Firefly Fanfiction - "Objects in Motion " (part 2) (NC-17)
Disclaimer: Joss is Boss. No copyright infringement is intended and no money was made from this of course. Any similarity to any other story but my own is a coincidence.
"A Love Before Time;" Crouching Tiger; Hidden Dragon; Tan Dun; 2000
Title: Finding Peace Out of Serenity (Objects in Motion - part 2)
Genre: PWP; Malcolm/Inara
Rating: NC-17; rated for sexual content
Timeline: Post TBDM; immediately after Crash
Author's Notes: This is a repost as the last one got eaten by the web-monsters. Originally posted as a prompt from my FList.
Language Notes: (as best I know)
Ai ya: Basically an exclamation or sound of disgust/frustration; roughly 'oh no' or 'damn' depending on who you ask
Bao yu de pu sa… wo bu zhi dao wo chu fan laio nin… Dan qing you ci bei…: Blessed Buddha I do not know how I have offended you - But please have mercy
Wuh de tyen, ah: Dear God in Heaven
Qing: Please
Gai si: Damn
Yu ben… ji nu… ren…: Stupid, frustrating man
Bao bei: An endearment meaning variously: baby, sweetheart, darling, or beloved
Wo ai ni: I love you
Dong ma: As a question; understand
Part One - Crash Into Me
Finding Peace Out of Serenity
(Part Two of Crash Into Me)
Malcolm took the steps to Inara’s shuttle two at a time, with every intention of confronting the whirlwind of a woman that had just changed the whole axis of the universe on him. One way or another, the captain wanted a reckoning for the event. The problem was, Malcolm didn’t know what kind of answer he was seeking.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He knew the answer that he wanted, it just depended on which part of him was asking.
“Ai ya…”
Malcolm practically leapt the final two steps, but when he finally reached the shuttle door, he suddenly found himself hesitating. He stood there, poised on the knife’s edge of desire, unexpectedly uncertain that he wanted to endure the cut of it.
But then he heard it, a soft, feminine sound, part pleasure, part frustration. It fell lightly from the smallest opening of the shuttle door. The purely male part of Malcolm’s awareness recognized the sound and responded with reckless disregard for any other consideration. The more sentimental parts of his psyche, whispered about love and longing and jumped onto the bandwagon. Only a hard earned sense of cynicism and jaded reasoning held Malcolm in check.
“Bao yu de pu sa… wo bu zhi dao wo chu fan laio nin…”
The sound called to him again.
“Dan qing you ci bei…”
Malcolm opened the shuttle door silently, just enough to see inside and gauge the situation.
“Wuh de tyen, ah,” he said under his breath.
Laid out on the red satin sheets was the sight that Malcolm Reynolds was certain was his own personal vision of heaven or hell, because either way, it was going to linger with him. And depending on what he did with the memory, he was either going to be blest or tormented with it.
Inara’s damp peach silk dress and her even more delicate under-things were tossed heedlessly on floor, testament enough to the state of the Companion’s mind. The woman herself lay naked on the bed, and the part that threatened to shatter Malcolm into a million pieces of longing and desire was what she was doing with her hands.
They moved restlessly over her body, seemingly with no direction or purpose, so unfocused were their movements.
“Ai ya…” she swore softly, brushing her fingertips lightly over her nipples.
She slid her hands slowly down her body to press them low on her belly.
“Mal…” Inara said in a low voice.
The captain held his breath, almost certain that the Companion had sensed his presence. Though for the moment, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted more, for that to be the case, or for Inara’s gasp to have been prompted by something far more primal in nature.
But kohl dark eyes never turned his way and her hands slid lower.
“Mal…”
She started to move her hand, her fingers still restless, still seeking. She arched into her hand and made soft, yearning sounds that Malcolm felt low in his own belly.
“Qing,” she asked. “Please…” she almost begged the air.
Suddenly she stopped and sat up, frustration clear on her face.
“Gai si!” she swore, as close to a lack of control as Malcolm had ever seen her.
“Yu ben… ji nu… ren…yu ben…” she muttered before making a harsh sound of disgusted frustration. “Stupid, beautiful, frustrating…”
Inara took deep breath before becoming silent and thoughtful. Slowly she brushed her fingertips over her lips.
“Bao bei,” she murmured.
Slowly she started to trail her hand down her throat and down between her breasts. “Bao bei…”
“Darlin…” she drawled in as close an imitation to Malcolm’s inflections as she could while she moved her hands back to her nipples.
But after a few moments she stopped and unexpectedly turned in Malcolm’s direction, swinging her feet to the floor.
The moment hung heavy between them, threatening to either explode or radically change everything.
“Don’t stop on my account, darlin,” the captain drawled as casually as he could, not certain what he was doing, but willing to do anything to keep Inara from busting him clean on the head with something heavy.
“Malcolm Reynolds… what are…”
“Not sure we finished my haircut back there, bao bei,” he interrupted as playfully as he could, though even he could hear the undercurrents of something deeper in his voice. He sought Inara’s dark eyes with his own and stepped into the warm shuttle, closing the door quietly shut behind himself.
“Mal…”
“I’m thinkin’ maybe we should finish what we started,” he said softly.
“Mal…” Inara repeated, but her own voice was soft.
The captain stepped closer.
“What do you think?”
He stood in front of her.
“Bao bei?”
Inara tilted her head as she looked up into his eyes.
“Are you sure?” she asked carefully.
“No, but then again,” he said in a low voice. “Neither are you.”
Inara licked her lips before biting the lower one quietly. Her small nod was almost imperceptible, but Malcolm noted the quiet acceptance.
“Well then…don’t stop on my account, darlin’…” he drawled again with a slightly wicked grin, almost daring her.
Inara smiled slightly herself before slowly sliding a graceful hand from the hollow of her throat and down to her breast.
Malcolm swallowed against the sudden dryness in his own throat.
Still keeping eye contact, Inara brought her fingertips to her nipple with a soft sigh before reaching for Malcolm’s hand with her free one. She placed his hand on top of the one she was using to tease herself with. Then she held his hand in place with her other hand. She kept his hand there as she caressed herself.
“Nara…”
She lay back, forcing Malcolm to sit next to her on the bed. Still keeping his hand trapped between hers, she slid their joined hands slowly down her body.
“Mal…” she murmured.
She slid her hand lower.
“Bao bei…” she whispered.
She slid her fingers through her dark curls, then into herself.
“Nara…”
She smiled when she saw Malcolm’s eyes go dark and hooded. Then slowly, she began to pleasure herself, arching up into their joined hands.
“Mmmm… ahhh… mmm…” she sighed, making sounds that Malcolm was certain were designed to drive him mad.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” he accused aloud in a teasing tone, though he had never mentioned her offense.
She smiled quietly and pressed his hand more tightly on top of hers, forcing him to lace his fingers with her lower hand. Their joined hands moved together, his fingers sliding wetly against hers and brushing her curls.
“I’m not stopping on your account,” she teased in return with a breathless voice.
After a few moments, she removed the hand holding his in place and slid it upwards to circle her nipple.
“I can see that darlin,” Malcolm drawled in a lazy, sexy tone. Then his free hand went to Inara’s other breast and she gasped, arching into his touch before she sat partway up to kiss him.
As they kissed each other breathless, Inara slid her lower hand out from beneath his and moaned into his mouth when he slid his fingers into her. Malcolm used startlingly deft touches to push her to the edge, but not over it.
“Mal… qing… oh please…”
Suddenly, he stopped.
“Mal?” she gasped.
“Tell me what you need.”
“What?” Inara asked, dazed.
“I need a center ‘Nara. You whirl me around… get my ‘Verse spinnin’… I need a center…”
“Malcom… I don’t…”
“Tell me what you need, Inara… and not just this…”
He moved his hand, making her moan softly.
“Tell me what you really need,” he insisted.
She took a deep breath. “You…” she finally whispered. “God help me, but I need you, you exasperating, confusing…”
“Beautiful…” he added with a charmingly smug grin. “Don’t forget that…”
Inara narrowed her eyes slightly. “Frustrating man…”
Malcolm met her eyes with his; held her with them.
“Wo ai ni, Inara…”
She looked into his stormy eyes, seeing how dangerously close he had allowed her to be with those words.
“Wo ai ni, Inara,” he admitted again in a deeply scared and utterly sincere voice.
She could kill everything that had not died in him at Serenity and they both knew it. If she ran, as was her wont when scared, she would kill him. He knew it, and yet, he said those words to her.
“Dong ma?” he asked.
“The world I know fades away… but you stay,” she replied softly. “You have become my world…” she replied in the poetry with which she was familiar. “Dong ma?
She kissed him with a passionate grace.
“Lay back, bao bei…” he murmured when they finally broke the kiss.
She did, watching as he removed his clothes finally. He moved to the edge of the bed and wrapped two large hands around her ankles. Gently he pulled, bringing her to the very edge of the mattress before he knelt before her. Slowly, he urged her to open her legs. He looked down the length of her body to meet her eyes.
“You have to meet me halfway, Inara… We can’t do this any other way…”
She bit her lip and this time it was an unconscious nervous gesture.
“I never left Serenity Valley, Inara… just like you never really left Madrassa… The only way this is ever gonna work is if we meet somewhere in the middle.”
He watched her with an almost unnerving intensity.
“I can’t promise I won’t leave…” she admitted finally. “But… but if I do…” Inara took a deep breath. “I’ll come back.”
Malcolm slid his hands up her legs and to her hips, never taking his eyes from hers, unexpectedly letting her see all his quietly naked vulnerability.
“I love you too, Mal,” she finally confessed and he watched, entranced with seeing her masks start to fall away.
He smiled and brought his lips to the inside of her ankle. Then ever so slowly, he started to trail hot kisses up her leg, listening as Inara’s breathing changed the higher up her body he moved.
“Let go…” he whispered in a voice rough with desire. “Surrender with me…” His breath brushed against her dark curls.
“Mal…” Inara protested a moment.
“Let go, darlin’… I’ll catch you…”
Inara hesitated a moment more, then made a small movement upwards. Malcolm brought his mouth to her and she let out a ragged breath as he tasted her. With an unskilled reverence he drank her in until she came with an unpracticed cry of joy.
“You’re so beautiful…” he murmured.
She trembled beneath him as he positioned himself above her. “I’ve never known anyone so beautiful.”
He started to slide into her, but she stopped him and shifted until she straddled him instead. Then ever so slowly, she slid herself down his length. Her sigh entwined with his as she started to move in a graceful, familiar ways; practiced cants of her hips.
Suddenly, Malcolm shifted beneath her and Inara gasped. His hands splayed wide and warm on her hips and he sat up. She lost her rhythm with a cry as he moved deeper in her.
“No…let go, ‘Nara…” he urged her before kissing her with an almost rough passion.
Malcolm gripped her hips tightly, supporting her as he rose up from the bed, carrying her. Inara wrapped herself tightly around him as he maneuvered them both to a shuttle wall.
“Let go, ‘Nara…” he insisted, pressing her against the tapestry covered metal. “I want to see you loose control,” he growled into her ear.
“Oh God…”
He thrust into her, bracing her against the wall and tangling his hands in her dark hair. His fingers sought the deliberately short strands hidden from view, making sure that she knew that they were what he was trying to find. He tilted her head back.
“I want to see you loose control, and know it’s because of me.”
He shifted, pushing himself as deeply into her as he could, seeking her cries of pleasure as determinedly as he had ever sought the Black or freedom in it.
“I want to see the real Inara; my ‘Nara; my bao bei…"
He slid his hands out of her hair and back to her hips.
“I love you, ‘Nara…”
Her voice broke as she cried out in pleasure. Malcolm nuzzled her neck and she tilted her head, giving him better access. He bit gently, leaving a mark. He wrote his name into her skin, declarations of love, and she didn’t stop him; didn’t want to stop him. She let him mark her in ways that she had always forbidden before Malcolm Reynolds had come into her life.
“Come for me, bao bei…”
And she did, the orgasm coming hard and sudden. She cried out and shuddered around him.
Carefully then, Malcolm made his way back to the red satin sheets of her bed. He lay back, keeping her above him and moving slowly and gently in her until she shifted, straddling him.
“When she ought to fall,” he murmured, knowing that Inara couldn’t know what he was referring to, but trusting that she could see his meaning in his eyes.
She did look into his eyes a long moment, watching his walls fall down before her.
“Be with me, Mal…” she whispered. “I want you to be with me.”
“For as long as I can darlin.’ Long as the ‘Verse will allow…”
“Even though I turn you about…” Inara asked. “Leave you lost without a compass or direction?”
“Even so… long as you turn ‘bout with me…”
Inara smiled and moved. “We’ll just have to be lost together…” she murmured.
“Surrender with me,” she echoed then. “Come with me…”
Her gravity pulled to his and they came together, her bright cry entwining with his.
“Wuh de tyen, ah…” he cried.
As the last shudders left them, Inara settled herself carefully in Malcolm’s arms. She shivered as his fingertips idly traced the dark mark he had left on the curve of her neck and shoulder.
“Ya gonna hide it?” he asked, trying to sound as if he were making simple conversation.
In response, Inara shifted until she half-lay on top of him. She trailed delicate fingertips over the tracery of scratches and half moon marks on his shoulder and collarbone, the places that she had held when he had had her against the wall. She seemed almost fascinated with them.
“We were taught how to give love marks,” she murmured. “There are very specific patterns, given if asked for…” her voice trailed off and Inara studied Malcolm’s face, uncertain how he would react to a reference to her calling, even one so subtle.
“Oh, I asked for ‘em…” he replied in a low voice. “But I reckon mine say nothin’ your teachers ever meant you to say, bao bei. And I reckon you ain’t ever had much cause to loose control before…” he said, the pride clear in his voice.
“Malcolm Reynolds…” she sputtered sliding off of his chest. “You are the most…”
He laughed in the face of Inara’s rising indignation and kissed her softly.
“Well… that’s one thing we ain’t got any cause to be worryin’ ’bout,” he drawled. “Us bein’ together ain’t gonna change the fundamentals. We’re still gonna push each others’ buttons,” replied to her questioning look. “Course, now I know a lot more of those…” he drawled, brushing a gentle hand along the small of Inara’s back, a place that he had discovered caused her to shiver in the most appealing way.
“You are the most…”
“I know, I know… the most infuriating, frustrating… irresistible man… and that’s why you love me,” he interrupted with shameless grin before kissing her, preventing Inara from voicing any protests.
“God help me,” Inara said with a quiet sigh when they finally ended the kiss.
“That I’ll grant you an amen for… you’re gonna need it if you plan on lovin’ me…” Malcolm agreed, settling Inara firmly in the cradle of his arms.
“Nothing in the Verse will stop me,” she said.
“Been hangin’ ‘round River and Kaylee too long,” Malcolm murmured. “I think it’s makin’ you a bit whimsical in the brainpan too.”
“Ever the romantic,” Inara replied, running her hand tenderly through his hair.
“The world I know fades away… but you stay. You have become my world… And don’t look so shocked,” he said without looking to see her expression. “I may have read more than one poem. Just never had cause before for recitin’ love poetry.”
He did turn his head then to look into Inara’s kohl dark eyes.
“If the years take away every memory that I have. I would still know the way that would lead me back to your side. The stars may die, but the light that I see in your eyes will burn there always…”
“My heart never had a reason to hear it before,” Inara whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere, Mal. I’m here with you… I’m where I belong…” she vowed before kissing him softly. “Wo ai ni, bao bei,” she said as softly as a prayer. “Stay with me tonight?” she asked.
Mal nodded and pulled the sheets up about them. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, bao bei… not now that I finally found me somethin’ worth celebratin’… now that I’ve found some peace out of Serenity…”
"A Love Before Time;" Crouching Tiger; Hidden Dragon; Tan Dun; 2000
Title: Finding Peace Out of Serenity (Objects in Motion - part 2)
Genre: PWP; Malcolm/Inara
Rating: NC-17; rated for sexual content
Timeline: Post TBDM; immediately after Crash
Author's Notes: This is a repost as the last one got eaten by the web-monsters. Originally posted as a prompt from my FList.
Language Notes: (as best I know)
Ai ya: Basically an exclamation or sound of disgust/frustration; roughly 'oh no' or 'damn' depending on who you ask
Bao yu de pu sa… wo bu zhi dao wo chu fan laio nin… Dan qing you ci bei…: Blessed Buddha I do not know how I have offended you - But please have mercy
Wuh de tyen, ah: Dear God in Heaven
Qing: Please
Gai si: Damn
Yu ben… ji nu… ren…: Stupid, frustrating man
Bao bei: An endearment meaning variously: baby, sweetheart, darling, or beloved
Wo ai ni: I love you
Dong ma: As a question; understand
Part One - Crash Into Me
Finding Peace Out of Serenity
(Part Two of Crash Into Me)
Malcolm took the steps to Inara’s shuttle two at a time, with every intention of confronting the whirlwind of a woman that had just changed the whole axis of the universe on him. One way or another, the captain wanted a reckoning for the event. The problem was, Malcolm didn’t know what kind of answer he was seeking.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He knew the answer that he wanted, it just depended on which part of him was asking.
“Ai ya…”
Malcolm practically leapt the final two steps, but when he finally reached the shuttle door, he suddenly found himself hesitating. He stood there, poised on the knife’s edge of desire, unexpectedly uncertain that he wanted to endure the cut of it.
But then he heard it, a soft, feminine sound, part pleasure, part frustration. It fell lightly from the smallest opening of the shuttle door. The purely male part of Malcolm’s awareness recognized the sound and responded with reckless disregard for any other consideration. The more sentimental parts of his psyche, whispered about love and longing and jumped onto the bandwagon. Only a hard earned sense of cynicism and jaded reasoning held Malcolm in check.
“Bao yu de pu sa… wo bu zhi dao wo chu fan laio nin…”
The sound called to him again.
“Dan qing you ci bei…”
Malcolm opened the shuttle door silently, just enough to see inside and gauge the situation.
“Wuh de tyen, ah,” he said under his breath.
Laid out on the red satin sheets was the sight that Malcolm Reynolds was certain was his own personal vision of heaven or hell, because either way, it was going to linger with him. And depending on what he did with the memory, he was either going to be blest or tormented with it.
Inara’s damp peach silk dress and her even more delicate under-things were tossed heedlessly on floor, testament enough to the state of the Companion’s mind. The woman herself lay naked on the bed, and the part that threatened to shatter Malcolm into a million pieces of longing and desire was what she was doing with her hands.
They moved restlessly over her body, seemingly with no direction or purpose, so unfocused were their movements.
“Ai ya…” she swore softly, brushing her fingertips lightly over her nipples.
She slid her hands slowly down her body to press them low on her belly.
“Mal…” Inara said in a low voice.
The captain held his breath, almost certain that the Companion had sensed his presence. Though for the moment, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted more, for that to be the case, or for Inara’s gasp to have been prompted by something far more primal in nature.
But kohl dark eyes never turned his way and her hands slid lower.
“Mal…”
She started to move her hand, her fingers still restless, still seeking. She arched into her hand and made soft, yearning sounds that Malcolm felt low in his own belly.
“Qing,” she asked. “Please…” she almost begged the air.
Suddenly she stopped and sat up, frustration clear on her face.
“Gai si!” she swore, as close to a lack of control as Malcolm had ever seen her.
“Yu ben… ji nu… ren…yu ben…” she muttered before making a harsh sound of disgusted frustration. “Stupid, beautiful, frustrating…”
Inara took deep breath before becoming silent and thoughtful. Slowly she brushed her fingertips over her lips.
“Bao bei,” she murmured.
Slowly she started to trail her hand down her throat and down between her breasts. “Bao bei…”
“Darlin…” she drawled in as close an imitation to Malcolm’s inflections as she could while she moved her hands back to her nipples.
But after a few moments she stopped and unexpectedly turned in Malcolm’s direction, swinging her feet to the floor.
The moment hung heavy between them, threatening to either explode or radically change everything.
“Don’t stop on my account, darlin,” the captain drawled as casually as he could, not certain what he was doing, but willing to do anything to keep Inara from busting him clean on the head with something heavy.
“Malcolm Reynolds… what are…”
“Not sure we finished my haircut back there, bao bei,” he interrupted as playfully as he could, though even he could hear the undercurrents of something deeper in his voice. He sought Inara’s dark eyes with his own and stepped into the warm shuttle, closing the door quietly shut behind himself.
“Mal…”
“I’m thinkin’ maybe we should finish what we started,” he said softly.
“Mal…” Inara repeated, but her own voice was soft.
The captain stepped closer.
“What do you think?”
He stood in front of her.
“Bao bei?”
Inara tilted her head as she looked up into his eyes.
“Are you sure?” she asked carefully.
“No, but then again,” he said in a low voice. “Neither are you.”
Inara licked her lips before biting the lower one quietly. Her small nod was almost imperceptible, but Malcolm noted the quiet acceptance.
“Well then…don’t stop on my account, darlin’…” he drawled again with a slightly wicked grin, almost daring her.
Inara smiled slightly herself before slowly sliding a graceful hand from the hollow of her throat and down to her breast.
Malcolm swallowed against the sudden dryness in his own throat.
Still keeping eye contact, Inara brought her fingertips to her nipple with a soft sigh before reaching for Malcolm’s hand with her free one. She placed his hand on top of the one she was using to tease herself with. Then she held his hand in place with her other hand. She kept his hand there as she caressed herself.
“Nara…”
She lay back, forcing Malcolm to sit next to her on the bed. Still keeping his hand trapped between hers, she slid their joined hands slowly down her body.
“Mal…” she murmured.
She slid her hand lower.
“Bao bei…” she whispered.
She slid her fingers through her dark curls, then into herself.
“Nara…”
She smiled when she saw Malcolm’s eyes go dark and hooded. Then slowly, she began to pleasure herself, arching up into their joined hands.
“Mmmm… ahhh… mmm…” she sighed, making sounds that Malcolm was certain were designed to drive him mad.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” he accused aloud in a teasing tone, though he had never mentioned her offense.
She smiled quietly and pressed his hand more tightly on top of hers, forcing him to lace his fingers with her lower hand. Their joined hands moved together, his fingers sliding wetly against hers and brushing her curls.
“I’m not stopping on your account,” she teased in return with a breathless voice.
After a few moments, she removed the hand holding his in place and slid it upwards to circle her nipple.
“I can see that darlin,” Malcolm drawled in a lazy, sexy tone. Then his free hand went to Inara’s other breast and she gasped, arching into his touch before she sat partway up to kiss him.
As they kissed each other breathless, Inara slid her lower hand out from beneath his and moaned into his mouth when he slid his fingers into her. Malcolm used startlingly deft touches to push her to the edge, but not over it.
“Mal… qing… oh please…”
Suddenly, he stopped.
“Mal?” she gasped.
“Tell me what you need.”
“What?” Inara asked, dazed.
“I need a center ‘Nara. You whirl me around… get my ‘Verse spinnin’… I need a center…”
“Malcom… I don’t…”
“Tell me what you need, Inara… and not just this…”
He moved his hand, making her moan softly.
“Tell me what you really need,” he insisted.
She took a deep breath. “You…” she finally whispered. “God help me, but I need you, you exasperating, confusing…”
“Beautiful…” he added with a charmingly smug grin. “Don’t forget that…”
Inara narrowed her eyes slightly. “Frustrating man…”
Malcolm met her eyes with his; held her with them.
“Wo ai ni, Inara…”
She looked into his stormy eyes, seeing how dangerously close he had allowed her to be with those words.
“Wo ai ni, Inara,” he admitted again in a deeply scared and utterly sincere voice.
She could kill everything that had not died in him at Serenity and they both knew it. If she ran, as was her wont when scared, she would kill him. He knew it, and yet, he said those words to her.
“Dong ma?” he asked.
“The world I know fades away… but you stay,” she replied softly. “You have become my world…” she replied in the poetry with which she was familiar. “Dong ma?
She kissed him with a passionate grace.
“Lay back, bao bei…” he murmured when they finally broke the kiss.
She did, watching as he removed his clothes finally. He moved to the edge of the bed and wrapped two large hands around her ankles. Gently he pulled, bringing her to the very edge of the mattress before he knelt before her. Slowly, he urged her to open her legs. He looked down the length of her body to meet her eyes.
“You have to meet me halfway, Inara… We can’t do this any other way…”
She bit her lip and this time it was an unconscious nervous gesture.
“I never left Serenity Valley, Inara… just like you never really left Madrassa… The only way this is ever gonna work is if we meet somewhere in the middle.”
He watched her with an almost unnerving intensity.
“I can’t promise I won’t leave…” she admitted finally. “But… but if I do…” Inara took a deep breath. “I’ll come back.”
Malcolm slid his hands up her legs and to her hips, never taking his eyes from hers, unexpectedly letting her see all his quietly naked vulnerability.
“I love you too, Mal,” she finally confessed and he watched, entranced with seeing her masks start to fall away.
He smiled and brought his lips to the inside of her ankle. Then ever so slowly, he started to trail hot kisses up her leg, listening as Inara’s breathing changed the higher up her body he moved.
“Let go…” he whispered in a voice rough with desire. “Surrender with me…” His breath brushed against her dark curls.
“Mal…” Inara protested a moment.
“Let go, darlin’… I’ll catch you…”
Inara hesitated a moment more, then made a small movement upwards. Malcolm brought his mouth to her and she let out a ragged breath as he tasted her. With an unskilled reverence he drank her in until she came with an unpracticed cry of joy.
“You’re so beautiful…” he murmured.
She trembled beneath him as he positioned himself above her. “I’ve never known anyone so beautiful.”
He started to slide into her, but she stopped him and shifted until she straddled him instead. Then ever so slowly, she slid herself down his length. Her sigh entwined with his as she started to move in a graceful, familiar ways; practiced cants of her hips.
Suddenly, Malcolm shifted beneath her and Inara gasped. His hands splayed wide and warm on her hips and he sat up. She lost her rhythm with a cry as he moved deeper in her.
“No…let go, ‘Nara…” he urged her before kissing her with an almost rough passion.
Malcolm gripped her hips tightly, supporting her as he rose up from the bed, carrying her. Inara wrapped herself tightly around him as he maneuvered them both to a shuttle wall.
“Let go, ‘Nara…” he insisted, pressing her against the tapestry covered metal. “I want to see you loose control,” he growled into her ear.
“Oh God…”
He thrust into her, bracing her against the wall and tangling his hands in her dark hair. His fingers sought the deliberately short strands hidden from view, making sure that she knew that they were what he was trying to find. He tilted her head back.
“I want to see you loose control, and know it’s because of me.”
He shifted, pushing himself as deeply into her as he could, seeking her cries of pleasure as determinedly as he had ever sought the Black or freedom in it.
“I want to see the real Inara; my ‘Nara; my bao bei…"
He slid his hands out of her hair and back to her hips.
“I love you, ‘Nara…”
Her voice broke as she cried out in pleasure. Malcolm nuzzled her neck and she tilted her head, giving him better access. He bit gently, leaving a mark. He wrote his name into her skin, declarations of love, and she didn’t stop him; didn’t want to stop him. She let him mark her in ways that she had always forbidden before Malcolm Reynolds had come into her life.
“Come for me, bao bei…”
And she did, the orgasm coming hard and sudden. She cried out and shuddered around him.
Carefully then, Malcolm made his way back to the red satin sheets of her bed. He lay back, keeping her above him and moving slowly and gently in her until she shifted, straddling him.
“When she ought to fall,” he murmured, knowing that Inara couldn’t know what he was referring to, but trusting that she could see his meaning in his eyes.
She did look into his eyes a long moment, watching his walls fall down before her.
“Be with me, Mal…” she whispered. “I want you to be with me.”
“For as long as I can darlin.’ Long as the ‘Verse will allow…”
“Even though I turn you about…” Inara asked. “Leave you lost without a compass or direction?”
“Even so… long as you turn ‘bout with me…”
Inara smiled and moved. “We’ll just have to be lost together…” she murmured.
“Surrender with me,” she echoed then. “Come with me…”
Her gravity pulled to his and they came together, her bright cry entwining with his.
“Wuh de tyen, ah…” he cried.
As the last shudders left them, Inara settled herself carefully in Malcolm’s arms. She shivered as his fingertips idly traced the dark mark he had left on the curve of her neck and shoulder.
“Ya gonna hide it?” he asked, trying to sound as if he were making simple conversation.
In response, Inara shifted until she half-lay on top of him. She trailed delicate fingertips over the tracery of scratches and half moon marks on his shoulder and collarbone, the places that she had held when he had had her against the wall. She seemed almost fascinated with them.
“We were taught how to give love marks,” she murmured. “There are very specific patterns, given if asked for…” her voice trailed off and Inara studied Malcolm’s face, uncertain how he would react to a reference to her calling, even one so subtle.
“Oh, I asked for ‘em…” he replied in a low voice. “But I reckon mine say nothin’ your teachers ever meant you to say, bao bei. And I reckon you ain’t ever had much cause to loose control before…” he said, the pride clear in his voice.
“Malcolm Reynolds…” she sputtered sliding off of his chest. “You are the most…”
He laughed in the face of Inara’s rising indignation and kissed her softly.
“Well… that’s one thing we ain’t got any cause to be worryin’ ’bout,” he drawled. “Us bein’ together ain’t gonna change the fundamentals. We’re still gonna push each others’ buttons,” replied to her questioning look. “Course, now I know a lot more of those…” he drawled, brushing a gentle hand along the small of Inara’s back, a place that he had discovered caused her to shiver in the most appealing way.
“You are the most…”
“I know, I know… the most infuriating, frustrating… irresistible man… and that’s why you love me,” he interrupted with shameless grin before kissing her, preventing Inara from voicing any protests.
“God help me,” Inara said with a quiet sigh when they finally ended the kiss.
“That I’ll grant you an amen for… you’re gonna need it if you plan on lovin’ me…” Malcolm agreed, settling Inara firmly in the cradle of his arms.
“Nothing in the Verse will stop me,” she said.
“Been hangin’ ‘round River and Kaylee too long,” Malcolm murmured. “I think it’s makin’ you a bit whimsical in the brainpan too.”
“Ever the romantic,” Inara replied, running her hand tenderly through his hair.
“The world I know fades away… but you stay. You have become my world… And don’t look so shocked,” he said without looking to see her expression. “I may have read more than one poem. Just never had cause before for recitin’ love poetry.”
He did turn his head then to look into Inara’s kohl dark eyes.
“If the years take away every memory that I have. I would still know the way that would lead me back to your side. The stars may die, but the light that I see in your eyes will burn there always…”
“My heart never had a reason to hear it before,” Inara whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere, Mal. I’m here with you… I’m where I belong…” she vowed before kissing him softly. “Wo ai ni, bao bei,” she said as softly as a prayer. “Stay with me tonight?” she asked.
Mal nodded and pulled the sheets up about them. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, bao bei… not now that I finally found me somethin’ worth celebratin’… now that I’ve found some peace out of Serenity…”