River hurried down the Castle hall toward her quarters, glancing at the screen of her Pip-Boy for the fiftieth time. There were never enough hours in the day for everything she needed to accomplish, and taking even this quick break to change into something a little warmer meant putting some potentially vital task off for another day.
She slipped past one of the heavy wooden doors and closed it swiftly behind her with a weary sigh. She turned and nearly walked into MacCready, his features shifting from surprise to a familiar, masculine hunger as he curled an arm around her waist. He smiled knowingly, dipping his head to brush his lips over the base of her throat. "Busy day?"
"Always. I barely have time to change."
"I can help." His mouth lifted to claim hers roughly, possessively, parting her lips with an impatient flick of his tongue as he drew her back toward the bed and sank down onto its edge, trapping her between his knees. She felt his hands sliding up under her skirt, and in a few swift seconds he was tugging her panties dismissively down her thighs, moving his mouth to nip at the curve of her throat when she gasped out a surprised laugh.
"RJ." River hummed in regret, running her fingers lovingly through his hair. "I have far too much to do today."
"You say that. . ." he rumbled amusedly, shifting her shirt out of the way so his lips could trace over her hipbones, pressing kisses along the line of her skirt.
"And I mean it." But Jesus lord, his hand skimming up her thigh certainly made a compelling argument, so much promise hanging behind that simple touch. His affection hardly came as a surprise anymore, but sometimes, randomly, so that she could never be sure when the whim might strike him next, he wanted her how he wanted her. Period, end of sentence. He was only slightly bigger and yet much, much stronger than her, skilled and precise with those deft, certain hands that gripped and pulled and tugged, pinned her up against a bookshelf with her throat between his teeth, or bent her over the workbench in the garage, dress rucked up over her ass, fingernails digging ridges into her hips. The memories and twinges of phantom pleasure dizzied her thoughts as he tossed her Pip-Boy aside and made quick work of her blouse, sliding it over her arms before dragging the skirt down her hips. "I'm never getting dressed again, am I?"
"Not if I get my way." MacCready grinned, and god, she was so tempted to let him, in spite of all the scouting reports and aid requests and thousands of other problems that required her attention. The General title always sat heavy on her shoulders, and he knew that only too well, knew how stifled and trapped she felt under that weight when it became too much to bear. He slipped her boots and socks off and tossed them aside, turning her around to unfasten her bra.
River shouldn't have let him undress her, and she certainly shouldn't have been leaning so readily into his touch, but his mouth tracing down the vertebrae of her spine and the prospect of being mercilessly fucked proved too tempting to resist. God, I'm the worst General ever. He gathered her hands up at the small of her back, shifting her slender wrists into one hand as his tongue lapped teasingly at her skin. She was just savoring that first thrill of relinquishing control to his hold when the sound of clicking metal broke the silence, her eyes widening at the cold steel of handcuffs closing in around her wrists. "RJ -"
"Mm-hmm," he replied calmly, trailing his teeth up to the contours of her swallowing throat. His hand brushed the small of her back in a brief, soft moment of clarity, a question in the drag of his fingertips down her spine. When she nodded her head, lip caught between her teeth and wrists flexing within the cool steel of the cuffs, he took the chain between them in his hand and tugged her back onto his lap. His pants were rough beneath her bare skin as she settled on top of him, thighs spread wide to accommodate his legs. He steadied her with a firm grasp on her hip, squeezing the curve of flesh there beneath his hand, tracing a hipbone beneath his fingertips while she adjusted to the vulnerable arch of her positioning. "You look good like this," he informed her, voice rich and warm with desire.
"Don't I look good always?" she breathed out, still coherent enough to tease.
"You know you do. Somethin' about seeing you all naked and helpless like this, though. Hmmn. . ." He trailed off, teeth edging into the line of her shoulder, and the abrupt, delicious pain forced a gasp into her lungs. Coarse fingertips traced up the slope of her thigh, drifting higher toward wet heat. "You like it, too, huh?"
River bit back another needy, desperate noise and tried for a cool shrug, her shoulders stiff and awkward in her positioning. "It's all right."
He laughed, and the sound of it sang through her like music, knotting heat and tension between her restless, shifting thighs. "Y'know, for a lawyer, you're a pretty crummy liar."
She whined, as indignantly as she could manage with her wrists cuffed behind her back like a criminal; and implications about her career choice aside, she was a fantastic liar - just very, very distracted. "Extenuating - ah! - circumstances," she bit out between her teeth, warmth blossoming over her skin from the heat of his mouth at her throat. The muscles in her legs protested with a gentle burn from spreading around his thighs, the precarious angle forcing her to lean back into him. He balanced her by the hips, hands lingering to stroke down her thighs, and she squirmed above him, worrying her lip between her teeth.
His hand found the glistening arousal between her thighs and traced two fingers over soft folds soaked slick with want. He cursed under his breath, and she felt his breath whisper warm over her throat. "So wet already," he rumbled in approval and nipped at the shell of her ear. "You must need me pretty bad."
"More than anything," she answered, her voice unfurling in a frenzied, clumsy rush. The cuffs bit into her wrists, body arching like a bow, strung taut with tension. She caught a sob in her throat, where it burned and ached and threatened to break free. "God, baby, I'm dying for you."
Fingers knotted in her hair and angled her head back, exposing the slender column of her neck to his teeth and lips. The blunt edge of pain and his soothing tongue in turn sent shivers of star-bright heat licking down her spine, leaping from vertebra to vertebra. She rolled her hips back instinctively against him, and his teeth bit down hard, drawing a whimper out of her.
"Always so fuckin' impatient," he noted with amusement, licking at the mark he'd left on her neck. She shuddered through the sensation, a breath fraying behind her teeth when his fingers stroked at her again, drawing thick and rough over her slit, parting slick folds and searing the bud of her clit beneath. "Be good."
A dark, steely authority rang heavy in his voice, threat and promise all at once, and it fit him so well she found herself trembling through a delicious thrill of submissive delight. She whimpered at the tightening of his fist in her hair, a slow, hot pain that sprouted at her scalp and spread down her shoulders like a meteor shower, bursts of stinging prickles under her skin. "Promise," she gasped, voice tilted high and breathless as he edged her back and forth between pain and anticipation.
He huffed a laugh below her ear, kissing along the soft skin there. "That's better," he approved, the rasp of lust tugging his voice deeper into that rich, heated timbre she loved; and it should've felt silly when she was a couple hundred years his senior, but she ached to please him, deep in the marrow of her bones, and his praise etched threads of heat and pleasure over the raw, frayed canvas of her nerves. He withdrew his fingers from her hair and hooked his arm around the bend of her elbows, locking them together, and hanging so suspended and helpless before him left her dizzy with desire.
"Baby," she pleaded, licking at her dry lips and keening high in her throat. "Please."
MacCready hummed against her skin and pulled his hand away, leaving her neglected and empty, hunting up her heaving chest to tease a nipple between nimble fingers. "Damn, I love it when you beg."
River stuttered out a laugh, the sound breaking off into a hiss when he plucked at the taut peak with a cruel twist of his fingers, a brief shock of pain swiftly soothed over by fond, sucking kisses at the nape of her neck. Jesus, when did he get so good at this? Need fizzled at the pit of her belly, pressing impatience into her twitching fingers, and she couldn't stop the whimpers bubbling loose from her throat, pained little moans shaped vaguely around his name.
He rumbled his own pleased noises back at the sound of it. "Poor little River," he muttered into the curve of her neck, amusement rounding the tenor of his voice. His hand drifted down her stomach, fingers returning to her clit, and the languid, unhurried circles he made there sent waves of sharp pleasure winding through her clenching core. "So worked up and impatient, begging to be fucked."
"Oh, god, oh, god, RJ, please," she ranted, groping blindly behind her until she found the stiff length of his arousal, hard and throbbing in his pants.
He sucked in a breath at her sudden touch, a growl rolling somewhere deep in his chest, and the arm around her waist yanked her back flush against him, trapping her rebellious arms. "And always such fuckin' trouble. . ."
River huffed, writhing uselessly under his hold. "How are you so patient?"
His laughter was low and strained against her skin as he pressed a kiss to the curve of her jaw. "I'm not," he promised, and bucked his hips up into her, the ridge of his erection pressing hard into her bare sex, and she thrashed at the dull, blunt sensation after wanting and not having for so long - likely not that long at all, but the time felt stretched to hours suspended as she was over his lap, each second somehow torturously longer than the last. "But you're worse."
That was certainly true - there was no sense denying it when she was squirming and begging, on the verge of sobbing for more of him, but she was tempted to do so anyways, remembering the hint of threat that hung heavy behind his words earlier, the thrilling, unspoken or else that piqued her insatiable curiosity. She let her head fall back against his shoulder and sighed as his fingers pushed slowly into her, deep enough for her to feel the stretch but not nearly what she craved - fuck, what she needed at this point. "RJ -" she growled crossly, before he wiggled his fingers a little deeper and the rest of the words failed to form, gathered loosely in a cursory attempt at anything coherent and scattered by that blissful glimpse of pleasure.
"I know," he agreed, and the smugness to his tone webbed frustration and a devastating arousal behind her ribcage, straining each breath she drew into her lungs. Every fiber of her being sang for him, starving and sensitive, aching with a hunger so fierce it bordered on pain. His cheeky, teasing touches weren't hardly enough to slake this thirst he'd tempered in her, not when she knew how well he could satisfy it; he'd fucked her hoarse before, thrown her down and taken her until she saw stars and her knees gave out, and the fact that he was dangling that nirvana before her, just out of reach, was edging her toward madness.
"Fucking Christ, RJ," she whined and struggled under his arm, tears burning at her eyes as he rubbed his thumb feather-light over her throbbing clit. "You're killin' me."
"Aren't you the one always going on about patience?"
"Not today. I-I can't." She shook her head frantically, chest heaving with desperate sobs. "God, I can't. I need you, baby, please."
MacCready grinned, one brow cocked in an arrogant arch. "Giving in already? I'm disappointed."
"Son of a - ah!" Her cry melted into a moan of relief when he finally pushed his fingers in deeper, and oh yes they always filled her just right. "Fuck, fuck," she panted, head falling back at the first crook of his fingers. Her hips shook under his other hand as she nearly doubled over, eyes screwing shut against the sharp waves of pleasure radiating out from where his fingers filled her.
"You were saying?" MacCready asked smugly, his laughter parched and husky with want.
She found herself smiling, a rush of affection swelling and melding with the pleasure rending through her. "I love you," she chirped gratefully, and her neck was starting to ache bent back against his shoulder, but her head felt too heavy to lift, and fuck, she wanted that vulnerability, wanted to give him everything she had to offer, even if it left her shattered and broken. "God, I love you."
"Oh, I know, angel," he promised her, and started moving his fingers at a slow, languid pace, driving them deep and dragging back out, working sweet, torturous pressure over her tender nerves. She felt him trailing kisses down the sweat-flushed curve of her neck. "Tell me how much."
"Nnfh," she choked out, teeth biting into a swollen lip, before swallowing and gathering the last traces of coherent thought that remained in her lust-frenzied mind. "Like you wouldn't believe. Like - like - oh fuck, RJ . . . I love you utterly -" The last word twisted into a moan, voice curling low and rough around the broken syllables. Her hands had gone numb pressed so tightly between their bodies, but his fingers tracing precision strokes over her aching clit forced her focus. "I-I love you always. Forever. Always." The promise started to fall apart behind her teeth, melting into desperate sobs as she rocked her hips down onto his fingers. Eventually she was left panting that last word like a mantra, "Always, always, always," holding the vowels long and soft until they were more melody than meaning, the rhythmic, lilting cadence her voice fell into when she was nearing climax. It wouldn't take long, not after so much teasing - she could feel it even now, heat and pressure arcing through her like lightning from his touch.
"River," MacCready murmured breathlessly, never relenting the swift, rough strum of his fingers over her throbbing nub. His voice around her name stoked the scorching flame of arousal and pleasure building like a wave, and then he rumbled approvingly near her ear, growling out a gruff, "Come for me," and she shattered under the force of her release. Her body went rigid, muscles roping tight as she tensed through the waves of greedy, blinding pleasure, heaving for breath in gasping moans.
She'd barely fallen still before he was rolling her onto the bed. The nerves in her arms prickled back to life as she stretched out on her stomach, rubbing her cheek against the rough sheets - jarring, sharp sensations after the dull, pulsing fade of her climax.
The bed dipped under his weight, and she shuddered at the drag of his hands up her back, kneading firm circles into sore muscle, brushing her hair aside so his mouth could find her shoulders and leave teething kisses along the sensitive skin there. A hand curved under her leg, urging her up onto her knees, and she muffled a moan into the sheets when he nudged her thighs apart. His hands admired her waist, the curves of her ass, hunting up between her thighs to the flushed, slick heat of her sex, and just the light stroke of two fingers down the sensitive flesh had her shivering beneath him.
River's eyes fluttered closed, a soft whimper catching in her throat, cuffed wrists drifting down the curve of her back, and she'd never felt so vulnerable or utterly exposed - but with MacCready's hands on her, it was comforting, liberating, something that made sense, new and fragile and precious when all the rest of the world had turned to ruin.
His lips brushed her thigh, startling her into jerking away, and he pulled her back again with a few chiding clicks against his teeth.
"Just fuck me already," she snapped, with all the venom she could muster with her face pressed into the mattress and her ass wriggling helplessly in the air.
"Believe me, I'd love to." Hunger and strain scraped at his voice, fraying smug, boyish amusement into something lower, rougher, a husky timbre she could feel deep in her bones. He steadied her squirming hips with his hands, then sprawled out on his stomach to suck a bruise into the soft flesh of her thigh, and she bit her lip against the moan building in her throat. "But I could spend all fuckin' day making you come first."
"Oh, no." She shook her head, eyes drifting closed as his mouth trailed higher up her leg. "Baby, you'll kill me."
"That so?" Jesus, she could hear the smirk in his voice, and it still made her knees just as weak as the first time she'd heard it, and realized abruptly that MacCready was an arrogant bastard, and she loved that about him.
"Robert Joseph MacCready, if you put that mouth on me, I swear I - I - oh, fuck, I. . ." The first draw of his tongue along wet, parting flesh stole the end of her threat before she could voice it. Her body rolled into a tight arc, chasing and evading the blinding sensation all at once, his mouth too warm, too heavy, too much, and yet so precisely what she needed at the same time. When he felt her seize up against him, his mouth gentled on her, tongue easing off as his hands kneaded soothingly at her thighs.
River had the thought to laugh at how unerringly well he knew her body, but the sound got lost somewhere between intent and execution; whatever garbled sigh she strangled out instead seemed to please him nonetheless. She gasped at the sudden rush of cool air when he pulled away, and then he flipped her easily onto her back, bare shoulders already filling the space between her thighs as she struggled to adjust. She barely caught a glimpse of his smug expression before his mouth was on her again, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded in the brief moment they met hers.
Every curling pass of his tongue made her twitch and squirm at the resulting lash of pleasure that scraped through her. His mouth on her was relentless, lips pulling taut, sharp suction and tongue dancing circles around the oversensitive bead of her clit.
She cried his name and thrashed, feet tangling in the sheets, restless from the thick, heavy ecstasy clutching at her every nerve. Her fingers twitched where they were trapped beneath her with the urge to twine through his hair, and she gripped the sheets for purchase instead, shaking her head frantically from side to side. "RJ, please!"
MacCready pinned her leg back at the knee, the fingers of his other hand sliding up under his mouth, searching and finding and pushing into pulsing, wet heat. "I'm gonna see you come again first," he told her roughly, crooking his fingers deep, and she sobbed at the waves of sweet bliss that unraveled within her like spools of golden silk. "Then maybe I'll fuck you. Haven't decided yet."
"Cheeky bastard," she panted, and the low husk of his laughter coaxed a needy whimper from deep in her throat, high-pitched and desperate, sapping all the bite from her anger.
"Keep talkin', beautiful. I got all night." With a smug, searing glance up at the flushed scowl on her face, he ducked his head and dragged the heat of his mouth down her sex, lips and tongue and beard and the distant, fleeting press of blunt teeth, there and gone again. His fingers pressed and curled within her, kneading at nerves that triggered seismic shivers down the length of her body.
Eventually MacCready was forced to throw an arm over her hips to keep her from writhing out of his hold, still pumping his fingers in a merciless rhythm, generous with his tongue until she started floating toward release, then so horridly neglectful she sobbed and cursed at him as the waves of pleasure quickly receded, leaving her cold and empty in their wake.
When he edged her again with sniper precision, this time so close her muscles had started to seize up in anticipation, River twisted the sheets in her fists and unleashed a frustrated wail, kicking out at him.
MacCready straightened with a shock of laughter, catching her legs by the ankles and pinning them to the bed. He leaned down over her hip to kiss her, tangling a hand in the mess of her hair and tugging until she released the moan he wanted. His hips ground reflexively against the curve of her ass, cock hard and heavy beneath the rough scratch of his underwear, betraying the impatience he was somehow keeping under such tight control. She felt the fingers of his free hand trailing down her forearms to her wrists, tracing where the metal cuffs sat snug around her skin in a brief, tender moment of concern. When she rolled her hips fitfully back against him, he braced his forehead against her arm with a breathless laugh.
"Guess I'm wastin' my time worrying about you." He nipped hard at her shoulder, startling a soft groan out of her as his hand cupped the curve of her jaw. "What do you need, beautiful?"
"RJ," she protested, and squirmed indignantly beneath him. "Please."
He slung her knees higher over his arm, drawing a stiff, pink nipple into his mouth and pressing the hard weight of his cock between her thighs, a teasing, momentary pressure, gone all too quickly. "I'm listening."
River lifted damp, bright eyes at him from over her shoulder, teeth edging down into her swollen bottom lip before she found her voice among the dense, heavy fog of need, pressing in around her. "Need you, mi vida," she confessed, letting out a hoarse whimper when his cock twitched against her thigh in response. "Please, please fuck me, I can't wait any longer."
MacCready groaned, shifting his weight behind her while she caught her breath, and then she felt the head of his cock pressing thick between her thighs, parting the raw, swollen folds of her sex and pushing in, stretching and filling and finally, finally thrusting home. After a few breathless seconds of adjustment, he bucked into her again, arms curling around her waist to pull her deeper, his teeth sinking into her shoulder and anchoring her in place.
She gave a cry of relief, her voice breaking apart when he drove in to the hilt, holding her thigh aside in his hand as if she weighed nothing at all. Her fingers clutched numb and clumsy at the bed sheets behind her, scrambling for some center of balance among the dizzying haze of pleasure. He hooked his elbow under her knee, reaching up to wrap his hand around the column of her throat.
The first labored breath she dragged in dimmed the frenzied rush of her thoughts, like soothing dark storm clouds, curling in at the edge of her consciousness. She felt his mouth sliding up the curve of her ribs, arms cradling her close as he thrust deep, and she ached to touch him, fill her hands with the rigid muscle tensing in his shoulders and the thick mess of his hair.
"Wanted you all fucking day," MacCready told her gruffly, sucking a stinging kiss into the curve of one of her breasts, and smiling at the moan it drew out of her. "Fuck, that's nice." He groaned out a guttural laugh when she twitched and pulsed around him, whimpering at the sound of his voice. His hand slowly eased from around her throat, shifting to cradle the back of her head, and through the tears gathered along her lashes, she could just make out the satisfied shape to his smirk. "I know you like that, beautiful, but I want to hear you scream."
You'll have to work for it, she wanted to respond, but she'd barely formed the thought before a rough push of his hips already teased the scream loose from behind her teeth.
He chuckled triumphantly, pressing one last kiss to the edge of her panting mouth before rolling her slowly onto her back. Her breath hitched when he yanked her closer, shrugging her legs into the bend of his elbows. She let out a sob of relief as the life pulsed back into her numb fingers, had only moments to savor the sensation before he dragged the swollen head of his cock down her slit and swept the thoughts from her mind. After that there was nothing but the breathtaking, weightless bliss of stretching around him, her hips quivering in his hands as he sank into her again.
MacCready muffled a groan against her shoulder, his breath spilling ragged over her skin. "Christ, I could fuck you all day."
"Baby." She threw her head back and gasped for breath, white hair clinging to her sweat-damp temples.
"Tell me, River," MacCready urged her, biting down at the base of her throat. "Want to hear you."
"You just feel so good," she babbled with an incredulous laugh. "I-I can't - it's - fuck, it's too good."
His hips bucked roughly against hers, thrusting deep and holding there as he dragged messy kisses down her jaw. Between his cock, his hands, and the cuffs around her wrists, she felt wholly and delightfully pinned. "Keep going, beautiful."
River nearly growled in frustration, though the pleasure coursing through her softened the sound to a hoarse purr. "Fuck, baby, that's so deep." Tears of bliss welled and stained warm, wet paths down her cheeks. "Love this, love you, love that perfect, perfect cock."
MacCready rumbled in satisfaction against her skin, curling an arm around her thigh to find the slick folds of her sex. His fingertips dragged circles over her clit, and the sharp lick of sensation wrenched another frantic cry from her throat.
"Oh, god, RJ!" She found one of his knees beneath her hands and squeezed tightly, body twisting into a tense curve as his fingers worked her deftly toward climax.
"Close?" he panted into the crook of her throat, and she nodded hysterically, clinging to the taste of his name on her tongue like a lifeline. His hand slowed its determined rhythm, easing her back from the edge of release, and she choked out a desperate sob. "Beg me for it," he ordered, stroking a fingertip hard over her sensitive clit.
River shuddered at the steel in his voice, helpless to the ardent devotion that burned in the blue of his gaze. A moan hummed in her throat when he rolled his hips, shifting his cock within the scorching grasp of her sex and setting off ripples of ecstasy that seared at every part of her. "RJ," she sighed, and his breath caught at the rough sound of his name. "Please, baby, I need you! I can't - fuck, fuck, baby, I can't take it, please!"
His fingertips traced determined shapes over her clit, hips pumping mercilessly into her, and every drag of his cock out and back in fed the tension pulsing raw and heavy in the pit of her gut.
She begged him in a frenzied rant, "Please, make me come. Please, please, RJ, I need you," and a breathless smile tugged at the end of his lips before he kissed her, his tongue pushing into her mouth just as the fingers at her clit and his cock thrusting deep sent her over the edge. With a broken sob, she came undone beneath him, eyes screwing shut into blinding darkness, the tension unraveling into heat and rapture that radiated from the weight of his cock, thick and snug within her.
River seized up and let loose a wild scream that shattered the quiet calm within the Castle's walls, piercing through the soft tones of Radio Freedom that piped out from the nearest speaker. MacCready took her throat between his teeth to muffle his own cries as she squeezed tight around him, laughter warming the sound against her skin.
"Fuck, that never gets old," he confessed with a harsh chuckle, hips slowing to a languid, loving pace as she fought for breath. "S'all I can think about sometimes. Like you're stuck in my fuckin' head." His mouth found her other nipple and sucked at the tender peak, tongue lashing out over the sensitive nerves and making her shudder in his arms. "Then I just want to fuck you 'til my legs give out."
A wounded moan caught in her throat, pulse still hammering in her ears in the wake of her orgasm. His answering chuckle was knowing and arrogant all at once, that infuriating, maddeningly appealing combination he wore so well. You'd like that, wouldn't you? that laughter teased, and oh, she would, she absolutely would; she'd spend the next week bent over backwards like this if he'd just keep fucking her -
MacCready pulled away, and she whimpered at the loss until he flipped her back onto her knees. The sheets bunched awkwardly beneath her cheek as he grabbed her by the hips and drove into her again. She shuddered after each savage thrust, first one, then another, then one more before her knees gave out beneath her. His body pressed in around her, hips slamming tight against hers, and his teeth biting down onto her shoulder from behind drew another loud cry from her lungs.
He gathered a fistful of her hair, angling her head back so his mouth could continue up the column of her neck. "Ready for me, beautiful?"
"Yes," she gasped, pressing back against him with all the strength she could summon in her quivering thighs. "Fuck, please, let me feel you."
His fist tightened in her hair, and he bit down hard enough to bruise as he drove roughly into her and came, his anguished moans trembling against her skin. River whimpered at his last few lingering thrusts and the rush of warmth when he filled her, blunt teeth replaced by the tender press of his lips over her bruised flesh.
MacCready planted lazy, sated kisses down the curve of her neck, cock still hard and buried deep inside of her. His mouth was borderline reverent on her after such forceful handling, murmuring her name and smiling at the shiver it sent down her spine. When he found the strength to move, he pulled away and ran a soothing hand down the curve of her back. "Don't move, angel. Let me get you out of those."
"Don't move, he says," River mumbled into the sheets, and slurred out a laugh. "Like I could."
He gathered a few things and returned quickly to free her from her restraints. She leaned heavily on him when she sat up, wiping tears from the fringe of her lashes. He kissed her flushed cheek and cradled her wrists carefully in his hands, brushing his thumbs lightly over bruises the cuffs had left behind. "Hurt you?"
"Hardly," she breathed, her voice reduced to whispers.
He smiled like he didn't believe her, sliding a stimpak into her arm. She sipped at a can of purified water as the medicine entered her system, dulling the deeper aches and bruises into softer pains as she relaxed against him. Her hand curled around the base of his neck, his pulse racing beneath her fingertips, and he dipped his head to kiss the heel of her palm. The comforting warmth of his hand at her back and his even breathing beside her calmed the anxious chattering that always haunted the back of her thoughts, fucked-out and soothed away by his touch.
"There goes the rest of my day," she murmured, lips curving into a fond smile at the smug, enamored look on his face.
"Oops." MacCready laughed, unrepentant. "Didn't have any plans, did you?"
"Only a thousand important things." She kissed the edge of his smirk. "But a lady has her priorities."
Blue eyes crinkled at the edges with amusement, heavy-lidded and satisfied as he shot her a lazy grin. "You just like it when I throw you down and fuck you."
River smiled. "Priorities, mi vida. Priorities."