Written for the it's always been LiveJournal community's Holiday Challenge - specifically the following prompts: pictures of a woman eating a candy cane and a cup of Starbucks coffee, and the word prompts lick the frosting and baking cookies.
A note about timing: I have no idea when Tony came home and how long he was back before his first Christmas yadda yadda yadda. Just enjoy the fluffiness and ignore the continuity holes. Thank you!
Sorry about the stupid scene break (merrymerrymerry) - obviously FFN does not like anything else I tried to use instead.
Finally, many thanks to my beta, miss steph, and to teaoli and spockside. May you all get really cool stuff from Santa.
~*~Licked by outtabreath~*~
It started with the coffee that Pepper Potts was clutching in her right hand when she entered Tony Stark's workshop the second Monday in December.
He was half under his primary console when she arrived and, as usual, he saw her long, shapely legs first. He followed the line of them, traced the curve and muscle as it flowed upwards, sighed when cloth obscured his view just as things started to get really interesting.
"Morning, Miss Potts," he said, screwing up his eyes and craning his head as she shifted slightly. He got another inch of pale skin and, quite possibly, a shadow.
"Mr. Stark," she responded. "Can you please come out from under there? I hate talking to your legs."
"That's weird," he said. "I love talking to yours."
She made a low sound - one bordering on affectionate - and he finally slid out. She quirked an eyebrow; he smirked in response. Then his gaze fell to the cups in her hands. Both of them were blue, black and white with a familiar green and white logo, but that's where all similarity ended: one of them was topped by other by a plastic lid, the other by a mound of whipped cream and chocolate.
"Thanks, Pepper," he said, his mouth watering.
"You're welcome, Tony." Pepper pushed the boring, lidded coffee down and into his hand.
"But?" He looked down at the cup, then up at the one still in her hand. "What's that?" He pointed at the cup she was, in defiance of everything he knew about her strict adherence to all things healthy and nutritious, still holding.
"My coffee."
"But…mine doesn't have all that stuff on it."
"Of course not. Yours is an Americano and mine is a grande peppermint mocha with extra whipped cream and chocolate drizzle."
Tony blinked at the drink stupidly, but the image didn't change. His infinitely practical PA was actually going to drink something that had more calories than an entire large pizza. Probably had more calories than an entire large pizza.
"I didn't know you liked whipped cream."
"Not as a rule," she acknowledged, "But this is like Christmas in a cup and Starbucks smelled really good this morning."
Tony looked at his pathetic excuse for coffee, then back at Potts' decadent dessert in a cup.
"I like whipped cream."
"I know," she said dryly. "There used to be dozens of cans in the house."
"That wasn't for me to ea- never mind, not important - you could've brought me one of those, you know."
She nicely ignored the verbal stumble - she was fully aware what the whipped cream used to be, well, used for - and shook her head. "You hate peppermint."
"I never said I hated it."
"You made me switch to wintergreen lifesavers the second week I worked for you because you said the smell of the peppermint ones made you sick."
"The smell made me sick because I was hung over the second week you worked for me," he mumbled petulantly and took a sip of his sadly whipped cream-and-chocolate-free coffee. Tony screwed up his face; Pepper lifted her cup to her lips and took a sip. Her eyes fluttered closed slightly; he swallowed in covetous envy, imagining the sweet, slick slide.
She pulled her cup away from her mouth, leaving a dab of foam on the dip of her upper lip. Tony briefly thought about letting her go through the day with it, but figured it would somehow come back to bite him in the ass.
"Potts." He made a wiping motion on his upper lip.
Her eyebrows drew together in confusion for a moment before his meaning became clear. He waited for her to wipe her mouth with her hand and begin to harangue him about his day. Instead, the pink tip of her tongue darted out and captured the foam. There was a heartstopping moment in which he could see the cream start to soften against the curve of the small collection of muscles – the nimble collection of muscles - then the tiny tip withdrew, moving back into her mouth.
"Thanks," she said, pulling out her BlackBerry and starting to tap one-handed on it. "I've sent the Habitat for Human-."
Her voice faded into the background as he relived the moment her tongue emerged from her mouth and caught the foam. He could see it from different angles and with soft lighting and her hair blowing back from her face while Pour Some Sugar on Me played over it all.
"Tony!"
He blinked and looked at her. She looked pissed. "No problem," he murmured; it was always the safest – if not wisest – thing to say.
"Really?"
He nodded avidly, wondering what he'd just agreed to and how long it was going to take to get back out of it again, all the while vaguely feeling as if he should be thanking her.
merrymerrymerrymerry
On December twelfth, he walked into her office at SI, attention on a particularly egregious line in a contract. "Pepper, I need you to email Derek. This clause needs to be changed."
"Mmm?"
He looked up and froze. Pepper was eati-, no, Pepper was licking a candy cane. She was wearing bright red lipstick, her teeth were blindingly white and her tongue perfectly pink. He watched as she continued to lap at the length of it, working the candy, varying her strokes - dragging the entirety of her tongue along the line and curve of it before tapping the tip of her tongue back down again.
Pepper had a mouth. Of course she did. She used it to order him around and harangue him into compliance often enough, but he'd never really noticed it before - not even on the rooftop. That had been all about her hair and her dress and her back. But, standing frozen at the edge of her desk, he couldn't see anything but her mouth.
"Tony?" She'd pulled the candy away from her highly dexterous tongue - holy God, his PA had a dexterous tongue to match her talented fingers and endless legs - and was looking at him analytically.
He folded his suprisingly languid body into one of her visitor's chairs and pushed the contract at her. "The clause I highlighted. It needs to be changed."
She grabbed the papers and glanced at it. Her eyes widened slightly. "I missed that." She looked at him, her fingers clutching the paper and the candy. "I'm not sure how that happened."
He waved his hands at her placatingly. "That's why we both read 'em, Potts. We're a team. Remember?"
She nodded and slid the bottom of the candy cane into her mouth. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked on it, freeing her fingers so they could fly across the keyboard. She jabbed the enter button firmly and slid the candy out of her mouth again; Tony almost whimpered.
"I have wintergreen ones," she said.
"What?" He truly had no idea what she was talking about. He wasn't even entirely sure what his name was.
"Candy canes. I bought wintergreen flavored ones for you." She leaned out of view momentarily and reemerged, her purse - bag, he corrected himself - in her hand. She unzipped the center compartment and handed him his own candy cane. It had green swirls on it.
"Thanks," he said, taking the candy without thinking. He didn't want one; he wanted to watch her eat hers.
"Enjoy," she smiled, then he watched, mesmerized, as a red stripe disappeared between her teeth, as her tongue pushed the treat firmly into place, as she pressed her teeth into the candy, as she succeeded to bite off a piece of it. She sucked it into her mouth and her tongue darted back over her lips, gathering every bit of sweetness.
He could see the slight bulge of her cheek as she shifted the piece of cane into her cheek so she could speak. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"
"Uhm, what?"
"Do you need anything else?"
He needed her to put the cane right back in her mouth and suck on it, he needed her to follow the swirling stripes with the flat of her tongue. He needed to kiss the peppermint taste right out of her mouth.
"No, I'm good," he said even though he wasn't, really. He was weak-kneed, half-hard and gripping a green and white candy cane in his sweaty right hand.
"Get back to work then," she prompted, her voice altered by the presence of the candy in her mouth. She made a shooing motion with her hands.
He went, pausing at the door to get one more look. She was staring fixedly at her computer, her right index finger clicking the mouse rhythmically, the fingers of her left hand slipping the cane in and out of her mouth. Slowly.
He'd never wanted to be a piece of candy so badly.
merrymerrymerrymerry
Five days later, Tony complained. "My house isn't staying up. Gingerbread houses are stupid. They don't conform to the laws of physics, they promote tooth decay and childhood obesity and they're messy and sticky - and not the fun kind of messy and sticky, the disgusting kind of messy and sticky. "
Pepper looked up from her laptop. "Are you done with your tantrum?"
"Yes. No. Maybe. I haven't decided yet. Can't I just hire someone to do this?"
"Sure," Pepper said soothingly, rising to stand beside him. "Then you can explain to Habitat for Humanity why the Tony Stark gingerbread house they're auctioning off to support their programs wasn't actually made by Tony Stark."
"No one will ever know," he groused.
"We will," she pointed out, leaning over him and deftly gluing the front of his house back up with frosting. She pressed against him slightly as she counted under her breath and he stared at her lips.
He'd never really thought about her mouth before - her legs were infinitely more fascinating - but since the whipped cream and candy cane incidents he'd started looking at it more and more - had found himself waiting for the little glimpses of the even teeth and the lush tongue - had paid attention to the color of her lipstick (usually a light pink) and when she wore lip gloss (surprisingly often).
"See," she smiled, leaning back. "You just needed to be patient."
"I'm not good at patience," he reminded her.
"Thankfully, one of us is - I can teach you."
There was something about her tone. His eyes snapped from her mouth to her eyes. They were warm, affectionate, encouraging…no, that couldn't be right, Pepper was more likely to discourage him - but...he had no idea what was happening.
He stared at her helplessly; she blinked, then smiled. "C'mon, Iron Man, I'll help." She pushed the bowl of red and yellow spice drops toward him. "You tackle the walls and I'll do the roof."
"That's cheating," he pointed out numbly.
"We're a team, remember? Besides, I'm just painting, you're doing all the real decorating."
Tony scooped up a fancy tube of full of gluey red icing and Pepper started painting the roof with white, watery frosting, her tongue caught gently between her teeth.
"You're good at that," he murmured.
She smiled and looked up from her work. "I have lots of hidden talents, Tony."
He gulped and pushed a yellow gumdrop into a dollop of frosting.
"Remember to count to ten."
He nodded sharply. He watched her and counted to ten, then to ten again.
"Tony, I think it's done."
"Just making sure."
"Let go and see."
He released the drop; it stayed put.
"See," she smiled, starting to line M&M's along the peak of the roof, her finger dipping into a particularly generous bit of frosting. Absently, she brought both finger and frosting to her mouth; her tongue twined around the finger, pressing against the skin and icing firmly, cleaning her flesh and rousing his.
Tony's hands tightened involuntarily; red frosting squirted everywhere.
"Whoa!" Pepper grabbed the tube from his hands and looked at the mess. "What happened? Are you okay?"
He was as far from okay as possible. He was covered in red frosting, had a gingerbread house to finish and was finding his PA to be increasingly irresistible.
He seriously needed to pull himself together.
"Fine. Yep. Fine. All good. Merry and bright, that's me." He gave her a weak smile.
"If you say so." It was clear she didn't believe him. "I'm going to get something to clean this mess up."
He nodded tightly, his gaze focused on his hands and not on her mouth. It was the only smart thing to do.
She patted his shoulder then swiped an index finger through the frosting covering his hands. He followed her finger as she lapped it clean, her mouth curving into a smile around it. "The frosting really does taste good," she noted when her mouth was free again.
"Yeah," he murmured. He felt hypnotized.
Her smile widened and she click-clacked away. Tony sat frozen, his senses gone a little fuzzy with the realization that maybe, just maybe, she was doing all of the licking and lapping on purpose.
merrymerrymerrymerry
Six days before Christmas, he walked into his kitchen to find half of his countertops covered in plates and tins of cookies and Pepper barefoot, loose-haired and in an apron.
"Potts, what are you doing?"
"Baking," she said, slowly and with the air of someone speaking to someone rather dim-witted. "Chocolate chip, sugar," she pointed to various stacks of cookies, obviously telling him what each one was. "Snickerdoodle, oatmeal raisin and peanut butter."
"But why here? You have your own house. You won't let me visit it, but I know you have one."
"I felt like baking and you have the best appliances," she said, pulling a tray - sugar or snickerdoodle by the looks of them - out of the oven and nimbly transferring the cookies to a metal wire cookie holding thing. He hadn't even been aware that he owned a metal wire cookie holding thing.
"You really made these?" It was impressive - another hidden talent. She seemed to be brimming with them.
"Every last one," she affirmed, grabbing a plastic spoon covered in chocolate chip cookie dough from a bowl and waving it for emphasis. "I don't believe in the pre-made stuff."
"Yeah, that stuff is crap," he agreed because he felt the need to say something.
"Mine is excellent," she continued, then slid the spoon into her mouth, her lips bulging obscenely around the head of it - like they would around other things.
He grabbed the edge of the closest counter. The bite of the marble against his palm helped him stay in control.
She slid the spoon in and out slightly; every few seconds he could see the tip or edge or flat of her tongue as it worked on cleaning every bit of dough from the plastic. She sucked avidly and he could see her jaw moving slightly as her tongue worked against the spoon. After several endless and will-power sapping seconds, she pulled the spoon - licked very clean - from her mouth, deposited it on the counter and stared him down.
"Are you doing that on purpose?" he demanded, sagging slightly and tightening his grip on the counter.
"Doing what Tony?" she asked silkily.
"The whipped cream, the candy canes, the frosting." He pulled himself to his full height. "Are you trying to drive me crazy?"
"Yep."
"Oh. Okay. Good, that's good. It's working, by the way."
"I'm happy," she smiled, affectionately, fondly, encouragingly, predatorily.
"Why are you trying to drive me crazy?"
"Because you're Tony Stark and nothing else seems to work with you."
"You could've just told me."
"You left me on a rooftop," she reminded him.
"You shot me down before the press conference," he reminded her.
"We didn't have time," she squeaked indignantly. "And I was touching you - how could you not understand what that meant? I was looking forward to continuing our conversation when we had time to actually have it - then you went and opened your mouth and things got out of control - more out of control - and you seemed to forget. I needed to get your attention."
He hadn't forgotten precisely, but things really had been crazy - then she'd started licking things and they'd gotten even crazier.
"So, you've got it. Now what?" he asked uncertainly, not really sure what to do with her - she wasn't just a woman, she was Pepper.
She grabbed a metal spoon off of the counter, scooped it into the bowl of dough and held it out to him. "Do you want a taste?" she asked, her voice unmistakably seductive.
"God, yes," he said, crossing to her in huge strides. He wrenched the spoon from her hand and tossed it towards the general direction of the sink. He used his fingers first, touching her lips, pulling at them so he could run his thumb in her mouth and press down on her tongue, then he covered it all - lips, tongue, thumb - with his mouth, licked her way into her mouth, licked her lips, her teeth, his finger, her tongue, the sweet, soft tissue at the edges and sides of her mouth - tasting the sugar and the dough and something new and interesting, tasting Pepper.
She was delicious.