hunnyfresh - Letters from War

"You must have liked it a lot," she laughed, trying to get Regina to rest against her, but the brunette wouldn't budge.

"You have bruises," the older woman stated simply.

Emma's laugh quieted as she frowned in understanding, but it was the green eyes that darkened in memory that had Regina all the more worried. "Yeah," Emma said finally, though her voice was quiet.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Nails digging into Regina's waist and a lip tugged furiously between her teeth, Emma frowned before nodding so minutely Regina wasn't even sure she was answering her question. But Emma did. She talked about Spencer and those two prisoners–one dead and the other, well she wondered if his fate was worse. She talked about how she found herself doing the grunt work or the most dangerous jobs even if there were better qualified people around. Sometimes she got leers. Most times she heard whispers. She wasn't sure which was worse.

By the end of her story, Emma's vision had clouded over, and it took a warm hand to her cheek, thumb caressing the familiar groove there for her eyes to flutter shut in relief from her own mind. Regina studied her. She would think the blonde's face would scrunch up in memory, but it was the exact opposite. Her face was plain and stoic recounting the events, as if she were distancing herself from it, as if she was summarizing a book she had read and not giving much indication it was her own life. So Regina kept her thumb steady until the rising and falling chest beneath her levelled out in a slow rhythm.

Growing up in Storybrooke, Regina never really considered herself blessed. Small towns had their problems after all what with the rumour mill and the lack of adventure, but what made the town a close knit community kept it unusually progressive as well. Sure, residents would gossip about one another about who fell into bed with whom, but once the excitement was over and done with, the town would find their next scandal, so to speak. Being in a relationship with Emma held no backlash or scorn by the majority. In fact, the soldier's mere presence was enough to excite the folk, and throwing in the Mayor and her son to create a happy family just added fodder to the chatter, but the general consensus was a well-earned I told you so, particularly from one Ruby Lucas.

But hearing of the real world, where outside their bubble, outside this haven of happiness where they found peace, contentment, and love for one another, was hatred and disgust, it made Regina sick to her stomach. Maybe she was too absorbed in the paradise she, Henry, and Emma had created to notice anything on their day out today, but Emma clearly felt it in the army, and it frustrated Regina that she was the one paying the price.

So Regina kissed her softly, a silent thank you for letting her in and a firm promise that she'd make Emma forget – forget all the wrong in the world and lose herself in this bubble of happiness she so rarely got to live in. She kissed her for every hand that wrongfully laid claim to her, for every word spat at her in hate, but more importantly, Regina kissed Emma because she wanted to, because she could, because what she felt for Emma was bursting out the seams and needed to release in the form of pale lips moving along with her own.

Regina hadn't realized she had been laying fully on top of the soldier until they paused for a breath of air, but Emma's arms were travelling up and down Regina's spine, their chests flushed hotly together, and Regina's thumb still stroking that path along Emma's cheek. "Can't you stay?" She asked in quiet desperation.

Green eyes disappeared from sight briefly when Emma shut them in pained distress. "I want to."

And Regina knew she did. Never before had she trusted someone's word so entirely that even though it wasn't the answer she wanted to hear, she knew without a doubt that if Emma could, she'd stay. She'd stay in Boston or Storybrooke, hell, even Tallahassee, just to be with Regina and Henry.

"Sometimes I think about leaving tomorrow, and I just–" Emma shook her head and held Regina tighter. "Can we just pretend? Pretend that it's any other night?"

Nodding sharply, Regina did just that, indulging in a heated and passionate kiss. Emma wasn't leaving to go back to the Middle East tomorrow. August wasn't in the hospital preparing to go through rehab all over again. She wasn't the Mayor where every move was watched and talked about by the town folk. They were Regina and Emma, with Henry asleep in his room, as they hid away from the world in this tiny apartment they all shared together. It was simply an average Thursday night where Regina would have work at the office in the morning, and Emma would be dropping Henry off at the little old lady three doors down before hurrying for that police training she was usually late for because that little old lady would always make her stay for at least one cup of coffee, and Emma couldn't say no, not when Henry was sitting in her living room playing with the two other neighbourhood children the lady watched.

They kissed feverishly, every kiss more desperate than the last. Neither knew when they would get to be together again like this, so they poured everything they had into each other with every touch, every upward twitch of their lips, and every flick of their tongue.

Regina exhaled hotly into Emma's mouth when she felt the barest fingertips disappear under her tank top, whisper soft touches trailed along the curve of her spine, and she shuddered against Emma as the blonde grinned at her reaction.

"Beautiful," Emma whispered just before claiming red lips once more, and though Regina had heard it a million times, coming from Emma, she felt it inside and out. "So beautiful."

Tongue darting out to meet Emma's, Regina reared up on her knees straddling the blonde and pulling her up with her as she pressed herself even closer to the younger woman. Then suddenly Emma's mouth left hers and was firmly sucking at the base of Regina's neck, and the unrestrained moan couldn't be helped as the heat between their bodies only moved to simmer in Regina's core.

"God, I've missed you," Regina sighed for the nth time in so many days as Emma nipped a path along her neck. She weaved her fingers in lightly damp hair and held her close.

Emma murmured in agreement against Regina's increasingly heating body and moved her lips past tanned shoulders to dip into the curve of her collarbone. Despite Emma's hands being in perfectly respectable areas, Regina's breath hitched every time they wandered too close to her backside and the anticipation from Emma's hot breath tickling her sensitive breasts made her body hum in want.

Then Emma used her nose to shimmy the fabric of Regina's tank down and kissed the top of her breasts. Respectability be damned, Emma held Regina with one hand at the base of her spine while the other retreated to a far more pleasurable location as she kneaded the soft lace-encased breast there, earning herself a breathy moan.

For a few blissful moments, Regina basked in the unashamed attention given to her. With Emma's steady hand and heated kisses – she gasped when the blonde tugged the lace down and wrapped her mouth around an all too eager nipple – Regina's senses were on overload and only increasing in intensity.

She had never felt so cherished before, so wanted, but that's how Emma always was around her. This desire to please her as if one wrong move would make her send the soldier out the door. Not this time. Not ever if she had a say in it.

Fighting through the haze, Regina gripped Emma's head in both her hands and pulled her up for a hard kiss that both calmed their feverish desire and sent them into a spiral. She had intended to distract the blonde so that she could take the reins and cater to the younger woman, but as her tongue explored the roof of Emma's mouth and flicked at her tongue, Regina just got dizzy all over again. It was when Emma moved both hands to the hem of her tank top, attempting to slide it upward, did Regina remember her mission, and with a force Emma hadn't expected, pushed the soldier down by the shoulders and grinned wickedly.