Archive of Our Own

“Fuck,” Villanelle heard Eve grunt at the first touch of her tongue to Eve’s pussy, licking a line up her opening. Villanelle pulled her mouth away to revel in the way Eve was already clenching around nothing, but that probably shouldn’t have been surprising, given that she was going on her third orgasm of the night.

Eve wasn’t having Villanelle’s teasing, not this late in the game. “Please,” she whined, her voice strained.

Villanelle decided to be merciful. She lowered her head to lave through Eve’s folds, groaning into her when Eve lifted a hand to her scalp and clenched some of her hair in a tight fist, tugging her down. Villanelle was happy to comply and dove in deeper to use more pressure with her tongue.

When Eve was thoroughly soaked in both her own arousal and Villanelle’s spit, Villanelle licked over Eve’s clit to bring some of the moisture up. Eve borderline shouted, so Villanelle started flicking her tongue over the nub in a simple pattern. She adjusted her upper body in order to put most of her weight on one elbow so she could reach up with her other hand and tweak Eve’s nipple in time with her tongue.

Eve arched into her touch with a moan, head pressed back into the pillows, but that unfortunately meant that Villanelle couldn’t see her face anymore. Or her beautiful hair. Which was disappointing; if Villanelle couldn’t have Eve’s hair in her hands during sex, like their current position prohibited, then she at least liked to look at it. And she liked the look Eve got in her eyes whenever Villanelle pleasured her. Her eyes always got dark and lidded, and she looked at Villanelle like she was all she wanted, all she needed, in the entire world.

But alas, Eve’s head was thrown back in bliss, so Villanelle focused on the task at hand instead. She changed up the rhythm on Eve’s clit after a minute or so, then trailed her hand back down Eve’s stomach before lining it up at Eve’s entrance. She slid a finger in and was met with little resistance; Eve hardly even seemed to notice. She added another and heard a choked gasp from above her head. Villanelle smiled against Eve’s pubic bone as Eve pressed harder into her face, thighs squeezing her head and ankles coming up to link behind Villanelle’s back. After waiting a moment to let Eve adjust to the stretch of her fingers, she started easing them in and out.

She hastened her rhythm as Eve began to make more and more keening noises, which Villanelle could barely hear, sound taking on an underwater-like quality due to Eve’s thighs blocking her ears. When Eve’s thighs started trembling against Villanelle’s head, and Villanelle felt muscles flexing around her fingers, she knew Eve was close.

“Don’t stop- I’m-” Eve started, but Villanelle was already ahead of her (and also wouldn’t dream of stopping). She slid a third finger into Eve’s dripping core, curled her fingers upward, and sucked Eve’s clit into her mouth, and Eve was coming with a loud shout of “Villanelle!”

It always fed Villanelle’s ego whenever Eve called her name in bed. There was something about the fact that it wasn’t just anyone that was doing a good job of making Eve come, but that Eve was noting and appreciating that it was Villanelle specifically who made her feel this way. It was how Eve forgot all other words, and the only thing left in her brain was Villanelle’s name.

Maybe that didn’t make any sense. Villanelle just knew that she’d made many women scream in pleasure in her life, but only a couple had ever shouted her name. Oftentimes, she wouldn’t even give them a name to shout in the first place.

Villanelle lapped greedily at Eve as she came down, loathe to waste a single drop. She pulled away when Eve released her hair and let her legs fall to either side of Villanelle.

“Can you go again?” Villanelle asked, licking her lips. She never got tired of this, any of it, with Eve.

Eve laughed breathlessly as she brought a hand up to wipe the sweat from her brow, then dropped her arm to rest across her eyes. “Probably not.”

“I think you can,” Villanelle argued. Eve seemed sated, but not thoroughly exhausted. Villanelle could definitely coax at least one more orgasm out of her.

“You forget that I’m old.”

“You’re not old.” Villanelle furrowed her eyebrows, shifting up the bed to lie on her side next to Eve. “Being older than me doesn’t make you old. You’re perfect.”

Eve removed her arm from her face and turned her head toward Villanelle. “You’re sweet.”

Villanelle hadn’t been going out of her way to be sweet, she was just being honest, but she decided to just take the compliment. She’d been learning recently about what arguments were and weren’t worth having. It was called ‘picking your battles,’ Eve had explained to her.

“But I think I’m done for tonight,” Eve continued. “Thank you for offering, though.”

Villanelle shrugged. “You’re welcome,” she replied, and pulled the sheet up over them.

“Wait, what about you?”

“What?” Villanelle frowned again. “You said you were done.”

“Oh,” Eve laughed, “I meant I’m done, like, receiving, not that I’m done done. Like, for the night.”

Eve’s halting explanation confused Villanelle, and she wondered if Eve would ever stop being awkward when she talked about sex. It wasn’t like this was the first time they’d fucked, it’d been a couple months now of a very active sex life and Eve was still beating around the bush about everything. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Eve sighed, closing her eyes to regroup. “I mean, you haven’t really let me touch you tonight. Do you want me to?”

“Ohh,” Villanelle replied, drawing out the word. “Why didn’t you just say so? Sure.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Just ‘sure’?”

“Yes,” Villanelle shrugged. “You know I like making you feel good the most.”

“Well, I like making you feel good.”

That was kind of new for Villanelle, and she wasn’t sure what to make of the fluttering feeling in her chest. She understood logically that if she enjoyed pleasuring women, then it was likely that other women did, too, but it hadn’t really been her experience to have someone actively want to fuck her instead of just reciprocating to be polite, or even just letting Villanelle do all the work.

“Okay,” Villanelle replied, unsure of what else to say.

Eve searched her eyes for a moment, probably trying to decipher what was going on in Villanelle’s head, as she’d been wont to do lately. Villanelle did her best to keep her stare blank. Old habits died hard, she supposed, and it was still difficult to allow herself to be vulnerable around Eve. Eve had already seen a lot more of Villanelle than anyone else had, but Villanelle wasn’t ready to be laid bare yet. Emotionally, of course. She’d literally laid bare before Eve multiple times.

Evidently finished with her inspection, Eve softened her gaze and rolled fully onto her side to face Villanelle. She laid a hand on Villanelle’s cheek to guide her into a kiss, but it was a lot more languid than their typical messy, heated pre-sex kisses.

Eve kissed her deep and slow, and it was a bit odd, but not unpleasant, so Villanelle went with it.

After a while, Eve pulled away from Villanelle’s mouth with a soft, wet sound, her lips looking as kiss-swollen as Villanelle’s probably were.

“Lie on your stomach,” Eve requested.

Villanelle raised her eyebrows but complied, a shiver going down her spine as she thought about the implication of Eve’s words. Eve had never fucked her from behind before; Villanelle was sure she’d remember.

Eve pulled the sheet back down to bunch around Villanelle’s hips, and goosebumps sprung up along Villanelle’s arms when the air hit her dried sweat. She was wondering why Eve hadn’t just pulled the silk completely off her body when she felt a weight on her ass, pressing her into the bed. She glanced behind her and saw that Eve was sitting on her, her knees bracketing either side of Villanelle’s rib cage.

Villanelle hadn’t been expecting… whatever this was. “What are you doing?”

“Making you feel good,” Eve answered simply.

“I thought you were going to-”

“Shh, I’ll get to that. Just let me-” she trailed off, dropping her hands to Villanelle’s lower back to push her palms into the muscles on either side of her spine, then firmly pressing up along her back toward her neck.

“Oh, that does feel good,” Villanelle granted.

“Good,” Eve replied, and Villanelle could hear the pleased smile in her voice.

Eve started kneading Villanelle’s shoulders, her thumbs pressing into the muscles of her upper back and her fingers curling around to the muscles on either side of the base of her neck.

“Do you carry your stress in your shoulders?” Eve asked.

“I don’t know, why?”

“You’ve just got a lot of knots up here, babe,” Eve elaborated, punctuating her assessment by digging her thumbs in little circles against Villanelle’s skin.

“Are you getting them out?”

“Trying to, but I’m not a professional.”

Villanelle went quiet for a while as she let Eve give her a massage. She wasn’t sure how to feel about this development, either. For one thing, she couldn’t remember anyone ever doing anything like this for her, especially of their own accord. It was… nice.

It was also a bit strange to Villanelle that Eve was kind of doing this as a precursor to sex, at least she’d alluded to as much, but this didn’t feel particularly sexy. Like, yeah, they were both naked (or almost naked--Villanelle still had her panties on), and she was still a little geared up from getting Eve off earlier, but other than that, it wasn’t overly erotic. Mostly just… caring.

Villanelle supposed that Eve wanting to give her a massage really wasn’t all that different than Eve implying that she liked fucking Villanelle back; both actions made Villanelle feel good with no tangible benefit to Eve. But for some reason it just felt different. Maybe it was because sex is a given in most romantic relationships, but a massage is kind of above and beyond? Villanelle couldn’t really explain it, but she felt the butterflies in her chest multiply.

“Try to relax a little, darling,” Eve suggested gently, starting to move her hands toward the middle of Villanelle’s back. “I can hear you thinking a mile a minute.”

Villanelle noticed, then, that her hands were clenched in fists, and her shoulders were pulled up toward her ears, just a little bit. Maybe that was what Eve meant by carrying her stress there. She decided to take Eve’s advice and took a deep inhale, and tried to relax her body on the exhale. She brought her arms up to cross under the side of her head and closed her eyes.

“Good, just like that,” Eve praised, rewarding her by trailing her fingertips down Villanelle’s sides where she knew she was sensitive, a brief reprieve from the hard pressure of Eve’s palms.

Eve was right, it did feel better when you let yourself relax. Villanelle figured that she could probably fall asleep right like this, with Eve’s hands working wonders into the muscles of her lower back, now. For a supposed beginner, Eve was surprisingly talented, using her fingertips, thumbs, palms, and knuckles depending on what she was trying to do.

Villanelle decided to tell her as much. “You are really good at this, Eve,” she sighed.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“I’ve been to the chiropractor a few times, so I’m just doing my best to mimic what the masseuse does there.”

Villanelle knew that it probably wasn’t wise to tease the owner of the miraculous hands on her body, but really, Eve had made it too easy. “Maybe you are old,” she grinned.

Bad decision.

“Oh, yeah?” Eve asked, a smile in her voice, before fully tickling Villanelle’s ribs.

“Ah!” Villanelle shrieked, wriggling around on the bed as she laughed. “St- stop!”

Eve stopped immediately, hands returning to the less sensitive skin on Villanelle’s back. She was finished with the massage, so she just ran her hands up and down Villanelle’s smooth skin, purely self indulgent at this point. She loved the way the notches of Villanelle’s spine and her strong muscles felt beneath her fingertips.

“All done, baby.” Eve raised up on her knees to give Villanelle the space to roll in place onto her back. “How do you feel?”

“Like a new woman,” Villanelle answered with a smile, stretching her arms out to the side and lifting her chest to stretch her back. “Thank you,” she said genuinely, knowing Eve would appreciate it.

Eve did, and bent down to kiss Villanelle chastely on the lips.

“Now what?” Villanelle asked cheekily, having a pretty good guess of what was to come. Or, at least she was hoping for a mind-blowing orgasm.

“Now, we can do whatever you want to do,” Eve replied, lifting a hand to cup Villanelle’s cheek, her thumb brushing over Villanelle’s lips.

Villanelle lent into the touch, and even though she’d obviously been enjoying it, she couldn’t stop thinking about how sweet the night had become, in terms of the languid and chaste kissing, the massage, the tickling, et cetera. It didn’t make her uncomfortable, per se, and she didn’t want Eve to stop, she just wasn’t sure how to… process, perhaps?

They weren’t fuck buddies or anything; they were in a real relationship in which they exchanged ‘I love you’s,’ and their sex was always intimate, but Villanelle was having a hard time coping with the sheer amount of love that Eve was pouring into her actions tonight.

And again, it wasn’t a bad thing, Villanelle had just never experienced anything like it before. She’d only been in love one other time, with Anna, but that was years ago and Villanelle was different now. And it wasn’t the same kind of love. Anna never gave her a twenty minute massage just because she wanted to, let alone left her husband for her. Eve had lost a few jobs, a best friend, and a husband because of Villanelle and still gave her massages just because she felt like it. Eve was on a whole other level, and Villanelle knew in her bones that Eve was it for her, and had a pretty good feeling that she was it for Eve, too.

But that still didn’t make the softness any easier for her to handle. She wasn’t sure how to undo the past twenty-six years in one night, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to find the words to explain that to Eve. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to. That would require some intense vulnerability, and Villanelle wasn’t the biggest fan of vulnerability.

“Whatever I want?” Villanelle clarified.

“Yes,” Eve confirmed. “Within reason, of course.”

Villanelle thought for a moment, trying to determine what might break Eve from her current saccharine headspace in favor of something more… carnal, simply so that Villanelle could stop feeling the way Eve was making her feel. Straight up asking for Eve to be rough was out of the question, of course; she didn’t want Eve to ask her why. This was her only option.

She tapped Eve’s thigh to get her to lift it up so she could shimmy over to the edge of the bed. She extended her arm down to the floor, grabbing their small black box and pulling it out from beneath the bed. She unlatched it and grabbed what she was looking for, sitting right on top.

Villanelle moved back toward the middle of the bed and handed the toy to Eve.

“The strap-on?” Eve asked, slightly surprised. Villanelle wore the strap about 95% of the time.

Villanelle nodded excitedly. This was perfect. The strap-on often lended itself very well to some of the more filthy positions, like riding and doggy style. And Villanelle had never had sex that was both filthy and sickeningly sweet. Eve would be forced to just go with the former.

“Alright,” Eve agreed, stepping off the bed to slip into the straps.

Villanelle watched as Eve adjusted the buckles to fit her own hips, Villanelle being the most recent wearer. Then Eve joined her on the bed, and Villanelle pushed the sheet down to her toes, sitting up like Eve was so they could sort out a new position.

Apparently Eve had other ideas, though. She pressed Villanelle back down into the mattress with a hand on her chest, before lowering her own torso to cover Villanelle’s and nestling her legs between Villanelle’s thighs. Resting on her elbows, Eve leaned up to kiss Villanelle’s lips, then her cheek, then her neck.

This was shaping up to be standard missionary sex, not at all the kinky strap-on adventure Villanelle was counting on to distract her from her own frustrating emotions.

“This okay, baby?”

Eve was giving her the perfect opportunity to speak up and request something different, and Villanelle nearly found the courage to do so, mouth open to reply and everything, but then Eve shifted her hips and inadvertently ground the toy against Villanelle’s clit. The feeling of the fabric of her underwear rubbing against her most sensitive spot was simply sinful, and Villanelle gasped. “Yes,” she heard herself rasp.

This was fine. They could still make this position decently dirty.

Eve nodded and moved her hips again and Villanelle wasn’t sure if that meant that the first time wasn’t actually an accident or if Eve was just very perceptive, but either way, it had the same effect and Villanelle released another choked gasp.

Eve dropped a few more kisses to Villanelle’s face as she rocked her hips a third time, then started to shift down Villanelle’s body.

She kissed along the column of her neck, bringing a hand up to palm at Villanelle’s breast as her mouth kissed over her clavicle and latched onto her other nipple.

Eve swirled her tongue around it, sucking softly, before pulling off with a soft popping noise to switch sides. Villanelle hissed when the cold air met her wet nipple, and arched her chest into Eve’s face.

After giving both peaks equal attention, Eve continued kissing a straight line down Villanelle’s torso, running her hands along her ribs and abs; two of her favorite aspects of Villanelle’s body.

She placed one final kiss above the hem of Villanelle’s underwear. “Hips up,” she requested.

Villanelle bent her knees and placed her feet flat on the bed so she could lift her hips off the mattress. She felt herself clench as Eve tugged her panties down and off her legs and the air hit her glistening pussy.

Eve placed a hand on her lower belly to guide her hips back down to the mattress, then swiped a finger over Villanelle’s center to gauge her wetness. Evidently not satisfied, she started to stroke through Villanelle’s folds and circle around her entrance. She only brushed over her clit every once in a while, as she was just trying to build up more slick, not actually push Villanelle toward the edge.

Villanelle appreciated that Eve was trying to prepare her in order to make the penetration more comfortable, but she also knew that if she didn’t get Eve’s dick inside her right this very second she might literally combust. She needed something to distract her from how reverent and affectionate Eve was being because Villanelle didn’t know how to handle it.

“Please,” Villanelle begged, shivering at the neediness in her own voice. “I’m ready.”

“Okay,” Eve breathed, and dropped a kiss to the inside of Villanelle’s thigh before shifting to hover above her again. She pulled her hand away from Villanelle’s center to take the toy in her hand, then slid the length of it along Villanelle’s entire pussy to start getting it wet.

It felt amazing, and Villanelle grunted as the toy bumped into her clit.

Finally, Eve lined herself up with Villanelle’s entrance and slowly pressed the tip in, eyes glued to Villanelle’s face to watch her reaction.

Villanelle found it difficult to maintain eye contact so she closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto the pillows as Eve pressed an inch deeper and paused, drawing a soft moan from Villanelle’s lips. “More,” she pleaded.

Eve slowly slid the rest of her length into Villanelle, watching the way she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, her mouth falling open at the stretch. Villanelle’s chest was rising and falling faster now, so Eve waited for her breathing to level out a bit before she started to move.

Eve’s pace was agonizingly slow as far as Villanelle was concerned, but she couldn’t lie; the way she could feel everything instead of it being a blur of breakneck thrusting was amazing. She especially liked the slight burn from the lack of lube, enough to make her feel it but not enough to actually hurt, and she liked the way Eve pulled nearly all the way out before pressing all the way back in.

Despite trying to focus on the parts that could possibly be considered rough, it was obvious that Eve was very much trying not to be rough with her. She was being as gentle as physically possible for someone who was seven inches inside of Villanelle, slow-fucking her, because she loved her and wanted her to enjoy it.

Villanelle realized, then, that Eve wasn’t just trying to work her up to an orgasm so that they could go to sleep. This sex had no end goal, it was just fucking for the sake of fucking because it felt good, and if Villanelle came, then that would just be the cherry on top. It was clear in Eve’s body language, in the way she wanted Villanelle to savor it.

Well, that was a whole new can of worms for Villanelle. She always fucked other people with the intention of them climaxing. And she always got them there, but if she didn’t, she could imagine that she’d feel like it was a waste. And she’d always felt the same way when other people fucked her.

She never realized that not coming was okay, as long as you still enjoyed the rest of it.

And Villanelle was enjoying it, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how no one had ever fucked her quite like this. Eve was treating it like a fun past time, not like a task to complete. It was hard to articulate. Like, Villanelle had a ton of fun fucking Eve, too, but she still approached it like she was ticking boxes. Foreplay, check; build-up, check; orgasm, check. It was how she approached a lot of things in life, really.

The crux of the issue was that Villanelle really just didn’t know what to do with the fact that Eve loved her enough to make the night all about her. Eve was making love to her, Villanelle thought suddenly. She’d never used that phrase before, always finding it cheesy and cringeworthy, but there really wasn’t anything else that fit.

And that was… that was a lot. She frowned to herself slightly, despite the pleasure she was feeling in her lower half.

Eve suddenly stopped moving inside her, pausing fully sheathed. Villanelle felt a hand on the side of her face and opened her eyes to meet Eve’s.

“Are you alright?” Eve asked, voice full of concern.

“Fine,” Villanelle lied through her teeth, because the truth was she was finally entering the breakdown that had been building ever since she’d brought Eve to climax earlier. She’d been desperately trying to keep it at bay, but realizing that Eve was trying to make love to her was the last straw. “Why?”

“I feel like you’ve just been in your head a lot tonight, babe. You’re usually more into… this,” she explained, glancing down at the way their bodies were pressed together.

That was fair. Villanelle had been so zoned out that her body probably hadn’t been reacting as much as it normally did. “Sorry,” she replied, furrowing her eyebrows again as she looked somewhere in the vicinity of Eve’s shoulder.

“Sweetheart, I’m not upset with you,” Eve assured, stroking her thumb along Villanelle’s cheek. “I just need to know if you still want to be doing this.”

Villanelle thought for a moment, taking stock. Everything Eve was doing did feel good, it was just the emotional intimacy of it all that was becoming an issue. Maybe it was finally time to tell Eve what she wanted. “I do,” Villanelle nodded. “But can you… go a little faster?” she asked, holding her breath as she waited for Eve to question her. “Please.”

“Of course,” Eve replied, and Villanelle realized that she should’ve known better than to doubt her. Eve had said that she’d do whatever Villanelle wanted, after all.

Eve eased the toy back out of her and Villanelle’s hips jolted, she’d nearly forgotten that Eve was still inside her. She only had a moment to mourn the empty feeling deep in her belly before Eve pushed back in again, but more shallow this time, as a result of her faster rhythm.

She didn’t jackhammer into Villanelle or anything, but that was fine. Villanelle wasn’t really trying to punish herself, she was just trying to slide over into the fucking realm as opposed to love-making.

Eve pulled her upper body away from Villanelle’s to anchor her hands on Villanelle’s hips instead of resting her elbows on the bed. The new position changed the angle, and the shallower strokes meant that she was driving straight into Villanelle’s G-spot.

“Fuck,” Villanelle grunted, feeling her core clench involuntarily around the toy as she fisted her hands in the sheets. “Right there.”

Eve mercifully picked up the pace even more, hitting the bundle of nerves over and over until Villanelle was moaning on every thrust.

“Please- fuck- let me-,” Villanelle tried in a higher voice, full sentences escaping her.

Fortunately Eve caught her drift and started rubbing her clit in time with her thrusts, knowing that Villanelle generally didn’t come from penetration alone.

Villanelle gasped, feeling the pressure in her lower belly grow and grow, her pussy fluttering and thighs shaking on either side of Eve’s hips, until she finally fell over the edge. She threw her head back with a shout and squeezed her eyes shut, her whole body taut as her walls spasmed around Eve’s dick and she gasped Eve’s name.

Eve pulled her hand away from Villanelle’s overstimulated clit but continued to slowly ease her length in and out her, winding her down as Villanelle came back to Earth.

Lying boneless on her back, Villanelle caught her breath for a moment before opening her eyes to smile widely up at Eve. Fuck, she really needed to let Eve strap more often. That was incredible.

Eve smiled back at her then gently pulled the toy out of Villanelle.

A powerful sense of loss hit Villanelle squarely in the chest, completely out of nowhere, magnified by the upsetting realization that it was over. She felt empty, and then Eve got up off the bed for a moment to pull the straps off of her hips, and Villanelle felt alone.

It was the strangest thing. Eve was literally right there, and Villanelle knew she was coming back to cuddle her as soon the toy hit the ground, but the absence of Eve between her legs and Eve’s hands on her body and Eve’s full attention was making her so sad.

Apparently it took an orgasm for Villanelle to realize that she actually did crave the emotional intimacy she’d been trying to push away all night, or else she wouldn’t be feeling this way.

And, she suddenly felt guilty for just wanting to climax when Eve was trying to love her. That was shitty and selfish of her, and she’d been trying really hard lately to not be shitty and selfish to Eve. That was the whole point of giving her the option to walk away on the bridge. She felt ashamed, when she was usually shameless about her love of sex. And now it was too late, because Villanelle had come and they couldn’t go back to Eve worshipfully slow-fucking her.

Instead of relaxing her like orgasming usually did, Villanelle was feeling more overwhelmed than she had all night, probably due to all the post-sex endorphins, and when she got overwhelmed there were a few courses of action.

One; fuck it out with the nearest attractive person. That one was obviously out of the question; Eve was the most attractive person Villanelle knew and fucking her was what got her into this emotional minefield in the first place.

Two; get fucked up on drugs and nearly kill someone at a club. That one hadn’t been particularly fun last time. The hangover was horrific. Plus, she hadn’t had any desire to kill anyone lately.

Three, the option that had kind of become her go-to ever since she visited her family in Grysmet; cry.

Apparently option three won out because Villanelle had hardly finished assessing her options when she felt a damning pressure behind her eyes.

While crying was definitely preferable to sex and murder at this point in the evening/her life, Villanelle still wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of doing it in front of Eve. Eve hadn’t seen her cry before, not genuinely. The closest she’d been was when she asked Villanelle at their tea dance about what had happened to cause her drastic change in demeanor. Villanelle had kept it under control, though. No tears there, thank you very much.

As her throat started to get tight, Villanelle hid her eyes underneath a hand to hopefully delay the inevitable, and felt her eyes screw shut and the corners of her mouth turn down.

Free of the harness, Eve slipped back into bed and pulled the sheet over the two of them. She settled on her side facing Villanelle, and would have assumed that Villanelle was just covering her face as she came down from her high, but for the way the corners of her mouth were contorted into a choked up sort of expression.

Concern flooded Eve. She knew that plenty of people cried during and after sex and it was totally normal, but she hadn’t ever seen Villanelle do it, so it gave her pause. “Baby?” she asked tentatively, placing a hand on Villanelle’s free arm.

Villanelle sniffled and realized that she was torn. Should she roll away from Eve, enabling her to hide her tears and possibly retain some of her dignity and avoid talking about her feelings? Or should she open up to Eve and be comforted? After all, feeling disconnected from Eve was what made her visibly upset in the first place. And so far, out of all the things she’d revealed about herself to Eve, Eve hasn’t made her regret any of them. Maybe it was time to put her trust in someone else for a change.

She took a shaky breath and removed her arm from her face, turning her head to look at the worry etched into Eve’s features.

Eve’s concern only exacerbated when she took in Villanelle’s red rimmed eyes, and the tenderness of her expression was too much for Villanelle to handle. She broke down into tears, then, and rolled into Eve, pressing her face into the crook between Eve’s neck and shoulder to seek some form of comfort.

Eve felt helpless as she wrapped her arms around Villanelle, pulling her close while she cried. She dropped kisses to the crown of Villanelle’s head, rubbed her back, and made little soothing noises until Villanelle’s shoulders stopped shaking and her sobs receded into sniffles.

“Did I hurt you?” Eve asked in a whisper. She didn’t think so, based on Villanelle’s dazed smile after she came, but she needed to be sure.

“No,” came the watery reply, and Eve was relieved. They were far past hurting one another; Eve was loathe to do it even accidentally. Unfortunately, that meant that Villanelle’s issue was emotional, which was often more difficult to fix.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked gently.

“Not really.”

Eve smiled. That was her girl. “That’s okay, darling. You can tell me when you’re ready, or you don’t have to at all. Just know I’m here for you.”

Villanelle pulled her head away from Eve’s chest abruptly, frowning up at her. “You’re doing it wrong.”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to convince me to tell you what’s wrong.” That’s always what they did whenever Villanelle was in a bad mood, so then Eve could help her solve the problem. This was just the first time that sex and tears had been thrown into the mix.

“Oh, I see,” Eve laughed. “You do want to talk about it, but you don’t want me to know that you do. Very sneaky.”

Villanelle opened her mouth to argue, but Eve had hit the nail on the head, really, so she closed her mouth and frowned at Eve instead, sulking.

Eve laughed again. “God, I love you,” she gushed, because she did, but that was clearly the wrong thing to say because Villanelle’s eyebrows turned upwards and her eyes welled up again.

“What?” Eve asked confusedly. “You know that, don’t you? I tell you all the time,” she reminded softly, brushing away a tear that had slipped out of the corner of Villanelle’s eye.

“But tonight you showed me,” Villanelle tried to explain, imploring Eve to understand. “You gave me a massage, and you tickled me, and then you were slow, and- and gentle, and you wanted it to last a long time.”

Eve thought over the evening, realizing that Villanelle was right, those things were a little out of the ordinary for them. She hadn’t even really noticed, she just… “I just really love you,” she confessed. “I guess, subconsciously, I wanted you to know that, too.”

If this was what really loving someone was like, then… “No one has ever really loved me before,” Villanelle pondered aloud.

That didn’t really surprise Eve; she understood that she was at least a little bit crazy for willingly entering a serious relationship with a known ex-assassin who had some real psychopathic tendencies. (Although, Eve no longer thought she was actually a psychopath. Her selfless act on the bridge proved that once and for all in Eve’s mind, and tonight’s events were further evidence.) And Eve was probably fully crazy considering said assassin killed her best friend a year ago and tried to kill her, too, but bygones.

Despite these facts, it didn’t hurt any less to think about how unloved Villanelle was for the majority of her life. She knew Anna had loved her on some level, but not the way Eve did based on Villanelle’s own confession.

Eve decided that she’d just need to love Villanelle twice as hard to make up for it.

She rolled onto her back and brought Villanelle with her so that she was lying half on top of Eve. “That’s okay, sweetheart, there’s a first time for everything,” she assured.

Villanelle seemed to like the new position, nuzzling further into Eve’s neck, wrapping an arm around her waist, and tangling their legs together beneath the sheets. She sighed heavily. “In that case, you should start tying me up.”

Eve choked on an exhale. Lord knew she never did anything that kinky with Niko, her actual husband of fifteen years. This woman was going to be the death of her. And not in the way everyone would have expected. “You’re serious?” she squeaked.

“Hm, yes. I have heard it heightens everything. And I trust you,” Villanelle promised.

Hearing that Villanelle trusted her was singlehandedly enough to convince Eve to give it a try. She could count on one hand the number of people Villanelle trusted. Perhaps even one finger, she wasn’t actually sure where Villanelle stood with Konstantin at this point. It was an honor and a privilege to have Villanelle’s trust, in Eve’s opinion.

“Alright, it’s a date,” Eve agreed, heart already skipping in anticipation. Apparently there was no end to what Villanelle was able to awaken in her. At least, Eve hoped she’d never reach the end.

Villanelle hummed tiredly against her chest. Eve knew the feeling; getting good dick was exhausting. She didn’t really want their conversation to end, though; she was enjoying how vulnerable Villanelle was allowing herself to be, even though watching her cry had definitely tugged on Eve’s heartstrings.

Alas, it seemed like Villanelle was losing her battle with consciousness, so Eve figured she should probably suck it up and let her rest.

She reached over to the nightstand and flicked off the bedside lamp, trying to dislodge Villanelle as little as possible. She settled back against the pillows and secured one arm around Villanelle’s back and used her other hand to cradle Villanelle’s head. “Goodnight,” Eve whispered into her hair.

“G’night,” Villanelle murmured, voice growing thick with sleep. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Eve responded. “So much.”

Eve prepared to drift off with her girl in her arms and a smile on her face, delighted by how the night had brought them closer together. Oh, and the three orgasms definitely helped her mood as well.

“Maybe we should try anal, too,” Villanelle spoke up.

“Jesus Christ, please go to sleep.”