Last Train to Brooklyn
—
Chapter Eight
We Are One Beating Heart
"Oh, Cloud. Yes… right there… oh, god…"
Tifa had her palm wrapped around Cloud's cock, but she couldn't concentrate on it with the way his tongue was currently pressed between her folds, snaking down to lap at her clit before dipping back up to her entrance, sliding into it, in and out, gently. At her whines of pleasure, Cloud tightened the grip of his arms around her thighs, pulling her even closer against his face, the flat of his tongue dragging across her bundle of nerves, Tifa wincing at the pleasing sensations that bubbled throughout her body.
She dropped her lips again, closing her eyes and letting her tongue slide around the rim of his tip. As soon as her mouth was on him again, Tifa heard him groan behind her, his hips bucking up at her, sliding his length deeper into her mouth. She moaned, her brain mystified by the heat of his hardness in her hand and mouth, and the feel of his own lips on her aching, wet flesh.
They were laying on the center of the floor in the middle of his living room, having dropped there while they were sitting side by side on the couch, watching a murder thriller that Tifa had picked out. She had been pressed up against Cloud's body, his arms around her waist and her leg tossed over his lap as she clung to him while she watched, wincing into his chest whenever something on the screen jumped out and frightened her. He would chuckle and squeeze her reassuringly, and eventually, his hands had begun to wander, one skirting up under her hoodie and finding her warm skin, the other rubbing and squeezing her thigh, drifting to its inside. At that sensation, Tifa had turned to look up at him, finding his eyes heavy-lidded and shadowed as he looked back down at her, his eyes a dark, stormy midnight blue.
It was the look of lust, Tifa knew, and she'd found herself slowly climbing into his lap, the movie abandoned as he wrapped his arms around her waist and she straddled him, dropping her lips to his in a soft, tender kiss that soon became hungry and wild.
Somehow, they'd come up out of all of their clothes, and Cloud was pulling Tifa down with him to the soft carpet, turning her around as he laid back on the floor, positioning her over his face. And now, he moved his lips away from her slick core, instead pressing kisses to her inner thighs, gently nipping at her flesh there with his teeth.
Although it was horribly teasing, Tifa was at least able to focus her attention on him now that he'd taken his tongue away from her center of need. She squeezed his shaft tight in her fist, drawing her lips down and over him, her tongue stroking the thick vein that protruded on its underside and running saliva hot against his flesh. She heard Cloud moan almost painfully, his palms drifting to both cheeks of her rear and giving them a tight squeeze. She sighed against his skin, drinking in his flavor that she had become so intimately aware of since the night before, a taste that was uniquely Cloud and forever branded on her senses. She felt him stiffen and jolt, and she kept going, wanting to see him completely unravel beneath her.
Soon, though, Cloud had refocused his attention back to her wet split of flesh, once again distracting her from her task at hand. This time, he began to press kisses to her clit, soft, alternating pecks that had her squirming above him, her thighs trembling. She felt him lock his arms in an even tighter hold on her legs, pulling her against his face, and she felt the vibrations of his voice roll throughout her body when he spoke into her skin.
"Stay still, Teef," he instructed her, and he was licking her clit again, sending sparks from that nub all the way to the roots of her hair.
She tried to focus on making him come, on sucking him dry, but now he had wrapped his mouth fully around her clit in the way that drove her crazy every time. He was pulling at her with those gentle, loving sucks, causing her brain to fizzle as her body flooded with heat and the center of her belly pulled tight with tension. She found her hips grinding over his face, and soon he was humming against her skin, and she couldn't stop herself from letting out a wild cry when she felt her orgasm slam into her, electricity zapping each and every one of her nerves.
"Cloud!" she cried out as she rode through it, her arms and legs shaking even as he held her firmly in place, his mouth and tongue relentless.
Now that the wave had passed fully through her, Tifa caught her breath, feeling Cloud's breath hot on her when he finally released his lips from her flesh. Her chest was heaving as he began to kiss her inner thighs again, his hold on her loosening as he drifted his hands up along her back, rubbing her consolingly. Feeling her senses begin to return, Tifa held his stiffness in her hand again, bringing her lips to fall over him as she finally concentrated and began to suck him in earnest, fast, wet strokes over the steel in her palm that had him lifting his hips from the carpet as he groaned and whimpered behind her.
"Tifa, ah…I'm gonna…" she heard him stutter and puff, seconds before he was filling her mouth with his hot, sticky spend, and Tifa locked her lips around him, letting him flood her to the back of her throat. He jerked and spasmed in her hand, and she slowly slid her lips away from him, swallowing carefully before she turned to look back at him.
Cloud was breathing heavily, but at her movements, he picked his head up to glance over at her, his lips shining with the evidence of her own release. When their eyes met, he smiled at her, and then he was pushing her gently away from him so that he could sit up and turn her around, gathering her into his arms.
Still seated on the floor, he leaned back against the couch, pulling her in close, and Tifa laid her head against his chest, feeling perfectly content in his embrace. The television across from them still droned on with the movie they had been watching, but Tifa closed her eyes to it, letting herself fall completely enveloped in the strong, firm hold of his arms around her, her brain still misted over with the remnants of euphoria.
Being here like this with him, almost two thousand miles away from all her troubles, was enough to almost help her forget the worries and the stresses back in the city. Cloud's hold on her body, the way that his lips brushed her skin and his fingers danced over her most intimate parts, the way his eyes looked into hers with so much softness and love that she could only melt, all of it made her put aside the fact that her father had just been arrested for major financial felonies and that she had just screwed herself out of a job and likely embarrassed herself for disappearing.
None of that mattered, though, she realized. Now that she was with Cloud, both of them soothing away the aches that lived across their souls for one reason or another, she knew that she had made the right decision, that she would figure out a way to deal with the mess she'd left behind in New York when she got to back to it.
"That was good, huh?" Cloud was saying above her, now rubbing her back with the flat of his palm, his voice laid with a smug chuckle. Tifa snuggled a little closer to him.
"Really good," she whispered back.
Cloud smiled at her, dipping his face against her neck, his nose trailing her shoulder until he dropped his lips there, showering her skin with kisses.
"You feeling okay?" she asked him after they had been sitting ensconced in each other's afterglow for a while, both still too boneless to move from the foot of the couch. It was later in the evening now, and they had spent most of the day enjoying each other's company, both trying to distract one another from their present anxieties. Cloud looked down at her, nodding his head a little.
"I'm okay. How about you?" he brought a hand up to her forehead, gently brushing her dark hair out of her face.
"Mhm," Tifa hummed, and without really thinking about it, she turned in his embrace so that she was once again facing him, crawling over his lap and straddling him. They were both still naked and a bit sticky and sweaty, but Tifa didn't mind, content to press her body against his as she sat up on her knees above him. Cloud leaned against the couch and tipped his head back to look up at her face.
"Your mom's surgery is tomorrow," Tifa mentioned softly, bringing her hands around to the back of his head so that her fingers could lace through the silky blond threads there. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"
She heard Cloud take in his breath as he thought about that, his eyes meeting hers, deep blue and shining. His hands dropped to her waist.
"Yeah," he breathed. "I'm sure. You'll come with me?"
Tifa smiled at him, tilting her head as if his question had been the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course, I'm coming, Cloud. I'll be right there. You don't have to ask."
He returned her smile, squeezing the dips above her hips with his palms, before he dropped his face between her breasts and nuzzled it there, causing her to erupt into a laugh.
Long moments passed where they held and caressed each other, and eventually, Tifa turned to realize that the credits of the movie they had been watching were rolling. She crawled off of him, Cloud pouting at the loss of the warm contact of her body, and she leaned over to find her discarded loungewear, pulling it back on. Eventually, Cloud did the same, and when they were both standing again and fully dressed, she came up to him and ran a finger along his cheek.
"I bet you've worked up an appetite," she teased, unable to stop herself, finding him so boyishly adorable as he stood in front of her with that longing pout on his face. "Want me to cook you dinner?"
"You don't have to do that, Teef," he told her softly, leaning his cheek against the press of her finger.
"I want to," she insisted, pulling away from him. "Let me go see what your mom has in your kitchen."
She smiled, sauntering away, and Cloud was instantly at her heels.
Cooking was always a welcome distraction for Tifa. She did most of the cooking for her and Aerith, since Aerith really couldn't be trusted in a kitchen unless she was heavily monitored or things came premade with explicit instructions. It helped her to clear her mind and forget the stress and anxiety that plagued her throughout the rest of her waking hours. She would stand over the stove or the cutting board or the sink, working her way through the repetitive motions, focused on perfecting the task at hand and not on the worries that took up so much of the rest of her brainpower throughout the day.
Her mother had been the one to teach her how to cook. When Tifa was five years old, her mom began to pull her into the kitchen in the mid-afternoons and have her stand on a chair or sit beside her, Tifa watching as she chopped vegetables, peeled potatoes, or rinsed the meat that had often come fresh from a local butcher. Tifa absorbed everything, until soon she was old enough to handle the knife or the peeler herself, or could responsibly handle raw foods without contaminating everything. Her mother taught her the names and flavors of every spice in the cabinet, Tifa learning which foods they seasoned best, the ones that matched poultry and fowl, and the ones that flavored red meat and pork. She learned how to brine and to bake, how to roast and fry and broil, and it wasn't long before Tifa was skilled enough in the kitchen to nearly be able to handle an entire meal for the family on her own.
Following her mother's death, Tifa became solely responsible for feeding her and her father. That was, until he'd hired a maid for their flat on Park Avenue, who took over most of the kitchen responsibilities. Tifa had found that disappointing as soon as the practice began. Following her mother's death, the meals that she cooked and shared with her father in the evenings when he returned from work, or sometimes on Saturday and Sunday mornings, had been the only times they really spent together. They were the few moments when he would ask her how school was going or what her day was like, if she was enjoying the piano lessons she was taking or how she was adjusting to New York. But once he'd settled into his new role at Shinra and began earning promotions, the money started to come in, and both their lifestyles changed. He was rarely ever around anymore, and Tifa found herself frequently eating alone at the dinner table, a bland meal prepared by a kind-faced but aloof woman who came by every afternoon to settle the domestic duties of the household and then depart.
And then, she'd started high school, and her father had simply opted to send her away.
These memories passed over her as she drifted into Cloud's kitchen, going straight for his fridge. Despite everything that was going on with him and his own mother, her return here in Breckenridge was digging up the pains of the past. She kept glancing out of the bay windows in the kitchen, next door to her old house, knowing that another family occupied it now and that everything that had once stood there and had been a part of her old life was gone.
She missed mom, so, so much.
She thought again about her father, who never seemed to get over that day any more than Tifa had, but who had never, ever wanted to talk about it. Tifa realized that they had maybe spoken about her mother's death less than a handful of times in the decade since they'd left Colorado.
She pushed her parents and those memories from her mind, surveying Cloud's fridge and freezer while he leaned against the counter across from her, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched.
Tifa knew that Cloud favored pasta. Every time they'd gone out in New York, he'd suggested Italian. She thought it was cute.
Pasta was also relatively simple and straightforward to cook, and thankfully, Tifa realized that Claudia's kitchen was well stocked and had all the ingredients for lasagna.
She pulled everything out, unearthing tomatoes and egg noodles, cleaning her cutlery and laying out pans and preheating the oven. She chopped onions and garlic and pan-seared the beef on the stove, boiling water for the noodles. The entire time, Cloud was silent and still as he watched her, not even bothering to turn on the small television to distract himself while she worked. She was initially vaguely aware of his attention, but she soon ignored him, now engrossed in the business of assembling a pan of lasagna, one of her favorite meals to cook.
It took Tifa a while to get everything mixed and ready before she could begin laying the layers, and with the heat of the oven and the stovetop rising into the atmosphere, along with her labored movements, a thin sheen of sweat had broken out across her forehead. She sprinkled the last layer of mozzarella on top, stepping away from the pan to admire her work before she nodded and slid it into the oven.
Once she set the timer, she sighed, rolling her shoulders and feeling satisfied with her work. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel, turning to find that Cloud was still rooted in place and watching her intently.
"…What?" she asked him, just as he cocked his head to the side with a smirk.
He said nothing, instead dropping his arms from their position across his chest, and strode across the kitchen to where she stood a foot in front of the stove. She opened her mouth to form a question, but Cloud was walking toward her with purpose until he was forcing her to step back and back, him crowding around her as his gaze grew hungrier.
"Cloud, what are you - ?"
Suddenly, her bottom smacked into the edge of the kitchen table, and Tifa felt the heat flush up and rise from her neck to her face just as his mouth was on hers again, kissing her messily and getting a taste of the tomato sauce she had tested before she'd started to layer the lasagna for baking. His tongue dipped between her lips, finding the open gap of her mouth as she spoke an invitation, and then he closed his lips around hers with a suck.
Tifa didn't understand how or why her body always instantly reacted to him the way that it did, but as soon he kissed her, she found her arms reaching for him, looping around his neck so that she could card her fingers through his hair and truly enjoy the feel of their mouths joined hot together.
Cloud's hands were voracious, anxiously roving her body while their tongues danced. As hot as it had grown in the kitchen, Tifa had already shed her hoodie, and so his palms were first running rough over her bare arms and then finding her back and waist, smoothing the skin beneath the thin fabric of her tank top as his fingers searched and roved. One hand squeezed her shoulder, while the other dropped to her bottom, rubbing it with slow circles a few times before he gave it a firm slap.
At that coarse sensation, Tifa moaned against Cloud's teeth, letting her own hands begin to roam. They dropped to his shoulders and then his arms, squeezing the defined muscles of his biceps. At this, Cloud dropped both hands to squeeze her ass in response, lifting her off of her feet, scooping her up under her bottom. He grinned against her mouth, Tifa crossing her legs at the ankles around his waist as he continued to palm her fleshy rear over her yoga pants.
"Cloud," she heard herself purr as their kiss broke, and Tifa pulled her face slightly away from his, dragging her hands up to his cheeks to squeeze them slightly, looking down to find his lips red and wet and kiss-bruised. He was still holding her up by her bottom with ease, and his blue eyes were dark and misted over with desire when they met.
Emboldened by that longing look in his eyes, Tifa anchored herself to him again by hooking one arm around his neck, her free hand sliding between their bodies. She let her palm glide flat over his chest and abdomen, feeling the lines of definition through his t-shirt. Cloud was now kissing her jaw, his lips wet and sending a wave of flames across her flesh. She heard him hitch his breath when she slid her hand past his sweats and his underwear, and Cloud squeezed her ass even harder, pulling her flush against him.
Tifa laughed richly as she reached for him inside his pants, finding him stiff and straining against the fabric. The way that he groaned against her face made her feel powerful and wild as she began to stroke him with her palm, and soon he was growling, backing her up and dropping her on the kitchen table.
She laughed again at the desperate and savage look on his face, at the way he wiped the saliva from her kisses away from his lips with the inside of his wrist. Tifa bit her bottom lip up at him when their eyes met again, and instantly she caught something flash across the aquamarine in his.
He palmed her thighs open so that he could stand between them, and his hands began to wander again, this time with more speed and more pressure than before. They traveled trails along the sides of her waist and up and down the front of her body, gripping palmfuls of her breasts through cotton before his fingers found her peaks and pinched her nipples hard, sending electricity through every nerve in her body. They ran over her back and her arms, singeing her skin with heat as they lifted and found her neck and her shoulders, running along her arms and squeezing her throat.
All the while, Tifa kept chewing her lip and looking up at him, one hand on his shoulder and the other pumping his cock under her fist, and Cloud's mouth was hanging open as he stared down at her.
He lost patience with this quickly, though, and Tifa heard herself laugh when he pushed her back down against the table, his hands coming to the waistband of her yoga pants and peeling them down to her knees. He left them there, though, not fully divesting her of them. Instead, he pushed her legs back, revealing her pussy to him.
"Hold your legs," he demanded, his voice roughed over with lust, sending a dark shiver through Tifa's insides as he pulled his own sweats and underwear down to the center of his thighs.
She was already so wet, and she knew that exposed like this, she was probably dripping. She could hear it in the heavy way that Cloud was suddenly breathing. Obeying, she brought her arms around the backs of her knees, pulling her legs into her chest, spreading herself further for him.
"Goddamnit, Tifa," he swore above her, running his palm up from her bottom along the back of her thigh, and Tifa felt the anticipation course through her like a jolt of electricity. His hands were warm on her skin, rough and calloused from handling weapons during his time in the armed forces and from lifting weights to keep his body in shape. The dual sensations were igniting her as she waited for him to press inside of her with the vulgarity his mouth was promising.
It didn't come right away, though. Instead, two long fingers began to stroke along her folds, dipping into the stream of arousal that was slipping out of her. Despite the urgency in his tone and the rest of his body language, his fingers were slow and teasing, their tips dancing along her seam, gently penetrating the sensitive rim of her opening without pushing too deeply, pulling on it in a way that had her hissing. Occasionally, he would lean forward and press a kiss to her ankle or her calf, her legs still suspended above her.
"Cloud," she found herself begging, still holding the backs of her knees but spreading her legs a little wider for him submissively, wanting him to know that she was his in any way that he wanted her.
"Tifa," he called back to her, his voice laced with a dark chuckle just as he pressed the pad off his thumb to her clit, beginning a slow, upward stroke.
Almost instantly, Tifa felt the hot, familiar waves of pleasure shoot skyward to wash over her brain, and she was pinching her eyes shut tight, whipping her head from side to side. He stopped once to wet his thumb in the pool that was leaking out of her, before he raised it again and continued to caress her nub, now slick with her own liquids. The heated, slippery sensation beneath the roughness of his thumb made his rubs spike her with even more dangerous white pleasure, and she dropped her arms from holding back her knees, keeping her legs in place with the taut, tense pressure in her thigh muscles as she reached to grab both sides of the table and grip them tightly.
"Oh, Cloud, yes…" she began to mewl, feeling the pressure in her belly build tight as he stroked her blissfully, his chest vibrating with amusement as he chuckled again, low in his throat. Tifa felt herself grow even wetter, and she tried to widen her legs even further, but her legs were still held together with spandex around her knees.
"You like that, Tifa?" he asked her, pulling her knees to one side, and Tifa could only nod in response.
She was so, so close when Cloud suddenly stopped, causing her to whine a protest as she looked up at him, her eyes glassy with disbelief. But he only smirked lustfully at her before he grabbed her by the waist and slid her down the table until her rear was hanging off of it, smoothly sinking every inch of his length inside of her.
She was so slick from his previous touch and their earlier kissing that it was a seamless glide, and soon she was filled with him again in exactly the way that she liked, in the way that she was beginning to crave now that she'd gotten her first tastes of him. Tifa began to moan and cry out and beg, her hands coming up to push up her tank top and palm her breasts as her mouth fell open. Cloud brought the hem of his t-shirt up and was holding it out of the way with his teeth, and he was holding her thighs firmly in place as he began a swift pace into her, his penetration slick and deep, his pace rough and fast as his hips jerked in a needy, seeking succession. He was finished with foreplay, and there was nothing languid or tender in his movements, it was just a fast, honest fuck.
It was the sexiest fucking thing she'd ever seen or felt in her life.
"Cloud… fuck me… please, baby," she heard herself cry, her mouth once again opening and words tumbling out on their own accord. "Harder, Cloud. Now… please. I know you can fuck me harder than this."
Cloud swore so violently that his words were unintelligible, and Tifa found herself squeezing her eyes shut again when he began to pound into her so vigorously she could feel him press against her cervix, scraping against the spongy spot inside of her that sent every part of her body into fireworks. Everything began to build too hot and sensitive, blended by the aching pleasure that lingered in her nerves from his stroking caress against her nub. Her hands dropped to the sides of the table and squeezed again, just as she felt the explosion inside of her, raining sparks and flames on her brain as she hit the highest point of a very sudden orgasm that seized her and set her entire body alight.
Tifa cried out Cloud's name as she rode through it, lifting her hips up and only deepening his angle inside of her in the process, and Cloud held her thighs tight against his body as her voice splintered and broke with anguish. He grunted as he gave her a few final, deep pumps, before his hips slowed and he was coming inside of her again, jerking and sputtering as he lowered his hand from her thighs to her waist, leaning his forehead against the back of her calves.
"Fuck, Tifa," he swore against her skin, and Tifa could only laugh, dropping her hands to her belly, the elation of her climax still singing in her blood and leaving her brain befuddled with mist.
—
Eventually, the trembling in Tifa's thighs had stopped, and she'd gathered herself and cleaned up everything so that she could finish their meal, pulling the bubbly lasagna from the oven and quickly throwing together a salad for them to have along with it. For whatever reason, there was a new gravitational pull living between them, and they didn't want to be apart from one another, sitting side by side as they ate. They were mostly quiet during their meal, Cloud occasionally complimenting Tifa on her cooking, their eyes sometimes meeting before they would both blush and look away, the explosiveness of their earlier shared passions sizzling in the air above them.
Yet despite the bashfulness that their intimacy had brought on, Tifa knew that it was about more than just sex between them, and that thought settled the torrents that had been raging inside of her for so long. There was no denying that there lived a powerful attraction between them, one that had them both fraying at the edges ever since they first ran into each other on the train all those months ago. It was an attraction that, now that they had given in to their feelings for each other, pulled them together and had them tearing one another apart at every opportunity they had.
But it was more than that. It was the soft, tender look behind his gaze every time his eyes fell on her. It was the way that her heart warmed over every time he leaned in to listen to her. It was in the gentle way that he would brush her hair out of her face or press kisses to her forehead, or the way that he would pull her in close to the protective shell of his body when they would walk together through the cold streets of New York City.
After they'd eaten, Cloud insisted on cleaning up the kitchen, kissing the corner of Tifa's mouth and patting her bottom, sending her upstairs to shower so they could relax for the rest of the evening, reminding her that they had to get up early to get to the hospital. Tifa nodded and smiled shyly before she left the kitchen, thinking there was something so endearingly sexy whenever Cloud would become decisive and take charge of a situation, gently issuing commands in a way that Tifa thought only he could.
After washing her hair and body under the hot spray, Tifa padded down the hall to Cloud's bedroom, wrapped in one of his mother's plush blue towels. She sat on the edge of the bed and began to rub lotion into her skin before running her brush through her damp locks.
They hadn't left the house at all, and Tifa had been wearing her loungewear all day. She stared at her open suitcase on Cloud's floor, thinking about the next pair that she could put on for bed that night, or about the terrycloth shorts that she'd packed. But what would be the point? She knew that Cloud would likely just peel her out of everything once he joined her.
Glancing up at the mirror above his dresser, she smirked at her reflection and kicked her suitcase closed again, rising to open the drawers of his dresser and rifle through them.
Most of them were empty, likely unloaded years ago when Cloud had left for the military. But she did find a drawer that had a few shirts left behind, still neatly folded. Tifa lifted one, finding it clean and wondering if Claudia still kept up with Cloud's laundry, even though he'd moved out so long ago.
The shirt was a black band t-shirt, faded from years and years of washes. It was easily ten years old, because Tifa was sure that this particular band had broken up ages ago. It was probably too small for Cloud to wear now, judging its size as she held it up, but it was plenty big enough for her to wear roomily. She smirked, pulling it over her head, its hem falling to her mid-thigh. She decided to forego underwear.
While she waited for Cloud to join her, she retrieved her phone from the bedside table where she'd left it the night before. After her conversation with her father the evening before, she'd turned her phone completely off, not wanting to deal with any of the communication that might try to follow her from New York. And especially after seeing her father arrested on that newscast that morning, she really did not want to speak to anyone back in the city.
Still, she knew that she could not avoid her life forever. Not to mention, Aerith might be trying to reach her to make sure everything was alright. Sighing, Tifa powered the phone back on and watched as the display booted back up and lit aglow with the backlog of missed communications.
Aerith: Did you make it to Colorado okay?
Aerith: How is Cloud? How's his mom?
Aerith: I'm praying.
Rufus: Where are you?
Elena: Are you coming in today Tifa? I need to go over some reports with you.
2 Missed calls from Rufus Shinra.
1 Missed Call from Dad.
Tseng: Are you coming to work? We have several problems.
Tseng: I knew that there was something going on with you.
2 Missed Calls from Aerith Gainsborough.
Aerith: Is everything okay, Tifa?
Jessie: OMG. Did u see the news? WTF Teef! Did ur dad really do all that crazy shit?
Jessie: Barret is losing his mind!
1 Missed Call from Barret Wallace.
Barret: Tifa, call me ASAP
4 Missed Calls from Aerith Gainsborough.
Biggs: Hey, Tifa. I'm really sorry. If you need to talk, just let me know. AVALANCHE is here for you.
Elena: OMG where are you?
3 Missed Calls from Rufus Shinra.
Rufus: Where have you been?
Rufus: I've been released, by the way. So has your father. Everyone has been looking for you. It would be nice if you answered your phone. We could have used your help today.
Rufus: So you're going to ignore me? Don't be a brat.
2 Missed Calls from Aerith Gainsborough.
Aerith: Call me!
1 Missed Call from NYSTATE US DA.
1 Voicemail from NYSTATE US DA.
1 Missed Call from Dad.
1 Voicemail from Dad.
Dad: Tifa. Please call me. We need to talk.
5 Missed Calls from Aerith Gainsborough.
Aerith: TIFA!
Aerith: DON'T MAKE ME FLY TO COLORADO!
Tifa sighed at the contact log, seeing that the last message had come in less than a half-hour ago. She scrolled through the litany of messages and calls, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by everything that was happening thousands of miles away, waiting for her and trying to pull her back into its trenches.
Her father. Her friends. Rufus.
All of it made the anxiety return to the pit of her stomach, all of the unease that she and Cloud had begun to work away returning with a jab inside of her chest.
She couldn't deal with it.
She did, however, need to deal with Aerith. Aerith was her only lifeline back in New York, the only thread that she felt like she could trust to hold on to. She typed out a quick response to her before placing the phone on silent mode.
Tifa: Hey, Sorry about that, my battery died. I'm safe, with Cloud. His mom has to have surgery tomorrow. I'll let him know you have them in your thoughts. I'll be home in a few days. I'll text you later
She tossed the phone onto the bedside table, dropping her head into her hands just as Cloud pushed open the bedroom door, standing in the doorway.
She picked her head up again and looked over at him, finding him standing there in nothing but sweats, his skin still slightly misted over and his hair a little damp from his shower. As soon as their eyes met, his widened a bit in concern before he crossed the room over to her, his chin tipped to one side.
"Hey…" he began, falling to a seat beside her on the bed. Instantly, she caught the crisp, clean scent of his soap, a woodsy spice that had her leaning into him, finding him warm. As soon as her head found his shoulder, he wrapped an arm around her and held her against him. "You alright? You look kinda upset."
Tifa sighed against his chest, shaking her head. The glow of the texts and missed calls were now burned across her retinas, and she couldn't dispel them no matter how many times she blinked.
"It's nothing, Cloud," she finally answered him, not wanting to dampen the mood that had begun to flourish between them, unburdened by her problems in New York and focused more on his own worries and making sure that his mom would be okay. "I just went through my missed messages and… it's a little overwhelming. But it's nothing that can't wait until I get back to the city."
Cloud shifted a little, taking her chin in his hand and turning her to face him.
"You sure?"
Crashing into his blue depths, so gentle and concerned and lit up with starlight behind them, Tifa found herself nodding, feeling calmer the longer she looked into them.
"Yeah," she answered, offering him a smile, "I'm sure."
He smiled back at her and nodded, and then his eyes dropped, scanning over her body in his worn old shirt, landing on the tops of her pale, bare thighs.
"…Is that my shirt?"
Tifa blushed slightly, looking down at her appearance and suddenly feeling a little embarrassed for wearing it. "Y-yeah. I found it in your drawer. Sorry."
Cloud chuckled, leaning forward so that their foreheads touched. "Hey, don't be sorry. You look really sexy in it." His voice had grown soft and low, and his free hand was now toying with its hem, knuckles brushing against the tops of her thighs.
Tifa turned away from the intense, fiery cerulean of his stare, her cheeks staining an even pinker shade.
"That band broke up a while ago," Cloud muttered absently, his laugh now a little lighter and louder, and Tifa looked back up, finally letting their eyes meet again as she joined in his mirth.
After a moment, though, Cloud was rising to his feet, his hand now circled around her wrist and pulling her up and along with him. Her heart rate beginning to climb, Tifa pushed up to her feet beside him.
"Come here, I want to show you something," Cloud was whispering now, his voice low and sensual, his tenor tremulous again.
It made her heart stammer in her chest as she let him pull her along, but he only stopped in front of the dresser across from his bed. It was now full dark outside, the only light in the room streaming in from the moon and stars and the street lights outside of his window. The combination cast a soft, pale blue illumination over them and the mirror on Cloud's dresser, and Tifa was once again staring back at her own reflection in the glass.
So many times she had looked back at that face in a mirror over the last few months, wondering who she was truly even looking at anymore.
Cloud had positioned himself behind her, his arms looping around the front of her body and pulling her in close to his. She fit delicately inside the cage of his arms, his chest warm against her back. He dropped his chin to her shoulder, pressing a kiss to one side of her throat, and Tifa looked up, their eyes meeting in the glass as his hands began to travel the front of her body, running warm over her thighs and her abdomen and her breasts and even her collarbone.
"Do you see what I see?" he whispered into her flesh, running a chill over her that didn't end until it reached her ankles.
"…What?" she breathed, her voice catching in the back of her throat.
She felt him smile where his lips were pressed to her skin. "The most beautiful woman in the world," he answered, his voice soft and rumbly, almost shaking with thunder as the words left his lips. "The smartest one. The sweetest, kindest one. The most powerful one."
He kissed her neck again, this time his tongue darting out to press firm at her pulse before he gave her a gentle, soothing suck, and Tifa felt her body tremble as tears burned the corners of her eyes, his words reverberating throughout her entire being.
"Cloud…" she canted, speechless.
Cloud's hands continued to wander, and he pulled the hem of his t-shirt that she wore up to her chin, settling it near her shoulders, exposing her wide, curvy hips and her flat tummy and her heavy, pendulous breasts, her nipples pink and already hard.
Instantly, at the sight of everything and her own flushed cheeks, Tifa closed her eyes and leaned her head back against Cloud's shoulder.
But he had other things in mind. "Open your eyes," he commanded her, his voice rough and gravely. "And hold your shirt up."
She did as he asked, opening her eyes and then bringing her hand up to hold his old shirt in place, bunched up at her clavicle. Cloud's hands were both now free to continue roaming, and his deep, sapphire gaze held hers in the shadowed reflection of the mirror as they traced the lines of her abdominal muscles and brushed over her nipples, stiffening them painfully. He squeezed at the dip in her waist, running his palms smooth over her flesh, rubbing her hips and thighs and even the curves of her ass before his hands came around to her front again.
Watching his slow, loving caresses against her own flesh had her rolling her hips at the desperate need that began to build deep in her belly, her center leaking against her thighs and her clit pulsing with an ache that badly needed to be consoled. Cloud seemed to sense this, because he stopped to hook one arm under her right thigh, lifting her leg into the air and adding her exposed, shaved wet pussy to the frame in the mirror.
Tifa heard herself gasp at the sight of her body bared and on display like this, staring back at her own pink, wet flesh in the highlights of moonlight as Cloud pressed his erection against her rear. But he was breathing through her hair now, his lips hovering by her jaw as he nudged her with his nose, drawing a line upward to her ear.
"So pretty," he whispered to her, just as he brought his left hand up to drift indolently between her spread thighs, his hand gently cupping her sex before his fingers lazily got to work.
Tifa watched as his fingers danced along the insides of her thighs, making her tremble and purr, the heat rising and the need building. She couldn't look away when his fingers curled and found the lines of her folds, tracing them with a feathery lightness as they split around her hot, leaking entrance and up to her clit. He stopped the press of his fingers right below her bundle of nerves, staring directly into her eyes as she began to grind her hips in a seeking rotation, begging him with whiny, high pitched mewls.
She heard him chuckle, and his arm that was holding up her thigh strengthened its grip, pinning her against him so that she stilled, so that he could rub his erection against her bottom. It only added to the pulsating desire and the hot longing that was coursing through her blood, and she tossed her head back with a keen, dragging her free hand behind her head to find his hair.
"Don't you dare close your eyes," Cloud warned her.
She obeyed, her body on fire and burning. Cloud continued to watch her expression in the mirror, dipping a finger to tease the tight ring of her opening. He pulled at it a little, causing her to gasp, before dipping inside to drench his finger, pressing in and out of her in a slow rhythm that was just enough to flare the sensitivity inside of her as he sweetly fucked her with that long, graceful digit.
"So fucking wet, Teef," he growled right into her ear, his breath warm.
She badly needed him to touch her clit, and she struggled against his tight hold on her body, begging him with a whimper of his name.
He smirked at her in the mirror, this time kissing her hair, before he pumped a few more times inside of her. He then slowly pulled his finger out of her, dragging with it long swirls of her wetness up to the swollen apex of her sex, where he rested the pad of his finger just below her clit and then pressed upward.
The surge of pleasure was white-hot, and Tifa let out a wild, desperate moan as the feeling careened through her. She saw Cloud's eyes darken with excitement and desire at this as they held their gazes in the mirror, and he started to draw circles over her nub, occasionally stopping to flick it or tap it or gently pull it in a teasing, downward stroke between two fingers. All this onslaught did was send her entire body among the stars, and she was soon whining and leaking and spreading her legs and fighting the strength in his body that was keeping her pinned with all of the strength in hers.
And their eyes never separated.
"Oh, Cloud, please, please, please…. That's so good, Cloud. Please don't stop. I wanna come. Fuck, Cloud. Please."
"Don't worry, Teef. I've got you."
Tifa found herself becoming desperate, having never heard herself sound so high-pitched or whiny. Cloud nodded at her, and he eased up on his teasing, now stroking her clit swiftly and relentlessly, his pressure firm until she felt everything inside of her pull tight like the strings of a guitar before she snapped, her climax bursting through her body in a starburst before she sobbed out his name and finally closed her eyes to the image in the mirror that had sent her over the moon and made a mess between her thighs.
Cloud rubbed her softly and gently until she came down, and when her wails and cries and hiccups had mostly calmed, he slowly pulled his hand away, bringing his arms around her to squeeze her in a tight hug.
Her brain was clouded over by the high; it was almost enough to make her pass out. But Cloud was gently turning her in his arms again, kissing her on the nose and offering her his sweet smile again as he rubbed her back.
"Cloud…" she whispered, her voice raspy when their eyes met, now face to face. Cloud only crashed his lips to hers, and he picked her up, bringing her to his bed where he lowered her before he kicked out of his pants and was hovering over her, both of their mouths greedy on each other's.
It wasn't long before Cloud was sliding seamlessly inside of her, her legs hooked over his shoulders as he began to press into her, holding himself up above her on his palms as he rocked into her with the slowest, deepest, most searching grind he had given her yet. It was a long, drawn-out affair, lasting long into the night as he built her up slow and held himself back, basking her with affection and praise and encouraging her to talk back to him, Tifa whispering her desires and her darkest, most amorous sentiments up at him as she pulled her fingers through his hair. Eventually, his own voice choked with grunts and moans of her name, he brought her to the pinnacle again, and they tumbled over it together, Tifa sighing and moaning breathlessly as Cloud came inside of her once more, and she'd lost count of how many times that had happened.
She really hoped her birth control was effective.
It wasn't long before he was collapsing on top of her, sighing and gasping and rolling to his side. She heard him mumble a tired, drowsy goodnight, telling her again how much he loved her, and Tifa thought she mumbled it back.
But she couldn't be sure, because as soon as his arms were around her, she was falling under again, asleep and wrapped in his love and completely absent of all of the worries that waited to haunt her, thousands of miles to the East.
—
"Are you sure you're okay?"
Tifa was looking up at him from the passenger seat of his mother's car, her scarlet eyes wide with concern, her hands folded in her lap. Cloud gave her a cursory glance before he turned back to concentrate on the road as he drove.
"Yeah, Teef," he lied, rolling his shoulder a little bit. "Don't worry about me."
Cloud had one hand resting on the gearshift as he drove, and he glanced back at Tifa when he felt the warmth of her palm fall over his, finding her once again offering him a concerned look that was edged with a smile.
They were driving back to the hospital for his mother's surgery. It was a little after six that morning, and the sky was just beginning to brighten with the first rays of sunlight as the sun peered from behind the Rocky Mountains in the distance. Cloud and Tifa had both fallen asleep early the night before, tangled in each other's arms and spent, and they had risen early, quietly showering together and exchanging kisses and caresses before they dressed for the day.
The truth was, Cloud was unraveling the further inside the closer they drew to the hospital, and to the hour his mother's surgery would begin. He was anxious about the entire ordeal, especially since Dr. Donovan had been so vague about the procedure's outcome and success rate. And it unnerved him more than anything that his mother was still sedated, that he'd been unable to hear her voice or feel her squeeze his hand back before she went under the knife.
He tried to keep Tifa from realizing all of this, from burdening her with the anxiety and the fear that was buried deep inside of him over the entire chain of events and the uncertainty of what would happen in the next few hours. But the more time they spent together, so much of it intimately, the more that he knew that he and Tifa were connected and in-tune with one another, and he couldn't shield himself fully from her anymore. Whenever her dark red eyes met his or her skin settled on his with its warmth, he knew that he couldn't fully hide.
Still, he kept quiet the rest of the ride until they arrived at the hospital, daybreak now emerging fully. As soon as she was out of the car, Tifa found his side and took his hand in hers, squeezing it and offering him a reassuring smile as they walked inside the hospital together.
After sitting in the waiting room of the cardiac wing for a while, Cloud beginning to pace as his nerves were shorn down by trepidation, Dr. Donovan appeared, already dressed in his surgical scrubs. As soon as Cloud saw him, he turned on his heels and made his way over to him.
"Please, Mr. Strife," Donovan greeted him, holding out a hand. "Have a seat. There are a few things that I'd like to go over with you before you see your mother."
"Cloud," Cloud insisted, not liking the feeling of irritation build on top of his nervousness.
Donovan nodded curtly, but blew right past it. Cloud sat down beside Tifa, who was looking over his shoulder curiously at Donovan, who sat beside him. The doctor noticed her stare, and he raised an eyebrow at Cloud before he continued to divulge any information.
After a moment, it dawned on Cloud what was happening, and he glanced at Tifa, then back at the doctor.
"This is my girlfriend, Tifa," he explained without thinking about it, and he missed the way that Tifa's cheeks darkened when he said the words. "She's fine to be here."
Donovan nodded, then launched into his explanation. "As I explained to you before, Cloud, your mother is suffering from a significant case of congestive heart failure. This has occurred due to a weakness in the heart that makes it difficult to pump blood, and is associated with artery blockages, of which your mother fell victim to, resulting in a heart attack."
Cloud just listened, watching Donovan's face closely, and he felt Tifa rest her palm against his back in consolation, right above his own heart.
"As I explained, this condition requires significant management from both a medical and a lifestyle perspective," Donovan went on. "In addition to this, we have recommended the pacemaker, as you know. This device will assist with proper heart rate and blood flow through the heart's ventricles via the use of electrical pulses. This is the procedure we are undertaking today."
Cloud nodded, not sure there was anything that he could say, but feeling the fear inside of him grow, all of it sounding terrifying.
"It's not a typically high-risk procedure, but your mother's condition does complicate things. She just suffered a significant cardiac event. However, time is of the essence. I just wanted to be sure you were aware of this."
"Is she going to be okay?" Cloud found himself asking, his voice small.
Donovan pursed his lips into a line as he offered Cloud a small, vaguely reassuring smile. "We will do everything in our power to make it so."
Ultimately, Cloud was permitted to see his mother for a brief moment before the surgery was scheduled to start, though the nurses forced Tifa to remain in the waiting area. She squeezed his hands tight before he left, escorted by a nurse to the operating rooms.
As the surgical team had already begun to prep for the procedure, Cloud was only allowed to view his mother through a thick glass divider as she was wheeled into the room on a gurney. From where he stood, she looked even paler than he'd ever remembered seeing her, her thick blond hair tucked away into a plastic surgical cap. Her eyes were closed and her face was serene, her hands laid carefully at her sides.
Cloud had never seen her so still. All her life, she had been active, flitting about, fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of two parents while working outside of the home to keep food on their table. Not once in all of his years growing up had he seen his mother appear so motionless.
How the fuck could something like this happen?
Regrets were piling up, throttled by the guilt he was feeling over his years overseas fighting in a war that had accomplished little but further damage to his own psyche. He felt tears prickle the corners of his eyes, his throat growing hot and tight with the urge to sob, and he clenched his hands at his sides, trying to fight it back.
He felt a warm hand on his forearm, and he turned to see that the nurse who often accompanied Donovan had come up by his side. She was looking up at him, offering a comforting smile.
"Don't worry," she told him softly. "Donovan is the best heart surgeon on the West Coast. Your mom is going to be okay. I can tell that she is a strong woman." Her smile deepened, and Cloud swallowed his tears back carefully.
"T-thanks," he managed in response.
"The surgery should only be about four hours, but might take a little longer since the doctor will be doing some additional work on her arteries. You and your girlfriend should try to get some rest. We will call you as soon as she's done."
At that, Cloud nodded, letting one last look linger on his mother before he turned away and returned to the vestibule where Tifa waited, his skull pounding with terror.
—
The sun had long ago set when Cloud and Tifa finally left the hospital. They had spent the entire day there, their muscles growing sore from sitting on the stiff benches as they waited for Claudia's surgery to finish and then for the opportunity to finally see her.
The procedure had taken just under five hours, ending sometime after noon.
"Your mother's procedure was a success," Donovan had informed him when he found Cloud in the waiting room outside of the cardiac wing again, Cloud instantly at his feet when the older doctor approached. "But she needs to rest for a bit before I permit any visitors. And I am keeping her sedated for at least another day, until she is stabilized."
Cloud only nodded, hanging his head and swearing inwardly when he sank back into his chair, Tifa taking his hand in hers again as soon as he sat back down.
A couple of hours later, after they'd spent most of the day leaning into each other and holding hands, blankly watching the daytime television that played on the overhead screens, scrolling through their phones and eating bland hospital cafeteria food, the nurse finally reappeared to tell Cloud he had been permitted to see his mother. He'd instantly grown angry when she told him that Tifa, who was not family, was not allowed.
"She's my girlfriend," he'd bit out nastily, causing Tifa to look down at her shoes. "I'm bringing her with me no matter what you people say."
The nurse clearly hadn't expected that level of outburst from him, because she simply nodded, her eyes wide, and led them both to Claudia's chamber.
His mother had been hooked up to machines and still heavily sedated, but she was laid comfortably in the bed, blankets tucked around her, her blonde hair loose again around her shoulders. Her breathing was even and steady, and Cloud had taken a seat beside her, holding her hand, while Tifa sat beside him and held onto his arm, and they both sat and quietly kept Claudia Strife company for hours while she rested, the two most important women in his world at his side until the nurse came and gently told them that visiting hours were over.
Now, Cloud drove with Tifa silent at his side, his head beginning to pound as his mind played the events of the last few days over and over again in his head. He thought further back, to leaving Breckenridge when he was eighteen, leaving his mother alone for six years to fight in the desert in the middle of a war that he really never truly understood, only to see some of his closest friends killed, blown to bits in a film reel that sometimes played out in an endless loop in the front of his vision. He thought about how his mother would call him and ask him what he was doing with his life, if he was still writing, if he was thinking about going to college, or at least maybe picking up a few classes or learning a trade. But Cloud never had an answer for her, because once he'd left the army, his life had become completely aimless. He was set on a trajectory that was going no fucking where and fast.
His hands gripped the steering wheel tighter as he thought about it, over and over again.
"Are you okay?" Tifa was asking him for the hundredth fucking time.
"Do I look fucking okay?" he suddenly snapped, so caught up in his own thoughts that he spoke without thinking, and instantly he regretted it, slamming against the back of the driver's seat as they approached a stoplight. Tifa flinched visibly at his reaction, turning away quickly to face the passenger side window.
Fuck fuck fuck you dumbass.
"I'm sorry," Tifa whispered after a moment as Cloud continued to curse himself, and he realized with horror that her voice had cracked as if she were about to cry.
"No," he pleaded, shaking his head out, wincing at the pain in his skull. "I'm sorry, Tifa. I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just… this is a lot to take in, and I can't get out of my head. I'm sorry."
He was staring out of the front windshield at the red traffic light, afraid to look at her, but he could feel her intense crimson stare burning on his cheek. A moment passed, and he felt her hand drop to the top of his thigh.
"It's okay," she told him, and finally, he looked back at her. "You need to clear your head, Cloud. You have a lot on your mind. Maybe we should go somewhere and get some air. We were cooped up in that hospital all day long today."
Cloud thought about this, still waiting for the light to change. It was cold as hell tonight, but a change of scenery might be nice, especially if it helped him air out the cobwebs and the lightning bolts that were dismantling his brain.
"Did you have something in mind?" he asked her, just as the light changed.
"Let's drive up into the mountains," she suggested quietly.
Cloud glanced over at her, catching her smiling at him, the sting from his earlier words evaporated from her irises.
"Really, Tifa?"
She nodded, her face brightening with her smile, and Cloud shrugged and made for the highway that climbed deep into the Rockies, up along its periwinkle peaks that towered above the town.
They drove in silence for a while; it was at least a forty-minute drive from Highway 9 until they reached the Boreas Pass, which led deep into some of the most scenic routes that were tucked along the cliff faces. As they ascended, Tifa's face was pressed almost flat against the glass as she looked out of the window, admiring the snowy peaks and fields and the glittering night sky, sights that Cloud knew she hadn't seen in a decade. But his own mind was still mired in his own failures and the bleak forecast of his future, and the longer he thought about everything, including Tifa, who was so forgiving and supportive and beautiful and kind and too fucking good for him, the more he felt like maybe he was going to fuck all of this up.
Thinking back on the way he'd so suddenly lost his temper with her just a short while ago, it seemed that he already had begun to.
He was trying to reconcile that miserable thought when he heard Tifa gasp a little, and she was pointing out of the window.
"Look, Cloud. There's a bluff over there with a nice view of the entire mountain range, and the stars. Can you pull over and park?"
He shrugged, pulling the steering wheel to the right. His mother's car had four-wheel-drive and was built for withstanding the kinds of rough conditions that were found in the mountains. With a few bumpy maneuvers, Cloud steered the vehicle off-road onto the ground that was covered with a thin layer of firmly packed snow. The tires crunched as he drove, rocks and dirt beneath the snow protesting against the weight of the car.
They soon reached the edge of the bluff, and Cloud stopped the car a safe distance away, putting the sedan into park but leaving the engine to rumble, keeping the inside of the car warm as the heat blasted out of the vents. He stared ahead, drinking in the wide-open landscape, a backdrop of black sky that was painted with blue and white stars, the moon a crescent-shaped beacon in one corner of the sky. The mountains were jutting, snow-capped purple peaks that splashed across the expanse in the center, littered with dark trees that had mostly all lost their leaves. Cloud could see the twinkling lights embedded in the ski resorts and cabins that were nestled along the mountains in the distance, emitting warm glows into a colorful but otherwise dark and cold scene.
"It's so beautiful," Tifa breathed next to him, unbuckling her seatbelt, and Cloud turned to look, catching the perfect profile of her pale face, highlighted by the moonlight. She leaned forward toward the windshield, staring up at the sky and the view in front of them. He felt his lips drop open, and he started to say something in response, but Tifa was pushing the door open, running out and away from the car, and Cloud found himself watching her hips sway before he snapped out of it and tore off his own seatbelt in a daze.
"Tifa, wait!"
He pushed out of the car, leaving the engine running, and ran up behind her. She had stopped a few feet away from the edge of the bluff where it overlooked a sharp dive into a jagged, dark crevasse hundreds of feet below. It was bitingly cold up here, Cloud realized, much, much colder than it had been in the valleys where the town was located, and instantly he could feel the wind pierce him like knives through his motorcycle jacket. He stopped a few feet behind Tifa, the cold air throwing shards of glass into his lungs, Cloud watching as the wind picked up her long dark hair and whipped it around her shoulders.
He stared at the back of her body, admiring her from afar, tipping his head to one side and wondering how she wasn't freezing where she stood. She'd worn another one of those goddamn tight sweater dresses she was so fond of - this one a dark, slate gray - her legs wrapped in thick black thigh-high leggings and her feet tucked into fur-trimmed gray boots that matched her dress. She was wearing her black peacoat, but it fit her so well that he could see the outline of her entire shape, including the rise and curve of her ass where his eyes were currently hovering.
He couldn't understand why Tifa had dressed so fashionably just for them to spend the day in a hospital, while he had only managed to pull on a pair of jeans and a plain black long sleeve thermal over his undershirt.
"The moon is such a perfect crescent," Tifa remarked, her words carried away by the crisp winter gales. "It reminds me of the earrings that my next-door neighbor, Marle, gave me for Christmas one year. Too bad I lost one of them."
Fuck.
Cloud rubbed the back of his neck, feeling it grow hot as he thought about her earring that was still hidden away in his bedroom drawer back in New York.
He opened his mouth to say something, but Tifa was speaking again, still facing away from him and staring out at the sprawling western view in the stretch of miles beyond them, the night sky so clear that he almost could reach out and pluck one of the stars out of the sky, they seemed so near.
"Cloud," she began, her voice much softer now. "The stars… Do you think they can hear us? Do you think they can see how hard everything has been for us?"
Cloud shrugged in response, even though she wasn't facing him to see. Girls said the silliest shit sometimes, and he really didn't know how to respond to that.
But she went on. "Cloud… no matter how close we are… We were far apart before this. I'm sorry."
Cloud frowned, running his fingers through his hair before crossing his arms again. Why the fuck was she always apologizing?
"Sorry for what, Tifa?" he asked her softly, taking a step closer to her.
She turned a little, glancing back at him over her shoulder. "I… I've been so wrapped up in my own stuff, in my own problems… I haven't really been there for you the way I should have been."
Cloud tossed his head. Why was she blaming herself for the shit he brought on himself?
"What are you talking about, Teef? You abandoned your job and came all the way to Colorado for me."
He heard her sniff, and the sound made his body grow rigid with panic. "No, I know, Cloud. But before this. I… I should have been there for you before this. I always talk about my problems and you always listen, but I realize I haven't been very encouraging of you, that I haven't paid attention to the things that were bothering you. Like… the war. It's not fair."
Cloud closed the distance between them, dropping his hands to her shoulders. She leaned back against him, and Cloud could see the faint line of a teardrop across her cheek, already shimmering as the frigid air froze it over on her skin.
"Tifa… that's my fault. I don't know how to talk about what I'm feeling sometimes. The army… I told you, it fucked me up. And I don't know what I'm doing with my life, and I feel like a fuck up, and like I let my mom down, and I'm not good enough for you and - "
He was cut off when Tifa turned and lunged toward him, running into him until she was leaning up and pressing her lips against his in a deep, wet kiss, stealing his words away and silencing him. Cloud felt the heat race through his entire body from the point of contact of their lips, chasing the cold away that was stinging him through his clothing every time the wind changed directions.
Her arms were around his neck and her tongue was sliding against his, its movements gentle as if she were trying to calm him through the connection of their mouths. He groaned against the sensation, wrapping his arms around her tight, his palms pressing her into his body against her upper back.
She pulled away from him after a moment, tiny puffs of white air forming between them as their warm breaths greeted the frosty temperatures. Cloud's eyes slid to half lids as he looked down at Tifa, crashing him into her dark, wine-colored gaze.
She brought her hand up to his cheek. "It's okay, Cloud," she whispered. "Words aren't the only way to tell someone what you're thinking."
Cloud smiled at her, a genuine smile, but she was soon kissing him again, her hands now traveling his body, sliding past his jacket and under his shirt, her fingertips cold on his skin. He jumped a little at the sensation, then pulled his lips away from her, carding his fingers through her hair.
"Um, Teef?" he breathed against her lips, finding them wet and swollen. "Can we, uh, move this to the car? It's freezing out here."
Tifa grinned at him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him to the backseat of the car. She climbed in first, leaving an airy giggle in her wake, tearing her coat off as she moved. Cloud couldn't stop himself from staring at her ass when she bent over to climb over the seat.
The interior was still warm when he climbed inside, the engine quietly humming in the front of the car. He tossed his jacket into the front seat, and as soon as he closed the door behind him and settled into the backseat, Tifa was climbing over his lap, straddling him and dropping her hands to his cheeks as she kissed him again, bending down low to avoid hitting her head on the roof of the car.
Cloud felt a hot thrill run through his body as he settled in and let Tifa kiss him passionately, her tongue twisting around his and forcing him to curl his toes in his boots. His arms fell around her waist, and his hands began to wander, exploring the firm, smooth warmth of her waist under her dress, running over the full curve of her rear and finding her thighs, smoothing them over and squeezing them gently, pulling at the hem of her thigh highs and letting them snap back against her skin. She leaned in even closer, and soon she was pulling her lips away from his with a suck as the dropped to lay kisses against the side of his neck, Cloud groaning as he pressed her closer to his body, her breasts soft against his chest.
Cloud suddenly felt like they were a pair of teenagers who had snuck off in one of their parent's car to lose their virginity together, and he realized, as Tifa widened her thighs, her skirt riding up almost to her waist, that they had never had the chance when they actually were teenagers to do anything like this.
Tifa was rotating her hips on him, a clear sign that she wanted more from him and also a surefire way to guarantee his erection would sear his brain with pain. She mewled as her tongue traveled his neck, alternating between licks and sucks before she lifted her lips to nip and kiss at his jaw.
Cloud dragged one hand away from where it had been holding her waist to drop it between her thighs, first flirting with their insides before letting his fingers find her center, the cotton shielding her arousal already hot and damp. Finding her eager for him, he slid two fingers over the fabric, drawing a back and forth motion that had her spreading further and mewling against his throat. He could feel her clit, already hard, and he pressed down on it, Tifa responding by biting into the flesh at the juncture of his neck and shoulder.
"Cloud," she purred, and he realized she was shivering in his embrace as if they were still outside in the cold.
He continued to let his fingers rub her through her underwear, soaking her further, knowing that it was just enough to make her crazy but never enough to drive her over the edge. He basked in the sound of his name pouring from her lips, tipping his head back against the seat as she ground her hips over him.
She was answering his teasing rubs by keening and assaulting the tender skin of his throat with her mouth, her lips and tongue needy and seeking. And then she dropped one hand to the button of his jeans between them, unzipping him with a shaky hand as she maneuvered to free his erection until it stood straight and tall in her palm. Cloud didn't try to stop her, just let her begin to palm him in her fist, answering her touches by drawing circles over her clit through the thin fabric, making her whimper his name again into his jaw.
As a hot wave of pleasure coursed through his brain at the warm, soft touch of her hand on his skin, Cloud realized that they were playing a game with each other, a slow, agonizing contest of trying to see who could break who down first, which of them could destroy each other's defenses the fastest. Feeling his mouth drop open when she squeezed him, precum leaking all over her hand as he writhed beneath her, Cloud became determined to win this battle.
Deftly, he slid her underwear out of the way, curling his two fingers against her wet seam, Tifa releasing a gasp at the sensation. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to watch her unravel completely under his touch, to hear her cry out and beg and plead. His fingers flicked casually over her nub, earning a quick gasp from the back of her throat, before he glided one finger to her entrance, probing into her with a slow gentleness that had her squeezing his cock tighter with one hand and pinching his shoulder with the other.
"Fuck," he swore, loving the feeling of this gentle penetration on his fingers, the way its slow agony made her walls flutter in desperation for more, for fullness, the way it made her wind her hips harder and faster, the way it made her breath heavier as if she had just come from one of her runs in Prospect Park.
Her hand was unsteady on his cock now, and he knew that he was winning this war. Keeping a finger inside of her, he lifted his thumb to flick and rub at her clit, initiating a slow, tortuous pattern that was unpredictable and hit her nerves from every angle he could find. He felt Tifa drip over him, and soon her mewls became bright, her voice high as she begged.
"Cloud, please," she whined right against his ear, and he couldn't stop the way that he trembled in response, her breath hot on his flesh as she clenched down on his finger. "Why do you do this to me? It feels so good… please, Cloud… oh… why…"
"Because," he growled back at her, so turned on by her words he was afraid this might backfire and he might actually end up coming all over her hand where he remained still but gripped tightly in her soft palm. "I love you. And I love seeing you come. Look at me."
Tifa made a strangled sound before she lifted her face away from where she'd dropped it to his shoulder again, looking up to meet his eyes. Cloud could see those ruby red orbs glassed over, her pupils wide, her makeup smeared and wet. Her lips were parted, and the look on her face was one that was deep in pure, ardent pleasure.
"I know what you like, Tifa," he whispered to her, still holding her gaze as his thumb began an up and down stroke of her clit, pressing down firmly on it. "Tell me you like how that feels."
"I love it," she cried instead, and Cloud smiled at her desperation, rubbing her until she wept and sputtered and came all over his fingers, her walls clenching him tight, her thighs trembling, her fingers pulling at his shoulder and her center leaking all over him, his name a wail on her tongue.
He'd won.
She was too delirious to focus on his own arousal anymore, so he pulled her hand away from his dick and gently pushed her off of his lap, carefully laying her down across the backseat. Her hair fell in a dark spill around her, and with the moonlight filtering in from the window above, she looked angelically beautiful.
Cloud wasted no time sliding his pants and underwear down to his knees, hiking Tifa's skirt fully up to her waist. He didn't even bother with her panties, just making sure they were still fully swept to one side before he kneeled between her thighs on the backseat and took himself in hand, carefully sliding inside of her.
She was so slippery and wet that there was no resistance at all, and she pulled her legs back, wrapping them tight and high around his waist. He smiled at her in the darkness when he felt his tip poke against her farthest wall, prompting her to wince and then moan, her face contorting as he found her spot. She pulled him in close, her lips greeting his for a light but wet kiss that was all lips and the tips of their tongues, Cloud laying on top of her as he began to drive his hips into hers in a steady but quick rhythm that had her yelling his name within seconds.
With the exacting and severe pace he was setting inside of her, it wasn't long before Tifa splintered apart, her walls a vice around his length as she cried her orgasm into his ear, her legs and arms holding him tight. Cloud watched her the entire time, memorizing the color of her eyes and the shape of her mouth and the set of her jaw and every line of her face as she came, before he lowered his head to her shoulder and pistoned himself to his own release.
When they were both spent, Cloud collapsed all of his weight on top of her, unable to move, both their bodies now boneless and lined with sheens of sweat. It was silent aside from the sounds of their heavy breathing and their heartbeats crashing through their chests. After a moment, Tifa looped her arms around his neck again, her fingers toying with the hair at the back of his neck in the way that always turned him into jelly in her arms.
"That was so good, Teef," he told her, and she responded by sighing affirmatively.
"You're so good, Cloud," she finally replied, catching her breath after a moment.
Cloud grinned, kissing her cheek and catching the moonlight shining on her skin. Still in the intoxicating euphoria of their shared bliss, Cloud felt himself thinking of something, his lips moving even as he felt his cheeks begin to warm.
"Hey, Teef."
"Hm?"
"Your crescent moon earring…" he looked down at her sheepishly. "I found it. At the hotel, on New Year's. And… uh… I kept it. I have it."
Tifa's eyes widened, and the smile on her face began to widen. "What?"
"I also took your underwear."
"Cloud!" she chided him, but they soon began to both laugh, their lungs expanding and expelling air, Cloud able to feel every movement of her body as they giggled like teenagers against one another in the backseat of his mother's car.
"Cloud?" she was whispering below him once their glee had died down.
"Hm, Teef?"
"I love you," she whispered into his ear, now stroking his scalp gently. "Anything you ever need from me… I will give you."
Cloud lifted his head from her shoulder to look into her eyes, finding her scarlet pools misty and wet. His lips spread into a smile as the warmth folded over him once again.
"I love you too, Teef," he vowed. "And I'm always here for you, too. I promise."
Without waiting for another word to be said, Cloud squeezed her beneath him, dropping his lips to hers for another chaste kiss that set off fireworks between them.
Fuck, yes.
Finally.
Peace.