It may seem that this story is sloping gradually into a story about sex, but I swear, I’m going somewhere.

Desires of the Heart

Chapter 13

By Zapenstap

Lest she forget, Relena scheduled an appointment at her regular clinic to discuss birth control options as soon as she had a free moment at her desk. The earliest she could work in an appointment with her hectic schedule was for Thursday afternoon, which would give her a couple of days to do a little research on her own and decide what she wanted to tell Heero, if anything. The appointment was precautionary, but she wasn’t sure for how long, and if she decided to take birth control pills she would prefer to give herself a good month’s cycle to feel comfortable with their effectiveness on her body. Even so, when she hung up the phone a momentary shiver passed through her. Making the phone call made her feel as if she had also made a decision to have sex, and the reality of that concept filled her with mixed emotions. She was excited, anticipating the fulfillment of what had become an obsessive fantasy, and frightened, as she should expect given the circumstances, but also a little apprehensive, which worried her. Perhaps it was too soon. Did she doubt her feelings? She was sure she loved Heero. She felt now that she had always loved him, that her insistence that she had only cared about him before was merely an attempt to hide what she had been afraid to think was a silly crush. Maybe it had always been more. But did he love her? From the way she was treated and the way he behaved she thought he must, but would he be able to say so, and if not, was that important to her?

Why did she have to fall in love with someone so complicated and difficult?

Because you’re complicated and difficult.

She smiled to herself. Perhaps that was it.

Relena had intended to go straight to Heero’s after work, anticipating his physical closeness as soon as possible, but midway through the day revealed that she would be staying late at work, perhaps very late, and the more she worked the more she feared that she wouldn’t be able to see him tonight at all. Her desk covered in unexpected paperwork, she called Heero at half-past six.

“Heero, I’m stuck here,” she said when he answered the phone, simultaneously scrawling her name on a ‘sign-here’ line of yet another official document.

“I had a surprise for you,” he said, and her heart lifted with such an unexpected declaration.

“What kind of surprise?” she asked, unable to stop what sounded like an uncharacteristic girlish feeling from bubbling inside her.

“If you can’t come over I can’t give it to you,” Heero murmured, and she could tell he was pacing the room as he talked to her. Relena thought up a dozen surprises Heero might have for her (some of them rather naughty) and began to go through pages of paperwork faster. Her eyes began scanning paragraphs rather than reading them carefully.

“Give me a hint,” she pleaded.

She could sense him smirking. “When will you be done? I’ve missed you all day.”

“I…” She looked at the clock. He had missed her. She remembered the night before and felt heat rise in her face. “I might be able to make it by eleven,” she said. “But that’s so late, Heero…”

“Come over at eleven,” he said. “It’s not late.”

“Maybe not for you. I have to get up at six tomorrow.”

He was quiet on the other end of the line. She knew how much he wanted her to come over. She knew how much she wanted to go. “I’ll be there,” she whispered.

“I’ll see you at eleven,” he said quietly, but she felt somehow that he was smiling. The sensation was like a finger brush across the cheek.

“Bye, Heero,” she whispered. All at once the compulsion came over her to tell him that she loved him, that she missed him too, but she couldn’t say it. She could merely think it his way and hope that one day, one day soon, he would return it so that she could open her whole heart to him.

“Bye.”

Looking at the mess cluttering the room, Relena wondered with rising frustration if she would be able to make it to Heero’s by midnight.

When the phone rang again, she answered it diplomatically, hoping that more work would not be foisted upon her.

“Relena?”

The unexpected voice caused Relena to sit straight up in her chair, eyes flying open in surprise. “Mom?” she said, making herself relax, clutching the phone to her ear with both hands. “I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”

“I know, dear. That’s why I’m calling you. Are you very busy? I usually hear from you at least once a month.”

Relena did not know what to say. Had it been so long? She had been busy, but not with work. She had not mentioned Heero to her mother, at least not since she had started seeing him, and the guilt of keeping that silence weighed her down. Her mother had heard about Heero in the past, but Relena had always evaded personal questions about him, explaining as glibly as he could that he was just “someone” or talking about him in strictly practical terms. Still, she felt her mother had an idea as to her true feelings, even if she never made accusations.

“Why are you calling me at work?”

“I’ve tried to reach you at home in the evenings but you seem to be out frequently, unless work is keeping you busy in the office until late hours?”

Relena smiled softly into the receiver. “No, Mom,” she said. It was pointless to lie. “I’ve been seeing someone. I…” She flushed. “For two and a half months Heero and I have been together. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I suppose I wasn’t feeling sure about it.”

Her mother’s reaction was neither over-excited nor at all disapproving, which was a relief to Relena, who wanted to be neither embarrassed nor chastised. Mrs. Darilan had occasionally asked Relena if there were any young men in her life, to which the disappointing answer had always been difficult to explain, but now Relena felt as if she were glowing as she told her mom about the time she had spent with Heero, leaving out the more personal details, but conveying what she felt was the makings of real love, though she didn’t explicitly say that.

“Are you going to be coming home as you had planned next weekend?” Mrs. Darilan asked.

“Yes,” Relena said, though that she had promised to come home for a few days this month had slipped her mind.

“If Heero would like to come, he’s invited too,” Mrs. Darilan told her. “I don’t want to keep you from your work, though. You’ll ask him?”

“I will,” Relena promised. “And I’ll see you in a few days.”

When Mrs. Darilan had hung up, Relena sat back in her chair, amazed at herself for feeling as she did. A part of her glowed with the possible prospect of taking Heero home to meet her mother, a small part of her worried about Heero’s capability to impress her household, and a larger, surprising part of her was strangely embarrassed. If she had sex with Heero in the future, if they became even more physically intimate than they already were, ought she to tell her mother? Relena was not in the habit of keeping secrets from her family, and yet, she feared that news of this sort would severely disappoint her mother, and Relena did not want to deal with assuaging the ruffled affections of her aristocratic, conservative Christian family. Perhaps she ought to wait until it was obvious to her mother that she had Heero were in love; the news would not be so shocking then. And, of course, if she ever happened to marry Heero…

She flushed brightly at the thought. “Don’t be silly,” she scolded herself in the next instant, trying to quell the excited flutter of butterfly wings in her stomach by leaning back over her paperwork. “There’s no call to jump ahead,” she muttered to herself briskly. “He won’t have any ideas like that.”

Relena didn’t get out of the office until fifteen minutes past eleven and even then there were a great many things she left to finish up the next morning. She had found it difficult to concentrate on her work all day, and twice as difficult after she had talked to Heero on the phone. What was it about him, she wondered, that made her whole world spin upside down? Thinking about him had always made her feel strange and heady, and now he made her feel sensuous too. She liked the feeling, even when it made her uncomfortable. She found it so easy to imagine the act of undressing him, of touching him, of kissing him, reveling in the closeness of his body to hers.

Walking up to his front door was routine now. He opened it before she knocked and she felt his hand close over her wrist, pulling her inside and into his arms before the door swung shut behind her, breathing life into her daydreams. His lips on her neck chased any other thoughts she might have had out of her head. She found herself with her arms around him, her fingers tucked into the waistline of his jeans, loosing herself in a floating, hazy world. Still kissing her, he stealthily removed her coat and ran his hands up and down her bare arms and her back. His touch was soft and possessive, sweet and sure and knowing.

Heero, she breathed inwardly, wondering if he could possibly feel as full and sparkly as she did right now, like the whole world revolved around the two of them. Pulling slightly back, he touched her hair and kissed her face tenderly. When she looked into his eyes she wondered how she could doubt the feelings in her heart. Something in his expression made the muscles in her legs go slack. She touched his face, tracing her fingers along his jaw and lips. Why can’t you talk to me about what’s in your heart?

“What?” he whispered.

She smiled at him. “Nothing,” she replied, smoothing his shirt. “I’ve had a long day. I was just thinking how much I…” love you, “…how much I miss you.”

He returned her smile and then looked away, dark hair falling over his eyes. “Come on,” he said, pulling her into the kitchen by the hand. “I have a present for you.”

She followed him into the kitchen and waited in one of the chairs at the table as he disappeared for a moment. When he returned he was carrying a small velvet box.

Relena’s heart seemed to be lodged in her throat. Her first reaction was fear, which surprised her, but then, if that was a ring, this was way too soon… She was scared. Was that natural? But no, she didn’t think Heero would have gotten a ring for her so suddenly, so out of the blue, without any previous mention of it. Saying he loved her, even if that was something difficult to say, would come before a proposal… wouldn’t it? This was Heero, whose actions had always spoken louder than words, and he could be impulsive, but she couldn’t imagine him proposing, not yet. She had known him for years but she had been with him for only three months, and they hadn’t even been physical with one another. She had heard that men were supposed to need a long time to commit. Of course, if he was conscientious that she was old fashioned, or was at least raised that way, maybe he had thought to be an old-fashioned gentleman. The thought was pleasing, but no, it couldn’t be. Surely…

“I saw this and I just bought it for you,” Heero was telling her.

Relief flooded through her when he opened the box himself, still standing, and beckoned her to come close. She got up slowly, closing the gap between them with a few paces.

“Turn around,” he told her.

She turned and he gathered her hair up, brushing it over the front of her shoulders, his hand caressing her neck in the process. She closed her eyes, always loving the feeling of his hands in her hair. A moment later he had slipped a silver chain around her throat. Relena looked down at the pendant resting against her skin just below her collarbone. It was a 14-K, seven millimeter aquamarine set in silver, princess cut. The stone was same color as her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat as it sparkled. It wasn’t a terribly expensive piece of jewelry, but it wasn’t terribly cheap either.

“Heero,” she breathed, turning to look at him. “It’s beautiful. You didn’t have to… I wasn’t expecting… Why?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and to look at his face it was the simple truth.

Lowering her head, she touched his hand, grasping his wrist and pulling him close to her. He stepped in on cue, leaning down to grasp her as she reached up to hold him. She entangled her hands in his hair to kiss him softly as his arms went around her back once more. His lips on hers were like fire.

“I want to go to bed,” Relena whispered, her hands fiddling with the collar of his shirt, not caring at the heat that suddenly suffused her face. “I…I want to feel you close to me.”

Heero led her silently to the bedroom, but the burning in his eyes matched the flame in her heart. Relena watched from the bed as Heero changed into his boxers, captivated by the way his body looked unclothed in the cover of darkness. Heero was not ashamed of nakedness, nor even seemed very aware of her scrutiny, and something about his security gave her confidence. This had been routine for awhile now, but she felt suddenly too dressed, though all she was wearing were shorts, a tank top, a bra and her underwear. She kicked the blankets off her legs, liking the way her body looked in the glow of moonlight, the way the darkness seemed to hide her imperfections. Her shirt had come up a little, revealing her stomach, and as Heero turned and sat on the bed, he bare skin was the first thing he went for. He leaned over her, his proximity forcing her to lie down, his arms coming up to either side of her head to trap her underneath him. He looked beautiful leaning over her, all the angles of his face at once mysterious and familiar.

I think I love you, Heero Yuy, she thought as he leaned down to kiss her, his hands now on her body.

In moments she could tell that keeping her shirt on was a waste of time. His hands were underneath it and the material was soon pushed up to her shoulders so that taking it off became only logical sense. Heero eased up on her a bit as she sat up, pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her hair hung down her bare back, the pendant Heero had given her dangling just above her bra, but Heero did not stop to admire her. As if drawn in by a string, he kissed her collarbone, his arms caressing her naked back, and she shivered as she hugged him closer to her, delighting in the feel of his naked skin against hers. What surprised her was that he did not stop to savor the moment. He hardly glanced at her bra. Halfway to what he really wanted, his hands were already working on the strap’s clasp. She had not thought she would take her bra off tonight, but before she could think more about it, the thing loosened around her and she realized it was too late to stop him from removing it. As Heero stripped the material away, she could feel his eyes taking her in.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and lowered her back down to the bed. She loved the feel of his body hovering over hers, covering hers. He kissed her throat, his hands touching every inch of her body. His words came to her ears in breathy murmurs of approval. Again she expected hesitance, but Heero’s kisses moved from her throat to her chest automatically, and his mouth found her breast so quickly that she inhaled at the suddenness, too surprised to focus on the feeling.

Equally automatic, her hands began exploring him, touching his back and shoulders and chest and hair. His hands were busy too, running over her thighs, smoothing around her hips and finally reaching between her legs. She swallowed, knowing that what happened last night would repeat in short order if she didn’t do anything. She told herself that there was nothing to be scared of, and gingerly touched him the same way in return, her hand brushing up against his crotch.

Her first experience of touching Heero intimately was something she would always remember, but she was distracted from it when his hand slipped under her clothes. The feel of his fingers touching her was so surprising she didn’t have time to be embarrassed, and soon she wasn’t even thinking about being surprised.

He stroked her body as he continued to stimulate her directly. “You’re so soft,” he murmured. Gradually she remembered what she was supposed to be doing and realized that he probably wanted her to touch him the same way he was touching her. Obediently, she reached under his boxer shorts and found what she had sought, familiarizing herself with his body without any clear idea of what she was going to do. He seemed almost frantic to move forward, the force of his kisses and caresses becoming harder and wilder.

“I want to take off your clothes,” he petitioned into her ear.

Her breath caught. His hands were under all her clothes already. It would make no difference. She wasn’t going to tell him to stop. “Okay,” she heard herself reply in a small voice. “But Heero, I still don’t…”

“I know,” he said.

She believed him.

She divested herself of her clothing, not caring where the pieces went and realized belatedly that Heero had already removed his. With his body flush against hers she could hardly think straight. He entwined his legs with hers, rubbing his face along her chest and shoulders, feeling the silkiness of her skin. They proceeded to touch and stroke each other as they had been, and it was easier now with the clothing barriers gone. Heero buried his face in her shoulder, telling her what to do sometimes, trying to help and instruct and encourage her. When she started to get it right his hand stopped touching her, but she didn’t mind; it was sensory overload to think that she could cause him to forget about any task to which he had set himself. He made sounds she had never heard from him before. Slightly surprised, she kissed him wherever she could, thinking how much she loved him, wondering if she was doing it right, wondering how long it was supposed to take. She knew when he came. His whole body shuddered in release and the evidence got on her hands. She gave him a moment to rest and then tried to communicate her want and need for him to finish her. He obliged, turning her back to him again as he had last night, encircling her whole body with his as his hands reached around her. Lying up against him naked was different, but the experience was the same. She could feel him behind her, calm now that he was satisfied, concentrating on her completely until she whispered her release.

When it was finished she wanted to kiss him, to look into his eyes, to make promises of more to come later. But when she turned, Heero had his eyes closed, his head resting on the pillow, looking as tired and satisfied as she had felt yesterday. Idly, she reached up and stroked his face, wondering what he would dream about, wondering again if she had gone too far tonight. What was he thinking? What did he feel? He looked beautiful asleep, like an angel. She watched him for awhile, and then fell asleep herself, dreaming of him in a place where, when she opened her eyes, she would still see him.

The next morning, Relena made Heero breakfast. He avoided looking at her at first, but she merely smiled and did not question why. Instead she coaxed him to the table with a platter of waffles and then announced her intentions for the weekend.

“I’m going to my mothers Friday after work,” she explained.

He said nothing in reply, midnight blue eyes flickering at her.

“I would like you to come with me,” she said quietly. “Unless you don’t want to.”

“I have no objection to meeting you mother,” he said in almost practical tones, “though I don’t have one to introduce you to.”

She looked down at her hands, wondering if it bothered him that she had a mother and he did not. Heero wasn’t selfish like that so she doubted it. Was he saying that if he did have a family, he would have introduced her? She wondered how she ought to feel. She wished she could read his thoughts.

“Well if you’re not doing anything,” she began.

“I said I’d go,” he replied with an aura of nonchalance. “You don’t have to worry.”

She determined that she would not. If Heero was not nervous, she had no reason to be either.

“All right,” she said with a conceding smile.

Turning to her waffles, she reveled in the secret she had not shared, though she darted glances at Heero from time to time, wondering if maybe he could feel it. What she had not mentioned was the appointment she had made for Thursday, and the reason she did not mention it was because she wanted to wait until she was sure that Heero was exactly what she wanted. As she watched him spread his butter evenly on his waffle and then proceed to pour an exact serving onto the top, she couldn’t help but smile. It made her smile to watch him eat, polite without meaning to be, exact without seeming compulsive, and completely unaware of it. In her heart, she felt she wouldn’t mind watching him eat breakfast for the rest of her life.

“Thank you, Heero,” she told him.

Upcoming in Chapter Fourteen: Heero meets Relena’s mother, things continue to get hotter and Relena sets a special date.

A/N:

I would personally like to thank everyone who has ever reviewed this story. I read all of your reviews. I take note of people who return and review subsequent chapters, and I really appreciate every encouraging word anyone has ever said. Updates will still come regularly, but I’m also writing a Fruits Basket Fantasy fic so I’m quite busy. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up because I’m not entirely sure yet what my schedule will be like. Anyway, thank you for reading and please review!!!