"Come on, you used to kick my arse," he goaded her with a dangerously sexy smile.
"I was nine! I haven't played in years!" she protested.
They were making their way back to his flat, cutting through the park where they found an abandoned football.
"No," he shook his head, eyes still glinting with the threat of a dare. "I don't believe you. You fought so hard to be on that team, there's no way you'd give it up."
She looked down bashfully, smiling as she recalled her stubborn eight year old self.
He was right. Gwen had watched every practice session at the park across from her house through her bedroom window until it wasn't enough. Then she'd watched from the sidewalk, fingers laced through the chain-link fence, clutching tightly as she tracked the ball's movement longingly. Soon enough, she was kicking at the base of the fence, yearning to feel the connection of the ball against the powerful drive of her small foot.
Then the day came when the ball breached the fence. Her heart was flying as she seized her chance, grabbing the ball and sprinting onto the field with it, choosing a goal and making a run for it. The boys stood around, unsure of what to do, until someone called out "Well, someone stop her! She's going to make it!"
That was all a scrawny blonde boy needed to hear; he took off after her, bony elbows jutting into her side as he fought to possess the ball. He was surprised when she offered resistance, shoving her shoulder into his with just as much force. They surged forward, tumbling against one another, each fighting for control, until at last she had reached the goal and made a clear shot that the keeper couldn't block.
She threw her arms up in victory as a chorus of disappointed groans issued from the group of boys behind her.
And then there was silence. Her smile slipped slowly as she turned around to face the team, finding herself suddenly the subject of intense scrutiny.
No one said a word.
Except him. The boy she'd been battling shoved himself up from the ground, his practice uniform thoroughly muddied.
"That was really good," he conceded sincerely, approaching Gwen. She turned to face him, smiling.
"Thanks. Do you mind if I play?"
But before the boy could respond, the team's coach was approaching her.
"Excuse me, we're trying to have a practice here, young lady. Where is your mum?"
Gwen shook her head in confusion. What did it matter where her mum was?
"At home. Can't I play?"
"I'm afraid we're rather on a busy schedule. This is a boys only team. Now, I think you should go home."
"Come on, Mr. Morrison, can't she play with us? She's really good."
"I'm sorry, Arthur, it's against the rules. And we're running out of time." He turned to Gwen once more, "I'm sorry, sweetheart. Where do you live?"
Gwen pointed across the park, indicating her small white house across the street.
Mr. Morrison nodded, effectively dismissing her, then turned back to the others to direct them in another drill.
Gwen lingered there a moment, feeling more strongly than ever that the world was an unfair place. How could they not let her play? She knew she was better than most of the boys on the team.
"I'm sorry," her new acquaintance said softly, giving her one last sulking look before dragging his feet to rejoin his teammates.
"I cried for days," Gwen recalled, bringing herself back to the present.
Arthur frowned in sympathy, setting the ball down where he had been juggling it skillfully. "Maybe, but we never saw that. You just showed up every day and interfered until Morrison demanded to speak to your parents."
She laughed at that. It was true, she remembered the look of surprise on her mother's face when she'd learned that her little Guinevere had been so troublesome. But after hearing about her daughter's determination, she'd given the coach an earful for not offering an option for girls and somehow talked him into accepting Gwen on the boys team.
"I was the best, wasn't I?" she grinned proudly.
"Well, I'd say I was a very close second," he smirked back at her. Arthur's competitiveness had always pushed Gwen to be the best she could be. It was what brought them together; what eventually made them inseparable, much to their parents' dismay.
"Hmm...we'll see about that now, shall we, Pendragon?" She cocked an eyebrow as she pounced to steal the ball from where it rested beneath his foot.
He almost felt like a kid again, lying beneath the billowing slope of white sheets they'd draped over the furniture of his flat in a makeshift fort.
They used to do this. Cast blankets and sheets haphazardly about the room until they had erected some sort of loose tent-like structure that only the two of them could fit under. Something about the small space had been completely magical to him, as if the outside world ceased to exist. They could spend hours in their little world talking, laughing, pretending, eventually sleeping.
His eyes traced the pattern of dappled sunlight dancing over the makeshift ceiling, and he almost felt like a kid again, remembering how it used to be.
Almost, he thought significantly, turning his head to face the dusky-skinned goddess beside him. She was stretched out like a cat on her stomach, barely covered with a thin blanket tangled loosely around her lower body.
She was certainly different. The narrow, bony little girl's body he remembered had ripened magnificently in all the right places in womanhood. Her breasts sweet, and perfectly formed to fit in his grasp (with a little tantalizing extra to spill over, tempting his mouth). The plane of smooth skin that stretched over her waist. Her hips, much improved, he thought as he admired how they flared out slightly, creating an appetizing curve. Her legs, dear lord, she could keep those wrapped around him for days and he would never tire of the feel of them. Even her feet were slender and graceful, where once stubby little toes had kicked and prodded against his shins.
He met her twinkling gaze, half of her face tucked into an outstretched arm and covered by the cascade of her wild curls.
He could still see, if he looked hard enough, the girl that she was. But her face was softer, broader. He recognized the sweet spatter of freckles stretching across her cheekbones and the widened bridge of her nose, but new to him were the feminine eyebrows that arched elegantly over her beguiling, catlike eyes. He dared not contemplate her lips; they were much too diverting.
And yet she was still undeniably Gwen.
It was just that now she was so...so lush, he thought. So lovely. When had she become this...creature, capable of affecting him this way?
He knew he wasn't the first to notice, judging by the prowess she'd recently demonstrated (several times, at that), and he suddenly felt irrationally jealous of all the men that must have noticed her in his absence.
Turning his body toward her, he ghosted a hand up the smooth expanse of her back, tickling her spine, and finally twining his fingers into her hair at the nape of her neck. Her eyelids fell heavily at the sensation, and he smirked at how easy it was.
He wasn't a kid anymore. Kids didn't do this, he thought as he leaned his body over her, slithering down to place a soft, deliberate kiss against the small of her back, just above her rear. He heard her hum in approval as she tossed her head to the side, unconsciously lifting her backside slightly.
He grinned, pulling himself to slide up over her, covering her completely. It wasn't hard to do; she was a small thing.
"Arthur," she murmured hazily against her arm as she felt him nuzzling her neck, his hand caressing her sides.
"Hmm?" his nose drifted along the curve of her neck and down to her shoulder, where he pressed his mouth reverently against her warm skin.
"Be careful what you start," she warned teasingly.
He laughed softly into her shoulder. "I think it's a little late for that."
"We can't do this all day…" she argued halfheartedly, even as she squirmed beneath him, pressing herself into his groin.
"I don't see why not," he groaned. He was already painfully hard for her again.
Drawing back slightly, he gave her enough room to prop herself up.
He smoothed his hand appreciatively over her arse, admiring its generous curvature, his body suddenly tense with the anticipation of seeing them joined from this vantage point.
Her back arched into his touch, encouraging him, and he met her heavy-lidded, salacious gaze over her shoulder. She shifted her weight and he felt one of her hands reach back to grip his thigh, urging him closer. Needing no further prompting, he slid himself slowly inside her thoroughly wet folds, feeling the scorching heat of her consume him once more. They moaned together, both struggling in vain to keep their eyes open at the achingly delicious sensation of each other.
God, she was perfect. How could he have missed out on this for so long?
He tried to maintain a leisurely pace at first, but she was already demanding more, rocking herself back against him and moaning his name softly. He gritted his teeth, gripping her hips as he thrust more forcefully, rewarded by the raised pitch of her cries and the arousal that dampened her thighs.
"Yes," she practically sobbed against the pillow, and he pounded into her furiously, wanting to give her everything he had.
His hands slipped against her hips, slick with a light sheen of sweat; hers or his, he didn't know or care. He bent over, luxuriating in the delicate curve of her back against his chest, the delicious roundness of her backside meeting his hips as he drove relentlessly into her.
His ever-growing need was consuming him, and he bit lightly at her shoulder blade, tasting the salt of her skin, listening to her ragged panting beneath him and the persistent smack of skin on skin as they moved feverishly against each other.
He felt light headed, so close, and he needed her with him. Smoothing a hand around her hip and stomach, he reached down toward the pulsing heat between her legs, sliding his fingers through the small patch of coarse hair to touch her where she wanted it most.
She moaned loudly as his deft fingers found her clit, stroking, using her wetness to slide over her until he knew she was about to lose herself.
"Fuck, Arthur, yes!" she cried, quaking, and he thrust deep within her a few more times before he felt himself burst, his whole being seeming to drain inside of her as she writhed beneath him.
He groaned as they collapsed together on the makeshift bed, still partly joined. Ragged gasps gave way to deep, measured sighs as they fought to control their breathing. He was vaguely aware that he must be crushing her a bit, but Gwen didn't seem to mind.
Arthur drew back at last, withdrawing from her and falling onto his back in exhaustion. She rolled over to face him and he pulled her against him.
"Christ," was all Arthur could manage, his voice breaking slightly as he turned to kiss her sweaty forehead.
"I know," Gwen agreed breathlessly. "I can't believe we wasted so much time apart. Or wearing clothes, for that matter."
"That's what I've been thinking since the moment I recognized you."
They lapsed into silence, and he felt as comfortable as he had when they were children. That is, with a much more acute awareness of how incredible she really was.
"Do you remember," she said after a while, "when we almost got away with running away?"
He snorted, recalling the time they'd run into the woods by his house, thinking they'd made it far enough that no one could ever find them. "Yeah, but then you felt so bad that you weren't going to make it home for dinner that we had to go back."
She chuckled. "Well, and no one would have known if your grubby little hands hadn't been completely stained from blackberries! It was all over your lips, too! I can still see it." As if to emphasize her point, she reached up to press her mouth briefly to his, darting her tongue out to taste his lips.
Arthur smiled broadly at the image as she drew away, remembering above all the stony look on his father's face when he ascertained just how far Arthur had strayed that day.
"Ah, what a couple of shitheads we were."
Gwen's exhausted laughter puffed against his chest as she closed her eyes and burrowed closer to him.
He summoned just enough energy to lean forward and kiss her shoulder tenderly, stroking his hand over the smooth skin of her arm as she huddled against him. And by some long dormant instinct, his head fell softly against the top of hers, cushioned by her soft curls as he succumbed to the languid lull of the summer heat.
A/N: Ok, I've been sitting on this a while because yikes, but there it is. I've got a little more of this story to tell, so you can count on an update if you're still up for it.