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Home.
It’s been on her calendar since Milan. A goal post. A finish line. A place to breathe. And Amber had been a part of that for almost as long, though Alysa had only clued her in before Prague, before announcing she wouldn’t be competing.
“When we’re done with Stars, come home with me.”
The thing between them is complex in a way that isn’t complicated. There’s no label, no expectation. But it’s theirs and it matters and they know it.
Still, home is more than they’ve had so far.
“You sure?” And the question itself solidifies Alysa’s certainty.
“I put it in the calendar,” she says. “A full week. Just us. Okay? Say yes.”
And Amber laughs in a way that’s half indulgent and half shy–something only she’d be able to accomplish. Fuck, does Alysa love her.
“Yes,” Amber agrees. Obedient, Alysa thinks, and that draws a grin and a faint blush, even alone in a hotel room several states away.
“Good girl,” she teases, because Amber is not in a place, really, to offer up any part of herself right now, but Alysa likes to remind her that she has. That she could. That she will.
Home.
It feels like a million lifetimes away.
“Alysa.” If she’d meant it to be scolding, Alysa thinks she should’ve tried harder. As it is, it sparks a kind of heat that Alysa only knows from this. Amber.
“It’s on the calendar,” she repeats. “That’s all.”
“Yeah,” Amber laughs and Alysa can see it: the sparkle in her eye, the wrinkle in her nose, the undeniable joy. God, she loves this girl with something so fierce that love doesn’t feel like enough. “Okay.”
The conversation settles after that. A level playing field.
Alysa starts a countdown on her phone.
——
Japan is the reunion they’ve all been waiting for, the three of them. With competition season finally—finally—behind them, it feels like a reward.
And it’s not that Amber doesn’t spend nearly every night in her bed. It’s not that she doesn’t end up between the other girl’s thighs, jaw aching, fingers slick, it’s that this version of them is still level. Balanced. Vanilla.
Alysa laughs when the thought occurs to her, but it’s the truth. For the better part of the season, things between them had been anything but. Bruises and scratches. Rough hands, rough mouths. A thing with teeth and claws, only rendered gentle again in the aftermath. The change of pace is part of the beast, and a welcome one at that, but Alysa checks the countdown anyway, a periodic reminder that the beast is merely slumbering.
“What’s so funny?” Amber asks and Alysa just shakes her head, teeth dragging over the faint definition at her hip, too light to do anything but tease. Enough to make Amber forget. Enough to make Alysa remember.
—-
The US tour is a different thing entirely. In the beginning, it’s similar enough. The skating is the same at least. And they’ve done this before.
But home is messy in ways Japan hadn’t been. Real life lives here, too, bleeding in around the edges. Phone calls, interviews, a mountain of expectation that came with the weight of the gold medals they carted around with them like a living museum display. And for Alysa, it’s fine. She’s wrestled her demons and they may still linger, but she’s detached herself from them enough to ignore their shadows. Her friends, though, aren’t so lucky.
Isabeau crumbles and it’s the quiet kind of erosion that most people don’t notice. But Amber isn’t most people. So she steps in and it means she has to be strong, again. Alysa, too, though it’s less taxing. Not because she cares less but because Amber takes things personally and it’s her gift as much as her curse.
It’s when they get to California that the wear really starts to show and Alysa carves out a moment, just one, in the quiet of a hotel room, to draw Amber close, cradling her head and rubbing her back and refusing to let go until the older girl relents, clinging to her so hard it almost hurts.
“Shhh, I’ve got you,” Alysa murmurs. “You’re doing so, so good. We’re almost done.”
“I can’t,” Amber confesses and in a moment, Alysa understands she means this. Giving in. Not here when there are still too many days between them and certain freedom.
“I know,” Alysa says, feeling the way the walls restructure themselves, a natural and familiar shape that she doesn’t take personally.
“How many days?” Amber asks, and Alysa laughs.
“How do you know I’m counting?”
Amber lifts her head enough to level her with a look.
“Sixteen,” she says, relenting, her hand gentle as she brushes Amber’s cheek, her jaw.
“Okay,” Amber murmurs with her eyes falling shut. “We can do that.”
________
The rest of the tour is like that, like them showing up for each other in small ways, like Alysa making sure Amber remembers to eat and doesn’t fall into a doom scrolling khole and forget to go to sleep at a somewhat reasonable hour, and Amber making sure that Isabeau isn’t just masking, and that everyone else is being cared for, too. They have fun, of course. How could they not? But Alysa can see by the time they get to Texas that Amber is running on empty.
Alysa finds her in the bathroom of her hotel room at 4am, standing in the stupidly bright light, clutching the counter so hard, her knuckles are white and her arms are shaking. When their eyes meet in the mirror, it’s with the familiar kind of shame from that night in Amber’s kitchen, a million lifetimes ago.
“I’m here,” Alysa whispers, sliding into place behind her, arms easing gently around her waist. Her chin hooks over Amber’s shoulder and one hand smoothes up her torso to press into the middle of her chest, over her racing heart. “You’re safe, okay? I’ve got you.”
This is a problem she knows how to fix but not here, not yet. So she does this instead, the slower, more temporary fix. The one without pain.
“That’s my girl,” Alysa murmurs, feeling the tension gradually recede. “Breathe just like that for me. You’re doing so good, baby.”
Amber meets her gaze in the mirror and though there’s exhaustion creeping in at the edges, shadows of grief and expectation and shame, the real Amber is in there, too.
“Thank you,” she breathes and Alysa turns her around, until Amber is facing her.
For a minute, she just looks at the older girl, searching for the right thing to say. That she doesn’t have to thank her, that Alysa feels nothing but honored to be the one to get to pick up Amber’s pieces, that she is more sure every single day that this thing between them is forever. That the way her chest aches from just looking at Amber can’t be explained any other way.
“Come back to bed,” she says instead, her voice quiet and low as she reaches over to turn out the light, shrouding them in nearly complete darkness.
Three more days.
_________
Though it feels like it’ll never happen, finally, the plane touches down at SFO. It’s some strange twist of fate that there’s limited paparazzi waiting. All the same, she keeps her hands to herself and just makes sure Amber is following as they get into her car and head home.
They drive in silence, Amber wringing her hands in her lap, until Alysa reaches over and covers them.
“We made it,” she murmurs, but she knows it’ll take more than facts to break through, to prove Amber is safe now, to be whatever version of herself she needs, and that Alysa will be there, no matter what.
Amber does offer her a tired smile, though, flipping one hand to lace their fingers together.
The apartment is quiet and dark. She’s hardly stepped foot in it since December. Alysa hardly remembers the person she’d been then.
With gentle hands, she guides Amber inside, nudges her toward the bathroom.
“Shower.”
Amber looks like she wants to object but Alysa’s brow lifts and Amber chuckles instead, relenting.
“Okay, shower,” she agrees and Alysa affords her a lopsided grin.
“Good girl,” she says and Amber whirls around, jabbing a finger at her.
“You know you can’t just say that,” she says and Alysa’s grin morphs into a smirk.
“And why is that, exactly?”
Amber’s jaw works as she attempts to formulate a response but when none comes, she just huffs and turns back around.
Pleased, Alysa heads for the bedroom.
At the very least, she’d had the forethought to make her bed before leaving for Milan. There are other things she needs now, though.
Kneeling on the plush rug next to her bed, she reaches underneath to retrieve the small chest she keeps there. It’s simple. Unassuming. Black leather with silver latches.
Inside are most of her toys. Ones she hasn’t used in several years. Not since coming out of retirement. Ones she’s been imagining using with Amber for at least a year now and never had the chance.
For the time being, she takes out a set of leather cuffs. Generally, she prefers rope, but for tonight, this is easier. More immediate. Amber’s waited long enough. They both have.
With that particular box checked, Alysa moves on to the next, digging in her closet for a pair of shorts and a tshirt for Amber to wear to bed. Laundry hadn’t exactly been a priority in the past couple of weeks, and there’s just something about Amber in her clothes.
Then, it’s smaller things: fresh water bottles, easily accessible snacks.
At some point, the shower turns off, and after a few minutes, Amber reappears, wrapped in a towel, hair damp and wavy around her face. She looks infinitely more vulnerable like this and Alysa’s chest aches.
“Here,” she says, handing Amber the clothes she’d picked, leaning in to kiss her. “I’ll be back.”
“Okay.” Amber’s response, the tone of her voice, snags Alysa’s attention before she steps away.
“Get dressed,” she says. “And wait on the bed. You can do that for me, yeah?” Despite the easy tone, there’s no real question. There is only one answer, and Amber softens a fraction, nodding.
“That’s my girl,” Alysa murmurs, and the words thrill her. Because Amber is hers. All the messy parts of her. So she kisses her again, a little more intently now, lips slanting over Amber’s, tongue licking into her mouth, and Amber all but dissolves. “Do as you’re told.”
The slightly dazed way Amber nods makes Alysa want to abandon every plan she has and take Amber to bed right then. But Amber deserves the kind of intentional care she bestows on everyone else. So Alysa eases away, more sure now, that Amber is solid enough to wait ten minutes.
The shower is desperately needed. It’s heavenly, and not just because the air is still heavy from Amber’s shower. Not because she knows Amber is waiting in the other room for Alysa to take her apart. It’s hers and being here means they made it through. The season is truly behind them. And now she has a full week alone with the person she loves more than anyone in the world.
With her hair and body washed, Alysa takes a minute to towel off, brushing her hair and wringing out the extra water before rejoining Amber in the bedroom.
The girl is kneeling on the floor, which, in retrospect, Alysa should’ve anticipated. She’d left the box out. Not open, but sort of haphazardly closed, latches undone, not quite pushed back into place. And it hadn’t exactly been unintentional.
But somehow, seeing Amber on her knees, overlooking the contents with her cheeks flushed, her breathing slightly uneven, Alysa is unprepared for.
“Pretty sure I told you to wait on the bed,” she says, though, finding her voice.
Amber jumps, eyes wide as she looks up at Alysa like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t. It makes Alysa feel powerful.
“Sorry, I just…”
“See something you like?” Alysa interrupts, standing over Amber now, a curious smile playing at her lips.
She’d known, roughly, how the things inside the box were arranged, but when she looks into it, things have shifted. Even without Amber touching it now, Alysa has a pretty good idea of what she’d been looking at. The thing on top, though, surprises her.
The knife is a safety in her kit, but it’s a pretty one.The handle is dark wood with an intricate design carved all the way around. The blade 8 inches of steel. She’d only gotten it for the rope, for the off chance that whoever she’d tied up had panicked and needed a more instant release than letting Alysa untie the knots. She’d never really given it more thought than that.
“This?” Alysa reaches past Amber without touching her and wraps her fingers around the handle. Even just that much makes the other girl shudder and Alysa smirks. “Mmm, noted.”
She sets the knife back in the box and nudges it back under the bed for now.
“Now, we gonna follow directions?” Alysa slides her fingers into Amber’s still damp hair and tugs her head back, smirking.
“Yes.” Amber’s already wrecked and Alysa wonders when that happened, when the older girl started trusting herself enough not to fight it.
She releases Amber to let her move onto the bed, and then follows after, crawling over her, straddling her hips as she reaches for the hem of her shirt. The one she’d only just provided, but its time has come, for now.
Amber lets herself be stripped, growing increasingly pliant. And then Alysa retrieves the cuffs.
“I’ve been thinking about this for so fucking long,” Alysa murmurs, taking one of Amber’s hands in her own, pressing her lips to her palm and then trailing kisses down her wrist, nipping at her skin.
The sound Amber makes has Alysa rocking her hips downward hungrily, chasing whatever hint of pleasure she can, even momentarily.
“I don’t think you understand what you do to me,” she rasps, buckling one cuff around Amber’s wrist and then reaching for the other, her tongue dragging from Amber’s wrist to the dip of her elbow.
Even now, she thinks of the careful lines she’d seen there, self-inflicted punishment without any tempering. Amber against her own mind. Not anymore.
She buckles the other cuff and connects it to the chain already looped through the slats in the headboard.
All of this is planned. Orchestrated over the past few months, and she pauses to relish her plan coming to fruition.
“Alysa?”
“I’m just looking, baby,” Alysa murmurs, bending to kiss her, slow and sweet.
With one hand braced on the bed beside Amber, Alysa skates the other down her side. She kisses from Amber’s mouth, along her jaw and down her neck, still tender and soft.
“I can’t wait to make you hurt for me…”
Amber sucks in a ragged gasp, the chain on the cuffs rattling faintly, and Alysa grins.
“You like that, hm?”
Her hand skims lightly over Amber’s stomach, the way the muscles twitch and flex making Alysa viciously hungry.
“And now you can fight back all you want but you can’t get away…” she purrs, digging her nails into the particularly sensitive spot on Amber’s ribcage she’d discovered months ago.
“Jesus,” Amber breathes, twisting under her, and Alysa makes a show of dragging her mouth up the column of the other girl’s neck to moan quietly in her ear.
“Not sure if I can wait,” she murmurs.
In their sport, a certain measure of exhibitionism is practically mandatory. And Amber plays into it more than most. But this version of Amber, the one bound and helpless–submissive–likes watching, too. Likes not being in control, likes wanting something she can’t have, likes being wanted so, so desperately that Alysa can’t stand to put off her own pleasure.
“Baby, please…” Amber whispers, pupils blown, the rise and fall of her chest unsteady.
“Please what?” Alysa asks sweetly, stealing one, brief kiss from Amber’s lips before she’s sitting up again, peering down with an innocence entirely at odds from her intentions.
“Touch yourself,” Amber pleads, her cheeks flushing at the request.
“Yeah? You want to watch? See what you do to me?” Alysa plucks at the waistband of her sweats but only delays momentarily before her hand dips underneath.
Her breath stutters behind her teeth at the first brush of her fingers through the slick heat between her thighs. That part’s not for show.
“Fuck,” she moans quietly, slowly circling her clit, her whole body shuddering at the pleasure that cascades down her spine.
“Alysa…”
“Amber,” she counters, a shaky sigh slipping past her lips as her momentum builds. She rocks her hips into her own fingers, practiced and methodical. This part isn’t about teasing, not really. It’s torture enough for Amber to have to watch her without touching. “Fuck, do you know how many times I’ve made myself come, thinking about you?”
The confident version of Amber, the one who winks at the crowd and smirks at the camera, wouldn’t be surprised. But this version of her doesn’t see herself worth that kind of attention and the blush crawls into her cheeks again.
It’s that that has Alysa breaking, collapsing over Amber, barely catching her weight on her free arm as she shakes through her pleasure, her knees tight around Amber’s hips as broken, needy sounds pour out against her neck.
For several long seconds, Alysa stays as she is, just to feel the tension in Amber’s body, unmet need and desperation drawing her taut beneath the smaller girl.
“That’s better,” she murmurs, finally pushing herself upright again, stripping off her shirt and then sliding off of Amber to rid herself of her pants, too, her skin hot now. “How are your shoulders?”
She moves toward the top of the bed, examining Amber’s skin for any sign of damage. There are faint marks from where she’d strained against the leather but nothing lasting.
“Fine,” Amber insists and Alysa hums, trailing her fingers down Amber’s arm in contemplation.
“You’re sure you actually want this?”
“Yes,” Amber says, and Alysa has to believe her. It’s the foundation of everything they’ve built.
“Okay.” With one last lingering caress of Amber’s arm, Alysa withdraws, ducking into the closet.
The box under the bed only contained what it fit. There were other things she couldn’t keep there. It only takes a second of rummaging for her to locate what she’s looking for, and then she’s back, fingers curled loosely around the handle of the crop. She hasn’t touched it in years, but she knows how.
The blonde stares, perfect blue eyes widening a fraction, her breath visibly stalling, and Alysa grins, tongue toying with her piercing as she lets the other girl look.
“Think you deserve this?” she asks finally, trailing the folded leather tip down the middle of Amber’s stomach. Just that much makes the other girl writhe, a quiet whine blooming behind clenched teeth.
“That’s not an answer, pretty girl,” Alysa murmurs.
“Yes,” Amber finally manages, though Alysa can tell the admission takes work.
“Yeah, I think so,” Alysa agrees, and she flicks the crop against Amber’s hip. Not enough to cause any kind of pain, but the shock of it, paired with the sound of the impact, has Amber shuddering, the chain rattling as she strains at the cuffs.
“More,” she begs. Alysa feels a satisfying kind of hunger wind its way down her spine.
The crop lands again, more forcefully this time, smacking the top of Amber’s thigh. It must hurt a little because instantly, the tension in the other girl shifts into something Alysa’s grown familiar with over the course of their relationship.
So Alysa does what she’s done since the night Amber begged her to stop asking questions: she gives her what she needs.
The crop falls with certainty, though never with any sort of predictability. The blows fall along Amber’s thighs, Alysa shifting to kneel between them to stop Amber from pressing her legs together or squirming away. And once the skin there is suitably pink, she moves to her hips and her stomach and her ribs while beneath her, Amber whimpers and struggles, panting raggedly.
“You’re taking it so well,” Alysa praises, pausing to smooth her palm over the marks she’s left behind.
Amber’s eyes meet hers and the depth of her undoing catches Alysa off guard. She swallows thickly, leaning over Amber to kiss her, gripping her jaw as she claims her mouth. Addicted to the intrinsic power of taking Amber apart, Alysa brings the crop down on the curve of Amber’s breast. It’s lighter than the other smacks have been, but the way Amber seizes under her, it’s still a lot.
“Good girl,” she murmurs soothingly, repeating the motion with the kind of restraint Amber deserves. “All mine…”
Alysa drags the folded leather over the stiff peak of Amber’s nipple, watching her bow into it instead of shying away.
“Greedy,” she murmurs against Amber’s mouth. “You wet for me, baby?”
The blonde’s mouth opens but nothing comes out and Alysa takes pity, smiling sweetly as she flicks the crop over Amber’s nipple, this time without any force at all, though it has Amber bowing into her, trembling. She sets the crop aside and slides her hand between Amber’s spread legs, swearing under her breath at just how slick the other girl is.
“Fuck,” Amber chokes out and Alysa’s grin widens.
“You really like hurting for me, don’t you?” she asks, sitting back again so she can watch the woman under her while her fingers spread her apart, middle finger just barely grazing Amber’s entrance, making her hips twitch desperately.
The blonde nods haltingly, that pretty flush creeping into her cheeks again, spreading down her neck, too.
“Don’t be shy, baby…I like it too,” Alysa admits, rubbing the pad of her middle finger gently over Amber’s swollen clit now, a complete contrast to the intensity of everything else she’d done. “You’re so fucking pretty like this.”
LIfting the crop again with her left hand, Alysa taps it to the curve of Amber’s breast again, hard enough to make her cry out. The answering pulse between her legs, though, tells Alysa all she needs to know.
Without any preamble, Alysa sinks two fingers deep into Amber. It’s not meant to be slow or coaxing or easy, and it’s not. She sets a demanding pace, abandoning the crop again in favor of her mouth, teeth on all the places she knows will render Amber boneless: the slope of her shoulder, the dip of her collar bone, the swell of her breast.
The reward is the other girl shaking under her, broken sounds pouring out of her as her body draws tight, like the string of a bow.
“I think you can take another finger for me, baby, hm?” Alysa muses, not actually asking as she works in a third, unrelenting until her lover’s body yields to her.
She has to pin Amber’s hips down at that, holding her in place to keep the pace exactly where she wants it.
“Alysa, please. I need…” The rest of the words seem lost, the girl unmoored, just as Alysa had planned.
“I know, baby. I know exactly what you need. You’re doing so well…”
Alysa eases down the other girl’s body to settle between her thighs. With her fingers still working, Alysa brushes her lips up the inside of Amber’s thigh. She’s so wet, the skin there is slick, too, and Alysa draws her tongue over it, the faint tang only making her hungrier.
“Please, your mouth,” Amber begs, and for all the times Alysa’s wrecked her, she’s never sounded like this: raw and desperate and completely at Alysa’s mercy.
Grinning, Alysa nips sharply at the inside of her thigh and Amber shudders hard enough the bed frame rattles.
She finally grants Amber a reprieve, closing her lips around her clit, working the swollen bud with the tip of her tongue.
There’s merit in drawing out pleasure, in teasing to the point of making Amber beg tearfully for release, but Alysa’s spent too long waiting for tonight. She curls her fingers with the kind of precision that makes Amber go still under her, the blonde not wanting to chance Alysa moving from her mark. The fresh slick around her fingers doesn’t hurt and Alysa moans, gentling her tongue the way she knows the other girl likes.
The sounds that pour out of Amber make Alysa’s head spin. She groans in encouragement, feeling the older girl grow tighter around her and Alysa shifts her own hips down into the bed as she drags her teeth carefully over Amber’s clit, pushing her over the edge so sharply that Amber’s legs clamp around her, holding her in place, and she writhes so hard, Alysa’s momentarily concerned about the integrity of her headboard.
She works the other girl through it, lapping gently despite the ache in her jaw, stilling her hand, though that’s less a choice and more because Amber’s so fucking tight now, pleasure pulsing with every small crook of Alysa’s fingers.
When it ebbs and she finally releases Alysa, the younger girl gingerly withdraws, crawling up over the blonde to release her hands. She checks under the cuffs for any damage but finds nothing of concern. Satisfied with her physical appraisal, Alysa settles on top of Amber, gently stroking her cheek.
“You with me?” she murmurs and Amber hums, the dazed, blissful look on her face all the answer Alysa could ever ask for, though she knows it’s not always that easy. Amber’s never crashed on her, but they’ve never played this hard, either. “You did so good, baby.”
Amber smiles faintly, cheeks flushing at the praise. She hums and nods slightly and that’s enough.
It feels surreal, now that the anticipation has eased. The countdown is done. They’re finally actually here.
Home.