A/N: the title is a reference to the song of the same name by fiona apple, which you can listen to on the youtubes.
Vic's heartbeat ticks up when she hears the rumble of the Bronco's engine and the soft shuffle of dirt under its tires. The sound grows louder and closer before it cuts out and leaves a ringing absence in her ears. A few seconds later the driver's door thuds solidly as it shuts. She finds herself holding her breath while Walt's familiar tread crosses from the dirt to the steps and up onto the porch. He'll have seen her truck parked outside; he'll know she's here.
The screen door opens and closes with a gentle slap.
Lying on her stomach, stretched out sideways across the bed, she pictures him quickly scanning the cabin as he sets down his keys and hangs his hat. An aware silence spools out between them, the connection they've always shared grown stronger in the weeks since they began this thing together. Hearing the first of his footsteps heading towards the bedroom makes her smile in anticipation. She props herself on her elbows and does her best to appear absorbed in the article she's been trying to read.
The wind has picked up in the hour Vic's been waiting and the thin curtains hanging at the windows billow out almost far enough to reach her. Humidity still weights the air but the promised front is finally rolling down from the north. Massed thunderclouds shoulder over the horizon and she can tell they're in for one hell of a storm. Walt's presence in the cabin feels like the edge of that storm has already arrived. He's a humming electricity in the air; he's the dense, breathless stillness before the first lightning strike rips open the sky.
His footsteps stop and she counts to five before looking up.
"Hi," she says, all casual, as if him coming home to find her wearing nothing but lacy underwear that only covers half her ass is just an ordinary day.
"Hey," he says with a small smile from the doorway. "Didn't expect to see you here."
She shrugs one shoulder and watches his eyes lower to where her breasts are pressed against the mattress. Vic has to admit she's got some impressive cleavage happening in this position. Twirling one foot idly in the air, she does her best to look demure and guileless. "You don't mind, do you?"
They both know he doesn't.
His smile deepens. "I like you being here."
"Okay," she says with a grin, then shifts her attention back to the article in front of her. She reads the same sentence three times without any idea what it says, waiting for Walt's next move.
He walks past her and into the bathroom. When he comes back out, she hears him emptying his pockets onto the dresser behind her. Then pulling off his boots and setting them neatly together. Then nothing. She strains to catch even the faintest sound for a clue to what he's doing. Is he just standing there?
Given that last night was the first time they've spent a night apart, Vic really hadn't thought there'd be any kind of extended prelude to sex. Or any prelude at all. To be honest, she's a little bit disappointed. But maybe it was stupid to imagine he'd miss her the way she's been missing him after less than a day without seeing each other.
At last she hears the encouraging clink of his belt unbuckling and the slithery hiss of leather drawn through his belt loops. Then comes the distinctive sound of the snaps on his shirt releasing. Not all at once in a waterfall of noise the way he usually does it, but one at a time. Each pop hits a new place on her spine like he's playing a minor scale down her back. She squirms a little against the mattress and hopes he doesn't see.
The last few pops sound different, lighter; they must be from his cuffs. A second later she hears the susurration of fabric moving against fabric moving against skin. Then the barely-there whisper of his shirt landing on the floor. It's like witnessing a striptease in the dark. Her eyes are staring hard at the black type on white paper in front of her, but what she's seeing is Walt in jeans and nothing else. All that skin and muscle and hair. The way those jeans hang low, exposing the slanted lines of his hips.
Vic's mouth goes dry.
Every part of her is focused on him, her entire body tensed with the effort of listening. There's no noise at all for five, six, seven heartbeats, then the gentle buzz of a zipper descending. The murmur of denim pushed down and down and off.
Silence.
Her breathing is uneven. Can he tell?
She hears the faint suction of his bare feet against the wooden floor. Two steps and he's displacing the air around her, behind her at the side of the bed.
"What are you reading?" he asks, the first words either of them have said for what seems like hours.
His fingers encircle each of her crossed ankles and ease them apart. The mattress dips with his weight and she widens her legs to give him room to move between them. She wonders if he can see how wet she is from where he's kneeling, if he has any idea that she's so hot just from hearing him undress he could slide right into her with almost no resistance.
The hairs on his legs prickle hers as he moves along the bed. The feeling is so close to what she's craving that a tiny whimper escapes before she can hold it back.
"Vic?" he prompts.
"Huh?"
"I asked what you're reading."
Right.
She hasn't even turned the page since he came down the driveway. "It's an article about problems with the standard methods of forensic firearm and toolmark analysis."
Walt's hands slide along her calves from her ankles to her knees and back again as he says, "So what are they?"
He's such a fucking tease.
"Uh, well, cognitive bias is one. There's more likelihood of a ballistics match when the examiner knows the evidence belongs to a suspect."
He sucks a kiss on the tender skin at the back of her left knee — "What else?" — then the right.
Her breath catches and she has to clear her throat. "The, uh... examiners, most of them don't..." Now he's moving from her knee up along the back of her leg, painting wet kisses as he goes. "...um, don't have a formal tribology background."
"What's tribology, again?" he mumbles against the crease of her thigh.
Jesus.
"It, uh, has to do with the interaction of..." His mouth's on her left leg, working its way up and up and up. "...of, um, surfaces in relative motion. The principles of friction and..."
He makes an interested noise high against the inside of her thigh. The vibration travels straight to her clit in a hot pulse of pure sensation.
"Friction and...?" His hands smooth along the outside of her hips, fingers dipping in at her waist, and then fanning out across her lower back.
"Wear," she gasps, almost ready to beg him to lick her or fuck her or do anything he wants so long as he stops teasing. Patience has never been one of her strengths and she's been thinking about this for hours.
He slides his hands down so they're resting lightly on her ass. "Isn't there something else?"
Vic arches into him but he pulls away and plants an arm on either side of her hips. "I hate you," she growls.
"That doesn't sound right."
There's a definite thread of amusement in his voice and in spite of herself she laughs. "Lubrication, damn it."
"Lubrication," he repeats, breath ghosting across her skin. "Right."
Then she feels the scrape of his teeth against the lower curve of her ass and lets out a sharp breath. He does it again a little higher, with a little more pressure, and a sound gets caught in her throat. Higher still and he gently nips her flesh. She clenches her fingers hard in the sheet and lets her too-heavy head drop. The journal article lies forgotten where it's fallen on the floor.
When his mouth reaches the edge of her underwear, Walt lifts his head. "These are pretty," he murmurs, before his tongue traces wetly along the lace.
"Fuck," she whispers.
"Very pretty," he says, switching to the other side.
God, she loves his mouth.
It lays a rising trail of kisses as he walks his hands slowly up the bed alongside her. Even with most of his weight braced on his knees and one arm, draped over her this way he feels like a broad wall of heat at her back. He's big and solid and she wants to rub herself against him until they generate sparks.
His stubbled cheek settles a prickly warmth on the back of her neck when he rests his head. "Missed you," he says quietly, and everything inside her unsteadies.
This is what he does to her. She keeps stumbling over these unexpected moments when he'll say something that makes her feel as if she's breaking open. Two weeks and it still isn't ordinary; it still feels like some kind of transformation each time they're together. She wants to ask him if he knows what this is, but she doesn't know how to say it. Doesn't know if it would be worse to learn that this is how sex always feels to him or that he doesn't feel it at all.
The frightened thing inside her chest clutches once and then unfurls a little more. "I missed you, too."
Walt smiles; she can feel it on her skin. His free hand trails down her arm and out to her white-knuckled fingers. "Have you been here long?"
The hum of his voice raises the tiny hairs at her nape. She feels floaty and light with his warmth spreading like the sun at her back: golden and glowing and melting her into the bed. He begins to string soft kisses along her neck. She tilts her head in silent invitation and remembers he asked her a question.
"Um, an hour or so."
His mouth pauses on its path towards her shoulder as he lifts his head. "Like this?"
She's not sure if he means almost naked on his bed or so turned on she's probably left a damp spot on the sheet, but either way the answer is the same. "Uh huh."
His whole body sort of shudders around her and from the corner of her eye she sees his left hand curl into a fist.
Oh.
A wicked little smile lifts her lips. In so many ways Walt is different from any other man she's ever known, but in some ways he's delightfully the same.
"You like that?" she asks, low and throaty. "Thinking about me lying here, waiting for you? Imagining what you'll do to me when you get here. What I want you to do to me."
"Vic," he says, breathless and strangled against her ear.
Pushing herself up, she twists to kiss him. The aggressive thrust of his tongue tells her exactly how far gone he is; it's a spark that lights her up like tinder. She reaches behind him to grab the back of his head, digging her fingers into his hair and twisting more, forcing him closer. In retaliation he cups her breast with his free hand, flexing with just the right amount of pressure to make her moan into his mouth.
She shoves back against his taut bulk, goading him, and he bears her down to the mattress under his weight. They're an awkward knot of limbs, kissing messy and delicious. His cock presses hard and insistent against her ass and her body throbs avidly in response. She's grown even wetter than before, can feel the slickness on her thighs, still spread wide open for him.
Tearing her mouth from his, she gasps, "You have to fuck me right now."
He doesn't even bother to strip off her pretty underwear, just gets one arm beneath her hips and hauls them up. Her elbow slides almost completely out from under her until there's only a few inches between her cheek and the bed. She's barely got her knees bent when he drags the soaked crotch of her panties aside with his fingers and just... slides all the way in.
She almost sobs at how good it feels.
There's a moment when they're both still, their harsh breathing the only sound, and then he slowly folds himself over until his chest is pressed against her back.
"God," he says, his voice ragged.
Vic's knees begin to slide out from under her and she doesn't try to stop them. He follows her down until she's flat on the bed again. His cock feels huge inside her, the angle more intense than she's used to, and her cunt tightens around him instinctively. He groans, the sound and vibration moving through her until it's almost too much, all of it; the sheer volume of sensation is overwhelming. She tries to move and discovers she has no leverage in this position. She's wedged between Walt's body and the mattress, pinned on his cock, completely helpless. And she can't see his face or his eyes. She's off balance with no way to read him.
Her fingers scrabble at the sheet, trying to anchor herself somehow, but she can't. He's drilling her into the mattress and she can't do anything but let him. Vic's never been into the idea of being 'taken' like some bimbo in a romance novel, but holy shit she suddenly gets the appeal. Walt is completely in control. He's a heavy weight bearing down on her and she's powerless. She's at his mercy. The arch of her lower back is brutal; the slant of her hips prevents her from getting any friction on her clit. She can't come until he lets her. Unless he lets her. And he can keep her here as long as he wants.
All she can do is submit.
Her pulse is clamoring and she hears herself gasping something that might be a plea but the connection between her brain and her mouth is lost. Then he's working his free arm under her hips, cupping her sex, and she can grind down against the heel of his hand with every thrust. Jagged bolts of lightning burn electric inside her and she's so close, so desperately close. "Harder, god, please, please..."
And he's so good to her so good he doesn't stop or ask if she's sure he just does it just goes harder and that's enough that's it so perfect. A raw animal sound tears from her throat and she's coming and coming endlessly, her body shaking with the force of her orgasm like a long roll of thunder reverberating across the sky. Somewhere in the mindless blur she feels him coming too. His orgasm melds with hers: drawing it out and leaving her a blissful, quivering mess.
It takes some time for Vic's senses to expand beyond the limp and sweaty tangle of their bodies. With her lungs still heaving, she manages to turn her head to the side, away from her own stale air. The patch of sheet she finds is cool under her cheek and Walt's breath is hot and damp on the back of her neck. Rain pings a steady rhythm in the gutters. Somehow the storm arrived without her noticing.
After a few moments, Walt levers himself up and collapses next to her. Goosebumps rise all over her sticky skin at the sudden loss of his heat.
"I think my spine is broken," she mutters, eyes still closed.
He drapes one arm over her waist and begins kneading her lower back. For a little while she drifts along with the motions of his hand and the rain-scented breeze passing over them. Then he coaxes her onto her side and she curls herself up under his arm. Stretching her back feels obscenely good, especially with Walt pressing firm circles into the muscles at the base of her skull.
Her hum of pleasure is surprisingly loud and his chest moves with a soundless laugh.
"Better?"
Feeling indulgent, she opens her eyes and kisses the tip of his nose. "Yes. Thank you."
"Glad to be of service."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?"
He offers her a smirk and a single raised eyebrow, which she returns as she pulls the elastic from her ponytail. Seeing his frown, she follows his gaze to her arm.
"What?"
His thumb traces just underneath a roughly circular blotch on her bicep and she cranes her neck a little to see it better. It's surrounded by indentations that look like—
"What the hell? I bit myself?" she says in disbelief. "When did that happen?"
As soon as the question's out of her mouth Vic knows the answer. Judging by his expression, so does Walt. She rolls her eyes and flops onto her back. "You are such a guy."
If smugness were electricity he could power the county with the strength of the I-made-my-girlfriend-come-so-hard-she-bit-herself smile he's wearing.
"Sorry," he says but he can't smother his grin; he's so obviously proud of himself.
"Shut up," she tells him, fighting her own smile.
He drops his face against her throat, laughter rumbling out of him, and she gives up entirely. Walt laughing is one of her favourite sounds in the world.
"Yeah, yeah. You're a sex god. Get over it."
His eyes are bright and mischievous when he raises his head, full of humor and affection. She covers his face with her hand and shoves him away. Unrepentant, he presses a kiss to her palm.
"You're such a dork," she tells him, shaking her head, but she can't help touching the corner of his mouth to feel the way his lips curve with his smile, to trace the little lines that bracket them. It's addictive, touching him, learning all his shapes and textures the way she's wanted to for so long.
The laughter on his face softens and he props himself up on one elbow. "You're beautiful."
Vic bites her lip.
He's naked and tousled and gorgeous, looking at her like she's the only sight he ever wants to see. A giddy effervescence pushes against her skin from the inside and her heart does that thing where it gets too big for her chest to contain. She feels like she's going to cry. Before her face can betray her, she leans up and finds his mouth, kissing him as slowly and tenderly as she knows how.
"Stay tonight?" he murmurs when they ease apart.
Around them the bedroom is gathering shadows as the silvery light outside fades. Her ears are filled with the drowsy shush of the rain.
"Okay," she says in a whisper, all the volume gone from her voice.
Walt brings his arms around her and fits her body into his. And they lie that way, cocooned by the rain, while his fingers comb the tangles from her hair.
[END]
notes: i verbed an adjective to make a word that doesn't exist and i am ashamed. (not enough to not do it, obviously, but enough to feel bad about it.) the 'article' vic is reading may be found here. i found it while doing research for something else and then decided to make it dirty. (not really) (but sort of)