A/N: Almost four years ago, I began writing a series of humorous EdXWin stories called Branded that followed the pair as they negotiated the treacherous sexual obstacle course known as 'first time love.' Whilst Ed and Winry struggled to make it to the finish line alive, I let myself get distracted by the pretty lights and colors of other story series… Spreading myself too thin, I finished nothing. I also let RL take control of the muse too often. And so, four years later, having beaten my brain cells into submission, I now finally bring you the conclusion of story 3 of the Branded Series, Learning Curve, in its entirety, without commercial interruption or subtitles… Hope the stalwarts are still hanging in and the newbies aren't too confused. [Below are links to the other chapters/parts of the series, #1 Branded, #2 Kiss and Tell, and #3 (parts 1-6) of Learning Curve.]
Feel free to throw tomatoes and lettuce, folks! (I deserve it!) And maybe a cuke and some mushrooms, too? (I'm in the mood for salad.)
To those happy to see this and those still hanging in there with me – thanks and I'm grateful!
Extra special thanks go out to alchemyotaku75for her tireless cheerleading, endless encouragement and the dangling of more than one exciting carrot...
~Ai
Story: Learning Curve (3/7) - COMPLETED
Series: Branded
Author: ibshafer
Rating: Hard R
Character/Pairing: EdXWin... or is it WinXEd?...
Disclaimer: I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me spin them around the page now and then.
Summary: In which Edward and Winry get some alone time...and in which the course of true love runs anything but smoothly...
Warnings: profanity, sexual situations, explicit without naming names, if you catch my drift…
Genre: Fullmetal Alchemist; AU, I guess...
Spoilers: none
Feedback: Yes, please...
Series Chapters:
[complete]1. Branded – In which Ed finds Winry's signature on his automail…
.net/s/2770990/1/Branded
[complete]2. Kiss and Tell – In which Al tries to get some details out of Ed, who, it
turns out, doesn't…
.net/s/2770990/2/Branded
[complete]3. Learning Curve – Ed may be a prodigy, but the best lessons can be the
hardest to learn…
.net/s/2770990/4/Branded - part 1
.net/s/2770990/5/Branded - part 2
.net/s/2770990/6/Branded - part 3
.net/s/2770990/7/Branded - part 4
.net/s/2770990/8/Branded - part 5
.net/s/2770990/9/Branded - part 6
[part 7 follows here…]
4. (Re)Conditioned Responses – In which Winry tries to break Ed of his
milk aversion, any way she can…
5. Even Steven – Ed finds a way to even the score…
6. Two Bits – Shave and a haircut…and confession time.
7. Coda – No good deed goes unpunished, as Roy is about to find out.
Learning Curve – Part 7 (FINAL)
~ibshafer
Oh!
Something had changed.
Putting the last of the days' lunch remnants into the ice box, Winry froze in place, trying to trace the source. The light, temperature, noise level in the room; all were the same.
What is it?
For a second, she thought maybe Edward had come back to the house, but a glance out the window told her he was still stretched out under the tree.
Something was different, though.
Stepping closer to the glass, she peered out at him.
What's he doing?
Flat on his back, Edward lay absently rubbing at the center of his chest and even at this distance she could see his chest heaving, his face flushed. He was also...smiling.
She told herself that he must have just finished some great scene in the book and that was what the red face and heavy breathing was all about.
But she couldn't shake the impression that something else had happened.
Why am I shivering?
(section break)
Still breathing heavily, he felt his cheeks flushing and for once didn't damn his blood for giving his feelings away. Who was there to see it, anyway?
Right now, he had other things to think about.
Why do I never see the stuff that's right the hell in front of me?
Against all odds, against all mirth, despite full baskets of chicken sandwiches and huge brownies with no lemonade, despite that ridiculous book and the ridiculous ego-poking he'd taken at its expense, Edward had gotten it.
The blood rushed to his face, and his head spun a few clicks, and he understood what she'd clearly, clearly sent him out there to understand.
Somehow, that overstuffed, verbally effusive simian had broken through both Edward's ego and his nerves and had made him see what he'd so been unable to up until now...
I have to make Winry happy.
How could he have missed this for so long?
Oh, right. Because he had been too fucking focused on what it all felt like for him. Like it was all about him, had always been about him.
I'm a selfish bastard...
His first impulse was to throw himself at her feet and beg for mercy, but as much as he deserved a new knot on his head, it might actually be counterproductive.
He knew what he really had to do. And now he knew why.
I have to make Winry...er, what was that word she used...?
Whatever it was called, he had to do it.
First and foremost, because she deserved it and because (the cherub whipped a hand out and grabbed his Sanity before it could bolt for the door) ...because he l-loved her.
'This is what you do to me, Edward...'
And secondly, he had to do it, had to make sure he did it, because...well...hadn't she done it for him?
As the geeks happily supplied images in full living color and sound, Edward felt his cheeks start to flame.
The way she'd kissed him, the way she'd touched him, the way she'd made him feel...
She'd made him feel so good...
She'd been hoping and planning for this for a long time now - because she wanted him.
Edward caught himself shivering and delighted in it, realizing the memory had become a physical sensation.
And she'd put so much into this whole...whole, for lack of a better word, thing, and had tried so, so hard to please him, it was only fair. (And Edward was, in all things, fair.)
Oh, what a fuck-up I am...
He wanted to kick the snot out of himself, he deserved to have the snot kicked out of him, but that would have to wait until muuuuch, much later.
Right now there was a long-legged blond - a leggy blond no doubt plotting his demise at the same kitchen table they'd eaten meals at since they were kids - who needed to have her mind blown.
(section break)
Winry was standing at the kitchen window wiping down the counter with a lemon yellow dishrag when a sudden movement on the front lawn drew her attention.
She quickly registered that - once again - Edward was no longer at his post under the tree and that - once again - he was stomping his way back towards the house, determination - once... well, you know where this is going - etched into every muscle.
'What now?' she thought with a sigh of frustration. No doubt she'd unconsciously subjected him - once again - to some insufferable culinary, or literary, insult. She was about to steel herself for the tirade to come when her eagle Edward eye spied something both barely perceptible and radically altered in his flushed, wide-eyed countenance.
'Wait a minute... Where's the Pissed Off?' she thought, chest filling with confusion. 'I don't see any Pissed Off...'
Gone was the pinched-eyebrow look she'd seen when Edward had launched himself at the house in a fit of pique, desperate for lemonade to wash down that very rich brownie she'd packed him. Gone, too, was the intellectual superiority he'd sputtered at the idea of sitting under a tree reading a "god-damned romance novel," particularly, he'd said, "while there was sex, even bad sex, to be had." (She'd assured him that until he understood the difference, until he made certain it was Good Sex, they would not be having any kind of sex at all...)
There was neither pique nor superiority on Edwards sublimely flushed face.
What the...
Not at all what she had learned to expect from the boy-man she loved-hated.
What there was, she could see as he got closer to the house, was an intensity, a coal-hot intensity, that despite its apparent heat sent a shiver down her spine and a corresponding flutter in her belly; a steam engine of determination powering towards her at full, self-possessed speed.
O-oh, God...
She spun around and groped for the counter, knees suddenly failing her.
Edward had "gotten it."
(section break)
Just a hundred feet now, but it felt like he would never get there.
The big house bounced on the hill ahead of him (well, he was stomping, after all - everything was bouncing), but all he could think about was getting there and...and touching her...
He'd been too busy feeling his own sensations before, to think about hers, but now...now he couldn't wait to make her feel the things she'd made him feel - or rather, the corresponding girly feelings.
He wanted to make her scream...
Edward burst into nervous laughter.
Did you really just think that?
He almost faltered, but his pounding legs chose to ignore his silly brain and continued to propel him back towards the big yellow house.
Y-you jacked that straight out of that damn book...
A breathless giggle.
OK, so what if was inspired by something the ape said? It's true, isn't it?
He did want to make her scream.
He wanted to touch her. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to explore and taste and-
Fuck...
Deciding stomping wasn't the fastest mode of travel he sprinted the last fifty feet up the hill and bounded up the steps.
He wanted her now.
He found her gripping the kitchen counter, face flushed, knees threatening to give out...
She gave a little squeak of surprise when he stumbled through the door, but that was all she had time for before he swooped in, catching her as she slid to the floor, pulling her up into his arms.
His heart was beating so fast he was shaking and, pressed against her, he could feel hers hammering away just as fast.
"E-Edward?" she managed to breath out, but Edward gave her a look that said they were done talking.
One hand at the small of her back to support her, the other instantly buried deep in her hair, he drew her to him and kissed her with such purpose, such passion, that his own knees started to waver.
He could feel the feeling start to overtake him, the one that had compelled him that morning to rabidly explore all his own first-timer's needs, and leave Winry's in the dust, but with help from both the Cherub and Edward's heretofore silent Sense of Fair Play, Edward's lust was successfully reigned in, stifling the wanton tremor that had been heading for his hips.
Pressing himself completely against her, he filled all her negative space, delighting in the curves and soft planes of her, in the way they fit together so well, in the way her body shook, knowing she was feeling the want in him, serious as stone and just as hard.
He could feel the want in her, too; the way her trembling body responded when he pressed himself to her, there could be no denying what she was feeling.
He had bothhands in her hair now, mouth at her throat, silently chanting his new mantra:
Make Winry happy. Make Winry happy. Make Winry happy...
(section break)
G-God? If it isn't too much to ask, could you please not let me faint until after this is over!
Winry couldn't breathe. Edward had overtaken her so quickly, so completely, that she was fairly certain she hadn't taken a single breath since he'd stumbled through the kitchen door.
He had his hands deep in her hair, his mouth mobile and expressive against hers and everywhere, everywhere he touched her she could feel his heat and his desire and his need...
She wasn't so swept away, though, that she didn't noticed something was different.
He wasn't rubbing himself against her like a dog in heat or lying back waiting for her to please him.
No, he seemed to have transformed his need, transmuted it, into something that was shaped, defined, focused on her. On what she needed. As he mapped out the boundaries of her mouth, his tongue was insistent, but gentle. As he trailed fingertips up her sides, down her back, across her shivering belly, his hands were fervent, but controlled, not blindly aggressive.
Even his heat was different.
With a swoon, she realized what it was that she was feeling in him; something long-awaited, something she'd never seen, let alone felt, in this context.
Edward's passion...
(section break)
Somewhere between the tree and the kitchen, Edward had stopped thinking.
He'd switched off his brain (the geeks were thrilled for the time off; now they could watch the show!) and let himself be propelled entirely by his feelings, allowing them to speed his heart, animate his limbs, and guide his hands and fingers and lips and tongue to the fulfillment of, the completion of, the winning achievement of his goal: Make Winry Happy.
Those feelings, knowing full well how to accomplish that lofty goal, breathed fire and infinite inspiration into his every movement, creating dance and art and sculpture rolled neatly and fervently into one all-consuming package.
Moved by no force he'd ever known, Edward almost felt he'd stepped outside of himself, felt himself lifted from his body to observe the scene currently folding and unfolding beneath him as though from over his own shoulder, but then breathless moans and pleading sighs would draw him back to his own body, anchoring him to the moment, anchoring him completely and utterly to her, as though the act of bringing her pleasure was his sole reason for existing on this earth.
In fascination, he drew trembling fingers across smooth skin, pushed up a shirt hem, pulled down a sleeve, uncovering warm swells and rosy pinkness as if for the first time, tasting delicately, then encouraged by still more sweet, deep sounds, suckling with growing fervor and heat. He let his tongue and fingers draw a map, an array, across her shivering body, an array that began when he silenced her mouth with his own and ended when he knelt before her and with a touch, brought all those lines to life.
He would never have thought to behave so before.
He hadn't had a clue how he was supposed to behave back then.
Satisfaction, passion and a little outside inspiration had changed all of that.
And now...now he could share that with the one person, the only person, he could ever have wanted.
With a shiver of his own, of longing and of something deeper, he kissed a line inward across the sweet white skin of her thigh and then, with the cabinets behind her and his spreading fingers guiding him home, he pressed her more firmly to him - and he to her.
(section break)
Winry was pretty sure that her last surviving brain cells had just dripped out her nose.
Th-th-this wasn't in my book!
This wasn't in his book!
W-where did he learn to d-do that?
The edge of the counter was cutting into her back, but she didn't care, couldn't really feel it. All sensation seemed to be gathered...elsewhere.
Oh, god. If he stops, I'll just die...
Her bones had clearly gone on extended vacation somewhere and if it weren't for the cabinets behind her and the masterful way he held her without really holding on, she'd have melted into the floor a long time ago.
She managed enough muscular control, though, to raise her head and peer down to where Edward knelt at her feet.
Messy blond braid - check.
Trademark black tank - check.
Precision automail made by the best - check...
She'd just needed to make certain that it was, indeed, Edward down there, because...well, because no way, no how, would she ever have expected this, not in a million, billion years, certainly not without wheedling, cajoling or, let's face it, bribery, but yessiree, that was definitely him down there.
Oh, my god!
She shivered, felt herself running out of air. He was holding on more tightly now, fingers moving, tongue...
D-did he just moan?
All coherent thought stopped as Edward did something with that precision automail she'd only allowed herself in the dead of the darkest night to contemplate...
(section break)
No book, no resource, no arrogant colonel or blushing, beautiful blond, could have prepared him for what he now knew.
It was simple enough to say that when Winry was happy, "It" was better, but he'd truly had no idea what that could mean. None at all.
When Inspiration had suggested he…explore her in a way he might have previously run screaming at the mere mention of, he'd been caught up in the fevered mood and complied because it seemed like a Good Thing to do.
This turned out to be the understatement of every century since the creation of Time itself.
He'd suspected that touching her…in just that way…with his right hand, or rather, with just a couple of the metal digits from his right hand, would have elicited some sort of pleased-type response from her, (he'd often thought that she only loved him for his automail), but the purely reflexive response her body gave said more than mere vocal chords ever could.
Fluid speed and heat, words chanted in silence against moist skin, against the flooded, now familiar, topography of her hidden reaches, and he nearly lost control of her as she arched back on herself, arms flung wide across the countertop. She dug her heals deep into the small of his back and somehow, somehow, without even so much as a touch to himself, he was moaning against her, sailing well and truly over the edge himself.
(section break)
When he'd once again regained the use of his eyes and ears and the fevered roaring in his head had lowered a few decibels (clearly, the geeks in the Speech Center had decided that cheering was no longer an adequate exclamation for the occasion and had taken up furiously banging on pots and pans and, from the sound of it, each other's heads, instead.), Edward swore he could hear a choir of angels singing, which was odd because, well, he didn't exactly believe in them, now did he?
Heavenly voices?
W-wait a minute.
That was no angel choir.
That particular sound was, sadly, familiar to him.
It was, in fact...
Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT...
Winry was crying.
Sweet mother of pogo-sticks, what did it take to please her?!
And then his sex-addled brain did a double-take, because, well, he was reasonably sure, to the best of his very limited ability that she had, in fact...
From the pitch of her voice a minute ago and the dual bruises he was certain were now forming at the base of his spine, he'd been quite sure that he'd finally, finally, gotten it Right.
Why else would someone scream, 'YES! YES! YESSSS!' at the top of their lungs?
She had to have, right?
Didn't she?
Damnit!! I thought I understood!
How couldn't she have?
S-she'd...
Edward gulped and fought for air at the very recent memory.
She'd ...squeezed him in a place, in a way, he hadn't known she could.
It was so much more...more than how it had been that morning and the way she'd screamed his name, the way she'd held him, the way she'd begged him not to stop, sent him so far over a clearly different edge than he'd been over before, he almost felt like this time had been his first time.
Wow.
And that's when the Geeks, those not already comatose, had broken out into the ultimate happy dance, screaming, belching, pot-hammering in absolute brain-melting glee.
And so he called forth the courage, in the face of confusion and not a little fear and looked up at Winry's flushed face.
Blue eyes half-closed, she was panting heavily, and, yes, tears streaked her cheeks, but the edges of her lips (swollen, Edward noticed with vague satisfaction) were turned up and every so often, she'd intersperse her whimpers with a giddy laugh (and here Edward's groin felt itself flutter) accompanied by a low, breathless moan.
So, this was what a happy Winry looked like...
He liked it.
The geeks jumped to, spinning numerous scenarios for how they could make her look that way again, but Ed waved them away with a cheeky grin.
He didn't need their help anymore.
He didn't need anything but Winry.
(section break)
She'd been floating somewhere near the ceiling for several minutes now.
At least, that's how it felt, what with the lack of oxygen to her brain and her blood rushing around anywhere and everywhere but to her head.
When the breathless euphoria finally subsided, though to be honest, she was going to feel damn good for at least the next couple of hours, she remembered that she was, in fact, not alone here in the…where was she? Oh, yeah, the kitchen.
She was in the kitchen, sprawled on the countertop in a manner most unseemly and the source of her euphoria was currently sprawled on the floor at her feet, if the cool metal fingers gently stroking her calf were any indication.
Edward…
Edward had figured It out.
And he had figured it out in a way she could not only never have predicted, but in a way she would never have expected from even their tenth session.
Edward had done very, very well.
How he'd done that, how he'd managed such inspiration when the hours preceding had been so fraught with confusion and, let's face it, utter reluctance, was a matter she most dearly wished to understand, but first…first, in the spirit of fair and equitable pleasure, there was a little matter of good old fashioned reciprocity at hand. And then some.
Curling her currently boneless body around, she let gravity to the bulk of the work, dropping to the floor in a trembling, giddy heap.
She found him propped against the cabinets, a dopey expression on his drowsy face.
He should have been spastic and desperate at that point, in agonized need of release, and she spared not a moment in contemplation of the incongruous expression on his sweat-shined, but still wondrous face. There was no time to lose. She owed him that. And so she kissed him. Hard.
She leaned in deep, pressed herself to his somehow boneless body, and expressed, with her lips and her tongue and the languid movements of her hands, what he'd just done for her, what she felt for him and what both of these events entitled him to.
After several inspired minutes of such thanks, she pulled away to survey his breathless, grinning face.
"Thank you," she breathed, drawing his hand to her lips to kiss. "I take back everything I said before. Thank you, Edward, so, so much. And now," she said, grinning evilly, "I believe it's your turn…"
His seemed not to register what she had said. His unfocused expression continued and fearing he might already be too far gone, she began to lower herself into a position more conducive to the work at hand, fingers to the elastic of his shorts.
There was enough time for a breathless, "huh?" from above and then a cool metal hand was cupping her chin, drawing her away from her target.
She found Edward's golden eyes narrowed and locked on hers.
"What are you doing, Winry," he asked, guiding her back into a seated position.
She would not have thought it possible, after all they had done, after the force of her release just now, but she suddenly found herself embarrassed and blushing.
"I was going to help you…you know…"
Unable to speak it, another shocking realization, she could only point with her gaze, an eyebrow raised in suggestion, her face a blazing crimson.
Now it was Edward's turn to blush, but his embarrassment was brief.
"Ooooh," he said softly, then he glanced downward with a lopsided grin. "No need."
No need?
Now she was really speechless.
How was that possible?
She was distinctly aware of what and how the previous fifteen minutes had transpired and ever the memory geek, she could say where both of his hands had been throughout and at no time did either of them leave her body.
Which meant…
Heady realization had her groping for the cool support of the cabinets.
…Without even touching himself?
Just from the act of bringing her pleasure.
"Oh," she moaned, a hand at her throat, her heart and her head working themselves up for a good swoon, until the memory geek reminded her who she was looking at.
"Excuse me," sitting up straight and surveying him through squinted eyes. "But who are you and what have you done with Edward Elric?"
Eyebrows narrowed again, Edward glared at her in wounded insult.
"Who are you calling too selfish to satisfy a woman?"
And then, unable to hold the expression any longer, he burst out laughing.
"I deserved that. I know it." He took her hand, kissed it softly. "Forgive me?"
Shaken by his uncharacteristic chivalry, she felt herself suddenly shy, every bit of the young woman in love that she was.
"Of course I will."
Leaning into him again, intoxicated by the feel of him, by those distinctly Edward-ian smells of sweat and sun and oil, she ran her hands up his smooth torso and kissed him, gently at first, but then with growing heat.
She felt him respond in kind which should have driven her mad with want, but being recently sated left her mind a little clearer than it might have been in this instance.
There was still the matter of his sudden sexual epiphany.
How did he know to do…what he did?
She was absolutely certain there were no similar examples in either "reference."
A thought was brewing and it wasn't a pleasant one.
Pulling herself away from his mouth so abruptly she heard a faint pop!, she sat back on her knees.
"I'd love to know where you learned that, Edward," she said, fists planted firmly on her hips.
Edward's expression was one of total confusion.
"Huh? What are you talking about, Winry."
"'What are you talking about, Winry?'!" she mimicked with a huff.
Edward flinched and tried to back up, but the cabinets, and Winry, had him cornered.
She fixed him in her sights, feeling the blood begin to boil in her ears.
He'd said he was a virgin.
He'd said he'd never been with anyone before her.
But if that was true, then how did he know how to do that?
(section break)
He'd been a little too sated to think clearly a moment ago, but that look on her face was disastrously familiar and if he was going to save his head, and possibly some other, more irreplaceable parts of him, he knew he had to act fast.
His well-honed survival instinct told him that as much as he might have wanted to yell back at her, match attitude for attitude, this fight – whatever it was about – was not going to be won that way.
All that would do was put him on the quick road to concussion.
Deciding to backpedal instead, to play the innocent that he actually was, he chose his last, best card: confusion.
"I-I don't understand, Winry! You—you finished, didn't you? Isn't that what you wanted?" Cabinet doors rattled behind him as he attempted to get some distance between her and that mean right hook of hers.
"It's "come!" you moron!! How hard is it to remember one little word?!" She rose up on her knees, towering over him.
What was she so mad about? He just didn't get it.
He'd done it – he'd made her happy; very, very happy.
Shit! He'd made himself pretty happy, too. Who'd'a thunk it?
He'd done everything right, for once, and she was upset?
Wasn't that what she'd sent him out there to figure out?
Was she just incapable of being happy?
Or was it…
Edward thought back over the thought processes preceding his big epiphany under the tree and suddenly realized, with yet another epiphany, that his understanding, his inspiration, had come not from some specific "instruction" he'd gotten from either book, (they'd already tried 'insert tab A into slot B'…), but from the a profound wish to bring joy to someone he really, really cared about. The specifics of how he brought about that joy didn't come to him until he'd seen her face, until he'd felt his heart start to spin in his chest. Inspiration had whispered in his ear and, again, it had seemed like a good idea so he'd run with it.
It still seemed like a good idea, even if she'd misunderstood, but why had she misunderstood?
Edward's Genius had a few ideas and without waiting to be asked, ventured a guess.
'Because, idiot, someone who doesn't know what they're doing doesn't usually do what you did… Usually they have to learn that from someone else.'
Someone else?
A whole bank of light bulbs went on at once in Edward's head and he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing, knowing damn well that laughing was a quick ticket to head trauma.
She thinks I lied to her about being a virgin. I mean, it's not like that isn't the perfect thing to lie about, but who would believe it? I'm pretty embarrassed about how much of a virgin I was…
I never pretended to know anything.
Which…which, I guess, makes…what I did seem suspicious, like I ran to a phone and called the Bastard for ideas or something…
Or like I learned it from another girl.
He sat there before her, his mouth open wide at his own stupidity.
How could he not have seen that?
Several minutes had passed while he'd sorted this out and he was amazed she hadn't pounced yet. Maybe she was trying to decide whether a wrench or bare hands would be more satisfying…
Before she could do either, he grabbed her wrists and pulled her close to him.
"Listen to me, Winry. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong."
Her eyebrows pinched more tightly together, but he went on, unfazed.
"I wanted to make you happy, to do for you what you'd done for me and…and that," he broke off, face growing warm. "Th-that seemed like it would feel good, like it was something you'd…um, like. …Did you? L-like it?"
She gave a tiny shrug of concession, cheeks coloring, but her eyes never left his.
Relieved he'd made some headway, he shifted automail fingers against her wrist, running a cool thumb along her pulse point, an action that seemed to gradually break through her angry stupor.
He heard her exhale, long and slow, visibly relaxing.
"Besides, you spent the morning with me," he said, grinning. "Did it seem like I'd done that before?"
"Absolutely not," she said quickly, too quickly, but he fought off the urge to rant.
"You know me, I'm a selfish prick," he went on with a laugh. "You'd made me feel so good, but I hadn't done a thing for you. All I could think about was…was… " He trailed off, aware that the 'want' was readying itself for another run. "I…I wanted to do things to you you'd never read in any books." Of its own volition, his tongue slipped out to lick his lips. "I…I wanted to…to…" ("Are you a man or a m-m-mouse!? SAY it!") "…I wanted to…to taste you, to see first hand what would happen if I touched you like that." He flushed crimson. "You liked it, didn't you?"
"I did. I really did." She seemed suddenly fixated on his mouth so he leaned across the inches that separated them and kissed her, shivering at the tiny moan that escaped her.
Lips trailing down her neck, he slipped his flesh hand beneath her top, finding and pinching the peaked nub, pleased at the gasp this elicited from her.
Her head fell back against the cabinet door, her mouth open in pleasure.
"E-Ed…"
Following the path his fingers had taken, he pulled the fabric away with his teeth, running the tip of his tongue against the soft skin there, then closed lips around her, suckling heatedly. He ran his free hand up her thigh and, without a moment's hesitation, within.
"A-ah!!" She gasped, but just when he thought he was home free, she suddenly pulled up to look at him. "Bed, Edward. Now."
"Bed?" he asked, confused, as if language were a skill he had not yet mastered.
The geeks, most of whom had run off to the commissary for donuts and juice when things got talky, scrambled to make sense of the word, in their haste sending crullers flying everywhere.
"Yes!!" she hissed, hands to his face now. "I'm going to have a hard enough time as it is looking at that countertop when Granny and Al get home."
The lead geek, a true professional, found and cued up the appropriate tape in an instant and Ed's head filled with the sound of gasping moans and suckling while the big screen flashed an image of a nearly naked Winry, back arched against the kitchen counter, Ed's head between her pale thighs…
Something, probably blood, possibly grey matter, began to leak out his left nostril.
"…and if we were to add the kitchen table, the sink and the couch," Winry went on, her voice reaching a fever pitch. "I'll pretty much just be red-faced all of the time. Granny's going to think I'm dying or something." With an obvious effort, she disengaged herself from him and rose to her feet, one hand smoothing down her crumpled skirt.
"She'll know something's up, Ed. Are you ready to deal with my grandmother?"
Ed didn't need any help from the geeks to illustrate that particular thought. An image of Granny Pinako, bite-sized and bespectacled, floated across the previously Winry-filled screen.
"No," he whimpered. "No, no, no, no, noooo…"
Sadly, Pinako – The Anti-Aphrodisiac, was also having an affect on Edward's want.
He watched it evaporate, feeling wistful and cheated. Some of the geeks were crying like babies while a few of the more dogged ones were determinedly rifling through past tapes, throwing random images onto the screen, but a naked, writhing Winry only served to make Ed more wistful.
He hadn't realized he'd slumped into a heap until he felt Winry's fingers under his chin.
Delicately, deliberately, she tipped his head up, then bent to claim his mouth. She drew him onto his feet with a hand to his elbow.
Breaking away from the kiss, leaving him breathless and yes!, wanting, she pointed with her own chin to the stairs.
"Bed," she asked, her voice a whisper.
His only response was to blush extravagantly and nod.
With the geeks banging pots in his head and Edward's libido's best buddy having regained its will to live, he lifted her into his arms and carried her swiftly to the stairs.
"You know, Edward," Winry said, arms around his shoulders and face buried in his warm neck. "I was thinking about that thing I said to you a long time ago…"
"Which thing would that be?" he grunted, shifting her around so he could see her face.
"…um, the thing about not wanting to be carried by someone shorter than me."
Eyes wide, Ed faltered on the landing.
"Are you asking to be dropped on your butt," he said, but in spite of his tone, and the half-hearted Pissed Off he tried to plaster on his face, nothing was going to break his mood. He just felt too damned good.
And then Winry did something that made his mushy heart melt even further.
She bit her lip and blushed.
"I…I just wanted to say I was sorry for saying that. I know it hurt your feelings and I'm sorry." She smiled at him nervously and the rest of Ed's heart evaporated in a puff of ozone. "Forgive me?"
Her lower lip was quivering and Ed just couldn't take it anymore.
The bed would have to wait.
Standing her up on her feet, he pressed her back against the wall. Winry's squeak of surprise, and the way her body melted into his, was all the encouragement he needed.
He then proceeded, with every ounce of his new-found skill, to prove to her just how much he forgave her.
She might be blushing from now on when she used the stairs, but he knew she'd agree it was worth it...
en fin…
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