Natasha's voice still echoes in his ears, "you can't come to me so let me come to you."
The words were simple, lacking some of the artistic flourish for which she is famed, but they mean more to him than anything written by Keats or Byron after almost five weeks apart. After so long without her company, the need was more than the want. With who knew how long before he would make it back to the home they were making together, the need to see her is almost blinding.
Alone, he sits on the balcony of his second level motel room and watches the approaching cars on the highway. She's less than an hour away, probably already on the road and the anticipation is killing him. It's been months since they were last parted for so long and he realises belatedly that the life they once shared is different from the one they live now - back then long undercover missions had been the norm and they had often spent as much as six months apart while they worked solo operations. Five weeks without her would have seemed like nothing to him then but that had been before they eventually admitted their feelings to one another, now the mere passage of hours could seem like too long.
Dusk begins to colour the horizon, turning the sky a hundred hues of purple and pink while he leans on the iron railing and sips from the beer in his hand. With all the patience he can muster he waits for one particular set of headlights to roll off the highway and pull into the courtyard of the motor lodge.
He knows that he shouldn't have called her, that he should be keeping his focus on the job at hand, but her influence over him is akin to that of the moon over the tides, he gravitates toward her without thought or conscience. He can't pass so close to her location without making contact but he equally can't roll onto base without attracting attention, this evening rendezvous is their only option. Tomorrow he has to be on the road again at dawn, heading north in search of the next target on his list, but tonight he will make their hours together count.
The black SUV pulls into the car park sooner than he would have expected and he finds himself wondering how many traffic violations she committed on her way out to him. Clint feels the corner of his lips twitch upwards as the vehicle comes to a stop, waiting for the familiar sight of those legs stepping out of the cab. She's dressed in civilian clothes and looks nothing like the death dealing assassin with whom he has built a life, but her attention to her surroundings is as sharp as ever as she locks the car and looks up to where he's waiting.
The slow slumbering of his blood picks up as he takes in the halterneck sun dress that she has chosen to wear and the fact that she is wearing heels. The breeze ruffles the skirt of her dress and tangles her hair, growing longer again, into loose curls that spill over one shoulder as he waits for her eyes to find him. The first time their eyes lock in over a month is enough to tell him that she is in exactly the same place as he is, physically and emotionally.
He climbs to his feet but makes no effort to descend to the parking lot to meet her - when Natasha tells him that she is coming to him he knows better than to interfere with her plans. She told him to let her come to him and he lets her complete her quest, running up the concrete steps while he controls the urge to run down to her. Let me come to you … well he's letting her.
She doesn't waste time with pleasantries, simply closes the distance that stands between them so that he can feel every inch of her up against him. Bare arms wrap around his neck as she throws herself into the circle of his arms. Clint breathes in the smell of her, as addictive as the curves of her body and the texture of her skin, as his hands find her waist. Their lips collide, neither of them wanting gentle and quiet in their moment of reunion, both giving and taking in full view of his neighbours and the night sky. Clint loses himself in her, allowing the relief of her presence to smooth away the rough edges of having been on the move for so long.
He doesn't miss home when she is in his arms; Natasha is all he ever needs to consider wherever he is as his home. Tonight home is a motel room like a thousand others in which they have affirmed the fact that they are both alive and breathing in a tangle of limbs atop the sheets, bodies moving in time to the rhythm that they find so easily with one another.
"Missed you," she breathes, her words spoken into his mouth between kisses. It's more of an admission than she would have given him a year ago and he likes the sound of the words on her lips.
He smiles, allowing all the heat of so many weeks without her to show. There will be time for words on the phone or after their other needs are taken care of. "Inside," he tells her, indicating the motel room door a few feet away. "Now." He leaves no room for argument and she doesn't even attempt to hold back her smile at the tone of voice he uses. Self control is not an option at the moment for either of them and he considers them to have waited long enough.
Inside she waits while he closes and locks the door, taking in her surroundings as if assessing which of the several flat surfaces is most suitable for whatever she has in mind. He turns to find her in the middle of the room, unashamedly devouring him with her eyes. She deserves more than a shabbily furnished roadside motel but she doesn't complain, simply stands and waits for him to come to her this time. He does, understanding the game, closing the difference between them in three long strides, arms sweeping her up off the ground and hoisting her up his body so that her legs can wrap around his waist. She locks those death grip thighs around him and holds on for dear life as he carries her toward the bed.
"Love the dress by the way," he murmurs, fingers tracing the edges of the fabric and the exposed skin of her back. She bites down on his lip gently, impatience getting the better of her and he catches fire. Reacting to the need that hums beneath his skin, she gives herself over to him and tells him silently that he can have his way with her. This woman, the one who assesses him in a heartbeat and comes to him in exactly the way he needs her, the only person with whom he has ever let down his guard enough to confess his deepest wants and desires to, will be the death of him. One way or another, be it in the way she drives him crazy between the sheets or in the way he knows that life without her would be no life at all, she owns him; body, heart and soul.
"Thought you might," she chuckles, a sinful sound, breathless and wanton, hands already roaming beneath his shirt, "don't say that I never dress up like a girl for you Barton …"
Pressing her body into the mattress beneath his own, he presses kisses to every inch of skin that he reveals as he peels the fabric of her dress away. He likes it, no doubt about that, likes the way the red fabric hugs her curves, loves that she made the effort just for him, but he knows their time is limited. He removes it carefully, deliberately showing it consideration because he really would like to see her wear it again.
In the crush of their lips and the coiling of their bodies, they reaffirm their connection, fingers roaming, teasing, pinching in they ways they've learned that they like. Clint sets his teeth in the soft skin over the tattoo on her hip hard enough to leave a mark and Natasha writhes for him, skin glowing like a pearl as she arches up from the bed and presses him in closer to her with an uncompromising hand at the back of his head.
"You like that?" he growls, prowling up and over her body, enjoying the flickering of her muscles as she watches him, wide eyed and wanting. He loves the look that he sees on her face, the knowledge that she is caught somewhere between desire and desperation, every moment that they hold off from satisfying their need for one another a sweet torture that will only heighten the pleasure when they give in to it.
With a twist of her hips, she scissors him against her, pulling his upper body down in a feat of gymnastic grace that puts his face level with her own. Her fingers coil into his hair and she pulls him into a kiss that is as bruising as it is passionate, only to release him a second later so that she can hook her toes into the waistband of his pants and slide them down his thighs, mouth never leaving his own. Agile girl, good moves. "What do you think?" she asks, fingers closing around the length of him and squeezing in a way that she knows he will appreciate.
Covering her body with his own he kisses her deeply, giving her a taste of what is to follow. "I think," he murmurs lazily, joining their bodies smoothly and trailing kisses down her neck and across her shoulder as he absorbs the feel of her body tight around his own, "that I have eight hours until I'm back on the clock and that isn't going to be nearly enough time to do what I'd like to do to you."
Her eyes blaze up into his own as he begins to move inside her. A breathy moan escapes her and her legs wrap once again around his waist, pulling him closer, urging him deeper, playfully tightening around him as she gives him all the words he wants to hear. "For the next eight hours Agent Barton, I'm off the clock and I'm all yours."