Work Text:
Chat Noir came with his forehead pressed to Ladybug's collarbone.
She'd come a few minutes before, her legs, bracketed around his waist, still trembling. Now they lay, two bodies pressed together with enough heat and proximity to become one.
Were they one already? Could they even be considered separate if he was still inside her?
While he regained his bearings, she counted his breaths. Breath twelve was the one he interrupted to laugh.
"You feel really good," he chuckled, blushing up to his ears, burying his face into her neck. "Don't wanna pull out just yet."
"Then don't," she said, stroking his hair.
He paused. Then, he raised his head, fringe matted to his forehead and plastic mask with sweat. "Really?"
It broke the unspoken rule. One of them, at least, but she'd been breaking a few rules behind his back for a while now.
"Yeah," she said. "I wouldn't have said it if I didn't like it."
Hoping he couldn't feel her heart speed up was fruitless. Her heartbeat was everywhere, and so was Chat Noir.
He lowered his head back down to her collarbone with a gentle thump .
While her rule-breaking heart welcomed this hot, lazy inertia, her body burned against it. Her body, so used to springing away from him at the first recession of her climax, so used to the cold bed sheets icing the suck marks and bite marks and fingerprints he'd painted her with, turned feverish under his flesh.
They didn't do this. They didn't touch when it wasn't like that .
But they also weren't in love with each other, and there Ladybug was, stroking his hair and hearing him breathe and feeling her heart swell as he made little noises against her as he got comfortable.
Stop breaking the rules , her body said, sweating.
They were useless anyway , her heart replied, swelling.
Chat Noir kissed across her collarbone. He pushed back her loose, sweaty hair, kissed the skin it uncurtained, then followed a trail guiding him lower.
She twitched when he took her nipple into his mouth. It was still tender from when he'd sucked it just before he'd made her come.
"I can feel you getting wetter," he said around her breast, a little playful and a little shy but too exhausted to bring out any of his suggestive purrs. "You wanna go once more?"
"Can you even go once more?"
"Like, right now?" He tried lifting himself onto his arms, then fell back on top of her. "Nope. I overestimated myself."
She snickered, then reached over to bring her hand back to his hair. "There, there."
Ladybug felt him smile when he returned to kissing her nipple.
Her body stopped its tirade against her heart. He'd won it over with his soft tongue and loving kisses and the hickeys he went over, rewriting his signature on her flesh.
She slipped her thumb beneath his fringe and ran it over the smooth curve of his forehead. Chat Noir reached up with one hand and stroked her cheek, the other cupping her breast. She could feel her pulse between her thighs, but she knew they wouldn't be going again tonight. She didn't mind that at all.
It was a shame how having sex made them so reluctant to touch outside of that. No more lingering hugs. No more patrol cuddles. He'd tried, once, but his breath on her neck took her back to a creaking bed and his gasping mouth and moans ripping out of her with every thrust. Gingerly, she'd unwrapped herself from his arms and sat a few inches away from him on the rooftop ridge.
It'd stung him. She'd felt his pain thick in the air between them, and had it confirmed when he never went for a hug again.
"You're quiet," he said. Chat Noir licked her nipple, running his hand from her other breast to in between the two, then kissed it long and slow. "Anything wrong?"
"N-no— ohhhh. " She gripped the damp hair at the nape of his neck. "No. Just thinking."
"Mm. You think too much."
"At least I can think. Unlike someone." She squeezed his hair.
Chat Noir bit her nipple in retaliation.
Ladybug wasn't sure what kind of reaction he'd been looking for, because even when she jerked, even when she bucked her hips and pushed him deeper inside of her, Chat Noir stopped, and raised himself onto his arms.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.
Ladybug panted. Her chest, her collarbones, and her flushed, makeup-smeared face with her askew plastic mask all lay spread underneath him. He'd seen it before — of course he had — but this was no longer a mindless, animalistic collision of flesh cloaked in bed sheets. This was outside of that, a limbo between thinking and not thinking, a limbo they'd usually spend on separate ends of the bed and sober themselves with pillow talk firmly about patrol schedules or akumas.
Weirdly self-conscious, she made a half-hearted effort to cover herself with an arm.
"Yes," she said. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"
He stayed silent for a moment, before the tension in his brow relaxed. "Okay." He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. Blush rose up to her face, and Ladybug had to clench her fists under the duvet so she wouldn't wriggle away to hide from him. "As long as you're okay."
Then, he took his hand away from her, pulled out, then landed in a heap on top of her.
She nudged him. "Chat Noir."
" Nghhn ."
"Get off. You're heavy."
"Shhhh."
"Don't shhhh me!"
"Shhhh. I'm sleeping."
She laughed, and felt it burst out of her from her belly.
She liked this. She liked this very much. This touch, this afterglow spent skin-to-skin, should've played a role just as important as the sex in their arrangement.
Too many nights had Ladybug left their hotel suite to return to her lonely bed, curling up to grasp onto the morsel of warmth of another body that faded with every second elapsed since they'd touched. Day by day that warmth faded faster and faster, until their expensive hotel bed sheets were home to nothing but twenty minutes of a frenzied romp cresting with a mind-numbing, thigh-clenching, screaming-so-loud-they'd-definitely-woken-someone-up orgasm.
Nothing but had been fine, before, when the warmth leftover from their sex and subsequent parting would last her through the entire night and maybe half the next day. But then it had stopped being fine. It had stopped being fine a long time ago.
(See? Clearly she was no stranger to breaking their rules).
Suddenly, it'd felt like such a waste of good bed sheets to not love each other between them. To not hold each other. To not fall asleep in each other's arms in the middle of sleepy, lamplit conversations.
Ladybug brought her hand to the side of his face and lifted his head. Sleep clouded his eyes.
"My kitty," she cooed, so tenderly she barely recognised her own voice. "So sleepy. Didn't mean to wear out."
His face warmed beneath her hand. Chat Noir ducked his head and kissed a trail from her chest up to her neck, tickling her, making her giggle.
"You're so clingy," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck as he lifted himself above her.
Chat Noir's expression flickered. "Do you want me to stop?"
That pain, the texture of it in his voice, was familiar. It was the same as when she'd unwrapped herself from his arms that night on patrol, or whenever she shrugged off his embrace while they watched movies, or whenever she slid away from him everytime he tried to cuddle with her after they'd finished.
She almost fell back to her old ways. Her heart pounded so hard she wanted to pound back, to push him away, to recede back into the coldness because she was too afraid to get burnt.
No. She couldn't. Nobody could live without warmth.
"No," she said, bringing her hands to his face. "I like it. It's nice."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
His breath tickled her nose.
Ladybug wanted to break more rules.
With her hands already on his face, with his lips already so close to hers, Ladybug pulled him down and kissed him.
She'd missed out. Oh , how she'd missed out. All those times she'd kiss across his jaw in lieu of his mouth, or when she'd move his face into her neck so he wouldn't get any ideas, or when she'd turn her head away whenever their lips brushed as he fucked her — Ladybug had sorely missed out.
Because not even their best nights in their hotel suite held a candle to kissing Chat Noir.
He brought his hands to her hair and thumbed it from her cheeks, a gesture so unconditionally loving she couldn't help but tighten her arms around him, pulling him impossibly closer.
They could've spent entire nights kissing. Side-by-side, hands stroking cheekbones or clothed hips or simply intertwining their fingers, kissing until their lips turned sore. She'd tasted him in places nobody else had even seen of him, and yet she'd refused the heaven that had been offered to her time and time again?
He stilled first, and she balked. Not just at the loss, but the questioning looks, the perplexity, the knee-deep tension she'd have to face as soon as she opened her eyes.
"Oh," he breathed.
Ladybug looked at him, mum. Her lips, unaccustomed to their pulsing state, had been kissed too well to formulate any words.
Chat Noir bit his lip. He dismounted her, and fell beside her on the bed.
Her heart, a hummingbird in her chest, pounded over the creak in the mattress springs. Oh God. She'd kissed him. They didn't kiss. Kissing wasn't a part of the arrangement.
What must he have thought? Had he figured her out? Did the hair-stroking, the cuddling, the out-of-the-blue kissing slice her open and bleed out all those feelings she'd been gulping down for weeks, now?
She couldn't look at him. Not head-on, at least, only from the corner of her eye.
Chat Noir looked up at the ceiling, breathing through his mouth, duvet barely covering him.
Say something , she almost pleaded, but that in itself would exacerbate the tension festering between them.
She'd never been good with words. Ladybug had comforted Chat Noir on his rough nights by letting him undo the buttons of her blouse and touch her as if they loved each other. Ladybug had gone to him with her brain sizzling with anxiety and confided in him with her lips breaking his name apart against his clavicle.
They didn't have the luxury of words when they already kept so many secrets from each other.
So, with a sheepish smile, she found his hand under the bed sheets, and moved it back to her breasts.
He turned his head, raising his eyebrows, clearly amused. "Really?"
"If that's okay," she said. "It felt nice."
Chat Noir propped himself up on an elbow. He brushed the bed sheets away from her chest, a flash of cold making the goosebumps on her arm blossom, then lowered his lips to her skin.
He took her nipple into his mouth once more, and Ladybug moaned. She found solace in the stitching of the duvet cover and fisted her hand there, but Chat Noir slipped his fingers between hers and held them.
This was not the whirlwind of tangled limbs, of passionate cries, of banging headboards that usually finalised their nights. This was slow and this was gentle, a beautifully deliberate union with his kisses praising her flesh and his free hand caressing her stomach.
They weren't touching because they couldn't help themselves. They were touching because they could help themselves, and simply decided that this was what they wanted to do, right now.
"More?" he asked, tongue still half against her nipple.
The hand he had on her inner thigh made her stomach flutter.
She didn't say anything. Ladybug widened her legs and guided his hand where she wanted him.
His fingers inside of her shot her with relief so puissant her body rippled. Gently, he sucked her nipple, and when she edged nearer to him, he readjusted to take her into his arms.
Chat Noir raised his head, hand still between her thighs. Breaths left his mouth in puffs so fast and heated she wondered if he felt as good as he was making her feel. Hazy-eyed, he lowered his face to hers, kissing her sweat-glazed cheek.
She turned her head, but not the other way, this time. Ladybug, mouth open amidst a gasp, turned her head to meet Chat Noir, and, locking their gazes for a moment beforehand, kissed his lips.
The fog in her mind thickened and she threw her head back, clenching his hand in hers, knowing he was watching her as she writhed.
"I love you," she gasped.
And, torturously so, his fingers slowed down. "What?"
"Chat Noir, please ."
"Oh, y-yeah, sorry." He sped up.
"Kiss me again. Please."
He didn't need to be told twice. Chat Noir kissed her hard, kissed her hard and long and eventually through her orgasm.
Ladybug flung her arms around him and arched against his touch. She trembled, still kissing him, his hair threaded between her fingers.
He eased her back against her pillow, and slipped his fingers out of her. Chat Noir remained bent. He kissed her cheek, her chin, her nose, her forehead, then, finally, her lips.
Even once the aftershocks had faded, Ladybug couldn't stop shaking.
"Hey," he said, brushing his nose against hers. "What was that all about?"
She bit her lip. What a way of asking. She felt like she'd just thrown a tantrum and he was coaxing her into telling him what had set her off.
Ladybug felt like someone had dropped a bucket of cold water over her.
Her eyes burst open.
He was asking what had set her off.
"What was what all about?" she said right back.
He laughed, averting his eyes from her. "You know… saying you love me, and all that." He grinned, but it was strained at the edges. "I know I'm great in bed, but you never came off as the type to say you love me for it."
Chat Noir thought she hadn't meant it.
A flush of shame scorched her face. She closed her eyes. He couldn't even look at her, and she couldn't look at him not looking at her.
The words were stuck to her throat. It felt like she had to cough to get them out. "I do love you," she said. "For real. I'm not messing around."
She still wouldn't open her eyes, but she heard him chuckle. "What are you talking about?" Idly, he drew circles around her navel with the tip of his finger. "You don't love me."
"Chat Noir, I—"
He kissed her. On the mouth. Like lovers did.
"You don't," he said, smiling at her, giving her that fond look he'd give her whenever she said something silly before they fell asleep. "You're tired. You should get some rest."
She wanted to protest. Wanted to argue. Wanted to cup his face and tell him to take her seriously. Tell him this wasn't one of those evenings she'd dip her foot into the water then sprint back to shore.
But all she could do was stare.
He kissed her forehead, fixing the duvet around her. "Sleep well, My Lady."
He lay back down next to her, reached over, and switched off the lamp.
Ladybug stared at the black ceiling until her eyes finally began to water.