Laurel's apartment is warm, and her weight on Oliver is soft yet insistent as she straddles his lap, arms snaking around his neck. In the light of the candles her cheeks give off an almost celestial glow, and for a while they just gaze into each other's eyes, not saying anything
"You're thinking about him," Oliver says eventually. "Tommy."
Laurel bites her lip, hides her face in Oliver's neck, and when at last she speaks her words drip with guilt mingled with grief. "Would you hate me if I said I was?"
Oliver smiles despite himself. "There is not a force in the universe that could ever make me hate you, Laurel."
"That doesn't mean you're okay with it," she says, and she's still avoiding his gaze but her voice is thick with unshed tears. "I just… miss him. So much. And I loved him."
"I know you did," Oliver murmurs, "and it's okay."
"Really?" Laurel looks like she doesn't believe him, and it occurs to him that this is one of the few times he's being completely truthful with her. A tear falls from her eye and Oliver wipes it away gently.
"Really. I know what he meant to you. And I know you deserve better than me and he was so much better than me. But I'm not – I would never hold that against you. Not when he meant just as much to me." And when he meets her eyes she surprises him with a kiss, her mouth snatching at his with a kind of desperation that he can taste in her moan as it echoes in the back of his throat. She grinds her hips against him and he moans softly at that, feeling himself go hard against her. His hands go underneath her shirt, and finally he gets a little of what he's been craving since he got here - his roughened fingertips on the warm skin of her abdomen. "Do you want me to… stop? Slow down?" he asks.
Laurel shakes her head. "We've never taken things slow, Ollie."
"No, we never did," Oliver says softly, but still, he goes at an unhurried pace, fingers slipping into the waistband of her pants. She undoes the button, revealing her panties, and when he touches her through soaked cotton she exhales sharply, before kissing him again, parting his lips with her tongue and kissing him so hard that it leaves him breathless and groaning into her mouth.
When her hand goes down, between his legs, part of him wants to let go, lose all semblance of control and come right there, but he scrunches his eyes shut and then encloses her wrist with his hand, murmuring, you first. Her hand slackens, then, but still she lets it linger for a moment and his grip on her wrist tightens until she moves her hand away. Oliver slips his hand inside her panties, feeling blindly, letting his fingers slide inside her.
And it takes a moment to find his bearings - they only slept together a week ago but it feels like a lifetime already - but soon enough he knows what he's doing. He looks into her eyes while he finds her weak spot, and arousal shoots through him at her irises darkening. She kisses him, just as he moves his fingers away, searching now for her clit, and she moans needingly into his mouth when he finds it. He kisses her back, before his lips move to her cheek, bruising her neck, lightly biting into her collarbone and making her gasp and cry out.
When Oliver looks up they share a smile. It's not the kind of smile he's used to, because neither of them are smiling out of happiness or even pleasure, really. Their lips upturn, not really because of the wetness dripping onto Oliver's fingers or even the throbbing nub his nail scrapes against that makes her throw her head back and groan, but because of the ache that's in their hearts, and the fact that at last they both have an outlet, a release, catharsis, for the pain they're in.
That's why he's not surprised when the tears fall from Laurel's eyes just as she gets close. Oliver doesn't stop or slow down, just lets her bury her face into his chest. Fingers still at work, his hand goes into her hair, cradling the back of her head.
"It's okay," he says softly. "It's okay. I'm here. Shhh."
She comes with a muffled sob, wetting his shirt, her hips jerking forward uncontrollably while her legs tighten around his waist.
"Stay with me, please," she says, meeting his eyes, and her gaze is still watery, while her front teeth worry her bottom lip. Oliver gets up, hands going under her legs to support her, and he carries her to the couch.
He lowers her down and settles half on top of her, replying, "I always will."
And he wishes he could mean it, wishes he could stay with her, always and forever, instead of doing what he knows he has to do once he leaves her apartment.
But he knows he can't.
Still that doesn't stop him kissing her, tenderly, helping her take off his shirt, still wet with her tears, and he can taste salt and grief and - yes, love - on her lips as she kisses him back with everything in her. She flips them round so she's on top of him, now, and her hands run down his chest, touching his scars. She notices the new one on his shoulder that's still healing but she says nothing.
Instead she reaches down, the backs of her fingers lightly skimming his cock through his pants. Oliver closes his eyes at that, his groan deepening when she unbuttons his pants and undoes his fly and slips her hand inside his boxers so she can close her hand around him. She presses her thumb on his slit, spreading the droplet of his essence that dribbles out when she squeezes him.
"God, Laurel…"
He meets her eyes and the tears are gone now, replaced with a kind of hunger mixed with arousal. As she pumps him he's at her mercy, and she watches him unblinkingly until finally the air between them is thick enough to cut through with a hot knife and Oliver reaches forward, hand closing around her wrist, and kisses her. He thrusts into her hand, his hard-on pressing against her thigh, but she doesn't stop, doesn't stop running her hand up and down his length, not until he comes in his pants while whispering her name like a prayer.
"Laurel…" he says one last time, just as Laurel moves her hand off him to lift her arms in the air so she can take off her shirt. Oliver helps, pulling it off her, and he can't help but cup her breast through her bra, before Laurel reaches behind her and takes it off. He dips his head, kissing her collarbone again, tongue darting out to soothe her skin from the rasp of his stubble, until he reaches her right breast. With his other hand he deftly rolls her left nipple, making her groan softly and arch her back. All the while Oliver's kissing her right nipple, dragging his tongue along the underside of her breast and then to its centre, while his fingers continue their work.
When he pulls away she moans needingly, but then he gets to his feet and makes his way to her room. He kisses her the whole time, down the side of her face, her cheek, her lips, her neck, finally depositing her on her bed and dropping to his knees. Oliver pulls down Laurel's pants, taking her underwear with them, and once he's untangled them from her ankles he tosses the garments aside and kisses the inside of her knee.
His mouth moves up, to her thigh, and he's opening his mouth now, teeth gently sinking into hot skin, tongue licking away sweat. He mouths the words I love you into her flesh, a silent supplication uttered into her skin, and when he reaches her centre he finds she's dripping for him, so wet and so hot and so ready for his mouth to devour her, lap up every drop of her sticky essence. She's receptive to his touch, too, rocking her hips against his mouth, moaning his name. Laurel's honeyed taste is so familiar, the taste he's known and missed for years, and he can't get enough of it as his tongue finds her clit, encircles it.
Her breaths are coming out shorter now, and he raises his head, looks up at her, fingers replacing where his tongue was seconds before, and her eyes are closed, scrunched shut, as she tries to stave off her orgasm. His forefinger hits her weak spot and her back arches again and she lets out a keening cry.
"God, Ollie…"
He lowers his mouth to between her thighs again, tongue finding her clit and flicking against it, and that seems to be what tips her over the edge and to her climax. Oliver doesn't stop, just bears the way she thrusts into his mouth until finally her hips begin to still and she lies supine on the bed, completely and utterly spent.
After a minute Oliver crawls on top of her, taking off his pants as he does so, and Laurel lets him, tugging down his boxers too. Her hand closes around him once more, hand running down his length until her palm is pressing against the head of his cock, making him moan. Her hand is still enclosing him as he slides inside her, slowly, as gently as he can when he knows she's still sensitive.
He looks into her beautiful eyes, and she looks straight back, meeting his gaze and holding it, and somehow Oliver finds it impossible to look away. He thrusts inside her, and she bites back a cry at that, kissing him instead, teeth scraping his bottom lip. Her nails dig into his back, so hard that he's sure she's drawn blood, but Oliver doesn't care - part of him relishes it, relishes the primal roughness their lovemaking has suddenly taken on. He withdraws almost completely and then - without warning - slams into her, making her gasp, feeling her walls clamp down around him, warmer and tighter and wetter, and he's close now, and so is she, and when she comes it's with a cry that reverberates around the room. It's music to his ears, and that's all it takes for him to come inside her, as he buries his face in her neck and loses herself in the heady scent that is just so her.
He rolls off her, and she rests her head on his bare shoulder. "Ollie…"
"Yeah?"
"I -" Laurel says, but she hesitates, and Oliver looks at her questioningly. After a moment, she tears her gaze away from his. "I'm really glad you decided to come by."
"Me too," he tells her, and he follows suit as she gets under the covers. A part of him can't help but wonder, though, if she was going to maybe say something else - but that's the part of him that dares to dream about a future for the two of them, and he knows they don't have one.
"I think I needed that," she says suddenly.
"We needed that."
"I'm -" Laurel says, and again she hesitates. Again Oliver meets her eyes, tells her without words that it's okay. "I'm glad I have you. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't by my side."
I'm not going anywhere, he tries to say.
You can have me, he says without moving his lips.
"I told you I'd stay with you," he manages to say instead.
"You promise?"
He closes his eyes, wishes with all his heart that he could tell her the truth just this once. But he can't. He knows he can't. So he kisses the top of her head, crossing his fingers behind his back, and says, "I promise."