Hours
It took exactly three hours from Robin to go from wanting to have sex with Simon to literally having sex with Barney Stinson. And it was nothing like she expected.
What she expected was rough and tumble and him leaving before the sweat had cooled on her skin.
What she got was passion and experience and him sticking around until she was boneless and sated and gasping for mercy.
What she expected was for him to sneak out before dawn.
But in the end it was she who was forced to go cold on him, to protect her own sanity.
Days
It took six days for Barney's emotions to swing from resentment towards to Ted to confusion about Robin.
And he didn't even know he still had emotions. Not emotions for a chick-he'd-banged.
But he found himself, in the small hours, alone in bed and half-asleep, waking slowly to find his own dick growing stiff in his fist to the memory of Robin Scherbatsky straddling his lap, breasts bouncing against his palms, her screaming his name.
That would have been okay… if it didn't happen every goddamn morning.
It would have been okay, if he didn't feel a dull ache inside.
Weeks
It took four weeks for Robin to get to the stage where she would do practically anything to shut him up.
Barney Stinson just being in hospital would be a pitiful sight indeed. Barney Stinson in constant pain was heart-breaking.
Barney Stinson immobilised by casts and constantly bitching about his lack-of sex was just infuriating.
In the end Robin checked the corridor, drew the blinds, stuck her hand under the blanket and jacked him off until he squeezed his eyes closed and came hot and hard over her hand.
The minute of blissed-out silence that followed was totally worth it.
Months
Nine months after he admitted that he loved her, Barney finally got Robin into bed a second time.
(He didn't count the hallucinogenic hand-job she'd given him in hospital, still wondering if that was a fantasy brought on by drugs or if she was just being a good bro.)
Robin had given him the "I'm not that easy" spiel. But he'd just taken her hand, dragged her to her room, and nailed her to the mattress.
She'd jumped him on the couch.
He'd pinned her against the refrigerator.
It wasn't making up for lost time.
It was racing the clock.
Years
Ten years after Barney Stinson got his heart broken, smashed and trampled into tiny shards, he found a woman who could like him again; maybe even love him.
He found a woman who could even make him like himself.
But more importantly, he found a woman who could give him the best head he'd ever had!
She ran her tongue up and down and over, like she was licking a popsicle, circling the head, then sucking hard.
"Hey Scherbatsky," he said. She glanced up at him. "Wanna go steady?"
The vibrations from her laugh were enough to make him come.
Forever
Three months with Barney is forever. With him inside of her, one orgasm can feel like an eternity.
Robin thinks that she probably needs to review her entire understanding of the sex-time continuum.
And it's not like either of them look to the future. Lying back on his bed, her thighs wrapped around his head, his tongue slithering inside her, the ceiling is about as far as her horizons are willing to stretch. She doesn't really want to move.
Now is all that matters and forever doesn't scare her.
Not if it's just a succession of nows like this one.
