"Come on, please god, one hour, that's all we want," Will sighed as the lock flashed red, over and over.
"It's ok," Alicia smiled, leaning against the wall.
It's ok? He thought. Had she changed her mind?
"I'm gonna go downstairs and get a new key. Thirty seconds," he said, as assuredly as he could muster.
As he took a step back, she grabbed his arm and met his eyes.
"What?" he asked.
He felt so sure that she was relieved by the reluctant lock; that she was waiting to run like she had from his office a year earlier. His mind flashed forward to an image of his future self, sat at his desk, and thinking ruefully about how an elevator with all its buttons pressed and a broken key card gave Alicia one too many opportunities to back away from what she really wanted. Then it flashed back to the first time that he had locked eyes with her; at party in 1L he had heard a throaty laugh so free and expansive that he had turned, smiling, to see a young woman with dark hair and dark eyes and he didn't know her, but he knew he wanted to…
Now, instead of running, Alicia moved close to Will and took the key from his hand, a coy smile curling her lips as she flipped it and slid it into the lock. It flashed green. The door was open, and Will's stomach dropped. He had been so lost in what he thought he knew of Alicia's thoughts that he had barely noticed his own raging storm of emotions.
As he tried to parse desire from need from fear from hope, she walked through the door into the suite, brazen and sure. He followed her, his heart pounding in his chest, in his ears, in his throat.
She stopped, in the middle of the room, and stood still, facing away from him. He felt hopelessly overwhelmed, lost in want and hurt, and fighting a storm of feelings that had raged for almost fifteen years. This was Alicia, and she was here, with him. He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her stomach, pulling her flush to him, and she moaned feeling his desire against her. He wanted her body, god knows he had never wanted – needed – anyone like he did in that moment, but he wanted so much more of her, and he felt, deep down, that what he wanted was not on offer and he felt sad even while he felt euphoric.
Alicia was glad that Will was behind her and that he couldn't see her face. She was terrified. She was terrified of how much she wanted him, terrified of what this night would do – to their relationship, to her job, to the façade that she had labored tirelessly to drape over the shattered shards of her life.
But her need was stronger than her anxiety – she only hoped he sensed the former when he span her around to face him and kissed her. His kiss was tentative at first, cautious. She pulled his hips closer to hers and she opened her mouth to him, granting whatever permission he was seeking. His tongue found hers and the low purr she gave made his groin clench.
She pushed his jacket back off his shoulders, and he delicately slid hers off too, draping them both over a plush chair. He grabbed her back to him, not delicate now but hungry, running his hands firmly up and down whatever part of her he could reach and all the while kissing her, kissing her. The floodgates of his need were slammed wide open now, and he held the back of her head still to push his tongue deeper into her mouth. Her knees buckled slightly at the intensity, and he held her up with an arm locked tight around her waist.
Her hands without thinking took off his tie and fumbled instinctively for his buttons, and she tried to stop her fingers trembling as she undressed him. Could she do this? Would she? For so long she had tried to temper her attraction to Will, ignoring it at Georgetown when it was inconvenient, and again at Lockhart Gardner, when it was even more so. She had wanted him all the while, and the dampened down desire burned furiously now.
Fifteen years, she thought, as he turned her around and unzipped her dress, bending down with it as it fell to the floor. She stepped out of her heels. Fifteen years she had wanted him, but fifteen years too since she had been with anyone besides her husband. She swallowed, ears ringing with lust and with panic.
Will's hands sliding back up her body soothed her, and when he pressed himself against her she could feel again the strength of his want. Wanted was the best thing that he could make her feel, after the affairs had crushed her self-worth into doubt, and replaced her carefree confidence with consuming rejection.
She was afraid that she would not be enough for Will, that maybe he would not really want her. Peter had said he did, maybe he thought he did, but he also wanted women that were all the things that she was not. How undesirable she must have been, she felt, for him to seek out so much more, so many times. She had not felt wanted for…
"Alicia," Will breathed, kissing her neck and snapping her from her plaintive reverie.
She looked into his eyes, black with passion, and she melted at the unmistakable pleading on his face. He wanted her, and she wanted him. She slipped off his belt, and soon they stood before one another, in their underwear, both deluged with lust and apprehension. Will pulled her roughly to him and she felt a sudden hand on her thigh, and then between them. He held her gaze as he climbed his fingers up to where he made her breath catch – he rubbed her through the black lace, wet already – and he watched her take what he was giving her.
He walked her backwards until she perched on the edge of the bed. He pulled her panties down and off, and had his hand back on her within a second. His fingers slipped eagerly over her and the feel of her so slick and ready made him groan. She lay back on the bed, and he hovered over her as he worked at her with his determined hand. She gasped as he pushed two fingers into her and curled them up to stroke her front wall.
"Will…" She cried.
As his fingers moved inside her, he rubbed firm wet circles over her clit with his thumb and he stared at her face. He watched for when she creased her forehead, or bit her lip; he listened for each throaty moan or call of his name.
He watched her and he learned her and when he felt her walls start to flutter around his hand, he told her, "Let me feel you come," in a voice so low and stern and calm that it tripped her over the edge, and as he rubbed and curled, she closed her eyes tight as her whole body pulsed with pleasure and release.
Will smiled. He did that. Here was Alicia, so strong and composed, so poised and controlled, writhing and moaning against his hand, as he was the one to gratify her. He did that.
Alicia smiled as she opened her eyes and saw him smiling, and she lifted her head to kiss him but he backed away. Without moving his fingers from her, he knelt slowly down onto the soft, thick carpet at the foot the bed, and kissed her inner thighs – the skin so soft and pale and thin – and he looked up to meet her eyes as he ran his warm tongue over where his thumb had been.
"Oh god, Will, oh god…" she cried out. He licked up and down her clit as his fingers pushed into her spot. She fought to find air to breathe as her pleasure swelled almost into discomfort; so extreme were the sensations and so intense the emotions. But he wanted more.
He drew his fingers out of her and she met his gaze as he shifted his head lower. He spread her apart with his hand and he lapped slowly up the length of her, and she could no longer see she could only feel. Her legs fell limp over his shoulders and he was intoxicated by her, by the taste of her, and by how powerful he felt to turn her on this way.
He pushed his tongue all the way into her, as far as he could, burying his face against the very core of this woman. This woman who he loved, he knew; this woman who he could never get enough of. But he would try. With his hungry tongue he fucked her, luxuriating in the intimacy, and in the way her legs tensed now aside his head. He was drowning in her, yet it was only her that helped him breathe.
Her yelps went straight to his groin, which burned at the knowledge that he was making her cry out and wriggle and ball her hands into his hair to pull him into her.
"…Now," she said, rousing all her strength to sit up somewhat. "I want you, now," Alicia said, reaching for him and pulling him to lie on top of her. He removed her bra and massaged her breasts until she pushed his boxers down around his throbbing erection and grabbed the back of his head to kiss him.
"Do we need…?" he pulled back.
"I have an IUD," she said – she had gotten a new one just weeks before the Kalinda revelation had left her utterly broken. "And I…" she paused, "am in good heath," she said, slyly, almost teasing.
He nodded. "Alright, me too," he grinned, but then he swallowed, hard and dry, in anticipation of what he was about to feel.
Their eyes locked as he used his hand to line them up, his ferocious yearning matched by hers. As he slid himself into her, the hairs on his neck stood up, as a pelt of goose pimples covered his whole body at the sublime ecstasy – physical and emotional – of being joined with Alicia in this way.
Her sighs and groans directed him as he gave himself earnestly to her. With his left hand he cradled the back of her head, and with his right he laced his fingers with hers.
He stared at her face, stunned by her all the while. "I…" he said, and then choked back the other two words that he didn't dare say. "You're… you're perfect." He settled on that and he hoped that she knew. She smiled, a sad and happy smile, and she squeezed their entwined hands tighter together. In trade for his words held back he made love to her, feeling the deepest parts of her that he could reach, and cherishing her as profoundly as he knew how.
He covered her lips, open and wanting, with his own, and pushed his tongue through them. She moaned into his mouth and responded by grinding her hips against him and meeting him thrust for thrust. Now it was his time to moan into her as their bodies slid together, building up one another's pleasure.
He caught her tongue softly in his teeth and sucked deeply. He felt her core clench around him in response, and so he quickened his pace – sharper, deeper - as he caressed all the while her tongue with his. He knew she was close and he steeled himself to wait – he had been close since he had pressed her into the wall of the elevator.
With her free hand she grabbed at his back and bucked her hips as her climax approached. His long, hard thrusts sent her powerfully into pieces. As she came, crying out, she took him with her, and he released his seed deep into her as he called out her name.
They lay still together for a silent while, coming down from the highest of heights. He wanted to stare into her perfect eyes and never move. But he did not want to overstay his welcome, even though he had never felt more home in his life. He kissed her nose, and then her cheek.
"Absolutely perfect," he whispered into her ear.
She moved her hand from his neck to his lower back, holding him firmly in place inside her. He smiled to himself, and relaxed. He sucked lightly at her neck and she sighed at the feeling of his mouth on her flushed throat.
Then he kissed her mouth, deeply, lovingly. She stroked her hands through his hair, softly, tenderly. It was all so slow and so gentle, and filled with all the things that they could not say and feelings they could not manage.
He was ready now to move from her, kissing her open mouth once more and withdrawing slowly. He lay back and he pulled her to him. He spooned her and she felt like she had never been held so tightly. He had a leg over her legs, and a hand pressed against her chest.
She was terrified of what they had just done, and of how right it felt, and how much she wanted it again and again, and him, again and again. She was terrified of how strongly her heart was thudding, and how strongly his was too, against her back.
She did not know that he felt betrayed by his pounding heart that thumped with the intensity of his adoration.
She did not know how much he wanted to protect her, and how the thought of how hurt she must once have been made him want to cry.
She did not know how desperately scared he was of how he would feel when this – whatever it was – would inevitably end. She didn't know afraid he felt about her leaving tonight, or how much he wanted answers from her; commitments, promises.
Instead, she closed her eyes as his hand rubbed circles on her stomach.
"Baby," he sighed as he held her. He kissed the top of her head and stroked her earlobe between his finger and thumb and she almost cried with the tenderness of it all.
She basked in the bliss that they had built together, and so did he. Separately, but together, they put their fears aside, and felt only fulfillment, comfort, and tender closeness. This was their good timing, if only for an hour.