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The red card—the first on AFC Richmond’s field in years—flashes in front of a raging and apoplectic Ted, Beard’s arms going around him and holding him back as best as he can. But Ted slips free, strips off the AFC Richmond windbreaker he’s worn to every game for the last eighteen months and throws it to the ground, stalking angrily into the tunnel towards the locker room, the sounds of the crowd cheering on their rowdy gaffer following him.
She turns to Keeley, mind already on Ted. “I just need to—” But she doesn't complete the thought, just needs to get to Ted, can’t leave him alone. She thinks back to Liverpool and Ted acting out of character, wonders what and who she will find waiting for her in his office, thinks about the way he had calmed down under her touch outside that club.
Her palm tingles with anticipation.
But Keeley doesn’t say anything just bites her lip, like she’s barely restraining from herself saying something, and pats her thigh. “Yeah, no, go, go. And Rebecca?” She grins at him, tongue peeking out from between her teeth impishly. “Tell Ted stripping on the field is very, very sexy.”
__________
She finds him in the hallway separating his office and the back exit into the car park, a lone, isolated place in a building made of crooks and corners. Her shoulder leans against the doorframe as she holds his coat in her arms, the one he'd ripped off and thrown at the referee before being ejected from the game--one of the dirtiest she'd seen in a long time with missed calls and cheap shots--watching as he paces up and down the hallway, running hands through his hair with agitation, pausing every once in a while to kick at the baseboard.
"Ted--"
"You need to leave, Rebecca," he growls, voice low and rough and unlike anything she's ever heard from him.
She straightens at the tone and frowns. "Ted, it's going to be alright. Beard and Nate are--"
But Ted wheels on her, finger pointed in her direction, eyes wild and dark and the sight of him on the edge of losing control sends a thrill through her. "I'm tellin' you, you need to leave. I-I ain't myself and I'm mad and I don't want you to see me like this. Leave."
She thinks it's like the panic attack, thinks he's trying to hide himself to protect himself. She steps forward, reaches her hand out to his cheek, tries to soothe him. She can't leave him like this, alone and hurting and angry.
But his hand snaps up to catch her wrist, fingers wrapped around like a vice grip, and he walks her back the few steps to crowd her against the wall, pins her hand up by her head and boxes her in between the wall and his body. Her heart pounds in her chest and she wonders if he can feel her pulse pounding in her wrist.
"Ted."
It should be a rebuke, a warning, but instead it's breathy and a plea. She doesn't know what she's begging for but Ted does. Ted always knows. He steps forward, pushes his leg between her thighs, leans forward and lets his lips just barely brush against hers before pulling away, hand still wrapped around hers.
"Tell me no," he commands, eyes dark and searching. "Tell me to stop."
She grins. "Don't stop."
His mouth crashes against hers and it's nothing short of violent, rough and hard and demanding--nothing like she thought their first kiss would be like. Because she has thought about this, of course she has. But Ted--this Ted--is frantic and rough and desperate, his hand sliding from its grip on her wrist to tangle with her fingers, their joined hands pinned above her head.
She had never noticed how heavy and broad and thick he was before, but pushed against her, his weight holding her against the wall and his thigh pressing up rhythmically between her legs as he desperately tries to get closer, she feels surrounded by him.
She groans into his mouth, slides her free hand into his hair and pulls him from her by his hair, guides all that anger and frustration from his mouth to her neck, hisses sharply at the drag of teeth against her skin. His hand palms her thigh, pulls it up and over his hip and he steps impossibly, deliciously closer.
"Fuck."
His curse reverberates through her and she nods, against him, lips seeking whatever part of him she can touch. She thinks should slow this down, soothe him. But instead she fists her hands back into his hair and drags his mouth to hers and sucks on his tongue, nips at his bottom lip.
She joins him in spinning out of control and rolls her hips against his, tugs his polo out of his khakis, and urges him on, all thoughts of stopping flying out of her head.
"Rebecca," he groans, the broadside of his tongue dragging up her neck and his teeth nipping at her jaw and ear. "Please, I need this. I need you."
Her fingertips press to his cheeks, light stubble scratching the sensitive pads. It’s a crossroads, a line in the sand. If she pushes him away now—
She doesn’t want to push him away; she wants him against her, atop her, inside of her. “Ted,” she sighs, pulling him closer by the collar of his polo, desperate to get her hands back against him. “Ted.”
Her hand slides into the back of his shirt and she gets her first taste of what it’s like to touch his body unencumbered by clothes, shivers when he groans and falls against her eagerly, mouth seeking out the space between her neck and shoulder and sucking the skin red and purple while she rocks her hips against his pleadingly.
She gets a glimpse of a constellation of freckles across his shoulders from where his polo is pulled aside and her mouth waters at the thought of getting her tongue and fingers on the blemishes to trace her own constellation and mark on him.
Everything feels hot and overwhelming and fast and she doesn’t want to stop; is ready to strip loose for him, ready to hitch her leg over his hip and work him free of his trousers and take him in hand and--
The crowd roars in the distance, shrill whistles ring out in the night, and the building thunders as thousands of fans exit the stadium.
Game over.
Moment over.
He stills and she can feel the moment slipping and dying away as he steps back, lips swollen and red, hair sticking up every which way. It would be sexy if he didn’t look like he’d been hit with a truck, expression remorseful.
“Ted,” she starts, hands reaching for him, but she doesn’t know what to say. The locker room door bursts open and the team comes in rowdy and amped and yelling and Ted is gone, backing away slowly and running a hand over his face and through his hair.
“I gotta—I gotta go.”
She watches him disappear into the locker room to join his—their—team. When her head hits the cement wall behind her as she groans.
What did they do?
__________
After, he comes to her house, wrecked and wild-eyed and desperate in a new way. She barely has the door open and his name on her lips before he's in front of her, voice soothing and low and soft, shoulders hunched in, hand reaching for her and then falling between them uselessly, like he can't quite bring himself to touch her.
"Rebecca, I—” He swallows, searches for the words. “What happened earlier was inexcusable. I wasn't--I wasn't myself. I would have never--"
Warmth blooms in her chest, his words striking hot and hard in her heart, embarrassment and shame and anger curling through her veins. Rejection.
Her eyes drop from his gaze and she grits her teeth, tightens her hand on the doorjamb and steps back, needing a little distance. Ted doubles down, makes himself small before her, begging for forgiveness.
"I lost control and--"
"Ted, really, there's no need--" She just wants him gone, wants to lick her wounds in private, wants to forget how he made her beg and squirm with just a few kisses.
"But I--"
And then it's too much because she doesn't regret a single moment of what happened between them and she can't take hearing this--not from him.
It all bubbles up and explodes and this time it's she who is out of control, sparking and zipping and fiery. She steps out of the doorway and into his space, pokes a finger into his chest, pushes her face into his.
"I don't regret it," she hisses, eyes flashing and eyes flicking from his eyes to his mouth and back. "I don't so do me a favor, hm? And just stop talking. Just stop.”
Ted blinks at her, like he's trying to process startling, brand new information in a very amount of time. But Rebecca is tired of waiting, has spent so much of her life waiting on men and she's done.
She sighs, the fight gone out of her, and turns away from him. But then his hand shoots out and wraps around her wrist, pulls her back and against his chest, one arm sliding around her back and hips and one hand sliding up her neck and into her hair.
He grins at her, alluring and devilish and so sexy she can feel her toes curling against the grass, already leaning into him.
"So, shut me up then, boss."
__________
After, when the sheets are pooled around their hips, when their skin is slick with sweat, when there are scratches down his back and half-moons dug into his shoulders, when her skin is still pinking up from his lips and tongue and teeth and hands, she strokes his hair back from his forehead, smiles softly at him when he catches her hand and holds it against his chest.
“Hi,” she whispers, burrowing against the pillow and looking at him with flushed, warm cheeks and bright eyes.
“Howdy,” he responds, shifting closer to her, thumb stroking over the curve of her knuckles.
Maybe it should be awkward and stilted, but it isn’t. It’s unbearably easy to be like this with him—vulnerable and open and raw. She licks her lips, meets his eyes, a question burning on her tongue.
“I’ve never seen you like that—the way you were in the hallway tonight.”
Ted frowns, nods against their shared pillow, looks a little shame-faced. “It’s not somethin’ I’m proud of,” he explains, mouth twitching downwards. “But it’s kinda like the Hulk version of what happened in Liverpool.”
She hums in understanding, wriggles her hand free of his to splay it on his chest, stroking over his heart rhythmically, scratching her nails through the patch of chest hair there. Ted shudders under the touch and it makes her grin when he leans forward to kiss her softly, like he’s drawing strength from her.
He settles back against the pillow, face turned towards her. “It’s like all the frustration and anger and negativity that I try so dang hard to squash down sometimes just builds and builds and, y’know, normally I go for a run or, or bake—baking is excellent for stress and anger management—but sometimes I don’t have a chance to get it all out and it explodes and, well, Beard calls it ‘the other guy.’”
Rebecca raises an eyebrow. “’The other guy’? What, like, Jekyll and Hyde?”
Ted huffs a laugh. “More like Ted Lasso and Led Tasso, but yeah, that’s about the long and short of it.”
“Perhaps we should work on the name,” she suggests with a grin.
“Oh yeah?” he smiles, ignoring her small yelp as he hauls her against him suddenly, settling her atop of him. “You think we should work on the name? Any suggestions?”
She nuzzles at his jawline, kisses the corner of his mouth. “How about Cowboy?”
He quirks an eyebrow up at her, looking surprised but pleased, his hands spreading over the small of her back and dipping down to cup her playfully. “I think I can work with that, ma’am,” he teases, voice deepening and twang thickening. He taps her ass and grins at her. “Yeehaw.”
Rebecca lets her face drop to his chest, hiding her laughter into the hollow of his throat, relishing the easy banter between them, relieved that nothing and everything has changed between them and in awe of the laughter. When was the last time she laughed in bed? Had fun in bed?
She propped herself up against him, traced the pads of her fingers over the laugh lines crinkling by the corner of his eyes and pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Maybe you and I can work on strategies to reign the cowboy in, hm? Maybe talk to Sharon about it?”
Ted nods, eyes flicking down in shame. But she won’t have it—not here, not between them. She cups his cheek in her hands, kisses the corner of his mouth and presses her forehead to his.
“It’s part of you, Ted,” she assures him softly. “A part I happen to rather like,” she admits with a wry grin before sobering. “But we need to keep Coach Lasso on the field, not Led Tasso.”
“I think I can handle that,” he agrees, holding her close, hand burying itself into her hair, breathing her in for a moment, everything once unsettled and out of control falling back into place.
Rebecca sinks into him and keeps to herself—for now—that she wouldn’t mind if the Cowboy makes a regular appearance in the bedroom here between them.