sorry about the late update you guys! Couldn't quite get happy with this chapter...the next one things will start to pick up again :) enjoy! And please review! :)
She woke up first, she woke up slow, and she woke up warm, all of her muscles relaxed and comfortable in David's sleepy hold around her. When she moved she found herself to still be wearing his leather jacket he had been lending her every night. She did try every night to give it back for him to use but he always refused to take it and would sometimes hug her too tight to wiggle free of the garment until she would give in and take it. So like every morning as of late she turned her attention to him to look him over and pay better attention to his temperature. Content that he was warm and comfortable, she settled her movement when in his sleep he wound his arms a little tighter to keep her close against him.
With her head laid comfortably on his bicep she studied his face carefully, imprinting it in her memory just in case. She lifted her hand to move her fingers over his features with a touch too soft to wake him. He was handsome and he always looked to be at peace. Awake or asleep he looked at peace and she could only hope that someday she would find that appearance in herself.
It had been four days now since they had told one another how they felt. The words 'I love you' had rarely passed their lips since. Worry, guilt, fear, and anger had them both becoming reluctant to speak the three simple words but they did show their nervous and unpractised love toward one another in small gestures, smiles, words, kisses, and of course sex.
She found it more than difficult to believe that he had truly fallen in love with her and she was rather certain he wasn't going to stay. There was always hope however and while hope had only crushed her in the past, she was foolish enough to give it yet another chance to help her rather than hurt her. Hope, as powerful as it may be, was a dangerous thing.
Her fingers moved gently across his brow, down his cheek, and then over his jaw as she frowned and laid her head heavier in to his arm. Why. Just why. What did he see in her that had him falling so quickly? What was it about him that was so addictive for her? Why her. Why him. Why.
She didn't have the answer.
With a hand still holding the corner of his jaw and her thumb moving softly over his temple she let her eyes fall shut with a slow exhale and moved just a little closer so she could rest her forehead against the bridge of his nose. She wanted to savour being able to be close. It felt so good just to be close.
"You okay?" He whispered as he woke up to her touch and she hummed lovingly against him in response and greeting. With his eyes still closed he took a deep breath to fill his lungs and wound his arms tighter as he let it out again, one arm up around her shoulders and the other around her waist. As his fingers drew random patterns over the leather jacket clothing her upper arm he nuzzled his head in to hers, his nose pushing against her own and her cheek with the movement that had her smiling which in turn had him smiling as well.
"We should get going dear," she whispered softly, "we've wasted enough time."
David remained unmoving save for his fingers over her arm for just a few moments longer before he moved his head away from hers only far enough for them to focus on one another. She relaxed her neck further so her head tilted a little further in to his arm as kind and warm dark eyes held is gentle icy blue. He had never seen her more calm. Breaking eye contact, he looked over her soft relaxed features and moved his fingers from her arm to tenderly hook a few strands of silky dark hair behind her ear, "tomorrow."
He met her eyes again as he whispered it and she smiled just a little, more so with her eyes than simply just her mouth. He didn't want to leave yet because he didn't want anything to change. They had constructed a perfect little world for them both there. No consequences, not one watching, no one judging, nothing to worry about, and nothing to regret.
"Tomorrow," she parroted in agreement and watched his eyes go back to studying her, meticulously taking in every detail. She loved it. It made her feel...special.
...
With David in the water Regina snatched up the phone from their pile of possessions and started a video as the sun warmed her body, "hello Henry. Thought I'd check in. David is swimming," she turned the phone to where David had been but was now nowhere to be seen, "ah well maybe he drowned," she turned the phone back to herself with a shrug and a playful grin, "good thing I don't exactly need him. Anyway, we are currently living our last 'break' day to its fullest! Enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine and the water in our own little secluded corner-"
"Regina! Oh my god! Regina!" He laughed and clumsily tried to get out of the water.
Regina lifted her head only to laugh loudly at the scene before her, "did you just-?! Oh my god! You did!" She laughed harder as David hugged the squirming fish tighter and yelped a laugh when he almost dropped it in to the water. Quickly Regina turned the phone to focus on David as he splashed out of the water with a large fish in his arms, "turns out he has been fishing," she laughed and shook her head.
"Quit standing there and help me!" He laughed and the fish fought him once again.
"I'm a queen, what makes you think I know what to do with a fish!?"
"Regina!" He laughed again and threw the fish toward her on the smooth colourful river stones when it began to squirm its way free, "breakfast is served," he laughed and gave a bow to the camera before breaking down and laughing again.
"How in the hell did you catch that?!"
David laughed and looked up at him as she raised her hands and wiggled his fingers, "I have good hands."
Regina laughed and shook her head and he laughed through his grin and pointed at her in warning to keep her mouth shut for any quick and clever remarks before dropping down to balance on his toes and examine his fluke catch. "Awe look," he poked it with a quiet laugh as it opened and closed its mouth trying to breathe, "it's still alive."
"Pick it up again. I'll take a picture."
"How? It's slippery," he chuckled and looked up at her and then the phone only to have his smile widen in greeting as he gave the camera a wink.
"Slide your fingers in its gills."
David scrunched his face in disgust at the idea and Regina closed her eyes and laughed with a hand over her mouth. Looking back to the large fish he hesitantly reached his hand forward and hooked his fingers in its gill, "oh god it feels so weird! Oh gross! Regina!" He laughed and slowly stood up with his arm stretched away from himself to keep the fish at arms length.
"Okay, okay, okay," she laughed and watched the dripping wet Prince Charming clothed in only his jeans, handle a fish he caught with his bare hands, "let me just-" she was cut off by a panicky yelp as he threw the fish away when it began flapping around with its last fight. She laughed loudly as he covered his mouth with both hands and bent forward as he laughed at his over reaction to the fish's sudden movement. An over reaction she caught on video.
David fought for air as he laughed, moving one hand to hold his stomach as he tried to compose himself, "damn it," he laughed and dropped back down on his hands and knees to pick up the fish once more. Pushing a hand through his wet hair he stood up tall and held the fish a little closer to himself now while Regina continued laughing, "take the damn picture!"
Laughing so hard it was practically silent, she nodded and ended the video before switching it from video to picture, "strike a pose!" With great difficulty he suppressed his laughter and hung the fish high off his fingers and used her other arm to present it with an overly wide grin and shoulders shrugged up. When the picture was taken he started laughing again, closing his eyes as he did and she took another picture.
"Give him a kiss Regina!"
"No!" She laughed and switched the phone back to video.
"Come on Regina," he grinned and moved his grip on the fish around its middle as he walked up to her with daring eyes, "give him a kiss."
"No!"
"Look at him," he pouted playfully as he walked closer, "he's so sad."
"I swear to god if you touch me with that fish!" She leapt backwards with a shriek of laughter and started running when he lunged forward with a maniacal laugh and began chasing her down, "get away from me!" She laughed and the video continued.
...
David watched her as she poked at the growing fire to get it burning enough to cook the fish they had managed to cut and clean. She had put on her white shirt but left all the buttons open and had left her trousers with her vest and blazer and boots. Confident and bold and gorgeous. It was hard to keep his hands off of her.
"Now we just have to wait," she breathed out and settled in front of the fire.
Once she was still David reached forward and his fingertips touched her jaw causing her to turn her head to look at him and his thumb moved slowly and softly across her top lip. His thumb lingered over her scar as did his eyes, "can you heal it?" He whispered curiously and she smiled beneath his thumb.
"Of course I could. But I don't want to. I rather like it," she smirked and her heart fluttered and skipped with uneven beats in her chest as his thumb moved over her scar.
"Good," he whispered and leaned in slowly, "because I rather love it," he whispered against her smiling lips and allowed a smile of his own before he closed the distance between them with a kiss. As he crawled closer over her, her fingers lightly moved up his bare stomach and then slowly she flattened her hands so her palms moved heavily over his chest.
Her hands moved around the back of his neck as his moved over her thighs and to her waist and then she was suddenly lifted and out of instinct her legs hooked around him. Her back was slammed against a tree, knocking the wind out of her a little as he kissed her hard so her head pushed back against the tree. "Fuck, you know how to turn a girl on," she growled in an aroused and breathless whisper as a large heavy hand moved up over her ribs and pushed against her breast and she pulled him back to her in a rough and passionate kiss that silenced his quiet lustful laugh.
His hand moved up over her bra and his thumb moved over her collar bone as his fingers slid beneath the collar of her white shirt and curled around the back of her neck. He broke off the kiss and moved his mouth to her neck and dragged his teeth over the soft skin and she tilted her head back with a quiet laugh in response. He smiled as he brushed his lips up her neck and then nipped at the defined edge of her jaw.
His right hand moved down from her neck over her chest and lingered over her ribs that expanded with every heavy aroused breath before moving down further and slipping in to her black panties while his left hand gripped around her bare thigh to keep her from falling. He rubbed her slowly and she hummed happily, her throat vibrating against his lips with the sound. She was wet at his touch and slowly her hums grew to moans and the soft kisses he left on her neck turned back in to bites and hot wet kisses.
The tree was rough against her back with only the thin white fabric of her shirt protecting her skin but the pain was happily ignored while he touched her. She rolled her lips in to her mouth as she moaned and arched her back off the tree and closed her eyes and pushed her head back. Her hands moved up along the rough bark of the tree that dug in to her shoulder blades until her fingers found a branch above her head and gripped around it.
She opened her mouth with a moan and rocked her hips toward him when his fingers moved faster and heavier over her clit. His hot breath blew over her neck and across her jaw as he lifted his head to hover over her face. She gritted her teeth together to slow the build of her orgasm and she dropped her head back down so it was level and she opened her eyes to look at him. He was watching her with a knowing smile, smug, arrogant, egotistical, call it what you wish, it turned her on, fucking her just to watch her move and writhe with pleasure, just to hear the sounds she would make. It sent her on a high and she laughed through her teeth as he pushed her closer and closer to her climax.
A strangled moan made it out of her lungs and her face creased with pleasure as she licked her lips when he pushed his fingers inside her and didn't let up on the heavy rubbing over her clit as he did. Her fingers opened and then closed back around the branch in sequence as she hissed through her teeth and allowed her eyes to wander over his perfectly muscled arms and torso before closing her eyes and pushing her head back with a repressed scream.
David grinned as she fought and panted, watching her breasts push against the restricting black bra with every heavy breath. He leaned in closer as his hand kept moving and she began to lose control of her body in the best way, "so stubborn," he chided through his grin and she breathed out a shaky laugh as she levelled her head to look him in the eye.
She shivered as a wave of pleasure radiated through her body when he dropped his head to swipe his tongue over her collar bone and then followed through with a kiss. She choked out a small scream when he found a particularly sensitive spot and her leg hooked tighter around his. "Mmmm," she whimpered and then tried to catch her breath as she writhed in wonderful agony, closing her eyes as she lazily dropped her head back against the tree.
"Regina," he whispered slowly through his smile against her ear and she shivered and came at the lustful call of her name. Her arms pulled up as she screamed and arched her back into him but he kept a firm grip around her thigh and pushed her harder against the tree so she couldn't get away from his moving fingers. She swore and screamed his name as he drew out her climax, watching her face crease as though she was in pain. She writhed beneath him, her strong lithe muscles almost providing her with escape but also kept him close to let him finish her. A battle of wills he always found exciting to watch.
Slowly he brought his fingers to a halt and he caught her in a kiss before she had the slightest chance to catch her breath. Wiping his fingers clean on his damp jeans and the inside of her thigh, he then tangled both of his hands in her short dark hair and kissed her harder only to absorb the sound of a small pleasure filled whimper at the lack of air he provided her with. "You are gorgeous to watch," he growled a whisper against her lips and felt her short heavy breaths leave her mouth before he kissed her again. Her legs wound tighter around him and he felt her smile through their hard passionate kiss at his compliment and just as always, he found himself smiling with her.
...
David laid on his back in the sun with his head propped up on his jacket while he studied Regina. She laid on her back as well, perpendicular to him with her head resting on his bare stomach. She had her eyes closed and her head turned toward him and she still wore her white shirt open over her bra and panties. His hand rested on her stomach and his thumb moved slowly back and forth while her hands laid limp over his hand.
She was soft and calm and beautiful. She wasn't asleep for he was looking in to those warm dark eyes only moments ago but she looked as though she could be. "I love you," he hummed and watched her mouth curl in to a small smile as her eyes opened again.
"Why is it so easy for you to say?"
"Because I'm not scared to say it," he answered simply and easily kept his smile in place as her dark eyes flicked back and forth between his blue, "I know what I feel and I know that I am not going to get hurt."
"Well of course you're not going to get hurt. If what you feel for me is true then so be it," she shrugged a little, her voice soft and vulnerable before she looked down at their hands and schooled the softness away in to a hard and emotionless tone, "I am going to get hurt or Snow will get hurt or the both of us will but you? No...you will be just fine."
David frowned and shook his head, moving his thumb softly over her stomach, "don't be bitter Regina."
"I'm not being bitter!" She scoffed an irritated laugh and looked back up at him, "tell me I'm wrong!"
"You're not wrong," he assured sternly and the fire in her eyes only grew as her mouth pulled in to the beginnings of a scowl, "but there is no need to go all heartless on me!" Too far. He knew it the moment he said it and he regretted it the very instant it left his tongue. Her face went hard and her eyes ran deadly as she sat up and tried to get to her feet.
"Whoa, whoa, hey," he caught one of her hands and held on tight as he quickly sat up, "I'm sorry," he frowned and she glared, dark eyes that had been so warm and soft only moments ago were now hard and cold. "I'm sorry," he repeated but she didn't budge. He didn't know how to get her back, he hadn't slipped until now, "I didn't mean it like that-"
"You did mean it like that!" She snapped and paid no attention to the way his thumbs tried to soothe her by moving overt he back of her tense hand. "Queen Regina; cold, dark, cruel, empty. Evil," she hissed and he frowned, slumping his shoulders as his eyes looked over her face.
"It was a careless word choice I will not fight you on that. But that is not who you are," he shook his head and smiled at her but she only gave her head a swivel and a tilt, a threat for him to choose his words wisely. However he chose wrong, "you are not evil, you are not cruel or cold or evil, Regina."
"Yes," she nodded with her head still tilted, "I am."
David shook his head in hopeless confusion and furrowed his brow, they were unintentionally getting in to something a whole lot deeper than accidental name calling, "Regina-"
"No! I am the naive woman who saved the girl from her runaway horse, I am the bright woman who lost her love, I am the lonely woman who unwillingly married the king, I am the heartbroken woman who cried herself to sleep night after night after night, I am the woman that got hurt beyond repair. I am also the wounded woman that fell into darkness, the cold woman who rips out hearts, the woman that kills, I am the angry woman that hunted your precious Snow White, I am the selfish woman who wanted your suffering, I am the mad woman who you all tried to kill! I am the woman who tore you away from your wife and daughter, who took an entire realm to a completely different world over a fight she carried with Snow White alone! I am the Evil Queen, David! I am the woman who lost everything! I do not want to be her, I wish I could just call her a mask or a costume, a name to be used as an insult. But I am her! She is me! I cannot get rid of that part of me! You cannot just pick and choose the parts of me you want to see or the parts of me you want to love! That isn't fair!
I do not want to be loved for only parts of me! I want to be loved for all of me! I do not need to be forgiven because I know quite well that what I have done cannot be forgiven. But I need to be accepted for who I am. I am cruel and I am angry and I am evil but I am also kind and gentle and good. I know pain and I know love. Both in their extremes. I am the whole fucked up package so you take me or you leave me. You do not get to pick and choose. And so help me if you ever call me heartless again I will rip your fucking head off your shoulders!"
He flinched at the vicious voice she yelled her final warning in and found his grip to have tightened around her hand but she paid no notice. She stared him down with hard eyes and a hard set jaw, "okay."
"Okay?" She forced the word out distastefully with a stiff quirk of her head.
"You're right," he started quietly and shook his head, looking in to her dark eyes because he was afraid to look away, "I am not being fair. I am picking and choosing and that is not okay. You should be loved for all of you, not just the good parts. You should be loved for your mistakes, for your darker tendencies, and for the things you are ashamed of. I know of your reign and I know that side of you but I let myself forget about it.
It is so easy to think of you as two different people because your behaviour can skew so steep. No I did not fall in love with the Evil Queen. I fell in love with you. But you know what? You have shown me so much more than just an evil queen. So yes the a Evil Queen is you. And you have shown me that an evil queen needs love as well," he nodded a little and she held his eye contact without blinking, "and I am willing to take a leap of faith and love her too."
He watched her carefully, looking for any change in her demeanour only to find none. So he let his words stew in her thoughts while they sat in tense silence. She was the one to break the tension. Quite suddenly she lunged forward, ripping her hand from under his only to move it with her other one to hold his head in place as she kissed him. She was desperate for reassurance and he was all to happy to give it to her as he wound his arms tight around her waist and kissed her back and her arms wrapped around his head and neck.
Her kiss was rough and it was rather mean. He assumed it to be a test so he didn't back down from the challenge and soon enough she began to calm down. Her tense body relaxed and she moved closer to him as her kiss softened and became more familiar to him.
"Forgive me?" He whispered against her lips and looked up in to dark brown eyes whose softness had returned.
Regina smiled a small and nervous smile as she removed an arm from around his head to trace her fingertips around his hairline and down along his jaw and he leaned in to her touch, "yes," she whispered and her heart skipped when he smiled back before leaning in and kissing her again.