Slippery Slope
Beth is not entirely sure why she follows Rio into the warehouse. Is she trying to prove something? To her? To him? Maybe it's because he called her Elizabeth. Sweetheart, baby, bitch. She's used to those names. Maybe it's because he always controls of the parameters of their relationship. Showing up at her house unannounced, shutting them down. Telling her they're over. It's her turn to take control.
Rio looks up at her, weary when he hears the doors open. He faces her with his hands clasped low in front of him, his signature power pose.
"I said go home, Elizabeth." The words are patient, in his usual measured voice. He always talks as if mumbling, conserving energy maybe, or wanting to reveal as little as possible. But Beth recognizes the anger boiling just under the surface.
The warehouse is empty minus a few boxes and tables. Without the noise of money counters, paper cutters and dryers, only the hum of possibility of whatever edge Beth and Rio are teetering on fills the air. This thing between them pulsates.
Or maybe Beth is the one vibrating, humming with the energy of becoming a different person. Two months ago, Beth was naïve about so many parts of her life. She's not that Beth anymore. New Beth robs grocery stores. New Beth is strong. New Beth goes big or goes home. And that's the Beth standing in front of Rio right now, the Beth he helped create, reaching deep inside her, pulling out all new parts.
Powerful. That's the best way to describe her now. She never experienced power before and it's intoxicating. She wants more. And she wants Rio. Maybe her arousal is acute. Pure physical desire. Or maybe it's the culmination of the danger, adrenaline and tension of the past weeks with Rio in the epicenter.
Beth stops thinking, just feels – raw and wild - when she closes the space between them, crashes into him with a hot storm of rough kisses. The second their lips touch all of Beth's warring emotions settle, replaced by lusty relief and the absolute rightness of how he feels against her. Beth's hands are all over him – hair, chest, arms. The friction of his ever-present stubble tingles, makes her rub more.
Rio is momentarily disoriented, his brain blazing between anger and desire. He's aware of Beth's mouth on him, how fantastic she tastes, feels, smells. But just a minute ago she was throwing keys at his face. Now she's kissing him. And he's kissing her back. Everything is happening too quickly. He needs air. And space. But Beth is consuming both right now. He wants to tell her to stop but he can't care about anything other than the way she's moving against him, as if trying to climb him.
Rio slowly breaks the kiss. He looks at Beth carefully, closely. Her red hair a wild mess, her shirt riding up to reveal pale flesh. Her eyes look like he's never seen them before. Something vulnerable flickers through them, glowing, full of desire. The look disarms Rio, hooks into chest. Seeing Beth like this, because of him, makes his heart beat faster, makes him harder. This is the moment he should walk away. He really should. Never mix business with pleasure. Such a basic principle.
Of course he thought about her. Alluring, filthy thoughts. Thoughts of them ripping each other's clothes off and fucking. He loves curvy women and Beth is practically a real-life Jessica Rabbit. So even though Beth has the most beautiful face, the sexiest attitude, even though she's a massive, walking turn-on, he never acts on it.
He knows this is combustible, like a rocket firing in a hundred directions. But here she is. Kissing him, grinding on him. And every single cell in his body wants it. Wants her. And then she whispers his name. She's never called him by his name before, formal greetings an unnecessary pleasantry in their line of work. And that's when he knows how this night is ending. There is no doubt. He is going to fuck the most beautiful, confusing woman he's ever met.
She caught him off guard with her kiss, he'd expected a slap in the face. So this is his kiss. He leads it, slows it down. One hand moves up her back, fists into her hair. The other hand moves down, grabs her ass Beth whimpers, opens her lips, invites him deeper. But he ignores her, teases her. He kisses her along her jawline, up to her ear. He nips her neck with his teeth at her pulse point. Finally he slides his tongue across her lips, parting them, sliding his tongue inside.
The first swipe of his tongue against Beth's makes her belly dip, and she fists her hands to his shirt, anchoring him to her. Her breasts press against him, so soft. Rio is dying to know what she'd feel like in his hands, how she'd respond to his fingers tracing her sensitive flesh, the noises she'd make when he used his mouth. He crowds her against a table, his body pushing hers until her ass hits a metal table, and she scoots up on it, opening her legs to draw him closer.
When Beth feels his erection pressed hard against her, she becomes frantic. Rio is a master of self-control with few exceptions. He lost his cool when they suggested selling antique figurines on eBay to pay off their debt. And then when he found Mary Pat's counterfeit money. He cracked a smile at Annie's jokes a few times. But other than that, poker face. So Beth is electrified by feeling her effect on him, by touching him, by his touch. She's throbbing for him. There's no other way to describe it. Annie accused her of being dried up twigs. Maybe she was right when it came to Dean. But Rio makes her feel wanted. She wants to be wanted. Like this. By him.
She shrugs off her coat, pushes off his and rips his shirt open, buttons flying.
"There are more," Beth whispers, running her hands over the tattoos that cover his chest, over his arms, over the outlines of his abs. He's firm and toned.
Rio mirrors Beth, strips off her shirt. She's wearing a black lacy bra that's mostly see-through, exposing kissable, pale flesh. Beth bought three lingerie sets – classier than the purple sequined thong Dean chose for his secretary - that made her feel worthy of something more than a cheating husband who sells cars in a pig suit. She'd also been more regular with her bikini waxes. She's grateful for both right now. Rio unhooks her bra and throws it to the side.
"I've wanted to touch you like this since the first time I saw you," he whispers, before lowering his mouth to one gorgeous, full breast, then the other. He feels a shudder ripple through her entire body as he draws a nipple into his mouth.
"Really?" Beth flashes to their first encounter in her kitchen. He was so calm, cool and collected as he asked about her backsplash, threatened her life. "So, pointing a gun to my head is your idea of foreplay?"
He smiles a wicked half grin.
"Have you thought about touching me, too?" He asks, his fingertips trail up and down her thighs.
"Yes." She holds his eyes with her matter-of-fact answer. Now is not the time for coyness. Beth lowers her hand in between their bodies and strokes him over his jeans. Rio grunts but doesn't get distracted. He unclasps her pants, and gently slides off the rest of her clothes.
"Have you imagined this, sweetheart?" He slides his fingers between her legs.
"Yes." Beth hears the need dripping from the syllable but she doesn't care. She knows the exact moment she first imagined it. Rio's strategy for dealing with Agent Turner was to tell him Rio was "hitting it." She'd been so flustered and aroused she practically guffawed. So when she told Agent Turner that she was having an affair with Rio because she was lonely and angry. That was the partial truth. She was lonely and angry. But she knew Agent Turner didn't believe her story. So she went all in with sordid details about how Rio pulled her panties down and they screwed on the kitchen table, on the breakfast dishes. That part was all her imagination. And fantasy. That night, she curled into bed with her old but reliable vibrator and came fast and hard.
"You know what else I've thought about, baby?" He brings his fingers to his lips to suck off her wetness.
"What?"
Rio lightly pushes her back onto the table and drops to his knees. Beth's gasp turns into a moan at the first pass of his tongue on her, a long stroke all the way up, spearing the throbbing peak, sucking her into his mouth. Then he reverses. She tastes likes sex and dreams and lust. Rio paces himself to learn what she likes. He is not a roses and poetry kind of guy, in or out of bed, but he loves women. And loves pleasuring women.
When she digs her fingernails into his shoulders he knows she likes it when he uses just the tip of his tongue and he devours her. He makes love to her with his lips and tongue. It's not long before she's grinding against his face. She's shameless, rolling her pelvis against him, desperate for more friction, more everything. He licks faster, more greedily until she locks her legs around his head, shaking.
"Oh my god," she whispers before an orgasm blasts through her. She hadn't been intimate like with that Dean in years. Pleasuring each other had been replaced with work, the DVR, making sure the kids left the house with pants on.
"You know what I'd like?" Beth breathily asks, words barely forming in her bliss-clouded brain.
"What's that, sweetheart?"
Beth answers her own question by sitting up and moving her hands to the waistband of his jeans. Her hands shake a little as she reaches for the fastening. The rasping metallic of his zipper echoes on the walls. She pulls them down with his briefs and smiles when she sees him for the first time, hard and heavy and thick. She always imagined him big. He didn't disappoint.
"Is that what you were doing all those times you looked at me with your sexy eyes? Wondering what it would feel like to wrap your hands around me?" his voice is a gravelly quiet whisper into her ear.
Beth nods. Fire spreads through every cell in Rio's body.
"Then touch me."
She runs a hand from tip to base. Rio hisses from the heat of her touch, a shudder ripples from head to toe, his head falls back. Beth explores him, running one finger over the head, spreading the bead of liquid. Rio can't stop a guttural moan that escapes when Beth gets on her knees.
She touches him with the tip of her tongue, swirling it around the head then licking his entire length. Her eyes stay on him as she takes her time, tastes every part of him. She opens wider and draws him in.
"That feels good, sweetheart." Rio sucks in his breath and wraps possessive fingers in her hair. He rocks into her mouth. Every inch of Rio's body sizzles, but before he gets totally lost in the magic of her mouth he steps back and helps her up onto the table.
Beth lies down and parts her legs for him. He spreads her legs wider with his hips, and enters her slowly, inch by inch. He stills a moment when he's insider her. She's tight and hot and silky and immediately clenches against him. The contrast of her porcelain skin against his darkness fascinates him. Rio holds her hips tight, finds the perfect angle, and it's like that the inevitable happens. They fuck each other.
It's hard and fast and urgent, as if they are running out of time. They move in a fevered unison. Always an observer of behavior, Rio watches Beth's face, studies her reactions. And Beth likes it when he strokes, pulls almost all the way out and then thrusts back deep and hard. Beth moans, letting him know she likes the rhythm, lifting her hips fast and wild, urging him on with thrusts that meet his. There are no words between them now. Sweat slicks their bodies, the room fills with the sounds of skin against skin, hardness against heat.
"Oh my god," Beth gasps, dragging her nails down his back.
"Mark me," Rio says, the pain intensifying his pleasure. He likes it rough, he likes seeing the evidence of rough. Rio doesn't want to be gentle anymore. She doesn't want him to be. Beth becomes the center of his world and he slams into her, barely in control.
Beth comes first, crying out his name, the world shattering into a million bright lights. A carnal white-hot current shoots down Rio's spine, lands in his groin and he lets go. He drives into her one last time, coming hard inside her with a loud grunt.
Beth blinks her eyes open as if waking from a dream. She wants to laugh. And cry. She doesn't have the energy to do either so she closes her eyes, ignoring the flashes of awareness of what she's just done.
Rio raises himself off Beth. When his gaze finds hers, he kisses her. A searing, deep, passionate kiss. His last taste of her. He knows this can't happen again. Tonight is about a moment of pleasure in his dark, aggressive world. Tonight has to be enough. But he's afraid he's addicted. That's the thing about slippery slopes. Take that first step and it's hard to stop from tumbling all the way down.