(*waves* I'll probably pick this one back up again to finish, making it steamy, but for now have this~ Straight after Apollo's. thanks for the prompt!)
"Enter," Shepard's voice came from the otherside of the door. Kaidan stepped into the the Commander's quarters finding her at her desk reading a datapad.
"Working hard or hardly working?" Kaidan said with a small smile. Shepard sighed as she let the datapad flop to her lap.
"It feels like both," She tossed it onto the pile that had been accumulating on her desk. "I feel exhausted but I don't feel like I've actually done anything," She lifted herself off her seat.
"Right. Because curing the genophage wasn't doing anything," Kaidan scoffed.
He stepped further into the room meeting her in front of the fishtank. He grabbed her hands gently and ran his thumb over the top of them.
"Listen, Shepard, don't be so hard on yourself. This is a big war. It's going to take time to see some results. You're doing amazing,"
He cupped her chin and lifted it up as he stepped closer to her. She looked up at him, the blue glow of the fish tank bathing her skin and making her lilac eyes sparkle. He tucked a strand of her purple hair back behind her ear, letting his fingers caress the soft slope of it and trace along her jaw. The motion sending a small shiver down her spine.
"Why are you looking at me like that? What are you doing?" She said with a wry smile.
"I haven't given myself permission to really look at you," He said in a low tone. She furrowed her brows.
"That'd I find…" he hesitated. "I don't know. That I'd notice some difference that would prove to me that you aren't you. But I know, now, that it doesn't matter. I've spent enough time with you that regardless of what physical differences there are, you are you,"
Shepard smirked and took his hand. "I've already driven myself crazy with the whole 'what makes you you' debate, I don't feel like thinking about it anymore," She then stepped away and began to undo the light cuirass on her uniform.
"I can assure you, you will not find any physical differences though," she continued as she stepped down into the living portion of her quarters, discarding the piece onto the couch and continuing to undo the shirt underneath.
"Except for the lack of scars," Kaidan pointed out gently as he followed her.
"And unlike Garrus, I'll never be able to accumalte any more cool scars now," She gave a dramatic sigh as she spun around. He uniform was undone at the top revealing a lot of cleavage. She crossed her arms, accentuating the view. Kaidan was fairly sure she wasn't even doing it on purpose.
"How am I suppose to attract krogan women now?" She said playfully. Kaidan's eyes were trained on her chest.
"Truly a shame," he said pulling his attention with great effort back to her face.
He stepped closer to her and with a small pull on her arm he pulled her into him. She laughed as he did so and wrapped her arms around his neck. They pressed their foreheads together as they stood in the middle of the room.
"I saw you Orion's Belt," He murmured as he pressed his lips on her forehead. "I don't know if I want to know how they knew where to put those freckles. But they really did bring you back exactly the same,"
"Something, something DNA memory. Lots of science stuff that went over my head when I asked Miranda about it," Shepard said. She then leaned beck to look at Kaidan.
"Wait. Are you saying if I had just shown you my breasts on Horizon you would have believed me?"
Kaidan shrugged slyly. "I wouldn't have said no to that," after a moment of thinking his smile faltered. "Actually, I think I was too angry to be able to even appriciate that,"
Shepard laughed and pulled his face in for a gentle kiss. Her lips felt slightly chapped from the lack of care of herself, but Kaidan didn't care. It was the first time their lips had met in three years and it felt like cool glass of water after a decade of wandering the desert.
They slowly parted, but didn't move beyond a couple of inches from each other's lips. Kaidan then reignited the second kiss, pulling her into him and deepening it.
It was Ilos all over again. Reason giving way to passion, nothing else in the world mattered or even existed beyond the confines of his hands and lips. He pulled open the rest of shirt as their tongues caressed each other. His rough hands slid around her hips, roamed her back and snapped off her bra.
She parted their kiss panting. "What? No party tricks this time?" She chuckled between gasps.
Kaidan pulled her in for another kiss before parting again. He went to open his mouth to say something but then went in for another kiss. He honestly couldn't even think up a wiity reply to that.
