fondofapples | Inbox -- Genessia

Regina Mills
~~Queen~~ ~~Mayor~~ Mother
Sorceress
Fond of Plants

"You've reached the inbox of Regina Mills. Leave a message. If it's urgent, it's probably too late."

(text, voice, video, action, ooc planning if necessary for Genessia only)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

fondofapples

Several hours later and an hour and a half later than she intended to be...

Head splitting from a half hour argument with her current now former assistant that ended in said assistant getting summarily fired and being inordinately lucky that was the worst of it, Regina shifted her document bag from her right shoulder to her left and touched her fingertips to the door of her room. No spell necessary, she instantly knew the primal heat and predatory aggression of the dragon magic behind the door and had she not, she'd have deduced it from the several degrees difference in temperature of her door compared to the ambient that she'd grown so sensitive to in the month and a half she'd spent with Neil.

Knowing he was there lessened the tension in her jaw and let her shoulders down a notch by releasing her from the anxiety of not knowing, but it was setting eyes on him when she opened the door that began to knit her frayed nerves. She didn't have to work to summon up a smile for him, even if it didn't quite light up her eyes.

"I threw an overeager child across my office today for casting a curse in my presence," she informed him as she set her bag down, and if he heard a confession and a request for forgiveness, he wouldn't be wrong. "How was the rest of your day, dear?"

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil had stopped for take out, and when he saw Regina was going to be late, he'd set it aside with a charm to keep it warm until she arrived. With nothing else to do, he'd settled on amusing himself with magic.

When she walked in, Neil was seated backwards on a chair, a ball of dragon fire in his hand that he was morphing into various shapes in the middle of his palm with perfect absorption in what he was doing. The sound of her voice broke his reverie, and the fire winked out of existence as he rose to greet her. She had a smile on her face, but it wasn't connecting--that worried him.

She explained, though, and so he relaxed as he crossed over to snag her with an arm around her waist to pull her close.

"That's rude--a little extreme, if you actually threw her, but I wouldn't worry." he reassured her, leaning in to steal a kiss. "Mine was pretty good--got a drink tossed in my face, and I knocked a couple guy's heads together. Who'd have thought workin' the door of a bar could be so damn much fun?"

From:

fondofapples

"By overeager child, I mean Issa, my former assistant," Regina continued after his kiss, and stayed in his arms to let his body heat sooth her tattered nerves. "She was put out because I didn't trust her with my cursed objects and was working with someone she didn't know, named Jack. And the more I said there were no cursed objects the more she was determined to prove that I could trust her. Et voila, curse-casting without warning a very tetchy witch with an incipient migraine. She's lucky I threw her at the wall and not at any furniture. Needless to say, she's fired."

Getting the words out, having someone to tell, it beyond nice, and when she had, she took a kiss back from him, lingering to taste his mouth and playfully lick his cheek. "You don't taste like anything but you. Must've been a boring drink."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil didn't complain about the kiss, but when she licked his cheek he laughed, stooping to snake an arm around her waist and lift her off her feet, swinging her in a half circle with a teasing growl.

"Washed my face in the back room, nerd." he snickered, kissing the top of her head once he set her back down on her feet. "Get comfortable, I'm keepin' dinner warm over there. Then I'll help you with that headache. Also, tell me if you want her dead. I got no problems killing her."

From:

fondofapples

The lifting and kissing and swinging her around that felt so threatening in public was perfectly acceptable, even welcome, in private. Here, in her own space, being overcome with the innocent sweetness of falling and being in love didn't make her feel disrespected or anything else she didn't understand. She just wrapped her arms around him and held on, pressing her face against his neck to breathe him in and be glad he was here with her.

When he set her down and said to get comfortable, she cocked her head, studying him. This was new, and she didn't really know what he had in mind. Most nights when she returned from work, she'd remain dressed as she was until she finished the work she'd brought home with her, but she couldn't claim it comfortable so much as practical.

She called forth a silk teddy and silk-embroidered deep blue kimono robe that draped appealingly over her body. "No killing. Getting fired and shipped off to Everglade is punishment enough," she said in the same breath as, "Is this what you had in mind?" less provocatively than in genuine question.

From:

hellorhighwater

Accepting her mandate without complaint, he admired the teddy and kimono for a long, heated moment, then rubbed a hand over his face to focus on the task at hand. Headache, food--then he could peel it off of her. With his fucking teeth.

"Distracting--but works great." he assured her. Stepping back, he pulled off the boots he was wearing, then ambled over to the bed, sitting on the edge on one side before patting his leg.

"Come on over, put your head right here. I don't know much in the way of healing magic, but a tension headache? Definitely in my wheelhouse."

From:

fondofapples

Regina could have taken aspirin, or a bath, or even eaten something. Anything that wasn't staring at small print would probably have made the headache go away. But she wasn't going to pass up having his hands (and his magic, which said volumes) on her. Not a chance.

She did as she was bid, laying herself across the bed with her resting on his thigh. "All right, love. I'm here and all yours," she said, and then smiled almost shyly up at him. Being cared for in this way was as new to her as it was to him. Showing weakness got a queen killed. But she trusted him, and did have somewhat more experience at being pampered. "Work your magic."

From:

hellorhighwater

Smiling back down at her, Neil leaned over to kiss her forehead before straightening to lift both hands out in front of him. With a flex of his fingers, he summoned a ball of dragon fire into each palm.

"There used to be this guy in my unit that had migraines all the time." He explained quietly, voice low and soothing--telling a story less because of his usual babbling and more to offer soft background noise. "Poor bastard was a Sentry--they see magic. He wasn't physically capable of seeing the human forms of dragon shifters, just to give you an idea."

Neil flipped his hands over, palms down. The flames rolled over onto the backs of his hands, then were absorbed back into his skin, making his palms and fingers glow from within, as if made of gently burning coals.

"So I talked to some of the palace healers on the sly, learned a few things about his headaches, how to manipulate muscles and blood vessels...here, lift your head a little?...good, now close your eyes..."

Sliding one hand beneath her head, cradling the base of her skull, he laid the other across her forehead. Shutting his own eyes, he followed the magic in his fire through his veins, into his fingers...past the surface of her skin, into tissue and capillaries, skimming his awareness through the very surface...

Heat began to pulse from the fingers at the base of her skull, seeping into her body to find all the points of tension from neck to fingertips and back again, collecting there to relax it away, while the hand on her forehead alternated between soothing warmth and blissfully cool, stealing and lending heat and magic to control the dilation of blood vessels to ease her discomfort.

From:

fondofapples

Regina was listening, really she was, but the words flowed in one ear, passed through the golden treacle mush he made of her brain, and out the other. Later she'd probably remember that he'd learned because of a soldier he knew, but for the moment, she was content to believe he'd never done this for anyone but her and never would. Since it was healing, she wouldn't begrudge anyone else the experience...much. But he was hers and--

"Tell me I don't have to share your hands with anyone else," she murmured, mostly teasing, but quite possibly in the moment, she might have set fire to anyone coming within arm's reach just for thinking about it.

Her head felt better quickly, and her mind took a nice day trip to the special hell of what else he could do with this magic. It started with the back rub she'd have paid good money for but wasn't sure how to ask him to give. Then it took a quick southward turn to fingers pulsing heat both on her erogenous zones and inside her.

"Seriously. I don't have to share. Do I?"

From:

hellorhighwater

With his consciousness projected into her body, he couldn't hear her speak--but he felt it, vibrations through bone, a unique awareness of her voice that made him smile as readily as her insistence that he reassure her this wasn't something he would do for others.

"Ellis defected to the kingdom of Lora, haven't seen him in a few years." he murmured. "Haven't done this for anyone since."

He would have withdrawn, when he was aware of the pain fading, but lingered out of curiosity when he sensed new, fleeting tension in her back, the heat of blood running closer to the surface of the skin that was telling. With a promise to himself to ask about it later, he drew his awareness out of her body, up through capillaries and tissue and skin until it was there on the surface of her forehead, connected to his fingertips--where all he could feel was the texture, the warmth...

With a deep breath, Neil drew the magic back into himself and opened his eyes, smiling down at her while his hand remained on her forehead, thumb straying to caress the bridge of her nose while the hand beneath her head continued to channel soothing pulses of heat into her.

"Hey." he whispered. "Better?"

From:

fondofapples

"If I say yes, you're going to stop," she protested quietly, and felt, abruptly, stuck between the pleasure of the moment, and wanting to sit up to hug him. Just hug him and not let go until her arms ached.

After a brief struggle with herself, she sat up and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her nose and mouth against his neck, and bit her tongue to hold back the choruses of I love yous that kept wanting to slip out.

"I don't need my own space," she whispered instead, and held him even more tightly to fight back the tendrils of fear slithering along her spine. "But we can build a gym for you anyway."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil let his power draw back into himself when she sat up and wrapped herself around him--but there was something about it that didn't feel right. As he wrapped his arms around her in turn, he felt fresh tension rising in places he'd burned it away, and she held him like her life depended on it...

He'd hunted enough people to know the touch of fear when he felt it.

Without hesitation, Neil pulled her to sit in his lap, wrapped one arm tight around her waist--maybe a little too tight, but he wanted her to feel secure, or at the very least feel the resolve he had to keep her close--and reached up to cradle her cheek in his hand, gently urging her to look him in the eye.

"Regina? Talk to me, Beloved. What are you scared of?"

From:

fondofapples

Asked so direct a question, she had no recourse. It was lie to him, which she wouldn't, couldn't do, or...

"I love you."

If he'd seen fear in her face ever before, or felt it under his hands, or known tears to be threatening in too-wide eyes, it was nothing compared to the sheer, mindless panic that went with those words. And yet, and yet, there was something else, too, the wild beat of her heart, the defiant curve of a smile, the threat to break through that terror with bright, blood-red feral joy.

From:

hellorhighwater

The words didn't register at first, they were just sounds that didn't make sense because he was never supposed to hear them. That was the point, that was the reason, and as hard as he'd struggled to find the true path, at some point he'd just gotten on it because he forgot they were anywhere else but branded across the heart he fought to cut free of his chest.

He'd done it without realizing, held his heart aloft and proud.

And then he understood the words.

It happened openly across his face--the confusion, the blank look...then the dawning comprehension, smoothing out the puzzled furrow of his brow and leaving him slackjawed, shocked to his core, breath stuttering audibly in his chest.

"...how 'bout that."

She had that shaky, animal, brilliant smile touching her mouth, and it stole more of his breath as he smiled back and sniffed, suddenly unable to draw air through his nose--blinked, and felt fire slide down his cheek in a single tear.

Reaching for her hand, he drew it to his chest, laid it flat against that swell of pectoral muscle she'd once pierced with her fingers to wrap them around his beating heart, then leaned in and kissed her with all of the joy, shock, and adoration he could pour into a press of lips.

"I got my heart back. Twice--I love you, too. Ember's Breath, I love you..."

From:

fondofapples

Watching him, her brow furrowed, tears swam in her eyes and her stomach twisted so violently she thought she might vomit up her pounding heart.

She knew he loved her, not because he'd said the words (though he had), but because he told her with every touch, every kiss, every glance... She knew but it didn't make watching him now any more comfortable--even after he understood and her gut stopped twisting, she still quivered, sure that admitting it meant her mother or his King or some cosmic Marian would be waiting just outside the door. Sure that saying it was inviting whatever controlled places like this one to rip him away from her, like she'd almost lost Evie.

It didn't stop her from reaching up to catch his tear on her fingertips, or finding a steadier smile before he kissed her, or huffing out a breath she'd held too long when he told her again. She'd run away from the tavern door once; not again, not when love held her in its arms and offered he everything she'd ever dreamed she might want.

She kissed him again, soft and quick, and then slipped her arms around him again. He'd feel her shaking, she knew, but she couldn't care anymore, as long as he held her until it stopped.

From:

hellorhighwater

She was shaking like a leaf, and it broke his heart--but it was okay, because she loved him. She loved him, said it out loud, made it real, and violence was clawing its way into his heart alongside happiness, a blind raging bloodlust worse than even the one he felt the night he met her.

The man without a heart was the man who could not die. He was the man that could, and would destroy everything for the one who held his heart.

Wrapping her up tight in his arms, he ran his fingers through her hair, kissing her temple and murmuring a string of soothing nonsense to comfort her, protect her from the fear that left her trembling.

"It's okay...it's okay, Regina...shhhh, Regina, I got you. I love you, I got you, and I'm not lettin' go, okay?...shhhh, just breathe...I'm not lettin' go. I'm not goin' anywhere. I love you...I got you, Beloved...I'm not going anywhere..."

From:

fondofapples

Part of her wanted to be annoyed by the coddling, the litany of promises not to leave her that he could only keep so long as he was in control. She knew that part, and heard it trying to say he only wanted her to be weak so he could control her. She heard herself, looked that part of herself in the eye, and told her she was wrong and she should feel free to fuck right off.

The inner dialogue made her smile just a little, enough to let his words and his voice wash over her and help her. Help her find her own balance and control, not take it from her and substitute his in its place. Instead of staring past his shoulder at a fixed point to bring herself back in line, she closed them and let herself need the stroke of his fingers through her hair and not just need but enjoy it.

Slowly, the shaking stopped, the cold chill that had held her heart melting away in the face of the truths of right now: there was no one and nothing to stop them from loving each a little less preciously, and a little more like two very consenting adults. At which realization, she shifted in his lap to claim his next kiss for her mouth, and return it hard and hot, and absolutely certain.

From:

hellorhighwater

It felt like a first kiss when their lips met: that tiny sliver of space that was always so carefully kept between them completely gone, no fear or doubt or trepidation keeping them from falling all the way into each other. It was terrifying and fucking perfect at the same time, and Neil just wanted to keep falling, to lay himself further open, to strip away every single barrier that kept them separate.

Shifting her in his lap so she was straddling him with as little space between them as possible, he started with the beautiful blue kimono wrapped around her body, insinuating a hand between them to loosen the belt before he pushed it off her shoulders, growling in satisfaction against her mouth when it hit the floor and he could map the familiar curves of her body with his hands. Callused fingers danced over bare skin and supple silk as they splayed across her ribcage, her back, gripped her ass to pull her closer and palmed her breast to feel her arch into his touch.

For the first time, he let himself crave everything he usually held back: the softer edges of her voice when she'd whisper or moan his name in the heat of passion, the way she clung to his shoulders when he was inside her not to mark him but because she couldn't get him close enough, the look she got in her eyes when he danced too close to saying too much too soon.

There was nothing stopping him from making love to her tonight, and making damn sure she knew it.

From:

fondofapples

She felt it, the fizz-snap of a force-wall dissipating, when her tongue met his in the space between their mouths. The last layer of the defenses she'd kept between them vanished and left behind the taste of burnt marshmallow on the kiss that overwhelmed her senses. Her kimono slipped to the floor but his hands coaxed burning embers from her skin, and every touch felt new.

She smiled, a steamy wisp of a thing, and chased his mouth for that little growl, nipped his bottom lip and then dragged her tongue across the tiny bite.

Later, when she thought back, she would be reminded of what it felt like in terms of the difference between kissing Robin with and without a heart. But right now, her thoughts were all of the generous mouth trading breath and hints of love-words with hers in the gaps between kisses, the generous hands that mapped her curves like they were carved out just for him, the hard, hot body beneath her poised to do so much more than make her come, but more than that, the heart that beat for her and the fierce clever man whose chest it beat in.

She'd held back from him--not long in the scheme of things, but too long for full honesty between them, and her hands skimmed his arms and chest with all the desire and all of the tenderness she felt for him. And when she cradled his jaw tonight, and her thumbs swept along his cheekbones, the look she gave him wasn't hungry--or wasn't just hungry--but smoldered instead with all the love in her heart that had been thwarted again and again and again.

Fire burned bright in her eyes, a purifying promise that she wouldn't be afraid to take everything they could have with each other. That she wouldn't fight her way free when she spiraled into him. Not tonight.

From:

hellorhighwater

The little bite she gifted him made him smile, had him chasing her mouth again to kiss that maddening little scar on her upper lip before he took her mouth again--and when she looked into his eyes without those barriers, with fire and fondness and perfect devotion...only the sight of her in her fury, with elemental fire ringing her irises could have been more breathtaking.

He felt so light, so jubilant, that he laughed into her mouth as he kissed her, turning that already sugar sweet kiss bright with undiluted happiness as he wrapped his arms around her and fell back against the mattress, dragging her along for the simple pleasure of feeling that glorious body cover him, claim him, so he could kiss her and grip her hips and her ass as he rolled his hips up into the weight of hers and enjoy that kiss of friction that lit up his spine the way the new and silent honesty between them lit up his fucking soul.

His breathing grew heavier with arousal and emotion combined as he devoured her, drew out this new and familiar way they came together. He knew every curve of her mouth, every plane of skin, but tonight he could memorize and linger in ways he couldn't before--and if he thought too long about that, he wasn't going to last long enough to enjoy it as long as he burned to.

From:

fondofapples

When he pulled her over with him, she went, laughter in her eyes and lightness in her heart, and she would've been content to tussle around on the bed and kiss like teenagers experimenting with sex for the first time, just to be with him. Would have, but her body knew his already an the feel of him beneath her, his palms on her ass, set off sparklers behind her knees and at the base of her neck and spine that made her want to collapse into him already.

She freed her hands from the tangle of their limbs and the bedding to frame his face in her hands again, smile, and take a kiss both messy and the kind of sticky-sweet that usually made her snarl when she saw other people sharing them. And if it felt a little strange to be trading romance movie brushes of lips and noses and fingers with her dragon knight, it was the good kind of strange, the kind she'd never gotten a chance to get used to with Robin.

For a heartbeat, she had a strange sort of double-consciousness, the memory of Robin telling her her happiness could be right around the corner and Neil's mouth meeting hers in a surge upward to catch her as she pushed away. But it faded when she sat up over his hips to slide her negligee off over her head; then there was nothing but her and Neil and the way the air around the charged with motes of light and fire and the room seemed to glow with how much light her dilated pupils pulled in.

Hands skimming his chest, she breathed out, "Neil," and felt herself falling into the love she'd been only barely keeping at bay.

From:

hellorhighwater

The way she said his name, breathless and heavy and so soft with emotion--it was fire, hotter than the dragon fire in his veins, sinking through flesh and sinew to scald him from the inside. Every violent thing he ever felt with her in his arms rose up to choke him sweetly, possessive and brutal and blood soaked things that carried devotion and binding and promises of forever that he didn't have to hide anymore.

So he didn't.

Sitting up when her hands mapped his chest, Neil skinned off his shirt impatiently so he could feel her fingers on his bare skin, feel her body when he looped an arm around her waist to drag her against him again. Words fell from his lips as they pressed to her jaw and throat, burned them onto her skin with nips of teeth and broad sweeps of his tongue mapping that slender curve of her throat and the line of her clavicle, words like my Regina and all yours and more I love yous, as many as he could manage with every breath.

From:

fondofapples

For a woman with as much of an affinity for fire as she had, Regina had spent far too much of her life being cold. It made the kiss of dragon-fire beneath Neil's skin a simple, sinful pleasure that (especially after the demonstration of his healing abilities) somehow made her feel that much more beloved when he pulled her against his chest. Warmth was safety, and he supplied it for her in spades.

Of course, Neil would never be content with leaving her to intuit or infer his love from the heat of his body or the passion in his kisses. The man had never met an excess he couldn't exceed, and so it was with the outpouring of his feelings in the chorus of I love yous she'd been fighting off before, and his possessive my Reginas that made her body tighten around the bruising ache of the fuck he'd served up yesterday and made her even wetter than she'd been in the shower. The all yours she didn't even know what to do with yet, except lean over him and take his mouth when it was free to kiss him slow, and soft, and with all her own heat.

It overwhelmed her, the way he loved her, the completeness of it, even without the magic of True Love's kiss, there was nothing lacking in it and... she was overthinking, thinking thinking, because she didn't know how to do this and maybe she was a little raw, emotionally, still from yesterday or from telling him she loved him or from loving him so damned much already.

She couldn't say the words over and over like he was, but when her breathing felt too rough and her body quivered from trying to hold herself up over him, she melted against him, let him take her whole weight, and whispered, with her mouth against his pulse, "My whole life, I've wanted to be loved like this. I...had no idea..."

From:

hellorhighwater

The way she melted into him reminded him of how they'd come together the day before--a thing that made him hard just remembering, and somehow still bit at his conscience for how rough he'd been...and how much he'd enjoyed it. He took pleasure in some pain, some harsh touches, but the pleasure he'd found in her with the fire burning in his veins, scorching his thoughts, still felt somehow too much, something he had to make up for despite her assurances that she'd wanted it.

Even now, he wanted to do it again--but with her breath against his neck, whispering confessions of how badly she wanted the things he felt rather than the physical satisfaction he could provide, he knew he didn't want to take her again.

He wanted to do just that: love her, give to her, make sure he left no doubt just what he was in this for.

Neil pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder, laying back again--then rolled Regina onto her back, settling comfortably between her legs as his forehead pressed against hers.

"What, loved like you deserve?" he grinned, brushing his lips teasingly over hers as he let his hands map the slope of her shoulders, the curve of her breasts, the delicate arcs of her ribcage.

"Like every kiss that falls from your lips is oxygen?" He whispered against her jaw as he let a hand trail down the center of her chest and belly.

"Like I could make the Sky Maker fuckin' weep if I took my love and cast it into the heavens?" he rumbled against her collarbone, speaking between kisses as his fingertips teased the soft skin just above the elastic of her panties before sliding down to slide along her slit. "'Cause I could. My love would fly higher, shine with brighter color--I could make a damn palace of the sky I could give you with the shit you make me feel, Regina."

He sighed her name against the curve of her breast before he nuzzled that soft skin, then caught her nipple gently in his mouth as he carefully pushed one finger inside, humming with pleasure to feel her body yield under his touch.

From:

fondofapples

It was a good thing he didn't expect answers beyond her shivers and sighs, because she didn't have them. She didn't know how to explain her like this beyond the tautologous like you do, and the more he applied his mouth to her skin, the less likely she was to find any words that weren't my knight, my dragon knight, love and the odd my love.

Instead, she gave her answers in the sweetest of murmurs, in the breathy whispers of his name as her fingers wove through the thick mass of his hair, slipped over his shoulders and along newly familiar lines of muscle down his back. She replied in soul-searing kisses when he gave her his mouth, kisses deep and drenched in more than a century's longing; and despite the century's experience, in her body's eager and willing response to even the most innocent of caresses.

"Neil. Yes," came the quietly hungry antiphon to the query his finger posed as it slipped inside her, made all the more emphatic by the lift of her ribcage to offer her breast to his mouth and the gently insistent press of her hand against the back of his head. And for once, although she didn't realize trust was the reason, she didn't squirm away from foreplay in favor of fucking.