Work Text:
He loved her like this. Her eyes screwed shut, a face that he could read as pleasure when first glance would say maybe it was pain. Golden orange curls bouncing on her shoulders as she switched between gritting her teeth and biting her lip. Then she would drop her jaw just a little, just enough to swallow the air in heavy breaths, making up for what her lungs were starved of when she held herself back from breathing. He knew the best sounds poured from her lips when they were parted like that. Sounds he loved. Sounds he did so much more than just dream of.
“Fuck,” she panted out. “Don’t stop… oh Gods, please don’t stop.”
As if he’d stop.
That whine, and the way her last five words came out as one. She could burn him to the ground with just that sound. And the whimpering shuddering mewls that followed as her lips contorted into a pout — he’d burn a happy man.
Her fingers curled into his shoulder blades, readjusting for a better grip. Burning burning burning . Her nails burned in his skin like that, tearing the flesh just enough to leave a crescent shaped dent. A mark. He’s all hers.
Her back arched, that beautiful curve that pushed her breasts up and her pelvis down, making his head spin. Curses tumbled out of her plush lips one after another, a whisper into the air around them. He loved hitting that spot in her, the one that made her bottom lip tremble and her lashes flutter. He loved when it became the perfect moment to draw the skin on the edge of her throat into his mouth, graze his teeth along the tender flesh, mark her right back.
Oh yes, he loved her like this. He loved her all the time, but this was his sanctuary. His forehead dropped to hers, his true north, his guidance in the dark. Some people would get tired of knowing exactly how their partner reacted after a while, not him. They had enough spontaneity in their sex life, nothing would ever make him grow tired of knowing just how to play her body like a finely tuned instrument.
“Jean-Luc, I’m gonna come,” she said, right on cue. Right when he could feel her inner walls fluttering around him, trying so hard to stave off her orgasm for just a few more seconds. He knew her. He knew she preferred those last few conscious seconds right before the blinding crash of release. When everything hummed and she wasn’t too blinded by the pleasure to be swept into it. Those moments would determine just how hard she came, rising and rising higher into the pleasure, building it up more and more. Right when she’d let out a glorious little keen and then her body would tense, rigid and taut as pleasure swept through with the force of a hurricane. Her legs tightened around his waist, her back arching again as if she were trying to move away from the stranglehold her orgasm had on her. Gods, he loved it. He loved her.
And it did him in. Every single time, without fail, his jaw would harden and his eyes would snap shut. He’d spill into her relentlessly, keeping her body pinned as if they were trying not to lose each other in the haze. In that dark black place his head went as soon as the dopamine flushed his veins. Hers were different. Her climax blinded her with searing white light behind her eyelids, an ascension of sorts. And in between that, they had each other. A yin and yang. He’d fall into that dark no man’s land, where she would squirm away from whatever power the whiteout had on her. Yet, either way, they’d hang onto each other.
Then, they’d crash. The light would break, the dark would fade and they’d be left a panting mess, breathing in each other’s air. They liked the repetition, knowing it was an anchor for when they decided to venture into other avenues.
She leaned down from where he had her pinned to the bulkhead, her right hand cupping his jaw while her left hand held the nape of his neck. Her lips fell to his, languid but hungry kisses rolling between them and the aftershocks. Occasionally her teeth would nip at his lower lip, drawing it in and flicking her tongue over the swollen flesh. Despite the feeling that his legs were made of jello, he kept her balanced in his arms, pulling them both away from the bulkhead without their lips parting. His softening cock slipped out of her, making her shiver as she felt his cum dribbling down her still-buzzing flesh. He carried her to their bed, having memorized the steps from here to there without needing to open his eyes to avoid obstacles.
The one aspect he had never ever let himself see as a given during this repetition was what came next.
“I love you, Jean-Luc.” Beverly said softly against his lips. He felt his mechanical heart slow whenever she said that, like a sedative for his weary soul. He refused to take those words for granted. He never allowed himself to believe he would always be privy to be on their receiving end. Beverly Crusher was an unchained mystery to him, even when he thought he knew all of her — and to be chosen as the one to hear those words from her soft lips and flowing accent, it was an honor. It was a privilege he told himself he was undeserving of. Beverly always tried to convince him otherwise, and it wasn’t that he didn’t believe her, he simply always wanted to feel the same wave of bliss that came from those words when he didn’t let himself expect to hear them. He enjoyed the way the words surprised him even after all this time. It served as a reminder that she had found him worthy even when he couldn’t find himself as much. He liked to keep himself on the edge of not knowing if he’d hear those words again, it made him work harder to keep hearing them.
Yet, he did make the promise to always return the sentiment and mean it.
“And I love you,” he whispered back, laying her down on their bed as if she were made of precious and fragile material. In a way, she was. Maybe not physically, but her presence in his life would always be seen as something worth cherishing and caring for. He tended to her love the way she tended to her orchids, with a delicate touch and careful execution. To be loved by Beverly Crusher was to be given a gift. To love her back was autonomic, strengthened by cherishing it with intention.