Sharp sense of insecurity

[anatural]

[This is a really bad idea. Korra knows this, repeats it over and over to herself as she takes the elevator up to Hei's apartment.

Just a sad little girl willing to spread her legs for anyone who'd pay attention to her. A sad little girl who can only love people who hurt her.

She thought she had worked these issues out years ago. She's no longer ashamed of her sexual history or her turbulent relationship with Hei. She's comfortable with who she is. And yet ... The spirit's words clawed their way under her skin, turning her blood into slime. Making her feel tainted and deformed. She destroyed the spirit, but the wound remains.

She can't bear to go home to Mai and Asami like this. She's in no condition to really accept the comfort that Asami has to offer, without secretly wondering if the other woman was just blinded by affection. Most importantly, she doesn't want this taint to reach her little girl.

This is a bad idea. But she presses on because she suspects it's the irrational, self-loathing part of her talking and not her real self. Yet a sick feeling in her gut leaves her uncertain whether this is something she really needs ... or a terrible mistake.]

Comments

[anatural]

[FINALLY. Korra claws him appreciatively as he gnaws on her and his fingers work their magic.

A sad little girl who can only love people who hurt her.

Shut up! she snarls to that voice in her mind. She loves plenty of people who don't hurt her. And she doesn't love Hei just because he does. Or because he does amazing things to her body. It's more than that and she could list all the reasons if she could just think clearly, which is hard to do when he's touching her like this but she doesn't want him to stop (doesn't want to have her head clear and realize she still can't think of reasons she loves him).]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Why does she love him? Everytime he comes back to that, it is like touching a wound. ]

[ He'd like not to believe their relationship was just a horror-show. That the mistrust and violence was just one little facet of their story, and not the most important. Except she still struggles with that rationalization herself, it is plain to see. He has no trouble imagining even his secret self -- that stone-cold killer -- falling in love with this girl, this pure pillar of righteous deadly power. It is the other way around he still can't fathom. So he'd helped her out of a jam once or twice, been a crying shoulder, a constant fixture, living and fighting at her side. Former enemies can become comrades, he knows that. ]

[ But to choose as her lover a man with such a brutal history? Who killed for a living? Who'd begun by hunting and planning to kill her? To lavish on him such tenderness, to so reflexively surrender herself, even choose to have his child? ]

[ The more he experiences it, the more perplexing, perturbing, disturbing it is. She can rage at him for days, accuse him of trying to explain away her feelings. But a girl meant to be the embodiment of balance and brightness, her life dedicated to eradicating monsters of chaos -- for that girl to want to lie down with one every day, to give herself to him so utterly ... There is something sordid in it. You can soften it and clarify it all you like, but there it is. ]

[ It's not her fault. The conviction rises through him like a bloodrush. It is just everything she'd endured in the City. All the isolation and misery. All the terrible ways her identity was battered, denigrated, downtrodden -- downright erased. It can take a good girl -- the strongest girl -- and warps her into... ]

[ Into what? a sly voice prods. Not into someone like him. He understands -- with an unshakeable conviction -- that no matter how misshapen or altered Korra becomes, she'll always be a hundred times better than he ever can be. ]

[ Her sex seems to ripple and clutch at his fingers: he works into her with two, in and out, as deep as his knuckles. His teeth suck purple rosettes of bruises everywhere he can reach -- across her throat, the swell of her right breast, the underside of her left, the soft skin of her inner-arm, the gleaming point of her shoulder. Her body is slippery and wild: the air is a waft of steam and spicy Korra-smell, and for a moment Hei is happy, blissfully happy, shining through his misery. ]

[ In moments like these, his misgivings shiver into dust. Carry him away from reality, and into truth. ]

[anatural]

[People are complicated and love is strange. At the end of the day, that's the only explanation there is, and the only one Korra needs when a canny evil spirit hasn't gotten under her skin. It's not in her nature to question her feelings and their legitimacy. She feels what she feels.

But while she's gotten older and wiser, she does still care how people see her. She does still sometimes use other people's perceptions as a reality check on her own. Which is a good thing when the source can be trusted -- and a bad thing when it can't.

She claws at him, panting, gasping. They've splashed bath water so far that their discarded clothes have gotten wet, not that she notices or cares. All of her attention is split between her rapidly approaching climax and her eagerness to take this to the bedroom. Dildos can be great, but sometimes a girl just needs a real live cock.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei watches, unblinking -- transfixed -- as she climbs. Her whole body is a sleek undulation: he watches her stomach pucker, her breasts swaying, the muscles rippling under her skin. Also the water is almost a reassuring medium between them -- it gathers around their bodies like a physical pressure, as if urging him to embrace her, while also keeping their bodies discrete and a little unreal, just enough to make any intimacy possible. ]

[ An embrace with her in the empty air out there in the real world feels like it would be so much more difficult. ]

[ Working his trapped hand deeper between her clenched thighs, he works her swollen clit with his thumb. Meanwhile his kisses grow softer: he lingers to taste her mouth, to suck the plumpness of her lower-lip between his teeth, to taste the warmth of her jittery little breaths. He can feel that familiar want congealing through his muscles: his dick is at half-mast, sliding against Korra's restless body, throbbing and interested in every particle as it twitches, lengthens. ]

[ He almost doesn't want to make her come. Almost doesn't want to fuck her. He wants to delay that inevitable landslide from blissful hope to miserable reality, to keep them enveloped entirely in this moment: wrapped around each other in a silence disturbed only by their panting breaths and the splash of water. ]

[anatural]

Please... Tell me this place... Is soundproof. [Not that it matters now, because there's no stopping her scream as she tumbles over the edge. Fuck. She's left limp and trembling, melting against his body.]

Wow. [It comes out as a gasp, without her really thinking about it or intending to say anything. It's been awhile since she's come that hard. I've missed this. She presses kisses to every part of his body she can reach without expending a lot of effort; she doesn't have much strength to offer at the moment.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's missed this too. Missed the way her body seems to rise helplessly in his arms, her muscles strung out with the frenzy of her need, her scream a shrill pulsing missile that slices through his whole body to ignite straight in his groin. There's other details he's missed too. The way she puddles across him afterward, with the meekness of her satisfaction: a living sculpture of spent energy. The way she trusts him so completely -- this person who has spread so much disaster through her life -- without even an echo of fear, an iota of reserve. ]

[ At least on the surface. ]

[ Carefully, he sits up in the water, shivering as the cool air touches his wet skin. Draped across him, Korra is a moist heavy stole, her kisses warm blossoms of heat. In diplomatic stages, he withdraws his fingers from the twitching clutches of her sex. Nuzzles the musky juncture of her shoulder, kisses her throat, the point of her chin, before smoothing the wet tangles of her from her brow with his right hand. ]

[ His mind is hazy in the aftermath of witnessing her crest. Not hazy enough -- unfortunately -- to ignore practicalities. ]

We should get out of the tub. [ A beat, then, in gentle invitation, ] The bedroom's soundproofed too.

[anatural]

Mmm. [With a twist of her wrist, Korra uses her water bending to remove the stopper from the tub. She lets out a little groan of satisfied reluctance as she drags herself out. And as soon as Hei's standing, she wraps her arms around his neck.]

I might need you to carry me.

[mortemscintilla]

[ As if she needs to ask. ]

[ Holding her against him with one arm, he reaches for the towels with the other. There is an element of heartbreaking ritual in the way she lets him move her around, coax her arms up like an obedient child to be dried off, to have her hair toweled into a damp fluffy tumble. His erection, twitching sluggishly with its weight, swings between them, yet his attention is completely fragmented. Everything both fans out and funnels toward Korra: the moist heat of her clasped in his arms, the way her pulse thrums under his stroking fingertips, her bracing scent in the steamy air. ]

[ He almost doesn't want to go to bed. Cradling her for a moment with her head tucked in beneath his chin, he rocks her just slightly, a lulling motion as if to draw the last of the tension out of them both, as if by some charm. He wants to just close his eyes and hold her like this forever, with her cool smooth cheek nestled in the curve of his neck. ]

[ He can't say that, though. Half-steering, half-scooping her up, he leads her out of the bathroom, into the dark airy bedroom. The windows are steamed up as cold rain rattles outside: in the blue-gray gloom, Hei clings to Korra for a moment, a dizzy sway, almost as if dancing. In other circumstances, a CD or something sliding into music, he might have humorously let himself go, danced her in a slow circle to the beat -- except he's too conscious of his dick's rude ache between them. ]

[ He spills them back across the futon. His movements are clumsy, yet practiced with long-standing familiarity. Hovering over Korra, he takes in the sight of her. In the semi-dark, with her wet hair in disarray and her eyes dreamily half-furled, she looks misleadingly seventeen again. The heat of her body against his carries that same glad welcome as when you lurch out of bed on a cold 7 am and are met with the smell of brewing coffee with a sense of bliss. ]

[anatural]

[Korra enjoys feeling taken care of. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say coddled, because she has plenty of people who take care of her. Pema is always happy to watch Mai so Korra can get some sleep, and Asami never fails to bring dinner when Korra doesn't have the energy to cook. Korra appreciates those gestures and the love they demonstrate. Yet those are favors; they don't make her feel treasured in the same way that being dried, cuddled, and carried does. (If he really treasured her, he wouldn't have left her ... but she doesn't let herself think about that.)

She wiggles a little under his gaze, and she reaches up to tangle her fingers in his hair.] What are you thinking?

[mortemscintilla]

[ What are you thinking? It's what the lover in the books, in the movies, always asks. Gazing down at the dreamy blue horizon of her eyes, Hei tries to summon a convincing half-smile. A non-verbal Nothing. How to tell her, everything his memory conjures, just from the sight of her spread across his bed. He half-wishes he could go, be alone for a while to get his equilibrium back. But he can't stand the idea of being parted from Korra. Too hungry for the deliciousness of her -- even as he understands how stupid he's being. Not merely short-sighted and selfish -- but delusional. ]

[ Because having her near makes him wish everything was different. Makes his mind blur into a twilight world of fabrications, elaborate self-deceptions -- What-Ifs. Somedays. Maybes. He, who has always been someone who believed in facing facts, dealing with reality. Who could weave lies in glittering webs, but who hated being tricked or lied to or hoodwinked. Who believed in accepting the truth, no matter how ugly or devastating. ]

[ He isn't sure when that changed. ]

[ Turning his head, he nuzzles the palm of her hand. His words are salted with dryness, but lightly. ]

Trying not to think.

[ His body melds closer to hers, suspended only by the wedged thigh he has pinned her with. His cock hiccoughs with interest against her abdomen; he stirs his hips in a giving grind as he dips his head, lapping upwards to her neck to where her pulse leaps in that familiar thrum beneath the skin. ]

[ Scraping his teeth across supple veins and tendons, he lavishes himself on her throat, breathing in prompt inquiry, ]

Nice? Or nasty?

[ Although he's perfectly amenable to anything in between. ]

[anatural]

Mmm. [Korra doesn't want to think much either. She wraps her legs around him and pulls him close, breathing in deeply his smell. Forget drugs or alcohol — this is all she needs to turn her brain off. Higher order thinking? Who needs that? She exists entirely in her body, especially the places where it touches his.

Nice or nasty? Oh please.]

Everything. [She wants every part of him for as long as she can hold onto it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Humming, Hei lets himself be dragged closer, her thighs a heavy ribbon around his torso. It's incredible, having her like this, sweet and melting beneath him. He would kill to get his dick inside her, if he didn't want so badly to prolong the moment. Mouth catching hers, he folds them closer instead, a hot clasp of muscle. The languid spill of her tugs a string through his body, and he can feel the deep thumping of his veins through his own leg, belly, dick, everywhere their skins meet. ]

[ Gnawing from her neck down to her breasts, leaving petal-like mouth marks across her skin, he aligns his erection until the head slips down, between the wet cleft of her sex. His hips stir, measured, unhurried, teasing her with the tip, popping the thick, mushroom cap just-barely in and out of her with short thrusts, the friction dragging slickly across her clit. ]

[ It feels so fucking good. His vision spangles dangerously, and he distracts himself by worrying the crinkles of her nipples with his teeth, with stretching her arms over her head to lap at the prickly hollows, to trace the swell of each breast with his tongue, feel the way it creases where it hangs on her ribs, to lick away the faint taste of soap to find the musk underneath. ]

[ So many wants and whims skirling through his head. It'd be almost embarrassing -- a child fixated on a shiny new toy, or an addict slavering over sweet perfect junk -- except he's too far-gone to care. Who knows if he'll get another chance, taking in this inventory of her charms? ]

[anatural]

[Korra gasps as he pops inside her, her hips instinctively jerking up to push him in deeper.]

Look who's getting ahead of himself. [Her eyes glow a little as she uses the Avatar state to help her flip him onto his back, the motion grinding his dick even harder against her clit in a happy accident. It takes all her willpower not to sink down and ride him right now.]

Now. What should I do to you? [She punctuates the question with biting kisses down his neck.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She tumbles him to his back, and Hei lets off a gut-punched sound that doesn't sound like him at all. Half sharp inhale of breath, half something else entirely, almost like having Korra in his bed, straddling him, makes his brain stumble, kicking everything cool and cerebral and controlled offline. ]

[ Under Korra's wandering hands and nibbling mouth, the warmth of skin over muscle softens. He sprawls back, half-propped up on the pillows, incensed to happiness by her fluid motion, her heat-redolent nakedness, his own uncramped cock. He grabs at her hips, clutches her backside, snugging her closer. Leaves off kissing, just to look up at her, a soft wistful expression, heavy-eyed. Something about this, the weight of her body, her playful smile, brings up a flash of memory. That night in the City, with the zombies roaming the streets. He'd had her like this that night, half-melted into compliance: Korra on top, shy and unsure of herself but wanting more. His skin still buzzes, remembering the way she'd sunk down all the way, looking at him with uneasy awe. ]

[ Angling his head, he drags her into a kiss -- openmouthed and wet. Breaks only to breathe, in perfect earnestness, ]

Whatever you like.

[anatural]

[The complete sincerity of his Whatever you like makes her blush. She forces herself to tip her hips until his dick pops out and is sandwiched between their bellies, then shifts so her breasts are over his face. She takes one of his hands and slips it between her legs.]

I want you to get me as close to the edge as you can without making me come.

[Okay, yeah, that's not usually how the dominance game is played. Typically the dom does the edging on the sub, not vice versa. But while she misses the orgasm denial games they used to play, she doesn't want to hand him the reins. Hence...this.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He slips out of her, and disappointment isn't the right word; he is a little unbalanced, dragging in the faintest wisp of sound. Then the heat and softness of her breasts is across his face, a voluptuous drape of flesh, and she is guiding his left hand between her splayed thighs. Hei can't stifle a hissing little exhale of pleasure, the slight jerk of his hips, or the insistent press of his erection, trapped thick and twitchy between their bellies. ]

[ Turning his head, he nuzzles the ripe heavy breasts, faintly damp from either perspiration or the bath, thubbing with the same tripping pulse he feels as he dips his hand between the sticky seam of her thighs. Inching down across the tuft of wet curls, until he hits paydirt and finds where she is hottest and juiciest. His fingers play in her slickness, from dipping halfway inside her twitchy entrance to strumming across the length of her swollen clitoral shaft and its sensitive little tip. Flickering at her clit, in that way she likes, first softly then with greater intensity, until he can feel the tension in her body start to throb with agitated molecules -- before he slows down, dipping his fingers lower, exploring the gap of her pubic lips instead, wedging two fingers to sink tight and slippery right into her. ]

[ Circling his right arm around her, he mouths at the humid valley of her breasts. Whispers, a playful susurruration against the bars of her ribs, ]

Like that?

[anatural]

[He has such clever fingers fuuuuuuuuuck. Korra moans and buries her face in his hair.]

Just like that. [She's glad she works out so much, because this is an awkward position to maintain, particularly with a lover doing his best to melt your bones, but she's pretty sure she can hold it for hours.

Well, an hour. He is really good with his fingers. She rocks her hips, trying to increase the pressure while simultaneously wanting him to deny her, craving a sweet frustration.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Dragging her clumsily into place atop him, Hei alternates between her overspilling breasts, soft and warm, full of pulse like her sex. Her moan vibrates right through her sternum and into his skull, a hot buzz that snatches his breath away. Nuzzling, panting, the mushy thud of Korra's heart separated by mere layers of skin and muscle and bone, he drags his cheek along one smooth, hot side-swell, the rough prickle of his stubble pressing into her skin. Gulps a dark nipple into his mouth, feeding on it shamelessly, worrying it stiff with scraping teeth and the flat of his tongue. ]

[ Between her thighs, his fingers crook carefully against her sweet-spot. He massages the slick, clutching heat of her, his thumb wedged tight across her clit. Coaxing her into a simmer, then a froth, feeling those familiar molecules dancing invisibly beneath her muscles, a silent gathering flexion -- before he slows, the spike of tension flattening into a sag. Each small movement sends a cloud of her scent up from between her parted thighs, gnawing bright-red holes into his brain. He wants desperately to taste her, to fuck her -- but it's clear she wants to be teased. ]

[ Right hand splayed across her lower-back, he nudges her with a quiet Better this way, until she's crawled up his length. His fingers pop free of her sex: his tongue flickers out, licking them clean -- before he drags her up the rest of the way, until she's kneeling over his head. He's got a good view of her glistening sex in the ambient dimness, can smell the perfume of her arousal -- seasalt-bright and rockpool hot. ]

[ Hooking her thighs in his hands, he drags her the last little way to his mouth. Crouched over his face, she is at the perfect angle for him to lap his tongue down along her plump wet folds -- to sink it into the slippery, heated opening even as he covers the crest of her clitoris with his relentlessly sucking mouth. ]

[anatural]

[She resists at first, not wanting to move and lose the attention being lavished on her breasts, until she realizes what his intention is — and then she scrambles eagerly enough to position herself over his mouth. Nobody is as good at eating her out as he is.

She grips the edge of the futon, gasping a laugh as she remembers the couch that she broke the last time they did it like this. Extra points if you make me rip this, she almost says, but instead she just moans. The pleasure from his mouth runs from her clit to the tips of her breasts and then spreads throughout her body, a tingling, dizzying warmth.]

C-careful. [Don't make me come just yet.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Gazing up at her, past the slope of her belly and uptilted breasts, her hair falling in dark creeping tendrils around her reddened face, it's impossible not to remember that night at the club. Memory and Korra's body quiver in echo of each other. The way her moan makes his brain reel around inside his skull. The way his arms force her thighs helplessly wider, until he can envelop her sex with his mouth. The way she surges and twitches as if balancing on some high edge one moment, and pressing herself against his busy tongue the next. Each stuttered movement carries sparks of recognition, as Hei thinks, Oh. ]

[ I missed this. ]

[ He starts to suck softly, a slow-gathering pressure across her clit -- broken only when he laps soft-tongued across the pink fringe of her inner-lips, curls his tongue into her tightly-fluttering entrance, forcing it open with thick, sloppy stabs. He is immediately entranced -- —this aroma, this taste, this sweet delicate flesh he'd never thought to touch again. Needing to be immersed, he drags her in closer, fingers biting into the wings of her hipbones, a constellation of dark bruises. ]

[ The minutes unspool slowly. He stays with her, patient and greedy in turns, sparking that charge along her nerves. Sometimes furling his tongue inside her as deep as it will go, sucking mercilessly at her sodden folds with a raw appreciative growl. Sometimes exhaling open-mouthed across her twitchy clit, between delicate, barely-there flicks with the tip of his tongue. Other times detaching completely, to lick a wet line up each smooth juncture where her inner thighs meet her pelvis, mouthing at the outline of her pussy, the soft damp hair that frames it. ]

[ At his groin, his erection throbs for attention in its low-key way, a dull ache that skates between pleasure and pain. He ignores it, his tongue probing and teasing her seeping folds -- and fuck she is hot. With anyone else, it would be a trivial adjective, but with her, it is a blossoming confession, an act of contrition. ]

[anatural]

[She cries out as he tortures her with his mouth. He keeps bringing her so close, just to the very edge, until she feels like a single breath is all it will take to make her come — and then he backs off and lets her subside. The frustrated orgasm is becoming an ache in her belly. She almost cusses him out, except this is what she asked him for.

... which means she can call a halt to it whenever she wants. Right.]

Lube. [She twists her hips, trying to get away from his mouth, suddenly afraid he'll push her over the edge before she can wield the control she just remembered she has.] Where do you keep the lube?

[mortemscintilla]

[ She tries to get away in a frantic undulation of hips -- and Hei can't resist wrapping both arms around her waist, enfolding her sex with his mouth and sucking on her mercilessly, an appreciative bone-deep hum that he knows will vibrate all through her. He keeps at it until he knows she's shivering right at the lip of her climax -- before he lets her go, nudging her to flop across the mattress beside him. ]

[ Propping himself on an elbow, he wipes his mouth with the back of his free hand. She asks for lube, and his muscles tighten, but he doesn't know if it's because he is falling back into wonderfully dark memories or ahead into delicious anticipation, but his interest is palpable, a raw chemical signature that cannot be mistaken for anything else. ]

[ In a voice of effortful steadiness, ]

The drawer next to you.

[anatural]

[Bastard. Korra struggles to catch her breath, and just the friction of the futon against her skin is nearly enough to send her into convulsions. But eventually she manages to reach over and rummage in the drawer until she finds the container of lube.

She slams it onto his chest with more force than intended.]

I think you know what to do.

[mortemscintilla]

Ow.

[ It's a deadpan token -- a twitch of a smile lurking around the edges of his mouth. ]

[ Taking the bottle, he delays only to snatch the pack of rubbers out of the drawer. Returns with his dick already sheathed and lubed; his hands, greasy with his preparation, snatch at Korra, hauling her around with an unwieldy care until he's settled her into place below him, head on a pillow, hair tendriling everywhere like dark ivy and thighs spilling open. ]

[ For a moment he simply hovers over her, the condom-shiny crown of his cock dipping against her belly. It is dark enough that he can't make out more than her outline, washed-out hues of color and blurred shapes. Her eyes are a close-range blue glow, her face splotched with red, the kisses making her mouth seem faintly stained and swollen. She's come out in a light bloom of sweat, the salty aroma of her suffusing the air. A strange tropical gift, washed across the shores of his bed: succulent and seafoamy, not exactly beautiful but so stunningly pretty. ]

[ Dipping his head, he kisses her, his mouth full of the taste of Korra's sex. Lush, strangely tender, his teeth teasing her plump lower-lip. At the same time he moves heavily over her, the python length of his body resting between her parted legs. One hand wedges between them: he cups her sex possessively a moment, squeezing, before his lubed fingers wriggle lower to caress slowly that tight pucker that flinches, then flexes to engulf him inch by inch -- a cautious preliminary. ]

[anatural]

[It seems everything tonight is reminding Korra of the early days in their relationship, even the darkness. She can't remember at what point he started turning the lights on when they fucked so that he could really watch her, but it had marked, however little noticed, a change in their relationship.

It seems appropriate that they're doing this in the dark, now that he's once again a man Korra loves but cannot trust and not the man who, over the course of many years, made her feel safe with him.

She finds herself breaking the kiss to burrow her head into the crook of his neck, blocking out every trace of light so she can focus on the sweet sensation as his fingers invade her.]