Author: Regency

Title: High Hopes

Pairing: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe

Summary: Dinner. Tuesday night. Bernie's place. They both knew where this would lead. (AU for "Life in the Freezer.")

Prompt: 30 Days of NSFW Berena - Prompt: First Time

Author's Notes: Come flail with me about Berena on Tumblr, at sententiousandbellicose!

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, settings, or stories recognizable as being from Holby City. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

"This is the part I've fantasized about," Serena confesses in the afterglow.

Bernie rolls onto her stomach and props her head on her arms. All the better to take in the full, lush splendor of Serena Campbell naked and sated in her bed. "Just this part?"

"There's nothing just about this." Serena's arched eyebrow is belied by the love bites blooming atop her breasts and down her belly, speckling the inside of each thigh. She taps the underside of Bernie's chin when her gaze drifts to inviting sweet spots below. "Eyes up, soldier. They'll be time for more of that later." Her teasing kiss catches Bernie by surprise, the same as all their kisses from the first.

Bernie hasn't let herself hope Serena might want more than tonight. An itch scratched for the curious and nothing else said about it was all she'd expected. But she'd give her eyeteeth for another night of this, of Serena wet and grinding against her thigh, stuttering Bernie's name as she comes. Of Serena's fingers pressing into her as their lips slide clumsily together. Serena's triumphant smirk as her touch makes Bernie fall apart. More of all of this.

"What did you fantasize about?" Bernie asks, putting those delicious possibilities out of her mind when Serena's lips part from hers.

"Being in bed with you." Serena sweeps her hand up Bernie's spine to the nape of her neck. "Being close to you. I've wanted you since I met you, I just didn't know how."

"And now?" Bernie's eyes flutter shut at Serena's fingernails whirl through the short hairs at the base of her skull. Her touch feels safe.

"Of course I know how I want you, darling. I don't think I can ever stop wanting you now."

"Good." She'll ruin this somehow, she's sure, but for now she wants Serena and Serena's hands doling out unsparing affection as if it's Bernie's due. She hums when Serena's gentle scratching becomes a tender scalp massage. There's intimacy enough in this; more she wants to keep.

Serena kisses a birthmark on her shoulder and rubs her cheek against Bernie's shoulder blade. Bernie sighs and stretches, though not enough to dislodge her.

"How did you know you wanted…this?" The hesitancy in her voice is telling. Bernie doesn't have to see her face to know what it says.

"I didn't at first, not consciously. Cam pointed it out to me, said I look at you like I looked at…"

"Alex Dawson."

Bernie breathes through the dissonance of hearing that name from this woman in this bed. "I like to think I'm better at hiding my feelings than I am."

"There isn't anything wrong with being transparent to those who love you. They're the ones who need to know what you can't say."

"Am I transparent to you?"

"I've learned to read you well enough." A neat sidestep of the confession that had almost made Bernie run. The elephant in the room.

Bernie rolls over to give Serena a proper look and finds her expression affectionately unreadable at best.

"We should talk about this afternoon." The kiss and the interruption that very nearly became an irrevocable scene on AAU.

With a disagreeing tut, Serena moves to straddles Bernie's lap. She strokes her hands down Bernie's chest, tweaking her nipples to attentive, aching peaks along the way. "We don't need to. Not tonight."

"What if I want to?"

Serena shushes her, brushing kisses from Bernie's cheekbone to her temple. Bernie cups her waist and splays her fingers over the swells of her hips. She angles for a kiss and gets her wish. What she doesn't get is an answer. That won't do.

In a practiced motion, Bernie locks her legs around Serena and flips her onto her back, pinning her right where she wants her.

Serena gives a husky chuckle at Bernie's smug expression once she's caught her breath. "Adopting military strategy to get me to comply already?"

"I'm not afraid to press an advantage while I've got it, Ms Campbell."

Serena raises her chin in mock indignation. "Not satisfied with my leadership?"

"Everything about you satisfies me." She dives down to steal a kiss and wins a kiss and another laugh out Serena. "I've been thinking about this for weeks." Longer under the guise of idle speculation. Lying to herself again.

Serena sobers. "I've been thinking about this for longer than I realized, until now."

One earnest confession deserves another.

Bernie takes a deep breath; she wants to get this out. "I used to tell myself white lies about what I felt all the time. With Alex, I told myself it was respect, and then intense admiration. My last ditch effort was lust." It had been lust and then it became more, and like their relationship when their happy bubble burst, the lie had folded.

"What did you tell yourself you felt for me?"

Bernie kisses Serena's chin and noses down her neck, peppers kisses over her chest. Serena breathes deep and even, her body welcoming and warm beneath Bernie's. How Bernie loves her body.

"I told myself it was harmless infatuation. I wanted you to like me, to approve of me. To be proud of me when there was little to take pride in."

"I've been proud of you since I first saw you in theater. You're fantastic."

"And fearless. You've said." Bernie nuzzles the underside of Serena's breasts. "I became addicted to how you thought of me, how you trusted me, relied on me." She sinks her teeth into the thin skin of one breast and nips until Serena comes over shivering, a dark nipple puckering where it meets the tip of Bernie's nose. She sucks fresh marks onto the other breast to join the ones she left before. Serena's hand twisting in her hair only encourages her.

"You made me want to be good for you." She laps at the burgeoning bruises, then at the nipples above them; drags her parted lips over and around the stiff peaks till Serena arches into her mouth, keening, her hips rolling in search of friction. Bernie reaches down to find Serena slick and swollen, ready, and presses one finger, then another inside her to soothe her need.

"Bernie, please."

Bernie smirks into the space between Serena's breasts, inhaling the scent of sweat, sex, and faded perfume. "I want to be good for you."

"You are," Serena vows, voice gone reed thin with desire. "Don't stop."

Bernie slides down to slot their bodies together properly. The aching heat between her legs meets the satisfying thickness of Serena's thigh. Serena's damp curls settle against the crest of her hip. Fingers still twisting deep, she rolls a thumb over Serena's clit just to watch her eyes glaze over.

"I am very good for you." Bernie puts the thrust of her hips behind her hand. A whine slips past Serena's clenched jaw. "Aren't I?" She rocks slow and careful, swallowing choked off groans at how incredible Serena feels wedged between her legs and clenched around her fingertips.

Serena's jaw slackens. Her knuckles go white around a handful of sheets. Her hips nudge toward Bernie's touch. "Yes, yes. You're so go—God!" Her chest lurches in a gasp. Her thighs tense. She flutters around Bernie's fingers, a quicker, weaker climax compared to all the others but no less satisfying to watch.

Serena's rakes her nails down Bernie's side, grabs her arse to bring them closer together. Bernie's pulse picks up speed. Pleasure sings through her, slow yet building inside her. She could wait another hour to come again; waiting makes it sweeter. Bernie covers Serena's body with her own and kisses her over and over now that she's allowed.

Serena gazes up at her, luminous and addictive. She sweeps Bernie's fringe out of her eyes.

"What do you feel for me, Bernie?"

Bernie plants a reverent kiss inside her wrist. She may never leave this bed. "More than infatuation and it's anything but harmless. I don't want to leave us in theater anymore."