It's after midnight when Clarke gets home from her date. She unlocks the door as quietly as possible and slips her heels off as soon as she's inside the apartment. She doesn't want to wake Bellamy if he's fallen asleep on the couch again.
She needn't have worried. He's still awake, apparently enthralled by whatever he's watching on the TV, the rest of the room dark around him. Clarke stops in the doorway to watch him fondly. He's just in a shirt and boxers, and Clarke's stomach lurches at the sight of him. She's not sure how any one person can be that hot. He looks over, aware of her presence.
"Hey," he says, pressing the mute button on the remote. "How was your date?"
"It was good," Clarke smiles. She nods her head towards the TV. "You don't have to stop watching on my account."
"I wasn't really watching anyway," Bellamy shrugs, sitting up.
Clarke smirks. "Were you waiting up for me?"
Bellamy shrugs again. "Maybe. Maybe I was hoping your date didn't go too well."
"Lucky for you, then," Clarke says, her voice low and sultry. She slips her hands under her dress and tugs her panties down her legs, letting them fall to the floor. Bellamy watches her, his gaze heavy. Clarke saunters over to him, and settles herself over his lap, straddling him.
"Is this what you wanted?" she asks, her hands gripping his shoulders.
Bellamy nods. "Yes."
He surges up to kiss her, his hands slipping around to her back to pull her closer. Clarke drags her hands down Bellamy's chest, then slips them under his shirt, pushing it up, feeling every line of his toned chest and abs. She pulls the shirt over his head and tosses it aside, and then Bellamy's lips are on her neck.
His hands travel up her thighs and under her skirt, finding her slit slick and wet. He drags his finger between her pussy lips, and Clarke whines, bucking her hips against him. He presses his lips to her ear.
"You could be doing this with your date. Why me?" he whispers.
"You know why," Clarke huffs. His fingers have stilled, and Clarke wants nothing more than for him to keep going.
"Tell me," Bellamy growls.
"I wanted you," Clarke tells him. "You make me feel so good."
Bellamy's finger circles her clit and her hips surge forward to meet him.
"Were you thinking about me on your date?"
"No," Clarke lies.
"So doucheface got you this wet, huh?" Bellamy chuckles knowingly.
"Shut up and fuck me, Bellamy," Clarke groans. She grinds against him, feeling his hard cock through his sweatpants. He wants this just as much as she does. She revels in the moan that escapes his lips. Her hands reach for him, and she slides them into his boxers so she can free his cock. She positions herself over his hard length and lowers herself onto him gently, her fingernails digging into his back as his girth stretches her. She gasps audibly as he fills her, and her head drops to his shoulder. No matter how many times they do this, she forgets how big he is. But god, he feels so good inside her.
She rocks her hips slowly at first, enjoying the feel of him. Her orgasm builds gently, but then she quickens her pace, and he thrusts against her, and she's suddenly desperate for release.
"Bell," she moans. "I'm there, I'm nearly there."
Bellamy slides a hand between them and lets his fingers stimulate her clit. Clarke throws back her head as she comes, her body shuddering in pleasure. Bellamy grips her hips and thrusts into her a few more times before he reaches his own climax, groaning as he fills her with his come.
Clarke only stays on his lap a moment or two, just enough to catch her breath. Then she stands and lets her skirt fall back down.
"Thanks," she smiles.
"Anytime," Bellamy nods.
Clarke crosses the room to retrieve her panties and then heads down the hallway to her bedroom.
It's just sex, this thing between them. Really, really good sex. But still just sex. They're best friends, of course, and they love each other. But not that way. Friends with benefits. Whatever you want to call it.
Clarke will go one dates and see other people. And when she's done on the date she comes home and Bellamy gets her off. It's the perfect arrangement. She gets to go on a date and meet someone new, and she still gets to have sex at the end of the date, but without it being the awkward first time every time.
Although, she's pretty sure the first time with Bellamy hadn't been awkward at all. But it's just because she'd already known him so long, they were already so in sync with each other. It was easy.
She had come home from a date that she'd really been looking forward to, angry and upset. Somehow she'd let it slip to Bellamy that it wasn't even that she was that invested in the guy, it's just that she was finally about to have sex with him after their fifth date. Only, it was the same day she found out he had a girlfriend.
But Bellamy didn't have a girlfriend, and he was there and he offered, somewhat nonchalantly, and then it just kind of happened and it's been happening ever since. Whether the date is good or bad.
She never really ends up dating one person more than a couple of weeks anyway. Somehow they always seem to get spooked after they meet Bellamy, no matter how hard she tries to convince them that she and Bellamy are just friends. Who happen to have sex a lot. It's completely normal.
And if sometimes she thinks she has a feeling, like maybe her heart squeezes a little when she sees him, or her stomach flips over when their hands brush, well that's just her mind playing tricks on her. Mind tricks that she buries deep, deep down inside her and will never tell anyone about.
"You know, one day he's going to get a girlfriend, and then what are you going to do about it?" Raven warns her on a Saturday afternoon as they laze about in Clarke and Bellamy's apartment. The plan is that they're going out tonight, but as time goes on Clarke thinks it's less and less likely. They're on their second bottle of wine and their third bowl of popcorn.
"What do you mean, what am I going to do about it?"
"I mean if he gets a girlfriend how will you cope? Are you just going to pine for him for eternity or will you find someone else to bang and pretend it's him?" Raven asks.
Clarke considers this. "A) why would I pine? We're just having some fun sex. We both know that. B) he's not going to get a girlfriend."
"Why wouldn't he get a girlfriend? He's a catch."
"I know that."
"So why wouldn't he get a girlfriend?"
Clarke shrugs. "He doesn't want one."
"I think he does want one. And I think he wants it to be you."
Clarke snorts at that, ignoring the whirlwind in her stomach at Raven's words. "Please. Will you stop trying to make this something other than it is? If he wanted more than sex he would say something."
"Would you say something?"
"Huh?"
"If you wanted more than sex with him, would you say something to him?"
"Absolutely," Clarke says, though even in her fierce denial of any feelings she might have for him, she knows she's lying. She wouldn't say anything. She won't say anything.
"Liar."
Clarke throws a handful of popcorn at her.
"You want to come over and play video games tomorrow?" Raven asks.
"I can't. Bellamy and I are going to see a movie and then we're going grocery shopping."
Raven makes a face. "You're pathetic," she says.
Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe it's the universe trying to tell her something, but Bellamy is the one to have a date the following weekend.
He doesn't date that much, and come to think of it, Clarke has no idea whether or not he's having sex with anyone but her. Her stomach clenches at the thought of him with someone else. It's nothing.
Still, she's not worried about the date. It's one date, who cares? It doesn't mean he's suddenly in a monogamous relationship with—
"What's your dates name?" Clarke calls to Bellamy from the couch. He appears from the hallway, holding a tie.
"Echo." He holds the tie up. "Should I wear a tie?"
"Fuck no," Clarke says. "What, are you suddenly royalty or something?"
"Do you think royal people are the only people who wear ties?" Bellamy asks, amused.
"That and pretentious business men," Clarke tells him.
Bellamy shakes his head, laughing fondly. "You have a strange worldview, Clarke."
"I just think they're pointless," Clarke shrugs.
"I'm wearing the tie."
"It's your funeral," Clarke says. "It actually might be, because that's the only other time people wear ties."
"Maybe it's my wedding."
Clarke's eyes bulge. Bellamy laughs at her reaction, messing up his tie so he has to start over.
"Please, Clarke. You really think I'm about to elope with the woman I picked up at a bar last weekend? We haven't even had a proper date."
Raven and Clarke had ended up staying in last weekend. Bellamy went out with Murphy, and apparently met some chick named Echo. Clarke wishes Raven had convinced her to go out after all.
"Does Echo know you're not exclusive?" Clarke asks, trying to sound nonchalant.
"You asking if I'm going to come home and fuck you tonight?"
Clarke shrugs, but his words have already got her blood racing and her pussy throbbing. "Maybe."
"Well, I can't have sex with her on the first date now, can I?" Bellamy winks. "Gotta make her wait for it."
Clarke rolls her eyes. "You're hilarious. Didn't you fuck her last weekend?" She tries not to sound bitter.
"If I didn't know better I'd think you were jealous," Bellamy says, finally getting his tie right. He walks over to Clarke and stands in front of her. She looks up at him like a pouty child. Bellamy leans down and presses his lips to her ear.
"Don't worry," he says. "I haven't fucked her yet and I'm all yours tonight. Promise."
Clarke tries not to look too pleased.
Clarke tries to pretend she's not waiting up for him. She goes to her room and tries to read, but she just keeps reading the same line over and over, in between checking the time on her phone.
Her ears prick when she hears keys in the front door. She sits up, listening for voices. Did he bring her home with him?
Clarke checks the time. 11:47. She doesn't know if that means the date went well or not.
From the sounds of it, he's alone. She hears his heavy footsteps down the hallway and her heart beats harder the closer he gets. She's wet already, has been for hours, thinking about what he's going to do to her when he gets home.
He stops in her opened doorway. His tie is loosened but still on. It's actually kind of hot, now that she thinks about it. She puts her book down.
"You're home," she says. Bellamy nods. "How was your date with Echidna?" she asks. She spent half an hour coming up with a suitably insulting name for Bellamy's date. She's not petty or childish at all.
Bellamy raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment on Clarke's nickname for Echo. "It was really good. I'm seeing her again on Tuesday."
"That good, huh?" Clarke says.
"Yeah."
"Yet you're here and it's not even midnight. Without Echo."
"Well, I did promise you," he says. Clarke sits up on her knees.
"Come over here then," she says, breathless. Bellamy grins as he crosses the room, and Clarke scoots forward so she's on the end of her bed. She reaches for his tie and pulls him in to kiss him.
"I changed my mind about the tie," she says. "I like it a lot."
"Is that right?" Bellamy murmurs. Clarke nods, and Bellamy kisses her again, and Clarke pulls him onto the bed with his tie, with the intention of fucking him so good he forgets all about his dumb date with Echo.
Her hands are immediately at his fly, undoing his pants so she can get her hands on his cock. She's pleased to find him hard already. Bellamy pulls her pyjama shorts down and Clarke lies back on the bed. Bellamy's lips press against her bare stomach, trailing lower and lower, the throbbing between her legs getting stronger.
Bellamy's tongue delves between her folds and she whines, arching her back, pressing her pussy against his face. He fucks her with his tongue and she writhes beneath him, finding herself desperate for relief. He makes her come quickly, and then he has his cock at her entrance. She spreads her legs wider for him and guides him inside her, her hands fisting in the sheets beneath her.
"Fuck me, Bellamy," she pants. He holds her wrists down as he drives into her, hard and fast and nothing else exists for Clarke except the feel of his large cock hammering into her, making her lose her mind with pleasure.
Incoherent sounds leave Clarke's mouth as her orgasm crashes over her. Bellamy keeps going.
"Are you close?" Clarke whines.
"Yeah, baby," Bellamy whispers, and for some fucked up reason, the sound of him calling her baby almost makes her come again. And then Bellamy grunts loudly, and he's coming holding his cock deep inside her as he climaxes.
He kisses her again before he leaves.
No matter where they have sex, whether it's Clarke's bed, or Bellamy's, or the couch, or the shower, or the floor, they never sleep in each other's beds. So Clarke wakes up in her own bed, without Bellamy. He must have taken a little piece of her with him when he left, because she aches. She aches right in her chest where her heart is.
For the first time, she's unable to ignore it. It's Echo's fault. And Raven's. Mostly Raven. If Raven hadn't put stupid thoughts in Clarke's head about Bellamy getting a girlfriend she wouldn't feel like this. Except maybe she would, because in two days Bellamy is going on yet another date with Echo, and Clarke can't remember the last time he did that.
Sure, she dates all the time. But it never leads to anything. And it's not like she doesn't think he should date. It's just that he usually doesn't, and that means something has changed, and she doesn't want it to. Because maybe, just maybe, her feelings about Bellamy mean more than she's been letting on, and perhaps she's actually totally in love with him. Maybe.
She tells herself she's going to tell him. Right after this thing with Echo blows over, which Clarke is sure it will, very soon. Probably after the next date he has with her.
Except Clarke is totally wrong. Bellamy has a great time with Echo again and again and again, and then he's been on five dates with her in two weeks and Clarke is totally miserable.
She's doing her best not to let Bellamy know how miserable she is, and she thinks she's doing an okay job.
But the thing is, she'd begged him to fuck her after his third date with Echo, and he'd pulled out a condom. Which they don't normally use, because they've established that they're both clean and Clarke is on the pill. But this time he pulls out a condom, which means he fucked Echo without one, and Clarke suddenly isn't in the mood anymore.
She tells him to get back to her once he's sure he's clean again, and then she goes to her room and cries as silently as she can. She feels like a pathetic fool, because so what if he had sex with Echo, right? He's perfectly within his rights to. And yet the knowledge leaves her feeling so hollow inside that she can barely breathe.
Clarke is in the kitchen doing dishes on a Sunday morning when the door buzzer goes off. Bellamy gets it. It's Echo. They have another date.
Bellamy buzzes her up and Clarke scrubs at the pan she's washing a little harder. She tenses up when she hears the door open, and maybe she should be a nice person and go and introduce herself to this Echo, but being a nice person isn't all it's cracked up to be.
"Clarke." Bellamy's voice startles her and she whips her head around to see what must be Echo standing just inside the kitchen and Bellamy behind her in the doorway. "This is Echo."
Clarke stares at her for a moment. She's tall, and thin, and she has these full gorgeous lips and cascading brown hair. Exactly Bellamy's type. Everything Clarke is not.
Clarke pulls her hands from the dishwater and wipes them on her jeans before holding a hand out for Echo to shake.
"I'm Clarke," she says. Echo shakes her hand.
"Nice to meet you, Clarke," Echo smiles. "I've heard a lot about Bellamy's best friend Clarke."
Clarke's eyes flick to Bellamy's and he looks away. "Don't believe everything you hear," Clarke jokes.
"I've just got to go and grab my jacket and shoes," Bellamy says. "Won't be long."
Echo nods and Bellamy disappears.
"Can I get you anything to drink?" Clarke offers. Apparently she can be nice after all.
Echo shakes her head. "No, we'll be going in a minute."
"Right."
There's an awkward silence before Clarke speaks again. "So how are things going with you and Bellamy? I have to admit he doesn't talk about you that much."
If Echo is offended by this statement she doesn't show it. "Great actually," Echo beams. Clarke tries not to scowl. Echo lowers her voice and gets a mischievous look on her face. "Took me ages to get him into bed though. He was holding out on me," she laughs.
"He's good, isn't he?" Clarke says. She's not sure what makes her say it. Jealousy maybe. To get a reaction from Echo. The look on Echo's face doesn't disappoint.
"You and Bellamy…?" Echo says, uncertain. Maybe Clarke should feel guilty, but instead she just feels triumph. Like she's won this round.
Clarke nods. "He didn't tell you?"
Echo purses her lips. She's annoyed, Clarke can tell. Bellamy appears in the doorway again.
"Ready to go?" he says to Echo. Echo turns to him.
"Can we talk for a minute? In your room?" she says. Bellamy's smiles drops. He looks to Clarke, confused. Clarke shrugs.
Bellamy nods at Echo. "Sure," he says. He throws one last look over his shoulder at Clarke as he leads Echo to his room.
Clarke doesn't know what they're saying. They don't yell, and she's not quite immature enough to eavesdrop. She'll just ask Bellamy when they're done. She waits on the couch, and eventually Echo stalks past her without saying a word, and then she's gone.
Bellamy is right behind her, but he doesn't follow her out the door. Instead he stops in front of Clarke. He looks livid. Clarke stands up. Whatever this argument is going to be, she's going to be ready for it.
"What happened?" she asks.
"What happened?" Bellamy repeats, sardonically. "You told Echo that you and I fucked."
"Well, we did!" Clarke says defensively.
"It wasn't your place to tell her."
"You said she knew you guys weren't exclusive! I thought you were being honest with her!" Clarke yells.
"I was. She did know we weren't exclusive. But she didn't know about you specifically," Bellamy groans.
"What difference does it make if it's me, or anyone else?"
Bellamy pauses at that. "Because."
"Because? Not exactly a solid reason, Bellamy."
Bellamy's jaw tightens, and Clarke sighs dramatically. "What exactly did Echo say? Maybe you can still fix it."
Bellamy huffs. "She said that you and I are in a relationship."
"What? What does that even mean?"
Bellamy throws his hands up. "I don't know, Clarke." He softens, looks at her with those big brown eyes, and Clarke's insides melt. "Maybe she's right."
Clarke swallows. Her heart bangs against her ribcage. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… we're best friends. We have sex all the time. We live together. We cook together, we watch TV together, we do grocery shopping together. Isn't that basically a relationship?" Bellamy says.
"So… are you saying we should stop?" Clarke asks. That's the only way he's going to get Echo back.
But he shakes his head. Clarke stares at him.
"What if…" he starts. "What if we actually tried being in a relationship?"
"You want to be, like… my boyfriend?" Clarke screws up her nose.
"Or not," Bellamy says quickly. "Whatever you want. But I feel like you should know… that uh, I'm in love with you. Probably should have led with that. Or actually told you a long time ago. God, I'm sorry."
Clarke smiles. "What are you sorry for?"
"Fucking this up. Telling you things you don't want to hear."
Clarke shakes her head. "You want to know why I told Echo about us?" Bellamy nods. "I was jealous. And not just that you found someone else to have sex with."
"Yeah?"
Clarke nods. "I kind of love you too."
"So we're doing this?"
"We're doing this," Clarke confirms. Bellamy grins, and he scoops her up into her arms, and Clarke laughs as he spins her around.
"Where are you taking me?" she asks.
"My room. We're having our first sex as a couple."
He carries her to his room, and Clarke swears he fucks her better than he ever has before. And then he fucks her over and over again, until they're both too worn out to move. And this time she stays in his bed, and wakes up in his arms in the morning.