Equilibrium

From Release - snippet
Sap alert – you’ve been warned…

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With great tenderness, she laid her hands on either side of his face, eyes shining.

“Because I *love* you, you idiot,” she said.

An eyebrow arched above a golden eye.

“For the last time, stop calling me an idiot,” he growled softly, but his mouth was turning up at the corners.

She felt a spike of pain at the words ‘for the last time,’ and wondered briefly if the double entendre had been intentional.

'Ed…'

“-Shut up-,” she whispered, two seconds before her lips met his.

There was the slightest hesitation from Ed, more surprise than anything else, she suspected, and then his mouth relaxed against hers.

After a moment, a moment in which her senses filled with the taste of him, the sound of his breathing, the crazed beating of his heart beneath her, she realized that her hands were wet where they held his face.

She pulled away to find his eyes squeezed shut and leaking tears.

'Now he cries…?'

It was all too much for him. She thought she could understand. Even this close to his goal, Ed couldn't let up, couldn't relax, couldn't accept help or kindness. Or her love.

Her heart breaking, she leaned forward to kiss his closed eyelids, first one, then the other. He opened them quickly with a look of sudden panic, no doubt at some perceived vulnerability.

“Sssshhh,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

Smiling softly into his startled eyes, she kissed him again, this time with more insistence, filling it with every single thing she felt for him, knowing she would probably never get another chance.

She'd come in here fifteen minutes ago wanting to strangle him for what he was planning to do tomorrow, to knock sense into him with whatever hard thing was handy.

'And now?'

Now she just wanted to take away the torture.

The word “torture” stabbed her as it floated through her head. She felt her own tears start to flow, but refused to give in to them. There’d be plenty of time for pain and regret. *Tomorrow*. Right now there was just his body warm beneath her and his hands, gentle, sweetly unsure, and the sound of his voice as he breathed her name.

“Winry…”

He’d been lightly holding her arms since she’d first kissed him, but now his hands moved to circle her waist. Heated fingertips, smooth, cool ones; she shivered at the contrast in sensation, reveling in the thought that she’d caused the heat in the former, had created the latter…

Feeling him pull her close and tight against him, hearing him moan softly into the kiss, she trembled, not quite believing what was happening, not yet *understanding* what was happening…

Not until he brought his right knee up and rolled her over onto her back.

She gasped at the change in position, at the insistent pressure of his weight upon her, at once aware of every single place where their bodies met: his left hand at her back, fingers splayed along her spine, almost vibrating against her skin; his chest, smooth and hard, his heart, beating even faster now inside his rib cage; his belly, taut, but trembling; his hips…*oh, god*, he was close enough for her to feel his hips against hers and his…

Her mind scattered and she fought to keep focus, not an easy thing to do with him so close she could feel every breath he took. The heat of him now was incredible and there was something else… something hard and very hot and…

He surprised her when with a slow, amazingly steady hand he traced the line of her jaw, then threaded metal fingers through her hair to cup her face.

“Winry,” he breathed and the sound of her own name made her knees weak.

“Winry, you … you know I—“ he broke off, apparently unsure of himself, of his words. Biting his lip, seeming to find strength from the pain, he continued, his voice more solid. “You *know* I love you, don’t you?”

She left out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

*Did* she know that?

In a thousand little ways, ways anyone else might not have noticed, maybe, just maybe she had. Could she have felt so strongly for him if she -hadn’t- known? Doesn’t the heart protect itself that way, only allowing that tiny spark in shelters to grow in the company of another, just as bright?

Unable to do anything more, she merely nodded.

He went on, though, clearly, with difficulty.

“I… I need you to know that I would never …I would never use you, Winry.”

“Use me?” she asked, finally finding her voice, but apparently not her intellect. What was he talking about? “Use me how?”

He pressed his lips into a tight line, forcing air through his nose, then shifted against her briefly, an action that caused them both to gasp involuntarily.

“…to … to forget… or to… I dunno, cross something off my “Things I Never Got to Do” list…”

'Oh…'

Her blush was extreme.

“That’s ridiculous,” she scoffed, smiling. “And thank you…” She slipped a hand around the back of his neck, a hand growing more steady by the second. “Now, c’mere…”

A broad grin broke out across his face and with a sigh, he let himself be pulled into another kiss, this time more fierce. She shuddered, feeling his tongue slip between her lips and for a moment, she was content with just that: being this close to Ed, feeling him heavy above her, tasting him, hearing his stilted breathing as his mouth move against hers, knowing she was affecting him, feeling him affect her...

Drawing his hand from her face, she kissed the palm gently, then moved it lower, to her breast.

Edward’s eyes grew wide again and he seemed to hesitate.

“What... you mind,” she asked.

With a crooked grin, he shook his head and complied, pressing his hand against her and she knew he could feel how he affected her by the changing expression on his face – wonder, pleasure, hunger. Slowly, his fingers began to explore her and she arched into his attentions.

He pressed more insistently against her and she surprised them both by parting her legs slightly, just enough to let him settle between them, bringing them even closer. She let out a long sigh of pleasure.

Ed’s eyes grew wide, then half-lidded. A smile spread slowly across his face.


-- more to come…