Chapter Text
Emma hears the front door close and a moment later, the sound of an engine starting. She pulls her shirt over her head, and as she walks past the mirror on her way to the shower, her eyes can’t help but be drawn to the two arcs inscribed upon the flesh of her shoulder. They haven’t bruised – yet – but she suspects they will soon join the collection of purple and red anointing various parts of her body.
She looks a little closer and marvels, not for the first time, at how straight Regina’s teeth are. Any orthodontist would be proud to be responsible for this bite pattern and the smile it belongs to. The smile it belongs to can be cruel, mocking, hungry, predatory and ever so occasionally (but never for Emma) it can be warm. She traces each indentation with her fingers, mapping out the startling evenness, as perfectly aligned as soldiers in formation.
She tries not to dwell on what this perfect visual echo of Regina’s smile represents. Tries not to dwell on her hopeless desire to hear her name fall from Regina’s lips in a benediction rather than a curse for once. Tries not to dwell on the memory of Regina sinking teeth into her shoulder in an effort to avoid just that, as Emma’s fingers coaxed wave after wave of pleasure from her.
It hadn’t been a surprise that sex between them was as adversarial, as fraught as every other aspect of their relationship. The segue between fighting and fucking is barely perceptible and everything is swept up into a maelstrom of hate and desire, of sensation, of cathartic release. Breath that comes quick and harsh with anger is remodulated, just as quick, but somehow different, as hands and tongues seek out bare skin. Pleasure is intense; every orgasm feels like it could end the world. With Regina, everything always feels like more, somehow, like walking into the midday sun after years spent underground.
The surprise is in the brief moments of tenderness that emerge, like when Regina presses soft kisses to her hipbones, or brushes a gentle thumb across her lower lip. Those moments are all too fleeting, because almost immediately, Regina remembers herself and there are teeth replacing the thumb, or fingernails digging into her sides.
She catalogues each of those marks: on her throat, her shoulder, her breasts, her back, her thighs. They’re a breadcrumb trail retracing the path of pleasure given and taken. Right now, they’re stark against her pale skin, but soon they will be gone and it will appear as if Regina’s teeth and tongue and lips and fingers had not been there at all. She’ll mourn their loss and crave their restoration, crave the next moment when fingers will sink deep inside her and perfect teeth will mar her skin.
But the truth is that even when those marks fade, others will still be there, etched deeper than skin and muscle and bone and viscera. Regina has found a way inside her and now Emma wants things she knows she can’t have. She wants the tender, the soft, the smile like a hot water bottle pressed to her abdomen, warming her through. She wants all these things but when she opens herself to them, Regina’s eyes are like a door slamming shut and her smile is cruel again.
She gets into the shower and runs it hot, almost hotter than she can bear, with water driving against her skin like thousands of needles. She wishes she could wash it all away, slough it off like so much dead skin. She can’t, though, so she focuses on scrubbing away the stickiness between her thighs and the scent of Regina clinging to her skin and hopes that the rest will somehow fade with time.