Chapter Text
“Be prepared,” Ruby sang into Emma’s ear as they passed the gymnasium and Storybrooke’s Semi-Annual Safe Sex Saves Souls.
Emma can never resist making the sss-ing noise. Hissing it in Ruby’s face, she nearly misses when Marian sidles up to her other elbow. She wishes she did because Marian may be as good-natured as they come but her and Ruby together?
It takes less than a minute for Emma to enter her own personal hell.
“Emma’s always prepared,” Ruby teases. “Aren’t you, Emma?”
She’d already had the sex talk from her mother this week as she gets it every week that the SSSSSSSS is in session. SSSSSSSSnore.
“Principal Blanchard takes her job seriously,” Marian says sagely with a nod of her head to illustrate just how understanding she is of the struggles of Emma’s mother.
Ruby, on the other hand…
“As seriously as I take Emma’s sex life.”
Emma doesn’t just step into that one. She falls right into it and doesn’t even put out a hand to break her fall - rather, she stuffs both feet and both hands in her mouth instead when she says, “What sex life?”
Ruby snaps her fingers. From where he was leaning against his locker, Jefferson jumps up, eyes red like he’s been sleeping - or high - for far too long. Emma nods at him when he waves his hand and elbows Ruby in the side.
Her friend doesn’t even seem to care. “Exactly. This is a serious problem, Emma. You can’t go off to college knowing nothing.”
“I know everything, even stuff you don’t know.” Quietly, she whispers, “Do you know how much lube you need to properly insert anal beads without damage? I can tell you.”
“Please - oh my god did she really - please don’t,” Marian says, hand covering her face but Emma can see her laughing anyway.
It’s not particularly concerning. Ruby’s glinting smile is what concerns her. She’s a deviant, in mind, body, spirit, although her reputation is more talk than anything else - more Ruby’s talk than anything else and that one time her and Jefferson were caught in the Chem lab.
Ruby’s a deviant and it’s simply too easy for Emma to fall under her influence. She can shrug off most of Ruby’s teasing but she always rises to meet a challenge and her friend knows it.
(Plus, Emma’s not exactly as pure as the driven snow.)
“Speaking of anal beads,” Ruby says too loudly if the redness of Aurora’s face is anything to go by. Emma mouths a "sorry" at Aurora and takes Ruby by the elbow to drag her down the next empty hall towards the library Belle’s proctoring at. At least they can talk in there without worry of destroying anyone else’s sanity. Just Ruby’s girlfriend, which is a predictable byproduct of being Ruby’s girlfriend.
Marian pushes open the door and Emma nearly smacks Ruby and herself against Killian as he exits the room.
“Terrorizing Belle again?” Ruby asks, slipping out of Emma’s arm to step booted toe to heeled toe with him and glare directly into his eyes.
Killian rakes a hand over his face and Emma instinctively stops herself from making the same motion. He notices, darts his gaze to her for a beat too long because Ruby’s fingers reach out to grab the collar of his leather jacket. “Eyes on me, Captain. Step off my girlfriend.”
“Belle can fight her own battles, you know," he drawls, bored smile rounding off his words.
“Of course, she can, but she’s authorized me to fight this one for her. She’s trying to get into Stanford, can’t have assault on her record.”
I can, Ruby doesn’t add with one red nail lifting from his jacket and poised towards his throat. Right for the jugular. Emma doesn’t like stepping in between Ruby and her prey, but this is rather ridiculous and she could do better than going to jail for assault of Killian Jones of all people.
“Ruby, he isn’t worth it,” Emma says and takes Ruby’s hand away from his collar. Ruby doesn’t fight Emma - a miracle considering her well-founded dislike of Killian - but she does continue to glare like she might just jump out of Emma’s grip, hands be damned and just tear his throat out with her teeth.
“Hey, Swan, I’m worth all that and more,” he argues.
She looks at him. He gives her a winning grin. Emma doesn’t return it.
Arrogance melting somewhat, he switches back to Ruby, “I’ve apologized -”
“Insincerely.”
“- and Belle has decided to allow me to help her with her cataloguing project in recompense.”
Ruby makes lets out a humph. “I’ve yet to see remorse.”
“You won’t. I’m saving that for her.”
He steps aside to allow Belle to wiggle past him. The brunette crosses her arms over her chest and glares at Ruby. “Your authorization has been unauthorized. You can’t kill him. I need him.”
Killian opens his mouth. Belle taps her foot and pushes him farther aside so she can step into Ruby’s space. Placing a kiss on Ruby’s cheek, she says, “He’s an excellent cataloguer.” She steps away and announces, “My library is a quiet and safe space and expect it to remain so. Killian, be here Thursday. Emma, Marian, Ruby, are you coming in?”
It’s a perfect lecturer in the making's dismissal.
Marian is the first one to respond. She saves her quiet for pointless feuds, apparently, because she whips through the door, Belle in tow, already discussing the latest additions to the fairytale collection and some adventure novels she’s been thinking of requesting.
“Hey!” Ruby follows after them, heels clicking hard as she speeds to catch up.
Which leaves Emma to endure Killian’s stare. There's a bruise around his eye that still hasn't faded from his last match. He notices her gaze and touches the injury.
She should go in, but this encounter isn’t going to make Ruby just forget about whatever it is she’d wanted to say about Emma’s sex life. Emma reddens at the thought, but doesn’t look away from Killian while his hand drops back down. He’ll just think it’s about him.
“Sorry about that,” he says. Not entirely uncharacteristic, the apology, but unusual given that he nearly lost his life. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take my leave and disturb you and your friends no further.”
“Feeling chivalrous?” Emma teases.
She doesn’t know why.
Oh yeah, she does. She’s trying to avoid entering the library. Ruby is already waving from her seat at the table. Emma can see her over Killian’s shoulder, trying to catch Emma's eye.
“A bit, yeah. I do try to do the gentlemanly thing from time to time,” he says.
“And what would be these times? Year to year? Decade to decade?”
He heaves a sigh. “I’m going to leave before your words become sharp enough to actually cut. I’ll see you later, Lady Swan.”
Ah, of course, the inevitable throwback to her minor part in the play. If she has to hear him call her that one more time…
“You won’t.”
He will. They have English and French together. Back to back in the afternoon.
Chuckling, he turns away from her, starts his walk down the hall. Saunter, actually. Waving a hand back at her, he calls, “Oh, I love the way you lie.”
Emma watches him leave and then lets out a sigh of her own, dragging her feet through the doorway and the whole distance to Ruby’s table.
“You’d rather talk to him than hear what I have to say?” Ruby asks when Emma slumps down in the chair across from her. Ruby grins. “Emma, I’m only trying to save you from yourself.”
“Alright, spill it. Let’s get this over with,” Emma says, leaning across the table. She looks around the small library, triple checks that it’s just them and there’s no one huddled between the bookshelves, waiting to record an exclusive interview with Ruby about her plan for Emma's body.
It sounds awful when she says it like that. She eyes her friend.
“We’re going to make you a list,” Ruby says. “And you’re going to work your way through it.”
Emma leans so far over the table, her head hits the top. She bangs it again for good measure and then lifts up on her chin to stare at Ruby. Her green eyes crinkle at the sides as she smiles at Emma, too sweet of a smile for this attempt to force Emma’s life into that damned movie.
“I watched that movie with you, Ruby. I’m not making a -” She lifts her hands up to make the finger quotes. "To-do list.”
Ruby’s smile is too much, too wide, too excited. She leans over the table, takes Emma’s hands and folds her fingers in hers. Rocking them back and forth, she says, “But remember? You already made one.”
Emma didn’t. She does now.
“You’re going to hell,” she swears into Ruby’s face.
“Well, we both are, but at least we’ll go there together.”
“Friends to the skin flaying end,” Emma says. She narrows her eyes at her friend. They’re almost nose to nose. “You have it on your phone, don’t you?”
“Google Keep is a fantastic tool.”
They both lift up and separate at the same time. Leaning back in her chair, Ruby digs into her pocket to pull out her phone.
“You don’t have to recite it,” Emma says before Ruby can open her mouth. “Just text it over.”
She pulls out her own phone. Ruby’s fast. The text is already there when Emma unlocks her screen. The list is ten items long and Ruby even gave it a cute little pointing finger into circling finger emoticon pair at the top. Cute being the word that Emma would totally replace with something else if she wasn’t saving her energy for fighting other battles.
It takes only a quick glance for Emma to want to check out of this entire conversation. “I’m not having sex just to finish out this list, you know?”
Ruby nods. “I know. It’s just something to keep in mind when you do find yourself a dude or a lady to screw into the floor.”
Emma shakes her head, laughing. “What a visual.”
“You’re welcome.”
Emma glances back down at the list before her. Something to keep in mind, alright.
- cunnilingus (because we gotta keep it classy)
- fingering (wash your hands, their hands - keep it safe)
- blowjobs (if you’re feeling it)
- 69 (so you both can feel it)
- masturbation (i hope this is like a free card or something, Emma)
- clothed (hot as hell - literally)
- in public (not like public)
- handjobs (quick fun and if he isn’t cool you can rip it off)
- riding (lady or dude appropriate)
- anal (please don’t do this)
“I like the side comments,” Emma says. “Helpful.”
Ruby's a good friend. She gives Emma a half-smile and blinks at her in understanding. “I try," she says. Conversation over, she means.
Emma breathes and realizes her hand is burning on her phone. She drops it on the table. “Now be a little more helpful and send me the assignments for Prof. Hopper’s and Ingrid’s classes.”
-
“Told you I’d see you later, Lady Swan.”
Killian waves at her, beckoning her over to the desk next to him and Emma freezes in her tracks - literally, metaphorically, spiritually. Emma and Ruby never had this in mind when Ruby told her to keep the list in mind. Ruby definitely not. She has much better taste. Emma, no, nope, nada. She hadn’t even thought of anyone for it until this moment.
But it’s like the “Lady Swan” brings her back to that “lady or dude appropriate” - “screw into the floor” mindset and it’s just a terrible collusion of events.
Killian’s smile is dipping. He opens his mouth, a hint of tongue - 01. cunnilingus (because we gotta keep it classy.) Definitely keeping it classy to think about the rugby captain going down on you when you should be finding your seat in English.
The challenge eats away at her, which is a poor choice of words considering the fact that he’s speaking again and her eyes are on his lips and she’s sure he’s flirting because his words are just a little too drawn out, even though she can’t hear them over her own pressing...thoughts.
The challenge. Sit next to him and pretend she didn’t just associate him with her “to-do list,” or avoid him and pique his interest.
Emma shakes her head and walks over to him. “I have a headache, Jones, so if you could keep it to a minimum?”
He shrugs. “Need a Tylenol?”
She’d have just accepted his offer if he hadn’t decided to drum his fingers against his desk and draw her attention to the ridiculous ornate rings on his fingers - and his fingers - and of course the list burning a hole in her pocket through her overheated phone.
His fingers are clean.
Emma’s going to slay Ruby and herself so they can take that journey down to hell a little sooner than expected. While she’s cursing herself, Killian reaches into his backpack and takes out his bottle of Tylenol and a water bottle.
She takes them both, grateful that he can’t read her goddamn mind or her expression, either. He likes to think he can read everyone, but Emma’s interest in him has never gone beyond mild disinterest. He can’t guess that she’s thinking about what his mouth looks like wrapped around the water bottle she has in her mouth.
“Thanks,” she says, trying not to choke.
“Anytime.”
Anywhere. Public. (Not like public.)
-
Emma doesn’t think about it too much - it’s not something to be given analysis. Her mind latched onto him and he’s attractive, it makes sense that her sex-flooded brain (with special thanks to Ruby) would place him directly in the line of her newfound fantasies.
It’s logical. It’s natural.
When her headache fades, the anxiety fades as well and she’s able to be herself around him again. Even smacks him with her French book without thinking too much about other kinds of smacking.
At least not so much.
And not once does she get caught looking at his mouth so she counts it a success when class ends and all he does is say his usual goodbye to “Lady Swan” and jogs off to his rugby practice.
Emma doesn’t even watch his butt with anything beyond “he has one.”
All in all, it could be worse. She could’ve run into Victor first.
Or Prof. Hopper.
-
It’s the worst party Emma’s ever been to and that’s because she stuck at it with no phone, having lost hers somewhere she can’t fathom, while Ruby and Belle coo at each other on the corner couch. At least with her phone she could play some mindless games until the battery died. She doesn’t begrudge her friends taking the opportunity to make out like nobody’s watching, but she’s so bored that for a moment, taking the blunt from Jefferson seems like a good idea.
Emma has never smoked a blunt in her life and she isn’t going to start now, especially when Jefferson’s blowing smoke rings in her face. Pot smoker level: too high to even know that there are fucks to give, and Emma’s already sick of the smell.
She’s sick of this whole party, but she still has a beer to finish and she isn’t going to let the girl who brought it to her win in her “Are you sure you can handle all of that? You did have 2 shots.”
Emma had 3 shots in fact and a whole bag of Lays dipped in tequila (disgusting.) She can handle a beer.
She can also handle the screen door, but she’s still grateful when Killian draws it open and takes her hand so she can step outside.
“Thanks.”
“Not a problem.”
Not a major one. Not even a problem that he would concern himself with considering he doesn’t even know it is one - the problem that only exists in Emma’s intoxicated head.
The one where she can’t stop staring at his bottom lip. There’s a bruise just beneath it, on the patch of skin. A hit from practice probably, though she couldn’t be sure unless she asks.
Emma lifts her eyes reluctantly and then takes a long drag of her beer so it doesn’t look like she’s lost in his eyes. She isn’t. They’re blue, they’re pretty, she’s always liked them but they’re not anything special when he’s not trying to bore a hole into her with them.
Instead of taking a seat on the porch or the empty lawn chair, he asks, “Hey, wanna take a walk with me, Emma?”
He looks nervous. That’s why Emma decides to nod at him if she’s being honest. Overconfident, bordering on illegally flirtatious Killian she can shoot down in a second. It’s a little harder when he’s being sincere. A little harder when she’s tipsy, and harder than that when she can’t get that stupid list out of her head and his growing scruff is looking more and more attractive by the second.
She’s going to do something stupid. Emma knows this immediately, the moment she places her empty bottle on the ground and takes his hand and lets him lead her down the three steps.
“Victor has a treehouse,” he says conversationally. He’s not slurring but up close, now she can see his eyes are a little glassy.
“Is that where we’re going?”
He shrugs and keeps walking. “If you want, but ah, I have to tell you something first.”
“Please, keep your undying love to yourself,” she says, leaning into him when he turns to her. He lets go of her hand and she presses both of them to his chest just to keep her feet steady. The grass is a little wet and her sneakers slip.
Killian looks down at her hands and then back up at her face. “Noted.” With a clearing of his throat, he says, “I found your phone.”
“Oh, fantastic!” she says and hugs him. See? She knew she was going to do something stupid. “I really need that to get me through the rest of this evening.”
He doesn’t step back but shudders out a breath and says, “You’re not going to want to hug me in a moment.”
Emma jumps back. “Shit.”
It doesn’t take a genius to guess why he’s looking at her like she’s become someone else and blushing like he’s been caught reading her diary. All it takes is the devilish voice - it sounds a bit like Ruby, of course - screaming a reminder in her ear.
“You found my fucking list,” the voice and Emma say at the same time.
He’s very quiet and still for a beat. “A pretty apt description, Lady Swan.”
If she wasn’t certain before, she’d be certain now because he says “Lady” like he’s reading off “lady or dude appropriate” - like he’s read it off several times and still hasn’t wrapped his head around it.
“Stop calling me that for a moment, please, Killian.”
She doesn’t know how it’s possible but he reddens even more. “Of course. Emma, I truly didn't intend to read it. I was just trying to make sure it was your phone.”
And of course the last text he would see would be the one from Ruby.
“It’s mine. Give it, please.”
“I charged it for you,” he says.
She lifts an eyebrow at him and his awkwardness. “That’s kind of you,” she says and then lifts her eyebrows a little higher when he tilts his head to the sky and murmurs to himself.
“You ok-”
“Did you have anyone in mind for that list?”
He runs his fingers through his hair and his eyes do that thing where they bore into her and they’re something special now when she has her phone in her hand and he has her list in his head.
He knows. He fucking knows.
“Not you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not that hopeful, Swan. That’s the modus operandi of you...hero types.”
Her sneaker slips on the wet grass as she tries to stuff her phone in her skirt pocket. Emma falls into him and he grabs her by the forearms to hold her up.
“Hero types?” she asks, not moving lest she fall again and take them both down.
“You know, you and your family, saviors of the less fortunate.” His words are too raw until he clears his throat and adds in a distinctively more Captain Jones tone. “Your mother is certainly saving souls this year. Though, she might want to check on yours.”
He leers, and if anything, if anything it makes Emma want to make even more stupid decisions. Stupid ‘I’m not backing down even though it would be a good idea’ decisions.
“You sound jealous,” Emma huffs. “My soul will be just fine no matter how many things I work off that to do list. Or who I work them off with.”
“What about the other parts of you, Emma? Will you be just fine having your lips kissed by just any person? Feeling anyone’s fingers on your bare skin, their tongue, their -”
He doesn’t finish, though he might as well have. It was already lewd enough, the way his mouth curled around every word. Already enough to make her nails dig into her palms, heat spanning the length of her arms, even the places he isn’t touching - and other places he isn’t touching. Won’t be touching.
Could be touching.
“Will your body be just fine in any person’s hands? I should hope you’d pick a partner who knows what they’re doing.”
Stupid decisions.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
His eyes twinkle and he looks from her eyes down to her lips. His gaze remains there long enough to make Emma lick her lip and then slides lower to where her chest is lifting. Alcohol always makes her breathing heavier.
“I have an inkling.”
“Just an inkling? I doubt that you could handle even one thing off that list, then,” Emma says.
“Perhaps you couldn’t handle it, Lady Swan,” he breathes. She opens her fists, intending to push him away, but he says her name - “Emma” - like he’s drunk on her and not on the bottle of rum she saw resting by his vacated lawn chair.
“Only one thing. Choose,” Emma says.
He blinks at her. She’s thrown him off and that’s good because he doesn’t need to be cocky about this, she doesn’t want that - she wants...
Killian swallows and says, “Let’s start from the top and -” He pauses to let her go and draw his fingers across her collarbone and down her arm, leaving a path of goosebumps behind. “We can work our way down.”
It’s a good innuendo, she has to give that to him - will be giving him a lot more than that if this night continues down the path it’s headed.
“Let me show you that treehouse.”
He waves a hand forward and she sees the path on the ground, keeps her focus on treading it carefully instead of on the grass. Now that she’s made this decision, she isn’t going to sabotage herself by breaking her ass in a drunken fall.
She blanches. Anal was on that list.
“You okay, Emma?”
Killian’s voice is soft and the touch of his hand to her back is unsure. He draws away as soon as she moves to look at him.
“I’m fine, I just - to be clear, number 10 is never happening.”
He chuckles and waves her forward again. “I didn’t entertain the thought. Although…”
He smiles, doesn’t smirk or leer, so Emma’s hackles don’t rise. Something else does, though - thoughts of everything else on that list and starting from the top, working their way down.
His shirt is half open, revealing more chest hair than a teen should have probably and practice may have done a number on his mouth, but he looks fine everywhere else she looks.
She looks.
“Emma. Emma, the treehouse.”
The reminder isn’t casual, a strained sound that confirms Emma’s suspicions about the tent in his jeans. She bites at her bottom lip and turns towards the path again. When she looks up, she can see the treehouse, which is more like a tree-mansion because it’s spread between two entwined trees, a foundation under it that’s better than some houses and Emma stops again, this time in awe.
“This is huge. There are stairs, Killian.”
He’s so close behind her that his breath is an almost kiss on the back of her neck when he says, “Should make getting up there a bit easier on us.”
It does. It makes getting up into the empty treehouse easier than is good for her because she’s entered that state of drunkenness where she feels light as a bird and she needs solidity beneath her. Emma’s on her back before she realizes exactly how it’ll look to him.
Like she’s eager for it. For him.
It’s dark, but he finds a light switch - a goddamn light switch in a treehouse; lifestyles of the rich and the famous - on the wall and Emma realizes there’s a couch behind her, a perfectly good couch she could’ve laid across and she’s splayed out on the floor.
What a mess.
“I -” he starts. Fixing her with a look that’s more determination than lust, he drops to the floor beside her. “Good choice. That couch is dustier than the floor.”
“That’s not encouraging,” she says and giggles when he rolls closer. There’s nothing funny in the way Killian’s looking at her as she turns her head to face him, but she giggles again.
Oh fuck, she’s nervous.
“Get this over with,” she says. Her usual approach to nerve-wracking situations doesn’t feel appropriate after the words leave her mouth. She bites her cheek and closes her eyes for a bit, just to calm down.
When she opens them, he reaches out to touch her cheek. “Patience,” he says.
Their first kiss is a bit of a mess because Emma only connects the dots when his face connects with hers. There’s no muscle memory to go off of, she’s never felt his lips before this moment and she fumbles, lips too dry, head too swimmy.
“Let me try again,” he says and sits up, pulling her with him.
Their second kiss is a mess of a different kind. Killian keeps one hand on her jaw and it becomes crystal clear to her just how much rugby has shaped them into the kind of hands - firm, controlled, gentle - that can almost distract her from a kiss. He pulls her back in with the swipe of his tongue against the part of her lips. She bites down on his bottom lip and swallows his gasp. She took him by surprise, but he does her one better, mouth moving over hers with a skill that makes her grab onto his shirt to keep from falling forward, to keep his lips on hers for as long it keeps her nerves sparking to life.
It never stops doing that, but they have to part to breathe and when Emma tries to kiss him again he tilts her head up with the hand on her chin, brushes aside her hair with the other and kisses her bare neck.
“Oh, shit,” she says.
Killian chuckles into her skin and cuts the sound by sucking another kiss just millimeters away from the first. She’s going to have a line of hickeys down her neck - starting from the top, starting from the top.
Speaking of…
“Your top, Emma. It has to go.”
Emma agrees wholeheartedly. Releasing his shirt she tugs hers out of her skirt, uses the moment to take her phone out and push it to the side, too, mindful of knowing where she put it even though he’s intent on making her forget, kissing her cheek, her neck, can’t keep his mouth off of her long enough to let her take off her shirt.
She pushes him away and pulls the tee over her head, tosses it to the side with her phone.
“Oh, it’s cold,” she says, wrapping her arms around her. It isn’t that cold but his gaze makes her want to cover up at least for a moment, just to get her bearings and calm the way her heart thumps in her chest when his hand touches her elbow.
Killian backs off, sliding out of his jacket. “Lift up for a moment,” he says.
Emma raises her hips for him to slip the jacket beneath her butt. His shirt follows his jacket until they have a poor mockery of a bed beneath her.
At least his shirt is soft and warm when she lays down on it. He smells nice, she realizes belatedly (way belatedly) when she turns her face into the material. It’s less a realization than it is a revelation. She’s known him for close to five years now and it’s only now that she can distinctly say that he’s the reason she always feels so much more awake during their shared classes - he smells like mint.
“Emma,” he says, leaning over her.
She doesn’t so much as resist looking at his bare chest as she just can’t take her eyes off of his face. There’s that damn “stare you into the ground” look again and well, she’s as rooted as she can be.
Emma’s nervous again. Her mouth takes charge. “Are you going to take off my bra already?”
“Yeah,” he says softly. A smile starts on one side of Killian’s mouth and moves over to the other side. She distracts herself from the warm pressure of his hands by focusing on that and the wisps of hair that fall across his forehead and his one eyebrow that always seems to lift on its own. Unthinkingly.
Emma’s not thinking when his hands unclasp her bra. She just follows the motion, lifts her arms so he can slide it off her shoulders and down past her hands. It joins her tee and her phone, far enough away that she can’t reach to cover herself up even if she wanted.
His smile makes her want something else.
Killian clears his throat and what follows are words pressed into her skin. He moves over her, one leg between her bent knees, the other resting on her side. Grasping her chin firmly with both hands he kisses her, a too brief kiss to her lips and then starts another path down her neck, softer kisses that tease at her bruised skin.
Emma’s mouth parts without warning, a sound escaping her that is positively embarrassing. He pauses and kisses her neck again - and again until she repeats the sound. She feels it not just in her chest, but between her legs and this would be the moment Emma double checks the lock on her room door before crawling beneath her sheets and pressing a pillow there, her hand not enough to get her where she needs to be.
"I like that sound," he says when he draws another one from her throat.
"No, really? Color me surprised."
He hums. "Careful, Emma, I could spend all night right here and then where would you be?"
A clever response escapes her. Honesty is easier.
"Frustrated."
He lifts off of her, backing up on his knees. Emma wiggles, her knee brushing between his legs.
"Please don't knee me," he says. "I'm trying to remember this moment for what it is."
He isn't looking at her breasts, eyes focused on hers. Curious, she asks, "And what is it?"
"Perfect, bloody perfect," he says.
Emma drops her knee, just the one. Sincerity does that to her, takes her off her guard, and the alcohol doesn't help.
Doesn't help her. Helps him maneuver himself lower. He avoids her breasts entirely which is incredibly strange. Killian doesn't leave her much time to question why, kissing the skin just beneath her breasts, direct center of the spread of them.
Her stomach pulls taut like she's caught on a wire and he's pulling her in.
He lifts his head, resting his chin on her stomach. It itches where his scruff brushes her skin.
"So..."
Killian smiles. “You have freckles everywhere, Emma.”
The wonder in his tone makes her face heat, the dip of his tongue sends that heat lower, and by the time he’s done kissing each freckle beneath her breast - when she can see his eyes again and count the out of place hairs on his lifted eyebrow - by that time, the heat has reached her toes.
The digging of her heels makes the floorboards creak loudly.
“I swear to god if this thing falls apart beneath me,” Emma says.
He kisses her breast again - her head snaps back and she loses the grip of her heels as his tongue finds a path up to her hardened nipple.
And for a moment she'd thought he wasn't interested in that, but he's more than interested, his kisses are sloppy and hurried and she never knew how sensitive she could be there until his teeth scraped her nipple and she has to pull at his hair, pull him up and away.
"Is something wrong?" he asks, brows furrowed in worry.
Emma would let him go, but he looks good with her hands pulling at his hair and she's still drunk - drunker now that her clit is throbbing in time to her heartbeat.
"Lower?" she asks tentatively. Her voice is quiet. Nervous again. "I'm not really the patient type, can you just -?"
She lets go of his hair but he remains wrenched up over her and instead of heeding her request, he crawls higher, covers her body with his. Her nipples drag across his chest and he’s hard against her thigh, so Emma’s grateful when he kisses her again, just so she can find her focus in his lips instead of embarrassing herself with any more ridiculous sounds.
“You went the wrong way,” she says, pulling at his hair again even when he winces and frowns over her. “And I said choose one, Jones.”
His eyes slide across her face. “And I did choose my one, didn’t I? Alright, Lady Swan, I apologize for pressing my advantage.”
“Your advantage? Shakespeare, if you don’t put your tongue to better use, I’m going to hate you for the rest of my life probably,” Emma says.
She doesn’t even feel nervous about the demand, which means she’s passed stage one: stupidity, stage two: levitation, and now has landed in stage three of being drunk: brutal honesty.
“Hate me for not attending to your needs? You wouldn’t need to do that, I’d hate myself enough for the both of us.”
He must’ve entered his brutal honesty stage, too because he’s not lying and even if she couldn’t hear it in his voice, she’d see it in his eyes, and what she thought was determination before looks more like admiration, which she doesn’t think will make sense even when her fingertips aren’t tingling with tequila and lust.
Killian actually follows her demand this time. When she releases him, he moves down her and she’d almost forgotten how easy she’d made this for him (not that she planned this - how the hell could she?)All he has to do is lift her skirt a bit more and she’s practically bare for him. All he does is slide one leg out of her underwear and she is bare for him.
This is about the time that she should feel nervous. There’s a reason she’d put this on her list after all. Things we’ve never done, Ruby had said and all the reasons Ruby’s so invested in her sex life are right there because Emma doesn’t have one, never had one, and now Killian’s about to put his tongue on her.
She’d forgive herself for feeling nervous, but all she feels is hot when his shoulders spread her thighs farther apart. They’re hard and warm. The weight is nice, a good pressure, easy to focus on.
Emma still yelps when his fingers touch her. Surprise doesn’t so much as get the chance to settle in before it spikes again when Killian breathes against her and says, “Don’t worry. You’ve chosen a good partner.”
She’s all nerves, all nerve endings that spark to life when his tongue starts from the bottom and works its way up. That isn’t what he promised, but she doesn’t mind. It’s a weird feeling at first until he reaches the top. Her pillow can go fuck itself honestly because this is what she needs to get off, the pressure of his wet tongue swirling around her clit, the kiss of his lips around the throbbing bundle and the sight of him beneath her skirt, head disappeared so all she can do to tell what he’s feeling is to shudder into the increasing rumble of his breath when he pulls back to pant against her hot, wet folds.
He takes long moments to explore them, long moments to write his name into her flesh with his tongue. At least, she assumes he’s doing that, branding her with his tongue and his fucking teeth. Half of her is terrified he’ll bite down too hard, and the other half of her, the bigger half trusts him wholeheartedly, trusts in the way he works at her, fingers only there to hold her open so he can tongue fuck her into a wet mess.
She’s really keeping it classy when she squeezes his shoulders and lifts her hips to meet him when he dips his tongue inside her. The classiest, absolutely, when she grips the top of her skirt and holds onto it for dear life, moaning too loud and maybe even begging a little.
It must take ten years for her to come, it really must because she feels like she’s on the brink for forever and his tongue is just holding her there, on the brink of going over the edge, but not letting her go.
Not until he sucks her clit into his mouth again, sucks hard enough that the lights blink behind her eyes, fireworks, explosions, cresting waves, all that good stuff - all that perfect, fucking amazing, top of the line orgasmic release stuff.
After those ten years and the best orgasm she’s ever had pass (which is need to know information and he’ll never need to know), Emma hits that stage of drunkenness that she loathes the most: sobriety.
He rises from between her legs. Fuck. Killian’s face is wet. He licks at his lips and Emma actually jerks forward like he’s licked at her instead. Fuck.
She’s wet, she’s topless, and her back is sweatier than it should be. Her hair feels a mess beneath her. Taking stock of the situation, Emma realizes that it is a situation.
“I have to go,” she says as nonchalantly as she can manage when her breathing’s as heavy as it is and there’s saliva and her own release slicking down into places she doesn’t want to think about, has to think about because she is not putting her underwear back on over that.
“I think there’s a bathroom in here,” he says quietly.
His chest rises with the words and Emma stares. She’s just catching her bearings, taking a moment to drown out the panic in her head by distracting herself with his muscled stomach, the dark hair (way too much for a teen) that covers most of his chest and goes lower where she’s grateful she can’t see. Emma’s trying to calm down, not think of other things on that list - or things she kept off that list.
Killian stands and there goes her keeping calm out the window because he actually winces when he does it and it’s obvious why.
“I’ll be right back,” he says.
It takes all of a moment of him stepping past her for her to realize that the wetness beneath her is pooling on his jacket. Oh god, he’s going to need to get that laundered.
She’s laughing when he comes back with his face thankfully dry. Bending, Killian offers her a hand to stand and a towel that actually looks clean.
“The rest of the treehouse is much more dust free than here,” he says. “Strangely enough.”
Emma stares at him. He gives her a smile, stupidly small.
“Um, can you turn around?” she asks.
Even though the request is probably ridiculous given recent events, he turns. He doesn’t stay quiet though which is almost as bad as him watching.
“If you’re interested, I’d be highly interested in doing that again.”
“Killian, that was a one time, drunken thing. To be clear, I have no intentions of finishing off that list with you or anyone else.”
“Or anyone else,” he repeats. He sounds like he’s smiling. “But if you do -” He is smiling. “You have my number. And I believe I have yours. Numbers 2 through 9, right?”
Emma drops the towel on top of his jacket. “I may be half-naked but I will still throw your ass out of this treehouse.”
His shoulders rise and fall in a quiet laugh. “Point taken.” He doesn’t stay quiet for more than a moment, like she’d expect him to resist the sound of his own voice. Killian sighs and says, “Can I turn around yet?”
“How about you wait until I’m gone,” Emma says while she fastens her bra and grabs her t-shirt off the floor. As quickly as possible, she stuffs it as neatly as possible into her skirt. She considers going to find whatever bathroom he found and attempt to fix her hair, but sobriety is an asshole, egging her on, “Get out of there! Get out while you still can!”
Get out before Ruby and Belle come looking.
“I’m going to turn out the light when I go. Wait ten minutes and then you can return to the party,” she says.
He doesn’t move to turn around even as the lights go out around him. A wave of something like disappointment hits her right until the moment her sneaker touches the top step and he says, “As you wish.”
“I told you to keep your undying love to yourself,” she hisses back at him, turns her head, meets his eyes, and takes the rest of the stairs in a half run.
Sobriety is an asshole, egging her forward, but so is the feeling of his eyes on her as she goes.