Work Text:
8 months together (September, Year 2)
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"Thank you for tonight. You have no idea how much -"
He put a hand up to stop me and closed my front door behind us, turning the deadbolt, "Will you stop already?" He dropped an arm over my shoulder and pulled me close as he crossed the living room and headed down the hall toward the bedrooms. I dropped my head, my temple resting on his shoulder, and let him guide me through my house. "I had fun. Really," he added when I scoffed, dropping his cheek to the top of my head and squeezing my shoulder for emphasis, "good food, good beer, good music, how could I not?" We came to the end of the hall, my room to our right, the guest room directly in front of us. He turned me into him, wrapping his free arm around my back and dropping his chin to the top of my head. I inhaled, long and deep, into his chest as I wound my own arms around his waist then let my cheek settle against his collarbone.
"Your kids love you," he added after a second or so. I felt his chin bob against my head as he spoke and it made me smile.
"They're good kids."
"They're smart kids," he corrected. "Smart because of you, and smart for realizing what they got when they got you."
I've never taken compliments well, so I just pulled away - not too far, just enough to shake the heat from my cheeks and look up into his face, my hands resting on his sides. "They got a workaholic high school English teacher with no life. I got roughly 10 of the best kids on the planet." I narrowed my eyes and scrunched my nose - what he called my 'sarcastic face' - and added, "I think we all know who got the better end of that deal."
I knew he wanted to say more, but I guess eight months was long enough for him to learn there was no use fighting me on some things, because he just rolled his eyes and stepped back to look over my shoulder at the master bedroom door. "So ... were you planning to head straight to bed, or did you want to watch a movie or something, maybe have another drink? I'm not really tired, but if you are, I can entertain myself. I brought a couple books with me I've been wanting to get to." He grinned, a little lopsided and a lot adorable, and brushed my bangs to one side with his fingertips.
"Actually," I cleared my throat just a bit and smoothed my palms over first the front then the back of my shorts. I'd mentally prepared myself as much as I could for what I was about to do, but I'd also prepared for the possibility that I'd panic and back out altogether. But the day had gone well - really, really well - and I wanted to go forward more than anything. I was ready. Finally. I was also nervous. "I, um, I kind of had something else in mind entirely."
"Okay?"
I took half a step back and reached behind me to open the door to my room. I pushed so the door swung open fully then switched on the light before stepping back into the hall. "Wait for me?" He lifted one eyebrow and gestured toward the bedroom.
"Uh huh," I nodded. "Just ... you can have a seat on the bed. I'll be right back. I promise," I added with a smile and a quick kiss on his lips when he hesitated. I backed down the hall until he had disappeared into my room, then spun on one heel and made a beeline for the bathroom. I leaned back against the closed door for a second then kicked off my wedges before shimmying out of my shorts and pulling my top over my head. I shoved my clothes into the hamper and dug behind the towels in the closet for the silk robe, stockings, and garter belt I'd bought a few days earlier and hidden just before going to pick him up at the airport. I'd debated grabbing my sexiest pair of heels as well, but that seemed a step too far. Hell, for all I knew, this whole bit was a step too far, but I had put off being with anyone for almost two years. (I'd put off being with him for about seven months longer than it took for me to realize how much I wanted to be with him, but I'd been making decisions out of fear for a very long time.) I needed to do this my way, to take control, even if it was a little cheesy.
I rolled the thigh-high stockings over my legs and snapped the garters into place then slipped the robe over my shoulders and tied the sash around my waist. I checked the mirror over the sink, though I'm not sure what for. My ponytail hadn't changed and I had put on only the bare minimum of make-up before the party, so there was nothing really to "fix." It was probably for the best there was no full-length mirror in the bathroom, because seeing my full reflection would probably have been enough to make me back out altogether. Instead, I closed my eyes, took a very, very deep breath, flipped the light switch, and opened the door back into the hall.
My house is small - it's only me and a 40-pound dog, after all - and the five steps it took to get back down the hall to the bedroom didn't feel like nearly enough. I told myself I was being ridiculous, gave myself a quick shake to loosen up, and stepped into the doorway. I'd thought far too long when planning this about what to do with my hands, until I finally came to the conclusion that any pose I decided on in advance would only make it look like I was trying too hard to be sexy (as risk I was already taking). So what I ended up with was my hands clasped behind my back, one knee bent slightly so that only my toes touched the floor, and my chin tucked the slightest bit so I was looking up through my eyelashes. I figured I either looked adorable or terrified; I was hoping for the former, but expecting the latter.
When I got to the door, he was seated at the foot of my bed looking down at his phone, but he must have heard me come in or noticed a change in the lighting, or maybe he just sensed it was a good time to look up, because it only took a second for his eyes to drift from the screen to the doorway. They started at my feet, and as his head lifted, so did his eyebrows. Finally, he blew out a breath as we made eye contact. "Pretty." I furrowed my brow a little, questioningly, and added a small smile to let him know I wasn't upset.
"Shit," he said, shaking his head and bending forward to put his phone on the floor just under the bed. "I mean," he paused a second, looking me straight in the eyes, "the robe, it's very pretty, and you - you look incredible."
He wasn't wrong, about the robe at least. It was ivory - the stockings matched - with large pink and blue watercolor flowers (and what was underneath matched that) and lace trim and fell to a couple inches above my knees. "Yeah?" He nodded and mouthed the word back. "It's not -"
"No. Whatever you were about to ask, the answer is no." I felt increasingly awkward standing in the doorway of my own bedroom, so I crossed the room slowly to stand in front of him as he talked. "It's perfect," he spread his legs just enough for me to stand between them, "and you look ..." he looked up at me and shook his head the smallest bit, his hands coming to rest on the backs of my knees. He paused and I brought my hands to his shoulders before he finally chuckled. "Incredible."
"Thank you," I breathed, softly, my fingers tracing the seams of his shirt and playing with his collar.
Very early in our relationship - still during our friendship, really - he'd managed to find this near-perfect balance between making sure I knew what he wanted or where he was willing to take things and still letting me control where we actually went. This was no different. I knew - I had known - that I could've taken the next few hours, both of us undressing slowly, all soft, gentle hands and mouths and whispered words of affection and assurance, or I could have dived straight in, feverishly pulling off his pants and taking him in a sloppy, urgent quickie, and either way his response would have been to go along, eager to please. What I actually wanted was somewhere in the middle. I didn't want to be treated like some unrealistically fragile doll (and I doubt that I ever will), but I didn't want hard and fast, either (though I knew even then that sometimes I would). It's not like it was the first time for either of us, and it would feel almost insincere to try to pretend otherwise, but this was almost a year in the making, if you counted those first few months of friendship, and I wanted to give the moment the gravity it deserved.
Now, when he looked up at me with eyes the same soft, cloudy blue as the polo shirt beneath my palms, I knew he was just waiting for me to point him in the right direction. My hands left his shoulders, fingertips fluttering up the sides of his neck until the right one stopped to trace his jawline under the short beard he wore so well when work allowed, the left continuing up to run through his hair. It was longer than I preferred - it was so much softer when he didn't have to put so much product in it - but I didn't hate the way it swooped across his forehead at the end of a long day. I was just letting the last of his bangs slip from between my fingers when he turned to press his lips against my wrist. His hands remained cupped around the backs of my legs and his thumbs traced so slowly and lightly up and down the backs of my thighs that I was half-convinced the action was involuntary.
I brought my hands back to his shoulders and fisted his shirt a little in my hands. He turned his face up to me, an almost-smile on his lips and patient expectation in his eyes. I leaned in and rested my forehead against his while I brushed my nose alongside his, just for a second, a nod to the countless times he'd pressed his forehead to mine to ground me in a moment or calm me when I suffered with the pressures of anxiety and self-doubt, a gesture always topped off with a sweet kiss to the tip of my nose. When he smiled in acknowledgement, I tilted my chin forward and pressed my own lips against that smile. He hummed into the kiss and parted his lips just enough to mold them to mine and I tightened my hands around the fabric of his shirt as I drew in a long breath.
Early in our relationship, I'd tried to describe to my best friend what kissing him felt like. I was never successful. I could probably have spelled out the mechanics of the act, but that would have done no justice to what it felt like. And any time I tried to describe how it felt, I came out sounding either distant and detached or like a cheesy romance novelist. Finally, she'd told me to stop trying, because deep down, I must not have wanted to tell her. The idea didn't sound all that crazy; there's something that feels almost sacred about the feeling I get when when he presses his lips to mine. The best I can do, even now, is to say that his kisses are kind of like red wine - there are many varieties, all with varying degrees of sweetness, or boldness, but they always leave me feeling warm and content, and often a little dazed and sleepy.
This time, he let me kiss him, kissing back, but making no move to take charge. When I caught his bottom lip between my own and my teeth, scraping more than biting, his hands tightened around my legs and he pulled and lifted my left knee onto the bed just outside his right thigh, and brought his right hand to my hip to help steady me before doing the same thing with my right leg. Once my weight had settled evenly into the mattress and his hands were no longer needed on my hips for balance, he slid them around to the small of my back and guided me closer as I shuffled my knees forward and settled down onto my heels.
As I moved to situate myself on his thighs, I pulled back from the kiss, my eyes moving across his face and my hands sliding down from his shoulders to rest on his biceps. His hands covered the expanse of my lower back and I could feel the tips of his fingers dancing there. "So soft," he grinned.
"Well," I finished situating myself on his lap, rocking my hips against him a couple times more than was necessary, "that makes one of us."
I saw surprise register on his face for a split second before he barked out a laugh and his forehead fell to my shoulder. For a moment he said nothing, just slid his hands from my back to my hips, then down to my knees, before finally pushing them under the hem of my robe to come to rest atop the lace adorning the tops of my stockings. When his thumbs hooked under my garter straps and snapped them lightly, I let my nails dig, just for a second, into his skin.
"Fair point," he finally said, lifting his head and pressing his lips to my collarbone. I sighed, a quiet hum working its way in at the end, and he moved to the base of my throat. The first couple kisses there were sweet, chaste. I tilted my head back, just a bit, and his mouth moved upward with it. The farther back my head fell, the higher he went, his kisses becoming more open-mouthed, his tongue darting out to trail across my skin, until he was sucking lightly on the sensitive skin just under my chin and my knuckles were white where I gripped his arms. Not forgetting that I was the one in the driver's seat, I kept my head back but let it fall to the side. I felt him smirk - the beard helped with that - before he took the invitation, dragging his tongue along the underside of my jaw then taking my earlobe between his teeth.
I let my hands slide down to his elbows then onto his waist, moving them to slip under the hem of the polo shirt he wore. As he flicked his tongue over my earlobe, I pushed my hands up his body, appreciating the way each muscle twitched under my palms. By the time he moved his mouth off my ear and used his nose to nudge my head just a little bit farther to the side so he could get at the skin just behind my ear, my hands had made their way to his chest. My fingers traced nonsense patterns through the thin layer of short, dark hair that grew there, and his shirt was caught in the bends of my wrists, having been dragged up by my hands. When my thumbs passed over his nipples once, twice, three times, he froze and his body tensed. He pulled his mouth from my neck and I brought my head back up to look at him. He watched my eyes as he brought his hands to my wrists and squeezed for just a second, his thumbs passing softly over the backs of my hands, then grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head.
I leaned back until I could take in the full picture in front of me. It's not that I'd never seen him shirtless before, by any means, but there are some things that never get old. Just because you saw the sunset last night, does that make it any less beautiful tonight?
"You, uh, everything okay?" he asked when I just ... looked.
"Yeah," I nodded, bringing my hands to rest on his sides just above his hips. "Just appreciating the view." I played it up, biting my lip and wiggling my eyebrows.
"Oh yeah?" He smirked, one eyebrow lifting, and moved his hands to lift the ends of the sash keeping my robe secured around my body. "Think that could, uh, go both ways?"
I kept my lower lip between my teeth and nodded again. "Yeah, I think I could be okay with that." I couldn't help but smile as he leaned up to press his lips to mine, and when I felt the tug of him untying the sash I parted my lips and his tongue slipped fluidly into my mouth. I hummed, that red wine feeling washing over me, and his hands slipped into my robe, opening it but stopping short of pushing off my shoulders. He leaned into the kiss, bringing his hands down my body and onto my thighs as my own moved up to hold onto him, clutching at the broadest part of his shoulders.
When he pulled back, just after one last kiss, his lips wrapped gently around my bottom one, I used my hold on him to maintain my balance and stayed as I was, reclined away from him at an angle that I hoped would both allow him to see everything he wanted to see and (let's be honest here) lessen the chances of creating any unflattering creases or bulges. My eyes stayed on his face, my brain screaming at me not to overthink anything I saw there. I tried to stay as objective as possible as I watched his eyes drift downward from my own, the movement steady until they, undoubtedly, hit my breasts. The bra I wore was strapless, ivory cotton overlain with a layer of lace the same blue as the flowers on my robe. I'd never needed or wanted the assistance of padding, but the older I've gotten, the more I appreciate the help of a subtle push-up. The strategic engineering of the bra, combined with the long, deep breaths I kept reminding myself to take, must have provided quite a show. It was almost unfortunate that he couldn't see my face when I watched his chest swell with breath, followed by a puff of his cheeks and a puckering of his lips as he pushed the air back out of his lungs - he would have been proud of my smirk.
His eyes slid farther down and his right hand came off my leg and up to my ribs. I tensed a little when he touched me - just barely, just with the very tips of his fingers - just below the wire of my bra on my left rib cage, tracing the words tattooed there, five of them stacked one on top of the other. The last one ended barely an inch above the ivory garter belt secured around my waist. His fingers slid over the bare skin there then slipped under the belt. He kept his eyes trained on his hand while he moved it slowly across my lower stomach, until his knuckles brushed over the highly sensitive (ticklish) skin below my belly button and I jumped.
"Have you been wearing this all day?" he asked when his eyes were back on mine. He moved his hand back to my leg, sliding his fingers over the skin of my hip and upper thigh along the way.
I let my eyes narrow and lifted one shoulder, "Half of it." Obviously I hadn't worn the thigh-highs and garter belt under my shorts, but the bra and matching lace panties had been in place since I'd gotten out of the shower that morning, a private reminder all day of how I'd planned to end it.
His fingers dragged over the skin of both of my legs and closed around the straps attaching my stockings to the belt around my waist. "Fuuuck," he groaned.
I leaned in and pressed my forehead to his, "That's the plan." All at once, his hands moved around me to grip my ass, fingers pressing lace into my skin and palms on the flesh left exposed by the cheeky cut, his lips came forward to press a little roughly against mine, and he fell backward onto the mattress, my nails digging into his shoulders and upper back as I went with him.
Our kisses became urgent - lips and tongues insistent, almost forceful, and breaths quick and shallow - and I settled myself onto him. I felt him, thick and solid - hard - through his jeans. It was the first time I'd ever really allowed myself the opportunity to do so. There had been moments, of course, twitches against my stomach as we stood together with his lips on mine and his hand in my hair, or feeling him growing under my thigh as we sat kissing on the couch with my legs draped over his lap, but one of us - him, usually - always hit the brakes before things got any more serious. This time, instead of pulling away, I rolled my hips, slowly, against him. He let out a moan that turned to a growl and his hands flexed, fingers sliding under lace as they relaxed.
I can't pretend I had the patience to draw things out; to try to torture him by teasing him through layers of clothing would only have meant torturing myself. My hands trailed over his chest and down his stomach, fingers taking just enough time to trace hard muscle and acknowledge the three tattoos I knew were there - one on each collarbone and one covering his ribs on his right side, coincidentally mirroring the location of my own - and that I planned to examine more closely later. (I'd always been fascinated, even turned on, by them, which was exactly why I'd never given them too much attention.) I didn't hesitate when I reached his waist, quickly and smoothly opening his belt, button, and finally his zipper, His hips were off the mattress before I even managed to get ahold of his waistband. Instead, I hooked my hands in his pockets. I nipped once with my teeth at his bottom lip, then pulled away to drop a couple kisses down the column of his throat and one in the center of his chest, rising and falling heavily with his ragged breaths, as I worked his jeans down as far as I could from my position straddling his hips. When they were almost to his knees and I could move them no farther, I pushed myself backward off the foot of the bed. I stood staring for a moment. His hands had fallen from my ass when I stood and they rested beside his own hips, his forearms bearing the weight of his upper body as he angled himself up off the bed to watch me, watching him. I looked at his eyes, a little less blue and a little more green without the aid of the blue shirt. I looked at his lips, slightly parted, curved into the faintest hint of a smile, plump, and darker than usual. His chest, broad and thick, strong, shadowed with hair and decorated with ink. Biceps, engaged, skin taut over just visible veins. Four distinct, clearly defined abs - numbers five and six almost clear, just waiting to reappear if he'd lay off the beer for a week or so. And then, finally, elastic waistband atop simple black boxer briefs.
He pushed himself up and sat in front of me, hands on my hips, my robe flowing over his knuckles as I let it slide off my arms to pool at our feet. "I don't," he started, then cleared his throat, "I'm not. Prepared." He looked up at me and his eyes darted almost imperceptibly left and right, focus shifting from one of my eyes to the other.
"I got it," his eyes followed mine, head turning slightly, when I looked subconsciously over his shoulder at the night stand.
He laughed when he pulled me forward by my hips and I nearly lost my balance, both hands flying to his head to steady myself. I flicked his ear as I regained myself, but then he pressed his face into my stomach, his beard scratching just below my belly button and his lips kissing and sucking just above it while his long eyelashes tickled between my ribs. "Play nice," he teased and pressed a smirk into my skin when I squirmed.
"Of course," I purred, widening my eyes and pursing my lips to look down at him in over-exaggerated innocence when he pulled back. He pinched my side, just once, just enough to make me squeal and hop back just out of his grasp, then winked up at me and hinged forward to push his jeans over his knees and down to the floor. When he set to work untying his shoes I sidestepped around him to move toward the head of the bed. I reached over to let my hand trail over his shoulder as I passed and he paused, his right foot completely bare, the left half out of its shoe, to reach across his chest for my hand. He squeezed my fingers between his and passed his thumb over my knuckles and my heart jumped.
When his grip loosened, I let my fingers slide from his and walked to the nightstand. I pulled the still-sealed box of condoms from the top drawer and opened it. I took one foil packet from the box and set the box on the nightstand, tore the foil across the top, and set the open condom on top of the box. He'd finished stripping himself to his underwear and was watching me.
He started to lean back, as if he was going to push himself up the bed on his butt, then appeared to change his mind and stood instead. He followed the path I had taken, stopping directly in front of me to wrap his left arm around my waist and pull me close while his right hand reached behind my head to pull the hair tie gently out of my hair.
"Are you doing this for me or for you?" He combed his fingers through my hair, first loosening it so it fell freely around my shoulders then tucking it behind my ear.
My nails trailed up and down the muscles of his back. "Both."
"50/50?"
"60/40."
He lifted one eyebrow.
"I'm the 60." I grinned. I'd never managed to master the control of my eyebrows that he had and I never looked anything other than ridiculous trying to lift just one, so instead I wiggled them both, half suggestive, half silly.
He smiled back at me, a full-on white-toothed, nose crinkled, eyes squinted smile. "Right answer." Then he tightened his arm around my waist until our bodies were pressed against one another, pulling me in and up until only my toes reached the floor, and drew me in for a slow, deep kiss with the hand on the back of my head. Then, carefully and without letting his lips leave mine, he lowered me onto the bed behind me.
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"Mmm, you smell good," he hummed, looking up from his book as I picked up my Kindle from the nightstand and crawled into bed next to him.
"Thanks," I smiled, settling under his lifted right arm, the weight of it drawing me into him as we settled against the headboard, "lavender. It helps me sleep."
"Told 'ya we should've just showered together," he knocked the Kindle out of my hands with his paperback, grinning like a kid when I 'glared' up at him. "Then I'd smell like lavender too."
"Okay, first of all," I picked the e-reader back up and nudged an elbow into his ribs, "the point of the shower was to relax myself so I could sleep. I don't think that woulda happened with you in there with me." I looked up at him and he rolled his eyes a little, still smiling. "And second of all, if you smelled like me, you wouldn't smell like you."
"Oh, well, of course. I didn't think of that."
"Okay smart ass." I reached to swat his stomach with my e-reader, but he dropped his own book and grabbed my wrist, wrapping both our arms around my waist so that he basically enveloped me. I considered fighting back, but I really did need to settle in and go to sleep soon. So instead, I twisted further in the direction he'd turned me and sank down into the mattress. He came with me and tucked his legs behind mine when I pulled my knees toward my chest. "I mean, I like the way you smell. I don't want you to smell like me."
"Alright, I guess I'll accept that." He tightened his arm around me and kissed the back of my head. "Tomorrow I'm moving my stuff out of the guest bathroom," he whispered into my ear. I smiled.
For a few moments we lay in silence except for the rustling of sheets as he moved to find a comfortable position for the arm under my head. Finally, he found a spot just below my pillow so that his bicep filled the gap between my neck and the mattress and his hand came up to my opposite shoulder, his forearm crossing my chest. I could feel his breathing starting to even out in the rise and fall of his chest against my back, and it had become clear neither of us was going to get any reading done, so I used the remote on my nightstand to turn off the overhead light.
His head pressed down into the pillow and his nose brushed the back of my head as he created a sort of nest for himself. My eyes grew heavy, his fingers tracing circles over my shoulder and hip and soothing me toward sleep. After one particularly long blink, his fingers still moving so I knew he was awake, I cleared the near-sleep from my throat and spoke quietly into the darkness. "So, you're ... not prepared."
He didn't laugh out loud, but I felt his small chuckle on the back of my head. "I haven't been prepared since October." I don't know if I moved, or tensed, or if he just assumed I was trying to work it out in my head, but either way, he went on after a few seconds of silence. "One-act." Right. He'd been in D.C. during the early part of that week and had come down to watch my theatre kids rehearse on Thursday and Friday, critiquing their performance and coaching them before their competition the following week. He'd then stayed over in my guest room until Sunday, getting a taste of small-town life at a local seafood festival and hanging out with a few of my friends at my favorite brewery.
"Why?"
He sighed, bringing his face into the crook of my neck, his lips moving over my shoulder as he spoke. "Because. I knew you weren't ready, and I didn't want to make it easy to screw things up."
I tensed; he'd always been more than understanding about the fact that I wasn't ready to have sex with him. "You never tried -"
"No. And I never would. But sometimes we almost got ... carried away. Even then. And I will never, ever push you to do anything you don't want to do, but I'll also never turn you down. That would take -" he turned his head and pressed a kiss into the side of my neck, "well, I'm not a superhero." My cheeks burned a little and I pressed my face into the pillow. "Anyway, I didn't want you - us - to get so caught up that we did something you'd regret later. If I stopped carrying protection, that would mean you'd have to have it in order for anything to happen. And if you were that prepared, if you'd thought it through that much, I figured that would mean you were actually ready."
I stretched my legs and wiggled my body to loosen his grip so I could turn in his arms. He gave me room but didn't let go.
"Was I wrong?" he asked when I faced him and put both hands on his shoulders. I shook my head and he smoothed my hair before kissing it.
"I love you," I spoke into the skin over his heart.
"Love you too."
"But, we weren't even dating in October."
He scoffed and pulled back, holding me away from him to look down into my face. "Says you." My mouth popped open. "No means no, and I totally respect that. But in all the time I spent wanting you to let me be more than your friend, you never said 'no.' You always said 'not yet.' That 'yet' is a big little word, I was willing to wait it out."
"You're something else." I ran my fingers over his jaw from ear to chin and back, then around his ear and through his hair until I cupped the back of his neck. I was sleepy, sated, warm, and honestly, just plain content. I was probably a little punch drunk. I pulled him down to kiss him - soft and gentle and sweet, no intention of going any further - and he kissed back before pulling away to kiss the tip of my nose.
"Then I guess we make a good pair." He nudged at my hip until I rolled over then wrapped himself back around me. "Now," he murmured behind me, "go to sleep, Dopey."