"Big hands, I know you're the one,"

—Violent Femmes

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John Bender wasn't clear about the physics of being this much on fire while eating ice cream. He'd known Claire and her lips were going to look pretty good sucking on straws and licking cream and chocolate from spoons but he hadn't really even thought about Claire and her lips and tongue licking chocolate from his fingers, which was probably a good thing or Algebra would have been a lot more embarrassing that day.

Then there had been all that emotional stuff which was awful and painful and then not so bad as you might think, and it had meant Claire's hand on his face and on his hand in that way that made his heart want to break and melt and maybe do something all Disney at the same time. And then there had been the realization that Allison of all things had been right and Claire was somehow insecure about him and although he found it a little painful when she couldn't raise her eyes to him, he also honestly found it adorable and it made him want to just kiss her for hours on end. Which was just weird.

And then she'd invited him to her house like it was just easy, like there was no reason in the world why John Bender shouldn't just show up at the Standishes' for a TV night, and he was going, too, and he figured there might be a deep, soft couch involved and the possibility that Claire might curl up against him or even lie down with him for a minute and he'd feel her whole long, soft body relax against his.

All this added up to just one thing, of course, It all meant that he had to get her out of that diner fast and up against some cold brick wall moaning and writhing within about thirty seconds or he was going to lose his fucking mind. He couldn't have said exactly how that math had worked out, but answer was crystal clear. Once he'd paid and said good-bye to Mae and she'd told Claire she was a good sport for putting up with him, and he agreed, he ushered Claire out the door, his hand at her back. She had paused just outside the door to fasten her coat, but he'd stopped her, leaning into her and muttering, "don't zip up your coat."

Claire had turned, surprised, and asking, "Why, I'm cold," and then she'd seen his face and her lips made a little "o." Then John put his hands on either side of her and started hustling her over to a little alcove he knew in the alley behind Mae's where he sometimes went for cigarettes. "Let's get you out of the cold then." She turned to face him, about to say something, but he could feel the heat coming off her body between their coats and he just said, "Let's get you warmed up," and he started walking her backwards, his hands at her waist under her coat, under her blazer. He saw her breath hitch at his touch.

"Don't you want to wait until we get home?" she asked, a little breathily.

"Do you live farther than two feet from here?"

"Yes," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Then no." And then he just started putting his hands on her. He slid one up her waist, over her stomach, then slid it around to her back, up her sweater, the feel of that much of her skin against his hand forced out a moan from him and he pressed her closer to him, which forced out another. His coat was open and her coat and blazer were open and so there was less material between their bodies than ever before and that felt burning hot to him. His other hand was trailing over her hair, then her neck, lightly skimming, and her eyes closed as a little breath went quickly into her throat and chest and he felt it there, her breath pressing through her body. Then he had his hand open wide on her chest, over her neckline, purposefully touching nothing he hadn't touched before but touching different, now, a little firmer, more rubbing, more friction, more skin on her skin. He wanted more of her skin to know what he felt like, and then he wanted even more of her skin want to get to know that feeling. He could feel his own breathing, hard and fast, and pushing his body into hers with each inhale, and then he watched as she looked at him, and then as she put her hand on his chest, just touching him through his t-shirt, looking curious and interested and turned on. He was about to kiss her when put her finger in the neckline of his white shirt and pulled it down just a little so she could, he knew, get a better look at the bruise she'd put on him, then she let her hand trail over that, and then up his neck, and she said, "The purple looks good against the white," and he said, "you look good against the brick," and he felt her body move under his hands, he felt her writhe like she said he made her do, and then she sighed and leaned back hard against the wall, closing her eyes. Her head rolled back. "It's working," she breathed, "I don't feel cold any more." And then he started seeing white again in between glimpses of Claire rolling her head on her long neck and open-mouthed, slack-jawed with wanting him.

Now his arms were on either side of her, her back was pressed hard against the wall and her front was against him as he pressed into her harder and he could see, and he'd seen it before, earlier that day, the day before, she loved it like that. It made him want to hold her hands down so she'd writhe more, have something to strain against, but he didn't do it. Someday. Maybe. He took a breath, just looked at her, trying to remember that he was not going to get inside her and fuck her up against the wall, that whatever it looked like her body was saying, that would be a wrong thing, a game ending thing even if she said yes. But he couldn't stop from kissing her, and her tongue in his mouth was as wild as it had ever been. He started seeing white again, and could feel himself straining to go further in her mouth, and further into her, and he had to pull back, and then they were just staring at each other.

John tried to think, which was hard, what he could do to tell her what she did to him that he hadn't already done. He had to tell her without scaring her and without pushing her toward something that part of her was screaming that she wanted and part of her was scared of. He didn't want to keep backing away, but showing her, hot and heavy like this, it was so easy to take things too far for her even when it seemed like what she wanted. That talk with Allison had put the fear of God in him about that.

And then he had it. It might be a little twisted—but this was him, after all, and like she'd suggested, if she'd wanted a saint she probably would have gone elsewhere. Talking about his feelings emotion wise was never going to win him any prizes, he'd done it, he sucked at it. Talking about his feelings sex wise, though, he was pretty sure was a form of communication at which he excelled. And that was what he was going to do, a lot of, and he was going to make her ache just a little bit like he was aching because then he would pull back and then she might get it, really get a couple of things, just a little bit better.

Plus it would be fun.

So he started alternately licking her ear and whispering in it, still holding her prisoner between his arms. "You're not cold anymore. Listen to you. You know damn well you feel hot as hell, you can feel as well as I do that my hands are burning when I touch you. You wanna make me hot, too, but what I don't know is how you get it, how you get what exactly to do to me to make me insane. I think about you all the fucking time, I think about touching you, I want my hands on you all the fucking time, like this," and he put one hand on her face and trailed its open fingers over her face, and neck, and down her chest, trailing one finger between her breasts, then open fingers down her stomach, around her hips, gently over her ass, "I'd want to touch you all the time, and you wouldn't even have to do a thing. I wanted you like that on Saturday while you were still hating me, while you thought I was scum but I could see you, I kept thinking how good you'd feel, and I guess I got you thinking about it too," and he pressed into her a little harder, "And now you do these things, with your lipgloss, and your sweaters, and this scarf, and in the boiler room you made me feel like God should be jealous of me, I don't think I ever felt that good before and we were in a fucking basement and we haven't even gotten to second base."

Now one of his hands was back on her face, in her hair, trailing through her hair. "And now I wanna get you just a little worked up too. Just before we take the bus. Just a little payback."

Claire bit her lip and swallowed. Each breath pressed her chest closer to his, he could really feel her, there were only two thin shirts between them. "What makes you think I'm not worked up enough already, John?"

Licking in her ear and talking at the same time, he whispered, "You can still form words," and then he hitched her up the wall a little, so he was holding her up and she was resting on his thigh pushed into her. She gasped. And then she did what could have been just adjusting her weight but might have been a different kind of movement. Fuck yeah, he thought, and he moved her like that again, and she gasped again. Then he held her still and started in on her neck, not with teeth but hard with his tongue, pushing instead of sucking but licking a long line up, then a little suck near her ear, then a bite on her ear, then sucking, hard but not enough to bruise, down, below the neck, and she moaned again, he put his mouth on her collar bone and then just a little, full-mouthed but lightly, on the very top of her breast, above the line of her shirt. And she cried out. Chuckling, he trailed his mouth up her chest, up the front of her long, white neck, up over the chin as he let her back to the ground. Her mouth was slightly open and when he kissed her she kissed back and she ran her hands all the way down his shirt, then over his back, and then pulled him to her, then ran one hand all the way back up his front, over his chest, up under his coat collar and behind his neck, pushing his mouth harder and fuller on his. And then he pulled back, kissed her upper lip chastely, pulled his coat together and straightened out his frame. Claire was just looking at him, leaning back against the wall with her hands behind her.

She looked, really, good enough to eat.

And he said, "Claire, you should zip up that coat. You're gonna get cold."

She let out groan that sounded much more like a pouty princess than the moans he'd gotten out of her a minute before. "C'mon, Claire, don't you want to wait til we get to your place?"

"Oh, my God," she said, "you're teasing me. That's what you're doing. You did that on purpose."

"Would I do that? What on earth, Claire Standish, would ever make me want to do that?" He took her hand and started walking out of the alley. He felt high as a goddamn kite. "I'm so psyched. I think there's probably some great college ball on tonight. Can we have snacks?"

He turned to look at her. "Look at you. You're still all unzipped. Here, let me help you with that." He deftly buttoned her blazer, then slowly zipped her coat. "There. Much better." John patted her shoulder in an affectionate, brotherly way. "It is so important to retain as much body heat as possible in our cold Midwestern climate, Claire."

He took her hand and put it in his pocket with his and they started walking. Claire was awfully silent and as he stole looks at her here and there, she was looking a little dazed. John felt like he might start skipping or something. "Cat got your tongue?" he asked, innocently.

"Don't be so smug," she said, mock resentfully.

He steered them toward a bus stop, asking, "Bus to your place come by here?"

"Yep," she said, "or we can call a car service."

John looked down and shuffled his feet. But he really meant it. Calling a car service, actually, was not something he could even handle thinking about. Too different a world, a world where John Bender just didn't belong. And then he had one of those great ideas of something he might say. "You know, Cherry, that sounds nice, and it might even feel good—but I just don't think I'm ready for that yet. Maybe sometime later, but right now—do you mind waiting with me here? I mean, I know you're used to getting home faster—"

Claire leaned back against the bus shelter, looking at him, a little smile playing around her lips and her whole face doing that glowy thing. "John," she said, "in case you were wondering, I have noticed that you can be the cutest person in the entire world, and you can just consider this official notice that I am falling for you so hard that I might hand feed you dinner, too."

"We shouldn't have soup, then," said John, and he leaned against the opposite wall of the bus stop. They just stood there, looking at each other, until the bus came.

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AN: Thanks for the reviews! I have just one question: what kind of enormous selection of ultra-hip t-shirts do you imagine Woolworth's carried in 1985? I'm thinking Fruit of the Loom 3-pack. Just sayin. Now, I realize you international readers may no more idea of what I'm talking about than if I were my version of Allison—but Woolworth's was a cheap chain store and I just meant the white T-shirt to be realistic. Now that I think about it though, it's a total metaphor. How much do I love it that anyone cares! Enough to write a whole tiny "teaser" chapter.