Author's note: Hey everyone! Thank you for coming back!
This one is rated M for smut. Please read till the end, it will be worth it I promise!
This is my take on the spoilers we got so far, so this is kind of an idea of what will happen in S4.
Leave me your thoughts if you like, and if you have any one shot prompts for me, I would love to hear them :)
Hope you enjoy!
"And if you hurt me
That's okay baby, only words bleed
Inside these pages you just hold me
And I won't ever let you go
Wait for me to come home"
Photograph by Ed Sheeran
Andy keeps spinning the polaroid picture she found in the pocket of her ripped jeans between her thumb and her forefinger, feeling the smooth surface between her fingers. She stupidly enough washed the pair of pants with the photo still inside them, so the colors faded and the edges are a bit wrinkled, but she can still recognize well enough the two people looking at her from the little card.
Two people who were so in love with each other, never knowing what fate has in store for them, lurking around the corner, waiting to surprise them just when they least expected it, tearing them apart from each other completely.
Andy can remember vividly the moment she took that picture. She was looking for something, can't really recall what, going through Robert's belongings in an attempt to retrieve whatever it was that she needed. Then she found that old polaroid camera, different from the ones they make today. It was dusty and obviously out of use, but Andy managed to take one good picture with it nonetheless.
Her eyes are shining in the picture, her hair a mess from being properly disheveled by him. She is smiling widely as he kisses her cheek, his eyes open, staring into the camera, too. After the photo was taken, Robert insisted on her keeping the small memento, and so she shoved it to the pair of ripped jeans she is currently wearing. In the aftermath of everything that happened just a few days later, she forgot the little piece of film in the pocket, and she never got around to wearing this particular pants for some reason ever since that day. A day that took place forever ago.
She can recognize the man and the woman in the picture, in love with each other to a painful level, but she can't say she knows who they are anymore.
They drifted apart far, far away from the smitten man and the woman whose memory this photo forever holds.
Andy sighs and places the picture on the bar with a slam. "Hey, Trey, can I have another one please?" She asks as she points at the empty tequila shot in front of her.
Joe's bar is significantly quiet for a midweek night. There is the regular stream of doctors and nurses coming in and out, de-stressing after a long shift at the hospital just across the street, and a few other clients who found themselves in the dark bar nursing a drink at a late hour in the middle of the week.
Andy can feel the eyes of a few of her friends piercing a hole through her back. They all came over together, inviting her to sit down with them and share a pint of beer, but Andy prefers to be alone.
Her marriage is over before it even had an actual opportunity to start, and the last thing she wants to hear right now is her teammates saying they told her as much, and that she should have known better.
All she wants to do is have another drink or two, even though she knows that no amount of liquor will be able to subside the ache she feels between her rib cages when she thinks about the ugly turn her life had taken in the last couple of months.
"You know, he comes by pretty often." The bartender points at Robert's image, looking up from the picture still tossed on the bar, as he places the drink she ordered in front of her. "He goes down the stairs every couple of days or so, and takes a good look around. I can always see hope on his face as he scans the room thoroughly, and when he can't find the one thing he is looking for, there is always that surge of sadness that seems to cling to his entire body. Then he leaves, never stays, never orders a drink." Trey gives her a small smile, as another customer signals for him from across the bar, expecting to be served. "Look, I know I should probably not meddle in whatever it is that is going on between the two of you, it is obviously none of my business, but I have seen my fair share of broken hearts, and by the way you look at this picture, I can safely say that the one thing he comes looking for is you."
Then he goes to fill the requests of his other paying clients, leaving her to dwell on his words and the memories.
Andy swings the little glass up to her lips, emptying the content into her mouth. The amber liquid burns its way through her throat and into her stomach, making her feel a little warmer inside than she previously did. It has been her third or her forth shot, and even though Andy is a woman who is known for her capability of holding down her liquor, the world already starts to blur around the edges.
Things have been bad between the two of them.
They have been arguing more than they have been loving, have been screaming more than whispering words of desire to each other. All they seemed to do is fight, and it has been months and she is exhausted. He has been blaming her for never giving their relationship a fair chance, always so scared of what her peers and her mother might say or think. She has been accusing him of self sabotaging, of bringing them to the point they found themselves in today.
She has moved out of his bed and to the coach, then back to Jack's apartment all together.
The last time she saw him was a month ago, give or take. He works for a private firefighting company now, the fire department never giving him a chance to find his way back to it's lines after he admitted to stealing narcotics. He was lucky enough they let him off the hook without pressing any criminal charges. She met him on a call, and instead of both of them doing their jobs and staying as far away from each other as possible, the incident ended up with another big explosion between the man and the woman who once promised they would have and hold each other, for better or for worse.
Andy doesn't know why, but it just seems like every time they come face to face with each other, they have to pick a fight. She can't help herself around him, has to argue, even though she is not sure anymore what they are arguing about.
The fallout between the two spouses was bad, to such extent Maya had to reprimand her, to scold her to leave her personal problems out of their calls once they made it back to the station. For a change, Andy said nothing back as her captain yelled and yelled, because she knew she deserved it.
She made her own bed, and now she is sleeping in it.
Andy signals Trey to pour her another one, the fingers of one hand play with the rim of the empty glass, as the other shoves the polaroid deep into her left pocket, where it belongs, out of sight and out of mind.
She will never admit that, but everyone around her telling her that her marriage to her former battalion chief was doomed to end in failure were right, yet she was just too stubborn and too in love to see the train-wreck approaching her way rapidly.
Too bad that love by itself is not enough to get the two of them to keep holding onto each other as the world keeps throwing obstacle after obstacle their way.
Andy can feel someone standing behind her, hovering just over her shoulder, and for a moment there is a surge of hope deep in her belly that it might be him. That it might be Robert, telling her that he is not ready to give up on her yet, that they can mend whatever it is that is broken.
But moments like that only ever happen in fairy tales, and the belief of a happy ever after kept letting Andy down over and over again in the past six months.
And she is no damsel in distress, so when she sees Jack finding a seat on the empty bar stool just to her right, she gives him a smirk, and bits her lower lip seductively.
"Hey there, stranger." Jack greets her, handing over a bottle of beer he just opened. Andy nods her head in his direction and clicks her drink with his, before bringing it to her lips and taking a long sip. "Do you really prefer sitting here all alone, dwelling on whatever it is that you think about, instead of hanging out with us? There is still an open spot next to our table." He makes an offer.
"I don't particularly feel like having every choice and every decision I have ever made being judged and torn apart to shreds tonight." Andy shrugs and takes another big swig, leaving the bottle half empty by now.
"So what do you feel like doing?" Jack asks. She should say she wants to drink alone, she should send him back to the table where her co-workers laugh and make jokes on account of each other. He is a good man, and she should not sabotage his progress. The progress she knows he has worked so hard to achieve.
But hell, he is also a grown man, and he can make his own choices for himself.
"I want to feel something other than angry, and hurt, and frustrated." She admits, taking the two of them back to another night when she made the exact same comment, at the exact same bar. "And as far as I can recall, we have a history of helping each other out in such cases."
The both of them know how that exact night ended, and the many nights that followed.
"Do you really believe it is a good idea for me to sleep with a married woman again?"
Andy snorts. She rotates the bottle in her hands, watching the bubbles rising to the surface. "Jack, I am currently married on the paper only, and I have a reason to believe even this is bound to end soon. We don't live under the same roof anymore, we haven't spoken to each other for over a month. I am many things, but I don't think I can call myself a married woman anymore."
Andy places the bottle on the bar, among some bills she fishes out of her other pocket, that will cover the few drinks she had and quite a decent tip. "Look, Jack. I am not looking for flowers and chocolates and sweet words. If it makes you feel all bad and guilty inside, that's on you, but I am telling you that he and I both know that our marriage is over." She sighs. "I am going to the storage room. If you are not going to be there in five minutes, I am just going to turn around and I will meet you at the house. But if you do plan on showing up… Well, I don't think I have to explain to you what is going to happen."
She stands up, ready to make her way to the back of the bar, when she feels his hand grabbing on her wrist. "Wait." He stops her from going any further. Jack pays for his drinks and takes her palm in his, lacing their fingers together.
As they make their way to the room where they will be able to find some privacy, Andy catches Maya's eyes in her glance. The blonde shakes her head, and Andy knows she is trying to make her think again about her choices.
But Maya is the last person who can pull any criticism about the choices Andy makes.
She needs to forget, she needs to forget him and forget that picture, and if alcohol won't help her erase whatever it is that she is feeling but can't name, well, then maybe Jack will.
Andy tears her gaze away from the woman who used to be her best friend, and enters the storage room, Jack closing the door behind them.
They just stare at each other for a long moment, not knowing how to proceed. It has been a while since the last time they have been together, and the whole situation is a bit awkward, but Andy is sure that once they will push through the initial embarrassment, they will be able to slide right back to the place that used to be so familiar to the both of them.
Jack slides his hands into her front pockets and pulls her closer to him, until their bodies touch and their breaths mix in together.
And then she sees it, lying on the floor between them.
That photograph. It must have fallen when Jack pulled her towards him.
And she knows she can't do it.
She hasn't had sex since the morning before her father died, when everything felt so new and exhilarating. When she had no other care in the world other than to convince her husband that smoothies don't count as breakfast. She hasn't had sex with any other man but him since the day she came to his door and told him she wanted him to kiss her, to make her feel.
And she realizes she doesn't want to have meaningless sex with another man, who she cares for very much, her friend, whose feelings are bound to get hurt in the process.
She hasn't had sex with anyone else, but that doesn't mean she didn't touch herself from time to time, when the nights got long and lonely and she couldn't sleep. And as she closed her eyes and came quietly, in each and every time it was Robert who she had imagined touching her, making her head spin. It was his hands, his body, his name that came on her lips. It has been him for a long while now, and Andy knows deep down inside of her that it will always be him.
She doesn't want any other man, she doesn't want just another random man to take the edges off and make her feel pleasure. She wants him, still wants him, and she has to have faith in him, in them, as long as there is still the slightest chance that they can untangle the giant mess they found themselves in.
She has to find her way back into his arms, even if it seems impossible at the moment.
"Jack, Jack stop." Andy pushes him away as he kisses her neck. "I can't do it."
Jack steps away, staring at her with confusion written all over his face. She was the one to initiate the contact, after all. "It is him, isn't it?" He asks as she picks the photograph of the floor and pushes it deep into her pocket again.
Andy nods. "I love him, Jack, I am in love with him. Even if none of you can understand it. Even if I can't understand it more often than not. You are a great man, and you deserve your happiness. But your happiness isn't with me, and I don't want to hurt you." She takes his face in her hands and kisses him softly on the cheek, before she barges through the door and up the stairs of the bar.
On her way out, she can see Maya again, only this time she is smiling at her, and nodding her head in approval.
And Andy knows she is doing the right thing, by herself, and by Jack, too.
She uses a ride share app on her phone to find her way back, knowing she drank too much to drive herself, or to walk anywhere. Her car rolls to the entrance of the bar in no time, and in the driver seat sits a middle aged man who wears glasses and a warm smile on his face. He refers to her as ma'am, asking her about her night politely.
The rest of the drive goes by quietly, the only noise in the car is the radio playing softly and the sound of the heavy rain that started to pour outside. It was nothing but a drizzle when she left the bar, yet the weather in Seattle is everything but predictable, and as she steps out of the car and thanks the driver, she finds herself in something that resembles a storm very much.
The house she stands in front of is filled with so many memories, each of them stabs her like a knife to the chest when she recalls them. Waking up to his warm body in the morning, and his complaints about her cold feet every night. Cooking meals together, and making love to each other, and cuddling on the sofa in front of a movie, until her eyes felt heavy and he had to persuade her sweetly to follow him to their bed, his leg injury preventing him from carrying her up the stairs and into the bedroom they shared. The rare night she went to sleep on the sofa, when the cracks in their relationship have already started to show, and woke up in the middle of the night to him sliding behind her and wrapping his arms around her middle. The beam of hope she felt at that very moment, even though that come morning, it didn't last.
And as she stares at the house that holds almost every happy moment she shared with the man she still loves, even after all the pain and the heartbreak, she can't bring herself to walk in, or rather to push the doorbell and wait for an answer that may or may not come, since she doesn't have a key anymore.
She can't bring herself to order another ride back to the place she has been sleeping in either, to the apartment she shares with Jack, but still doesn't think of as her home.
So she just stands there, lets the seconds and the minutes pass by, until she is soaking wet, drenched to her bones with the rain that keeps falling heavily on her. She is shaking, but still, she doesn't flinch, doesn't make a move towards or away from the four walls where she last felt happy and safe.
She doesn't have to make a move, because the door opens to a crack, and as she sees him peeking out to the street, her breath catches in her throat. He is wearing a pair of light gray sweatpants and nothing else, his chest is naked and his feet are bare, and he is every bit as handsome as he was the day she finally realized she was in love with him.
"Andy?" He asks, squinting his eyes in her direction, trying to figure out if it is really her figure he sees, completely soaked with rain water, her hands crossed across her chest.
"I… I…" She tries to explain her presence in this late hour of night outside a house she doesn't live in anymore, but her teeth are rattling, and she can't really find the words anyway.
"Come in." He invites her. She hesitates, not really sure she should take the offer, afraid of what she might do or feel around him. "Andy, you are still my wife, and I don't have a habit of letting my wife get pneumonia when it is really easy for me to keep you all warm and cozy. Come on, I know you are stubborn, but so am I. Now get inside here before I will have to step outside and carry you in."
It takes her a moment, but Andy finally manages to move her legs, walking slowly towards the door, which he closes behind her.
His house is warm, and she breathes in the familiar scent as he wraps her in a dry blanket. His hands linger on her shoulders, rubbing up and down in a soothing motion, and she does nothing to push him away. "I am getting everything wet. Another reason for you to hate me now, as if you don't have enough of them already." Andy is still shaking, so she wraps the blanket tighter around her small body, but her clothes are drenched, so it does very little to prevent the chill she feels going up and down her spine.
"I don't hate you." He whispers softly, his mouth so close to her ear she can feel his warm breath tickling down the back of her neck, and suddenly the goosebumps on her skin are not solely an outcome of the rain. "I don't ever think I can hate you."
"I am sorry I woke you." Andy apologies. She knows she wasn't the one who woke him up, but she has so much to ask his forgiveness for, so she might as well start with something.
"I wasn't sleeping." Robert admits as he pulls away from her. "To be honest, it is quite hard for me to sleep in that big bed all alone, without having another body to keep me warm and keep me company. I know you weren't there, at the other end of the bed, for that long, but I guess I got used to your presence quite quickly." She wants to tell him that she feels the same, but there is no sound coming out of her mouth. "So I wandered downstairs, and as I looked out the window I thought I saw someone standing in the rain. It is a good thing I decided to open the door to get a better look, otherwise you would have probably become an icicle by now."
Andy smiles at his joke, but then there is another shiver going through her body, and she is shaking.
"Let's make a deal." Robert suggests. "We will take you out of those wet clothes, and I will make us two mugs of hot cocoa, and then you can tell me what you were doing outside of my house at two in the morning on a Tuesday.
"I didn't know you could make any other drink but smoothies." Andy manages to crack a joke, and he is smiling at her.
She doesn't have a logical explanation, but the air between them is clearer now, like they have been stuck under a thick blanket of fog for the last months, and only now the clouds have risen and they can finally, finally see each other the same way as the day he asked her to marry him, and she said yes.
"Well, it is my specialty, but I didn't think suggesting that would be a good idea. I find it hard to believe a smoothie will be your drink of choice, while you will fight that inevitable cold coming your way." He peels the blanket off of her body, but as he reaches to take off her sweater, she takes a step back.
"I didn't leave anything here. I won't have anything to wear." Andy explains.
"Wait here, I will get you something of my own." He promises, and then disappears up the stairs, climbing them up two by two, now that his leg injury is no longer an issue.
Andy uses the little time she has to take in her surroundings, scanning for any little thing he could have changed in the few months she hasn't been living under this roof. The house is impeccably organized again, now that there aren't any of her boxes taking space and collecting dust everywhere, but other than that, it stayed completely the same. There is a picture facing flat on the coffee table, the only thing that is out of sorts in the otherwise perfectly decorated house, and Andy is painfully aware of the fact that this is another picture of the two of them.
She guesses that they each made an effort to keep the memories as far away from sight as possible.
She can hear him coming back down the stairs, sees him holding a navy blue colored hoodie in his reached out hand. "Andy, please get undressed so I will be able to take your clothes to the dryer. It isn't like I haven't seen it all before. Every minute that you stay in your wet clothes, the larger the chance you have of getting sick. And I know you, you won't tolerate it if Maya decides to send you home before you get the entire A shift infected."
"I know where the laundry room is, Robert. I used to live in this house for a short while. You really don't have to do this for me." She tries to make her way to the small room just next to the guest bathroom, but he is blocking her way.
"Let me do this for you. Please." He begs.
Andy nods, and she can't ignore the way he looks at her as she starts to get undressed. His glare is heated, burning her skin, and at the same time it makes her feel like she is standing in the middle of a blizzard, her entire body shaking to the core under his gaze. She takes her shoes and socks off, then undoes the button and the zipper of her jeans and takes them off. Her top is the last item to go, and as she pulls it up and over her head, he is standing in front of her, frozen, her hands reached in his direction with the little crumpled pile of wet clothes.
"You are not wearing a bra." He swallows. ,
"I didn't feel like it before I left the apartment, and the sweater I wore was thick and loose enough to cover everything I needed to keep covered." Andy shrugs, trying to keep her tone casual, as if she doesn't get a little wet between her thighs just by the way his eyes keep roaming back and forth across her bare chest. "I just thought you said you saw it all before." She smiles triumphantly.
He doesn't make a sound, doesn't even try to say something to tease her back. Her nipples are hard and dark, and Andy can't tell if it is from the fact that her skin is still a little bit wet, or from the way he looks at them at the moment, like he is planning to take one of them in his mouth and suck on it, hard.
Andy knows that if he chooses to do so, she will be putty in his hands. She remembers vividly how good he can make her feel, using his hands and his tongue and his body, and she is willing to take whatever he wants to give her. But she already knows that sex is not the way to solve all their problems. She is afraid that if they use the pleasures of flesh instead of making actual work to close the gap that kept growing bigger and bigger between them, she is just going to push them further apart.
"Robert, are you going to hand me the hoodie, or are you just going to keep standing here like a statue?" She reaches her hand out. He finally takes her wet clothes and gives her the dry one, and as he moves quickly towards the laundry room, she pulls his hoodie over her head and down her naked body.
"Wait." She asks him as he turns around, remembering the photograph she left in the front of her pants. She reaches out and pulls the little piece of film out of the pocket, and for a moment they both look at it. It is completely soaking wet from the rain, the picture crumpled and changed to a point where neither of them can recognize it, but they both know well enough who the man and the woman captured by the camera were.
Robert is gone, and Andy places the little photograph on the coffee table, right next to the frame still lying upside down.
The piece of clothing she wears is thick and warming, and it still smells so much like him. It reaches her mid-thigh as she stands, yet as she sits down instinctively on the side of the sofa she used to call hers, Andy pulls the top a little bit further down her thighs, suddenly aware of the fact that other than the top and her underwear, she wears absolutely nothing.
When they were still together, she used to steal his T-shirts and his sweatshirts all the time, used to run around the house wearing nothing but them, so his hands would have easy access to the place between her thighs where she needed him more often than not. She has one certain memory of her sitting on his desk in his makeshift home office, her legs spread wide, his fingers inside of her, his mouth biting down hard on her neck.
Her eyes are fixated on a random spot on the wall as she recalls their activities in the room not far away from the one she is sitting in, so she doesn't hear Robert coming back, until he hands her a steaming mug of the chocolaty liquid.
"Thank you." She whispers her gratitude as she takes the cup out of his hand.
"You are blushing." He notes as he sits right beside her, nursing his own drink in his hand. "What are you thinking about?" He inquires, even though Andy has a feeling he already knows.
"I am not blushing." She objects, and doesn't answer the second part of his sentence. Andy blows lightly on her hot drink, and then takes a small sip of it. The rich, sweet aroma feels her senses, and she hums in appreciation as it moves down her throat and settles in her belly.
"You added whiskey to our hot chocolate?" She raises a brow in his direction, yet reaches for the hot beverage again and takes another long sip.
"Well, I only added alcohol to yours. I thought you might appreciate it. I, on the other hand, can't drink. It is not wise for drug addicts to drink, you know, with booze being a slippery slope and all. Amelia won't appreciate me putting whiskey in my hot cocoa, that is for sure." He refers to his surgeon, who became his AA sponsor once he was officially no longer her patient.
He never told her as much, their relationship being too far into the abyss when it happened, but she heard that specific detail about his life from Meredith in one of her trips to Grey Sloan. In one of her attempts to gather information about her husband's progress from anyone but him.
"Are you trying to get me drunk, Robert Sullivan?"
"Never, Andy Herrera." He promises, and as she sneaks another glance in his direction, she can see a rare and satisfying smile spread across his face.
"Well, I will have to admit that I did have a few drinks at Joe's before I came here. I needed some liquid courage." Andy taps her fingers nervously on the side of her mug, until he places a soft hand on hers, asking her to stop fidgeting without using that many words.
It has been a long while since he last touched her, and the feeling of his skin on hers makes her jump a little in surprise. He takes his hand away sharply, and she can see in his eyes that he is scared he had gone too far, that he had done something he shouldn't have.
"What did you need courage for?" He asks, trying to distract the both of them from
whatever it was that just happened.
"To tell you that I don't want to fight anymore. To ask you if you are willing to have a quiet, simple conversation, just the two of us. Two adults who were so in love with each other once. Two adults who might find that same love still somewhere in their hearts."
"I would very much like that." He nods.
"I…" Andy hesitates, but if there is one thing she learned in the past year, is that life is short, and if you love someone, you should tell them. If you want something, you should ask for it. She may get rejected, but at least she will leave this house for the last time knowing she tried her hardest. "I have so many amends to make. To be honest, I can't even recall what all of our fights and arguments were about. But I do know this. I still love you, I am still in love with you, even if I can't explain it, even if after everything we have been through, I should probably hate you, and you should definitely hate me. But instead, I found myself standing by your door step in the middle of a storm, wanting to ask you if you think our relationship, or whatever that is left of it, anyway, is worth salvaging."
As Andy finishes the little speech she rehearsed over and over again in her mind all through her drive in her Uber, she can't look him in the eye, too afraid she will see rejection in them. She pretends to drink the remaining of her cocoa, grateful for having something to concentrate on as she waits for him to say something, anything.
Her relief doesn't last long, because he takes the mug away from her grip and places it on the table, right next to his. This does the job, and as she looks at him, she can tell he is closed some of the distance between them, and now he is awfully close.
"Despite everything that you might think of me, I didn't magically stop loving you six months ago. I fell in love with you a long time ago. It isn't so easy for me to just fall out of love, and hearing what you said, I think it isn't very easy for you, either." He smiles at her. His hands find a little strand of hair that fell on her face, and he moves it back behind her ear.
When he is done, his hand lingers on her face, his thumb caressing her cheek lightly.
"I want to do things differently this time, if we want this time to be the time when it lasts." Robert continues, and Andy nods, ready to hear whatever conditions he might have. "I think it is best if we keep the fact that we are trying to find our way back to each other to ourselves for the time being. I am not searching for anyone to blame, but I think that other people's opinion had a lot to do with the falling out we have. So maybe this time, the only people whose opinion will matter are the ones of the two who are actually part of this relationship? Only until we feel whatever it is that we have will be strong enough to carry the weight of other's thoughts without falling apart."
"I want to date this time." Andy calls. "I want you to take me to dinners, and to movies, and whatever it is that normal people do while they get to know each other. You no longer work for the fire department, so us being together in public is not a problem anymore. I feel like almost every memory we ever made, good or bad or ugly, was between these four walls. Maybe if we have a change of scenery, we will have a change of luck, too."
"You have yourself a deal." Robert agrees. "But I want something in return, too. If this is going to go well this time, I want us to have a real wedding. The white dress and the vows and the first dance. Your father got to be at your first wedding, maybe your mother will get to be in your second?"
"You can be so romantic sometimes, it makes me sick." Andy smiles into the warm hand still on her cheek. She turns and kisses his wrist softly. "One last thing." She requests. They have moved closer to each other, now that the air between them is cleared and there is new hope where nothing else but pain and sorrow were just a month ago. "I want you to let me in. Truly. And I promise I will try to do the same for you, even though I still have to learn how. No more secrets, no more lies, no more self doubt."
Robert moves closer to her now, closing the final little gap. He rests his forehead against hers, and she instinctively closes her eyes and breathes him in, the scent of his body wash filling her nose. His hand studies on her face as he repeats "No more secrets, no more lies, no more self doubt."
"Andy?" She hears him calling her name softly.
"Mmm?" She hums back, refusing to open her eyes, refusing to let the moment end.
"I am going to kiss you now." He gives her a warning, and she nods eagerly, waiting for him to be the first to move.
She is sitting there for a while, her forehead pressed against his, her breaths mix with his, her belly filled with anticipation.
All she sees is darkness when he kisses her for the first time in what feels like forever, her eyes shut tight, her lips open slightly to let his tongue slide in. He tastes like chocolate and smells like winter, and when he lifts her up so she can sit on top of him, straddling him with her legs, she releases a surprised giggle.
She missed him.
His mouth moves from her lips to her jawline, and then starts to travel down her neck. He bites and kisses every spot that he can find, as Andy wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her.
"I don't… I don't make it a habit to sleep with men before they even take me on our first date." She breathes as she feels him sucking hard on a particular spot on her neck, but at the same time she rolls her hips forward, contradicting completely her statement as she makes her intentions clear.
"Andy?" He whispers her name as he is desperately trying to catch his breath, as if he is trying to reassure himself she is the woman who is sitting in his lap, and not some random stranger he picked up at a bar.
She opens her eyes and tilts her head in his direction. Maybe she misinterpreted the situation. Maybe he wants to take it slow this time around, doesn't want to progress anywhere past heated make out sessions for the time being.
He just leans forward and catches her lips with his again. Her eyes close and her thighs keep thrusting forward, over and over again. They kiss like two horny teenagers for a couple long minutes, and she can feel him harden with every rock of her hips forward. He stops her again when he places a hand on each of her legs, pinning her down to place.
"Robert, if you don't want us to progress so quickly, I understand it." She tries to be considerate, even though he can read the disappointment off of her face. She is wet and ready for someone else to pleasure her, something other than her two hands and the vibrator Maya bought her as a Christmas present a few years back.
"Oh, believe me it isn't the issue." He manages to breath out as he is trying to inhale as much air as possible back into his lungs. "But if you won't stop dry humping me soon, I might come in my pants, and this will kill the mood for the both of us."
"Sorry." Andy mumbles, and suddenly she feels like an inexperienced teenager all over again, learning the secrets of the male anatomy for the first time in her life. "Let me help you with that, then." She suggests. She stands in front of him, her knees suddenly throbbing, protesting the position they were in for quite a while. He stands up as well, the back of his calves pressed against the sofa, as she slides her hand through his pants and into his boxers.
Andy gives him one long, slow stroke, starting at the base and making her way all the way to the tip, in a manner that makes him moan in pleasure and throw his head back before she takes him in her hand and guides him out of the pants. She lowers the only two clothing items on his body down to the ground. Robert completes the task at hand, and kicks his pants off of his calves, pushing them aside with his foot, until he is completely naked in front of her. Her hands are still on the inside part of his thighs, her fingers moving up and down slowly.
"Andy." He whispers her name when he thinks she is going to take him in her hand and relieve some of the pressure.
"Yeah?" She asks innocently as she moves her hands back down, making sure he knows that even though they haven't been engaging in any of this particular activity for the past six months, their game of control they have is still a part of their foreplay.
"Take down your underwear, leave the hoodie on." He orders.
Andy does as he bids, her hands disappearing inside the big sweatshirt she wears. She takes her time, feels the way his look is burning her skin with want and desire, until the garment finally reaches her ankles and she can kick it in the direction where his clothes already pile.
She pushes him back down to the sofa, straddling him once again, placing each of her knees to either side of his hips. Her finger trails the outline of one of his abs, until she takes him in her hand and tries to find the right angle to sink down to him.
"What exactly do you think you are doing?" He reprimands as he catches the wrist of the hand touching him and pulls it away.
"Well, I didn't think you told me to get my underwear off so we can play a heated game of Monopoly." Andy sighs. When she tries to sink down to him again, he places two hands on her hips, holding her from moving any further, his short fingernails digging into her flesh.
"I think you know better by now." He scolds. His hands guide her to the position he wants her in, standing on her knees in front of him. "Now, don't move until I say you can't." Robert inserts one of his hands into the long hoodie she wears, his fingers start to move down from her bellybutton, to her navel, until he almost reaches just the right spot. His thumb gives her clit one long, slow stroke, which makes her hips move forward on an instinct, just to find them grinding against nothing but air.
He does it again, in a pace that will keep her wet, but will never make her come on its own. He pinches the bundle of nerves between her forefinger and his thumb, hard enough to make her hiss. "Please." She begs, her eyes shut close, every muscle in her core tight. "I need more."
She needs him to pick up the pace, make the move of his thumb steady and consistent. She needs his fingers, or his mouth, or him to be inside of her. She needs everything to release the pressure she feels in her lower body. Yet she is now experienced enough, not as naïve as she was the first time he gained control over her body. When she sees him like that, his eyes dark with lust, his expression dead serious, his chest falling and rising in a set rhythm, she can beg and scream and fight all she wants. She won't have her release until he decides it is the right time.
"I just need to ask you a few questions before I let you come." Robert lets her know. He moves his thumb in a circular motion again, which makes her throw her head back and bite on her lower lip hard enough for her to draw blood.
The rhythm in which he moves his finger or pinches her most sensitive spot is calculated perfectly. A stroke, then a long pause, then a stroke again. He uses a pattern she can't memorize, so every time he touches her, she moans again, taken by complete surprise.
Enough for pain and pleasure to build slowly in her stomach, but not enough to make her finally come with a groan and his name on her lips.
"Did you sleep with anyone else when we were apart?" He asks. She can't find her words when he pinches again, harder this time, so she just shakes her head to say that no, she hasn't.
If her mind wasn't completely vague from want and desire, she might have wondered what he might have done if the answer to his question was positive.
A part of her wants to find out.
"Good." He approves and removes the hand still on her thigh and slides one finger into her. She doesn't move, stays completely still as she thinks he might finally, finally, help her fall over the edge.
"Wet." He whispers into her ear when he finally feels her. "Warm." Andy nods and bits down harder on the lip she holds between her upper teeth, waiting for him to proceed. "Did you touch yourself during those months? Did you use that vibrator you think I don't know about?" He asks again, rubbing her clit and thrusting his long finger in simultaneously.
Andy nods eagerly. She doesn't know how he figured out about the vibrator, she made sure to keep it hidden away, since when they were together, it obviously had no use. She doesn't know how he knows, but right now, she couldn't care less.
Robert pushes a second finger into her, making Andy lower her head and moan quietly into his ear. "Where?"
"In my bunk at the station." Andy gives him the answer she knows he would like to hear, and the one that is also true. "When the nights were long and quiet, I used to lock the door and tried to keep it down as much as I could." She breaths.
Robert pushes a third finger into her, still moving them inside her. He knows that she is close, can feel her tightening around him. "Last question. Who did you think about? Touching you, pleasuring you?"
Every muscle in her body burns when she screams the word "You".
After he finally got what he wanted, he decides that he has made her wait long enough. His fingers move faster and deeper inside her folds now, his thumb rubbing against her clit, knowing that the stimulation will make her release come in no time.
He watches her when she comes, her head thrown back, her hair spreading down her shoulder, a drop of sweat sliding down her face. She moves her hips frantically into his hands as she calls his name over and over again, the pleasure washes her body.
He knows she is done when she finally stills completely, the only sound in the air is her panting breaths, desperately trying to even out and go back to normal.
"I don't know if I should thank you for the mind-blowing orgasm or I should be mad at you for making me wait for it so long." She whispers as he pulls his fingers out of her.
"Definitely thank me." He decides.
Andy wraps her arms around his neck and lowers her head down to place a kiss to his lips. "Thank you." She whispers.
"Are you still on the pill?" He inquires, his breath heavy. She got her release, but she can't say the same thing about him, and when she looks down between them, she can see he is more than ready.
"Yeah." Andy confirms.
"Great." He smiles, satisfied. "Because I would hate to have something between us that will ruin the feeling of you tight around me." He guides her hips down slowly, inch by inch, until he is completely buried inside her.
It has been a while, and it feels slightly like the first time all over again. Not uncomfortable by any means, but she does need a minute to adjust to his size and his length inside her walls.
Robert moans in pleasure when Andy hooks her ankles behind his back and starts to move slowly on top of him. "You have no idea how long I have been waiting to feel you again."
"I guess I wasn't the only one touching herself, then." She laughs, thrusting her hips forward again, picking up the pace.
"Trust me, you weren't the only one." Robert laughs and pulls her in for a kiss. Their kiss is sloppy, filled with tongue, as one of his hands reaches between them, his finger finds her clit again, going over it in circles again and again, so she will be able to come one more time. She moves on top of him faster, harder, and it doesn't take long for her to hit her climax, moaning his name into his mouth.
Few deep thrusts later, and he finds his release as well.
"Andy?" He calls her name once the high is settled.
"Mmm?" She hums, her eyes still closed shut tightly, her arms still around his neck.
"You need to climb off." He coaxes softly.
"Do we have to move?" She tries to prolong the moment. His hands find a stray piece of hair and twirls it around a finger.
"Babe" She breathes in sharply as he uses this nickname he has for her, one he hasn't spoken since the day she left him in the hospital, alone and wounded. "I am not going to order you to leave after I got what I wanted. You are more than welcome to spend the night, and if you want to go again, I can come up with a few more creative ways to make you call out my name."
"I will hold you accountable to that promise." Andy finally moves off of him, but as she feels every sore muscle in her body, from her thighs to her butt and up to her abs, she knows she probably won't be able to handle another round.
Well, not until the morning, anyway.
He lifts himself off of the couch as Andy just sits back and relax, completely immersed in the afterglow. She bites her lips as she watches him walking away, his backside completely naked, every muscle as well defined as she remembered it to be.
A part of her finds it hard to believe that this handsome man is hers again.
He comes back with a blanket in one hand, and the old polaroid camera in another. "Thought we should make some new memories, now that the old one is completely ruined." He explains before she even has a chance to ask. Robert wraps her body with the blanket, then hands her the old camera.
They find the position they were in the older photograph in no time, she with a huge smile on her face, he placing a kiss on her cheek.
Yet she moves as she presses the button at the top of the old device, sneezes, can't keep it inside. When the photo comes out, her form is completely blurry, and they both laugh.
"Bless you." Robert raises a brow.
"Sorry." Andy shrugs.
Robert takes the camera and the picture out of her hands and places them on the coffee table. He stands up, then takes her in his arms, carrying her up the stairs.
Andy thinks that he does it now because he can, his pain syndrome finally not being an issue anymore, so she doesn't resist, doesn't scream at him to lower her down, that she can make her own way up the stairs, thank you very much.
"Come on, typhoid Mary." He laughs with her still in his arms. "Let's get you to bed."