Friday Evening, 37C, Kinney Building, Babylon || Part One, NSFW

[brambless]

The 'official' study, upstairs, doesn't see a great deal of use. Tara prepares for her classes in her old bedroom, where her desk is set up. Shane usually studies in their room, or downstairs in the lounge room. Right now, though, Tara needs more space than her desk provides, cramped as it is with class materials. Piles of notes, spread out and colourcoded with post-its and highlighters, cover the desk in the study, and the little-used fireplace there is blazing merrily, filling the room with more heat than is strictly needed for a pleasant spring day. She hasn't worked this hard on a report since she was a student, but she's had a number of revelations recently about Evil - what it is, and how it's mediated - and the physical process of writing her research up sometimes brings new insights. At the very least, it should clarify her thoughts.

Shane pads up the stairs, a cup of steaming peppermint tea in one hand and a small dish in the other. She usually tries to give Tara her space and enough time so that she can finish her work without her getting underfoot, but her wife has been in there for quite some time. Definitely time for refreshments, though she'll try to get in and out as quickly and quietly as she can so that she doesn't disturb her wife. Shifting the dish in her hand, she light raps on the door before she nudges it open. "Hi," she says as she pokes her head through the small crack.

"Hi," Tara replies, taking the opportunity to stretch, and only realising when she does how long she's been sitting still, bent over her notes. "Come to save me?" she asks, a hopeful wrinkle of her nose accompanying the question. "I think I'm too close. I'm going round in circles again." Smelling the tea, Tara's eyes slide closed, and a smile grows across her face. "Gods, I love you, Shane McCutcheon."

Chuckling, she slips into the room and moves over to join Tara where she's seated at her desk. She places the mug of tea down, making sure not to set it on any of her papers, and places the dish beside it, which holds a chocolate croissant as well as a few choice pieces of fruit. "I love you, too," she mumurs, draping her arm around Tara's shoulders as she bends down a bit, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Mmm," Tara hums, winding her arms around Shane's back, craning her neck up in search of a deeper kiss. "Take me away from all this for half an hour?" she asks softly, the glint of humour in her eyes taking the desperation out of the plea.

"I could take you away... but it wouldn't be for half an hour," Shane purrs, amusement coloring her words as she presses a kiss squarely on her wife's lips. Nothing they start is ever over in half an hour.

Tongue darting out to lick her lips, tasting Shane there, Tara's smile dances at the corner of her mouth, tugging her lips up insistently. "Deal," she replies, meeting her wife's eyes. She needs to get her mind off of this and come back fresh, and if Shane can't distract her it's entirely possible that the universe will implode as the basic laws of physics turn upsidedown.

A rumbly chuckle sounds at the back of Shane's throat as she tips her chin up, pressing a kiss to Tara's forehead. "Come with me, baby," she murmurs, catching hold of Tara's fingers and gently tugging.

"Always," Tara whispers, rising from her seat to follow anywhere Shane might lead. The peppermint tea slowly flavours the air of the room, good for helping the mind to focus, good for the digestion, its slightly bitter tang clearing her mouth and mind. It'll go cold, and she feels a twang of guilt at that, Shane's kind gesture abandoned... but Shane is leading her away, and it's just a cup of tea.

Padding down the hall, she makes a brief pit stop in the bathroom, picking up the small jar of massage cream. She's nowhere near as good as her wife is at this sort of thing, but she's certainly willing to try. Massage cream in hand, she leads the two of them to her room, gently nudging the door open and ushering her wife inside.

Momentarily confused when Shane turns into the bathroom, a shy smile grows as Shane's fingers close on the jar of cream. Any time Shane touches her is a good time, in Tara's book, and the deliberate desire to help and heal behind a massage does much for her soul, regardless of Shane's skill at smoothing away the physical strain. Drawing her lower lip between her teeth, a little shy at the unspoken intention, Tara grips the hem of her shirt and draws it off, nipples pebbling as the colder air of the bedroom strikes them.

As Tara undresses, Shane's eyes immediately trail downward to admire her wife, hands already itching to touch, to press her wife down onto the mattress so that she can do everything she can to help Tara forget about work for half an hour. Biting her lip, she does her best to maintain her composure, shutting the bedroom door to keep sneaky kitties out before moving over to the bed and toeing her sneakers off.

Tara's always barefoot around the house, enjoying the feeling of soft carpeting underneath her feet, and the way cool wood warms so quickly under her soles. Tiny pleasures, inescapably precious because they are so small, because these are the sorts of joys that can never be taken away from her. Shucking her slacks and underwear, Tara deliberately stops herself long enough to fold the clothes and set them on the chair in the corner of the room. She's only been wearing them a few hours, but if they stay crumpled on the floor Dexter will wind up playing in them, and then she'll have to wsh them regardless.

Setting the jar of cream on the nightstand, Shane slips out of her own clothes - sleeveless t-shirt, jeans and briefs soon joining Tara's, neatly folded, on the chair. Once that's done, she picks up the jar again and crawls up onto the bed, patting an empty spot and offering Tara a warm smile. "C'mere, baby," she murmurs.

Tara crawls onto the bed, lowering herself down onto her stomach but stopping along the way to press a kiss to Shane's knee and slide the smooth skin of her cheek upwards, all the way to Shane's hip. Making herself comfortable on the bed, Tara can't help but nuzzle Shane's hip as she settles herself, before reminding herself to behave.

She can't help but think it's a good thing that she hadn't opened the jar yet, so that when Tara nuzzles her hip, she's free to run her fingers gently through Tara's hair, lips drawing back into a warm, sweet smile as she strokes her wife's hair. She lets her hand slide down, gently brushing Tara's hair to one side as she swings her leg over to straddle her wife's hips, pouring a small amount of the massage cream into her palm and place the stopper back in the bottle. Setting the bottle aside, she rubs her hands to distribute the cream and then very gently smooths it over Tara's shoulders and back.

Shane. Naked. Straddling her. Other than the fact that she's facing in entirely the wrong direction, and can't see Shane's small, pert, perfect breasts, staring down at her... there's little in the world better that this. Coarse, crinkled hair teases at the small of her back, and the warmed cream, when it arrives, brings a sigh of contentment that comes as much from the soft presence of Shane's hands as the promise of physical relief.

"You have to tell me if I'm doing this too hard," Shane cautions, hands moving in deliberate tandem over Tara's back, thumbs gently pressing and searching for tension in her muscles. It's not as though she doesn't know her own strength - quite the contrary - but she's not used to doing something like this for Tara and so she doesn't know just what to do. Biting her lip, she finds what feels like a knot just beneath Tara's right shoulder blade and gently presses, fingers working in even circles, trying to loosen up the knot.

"You can put your full body weight behind you, on the back," Tara assures her, "and you won't do me any damage. Just don't ever press between the vertebrae." She groans softly as Shane's fingers find a source of tension and work it deliberately, pressing her cheek against the mattress. "The pressure points will flare red once you've stimulated the muscles," she adds. "So you'll be able to see where you need to work." Falling into teacher mode, so easy to do, but there's no reason for this to make Shane nervous, not when it feels so good...

Shane nods, even though she knows that Tara can't exactly see her, the way she's laying right now. "Okay," she says quietly, brows furrowing as she tries to recall what her last massage from Tara had been like. Worrying on her bottom lip, her hands stroke firmly along Tara's back, eyes following the slow sweep to keep an eye out for any red spots. Spying another one, she carefully massages it with her thumbs, the scent of the cream filling her lungs and calming her hopefully just as much as it's calming Tara.

"Ohhhh," Tara groans, arching her back just a little to press into Shane's thumbs, intensifying the pressure. "Right there, yeah. That's... oh, god, that's really good." Tara takes deep, deliberate breaths, exhaling as Shane pushes down, the familiar mantra of breathing anything negative or stressful out, working on relieving the source of the tension as Shane works to relieve its product.

Feeling the pressure increase as Tara presses back into her hands, Shane applies that much pressure with her hands, thumbs stroking in slow circles over the stubborn knot. The sounds that Tara is making are getting to her far more than she thought they would, but she takes a deep breath of her own and does her best to keep her mind on her work. "Like that?" She asks.

"Yessssss," Tara hisses, a creaky groan working its way out of her throat as she feels the knot slowly dissolve under Shane's fingers. "Just... aahhh... just like that, yeah..." She always finds the concept of 'good pain' odd, but that's what massages are about, for her. Good pain, the ache that brings healing with it. There comes a point where you press too hard, when good pain becomes just pain, but Shane hasn't reached there, and isn't likely to.

Shane bites down hard on her bottom lip, doing her damnedest to pay attention to what she's doing. Feeling the knot in the muscles give way, she gently smooths her hand over the spot before she reaches for the cream again, emptying another small dollop into her palm and rubbing her hands together again before she goes to work on the next knot, along the lower right quadrant of her wife's back.

Tara's lower back is more sensitive than her upper, not able to take quite as much pressure, but she gives Shane plenty of feedback before it moves past the point that still feels good. "Yeah, like that, baby... unnnnh..." The pressure sparks off flares of pressure higher, at her midback and right shoulder, but all that means is that the tension under Shane's fingers is the source of referred pain, and that smoothing away this one will have a threefold effect. There are lots of techniques Shane still doesn't know, and she's completely oblivious to the theory behind it that might guide her movements, but Tara doesn't believe there's any way that the touch itself could feel any better.

There are a lot of techniques that Shane doesn't know... like all of them. At this point, she's pretty much just going along, carefully working out each knot as she finds them before moving along to the next. The noises that her wife is making are pretty much driving her crazy, by now, but she does her best to pay avid attention to what she's doing, or else she might hurt Tara. Still, even though she's concentrating, that doesn't mean her heart's not all but hammering in her chest.

Slowly, Tara becomes aware of a growing heat and wetness against the small of her back, and the realisation brings a groan that has nothing to do with Shane's fingers. "I can feel you," she whispers, flexing the muscles of her buttocks, the closest she can get to pressing up against her wife. "Oh, gods, Shane..."

Breath catching in her throat, it takes every ounce of her willpower not to grind herself down against her wife. "I was... hoping you wouldn't notice," she says softly, even as she very slowly lowers hips down, pressing herself against Tara's ass.

"Why?" Tara asks, bewildered as to why Shane would ever want to hide something like that from her, even as she arches her back, pressing up against Shane as best she can.

"Because... I -- I'm supposed to be doing this for you," Shane murmurs, breath catching on the last word at the friction.

"I assure you," Tara purrs, "I'm enjoying myself greatly. But if, um... if I could roll over, I could be enjoying it even more..."

Shane draws her left leg over Tara's hips again to give her room to move, her pulse fluttering at her throat.

Smothering her smile, Tara rolls over, her hands rising to sit at Shane's waist, drawing her back down sit astride Tara's hips. Now, now she can see those beautiful breasts, dangling above her, and she reaches for the jar of massage cream, spooning out a small dollop with her fingers and rubbing it between her hands. Meeting Shane's eyes, she raises her hands to Shane's breasts, smoothing the cream over soft flesh and massaging it in, kneading in a way that's designed to be far more pleasurable than theraputic.

Both of her hands settled on her thighs to keep from getting massage cream on the sheets, her fingers grip her thighs tightly as she stares down at Tara, eyes dark and well on their way to glazing over. As she feels Tara's hands slide over her breasts, a soft, involuntary breath is forced from her lungs and her eyes flutter closed.

"Mmm," Tara hums, the same creakily contented groan she'd given when Shane found the right spot on her back. "You feel good..." Her slickened thumbs flick over Shane's nipples, and she draws her lower lip between her teeth, smiling softly as she watches Shane's face.

Shane lets out a shaky sigh, head lolling back on her shoulders as the twin touches send warmth rippling through her. "So, uhhh... so do you," she breathes.

The way Shane's head moves bares the column of her throat, and makes Tara's mouth water, wanting to close her lips around that skin and suckle it, drawing blood to the surface in deeply purple marks. Stroking Shane's breasts, she slowly works her way out from the nipples and up into the surrounding tissues, her touch where the tension builds here softer, trying to cup Shane's entire breast into the palm of one hand, and seeing how far her fingers can reach down the surrounding tissues. Just playing, content to touch and be touched, although each touch carries with it the hope of bringing her wife pleasure.

"Mmm..." Shane hums softly, though the sound isn't like Tara's. Hers is much deeper, gravelly, in comparison as she lets her head hang forward. Opening her eyes, she gazes down at her wife, slowly licking her lips before she finally speaks. "Those noises you made..." she whispers, "they were so fucking sexy..."

"They... they were?" Tara replies, brow furrowing for a moment as she tries to remember. Then, realising what she sounded like, a faint blush climbs up her cheeks. "Oh. I... it, um... it felt really good."

Shane nods very slowly, gaze holding Tara's, her eyes dilated to the point that only a thin ring of green is visible. "I'd like to hear you like that all the time," she murmurs.

"All the time?" Tara whispers, licking her lips slowly. The look in Shane's eyes wakens something inside her, and she's not teasing any more, not playing. Not now.

Another nod, just as deliberate as the last, the look in Shane's eyes as vulnerable as it is hungry.

"Any time, any place," Tara whispers, an old vow she means with everything in her, every time she speaks it. "Always, Shane. I'm yours."

"I love you, Tara," Shane whispers back, reaching up to gently trail her fingers back and forth along her wife's forearm.

Shivering, Tara lets out a fast breath, lifting her arm a little higher, baring the underside of her upper arm, where the skin is far more sensitive. Just this is enough to feed the slow flame beginning to burn in her abdomen, but she instinctively wants more, wants Shane's fingers where it feels as though she can trace every ridge and callous. "I love you," she whisper, swallowing heavily and licking her lips again.

Shane's fingers circle around to the inside of Tara's arm, the backs of her fingers grazing Tara's wrist and gently stroking there for a moment before she drags her fingers down. The backs of her fingers run along the inside of Tara's forearm, the crook of her elbow, and she turns her wrist a little, fingertips grazing the underside of her wife's arm, her eyes never leaving Tara's.

Tara's mouth falls open as Shane's fingers graze her wrist, the skin there almost impossibly sensitive. The crook of her elbow is almost nerveless by comparison, but when Shane's fingers glide over the underside of her upper arm she sucks in an audible gasp of breath, her eyes dilating, her fingers curling and clutching a little at Shane's arm.

Spreading her knees a bit wider, Shane lowers herself down a bit, feeling the crisp hair between Tara's legs brushing against her as she turns her wrist again, lightly dragging her fingertips along Tara's side.

Letting out a soft, strangled cry, it's an effort of will to maintain their gaze, as Tara's instincts direct her to close her eyes, to hide her face and save something of herself as private. She doesn't. Shane is welcome to all of her, all she is. Shane usually doesn't touch her this lightly, but Tara loves the ticklish sensations, which wake every nerve in her skin and make her feel so impossibly vulnerable.

It's not as much of a challenge to keep her eyes trained on Tara's... not as much as it had been, before. She's let Tara see her at her most vulnerable a dozen times or more in the past few weeks and Tara has never let her down - has been as supportive and loving and tender just as she always has. As frightening an idea as that might have been to her a few months ago, now, it's just second nature. This woman, her wife, owns every part of her. Drawing in a deep, steady breath, she lets her fingertips trail along the outer curve of Tara's breast, barely grazing the skin, curious to see how much it will take to get Tara to lose control in the way that all the noises Tara had made had caused her to lose control.

This area is actually easier to deal with - Tara's more used to being touched here, not quite as sensitive. As she breaths her breast rises and falls, changing the way Shane's fingertips contact her skin, and it feels like sitting on a cliff, face brushed by ocean spray as the waves crest, but knowing that the ocean itself is far, far beneath her. She's as still as she can bring herself to be, though her breathing is accompanied by very faint whimpers, refusing to allow herself to roll her breast into Shane's palm, to feel that contact more firmly. The agony of this, of only barely being touched, of waking her skin to a height of sensitivity she usually only has after an orgasm... she treasures this.

Drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, Shane follows the curve of Tara's breast - fingers guided by the shape and curve of flesh - back up to the underside of her arm, fingers stroking there for a moment before sliding a bit further back to the round of muscle sitting over her shoulder blade. She can still feel the slight slickness left behind by the massage cream even as her fingertips lightly graze the spot.

Tara lets out a clearer whimper, higher-pitched, as Shane's fingers cross under her arm and seek out new places, and her eyes feel as though they're locked on Shane's bottom lip. She can't help but arch her hips up, stealing a firmer touch there as Shane's fingers tickle across a sensitive spot on her back, each breath leaving her in long, shuddering pants.

Shane strokes her thumb over the spot, feeling the pliant muscle beneath the skin - a tangible reminder of her efforts - as she lets her hand slip up over Tara's shoulder, fingertips dragging lightly along her collarbone, pressing gently to feel solid bone beneath the skin.

Tilting her head to the side, Tara bares her shoulder and neck, eyes still steadfastly fixed on Shane. The varied sensations mean she never knows quite what to expect - whether Shane will choose a sensitive spot, a hundred thousand nerve endings wonderfully tortured by an almost-there touch, or whether she will choose a more conventional location, nerves blunted by the intrusion of bone, skin deafened by more constant wear. The very fact she doesn't know makes everything feel like more, all the benefits of being blindfolded while still being able to stare into Shane's eyes, as her tongue darts out to lick dry lips, pushing a moan ahead of it.

Left hand still braced on her thigh, Shane leans down, breasts almost brushing against Tara's even as the first two fingers of her right hand ghost up along Tara's throat, barely so much as grazing her skin. Seeing Tara this way, there's nothing that she would like more that to fall on her wife, crush her lips against Tara's and kiss her until they're both breathless, but seeing Tara's reactions are, in a way, almost better than that... the anticipation tantalizing.

Shane's small breasts swing against hers, a scant movement, a faint caress, and she moans again, arching her back in an effort to bring them into greater contact even as she cries out at the feeling of Shane's nipples brushing over hers, and dear gods Shane feels incredible. She's awake, now, every inch of skin, every cell in her body, every thought in her mind fully focussed upon Shane, and the touch against her throat is almost more than she can bear. So sensitive, and who knew she was so sensitive there? Her breath catches in a sob, and the words start to fall from her lips. "Ohhhhh, yessss," she hisses, her rolling back in her head a little, her eyelids half closing and her hips arching again.

Shane keeps still even as Tara arches, her wife's hips pressing against hers so that she can feel the heat there at the apex of her thighs. Biting down on her bottom lip, she rests her fingers lightly against Tara's throat, just behind her ear, and slowly draws them down... the touch isn't firm, but the most noticeable difference is that she can actually feel Tara's skin, now. "I love those sounds," she whispers, fingers drawing a deliberate line back down along the arch of her throat.

There's nothing better than this. Nothing. Her eyes slide the rest of the way closed, her lip captured between her teeth as she bites down, unconsciously mirroring her wife. "Ahhhhh," she keens, a quiet, high-pitched sound that's drawn inexorably from within Tara, a place beyond words. Her breath comes in quick, loud pants, almost sobs, intertwixed with, "god, Shane..." and "yes" and "ohhhhh, fu--", not quite a curse but a breath away from it. The rest of the world disappears under Shane's fingers, leaving only that light, tickling touch as her skin cries and aches for more, singing with restrained energy.

There is, no doubt, someone who's strong enough and determined enough to resist the sight of this woman, all but writhing on the bed beneath her... but Shane is fairly certain that she's not that person. Drawing her hand away from Tara's throat as her wife bares it, she replaces it with her mouth, latching onto the soft skin there and suckling hard even as her arms wrap around Tara, clutching her close, breasts crushed against her wife's.

"Fuck!" Tara cries out, the expletive finally escaping in a sharp cry as Shane's mouth closes on her neck, and strongsharpsweetgood replaces the tickling that threatened to unmake her. Her nipples ache, suddenly given all the stimulation they could want, and her hands fly up to Shane's back, one wrapping around her shoulder and resting atop the Sanskrit tattoos and the other twining into Shane's hair, the heel of her hand resting at the base of Shane's neck, as if to prevent her from leaving now that Tara has her so close.

Shane's tongue pulses and rasps and laps against Tara's throat, determined to draw blood to the surface to leave her mark there, teeth raking and nipping as she reaches up to cup Tara's cheek. In this single instant, she wants to do everything - everything - there is possible to do with and to and for this woman and doesn't care how much time it would take in order to do all of those things. All that matters is that there are more of those wonderful, wonderful noises...

"Oh, god Shane," Tara whimpers, fingers pressing at the back of Shane's skull, urging her closer, wanting a mark that lasts just as much as Shane does. "Ahhh!" Her hips arch up against Shane, her low cry trailing off into tortured pants, each ending with its own little whimper. She wouldn't be this sensitive usually, not to something as simple as Shane's mouth at her throat, but she's not usually this awake, everything attuned to Shane, grasping at every fleeting sensation and then drowned by them.

Slipping her hand beneath Tara's head, Shane's fingers curl into her hair, holding her closer even as she eases herself down between her wife's legs, mouth still stubbornly latched onto her throat. Suckling hard, she lets her teeth sink down just enough so that Tara can feel them as she grinds her hips down against her wife's.

"Yesssss..." Tara groans, the tension at her scalp combining with the sweetsharp sting at her throat and the friction and heat at her sex. "Shane, yes, yes, yes, please, yes, more, please..." She's not even sure what she's saying, but somewhere in there has to be a magic word, something that will give her what she needs and she doesn't know what that is except that it's so close she can taste it, a bitter tang on her tongue that feels as though, if she bites into it, something sweet and juicy and wonderful will burst and flow through her, and she knows that's needlessly fanciful and she doesn't care, because she can feel Shane, is drowning in Shane, in loved and held and... "please..."

Shane's tongue strokes in a very definite, firm rhythm against Tara's skin as she braces herself on her left elbow. Each and every one of Tara's cries sends another trickle of fire into her blood, making her pulse race faster, breathing growing heavier as she fits her right hand between Tara's legs. Uncurling three fingers, she drags them through the slickness coating Tara's sex, searching for the well of it... and when she finds it, she makes sure her fingers are held tight together as she rests her hip against the side of her hand and then with a firm, hard thrust, buries herself deeply, completely in her wife.

"YES!" Tara shouts, far too loud given that Shane's ear is so close, as she arches up against fingers already buried as fully as possible within her. For a long moment she's frozen in that bow, as if her system has been shocked by it, before settling slowly back down onto the mattress, her legs lifting to curl her knees over Shane's hips, holding her wife tight and close as Tara grinds deliberately on those fingers, a low-pitched, heartfelt moan expressing her thanks.

Her ear is actually ringing and numb for a good five seconds thanks to that shout, but if nothing else, she knows that she's done the right thing. One last firm swipe of her tongue and she's drawing her mouth away from Tara's throat, lips slightly swollen from the effort brushing her ear. "Good, baby?" She whispers, her voice hoarse and gravelly.

"Good," Tara agrees fervently, thrusting herself up against Shane's fingers, fingers clenching in Shane's hair and on Shane's back, and she'd feel guilty for that shout if there was anything in her to feel guilty with, but it's all too busy right now just feeling "so good, so good, yes, Shane, yes, fuck, yes..."

"Ohh, god, Tara," Shane groans, resting her cheek against her wife's, eyes squeezing shut. The sound of that word being spoken in Tara's voice, by Tara, voluntarily, just does something to her that she can't even begin to explain. "Don't stop talking... don't stop moving, baby... so beautiful, Tara... love you..."

Moving as instructed - though she's not sure she could stop even if she wanted to - Tara impales herself on Shane's fingers, thrusting herself up against them, resting the balls of her feet on the mattress for leverage but arching up so forcefully that her heels come free, effectively standing on her tiptoes while lying on her back. "Yours," she whispers fervently, and then, "mineminemine, good, mine, love, fuck, yes...".

"Ohh... so good, baby," Shane breathes, feeling each thrust of Tara's hips against her. Ducking her head, she tighten her grip on Tara's hair as she covers the purpling patch of skin with her mouth again, raking her teeth over the spot and nipping hard before laving it with firm swipes of her tongue matching the pace of Tara's thrusts.

The bruise at her neck aches, but it's such a good ache, an exquisite dance of pleasure as her skin throbs against Shane's mouth with the beat of her heart, and she's never felt more like Shane is holding Tara's heart in her hands, touching far beneath her skin to stroke pounding heart and laboured lungs. She burns, she stings, she throbs, and she's still climbing, mouth murmuring nonsense syllables of "yes" and "please" and "mine", over and over again as her own trembling fingers are left to cling and clench, able to do no more than that amidst the swirl of sensations travelling through her.

Shane can feel Tara's heartbeat against her lips, can almost feel the rush of her blood beneath her skin, the way it's drawn up by the hard, steady sucking of her mouth into a bruise that will be there for days. Her mark. Hers. And yet somehow it still doesn't feel like enough. Feeling the slickness of Tara impaling herself over and over again, taking her fingers in deep, is exquisite, but it feels like there's something else she could be doing. Drawing her mouth away from Tara's throat again, Shane licks her lips as she leans in close, breath feathering hot against her wife's ear. "You want me inside you all the way, baby?" She whispers, tongue sneaking out to lightly trace the shell of her ear.

"Yes," Tara says immediately. "Gods, yes, Shane, please, more. In me, inmeinmeinme," and the way she slams her hips up against Shane's hand is almost violent, as if she could consume her wife, take Shane entirely within her, even as she shudders at the tender, gentle touch on her ear. Three fingers don't feel like enough, none of it feels like enough, although she'd happily stay right in this place until it drove her out of her mind.

The sudden buck of Tara's hips forces the breath from her lungs along with a ragged chuckle. "Okay... easy, love... just take it easy and breathe for me," she whispers, placing a soft kiss to Tara's throat as she slides down along the length of her wife's body. She takes a moment to consider the situation... Tara's impossibly wet and her fingers aren't as thick as her wife's, so they might be able to get away with this without any other preparation. Except... well, this might take a bit more thinking than Tara's capable of right now, but... "Baby, what's in the massage cream? Can I use this...?"

Take it easy. Breathe. Shane might as well as her to lasso the moon out of the sky - but she'd try even that for her wife, and she tries to do this. "Yes," she says, after a long, agonising moment of thought, trying to get her mind to focus. "Yes, it's good, please Shane... please..." She fights to hold her hips still, knowing Shane won't risk this if there's a risk she might hurt Tara, knowing that her own wild motions are the biggest risk right now, but, "Shane. Fuck me. Please, baby, please, please, please, please..."

"Hold on, Tara... just hold on for me just a minute, baby," Shane murmurs as she carefully withdraws her fingers. Shifting a bit, her hand feels around for the glass jar and finally she hears a small tink! as her ring hits the glass. Her fingers curl around the object, fishing it out of the covers and she removes the stoppered lid, scooping out a healthy amount of the cream and carefully slicking up the length of each of her fingers, the sides of her hand and the back. Satisfied with the results, she replaces the stopper and sets the jar aside on the bed, settling back down between Tara's spread legs. She eases her three fingers slowly back into her wife, pressing them in deeply so that Tara can feel her, can know that she's there again, before slowly withdrawing. Uncurling her last finger she fits it against the other three and very gently begins easing them into her wife.

"Oh, god..." Tara breathes, letting out a deep breath and forcing herself to relax, even though she wants to just push herself down onto Shane's hand. Some part of her still remembers what a bad idea that would be, though, and she forces herself still, her breath coming in hard and heavy pants as she channels the kinetic energy from her hips into her lungs. "Yes. Shane... yes, yes. I can feel you, goddess... so full, so good. Love you, baby, please." She's not even sure what she's begging for, right now, except that this is the best feeling she can ever remember, full and aching and wonderful, threaded with the agony of Shane's slow movement and her own craving.

"That's good, baby, just keep breathing... breathe and relax, my love. I'm gonna take such good care of you, baby, I promise," Shane murmurs softly as she slides her free hand up along Tara's stomach, gently massaging there. Turning her head, she presses dozens of soft kisses to Tara's inner thigh as she gives her wife time to adjust. "I'm here and I'm with you, baby... I'm inside you... we're almost there... almost, baby..."

Shane's words filter through her consciousness, becoming her gospel, becoming the spell by which she finds her way. She breathes, she relaxes, and she trusts Shane, trusts Shane to take care of her, hears the love in Shane's voice, feels the soft kisses against her thigh like sweetly falling rain in the midst of summer, soothing even as it dances along her skin, exciting her. Eyes closed, she concentrates on the sensations, the feeling of unbelievable fullness lessening as her muscles relax, and she nods. "Almost," she whispers softly, trembling fingers winding through the sheets.

Shane breathes right along with Tara, each inhalation deep and even as she rests her cheek against her wife's thigh, feeling the thrum of her pulse even there. Turning her head, she tenderly nuzzles Tara's inner thigh, dotting more soft kisses to it, feeling something in herself give just as she feels the tension around her hand start to give. "It's okay, baby... we can just take our time," she purrs, hand gently stroking back and forth over Tara's stomach. "All the time you need, baby..."

It's Shane's purr that does it, the sound that never fails to bring impossible joy on its heels, for a hundred different reasons and all of them meaning Shane loves her. Tara's muscles relax, Shane's fingers slipping a hairsbreadth deeper on Tara's next inhale, hardly noticeable amidst the slick wetness of Tara's sex and the lubrication on Shane's hand. "Yours," she whispers, moaning softly with the sensations coursing through her, and her eyelashes flutter as she finally opens her eyes again, searching out her wife. "Yours, Shane."

Shane's eyes have been steadily trained on Tara's face the entire time, watching intently for any signs of discomfort or uncertainty. Her lips draw back into a soft smile as she rests her cheek against Tara's thigh again, rubbing her cheek against the delicate skin there as she meets her wife's eyes. "I love you, Tara," she whispers back. "Mine, baby."

She can't remember if Shane's ever done that before, in this moment where there is only Now. But Shane accepted her, in those two words - accepted what she means to Tara, accepted the gift of self Tara has offered, time and time again, and will continue to offer with each new morning. Some days she has more to give, small gifts and soft smiles, reassuring words or lovingly prepared food. Some days it's just herself, and she knows that for Shane, that's enough. Now, in this precious moment with Shane's words humming in her ears, Tara's smile grows, soft and warm and heartbreakingly pure.

For Shane, it's always enough, whatever it is... the gifts, the words, the food and that smile... that smile. But it's also the care, the kisses, her hand gently carding through her hair or just the fact that she does get to wake up to her each and every morning. It's true, it hasn't been often that she's responded when Tara has said 'yours'... because some days, most days, it's still virtually impossible for her to even comprehend that in this one, single person she has found everything that she has ever hoped to find in her life. Some things she hadn't even thought to dream of, yet - hadn't even considered the possibility of being deserving of. "You're mine," she whispers again softly.

"Yes," Tara whispers, eyes shining. "Yours." She's almost fully relaxed around Shane now, taking those four fingers as if they were part of herself, and her fingers float down to rest against Shane's wrist, as if to feel the spot where they come together - though she doesn't, yet. She just rests her fingers on Shane's wrist, stroking gently, lost in Shane's eyes.

Drawing her hand away from where it rests on Tara's stomach, Shane slips her arm beneath Tara's leg, wrapping it around her thigh, hand gently settling at the top and slowly stroking there as she stares into Tara's eyes. Now is hardly the time to be getting emotional, but she can still feel the sting in her eyes as she gazes up at her wife. Her wife.

It's an odd sort of a hug, but the emotion behind it is as real as that which she sees in Shane's eyes. "I love you," she whispers, knowing that the words are needless, that her face and body already sing them louder than she ever could. She doesn't say it because it needs to be said, but because the saying brings a joy of its own, a lightness in her chest that contrasts with the fullness Shane's hand brings, and she wants more again, because there's still more to be had.

"I love you," Shane whispers back, the look in her eyes both reverent and adoring as she nuzzles her cheek against Tara's thigh, unable to drag her eyes away from her wife's. Taking a deep breath, she tries to rein in the powerful emotions threatening to overwhelm her as they have a tendency to do so often these days, concentrating on the love and lightness and warmth she can see in Tara's eyes. She licks her lips carefully. "Ready, love?"

"Ready," Tara replies, her fingers lifting from Shane's wrist to stroke her beloved's face, fingers caressing over the soft skin underneath Shane's eyes, the first place Shane's tears touch when they do spill, blessed and consecrated by those emotions, whatever they might be. "Be in me, Shane. Be as deep as you can be."

Tipping her chin up just slightly, Shane lightly kisses each of Tara's fingertips before she ducks her head, brows furrowing just slightly as she concentrates on what she's doing. Shifting to one side and leaning her weight against Tara's leg to get a better angle, she carefully turn her hand clockwise and slowly withdraws her fingers. When they're halfway out, she carefully tucks her thumb against the underside of her fingers and very slowly begins easing her fingers and thumb inside.

The first section doesn't feel any broader than it did before, Shane's thumb resting in the hollow created by her other fingers. Then, so slowly, she reaches her knuckles, and Tara starts to feel the burn of her vaginal muscles stretching. She lets out a long, low moan, eyes locked on Shane's, mesmerised by the ring of faded green trapped between bright white and fathomless black, focussing on that as she lets out her breath, forcing her muscles to relax. This is the broadest part, the hardest part, and it hurts a little, but it hurts like a massage hurts, the good kind of pain, the kind of pain that heralds healing.

"Good, baby... keep breathing," Shane whispers, her voice a low, soothing rumble as she presses her hand forward in what almost feels like microscopically tiny increments. She straightens her wrist so that she can flatten her hand further, hopefully sparing Tara a bit of unnecessary pressure as she carefully eases her knuckles past that first firm ring of muscle.

"Keep... talking..." Tara whispers, each word on a deliberate exhale of its own. Full, so full, so incredibly full, and our bodies may be meant to bear children, but they don't do it comfortably. Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done - but this can be and should be, and she wants it. Wants to feel Shane, as deeply within her as Shane can be, and she knows Shane won't push her any further than her body can go.

"I will, love... I will," Shane assures her, closing her eyes as she nuzzles Tara's thigh. She can feel her wife's body as it's adjusting around her, adjusting to her, and it's probably one of the most amazing thing she's ever felt. Of course she's been inside Tara before, but never like this, so completely. Enveloped, surrounded, accepted. "Keep breathing for me, baby... you're so beautiful, Tara... love you so much..."

Shane's words are a soothing link back to sanity as her world coalesces to stretching muscles, to the incredible sensation of Shane slipping within her. It's not that ring of muscle, though, that she's concentrating on, though that's the most intense sensation - it's the feeling of Shane's fingertips, slipping further up inside her, further than she's ever been. "Gods," she whispers, her voice soft and thready, as if stretched taut over a long distance. "Shane... oh, gods, Shane..."

"Talk to me, baby - are you okay?" Shane murmurs softly, her voice even and low and soothing as she opens her eyes to gaze up along her wife's body, her right hand falling perfectly still for just a moment as she waits for Tara's answer.

"Yes," Tara assures her instantly, the hand that had fallen to her stomach lifting again, caressing Shane's face with the very tips of her fingers - all she can reach with. "Full and good and deep, Shane, so deep inside me..."

Shane leans forward a little, Tara's fingers brushing against her cheek. "I am," she whispers, her voice a gravelly rumble. "Not all the way, yet, but close... do you need a minute or should I keep going, baby?"

"Keep going," Tara whispers. "Slowly. And... keep talking?" Shane's voice rumbles through her, a deep vibration that hums along her bones, into places hands could never touch.

"Okay... anything you want, Tara," Shane murmurs, rubbing her cheek against Tara's fingers even as she carefully begins pressing her right hand in deeper, milimeter by precious milimeter. "Whatever you want, baby..."

Tara groans, long and low, her hand falling as her head tips back, and she's so full, so incredibly, gloriously, wonderfully full, and her skin's not big enough to hold her, let alone the both of them, but she doesn't want Shane to stop. It burns, in the way of over-stretched muscles, but it's still a good burn, still just this side of pain, and the feeling behind the burn is pure pleasure, as Shane's fingers sink deeper inside her than she ever thought possible.

Another careful push and Shane only just barely holds back her gasp as her knuckles carefully slip past that first tight ring of muscle. The rest of her hand isn't nearly as broad, so it won't be quite so difficult from here on. Closing her eyes, she rests her head against Tara's thigh again, the sensation of heat and wetness and warmth and tightness enveloping almost her entire hand, now, very nearly taking her breath away. "Ohh, Tara... you feel so good, baby... I'm inside you so deep," she breathes, the wonder evident in her voice.

Better, now, the burning sensation fading, and Tara can't quite see what's happening, but... "So deep," she echoes, her hand rising to pet Shane's hair, wrapping soft strands around her fingers. Every breath she takes moves her muscles slightly, shifts Shane's hand almost imperceptibly, but she can feel it. Every beat of her heart that pulses blood through those tissues constricts her passage, so the sensation is constantly changing, constantly moving, even though Shane is almost entirely still, and she's never, never, never been this aware of her own body.

Turning her head, Shane feathers soft kisses over her wife's skin. "Love you... loveyouloveyou, Tara," she whispers softly as she slowly fits those last few remaining inches inside with almost painstaking slowness and care.

"Love you," Tara whispers, the words coming on a sob of breath. "Oh, god, Shane, in me so deep, I love you..." She can't do anything but feel, as thoroughly immobilised as she can be when everything inside her is in such constant motion. "So good, so deep, Shane... ohhhhhhhh." The last comes as a high-pitched note, soft and delicate and utterly overwhelmed.

"Tara..." Shane sighs, her name sounding almost like a prayer, spoken so softly, so reverently, because this feels like a sacred thing that they're doing. She keeps her right hand perfectly still, though she still peppers her wife's skin with tender, barely-there kisses.

Shane's kisses tickle and tease, sensitising her further, returning her awareness to the outside of her body without ever removing it from the inside, and the human mind cannot possibly process this much sensation, but it doesn't blend together into an amorphous whole. Every touch stays separate, distinct, treasured, seeping into her skin, and she's so utterly paralysed. Every breath, every sound changes the sensations inside her, moving like the ocean. Even calm and still, everything is changing, and she doesn't know what else to do but to hold on, to see where this takes her.

Tara had said that she was all right, that it was good, so she refrains from asking again. Having experienced this herself once before, she knows how overwhelming and intense the sensations can be and so she contents herself with the silence. Hopefully, as soon as Tara's ready for more - if she's ready for anything more - she'll say so.

It takes Tara a few minutes, feeling like an eternity as the sensations wash through her. She can't get them under control, but she does learn to anticipate them, to feel the tides of her own body, how breath and heartbeat interact, and slowly she lets out a long sigh. "You feel... amazing," she whispers. "Are you... are you all the way in?"

Shane's lips draw back into an almost painfully bright smile at Tara's words. "Yeah... yeah, I am," she murmurs softly.

"Ohhhhhh," Tara breathes. In me. In meinmeinme... Her own smile grows, her breathing growing faster in joy and something like relief - she wasn't sure she could do this, but she did, and Shane's inside her, fully inside her, and she's not sure that she can hold this emotion inside her fragile skin. "Oh, gods, Shane... I love you. So much, baby. So beautiful, so wonderful, so good to me. I love you."

"I love you, Tara... beautiful goddess, my beautiful wife... love you so much, baby," Shane whispers as she gazes up at her wife.

Fingers stroking the edges of Shane's smile, Tara wets her lips with a small, pink tongue, and then nods. "I'm ready, Shane. Let me feel you." Shane's so incredibly still, and though she doesn't think she could stand a thrusting movement like this, she wants to feel Shane's fingers move, wants to feel her wife inside her, as fully and deeply as it's possible to get.

Wetting her own lips, Shane nods as she focuses her concentration on something she can no longer see, her hand buried deeply inside her wife. Moving very carefully, she curls her fingers around her thumb to make a tight fist, pressing her fingers as tightly together as she can to make her fist as small as possible. Then, with just as much care, she very slowly begins to move her hand in a gentle pumping motion, barely moving her hand half an inch either way.

Oh. dear. gods. Shane's closed fingers, rubbing and pressing along the soft, spongy walls of her insides, feeling exactly like a hand inside her, and there's just no other way to describe it. Like Shane could reach just a little further and touch any part of Tara, stroke her skin from the inside and the outside at the same time, the barest slip of skin separating her hands.

Like she could uncurl her fingers and trace the mouth of Tara's womb, prepare it for the child that will one day be there as she might prepare the cradle that child will one day sleep in. The feeling is unbelievably intense, surging within her, and she bites back a sob, letting the breath out in a low wail. "Yes," she cries, the sound bottoming out into a ragged, creaky sigh.

Shane looks up, eyes training on Tara's face and watching her intently as she moves, keeping an eye out for any signs of pain or discomfort. "Do you like it, baby...?" She whispers, slipping her free arm around to place it on Tara's stomach, thumb gently stroking over her skin.

"Yes," Tara breathes, barely shaping the words as she meets Shane's eyes, the look there taking her breath away. Shane's hand on her stomach reminds her just how much more of her there is, and it's not a slip of skin that separates Shane's hands at all, but acres of it. "We are made of dreams and bones," she whispers, a line from a song, and she feels giddy, dizzy, light-headed and perfectly grounded all at the same time. "So good, Shane. Don't stop."

Lips drawing back into a warm smile, Shane nods as she continues that gentle pumping motion of her hand, not even half an inch back and forth inside her wife, but anything else would be too much. She had barely been able to handle Tara's hand being inside her and her wife remaining perfectly still, but she can't help but wonder, now, what this must feel like.

"Fuck," Tara whispers, and she doesn't swear often, but there's no other word for this, and she gets it now. She's told Shane before that she's able to use 'fuck' as a verb, but not an adjective, but this... there are no other words in English that describe this sensation, that express it so beautifully. Not in English, though there's a hundred other languages Tara could name (though not speak), and one of them has to have words that cover this moment. Words of power, magically imbued, because surely if she could condense this sensation into sound something would change as a result, something about the basic fabric of the universe. Breath catching in another sob, Tara's next exclaimation is louder, brought from the very pit of her stomach. "Fuck, Shane, yes."

"Ohh, yes, baby... god, Tara, you feel so good... you're so tight, baby," she whispers, her left hand beginning to smooth back and forth over Tara's stomach. "So fucking good, baby... I love you so much, Tara. Feel how deep I am? Can you feel me?"

Tara's always said she could from Shane's voice alone - to have Shane this deep inside her, moving inside her, and to have that voice in her ears as well... "Yes. Yes, yes, yes, feel you, hear you, love you, want you, need you, have you, keep you. Keep you, keep you always, Shane... so deep, so good." There's no voice left in her now, a high, thready whimper that betrays just how close she is to flying apart, but the sensation that drives her is entirely different from any she's grown used to.

Shane can't help but hear how close she is as well and, glancing down to where her hand has been enveloped, she sees Tara's clit, almost visibly throbbing amidst her slickened, swollen folds. Splaying the fingers of her left hand, she slips it down to Tara's hip in a steadying touch as she ducks her head and parts her lips, running the flat of her tongue slowly over Tara's clit in one long, slow swipe.

"Fuck!" Tara screams, stopping her hips from jerking up against Shane's tongue with an effort that makes tension course up her spine and beads of sweat stand out on her brow. "Shane... Shane..." Her fingers grope for Shane's head, wanting to bring her back down, hold her there, where that amazing sensation pools in her womb, a finger's-breadth beyond the point where she can feel Shane's hand, and it's liquid silver, spun moonlight, sung moonlight inside her. "So close," she whispers. "Soclosesoclose..."

Ducking her head down, Shane wraps her lips around Tara's clit, tongue pulsing strongly against the underside of it as she suckles, the pumping of her fist a bit more shallow, now, but faster. She doesn't really need to hear Tara say the words, because she can feel it - fluttering and tremors around her hand that are a pale ghost of the almost crushing pressure she knows those muscles are capable of.

For a long moment, a small eternity, Tara fights the effort to move, to writhe under Shane's tongue... and then it dissolves, the need to move leeching through her bones into something utterly transcendent. Blue-grey washes across her vision, swirling and spotting like sky and clouds mixed together as neurons misfire, filling her world with impossible imagery. She can feel the current running through her body, the crushing pressure of the waves Shane surfs upon, drawn downward by Shane's mouth to slam around her hand, utterly merciless to both of them. Tara's never felt anything quite like this before, as though she's being wrung out, every drop of sanity in her, every possible sensation caught in Shane's hand, and there's no breath, no bed, nothing in or around her, no flesh to hold her in. She's energy, living, pulsing, breathing energy, as much a part of the world as the wind or the rain or the crashing tides she has become.

As soon as she feels Tara's muscles clamp down, Shane's hand falls perfectly still inside her, knowing that if there's any movement while she's orgasming, she might accidentally hurt her wife. So instead, she continues to suckle on Tara's clit, a low, throaty purr sounding at the back of her throat as she rides the waves out with Tara. Her left hand remains stationed firmly on Tara's hip just in case to stop any wild bucking or sudden movements on Tara's part.

It feels as though Tara's whole body is convulsing, imploding, shockwaves from every extremity into her core where Shane's hand rests. She is bucking, every single muscle in her body is bucking, but they're doing so on a microcosmic level, rippling and surging within their own boundaries. Externally, Tara's trembling is almost uncontrollable, the coiled, quivering tension able to be felt through both of Shane's hands, and she's far past the point of crying out.

Not entirely sure of what to do now that Tara has fallen completely silent, she softens the stroking of her tongue, delivering tiny, catlike flicks to Tara's clit as she keeps her eyes on Tara's face.

Slowly, Tara's internal convulsions calm and slow, tiny aftershocks still running through her at random intervals as neurons misfire, as her body tries to relearn what it is to be after that moment of formlessness, where pleasure overtook flesh to the point that she lost all awareness of flesh. Another long moment and Tara's eyes open, shining and unfocussed, but finding Shane's general shape in the mass of colour the world provides, and she smiles, soft and sweet and grateful, blinking repeatedly as Shane's face gradually re-forms into meaning.

Seeing that smile, Shane breathes an inward sigh of relief as she lifts her head to return that smile. "I love you, baby," she whispers, tasting the sweetness of her wife on her tongue even as she speaks. Tara most probably can't speak yet - she'd be very surprised if she could - but she feels compelled to say it all the same just from seeing the look on her wife's face.

"Mmmm," Tara hums, her smile growing a little broader, her cheeks already feeling like they're going to ache from it. Actually she does ache, every single muscle in her body - limp and weary, as if she's... well, as if she's just had some pretty fantastic sex, come to think of it. Which makes sense. Even though she doesn't at the moment. There's a very faint glaze on Shane's lips, where the fluids of Tara's orgasm still rest, and Tara's tongue slips out to lick her own lips, wanting to kiss that sheen away but not able to ask. Or move.

Shane's smile broadens and brightens and she turns her head, pressing a kiss to the inside of Tara's thigh. She knows it's probably not the best time to attempt withdrawing her hand just yet, since they need to wait until Tara has relaxed again almost completely. Tara seems to be getting close to that point, but she's in no hurry.

The oddest things cross Tara's mind at times like this - and the current one is a desperate, profound need for a camera. They got a few disposables for Christmas, but Tara would give almost anything to be able to photograph that smile, to carry it around inside her purse, to tuck it against her mirror so that every time she looked at herself, Shane would look back at her, in just this way. Loving every inch of her.