Content Note: contains explicit sex, light Dom/sub
Shepard hated politicians.
It hadn’t even been two standard hours since a reaper appendage and half the Citadel Tower landed on her head, but the Council were in her face asking her questions, demanding she make decisions. Maybe she should have let them die…she shook the thought out of her head, blaming it on her exhaustion. The last time she’d slept had been the few hours before they landed on Ilos.
To make matters worse, Udina was at her side preening as if he’d been the one to save the Citadel. The only thing that kept her from reaching out to throttle him was Anderson standing protectively at her other side.
Her eyes drifted to Kaidan who was standing at parade rest a respectful distance away, his expression schooled into the very picture of military decorum despite the chaos around them. Their eyes met and he rolled his comically at Udina’s grandstanding. As his commanding officer, she was supposed to reprimand him for that, but instead she let out an ugly snort-laugh. Everyone around her fell silent. The Council looked shocked, Udina glared, Anderson tried to look stern but couldn’t control his smirk.
“Sorry, sir,” she said to Anderson, “adrenaline still hasn’t worn off.”
She shot a glare at Kaidan, who had resumed his bland expression like nothing had happened.
After an awkward pause, the whole messy affair resumed, and Shepard found herself wishing that her armor hadn’t held up quite so well because being laid up in Medbay would be preferable to this. She could feel the sweat pooling in her armor, trickling down her back. It gave her some small satisfaction that the turian and salarian councilors, with their heightened olfactory senses, could smell the unpleasant stink wafting off of her. God but she wanted a shower.
“Let’s give Shepard a break, shall we? There’ll be plenty of time to discuss this in the morning,” Anderson said when the discussion turned to Shepard choosing the first human councilor — Why the fuck did they think she was qualified to do that? — and she watched him expertly herd the councilors and Udina further down the Presidium walkway towards the Embassies.
She slumped onto what was left of a park bench. The Presidium was somehow still functional despite the wreckage covering huge swaths of it. The air smelled like electrical fires and burnt flesh, and she hated how familiar that combination was to her.
Kaidan sat down beside her, gently knocking his armored shoulder against hers. “So I was thinking,” he said, looking sideways at her with one of those small smiles that made her stomach flutter, “the Financial District is mostly intact and there’s this swanky hotel that was more than happy to comp a room for the Hero of the Citadel. High threadcount sheets, room service, a full shower with unlimited water.”
“Kaidan…I’m not sure I feel up to…”
“Hey, it’s ok. We can just watch vids. Sleep. Whatever you want, but we’re definitely taking a shower. Let someone else look after things for a little while. Let me take care of you.” Despite her exhaustion, she felt heat pool in her belly at the husky sound of his voice.
Kaidan took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. Both of their hands were grimy and battered from the day’s fight, and she wondered at how well they fit together.
He stood up, gently tugging her with him. “Come on.”
Shepard let herself be led through the winding walkways, across the bridge to the Financial District, which somehow looked as if Sovereign’s attack had never happened. The recycled air even smelled fresher over here, which should have been impossible.
Kaidan wouldn’t tell her how he had managed to arrange all of this, but when they arrived at the hotel an asari concierge handed Kaidan a room key and without a single word, gestured gracefully in the direction of their room.
The room was palatial. larger than the captain’s cabin on the Normandy, possibly larger than her rarely-used flat back on Earth. The bed in the middle of the room was an ocean of overstuffed pillows and expensive asari blankets. Everything — the furniture, the carpet, even the lighting — was soft. It made her acutely aware of her own sharp edges, her grimy armor, the sweat still sliding down her back. She was afraid to touch anything.
The adrenaline had finally worn off, leaving her shaking and listless with too many thoughts in her head. The weeks of chasing down Saren, the entire clusterfuck on Virmire, losing Ashley…everything came crashing down on her head. She locked eyes with Kaidan, who was on the other side of the room pulling the curtains shut over the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out onto the smoldering Presidium.
Kaidan was immediately back at her side, holding her and whispering reassuring words against her neck while he popped the seals on her armor.
“Is this ok?” he asked, stopping when she froze under him. She nodded, but that wasn’t good enough for him. “Use your words, Shepard.”
The command in his voice lit up something inside her. She grabbed one of his hands and pressed it back on the armor seal at her hip. “Yes, it’s more than ok. I need…”
His lips were against her ear, his voice pitched low. “What do you need?”
The words stuck in her throat. This was too much, too vulnerable. What would he think of her? She took a deep breath and pushed through her doubts. “I need to not be in charge.”
Kaidan’s sharp intake of breath was something she would never forget. “Yeah, I can do that,” he said, sounding almost reverent.
He continued to remove her armor laying each piece down with care, and finally unzipped her body suit. He slowly followed the line of separating fabric with his mouth, pressing featherlight kisses to every inch of exposed skin until he was on his knees in front of her. He looked up at her like she was the entire galaxy, not a bruised and sweaty mess. She tried to run her hands through his hair, but he grabbed her wrists, pinning them at her side with a smirk.
“No touching me unless I tell you to,” he said as he rose to his feet.
Shepard had glimpsed a little bit of this side to Kaidan during that night before Ilos. It had intrigued her, the idea of giving up control to someone she trusted, but there hadn’t been any time to explore.
She watched as he removed his own armor, much faster, she noticed, than he had removed hers. Then they were both wonderfully, gloriously naked. It was the first time they were really able to look at each other, and Shepard could feel the blush run down her body as Kaidan regarded her.
She wanted to run her fingers through the hair on his chest, follow its path down his taut stomach to his hardening cock. They were close enough that all she had to do was reach out, but he was in charge and he’d said no touching.
He led her by the hand into the ensuite bathroom. It was spacious with a separate shower and bathtub, both large enough for two or more people. Kaidan steered her towards the shower which automatically started spraying water that was nearly too hot. She tipped her head back into the spray, groaning as it hit her aching muscles.
Kaidan stepped behind her and pulled her against his chest. She relaxed, letting him support her weight as he slowly, gently cleaned the grime off her with some expensive-smelling asari soap. With each pass of his hands down her arms, across her breasts, in lazy circles over her stomach, she felt her mind quiet until it was completely silent. Her entire world narrowed down to Kaidan.
She tried to reach behind her to get her hand around his cock — now fully hard against the small of her back — wanting to bring him some of the pleasure he was bringing her, but Kaidan just guided her hand up to rest against the back of his neck. Then he slid his own hand down between her legs, circling her clit with those rough and nimble fingers. She bucked up into his hand, seeking more friction as he slipped two fingers inside her. When he cured his fingers just so she threw her head back and moaned. Her orgasm shot through her body, intense and sudden, leaving her trembling against him.
Shepard recovered quickly and spun around to pin Kaidan against the shower wall, determined to return the favor. His cock looked painfully hard, but once again he moved her hand away before she could touch him. He leaned down to press a kiss to her neck before ushering her out of the shower and drying them both off with luxuriously soft towels.
“I always forget how small you are out of your armor,” Kaidan teased as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. She gave him a look that she hoped said I can still take you in hand-to-hand combat.
He laid her down like she was something worthy of tenderness and care, and stretched out alongside her, combing his fingers through her damp hair. “Still want me to be the boss?” he said low against her ear.
She nodded.
“Shepard…” His voice, at once a warning and a promise, sent a thrill through her.
But she still rolled her eyes at him for making her say it out loud. “Yes, I still want you to be the boss.”
Kaidan rose to his knees, taking her hands gently in his and placing them on the headboard. “Let go and I stop, ok?”
She tightened her hands around the headboard’s metal rails, arching her body up into Kaidan’s as he settled on top of her and leaned down to meet her lips. They stayed that way for long time, just kissing and enjoying the feel of skin on skin. When she started trembling against him, Kaidan pulled back with a lopsided grin and slid down her body. He draped her legs over his shoulders as he licked and nipped his way up her inner thigh at an infuriatingly slow pace.
“Goddammit, Kaidan!” Shepard yelled when he resisted her attempts to move him where she wanted him with her legs. She felt a warm gust of air against her skin as he laughed, followed immediately by his tongue licking a hot, wet stripe from her entrance to her clit. He gripped her ass hard enough to bruise, pulling her closer, encouraging her to grind on his face, take her pleasure from him as he worked her clit with his tongue.
Her hands shook from the effort to not let go of the headboard. She wanted to grab him by that mop of dark hair and pin him to the bed, ride his cock until he moaned as loud as he was making her moan, but the things he was doing with his tongue…She didn’t want him to stop, so she held on. Her body went taut like a bowstring as she crashed over the edge, coming a second time.
Kaidan regarded Shepard with a pleased, almost smug expression from between her thighs before he crawled back up her body to kiss her. She could taste herself on him, and that was the thing that finally broke her resolve.
She let go of the headboard and rolled them over so she was on top. The shocked look on Kaidan’s face quickly gave way to a knowing grin.
“Your turn,” Shepard whispered in his ear.