12. Successfully turning the other on.
On a too warm summer night, Korra can't sleep.
The cicadas outside her window are too loud, her worn, Air-temple mattress too soft, her just-washed sheets too stiff. She's stressed and tired, and it's been two weeks since their mistake, that damn mistake with him, that her body refuses to let her forget.
Who'd have thought a one time thing would cause so much trouble? That she'd be unable to stop thinking about the way the harsh overhead lighting in the police station's maintenance closet somehow highlighted his every muscle, his every dip and cut, beneath her hands. That she wouldn't be able to shake the sounds of their moaned and clipped curses bouncing off of the cold metal shelves and bottles of stringent cleaning fluids covering the walls. Or the fact that her mind would keep supplying the memory of how he slid into her, each thrust slick and hard and everything she missed, satisfied that yes, he was just as good — no — they were just as good as she remembered, every single time she closed her eyes.
Mood be damned, it was a miracle she didn't decide to just sleep in that broom closet overnight, her entire body spent and still wanting more after their tryst.
She flips onto her back, rubs the back of her hand across her sweat-covered forehead, and tries to ignore the tempting want thrumming through her.
We broke up, she reminds herself. How would you feel if Mako got off while thinking of you, hmm?
The pulse of heat that rushes down her chest to the building need between her legs answers for her, overwhelms the inklings of guilt tugging at her. She toys with the edge of her underwear, the flick of her warm fingers against her sensitive skin far too nice while she deliberates.
Just this once, she decides.
Her hand slides lower.
Just this one time.
She starts with his lips.
Thoughts of how he draws them into a tight line when he's bristling with almost comical disdain, a pursed frown that accentuates the severe cut of his jaw, the hollows of his cheeks, the sear of his gaze.
How he worries the right corner of his lower lip when he's about to say something half-thought through and full of regret, an accidental apology she'll swallow down like a strong liquor, ignoring the burn, enjoying the sharp aftertaste of his words in her mouth.
She thinks of his hands.
How he grabs and clutches at whatever he can secure in his grasp, the desperation that kept him alive for years like a puppeteer still pulling at his limbs, jerking his every movement at its whim, instructing him to take what he needs, who he needs, and not let go unless he's forced to do just that.
How even his gentlest touches rub coarsely over her skin, his calloused fingertips insisting she remember exactly where he has trailed his hands down the slope of her neck, the swell of her breasts, and up the tender, soft skin on her inner thighs.
She thinks of him, of how he learned to read her, learned to see when she wanted to move slowly, touch softly until one of them unraveled with want, or when she wanted him bearing down on her, handling her with his rough, clutching, grabbing hands, and that mouth, full of its half-empty words and his bitter taste, bruising her own pliant lips.
She thinks of his lips, his hands, his firm arms, his hard chest, each inch of him, until his every detail seeps into her and soothes her ache even as she burns, until she can practically hear his voice spilling from those lips as they cover her skin, until she can almost feel his hand rubbing, pushing, working her to her peak in place of her own.
Release rushes through her tensed body, a choked moan fighting to break the fragile silence hanging over her, and her hand stills. She listens to her heavy breaths as they fill the air, the sound loud and harsh against her own ears.
Just that once, she tells herself as she stands and changes into another pair of underwear.
No more broom closet escapades and fantasizing about your ex, she says, as she slides under her warm and wrinkled sheets. (She scoffs at how little she believes herself, wondering what he thinks of when he does this, desperate to know what feature of hers he starts with, what he works up to, what memory pushes him over the edge.)
It was just a one time thing.
Right.