title: leave nothing out
summary: Red Charming brothel AU. Keep blending my heart into deeper shapes.
notes: All Ali's Fault. And Chi is a queen. THE QUEEN OF BEAN.
It's been a long time since that farm in Iowa and his mother's brow creased with worry as she insisted that he marry into the Grainger family and sacrifice himself to save their farm.
It's been a long time since he extolled that "As poor as we are, love is one thing I can afford."
Or rather, what many others could afford.
It isn't jaded cynicism that makes him chuckle at that thought. It's the feeling of Ruby's heart beating soft thump, thump, thumps beneath his hand and the knowledge within her careful smile and her hand, resting so close to his thigh that it's almost touching - enough to make the almost miniscule distance feel like miles of hot, tight air trapping the two of them in an inescapable embrace. The knowledge, as he curves his hand up to cup her cheek, brushes his thumb to her chin and pushes away two bright red strands of hair, that love is not something to be bought or sold, it is not something to be afforded.
But love - the soft parting of Ruby's ruby red lips and the green of her eyes, like fairy lights and forest canopies in the full moon's glow - love cannot be bartered because love is meant to be shared in the touch of his nose to her cheek, Ruby's whisper of his name, and her fingers finally on his thigh, warm and sure.
Familiar heat coils low in his belly and he kisses her chin, her cheek, her nose until her hand is no longer resting, but gripping his thigh. He mouths at her ear and enjoys the press of her face into his palm.
His whisper comes like ritual, like the rites of Aphrodite and Eros and the celebration of love in its purest form, with none of the posturing and formalities, just the giving of himself for her, to her.
"Tell me, Ruby. Tell me what you want. Very specifically. Leave nothing out."
She pulls his hand from her face and it's whiplash, not the sharp way she draws his head back, hand fisted in his hair, but the way her smile cracks her face, green eyes alight with speckles of gold. Whiplash, the way she licks her bottom lip like she's tasting the blood of a fresh kill and not just lipstick. Whiplash, the flash of teeth, and her words, "I want you, David."
Her hand tightens in his hair. "Very specifically, I want you on your knees, your face between my legs and your mouth where it belongs."
David laughs, and when she releases him, he follows to a tee.
Well, almost. He kisses her mouth first, lets his lips linger on hers so that when he finally pulls away, he can't be certain whether her lips are red with lipstick or red with the same heat itching beneath his skin.
He kneels.
She spreads her legs, but it's his hands that pull her to the edge of the bed and his hands - brushing the inner curves of her thighs, dampened with heat and sweat and - that push up her skirt and reveal the lacy black thong underneath.
A match to the bra that peeks out of her half unbuttoned shirt when he looks up to catch her gaze. Her fingers don't still in their slow move downwards, but she graces him with a smile of acknowledgement. A smile that is at once the soft, carefulness of their shared love, and the demanding need of it.
He is acutely aware of her gaze on his throat and the pulsing of his blood there and lower when he ducks his head and licks at the wet scrap of fabric. He tastes Ruby there, so strong that it is overpowering love, love, lust -
The groan that escapes him when he tugs her thong aside with his teeth is matched by the growl she lets loose.
David's tongue is on her before her hands are on him. He smears wetness, spit and her release, all over her hot clit. Sucking the throbbing bundle in his mouth, he forgoes breathing in favour of her drinking her down, the sweet juices and the burn of his oxygen deprived lungs like drinking ambrosia straight from the fountains of Mount Olympus.
He pulls back for two heavy gasps of air. David knows he's flying too close to the sun, chasing heights he was never meant to reach, but the lure of Aphrodite - the taste of Ruby, the feeling of her knees squeezing his shoulders, her hands clawing at his neck, gripping his hair, and the litany of growls , only broken by gasps of his name and cries of more
- David is still just a Shepherd on that farm in Iowa, swearing an oath to love.
Though, now he gives that oath with the press of his tongue between Ruby's wet folds and not naive words.
Her orgasm leaves them both shaking. He breathes into her soaked skin, his heart beating in time with the pulsing aftershocks of her orgasm. Ruby's hands are still on him, but it's not about control now - her fingers smooth over the abraded skin of his neck, her fingers carding through his sweat damp hair.
When she pulls him up, it's less of a demand than it is a request, the very same he asked of her only minutes - minutes? hours? days? months? - before.
She presses him between her spread thighs, so that he's perched over her on the bed, his hands gripping the cool sheets on either side of her. Ruby cups his face and her eyes are fixed on his, more gold than green, but like forests touched by Autumn and the eyes of wolves, gazing lovingly at the full face of the moon.
"Tell me what you want, David."
He doesn't have to think. That's what he always got wrong in the past when he thought of love. That selling it, he'd have to think, weigh the chasms of his heart and give it a price worth the depths of his feelings - enough grain to last the winter, food to fill both his mother and him for the next couple of years, the electric wiring and the plumbing and gas for the oven. So much thought for something that couldn't possibly be studied and catalogued or priced.
But love is meant to be shared, and sharing has always come as easy to David as his reply, "I have all that I could ever want, right here, right now, with you," and the pressing of his still Ruby-wet lips to hers, like an oath sworn in blood and sweat and the soft thump, thump, thumping of her heart.
