"What are you doing?"

He doesn't really give her an answer. Instead, he smiles back, eyes flashing wickedly, and his hands grip her waist tighter, anchoring her at the place where their bodies are joined.

She stops moving for a second, desperate. "You want this to last forever all of a sudden?" She can't help but grin back at him as she says it, because his face is so dumb. They both know he is the one who will catch hell from Bolin if he's away from their room for too long.

He grips her harder, thumbs pressing painfully against the crests of her hipbones. His pelvis jerks upward just slightly, and she gasps as she feels him go deeper.

He laughs. "I just don't want it to be over so fast is all."

She bites her lip and rolls her hips as much as he'll allow. He grunts, and she likes the sight of his face going from smug to agonized all in an instant.

"Seriously, Korra, this is going to be a short ride if you don't, unngh –"

His voice cuts off when she moves again, grip slackening for a moment as he tries to recover. She gives him a break and sits still, looking down at his body, all taut and rigid, ribs expanding and contracting erratically where her knees rest on either side of him. His pale skin is covered with a film of sweat and flushed from his chest to his hairline. She catches him watching her watching him again and tries not to notice what happens inside her when their eyes meet. The same thing happens sometimes when he watches her practice metalbending.

"What?" she says, biting her lip and holding back another smile.

"What?" He's still making fun of her. She can tell. He's been doing it since dinner.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she chirps and wiggles a little on top of him to try and force an answer.

He exhales hard again and runs his hands from her hips to her knees and then back up again. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, whatever," she says , and she grabs his hands and throws herself forward, pinning them back onto the pillow as she sinuously molds her body against his and dips her head down to bite his neck.

"You're just beautiful to look at, ok?" he says, still wincing a little when she looks back up. His hair is tousled, and smells like that stuff he puts in it, like maybe he fixed himself up before coming here, the idiot. He isn't breaking rules yet, but still -

In retaliation, she slides off and onto him again, extracting a groan that isn't quite human. "Don't say stuff like that," she says and does it again.

"You asked," he replies through clenched teeth. His hips edge upward just a little to meet her on the way down.

She leans down again and smiles into the crook of his neck where he can't see. He's thrown off her momentum, but the feel of him moving under her, inside her, is delicious. "You still shouldn't say it."

He stills again, falling out of rhythm with her. "You made me." He turns his head and bites at her ear.

She bites him harder and then pushes herself up, and then with one hand pressed against his chest, she lifts herself up and down and rides him so hard that all he can do is hang on for dear life. He clutches her ass, digs his nails into her skin. His eyes stay locked on hers until he can't take it and then his head is going back against the pillow and his mouth is open and something is coming out of it that sounds like a sob.

And as he falls to pieces underneath her, she doesn't even care that she hasn't come yet. She watches the aftermath of an arguably pyrrhic victory play out in the clenching of his jaw and the shuddering lines of his body. She's still smirking when he looks at her again. His face is on fire, sweat beaded on his brow, and she is proud of the fact that for once she's the more composed of the two of them.

But as she congratulates herself and lifts off of him, she feels the world turn over, and suddenly she is on her back, his body pinning hers to the bed with their faces so close that she can no longer make out his features.

"You did that on purpose," he said.

She bites her lip, still trying to look exultant. "You brought it on yourself."

He rubs his nose along hers. She feels the breath spill out from between his lips and drag across her skin. "Is there anything else you don't want me to do?"

She doesn't answer, but as he traces the curves of her face, she reminds herself that she doesn't want him to press his lips against hers and that she doesn't want to feel his tongue pushing into her mouth and that she doesn't want to drag a hand through his hair and feel him get hard again as he rests between her legs.

Her mouth is open and he hovers over it. The tip of his tongue darts out and just touches her lower lip, a curious action, but it doesn't go further.

"No," she whispers. The air between them feels sticky hot, and suddenly everything smells like sex. "I need to…you know – "

He obliges and rolls off her. Cooler air starts to pool around her, and she feels like she can breathe again. She looks back as she leaves the bed and sees him sit up on the other side with his back to her.

The light that fills her small private bathroom is an unwelcome intrusion. She squints into the mirror and notes the pink marks that his hands have left on her skin. Her hair is still in its wolftails, though the tie on one side has slid down, and hair from the front is falling over her eyes. She releases it completely and tries to run a hand through the tangles before turning to open the glass door to the shower and flip the water on.

She is naked except for her sarashi, which they neglected to remove in the heated rush. It comes free in an instant when she tugs at the knot and lets it all fall down to the floor. She tests the water and then turns back to the mirror only to see his face peeking in through the open doorway.

"I thought you left," she says, realizing she never heard the bedroom door. Over the course of a few weeks, the rules have remained firm: no relationship talking, no fighting (well, no serious fighting), no kissing on the mouth, and no sleepovers. The rules keep things sane. And they work just fine except when they feel too much like breaking them. Korra keeps her eyes on her reflection. Her own nakedness doesn't bother her, but for some reason at the moment his sort of does.

"We left some business unfinished in there."

"Oh yeah?" she quirks an eyebrow at her own image.

"You just ruined my perfect record."

"Your what now?" she looks him in the eye finally. And then she bursts into laughter when she remembers. "So you missed one, hot shot. I guess you're going to have to live with it."

He looks a little injured. She knows this is important to him, the fact that she gets off every time they're together, even though on one or six occasions it has taken over an hour. When it comes to her pleasure, he can sometimes be less like a lover and more like a detective working a case.

She tips her nose up at his frown and places her hands on her hips, aware that he is drinking her in with his eyes but doing her best to signal that she doesn't care. "I was pretty close to getting myself off there, and you ruined it."

"That's not how I remember it."

"I swear. I was really close, and then you messed me up by being a jerk."

She wears her best pout and stares back at him as he leans against the door with his arms folded, his attempt at cool indignance disrupted by the fact that he is very, very naked. Steam is starting to pool inside the room and fog the mirror. She wipes some of it away with her hand, pretending to ignore him long enough that he has to break the standoff, walking over to stand behind her, to push her hair off her shoulder and kiss the tendons on her neck. It's then that she notices that he's dropped another condom on the counter, and she looks at the image of the two of them rapidly fading away in the mirror, the white line of his arm coming to wrap around her waist.

"Are you going to give me a second chance?" he asks, and her heart does a thing that is both a little thrilling and a little upsetting.

"Why should I? This is a job I can handle myself." She's whispering now, and in contradiction to her words, she's reaching back to drag his face to the spot behind her ear. And when his tongue comes out to taste her, she groans involuntarily.

"So you don't want me to stay," he says, and his hand comes up to massage her breast, making his best case for himself with the rough pads of his thumbs that catch deliciously on her nipples.

"No," she says, but she turns around in the circle of his arms to face him, both her hands tangled into his hair and pulling his face down to hers. It's the giddiness of the night that's getting to her, that kind of mood that makes her feel immortal, like nothing she does in this moment will come back to bite her. And she can still smell herself on him, and he is talking about second chances.

"Tell me for real, what else don't you want me to do?" Their faces are close again, and she knows he is asking questions too big for the moment. What she doesn't want isn't any easier to define than what she does.

"I don't want you to kiss me." It hurts beautifully as she says it.

"You don't want me to kiss you where?" he responds. Her answer is to tug at his hair a little bit until their lips make a dry, noisy sort of contact. He pulls back to find her eyes. And then a growl rises up from his throat, and he is all over her, lifting her up onto the counter as his dives back into her mouth. It's all tongue and hands, and every nerve is coming to life again. And for a thrilling moment, she is sure he is going to take her right there on the counter.

When he pulls away, she thinks it's to get the condom, and she is surprised when instead he pulls her to the floor and leads her the few short steps to the shower. The warm water hits her back, and she closes her eyes as it begins to relieve the knots lefts over from sparring with the twins. And then his hands are on her and she relaxes as they run freely over her body, palms large and warm. One of them travels back up to tilt her head back so his mouth can find hers again. Their kisses represent a dissolution of the bargain they have struck, but she can't bring herself to care at the moment. It's just temporary, she tells herself. It doesn't mean they've lost control entirely.

It's a little too late when she finally notices that with one hand he has managed to tie something around her left wrist. She feels it when he tugs the knot into place, and she looks down to see that it's her sarashi, rescued from its wreckage on the bathroom floor.

She pulls back for a second and looks up to see his eyes laughing at her for the fourteenth time that night. "What's the meaning of this, detective?" she asks.

He loops the fabric around her waist and uses it to pull her right up against him. Her face disappears into the crook of his neck as he leans down to nip at her shoulders. "Just making sure you don't interfere."

"I can just burn this off, you know?"

"So do it."

She thinks about it for a second, but then his tongue is in her mouth again, and the tip of his cock is pressing against her stomach and she thinks that maybe she'll just wait a little while and see where this is going.

Where it's going, she discovers soon, is both hands tied to the shower head. If she wants to stand on her own this way, she has to do it on tiptoes. But she doesn't have to for long. He holds her full weight in his arms and kisses down her neck and chest. And then she hears one knee hit the tile with a dull thud and then the other and then she can't see him anymore. But she can feel him pull her legs up and over his shoulders so that they support her completely, and his nose and tongue find their way in between, and she has to bite her lip until it bleeds to keep from screaming.

She's used to guiding him around down there, giving him signals by tugging on his hair. But she can't now, and she forces herself to let it happen. It's remarkable how much he's learned. He knows to vary his rhythm, not to stay in one place for too long. And before she has a chance to get bored, he forces her thighs further apart and explores inside her with his tongue. She feels – rather than hears – him moaning down there, the vibrations causing her feet to flex and her toes to curl.

"Mako," she chokes out, and she's aware all of a sudden that her shoulders are burning, that she's straining against the fabric around her wrists, pulling herself up, almost trying to get away from him. It's too much. She's on the edge of it and peering over. And then she feels like she's falling, orgasm cascading through her body. But she isn't. He's holding her, standing back up to release her hands and let her collapse against him. She stays on her tiptoes, pressed between him and the wall, and the only sound she can hear is the water hitting the tile.

A minute passes, and she looks up to find his face. He's still hard as a rock against her stomach, and she reaches down to stroke his length.

"We don't have to," he says.

She smiles against his skin. "That's good, because I don't want to anyway."

He laughs and kisses her again. And then he steps out of the shower to dry himself off and roll on the condom. She lets him be slow this time, wrapping her legs around his waist as he picks her up again and pushes inside. She kisses his face and his neck and listens to the sounds of satisfaction that resonate in his chest as his body sets an easy pace. And she feels the climb begin all over again, and when she comes again, it's like a wave rather than a storm. It lifts her up and bears her down again, and then he joins her, groaning fiercely into her wet hair. And when he's spent, he leans her forehead against hers, and she feels their breathing slow down in tandem.

"Mako." She is stunned to realize that it's her voice, cracking like thin glass and echoing inside the claustrophobic space. "Mako, I – "

"Don't," he says, and he says it in a way that lets her know that he knows and that he means it. And she is sort of relieved because the sentence had broken out of her unbidden, and she wasn't sure how it was supposed to end.

He kisses her one last time and sets her down. There's the wet slap of her feet on the tile, and then the steady hiss of the water shuts off.

The sentence that he didn't want to hear and that she no longer wanted to say finished itself later as she drifted to sleep, alone save the presence of Naga, back in her place curled up at the foot of the bed.

Three words, plus or minus a still.