wear in the kitchen. In the corner of the mirror was a note she'd left Regina in lipstick on a morning she had to leave particularly early for work.
R
I didn't want to wake you. You looked too perfectly peaceful. And hot. But if I had woken you, I would have said what I was thinking. Which is that I am hopelessly in love with you.
E
Emma smirked at her own words. Where had this sappy romantic been hiding? Somehow the snarky smartass had been replaced by this soft, gooey version of herself.
Ruby called her on it at work earlier in the week. The restaurant crowd was light, and the dinner rush had subsided by 8 p.m. Normally, Emma would be concerned, worriedly checking and double checking the reservations for the rest of the week. But instead she sat on a bar stool looking off into space, mindlessly looping a curl around her fingers.
It was a raspy chuckle from behind her that pulled her back to reality.
"Yes, Ruby? How many I help you?"
"Oh, Emma. In the state you're in, I'm pretty sure you are not going to be much help to anybody. Except your girlfriend maybe. I'm pretty sure you can help her with some stuff."
"And what state is that, Red?"
"Uh, how about dizzy, stumbling drunk in love? How about whipped? How about you want to marry Regina Mills and have her babies… or however you lesbians do."
Emma laughed, blood rushing to her face.
"Ick. That sounds gross. Sorry," Emma said bashfully.
"Don't apologize. It's amazing. You're like a Care Bear version of yourself. Rainbow Swan. Enjoy it. You earned it."
But a cloud rolled over Emma's face, and her brow tilted into a frown.
"Shit. I've just been so into my own head. No, I can't be. That's not— I don't want to be some co-dependent, lovesick—"
Ruby grabbed Emma's hands, which were suddenly swirling through the air, moving with her mouth at an alarming rate.
"—Emma. Shut up a second… I've known you a while, loved you for a long time. You're the best friend I have in this world. But you've always had this… Like we'd be talking about the most drunk we ever got off red wine or debating whose the most sexy/ugly person we've ever had sex with, and you'd just… disappear. Poof! You'd be there one minute and gone the next. And I always chalked it up to how much pain you had to endure in your childhood and how you had to grow up so goddamn fast on your own. But now. I see you with her, and you're more present than you have ever been. You're so vibrant, so alive."
"You're not co-dependent. You're just buzzing and in love, and I think I was wrong. You just needed to find that person who helped you see that you hadn't been emotionally stunted. That you were actually amazingly competent in the capacity to love someone with your whole heart. Which, not to brag, but I kind of knew that already…"
Emma had just beamed at her. Because she did love Regina that way. With her whole heart, nothing left behind, undaunted by how exposed she was.
She'd noticed that Regina was starting to cook again, caught on to how good she was, how clever and quick on her feet. And, most importantly, how joy she brought to it. So she'd accidentally leave a tab open on her computer with an intricate Filipino recipe with a Spanish influence, like one particular fiery pork strips sautéed in garlic, which, when she'd walked through the door at 9 p.m., wafted through the kitchen into the foyer. She'd stroll into the kitchen, trying to keep her face neutral, feigning surprise that Regina had concocted something so spectacular as she opened her mouth for a taste.
Looking beyond the lipsticked words, Emma gazed at her own reflection, mindlessly drying her hair with a towel. People had always called her an old soul, which she felt sure was code for prematurely worn down by life. And maybe it was her imagination, but she looked young, a light blush collected at her cheeks that had nothing to do with the heat of the shower.
She felt light fingertips at the small of her back, grazing upward along the knobs of her spine.
"You're stunning," Regina breathed.
Emma turned around, giving the brunette and kiss on the cheek.
"Aw, shucks," she said with a wink.
Regina shook her head, pulling Emma into her body, using the tips of her fingers to tilt her chin to meet her eyes.
"I'm serious. I can't explain what it does to me to see your naked body. And I'm a writer. Every time I think I know what this is," she said, gesturing between them, "you do something or say something. Or you just stand there, so unassuming, with no goddamn idea how fucking beautiful you are. And I realize that actually I have no idea yet what this is, what it's capable of becoming. But I do know one thing. I don't want to wake up one more morning without a mop of blonde curls taking over my pillow. Move in with us. Make this our home. Share your life with me."
The playful smile dropped off of Emma's face, and she gasped from the back of her throat, closing the distance between them with a broken, messy kiss, her hands instantly splayed against the back of Regina's ribcage. Emma suddenly felt fuzzy with an intense desire to consume Regina whole, to ravage her, to plunder her mouth and body.
Gentle, loving kisses gave way to a flair of passion, an imminent need to show each other the depth of what they felt for one another, how much mass it occupied in their universe.
Emma pulled Regina by the hand back into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the mattress. She moved Regina's body directly in front of her and gripped the hem of her sweater, helping her pull it over her head. Without pretense or prologue, Emma unsnapped and discarded Regina's bra and shimmied her black stretch pants down her legs, steadying her while she stepped out of them. Emma yanked her panties down, and Regina was finally naked before her.
Her blood was thrumming inside her. She wanted to calm herself down, but feeling this alive, it was a like a drug. She stilled herself long enough to take Regina in, to look at the body before her, all her luscious curves and long stretches of warm, soft skin. In that moment, with her heart pounding and her body on fire, she was sure there was not another human being who could ignite her this way.
"Come here," Emma breathed, coaxing the brunette to climb up and straddle her, eagerly snaking her legs around her.
Regina ducked her chin down and plied her with a heated kiss, their chests so close, the wild percussive beats of their hearts creating an intense soundtrack. Adrenaline coursing through her, Emma leaned down and captured one of Regina's nipples, sucking it into her mouth and tugging at it roughly. At the moan pulled from Regina's lips, Emma bit down, harder than she meant to, harder than she ever had.
The brunette yelped, and Emma looked up, apologetically.
"God, baby I'm sorry. I'm feeling a little out of control," Emma whispered, trying to slide back, to gain some physical distance. "Maybe we should slow down—"
Regina tightened her grip on her with her arms and legs, shaking her head.
"No. Stay with me in this moment, Emma. You're allowed to lose to control with me," she said, her voice gravely but strong. "We trust each other. I'll tell you if anything is too much."
Emma held her gaze, needing every available sign of affirmation before she would allow herself to let go completely. She really didn't even know what to do, but the intensity of her feelings for Regina were mingling with her desire for her in a way that felt a little dangerous. But Emma couldn't find a hint of uncertainty in those dark eyes, and she knew the brunette was giving herself to her, even in this moment, when the stakes were high.
When Emma didn't move, Regina stood up, grabbing one of Emma's hands to pull her along with her.
"I got us something. And this seems like the right time," she said, guiding Emma to her closet, turning on the light, and grabbing a rectangular gift wrapped box from the top shelf. She brought it down and handed it to Emma, who eyed it cautiously. She ripped off the paper, revealing a purple dildo and harness, and she let out a small gasp, her pulse quickening yet again.
"I want you to be inside me this way. I want you to fuck me with it, Emma," Regina said, pulling the objects from the packaging. "Do you want to?"
"Jesus. Yes. Hell yes," Emma said, watching as Regina smirked and began helping Emma into the harness. She tugged at the straps, helping adjust it to Emma's small frame, and then she put the purple dildo into place. Regina walked languidly back to the bed and sat down, her own heart racing as Emma moved toward her, amazingly so sexy and still feminine with an erection standing proudly at her pelvis.
The air was thick with desire as the blonde stood between her legs. Regina leaned over and took the phallus into her mouth, licking down its length, and Emma felt the very last bit of resolve completely dissolve into oblivion.
She pushed Regina back on the bed and gripped her thighs, pushing them back toward the bed. Regina looked up and caught her eyes as Emma lined herself up and pushed into her body, gently at first, stilling for a moment. Regina hissed out a yes, and that's all Emma needed. She began to thrust into her with force, losing herself in the momentum. She'd never done anything like this before, and she was surprised how good it felt, how much this felt like an extension of her own body, burrowed deep inside of her love.
"Yes, god, don't fucking stop," Regina growled. Her black hair was splayed messily and her face and chest were flushed, and her back was arched, and Emma knew she was close. With a sheen of sweat forming at her neck and chest from exertion, Emma moved them further up the bed, grabbing a pillow and pushing it under Regina's hips to gain leverage.
She swung each of Regina's legs into the crooks of her elbows and began to pound into her, putting the force of her desire and love into each push of her pelvis. Regina was whimpering and moaning, and the sight below her was enough to make her head explode.
"I love you, Regina. Let go, baby," Emma said, releasing a leg in favor of pinching a nipple tightly.
Regina's body went taught, and she began to writhe and shake beneath her. Emma slowed her movements, but she gently rubbed Regina's clit, trying to stretch Regina's pleasure, until at last her body went boneless and limp.
"Fuuuck," Regina whispered. Emma slipped out of her and removed the harness from her body, collecting Regina into her arms, letting the brunette plant her head on her chest and lay a floppy arm across her stomach.
"That was—" Emma said hoarsely.
"—Yes, it was," Regina breathed.
"That. What we just did. It was one of my fantasies," Emma admitted.
A slow, satisfied smile slipped across Regina's face.
"Mine too," Regina said.
They were quiet for a long stretch, each lost in the moment and the gravity of their own thoughts.
"But you never did answer me about moving in—"
"—Yes," Emma said with a smirk. She pulled Regina fully onto her body and reached up to kiss her. "That would be a yes."