266A/N: Tumblr prompt: Anna gets a little impatient with Kristoff.
[KristoffxAnna, M for sexual content, romance]
"Hands On"
Anna, Kristoff learns very quickly, is a hands-on learner.
It's a natural thing, really – she's bright-eyed and curious, so long deprived of anything real, anything substantial in her gated life that she all but launches herself headfirst through newly-opened doors. She's experiential, tactile. She wants to see things, do things, touch things, immerse herself in life and grasp it with both hands.
She often finds him in the stables, late in the afternoons, always looking something of a mess, disheveled but so bright with enthusiasm as she tells him about her day. One day she helps the huntmaster deliver a litter of wolfhounds ("they were so small, Kristoff, they were just the size of my hand!"); another day she tries her hand at baking (the results of her labors are just a hair south of edible, but she smiles so brightly when she hands him the biscuits that he eats them anyway).
Kristoff can rarely get a word in edgewise as Anna rambles happily about her day's adventures, but he's never been much of a talker anyway and she's just so… happy.
And even now, scarce a week since the thaw, he knows that anything that makes Anna happy is a very, very good thing. Maybe even the best thing.
It's unsettling, then, when she comes to the barn one evening, perches herself on a stool and watches him as he brushes down Sven, not saying a word.
Kristoff eyes her, not pausing in his work, brow creasing in worry as Anna bites her lower lip. "Did you do anything interesting today?" he asks, and wonders at her silence.
Anna nods, wringing her hands together a little, and looks at him. "Are we dating?" she blurts out, and her cheeks flush as she averts her gaze.
Kristoff's hand stills on the brush, something hot and heavy dropping into the middle of his chest. Yes. No. I hope so.
Anna is quiet, but he can see her glancing to him from the corner of her eye, every few seconds, as if she can't bear to look away from him entirely.
"…do you want us to be?" he asks finally, setting the brush aside and leaning over the stall door to her. He hesitates, breathes, before gently touching her cheek, turning her to face him.
Anna's eyes are bright, lips parted a fraction as she stares up at him. "…yes," she says, and her voice is just a touch breathless and her eyes keep straying to his lips.
Kristoff crooks a smile at her, all schooled nonchalance even as his heart hammers against his ribs. "Okay then," he says, and hesitates, pulls back a cautionary distance, but then Anna fairly launches herself at him, her hands tangled in his hair, her lips pressed warmly to his.
They've done this before, but just the once, and Kristoff tries to remember how to breathe as Anna's hands stroke through his hair, sloping down to his face, his shoulders, over his broad chest. She makes a contented noise in the back of her throat as soft leather slides beneath her palms, as her fingertips press and pull, and Kristoff bites back a groan as he struggles to keep his hands curved around her face instead of sliding downward.
Anna's fingertips move up, tug at his collar and slip just beneath, dancing along the ridge of his collarbone, and the feel of her touch against bare skin is too much — he can feel it burning into him, desirous and wanting and dangerous, and he pulls back from the kiss, eyes unfocused, breathing hard.
Anna's breath is just as short and ragged as his as she stares up at him, eyes dark and dilated, lips moist and swollen. "Was…" she starts, not moving away, still staring, "…was that bad?"
Kristoff takes a deep, steadying breath, averts his gaze and shifts awkwardly. "…no," he says after a moment, willing his heartbeat to settle, and he feels self-conscious and pinned under Anna's curious stare. He's hard, wanting, and everything in him is screaming to kiss her again, have her open and pliant beneath him, kiss-drunk and touching.
But it's still too soon for that, he knows, no matter how much Anna wants to experience everything around her.
Including him.
Breath finally evening, Kristoff straightens, tempts fate by leaning across to press a warm, lingering kiss to her cheek (his lips tingle from the touch, and something within him sighs at the absence of her as he moves away). "So what did you do today?" he asks, voice still a little too tight, back a little too straight as he retrieves the brush and avoids Sven's pointed, curious (judging) stare.
Anna watches him for a long, long moment, head tilted, eyes narrowed in confusion, appraisal, before she shrugs and begins to talk.
Weeks pass, and their routine stays much the same (even though they're "dating" now, dear god, Anna is his girlfriend, he's dating a princess, what is he doing). Only now Anna's smile is brighter, the swing of her hips a little more pronounced, and he's never been a religious man but he prays when he sees her at the stall door, biting her lip and gazing up at him through her lashes.
"Kiss me," Anna says, and she's not coy, she's not shy or retiring, she just stares at him, eyes bright and burning, and dear god he wants her.
(Loves her, Kristoff knows, god how he knows it, but it'll burn on his tongue, unspoken and unheard for now.)
She's taken to drawing him out, pressing him up against the barn wall, and it'd almost be funny, this small scrap of a princess backing him up and holding him in check, if she weren't all warm kisses and gently stroking hands and embracing arms and a warm, bright, beautiful heart.
She could have him on his knees with a single word, a single glance.
Love's a funny thing, he's learning.
Anna is still insistent in her kisses, approaching them like she does everything, headfirst and exuberant. She tilts her head both ways to find which way she likes kissing him best. She presses kisses to his jawline, his cheeks, reaches up on tiptoe to kiss his brow.
But there's fire in her kisses, and soon enough her tongue shyly traces the seam of his lips, strokes to find his, and her fingers tangle against his nape and he can hear her breathing deepen as she presses close, arches into him, slides her tongue against his, slow and lascivious.
Kristoff always manages to break away from her just in time, keeps the length of her body just far enough away that she doesn't feel him against her, hard and aching with want, but he can't control his breathing, can't control the open desire in his eyes as he looks at her.
By the fifth time, his hands braced along her shoulders, angling her away from him, just enough for propriety's sake, Anna narrows her eyes and looks up at him, raising one eyebrow in an unspoken question.
Kristoff sighs, scrubbing one hand over his face. "Anna," he starts, and feels the flush burning deep across his cheeks even just at her name, "it's just…" Dear god let someone have told her, in her years of semi-captivity, about men and women.
He's still hard as anything, and Anna's hair is mussed, lips swollen, and he can't seem to breathe, stares at her and imagines her lips and hands elsewhere, touching and caressing and kissing, and he's felt the curve of her hips in his hands and oh god how would they feel bared to him, sloping skin and bone as he held, lifted, parted and filled…
A deep, shuddery breath, and he feels the pull of it from his lungs, protesting and weak, and he closes his eyes. Keep it together, man, he tells himself, because it's Anna and she deserves better than this, deserves better than some mindless rutting creature who can't even hold himself together in her presence, can't…
Kristoff's breath dies altogether at the feel of a firm press along his length, a curving palm, and he opens his eyes, wide, to see Anna staring at him, determined, purposeful.
She doesn't look away.
"I know," she says, and she's trying to be steel-backed, iron-willed, but there's a hint of a smile around her lips, a faint blush dusting along her cheekbones. "And I want it."
She doesn't avert her gaze even as she squeezes experimentally, strokes him, pushes up the hem of his tunic and dips down, inside.
He's not sure he's breathing, not sure he ever will again as Anna's hand wraps around him, and she's shaking but firm, her eyes never leaving his.
He should stop her, he knows. On some level he knows this, knows he should pull her hand from him, even as she begins a light caress, a gentle stroking, and he's fairly certain he's going insane.
But Anna, Kristoff knows, is all about the experience, about learning, about knowing.
And she's so very determined to get the things she wants.
"Okay?" she asks, pink tongue just snaking out to wet her lips, and he can only nod, quick and uneven, as she smiles.
She's unpracticed but curious, enthusiastic, and it doesn't take long before he's choking on a cry at the back of his throat and pressing her hand to him, holding her fast and bucking his hips up against her.
The world seems to be tilting at a hundred angles as he stares at her, eyes wide, breath heavy, and her smile widens.
"I like this dating thing," Anna says, a touch too innocently, and he can't help it, he starts laughing, because the princess has her hand down his pants and they're dating and it's the strangest thing that's ever happened to him or anyone else.
"I love you," Kristoff says, not even thinking, the words slip-sliding from his tongue, and his breath dies, escapes, and he's not sure he'll ever be able to breathe again as Anna's eyes widen.
"I…" he starts, trying to pull away from her, mentally cursing himself to hell and back because he's ruined it now, goddamn it, it was… it was something and now he's frightened her and ruined it. "I'm sorry, I didn't… just pretend I didn't… it's not…"
He starts, freezes as Anna primly moves, wipes her hand delicately along a nearby dust rag, and wraps her arms tightly around his middle, presses her cheek to the space along his heart and breathes.
"I love you too," she says, and her voice is warm, full, content and hopeful all at once, and he can't help but embrace her, stroke her back, the fall of her hair.
She pulls back, just far enough to look at him, eyes bright with mischief. "Really, Kristoff, do you think I would have done that if I didn't?"
She's teasing, but he's guilty, and presses a warm, lingering kiss to the crown of her head (because he can, he can, because she loves him, dear god she loves him). "I just thought… you know. You like to experience different things."
Anna smiles as she snuggles more deeply into his arms. "With you," she says, very softly. "Just with you."
Kristoff feels his smile match hers, warm and bright, as he holds her close, and he distantly wonders at what else she'll want to experience in the not very distant future.
But there'll be time for that, he knows.
And he'll be there with her for every moment of it.