17 November 2000
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: 2xR in this section, 1x2xR to follow.
Warnings: Het lemon with references to shounen-ai--and sap like you would not believe!
Disclaimer: Don't own the boys or the girl, nor do I intend to infringe upon the rights of those who do.
Notes: Immediate sequel to "Vigiliae."
// denotes thoughts
This is for Tiercel, who campaigned for lemonyness after "Vigiliae"--I still don't think I managed it, Tiercel, but I tried! #^_^#
Relena hadn't realized she was cold until the polished wood of the hall floor was warm against her bare feet, the front door closing to encircle them with the house's stillness. They trooped wearily toward the front stairs, a sleepy chain of clasped hands and stumbling feet--none of them wanted to give up the contact, even though it made for slow going.
Duo reluctantly disentangled himself at the foot of the staircase. "'M going to get a drink of water. Anybody need anything?"
Heero shook his head. "I'm okay. And anyway, if I don't make it to bed in the next five minutes, you'll have to step over me on the stairs in the morning."
"See you up there, then." Duo padded off toward the kitchen, absently rubbing one shoulder as if its tension still bothered him.
Heero watched him go, eyes narrowed in thought, before looking back down at Relena. "I think he's going to need more convincing."
She nodded, leaning against Heero's shoulder as she watched the retreating back. "Still wound a bit tight, isn't he?"
"Mm-hm. You up to working on him some more?"
Laughing softly, she tossed back an answering innuendo. "Every chance I get." She looked up, then, her smile more than a little breathless. "Sure you don't want to help?"
"If I weren't already half-asleep--" The blue eyes glinted dangerously, but he limited himself to a brief kiss on her forehead. Unwilling to let him escape that easily, she stretched to capture his mouth with her own, swaying on her toes until his steadying arm went around her waist. At last he let her go, giving her a push toward the hall. "Go on. Before I change my mind and end up asleep in the middle of--things."
With a show of reluctance, she dragged herself off toward the kitchen, where the weak light of the refrigerator spilled across the tile.
Her bare feet were nearly silent against the smooth floor; Duo didn't hear her approach at first, and went on shuffling cartons on the refrigerator's wire shelves. His muttering separated itself into words as she came closer: "Three quarts of carrot juice? We need this why, exactly?"
She laughed. "Two words: night vision."
He straightened to look over the door at her, holding up a jug of purple-brown liquid. "I don't even want to ask about the prune juice."
"Iron? B vitamins? I know it's good for something besides the obvious. Anyway, weren't you coming out here for water?"
Pushing the dubious juice back onto the shelf, he came up with a soda. "Need something with sugar, I think--missed a couple meals, and I'm getting the shakes."
"Mm. I wanted to talk to you about that. About the way things came apart today." He wasn't quite avoiding her eyes, but didn't seem in a hurry to face her, either--so she wound her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his back, feeling his warmth through the thin cotton of his loose shirt.
"You don't have to drag it all out again. I'm okay. Really."
She shook her head without lifting it, not wanting to move away. "And people think Heero's the stoic one. Haven't you learned by now that you can't hide from us?"
"Can't blame a guy for trying." With a rueful sound that was almost a laugh, Duo set the empty plastic bottle on the countertop and laid his hands over hers.
"Oh, but I can. Especially when you're being so cruel to someone I love."
He released her hands and turned within the circle of her arms, his own hands going to her waist. "Heero shouldn't be worrying ab--"
"I'm not talking about him, and he'd call you a baka for even starting that sentence."
Duo opened his mouth to respond, looking sheepish, but Relena cut him off with a kiss so sweet that he momentarily forgot his next words, his last thought, his name. He leaned into it, the day's desperation making him impatient, more fierce than he wanted to be. Her hands slid from his shoulders to cup his face, gentling him even while the slow movement of her lips heightened the urgency building inside him. In an attempt to regain control, he pulled back enough to rest his face against her temple, trying to will his heartbeat back down to something like a normal level. Letting go of her was not an option; holding on was as necessary as breathing. But feeling her heart pound against his reminded him why he had been holding his breath since that morning.
His fingers slid gently above her temple to find the line of scar tissue that ran under her hair, tracing the path of the bullet that had almost ended her life. "I'm so sorry. I'll never be done telling you how much I wish I--"
She hushed him with one fingertip on his mouth, then reached for his hands and turned them palm-up. He shifted as if to stop her, but she was already pressing her lips against the scars inside one wrist, then the other. Her voice was low, but measured. "You're sorry. I'm sorry, too. But I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and we're going to need to find more to say to each other than that."
When Relena looked back up, his eyes were impossibly deep, but bright with reflected moonlight. "All my second chances--you gave them to me."
She tilted her head, remembering one of the beautiful things that had come back to her that morning. "And then you gave me the sky. It seems like a fair trade."
"Hardly." He gifted her with the rare, genuine smile reserved for Heero and herself--a slow, unbearably delicious curve of the lips that left her knees wobbly.
"You've got me on such a pedestal, Maxwell--who's going to catch me when I fall?" Her tone was light, teasing, making his heart race all over again.
/Do you know what you do to me, Lena? I'm falling and falling every time I look at you--/ Reminding himself to breathe, he pulled her more tightly into his arms. "Oh, I'll catch you, Lena. But what will I do with you once I've got you?"
Relena looked up at him through lowered lashes--a ruthless tactic even when his control wasn't in shreds, but devastating now. "Whatever you want?"
If she could be dangerous, so could he; and he knew her weaknesses well. One calloused fingertip traced her throat, following her pulse down past the collarbone to the upper curve of her breast. At her indrawn breath, his eyes flicked back up. "Anything?"
Speechless, she nodded, then gasped as he lifted her without warning, setting her on the countertop. Eyes still locked on hers, he slid slow hands up her legs, gathering the material of her nightgown above her knees. "Even if I want to do this?"
She nodded again, feeling heat rise to her face as he lifted her once more, slipping the last flimsy barrier down and tossing the lacy bit of underclothing away.
"And this? Will you let me do this?" One arm circled her shoulders, holding her up as his other hand coaxed her thighs farther apart so he could move between them.
At the first deliberately gentle caress, Relena's eyes went wide; he answered their mute plea with a light brush of his lips against hers, and then began his slow assault on what remained of her sanity. His mouth burned against her throat, her head dropping back as she was rendered helpless by the long fingers that stroked in and out of her. His thumb brushed cruelly light circles against the sensitive epicenter of the insistent heat that spiraled up and up, unfolding like fiery wings.
She laid her face against Duo's shoulder, biting her lip against the piercing sweetness of that touch. A muted sob forced its way from her throat as she tried to hold on to something like coherent thought. /Don't want it to end but I can't stop it and ohhhh it's too much, too much--/ Trembling hands clutched at his arms, her whole body tensed like a bowstring.
"Shhh. Let it happen, love. Go ahead and fly--I've got you, and I'll never let you fall." The low caress of his voice was the last straw, accompanied as it was by the relentless movement of his hands against her. Concentrating on the hot ribbon of sensation that twined around her consciousness, she gave up the battle she had already lost, her head falling forward as she gasped with pleasure in his arms.
He had closed his eyes too--following the arc of her desire with fingertips and heartbeat rather than sight--but he wrenched them back open in time to see her expression as she cried out, to watch as ecstasy lit her face with an incandescence the world never got to see. /Light of the world, they call you--but this light is ours. Mine. And I am never ever letting you go./
She raised her head at last, breath still coming in uneven sobs even as she murmured against his mouth: "Love you, love you, love you--"
"Love you, too. Always, Lena." He slid one hand to the nape of her neck, pulling her into another drowning kiss before burying his face in her hair.
But Relena was pressing closer, making him gasp in turn as she arched hungrily into him. "Please, Duo. More."
"Mm? Was there something else?" His tone was deliberately teasing, but he wasn't quite pulling it off--his own pulse was thundering in his ears, almost loud enough to drown out the insistent ache of his own hunger. But he wanted her to say it--needed to hear the words, almost as much as he needed to be inside her.
She opened her eyes at last, lashes dragging reluctantly upward to reveal fathomless oceans of molten blue. "I want you. Need you. Please, Duo. Fly with me this time?"
He nodded, swallowing hard, and cupped her face with a shaking hand. "Let's find somewhere a little more comfortable, mm?"
Afterwards, Duo wasn't quite sure how they made it through two doorways to the couch without falling, especially with her lips moving intoxicatingly against his neck. Even if it hadn't been pitch dark, his mind would have been too hazy for navigation, so it was fortunate that his feet seemed to remember the placement of furniture and walls.
But somehow, at last, she was laid out beneath him--and he was on her, all over her, unable to get close enough. The scooped neckline of her nightgown offered no barrier to his mouth, his hands; somehow it was even more arousing to slip under the thin fabric to reach the heated velvet of her body.
Relena wasn't as tolerant of interfering clothing, tugging insistently at Duo's top, then pulling at the drawstring of his loose pants even as he obediently yanked the offending shirt over his head. Finally he was stretched back out over her, all quicksilver heat and hungry motion. She smiled into the dark, drawing light patterns on his back as he pressed close.
He wanted to draw it out, make it last forever--all night, at least--but his body wasn't cooperating. It didn't help that Relena seemed to be just as frantic, her hands a continuous torment against his already fevered skin. At last, untangling their limbs enough to sit up, he paused to stroke her bangs back from her hot forehead. "Lena. Need to--"
"Mmm. I know." Her voice was husky, and her eyes were deep enough to drown in. "Let me." She knelt over his lap, frowning slightly with concentration as she steadied him with one hand, then looking straight into his eyes as she settled onto him.
It was like being poured into a mold; a continuous silken embrace, tight enough to make him hiss with sheer pleasure as Relena slid all the way down to push against his hips. Then she drew back up, a slight smile tilting her mouth as she let him slip almost all the way out before gripping again. His hands circled her waist, helping her set a slow rhythm, and he braced his feet against the floor for leverage on the upward thrust.
Twice Duo stopped, holding her tight against him to forestall the inevitable, gasping for air--the third time, she was too far gone in her own rising tide to be willing to pause.
He might have been able to hold on for another moment, maybe two--but then Relena clenched tight around him as she came, and he was lost. He knew he was going to cry out, but was still surprised when his own hoarse shout of pleasure rang back off the walls.
/Sorry, Heero--/ He buried his rueful grin in her throat, lapping at the salty hollow of her collarbone.
Relena kissed his forehead, nuzzling through the thick bangs. "I don't think I can move."
"I don't think I can let you. God, Lena. Stay just like that." Even with the aftershocks over, he could feel her heartbeat pulsing where she surrounded him; dropping his head against her breast, he gave himself over to a last sensuous shudder of pure pleasure.
But Relena's flexed knees began to protest the cramped position, and eventually she lifted herself up and off, smiling when he caught his breath at the motion. Stretching her back luxuriously, she pulled him down to lie full-length on the sofa, straightening her bunched gown and settling into his arms with a sigh.
Grey dawn was starting to creep into the room by the time their breathing finally returned to normal; with it came the rediscovery of petty things like drafts, and their chilling effect on naked skin.
Too sated even to grumble, Duo reached up to hook fingers in a throw blanket draped over the back of the sofa, dragging it down over them. Relena wriggled, settling closer, and he thought he felt her shiver.
"Cold?"
"Hm-mm. But you can hold on tighter, if you want."
It seemed like a very good idea, so he obediently gathered her closer. She burrowed into his chest with a sigh, arms folded close to her breast like furled wings, and twined her feet between his ankles.
Duo knew he wouldn't have been able to sleep that way--he always felt suffocated if he didn't have air on his face--but he also knew how much she loved to nestle, to be encircled. And some buried part of himself, the part that couldn't let go of the years of loneliness, snatched at the deep satisfaction of falling asleep like this: with her crushed so tightly against him that there was no dividing line between her heartbeat and his, just one lopsided, perfectly imperfect rhythm.
His last thought, as he followed her down into dreamlessness, was that he'd finally discovered a way to keep her from swiping the covers--she couldn't tuck and roll if she didn't have room to roll.
End of Part One
And, well, that's it for this section. Whew! #^_^#
Heero finally makes it back downstairs in the next chapter--stay tuned!
(:./lilias/matins1)
