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Mako expects certain things from Raleigh Becket, vaguely, nebulously. She doesn’t even realize she’s formed certain impressions of him, from reading his files and trying to get into his head so she can find someone else who can do the same, until he smiles at her and dispels each and every one.
She expects a man whose respect she might have to fight for; she doesn’t expect one who takes her at her word, no posture, no convincing needed.
She doesn’t expect Raleigh Becket to give so much of himself — he, the man who has every reason to be wary of opening himself up again, giving her his smiles and his confidence and his memories, like he’s just handing her the key to his insides, like he trusts her implicitly.
It’s a thrill and an honor, and Mako finds that the more Raleigh offers up to her, the more she wants; she wants all of him, wants to dive into his mind a thousand times more until she’s lived his life alongside him, until she knows Raleigh Becket to the very tips of his fingers and the far-flung corners of his mind.
The first time they fall into bed together, it’s near wordless: they kiss until Mako’s lungs gasp for air, until she knows the shape of Raleigh’s mouth, until sharing his breath almost starts to feel like Drifting through his mind. The only thing that makes them stop kissing is the need to undress and twine together skin-to-skin. Mako needs to get closer, like having Raleigh in her and around her in all the ways she can will make up for the one way she can’t right now.
Mako lies on her back as Raleigh braces himself above her. She tries to imagine what she looks like through his eyes: her hair fanning out over her pillow, the rise-and-fall of her chest as she breathes. She feels a little naked in more ways than one.
But Raleigh’s looking at her bright-eyed and hungry, and he ducks his head to press his mouth to the curve of her neck, pauses for a minute like he’s breathing her in. Mako spreads her hands out against Raleigh’s back, feels the shifting of his muscles as he moves his way slowly down her body, dropping brief, tingling kisses in his wake. He kisses the taut bud of her nipple and then sucks it into his mouth, and Mako gasps aloud, digging her nails into Raleigh’s back.
She’s pictured them doing this before, hard and fast, the same adrenaline rush that shot through her when they sparred and she put him on the ground. Right now, though, this feels right; Raleigh’s slow, thorough exploration of her is like he’s trying to learn her anew, and the look on his face as he studies hers — open, hiding nothing, like all he wants is to know what she likes and give it to her. Wants to give her everything.
Raleigh sucks at Mako’s breasts, leaving tender pink marks here and there, places she’ll press her fingers to later and remember. He kisses his way down her stomach, pushes her legs apart and settles between them, and he keeps holding her eyes with his own right up until the moment he puts his mouth on her.
Mako exhales sharply. The ghost bond between them is thrumming with everything they’ve shared, the echoes of their grief and their uncertainty for the future, their need to connect; and at the center of it all, Mako can feel Raleigh’s deep-seated desire to make this good, to make her happy, to keep her.
Mako cups the back of his head. “Please,” she says, and Raleigh shivers, and gives her what she wants.
Raleigh clearly knows what he’s doing, but more than that, he’s paying attention — watching what makes Mako’s hands curl in the sheets, what makes her jerk, and he gives her the steady pressure of his tongue until she’s achingly wet and wanting against his mouth. She comes clenching around two of his fingers as he keeps licking and sucking her clit, and he doesn’t let up until her thighs are quivering and she’s shuddering in place, trying and failing to catch her breath.
Raleigh lifts his head, mouth and chin shiny-wet, and an aftershock of arousal hooks through Mako’s body at the sight. He’s flushed and dark-eyed, and after he wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand, Mako drags him back up to kiss the taste of herself off his tongue.
“What do you want?” Raleigh whispers against her mouth, tugs at her bottom lip with his teeth. Mako doesn’t need to ask him what he wants — she can feel it in him, the desire to give her what she needs, until she’s boneless and sated and happy. That’s what twists him up inside, what gets him hard. That’s what he wants.
“Come here,” Mako says. She draws Raleigh closer, spreads her legs so he can slide into her slow and easy; she groans when he’s all the way inside, and it echoes strangely in her ears as Raleigh lets out a sound at the same time, like it’s more than either of them can do to keep it in. Mako hooks her legs around Raleigh’s back, tightening around him, and he puts his face in the curve of her neck and just — breathes, for a moment. When he starts fucking her, it’s just small, grinding thrusts at first, like he wants to stay in her as long as he can; and Mako loves it, crushed under his weight in the best possible way.
Time stretches on liquid and distant, like they’re in this moment physically but also somewhere else: the space between them where Mako can feel Raleigh’s mind, where they’ve fallen into timing their breaths together. There’s the tight, aching need to come throbbing low in her stomach, and she doesn’t know if that’s from her or from him; they’re feeling together now, and when Raleigh fucks into Mako and reaches down to thumb her clit, she squeezes around his cock and bites at his mouth, takes him over the edge with her.
They break apart slowly, untangling their limbs like they’re remembering they’re actually separate people.
But maybe — Mako reaches out to curl her fingers in Raleigh’s hair, feeling all the places Raleigh’s left his mark on her body, the hollow he’s carved out for himself in her mind — maybe they aren’t, anymore.