Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Amour ❯ silk scarves ( Chapter 5 )

For explicit sexual situations, this chapter is a Lemon. The one on FF.net is edited. And I'm not sure which one I like better!

 

Amour

 

Chapter 5

 

By Zapenstap

 

 

Relena awoke to the rattle of rain against the window. She opened her eyes groggily, not remembering clearly where she was or how long she had been asleep. The dreams she had dreamt flittered through her mind in a dozen distorted and uncertain images, dreams that she couldn't remember past a flash of color and a sense of feeling. Her muscles were stiff and sore, cramped up from accumulated stress and the discomfort of sleeping in her clothes, her skin sweaty under the covers. She turned her head to the side slowly, her body heavy with sleep. As her cheek slowly sunk into the pillow, she gazed in bemusement at the locks of blonde-brown hair that spilled out from her eye line in a tangled mess on the black sheets of the bed.

 

Black sheets.

 

The covers slid to her waist as Relena sat bolt upright in bed.

 

Heero's bed.

 

“How do you feel?”

 

Heero stood by the door, drawing her eyes despite the unobtrusive way he inhabited space, watching her from the far side of the room with his arms crossed over his chest, his expression unreadable. She remembered him standing there when she fell asleep, fading into the shadows as he turned off the lights. She doubted he had been standing there for long. The lamp on the bedside nightstand was on again. She wondered if he had turned it on in order to wake her up.

 

She tossed back the covers, allowing trapped air to expel and cool, fresh air to circulate around her body. Her clothes clung to her skin, sticky with sweat. Her hair wrapped like wet seaweed around her neck and shoulders. She glanced around the room for a clock, but found none. There seemed to be little possessions of any kind in the room. “How long have I been asleep?” she asked in lieu of answering his question while she considered the answer.

 

“Four hours.”

 

She couldn't help but look at him when he spoke, those dark, gravel-like tones striking a chord in her body that hummed with a gentle, but persuasive vibration. She looked at him, appraising the face and form of the gundam pilot, Heero Yuy, the straight, hard lines of his body's muscles and bones that softened only somewhat in his cheeks. When their eyes met, his sharpened gaze pierced her like a spear, but the puncture was pleasant in a way she couldn't describe, a stab that flooded her with liquid warmth. It has always been like that. Unafraid, she studied him. He had eyes like a starving snow leopard in a storm, eyes that looked at everything as either a means of survival or with passing disinterest. The way he looked at her was interested; she didn't understand what that meant, but she remembered why she had come here.

 

“I can't recall what I said to you,” she said slowly. Dreams blurred with memory. Fatigue and stress had made her fevered, fatigue and stress that was partly physical and partly emotional, though she would never openly admit to the latter in front of Heero. But then again, she didn't need to. He understood at a glance. She could feel it in the intensity of his eyes. Still, it wasn't the same as admitting it.

 

“You told me you broke up with that man.”

 

That man. Did Heero refuse to give him a name because he didn't know it, because it didn't matter to him, or because it mattered more than he wanted it to? Could he possibly be jealous? Was that why he stared at her so piercingly? She couldn't let herself believe that was possible.

 

“That's true,” she said, “but it's not why I came here. I'm…sorry I even bothered you enough to mention it. I probably shouldn't have come here at all, certainly not with my problems. I don't expect you to be in any way accountable for them, or for me.”

 

Heero ignored her apology as if she had hadn't said it. “What did he say to you?”

 

“Nothing,” she said quickly, and smiled to cover up her embarrassment that she had even given away that something someone else said even affected her so much. “Nothing important. Nothing that wasn't true.”

 

True, but crippling. In relinquishing her relationship with Gregory Balen—yet another failed attempt at love—she came to see herself the way others saw her. She saw from another's eyes how difficult she was, and how desolate, like a pale flower struggling to bloom out of concrete on a deserted sidewalk. The way she lived her life must be so bland and even incomprehensible to other people. The things she did and said—her zeal for paperwork and meetings and diplomacy—must seem stale up close and in person, and the more she tried to balance her passion with the nicety necessary to make herself heard, the drier and more isolated she became. From a distance, a far distance, she was admirable, but from up close she was all frills and no color, like a banner tied to a mountain top, visible to all and accessible to no one.

 

Except that there was Heero, who possessed a passion for living that was by necessity even more intense than her own, someone who—like herself—had given everything of himself to one path of existence, and who—like herself—knew of no other way to live. Every once and awhile she needed to see him just to keep going. If there was anyone in the world who might understand her, it was this boy, the one with eyes like titanium mirrors, the boy who was midway between a boy and a man, the boy who had both changed and saved her life, the boy she had come here just to see.

 

She still loved him, she knew, deep down. But loving Heero was like trying to scoop ripples out of a pond, and no matter how long she knelt by the waterside, she was never guaranteed that anything more than ripples would come of it. Heero had told her to her face that it was unlikely, and his reasons for not being able to stay near her were the same as her reasons for needing to see him.

 

He was watching her face now, and something in her expression must have crumpled because he moved from his position by the door to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. His proximity was both soothing and invigorating, the very weight of his body beside hers on the mattress causing a hint of pink to suffuse her skin from her cheeks to her toes.

 

“What's wrong?” he asked. He lifted a hand to her forehead, sweeping back her hair to feel her skin with the palm of his hand. “You're warm.”

 

“I've been sleeping under the covers in my clothes,” she said, though that was only partly the reason. “I'm not feverish.” She wasn't in the sense of being sick.

 

“Would you rather I had undressed you?” he asked dryly.

 

She smiled; caught off guard and exhilarated a little by what she was sure was meant to be a joke. Was it possible they could joke now? “Maybe,” she said, and he smiled. It was just a slight curve of the lips at the corner of his mouth, but it was the light in his eyes that captivated her. She became lost staring at them. When he looked at her like that, so kindly, his lashes seemed to jump out in relief to the cold focus of his penetrating stare; he had beautiful eyes, especially when they were softened. She could have spoken, could have filled in the gaps of conversation with the unnecessary small talk or light banter she employed so well in any situation where it was required, but she didn't. Instead she sat in silence, taking in the comfort of having his body near hers, his arms and elbows hovering near her chest and that shining, kind look in his eye.

 

After a moment, sobriety returned to his face, shadows slanting across his skin as he turned his head a little to the side. “I don't know if it's a good idea for you to be here,” he said. “It's not safe.”

 

“Are you saying I'm not safe with you?” she asked.

 

“That's not what I mean.”

 

She only shook her head, not willing to venture into arguing over what he really meant. Nowhere was really safe. It didn't matter to her half so much as being close to him, whatever he claimed it might cost her if A and B happened over a time span of X and Y. Of course, she knew she couldn't stay forever, that eventually she would have to go, to leave the inside of these walls and reclaim the life that was so full of purpose and so necessary to the existence of them both, just as he would, but she didn't want to think about that right now. Compared to the way she felt around Heero, it was a life lived empty of feeling.

 

Heero was looking at her as if waiting for her to say something. When she remained silent he spoke, his words seemingly carefully chosen, and not entirely unexpected.

 

“The path I have to live has already been decided,” he said. It might have seemed a sudden statement, but she wasn't surprised. She couldn't explain where her understanding of the context for his words came from except that it seemed as if he had addressed a thought she hadn't voiced rather than one she had. It wasn't uncommon that they would sometimes think alike, or at least along the same line, though they often came to different conclusions.

 

“I don't expect you to do anything for me,” she returned calmly. “I know you have a life to live and things to do that are more important than I am. I'm just selfish enough to wish I didn't have to leave here.” She smiled a small, hopeless smile down at her hands, “or that you could come home with me.”

 

“Nothing's changed,” he told her in that same quiet, sobering voice with which he had said those words before. She nodded out of obligation.

 

Things had changed, whatever Heero maintained, but he wasn't lying or trying to deceive her. What he said was the truth in a way, in part because she had never really lost or successfully buried beyond retrieval the feelings she had always had for Heero; therefore, her feelings for him now were nothing new or unexpected. What's more, the situation hadn't changed, as the world was not safe, as they were not free to do as they liked, and as they were no closer to being together now than they had been in all the war-troubled years since she first met Heero. Also, Heero had not returned her feelings, or promised he would ever do so. But it was false too, because even if the situation was the same, and despite the heartbreak she had already endured, she wanted more now, or perhaps again, and was willing to want more without expecting anything to come of it.

 

“Relena,” Heero whispered in a voice that was urgent and worried and almost pained. “We agreed about this. If you're feelings for me are causing you to be unhappy…”

 

“You're ability to read my emotions is uncanny,” she interrupted, “but the way I feel about you is not what is making me unhappy. Four days ago, you weren't the only man in my life, you know. I found someone else, just like you said I should, and I stopped expecting you to love me and stay near me long before that, just like you said I must. But don't tell me to stop caring for you or to stop wanting to see you, because I can't do that. And I don't want to.”

 

He shifted on the bed, reaching over her body with one of his arms and leaning forward just enough so that his body hovered over hers and he could look her directly in the eye. Or stare at her more likely; a grounding, stomach-dropping kind of stare. She hadn't said that the feeling she had for him was love, albeit a love long-denied and willfully suppressed, and considering how voraciously Heero had avoided hearing it in the past, it surprised her when his eyes seemed to ask for clarification. She gazed back without speaking, conscious suddenly of being in his bed with him sitting just inches away from her, his body hovering over hers as night fell over the city, a single light from a lamp burning on the nightstand and throwing back the shadows from around the bed like curtains. With his eyes focused on her like twin stones of hardened sapphire, Heero looked terribly strong, and somewhat vulnerable, and irresistibly desirable.

 

“Relena…” he began imploringly, no doubt to tell her to stop caring for him, to stop worrying for him, to let him lead the life that he had to lead without strings to hold him back. But though she didn't move or speak to cut him off, he didn't finish making the request.

 

Her hand moved on the coverlet, reaching out just enough to touch the arm that had crossed over her body. Without severing their gaze, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. It was such a light touch, barely perceivable, yet the sensation of contact, the sudden connection of his skin under the pads of her fingers, sparked a little flame in her breast that warmed her throughout her entire body. It was an effort not to draw in a little air to cool off, and harder still not to let it show in her eyes.

 

“I thought you were going to move on,” he said. A harsh shower of rain pelted ferociously against the glass on the side of the room to punctuate the words.

 

“I tried.”

 

His jaw locked and his eyes sharpened, nailing her to the pillow with a gaze as hard as steel and twice as deadly. “Try again.” His glare was so fierce and so determined it ought to have overpowered her, but even lying half under him, she wasn't afraid, and she didn't believe him. There was a struggle in his expression, as if the hardness in his face was more like armor for himself than a weapon to use against her. It seemed to take everything he had to say those two words, as if he loathed the sound of them and their implicit meaning.

 

“Even when I was with him,” she said, “I still wanted you.”

 

“Relena…” The sound was uttered from somewhere deep in Heero's throat.

 

“I met another man, spent time with him, loved him, slept with him…” Nothing in Heero's face visibly changed, but she thought he might have tensed. “And still I can't help but think that something here, something between you and me, is more valuable than anything I would ever find elsewhere.” They stared at each other, stubborn and defiant, equally matched in completely different arenas of power, neither yielding to the other's demands, both believing fully and completely that what they wanted and what they asked for was for as much the other's good as their own. “I used to think you were a prince from the stars,” she said, “but even if you are just a lost soldier bereft of war, I don't think it makes any difference. We're connected. I can feel it deep inside, somewhere only you can reach.”

 

“The things you say…” Heero growled. “No one says things like that.”

 

She knew exactly what he meant. Her ability to communicate had its ups and downs. She could utter words that struck the cord of truth but made no immediate sense. She could also talk long and lengthy about matters that circled the truth but never stabbed it. She could use words to explain events, analyze emotions, change minds and alter destinies. It was the unexpected birthright of a girl who had spent the majority of her childhood in refined and observational silence. “Do you find me controlling, Heero?”

 

Heero's hands closed over her wrists, pinning her to the bed. He hovered closer to her now, close enough that she could smell the scent of his skin and the clean cotton smell of his clothes. For a moment she was frightened, not because she was trapped, but because of the feelings she harbored for Heero, the feelings she had buried and lashed down to keep her heart safe, the feelings which had only begun to unravel under her careful control, those feelings suddenly came loose and hit her hard in the stomach and all along her nerves. The feeling inside her breast was like tongues of flame flailing in her heart and body. She yearned to wrap her arms around Heero's neck and back and pull him down on top of her, to feel his lips on her skin, his skin on her skin, his body pressing into hers, but he had her wrists pinned firmly under his fingers and in her state of emotional upheaval she could barely breathe.

 

“Is that what he said to you?” Heero asked in an intense voice that was both calm and demanding. “What else did he say?”

 

She replied calmly, as if the question were about the weather, and tried to ignore equally the frigid cold with which Gregory's truth had blasted her heart and the steadily climbing inferno that was her reaction to Heero Yuy. “That my disposition is unnatural, that I'm too intense, that I work too hard, that I don't know how to let go of anything.” She was hardly aware of the deepening intensity that possessed Heero's eyes as they locked onto hers. He didn't seem surprised. It was almost like he expected it. In a way, Heero's acceptance of it made her angry in a way that Gregory had never made her angry. She stared back, refusing to yield, ice blue eyes meeting cold blue steel with an impact that jarred them both. Someone else looking at them might have thought the two of them meant to tear each other apart with the ferocity of their gazes, but it didn't feel that way to Relena. It felt…invigorating. Even as her mind and body fought to equalize her position, her insides dissolved under that gaze, her feelings liquefying into molten emotion that pulled the rest of her down like being caught in an undertow.

 

It was a surprise when Heero leaned forward, still holding her wrists down, his face and chest barely suspended above her own. He didn't seem to realize he was so close, and for a moment she thought that he was going to kiss her. His lips were a mere fraction away from touching hers, but he stopped just before they grazed her mouth. She saw his eyes widen slightly, felt pressure on her wrists as his grip tightened, heard him breathe more deeply. She thought she could hear his heart beating, like thunder in a hollow sky. He seemed slightly surprised, staring at her as if she were a strange creature from an unknown place, and the more he stared the more she felt like she was going to melt.

 

“I'm on fire,” she implored, and as if the words had been the catch on the floodgate it was suddenly all she could think about. A hint of desperation coated her voice as she struggled in Heero's grip. “Heero…”

 

All doubt and surprise seemed to leave him in an instant, replaced by what she could only describe as single-minded attention and control through a decision swiftly made and executed. Before she knew it, he had straddled her, his knees settling to either side of her hips, trapping her lower body with his. The look in his eye was concentrated resolution, but he almost seemed to be ignoring her completely on the surface, at least for the moment, focused on her wrists instead of her face, her hands still caught firmly under his fingers. Without speaking, he leaned forward and up until she could no longer see his face without straining her neck to look directly above her.

 

“What are you….?” She mumbled and then trailed off in a gasp as he pulled her wrists above her head. She struggled under him, her legs and arms and torso moving to break free of where he held her down with the position of his knees and thighs. She trusted Heero, but it was daunting to be manhandled this way, especially when she was trapped and desperate and uncertain what he was going to do or why. She couldn't pull free, no matter how she fought. Heero managed to engulf both of her wrists in one hand, and with the strength in one arm forced them against the headboard above her head. With his other hand he pulled the green-blue scarf from her neck with a sharp jerk. She gasped again, struggling futilely on his grip, her eyes wide as she arched her back and tried to pull her wrists free from his hands. “Heero!” She wanted an explanation, or for him to ease up on the torturous grip with which he had seized her arms, but he only let her struggle while he wrapped the green silk scarf around her wrists and then looped the material around the headboard of his bed, tying and securing the knot tightly so that both her wrists were trapped above her head and her body secured in place however she kicked and tugged at the silken bonds.

 

“Hold still,” he said calmly. “Just relax.”

 

She stopped struggling, her heart beating loudly in her chest now, her eyes darting around the room as they crossed over her view of Heero's chest and torso. She felt his hands slide in a gentle caress from her wrists to her elbows, and then from her elbows to her shoulders, and from her shoulders to her breasts. She knew she was breathing loudly, though she didn't remember when it had started, and her body reacted to Heero's touch as steel to flint.

 

Heero's hands slid over her breasts and the sides of her stomach through her clothes as he lowered his head and nipped lightly at her neck with his teeth, persisting to lick and bite until she stopped moving completely and almost forgot about her confinement. His lips felt cool on her heated skin, and she turned her head aside enough to allow him to trail kisses from her shoulder to her ear. She was aware of every aspect of him, attentive to the slightest touch of his hair against her skin, his hands molding her breasts, and the pressure of his thighs around her hips. The feeling of his breath in her ear caused her whole body to tremble. “If you want me to stop,” he said quietly into her ear as she began to breathe heavily, shivering beneath his breath and even more by his words.

 

“Don't stop,” she breathed, closing her eyes and moving her hips in a rhythm that accentuated the flame borne from the rush of blood throughout her body. Heero's body lowered to meet hers, and she was able to feel his arousal pressing against her even through their clothes. She continued moving her hips against him, luxuriating in the friction that heightened the arousal, the need, and the mutual desire between them. She wanted to touch him so badly. Her wrists strained against the silk scarves, but to no avail.

 

When she opened her eyes, Heero had sat up and was in the process of removing his shirt, pulling the cotton over his head and tossing it on the ground beside the bed. Relena's eyes raked his body, but he ignored her stares, leaning forward instead to remove her blouse. Not bothering to undo the buttons, he pulled until they snapped, ignoring Relena's protest that the shirt was expensive, and then reached into the drawer beside the bed to draw out a knife.

 

“Heero,” she whispered urgently, eyes wide and somewhat apprehensive as the steel blade of the weapon came close to her neck.

 

Still straddling her with his legs, squeezing her body under him with his knees, his arousal pressing painfully and pleasurably against her through the confines of his pants, he was in no mood to argue. Instead, he just began to cut off her clothes. The knife never came close to touching her skin, and was all the more erotic for only being able to imagine the feeling of cold, sharp steel cooling her heated flesh by mistake. Heero deftly cut her clothes into rags, shredding the sleeves and pulling the rest of the shirt out from underneath her back with one swift pull. Her bra was next, leaving nothing to his imagination, though he simply removed it rather than cutting it off. The knife he laid on the bedside table, laying the blade parallel to the wood.

 

When Heero turned back to her, his eyes ravished her body with undisguised approval, a small smile playing on his lips as his hands reached down to caress her skin and slide along her curves. When his fingers slid to her stomach her body moved in response to his touch, her arms jerking at her restraints. He watched her silently, running his hands over her skin until he was able to slip his fingers under the waistline of her pants. She made a soft sound of appeal in her throat without parting her lips.

 

Holding her lower body still, Heero parted Relena's knees and slid back between her legs so that her feet spread on either side of his hips. His fingers worked to undo the buttons on her pants while his lips kissed her stomach and then inched up to her left breast, engulfing it in his mouth and circling the rosy tip with his tongue. Relena gasped at the sensation, all the while aware of Heero's hands pulling her pants down her hips and off her legs with a quick series of short, purposeful jerks. His lips kissed her stomach, licking at a sensitive spot under her ribs that made her nerves flutter as her pants came free and were dropped to the floor.

 

“I've wanted you since you walked in the door,” he whispered, and the soft caress in such a voice as Heero's, never mind what he said, sent shivers down her spine. His fingers touched her where she trembled, smoothing her skin under his hands, heightening her need for something deeper from him.

 

Heero moved confidently down her body, his lips kissing and licking a trail to her underwear. She started in surprise, straining against her bonds, and gasped as he removed her underwear where his mouth sought new territory, pulling them off her legs and ignoring where they went as his hands pushed her legs apart. She knew he would not stop now that he was there. Relena closed her eyes and looked at the ceiling, panting as Heero's head disappeared between her legs and his tongue eased its way between her folds. She felt it move inside her body, just enough to excite her without being forced. She sucked in air through parted lips, breath that turned into a series of muted moans when Heero's tongue was replaced with two of his fingers. She struggled not to move her hips against him as she felt his tongue move up to her clit, his fingers still working their way inside her. Her moans turned to whimpers and her whimpers to cries. The build-up was fast, and soon Heero's tongue was assaulting her sensitive nub in a circular motion, his fingers plunging in and out of her opening until she struggled to hold in an orgasm.

 

“Heero,” she panted, straining against her bonds, helpless to help herself and helpless to stop him. “Heero, stop! I…”

 

She was going to orgasm and knew she couldn't help it. Heero became more aggressive and she could feel herself starting to overload. She pulled fruitlessly at the scarves tying her wrists until her arms ached, and as her breathing became more frantic so did her cries. When her pleasure peaked, she gripped Heero's body with her legs, her pants for air cutting off her cries as she came, her skin flushing with the exertion.

 

He knew when she was done, and while she caught her breath, eyes closed and face turned toward the ceiling, Heero stripped completely out of his clothes. She felt him move, crawling up over her body until he was kneeling across her chest. His skin felt wonderful, but she couldn't move to touch him. She opened her eyes as he checked the restraints on her wrists, and was confronted with the sight of his arousal stiff and straining in front of her face. Heero seemed oblivious to it, staring at the scarves holding her wrists and making some adjustment to the constraint that she couldn't see or care about. She wanted to touch his skin, to remember what it felt like to hold his body close to hers, but she couldn't reach that part of him with her hands tied. There was only one part she could reach.

 

When Heero did look down, it was to see her sitting up enough to be able to take the head of his erect member between her lips. Before she could do more than touch him with her tongue, he pushed her head back gently with his hand on her forehead, sliding his arousal out of her mouth. “Not yet,” he said. She relaxed in a slumped sitting position against the headboard while he tugged at the bonds holding her wrists above her head. When he was satisfied with whatever adjustment he had made, he looked down at her. “Are your arms okay?”

 

She nodded, though she supposed her muscles were a little strained, and her fingers tingled from loss of blood, but they weren't hurting. While she was thinking of this, he touched her underneath her chin with his knuckle and lifted her head up gently until she was staring straight up into his eyes. He didn't have to say anything. She could tell that whether or not the idea had crossed his mind before, he wanted her to resume what she had begun now that she had started.

 

She didn't speak as she opened her mouth and leaned forward as much as the restraints on her wrists would allow. Heero slid slowly into her mouth, waiting for her to adjust to the sensation, and then let out a soft sigh of pleasure. She sucked on him lightly at first, pleased with the way he breathed in response, hardening slightly between her lips as she rubbed her tongue under his shaft and drew him in repeatedly into her mouth until her jaw ached. He whispered to her that it felt good, bracing his body in front of her by putting his hand on the headboard and occasionally caressing her fingers where her hands were tied.

 

“Hold still,” he told her when it seemed to much for him to stay still, and touched her hair to stop any movement. He kept his hand on her head, not forcefully, but gently, holding her still while he slowly moved in and out of her mouth at his own rhythm. With her hands tied to the headboard and Heero's hand holding her head still, she could do nothing but accept what was given and listen to the heavy breathing and occasional murmurs of approval that escaped from Heero's lips. As he slid in and out of her mouth, she began to want his penetration elsewhere, a need for Heero's sex growing from somewhere below her abdomen. “Relena,” Heero gasped, dropping his head heavily and touching her forehead before pulling out of her mouth. “I need to stop.” He shivered, his body beginning to perspire, his member straining with the need for release as he took in deep breaths of air.

 

Relena tried to sit forward, straining to touch Heero's body with her arms, crying out softly with frustration when her bonds held her back. She wanted to hold him, to surrender to his touch in his embrace. It was a relief when he lowered himself across her body, dragging her knees up to either side of his waist with his hands, kissing her chest and swiping her hair away from her neck. His weight felt good on top of her, pleasant rather than heavy, the smell of his skin and the sweat in his hair fueled her need to feel him as close to her as he could be.

 

He touched her elbows again, running his hands from her bound arms to her exposed waist. His hands encircled her middle just below the ribs, lifting her body up slightly so he could wrap an arm around her back and kiss her between her breasts. As he laid her back down underneath him, she felt him shift the alignment of their lower bodies, his arousal seeking entrance to her without actually penetrating. While she anticipated his entrance, he sought her clitoris with his hand, rubbing it a few times in quick circles until she was panting, her knees gripping his waist and her elbows straining at the bonds over her head.

 

“Tell me what you want,” he demanded, and the tone of his voice left no doubt as to who was in control and who was submissive to that control. “Tell me what you want, Relena.”

 

She opened her eyes, meeting his cold, domineering stare with one of her own, and though she wanted him inside her more than she could put into words, she didn't reciprocate his request because that was not how she wanted it. To her surprise, he only smiled, and then he entered her with swift suddenness, driving straight up to her cervix until her stomach muscles clenched. She gasped, but her breath was stifled when he kissed her at the same time he withdrew and plunged in again, his tongue seeking entry into her mouth in an invasion she couldn't have stopped if she had wanted to. After a moment, his lips tore away from hers, his rhythmic pounding taking up most of his concentration. He panted as he entered and withdrew, his muscles strained and his eyes swimming and glazed over with pleasure, his hands holding her knees up around his hips to keep the space for his movement open and succinct. Although she hadn't surrendered to his control verbally, he still retained it, for she couldn't move much more than her head, though her toes curled in response to particularly pleasurable pulls and she panted at least as loudly as he did.

 

Pleasure rose steadily, obscuring her sense of where she ended and Heero began. “Oh, oh,” she gasped, “hmm, oh. Heero. Oh god.” Her fingers clenched and unclenched above the knot he had made of her silk scarves. Heero's thrusting didn't abate even a fraction, and turned rougher and deeper the more throatily and loudly she cried. His fingers made bruises in her hips as he pumped hard and forcefully in and out of body. Pleasure overwhelmed all other sensation, not just the pleasure derived from their copulation, but because it was Heero, because only Heero could consume her to the point where she couldn't see, think or feel past the union of their bodies. His groans and cries mingled with hers, and she felt her orgasm building slowly, swelling to a plateau where her pleasure was the keenest, and staying there for several earth shattering moments. Just as her body began to break at the threshold of a climax, Heero reached up over her head to apply pressure to her wrists as he thrust into her below, and then abruptly pulled at something near her hands.

 

The silk scarves unraveled, the knot came free, and Relena's arms came to rest possessively and lovingly around Heero's back just moment before her orgasm broke and crashed over her. She muffled a cry into his neck and clung to his shoulders, her arms wrapped as far around the smooth, sweaty skin of back as they would go, pulling him close to her chest as a few final thrusts brought him to climax with her. Their bodies shook in the other's embrace, releasing the pent-up desire and frustrations they had felt but had no other way to express.

 

In the afterglow, Relena found herself kissing and touching Heero wherever she could reach, her lips laying claim neck and shoulders, her hands rubbing and massaging his back as if cherishing something beyond precious. Her arms ached definitively now that they were free, but she didn't care so much for that as she suddenly treasured more than she ever had before what they were able to hold onto.

 

Heero stirred in her embrace, and she let go as he struggled to raise himself onto his elbows. She felt wide awake, tingling from her toes to the top of her head, blessedly aware of every scent and sound around her, and especially of Heero's form sprawled out and nestled in the crooks of her body that seemed made to fit to his shape. He looked tired, though contentedly so, and shook his head with a satisfied smile as if to clear away stars.

 

“It wasn't my intention to do this when you came here,” he told her ruefully.

 

She looked at him without speaking for a moment. “Do you really not feel anything for me, Heero?”

 

It was strange. Her need to know wasn't the same as it once had been. She didn't expect a different answer than the one she had always received, but there was something about asking the question, honestly, that was important to her, even if the answer wasn't one that she liked best. If it came honestly from Heero it would be enough. She really felt content to let things remain the way they had to be, to just allow whatever was possible to continue as it could under the circumstances. Even if nothing came of it, she wouldn't be crushed, because it wasn't a future result that she was searching for right now, but a present happiness.

 

Heero touched her face, brushing hair away from her eyes and pushing it back to the far side of her cheek. His smile was gone now, his expression neither exuberant nor melancholy. There was almost a sense of duty with the way he looked at her, and a weighing of thoughts and feelings that she didn't want to interrupt with words.

 

“I wouldn't say I don't feel anything,” he said at last.

 

Her lips parted with surprise, a sudden burst of hope flaring in her breast at this unexpected announcement. She half sat up, touching his face with her hands and looking into his eyes to see if he was serious. Heero's eyes widened as he saw her expression, and though he pulled out of her grip, he leaned in closer to her once he was free, holding her head from behind and looking into her eyes the way he once had years ago when he had tried to convince her that it was necessary for him to do something she didn't want to hear or understand at the time he felt he had to do it. “I don't love you, Relena. No, don't look away. Listen to me. I can't love you the way things are right now even if I knew how. I know you don't want to believe it, but it wouldn't be the best thing for either of us.”

 

“How can you say that?” she said. “I know you don't love me because if you felt what I do, you couldn't possibly say that. It's not even that it upsets me anymore, not after everything we've been through and not knowing what our lives are like, but if you do feel something, even if you've never expressed it with words, I'd like to know. What is it you feel?”

 

“I don't know,” he said.

 

And she could see in the honesty of his expression that he really didn't.

 

“I'm happy when I'm with you,” he told her stoically, “but that's not enough. There are a lot of reasons why I can't love you. I don't want to see you hurt. Accept that for now.”

 

“That doesn't explain anything,” she said stubbornly. “It doesn't make sense to say that you're worried about breaking my heart. I understand that love can be painful if it doesn't work out—I learned it first from you—but it can also be beautiful. Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but what are you so afraid of that you won't try?”

 

“I don't know how to do any of this,” he said quietly, and pulled himself out of her arms, moving to sit beside her with his back to the headboard and his knees propped up in front of him, his feet flat on the mattress. “I can't be there for you. I'm never in your vicinity more than a few days or weeks at a time. And I'm not just worried about your heart.”

 

“What do you mean?” she said slowly.

 

“Relena,” he said, and a touch of gravel entered his voice, the warning tone she was used to hearing from him when he felt he had to convey something she ought to already understand, “The war is over, but not everyone is satisfied with the way the world is now. Not everyone accepts peace.”

 

“I know,” she said. “What do you think I work so hard for? What does that have to do with us anyway?”

 

“You're necessary to keep things moving in the right direction, but we're not going to have a utopian society no matter how hard you work. There will always be people who turn first to weapons, and those who will seek to earn a profit by providing those weapons to those who have the means to pay for them.”

 

“And that's what you've been working to prevent,” she said. “I know that too. We share the same goal, and the only way to be sure that the peace is maintained is if we both work for it the way we best know how. But how does working together keep us apart?”

 

“I'm a distraction,” he told her. “And beyond that, I'm a target as much as you are, perhaps more so if you take into account that you're in the public eye. The only way I can be sure to myself alive is to keep my distance. We can't afford for anyone to find out about us.”

 

“I don't see that as something that would worry you.”

 

“It doesn't. But I worry what would happen to you if our relationship—however we define it—is discovered by the wrong people.”

 

She understood then, though her mind and body railed against the idea that such a precaution should be necessary ten years after the war's end, or twenty if it came to it, but she also knew that Heero's understanding of how dangerous matters could become in circumstantial situations was never far off the mark. She suddenly felt the full vulnerability of being naked in Heero's bed, her feet entwined with the black cover sheet she had stripped off her body along with the comforter after she had first awoken. Heero regarded her silently, watching for some change in her expression to signal acceptance.

 

“I can't agree,” she said stubbornly, glaring at the bare walls of the room, wondering for how brief a time Heero planned to stay here and the longest amount of time he had ever stayed anywhere.

 

“Relena…” Heero began.

 

“Don't,” she said, and couldn't hold back a glimmer of angry tears. “Don't be so kind. I don't want that kind of protection. You don't have to protect me like that. I'd rather you just…”

 

“I'm leaving for space tomorrow,” he told her. “I don't know for certain when I'll be back. If you're keeping up with the news, you probably know where I'm headed.”

 

It was one hard truth after the next. He was leaving. He was always leaving. She could probably narrow his destination down to a few places and confirm with a little research, but she didn't give him an affirmative because there was no reason other than her peace of mind to know where he was going. But she wouldn't give up. She couldn't give up on this.

 

“Even if you're often away,” she said, “and even if it's dangerous…” She focused her eyes straight ahead of her, determined to make the situation work for her whatever the cost. “I don't care so long as I feel the way I feel when I'm with you, or even thinking of you. Whatever happens, even though you don't love me, and even if you don't want to try, or are afraid to, I'll…”

 

“I don't know how to love you,” he said, and she realized that—for him—this was the hardest and most difficult barrier to overcome. There were no instructions, no training, no safety nets if he should fail, and he didn't want to hurt her by failing. She didn't quite understand Heero's present concept of love. She knew a little about his past, enough to know that it was possible he had never seen an example of what she wanted before it was too late to internalize it, and that it was possible that love wasn't a feeling and a knowledge he could manufacture just by watching. But even so, she didn't want to give up. There had to be some aspect of love that was instinctual, and the rest he could learn, if he was willing to try, accepting the possibility that he might fail, and if she was willing to be patient enough with everything else that might get in the way. It was truly a daunting aspiration, riddled with unhappiness and frustration however she looked at it, but even still… She opened her mouth to speak.

 

“Don't say you'll wait,” he interrupted before she could say anything. “You would be wasting your heart and your life on me if you waited.”

 

“I think you're underestimating yourself,” she said. “I know it's strange, but it's not so strange that you couldn't do it, all of it, if you had to, if you wanted it enough.”

 

“It's not possible right now. Promise me you won't wait.”

 

She wanted to be stubborn. She wanted to tell him she would wait forever no matter what he said, but what if she made that promise and somewhere down the road she wanted to take it back? “I can't predict the future,” she said rationally. “So I won't say that I'll wait if that makes it easier for you, but I'm not willing to give up so easily either. I will do everything I need to do to make sure that I am happy, and if somewhere down the road you no longer make me happy, then I will cross that bridge when I come to it, but for now…” She turned to smile at him, “for now I want to keep seeing you, whenever you can, come what may, because right now it's being near you that makes me happy.”

 

He touched her face, rubbing the side of his thumb along her cheek as he looked into her eyes. “Whatever makes you happiest,” he said.

 

Feeling that she had taken communication as far as it could go tonight, she changed topics. “Your mission to space,” she said. “Is it dangerous?”

 

“It depends partly on what I find.”

 

“So you're gathering information,” she said, and didn't expect a response. “If anything happens, contact my brother.”

 

“We won't be in the same vicinity. If anything does happen, it would be safer for me to return to Earth. Sally Po knows what I'm up to. If I'm gone too long and you become nervous, you can contact her about it.”

 

She was thrown by his thoughtfulness, so much so that she almost asked again if he was sure, really sure, that he didn't know what she wanted. But she didn't want to spoil what they already had, and she knew they both needed some time to think and accept what had changed already. “Thank you,” was all she said.

 

He leaned in to kiss her forehead, and when he pulled away his eyes shimmered again like jewels. “I'll be as careful as I can be. I don't want to die, Relena.”

 

She smiled at him. She smiled because it was almost like saying he had something to live for, not something that was good for the world like risking his life to keep the peace, but something personal for himself, and even if being with her wasn't what he meant, she could pretend that it was at least partly because he wanted to come back to her, even if it was just for a few more hours in her arms.

 

“Relena?”

 

She blinked. “What?”

 

“You're strong, not controlling.”

 

She didn't say anything, but she didn't need to. Instead, she just smiled. She had forgotten her concern with that in the midst of everything else. With Heero, her flaws didn't feel as much like flaws, or at least they were not the sort of flaws that scarred her soul. The parts of her that were weakest seemed stronger, better, and more forgivable. It was something she had always felt but could never explain, and it had something to do with the ways they were alike, and also the ways they were different.

 

“I'll take you home now,” he said quietly.

 

She nodded.

 

 

 

TBC

 

 

 

 

Author's Note: Ah, yes. Another chapter successfully completed (I hope) though it took way too long. I've been writing everyday nonstop and kept getting stuck and stuck and more stuck. I worked hard to make it come across right, choosing the right words, the length of each paragraph, sweating over the connectivity and dialogue, etc. My brain is tired. But I think I like the chapter now, and if readers like it too, then I'll know it was worth it. One of the more difficult things is trying to keep in mind what happened last chapter and what happens next chapter (and subsequent chapters because I've had this story fairly planned out for awhile) and trying not to jump ahead. I really appreciate all the feedback I've been getting, so thank you very much to anyone who has reviewed. I hope readers like what is happening in the story and where the story might be going. Predictions are always fun to read, as is hearing how people are interpreting what is happening presently and comments about what was specifically liked or not liked, etc. So…(makes adorable kitten-eyes)… please review? ^_^ (sends love to all1xR readers)