Chapter Text
Gif source: Rip
Imagine Rip Wheeler’s belt buckle making impressions on your thigh.
——— Request for anon ———
Rip had watched from under the brim of his hat while you toted groceries into the house, forced to sit on the side-lines.
When he’d tried helping, you had teasingly chastised, “I’m doing something for you, for once. Just sit there and say, ‘Thank you.’”
“Thank you,” he had tried, but nothing had worked in convincing you to let him help with whatever idea had gotten stuck in your head today. “What’s the occasion?”
“Do I need one to be good to you?”
“You’re plenty good to me already, darlin’.”
If he was being honest, he liked watching you, especially in those summer shorts you’ve taken to wearing today. Watching as you moved around his cabin, around his kitchen, like it was where you were meant to be. Like you felt just at home here as he did— it left him aching for the mirage in front of him to be true.
You’d made him dinner, and he was too busy grinning at the thought of you even wanting to do something like that, that he couldn’t bring himself to care about the small errors in your cooking that you fussed over at the table. Call him a simple man, but he’s almost certain you could have sat anything in front of him right then, and he would have cleaned his plate, just because you made it.
He does finally put his foot down, though, when you try to make a move to take his empty plate.
“No, ma’am,” he murmurs, catching you by your waist as you blink down at him in confusion for the split second it takes to coax you on into his lap, pushed back just far enough from the dinner table to situate you nicely against his denim-clad thighs.
Laughter bubbles from your throat as you weakly push against his chest, as if this isn’t exactly where you want to be, “I gotta’ clean the dishes up, Rip.”
“Mmm, fuck the dishes,” is all it takes for you to melt there, into his chest and the hand at the small of your back, urging you closer until you were flush against him. The kiss he’s searching for is answered by your eager lean, arms slipping around his neck as the wooden chair supporting the both of you creaks minutely with your shift in position.
He tastes like the liquor he had with dinner, and grins against your lips before his hand finds your bare thigh and squeezes. This kiss, though, has no further intent past the simple intimacy of the closeness itself.
Heart hammering in his chest, he’s sure you’ll be able to hear it when you drag your head down to rest atop his shoulder. You linger there, in the warm hold he has on you, with little care for the cold dig of his belt buckle against the flesh of your inner thigh. The rest of him is soft enough to make up for it.
After a breath of comfortable silence, Rip starts, “Thank you for dinner,” and you hum delightfully beside his ear.
“You liked it? Even though I—”
“If you don’t quit,” he stops your continued worrying over the meal with another squeeze of your thigh. “It tasted fine. Hell, if you were to fix me fifty meals just like that one, I’d never complain.”
“Is that what you want?” you chuckle, leaning back to catch his eye, your fingertips raking through the dark trim of his beard, “Me, cooking for you all the time like some little housewife?” It’s only half a joke. The sparkle in your eye reaches just as far as the genuine curiosity for his answer does, but Rip doesn’t leave you wondering for long.
He’s quite certain of what he wants.
“You don’t have to cook all the time to be my little housewife,” is his playful answer, but the dark intensity of his blue-eyed stare proves how serious he is about it. He means what he says, and says what he means.
And it makes you smile a bit wider, as you melt back into him with a contented sigh, “Maybe one of these days, if you ask me nicely, you’ll get what you want.”
His shoulders shake with his chuckle, a deep, contented warmth settling over the both of you as you simply hold each other for a while longer. Soft murmurs of what pieces of his day and yours which hadn’t been shared over dinner passing between you, and by the time you do finally, reluctantly, rise from his lap, his thumb brushes against the indent his belt buckle leaves along your inner thigh, as much a brand as the one on his chest.
When he helps you clear the table, he catches glimpses of his temporary claim. The simple knowledge that it’ll disappear soon is enough to make him wish for something more permanent of his to be left on your body. Something more substantial than the buckle’s indent, or the lingering evidence of your love that would always fade, because if there’s one thing he wants to last, it’s this moment, right now, with you.
Rip thinks a ring might fit you nicely, one of these days.