Written Wonderland

Lance's smile surprised her, but she supposed it shouldn't have. She thought he might refuse her, or--even worse--call her "Commander"--but he didn't. He reached casually across his chest and then pushed his hair back from his face as he sat up, her eyes drawn to the movements of his muscles in the process.

As he came to his feet and closed the distance to her, Mizu's expression stiffened into neutrality. His smile turned up a little too much at the corners, and his eyes were dark behind his lashes in a way that nearly frightened her. More than she frightened herself? No, she supposed not.

She reminded herself that she could say a word and stop him at any time. He was... following her order. But, not because he was her soldier. Why? Because he also wanted to. And, thinking about their shared desires and the permission she had given him to act made her heart pump some kind of harmony through her veins. So, when Lance's fingers reached for the buttons on her pants, she was no longer afraid, only eager for whatever her next command might be and whether Lance would respond in kind.

She dropped control over her breathing once more and ran her hands through Lance's hair, her eyes seeking his only to find his intent on hers. Gods, he was beautiful and happy in a way she could not believe was possible in the middle of a war. And she was so grateful for it.

She met his forehead gently with hers, bringing one hand to rest on his cheek while the other curled about his neck. She liked this proximity. There was a palpable thrill between them now, shimmering outside her vision. Her chest steadily rose and fell as Lance's fingers moved, and she found her hips shifting of their own accord minutely, trying to be helpful.

She breathed near to Lance's lips, their warmth mingling as she remembered or imagined a number of things--the way she had kissed him initially, the possibility of jumping onto him and wrapping her legs around him now--but instead she pressed her hand harder into his cheek and stroked down the side of it once more urgently as though pleading that he continue.

For just a ghost of a moment, Lance thought he might have caught Mizu...flinch? But, no, she hadn't budged--save perhaps her expression simply returning to a more stony façade, but that didn't seem to be cause for any concern; the way her lungs breathed and sighed practically caressed the air between them with warmth and richness, sending delighted tingles across the back of his shoulders and relieving any worry that she wasn't open and wanting and engaged. As if to further reassure him, Mizu's fingers caressed back through his hair, and those tingles brightened and spread across his scalp. She met his gaze head-on for a moment, and Lance found his smile softening, the warmth in the air settling happily into his chest. Then she brought their foreheads together, her fingers caressing over the back of his neck and down his cheek. He sighed with heavy contentment, his eyes falling shut as he reveled in the connection.

Embarrassment bloomed, though, floating nervousness about this closeness, just enough to shake him out of it a little. He kept it under control with a careful inhale, and returned his focus to undoing buttons. Mizu's hips began to sway minutely with the motion, and a more familiar thrill danced in Lance's gut again, dissipating whatever the nervousness had bloomed a moment before. Mizu's hand on his cheek pressed against him, caressing almost greedily, and Lance's lips nearly tingled, his eyes floating from his fingers to the ways her chest rose and fell, so very close to his own and bare for connection. He wanted to kiss her--all over, to feast on the taste of her skin and the tenderness of her body--and he very nearly did, but his fingers finished with the last button of her pants, and with a soft breath he caught himself, smiling as he reminded himself of the instruction he'd been given. Granted, some part of him wanted to be mischievous, but the stakes were high, and he wasn't ready to gamble much, certainly not here on this particular precipice.

Hooking his thumbs gently into the top of Mizu's pants and underwear on the back of each side of her hips, Lance slowly caressed his hands down over her backside, kneeling down as he moved to her thighs, her knees, her calves.... his cheek pressed against her thigh on its way past, and finally he allowed himself a kiss to her skin there, hoping it was harmless enough. Besides, he didn't let it slow his process; his caress continued down to her ankles, and one by one, he gently coaxed her feet to lift so he could pull her pants off.

((And he'll probably do something else in short order, but it'd depend on a couple responses he might've gotten from Mizu already, so we'll leave it there for now~))

Mizu heard an intake of breath and felt a relief of pressure as Lance finished with the buttons and moved smoothly toward the back hem of her pants. She unconsciously gripped some of his short hair near the back of his neck as his thumbs slipped underneath and began to pull them down.

As Lance pulled, he knelt, and she instinctively released him softly as he did so, marveling at the way her backside felt inside the palms of his hands. But, he didn't linger there--his cheek pressed against one bare thigh and his hands traced over her knees, calves, and ankles. Her head fell back as she closed her eyes and ran her hands over her belly and breasts to bask in all the sensation. Her skin felt electric to the air, even more so when she thought she caught Lance's lips against her thigh.

It felt good, and she had similarly kissed Lance's skin that way, albeit not there. But Lance remained focused on her clothing, not trying to draw her into anything new, just experiencing. So, Mizu relaxed and pulled her head up before looking down at Lance, her hands slowly returning to rest at her sides.

Lance lifted first one foot and then the other, and before long, the two of them were both completely nude in front of each other with Lance still kneeling in front of her. She tried unsuccessfully not to think about the ways Evan had knelt in front of her several days before but managed to push the thought away before her mind made any further comparisons.

Mizu was again momentarily perplexed by what she wanted, and while Lance's breath was tantalizingly close to the space between her thighs, she wasn't quite ready to issue that particular command and as such knelt down to match Lance, looking at him with a much softer neutrality as she moved close to him and sat back on her heels.

She placed two hands on his chest and started moving them in opposite directions, one to go over one shoulder and one to trace a line down to his hip. And as one hand traced down his back, the other curved around to his backside. Spending no more time on any one place more than any other, she reached then with both hands under and between his thighs, following the creases there, her own torso leaning far into him to get the angle, and she sighed pleasantly, kissing the skin of his abdomen twice before coming up to look at Lance. She wanted to crawl all over and between him this way, taste every part of his body with every part of hers, but she didn't exactly know how to ask for that.

Lance looked up to Mizu once her pants were set aside, cautiously optimistic. She hadn't given him much to go on, but she had let him get away with a liberty, albeit a small one. She met his gaze with something sharp, and for a split moment, Lance prickled--not with displeasure, but simple alertness. The sensation softened quickly, though, as Mizu lowered herself to her knees in front of him, moving close enough to reach out and touch his chest. He instinctively reached towards her, some layer of his guard slipping, but he briefly caught it, a flicker of uncertainty keeping his fingers hovering two breaths from touch.

He waited as he took in the feel of her hands running over his skin, around his hip and shoulder, and then he relaxed as she caressed over his back and even under his thigh, his own fingers smoothing over her arms and onto her back, welcoming her closeness and her touch. She kissed his stomach, sending fresh splashes of warmth through his body, and her fingers elicited thrills between his legs as they caressed towards each other underneath him. Lance breathed carefully to silently exhale what wished it were a moan, a smirk tugging at his expression.

She withdrew just enough to look up at him, and Lance felt his smirk softening instantly, disarmed by something completely innocent in Mizu's eyes. She was looking at him with a silent question, momentum that wasn't sure where to go. One hand on her back caressed up into her hair, and he gently pulled her towards him, aiming to bring their lips together.

Mizu felt Lance's hand move back into her hair, and she startled a little, but she mostly kept it contained. And when he started pulling him to her, ostensibly for a kiss, Mizu wasn't completely sure she wanted that. A kiss didn't feel like enough skin contact given that both of their bodies were bare. In a split-second decision, Mizu pushed Lance backward, hard enough that he lost his balance from his half-crouched position.

Immediately afterward, she crawled intently on all fours until she leaned over him, positioned on the floor between her cot and the map table. Her hair hung down on one side of her face, her expression less guarded than any she wore in camp proper. She again felt overwhelmed by how many options lay between them, but she decided to follow an impulse and blushed, though she did not stop looking directly at Lance.

"I would rather you kiss me elsewhere," Mizu said.

Before Lance could complete his gesture, Mizu pushed him back. It startled him, and a shot of fear stabbed through his chest, but excitement also bloomed in his gut, an openness rippling through his hips and down his thighs as Mizu crawled towards him on all fours, her expression more open than he'd ever realized it could be. His cheeks burned red with nervousness and excitement as Mizu looked down at him, her own skin glowing right back.

"I would rather you kiss me elsewhere," Mizu said, and a fresh grin spread wide across Lance's face.

"Ah," he replied softly, the richness he couldn't convey in tone instead coming through the way he drew it out with a steady breath as he began to prop himself up on his elbows, bringing his lips to Mizu's collar bone. He placed a simple, gentle kiss there, full-bodied but brief, peeling away as quickly as it had approached. He lingered near her, though, waiting a breath to gauge her reaction. Then, he leaned in again, this time pressing his lips to the side of her neck. After a beat he parted them, gently sucking at her skin before caressing his tongue against it.

A grin spread over Lance's face, and Mizu did everything she could to keep her expression neutral even as a spark of fear and anxiety launched itself from her gut. She had given him entirely too much permission just now, hadn't she?

"Ah," Lance replied, drawing out the syllable with the rest of his breath. Before long, he had propped himself up on his elbows and reached toward her collarbone, where his lips connected. The kiss was simple, brief, though every part of his lips graced her skin. She let out a heavy exhale, her arms wavering slightly with the contact. He paused, and she looked toward his face, a little tempted to roll her eyes at him. But then his lips connected again, this time against the side of her neck. This kiss was deeper, and after a moment, he parted his lips and sucked gently at her skin before his tongue caressed her.

She could not catch the shiver that spread across her body before it happened. Though the sensation of his lips against her neck was exquisite, she could not help but imagine his tongue in other places on her body. Her hips dipped and swayed as she pushed her hands further out, trying to regain her balance and composure.

"More," she said in a breath, a whisper, before she could help herself.

That second kiss had felt like a risk, with how little Mizu had responded to the first, but a shiver rippled through her as his tongue caressed her skin, and relief and elation rippled through him.

"More," Mizu whispered, and Lance reveled for a moment, drunk on the absolute delight of it. But, he also fully intended to oblige, and one hand reached up to caress the side of Mizu's neck as he pressed his lips against her again, echoing the soft suck lick breath pattern of before. He realized as he made contact with her again that her hips were swaying, and his own hips shifted with excitement, his thighs brushing softly against hers. He began to plant his heels on the ground, his body taking a moment to strategize an approach for rolling them both over, the better to kiss further down on her chest, and perhaps even to find a nipple, if he got so far.

Mizu shivered again as she realized what she had said, but before long, Lance's hand reached up to caress the other side of Mizu's neck, making it easy for Lance's lips to connect again. He spent even more time trading between lips, tongue, and the gently sucking motion this time, and Mizu's eyes rolled back. His thigh brushed against hers, and a sweeping ache passed down from her chest toward her hips. Distantly, she felt Lance's legs stiffen, and before long, he shifted to push her off balance. She let him, completing the turn such that she landed softly on her back.

Lance was on top of her in a moment with his legs between hers. She felt wildly vulnerable here, but he didn't make a point of emphasizing it. Instead, his lips continued where they left off from her neck, trailing down her chest and then toward her nipple. As his tongue slid against and across the erect skin, Mizu's hand flew to her mouth, and she pressed a knuckle in toward her teeth to keep herself from making sounds. A vibrating vocalization made it through, though, muffled and soft, as her legs reached up to squeeze Lance's hips. Her body tried to convince her to pull him closer, but she worried about the consequences. Better to let him kiss her, at least for now.

"Lower," Mizu said quietly once she had let her hand find its way back to the ground again.

Lance was thrilled that Mizu yielded to his motions, remaining open as he trailed down to her nipple. In fact, she raised a hand to her mouth, a vibration humming through them as she wrapped her legs around him. Lance's hips dipped forward, a guard again almost falling before he caught it, smoothly rolling his hips back again in a languorous oscillation.

"Lower," she said, and Lance exhaled a little unsteadily. He was starting to get impatient, starting to visualize the gestures towards complete entwinement he could take, which seemed at odds with taking his previous gesture lower. But, there was no guarantee that complete entwinement was the destination here, and Lance would far rather enjoy all the places Mizu wanted to lead him, glad that he caught himself rather than endangering that with single-mindedness.

So, he mustered another soft smirk, and then obliged her request, first pressing a kiss to the bottom of Mizu's breast, and then above her navel, and then below... He paused over top of her public hair, his breath playing against her skin as he opened his eyes and once again gauged her reaction, before pushing forward and pressing a kiss there, his hands caressing over her hips and inner thighs.