Chapter 1: if you really wanna kiss me, kiss me, do it quickly
If you really wanna kiss me, kiss me
(Do it quickly, do it, do it, do it, quickly, do it, do it)
Kiss me, baby
Kiss me, do it quickly
I've been waiting for so long
Ride the Dragon – FKA Twigs
It was only nine days into June, but Riverdale was already sweltering.
The late-afternoon sun beat down hot on Jughead Jones' brow as he dismounted from his motorbike outside the Cooper-Andrews house.
He needed a shower, desperately.
His back ached and his arms felt heavy. Pains from the first day on the job. A self-proclaimed weirdo for most of his teens, both scrawny and book-loving, Jughead was relatively certain someone like him had no business working construction. But it was good money. Better than slaving away at Pop's Diner during the day followed by evening shifts at the Twilight drive-in.
Plus, it was also the least he could do with the regular crew a man down. Namely, his father.
After two decades, FP Jones had apparently tired of the deadbeat slash absentee dad act. A few weeks prior he spontaneously announced to his son over the phone plans to finally spend some substantial time with Jughead's 13-year-old sister, JB. Only a mere 10 years after his mother abandoned him and absconded to Toledo with the then-toddler, Jughead had thought bitterly.
Nice for FP, but it left his son alone to fend for himself during the three-month break between his sophomore and junior years of college.
Rather than being forced to pay for food, utilities, and upkeep of their mobile home in Sunnyside Trailer Park out of the hard-earned money he needed to help fund what his scholarship didn't cover of his education, his best friend since kindergarten and current roommate at Centerville University, Archie Andrews, had suggested Jughead just come stay with his family for the summer.
Persuading Archie's dad, Fred, and his step-mother, Alice, had been easy enough. Thanks to FP's years-long saga of on-and-off sobriety, Jughead was already something of a permanent fixture in their home. He had been since the former neighbors turned couple married when the boys were in middle school. About four years after Alice's first husband, Hal Cooper, passed away suddenly, and three after Archie's parents split amicably and his mom, Mary, moved to Chicago. Fred and Alice agreed to host him pretty readily, with Fred offering him FP's spot on the construction crew to boot.
Which was how Jughead found himself taking up residence for the summer in the bedroom of Alice's older daughter, Polly, who had elected to spend her vacation on some weird new-agey farm with her boyfriend and fellow Riverdalian, Jason Blossom.
Despite how much time Jughead had spent in the blended family's house over the last eight years, it still felt odd to actually now be in possession of keys to it. The residual insecurity from his less than stellar upbringing left him unable to shake the feeling of being a guest trespassing on the Cooper-Andrew's blissful Brady Bunch-esque family scene. Even after a full two weeks of already living there. Nevertheless, he was doing the best he could to contain the always present chip on his shoulder.
Hustling up the walkway now, he approached the house's bright red door, unlocking it and gingerly pulling it open.
"Hi honey, I'm home," he called out sarcastically, not really expecting an answer. The foyer was dark and the house appeared empty.
Fred and Archie had remained behind on-site to finish up paperwork. Alice, presumably, was at the RIVW news station, where she worked as an anchorwoman. He wasn't sure where Betty was. Alice's younger daughter had come by the construction site earlier that afternoon with dozens of home-made sandwiches, as was the custom on the first day of an Andrews Construction job. But she'd disappeared nearly as quickly as she'd arrived, not even offering Jughead her usual playful smile and affectionate dig about his excessive appetite. Tonight was her high school graduation ceremony, so he'd attributed her lack of attention to him to her simply being stressed. She was probably already at Riverdale High getting ready with her friends.
Jughead twirled the set of keys in his fingers as he climbed up the stairs, pocketing them in his jeans when he reached the landing of the second floor.
He was just about to peel off the sweaty white ribbed tank top he wore when he heard it.
A sigh. A shaky, feminine sigh, to be exact. It sounded either like she was crying, or—no, no, that was impossible, wasn't it? She couldn't be doing that, could she?
Thinking of Betty in a sexual way promptly had his cock twitching and his mind veering into overdrive. Even just witnessing a flash of her long, creamy legs clad in the tight jean shorts of her overalls earlier had distracted him for most of the afternoon. He'd almost ended up dropping a piece of rebar on a fellow crew member.
Jughead had pathetically harbored a crush on the girl since he was 14. He blamed his love of classic cinema. He'd spent the summer before high school bingeing Hitchock films while working the projector at the Twilight, and the parade of attractive blondes had spurred a somewhat late-blooming sexual awakening. Grace Kelly leaning seductively over Jimmy Stewart's wheelchair in Rear Window specifically. So when Betty returned home from sleepaway camp at the end of August that year with budding breasts and freshly shaved legs, no longer looking like an awkward pre-teen, he'd practically salivated right into the Cooper-Andrews' living room floor. He'd lost every game of Tekken he and Archie played that afternoon.
Six years later, even with actual experience under his belt, he still had a giant soft spot for her.
He knew it was wrong. He knew pining after his best friend's baby step-sister was completely ridiculous, not to mention against all unwritten rules of friendship. Plus Archie was super protective of Betty when it came to guys. A product of having been her next-door neighbor since toddlerhood and then ultimately becoming her step-brother. There was literally no chance in hell. And even if there were, he was far too self-conscious of his checkered adolescence to ever act on his feelings.
Betty was just too perfect. No other girl held a candle. Smart and gorgeous and sensitive. Into the same books and movies as him, but still holding firm and challenging him when their opinions differed. The only one of their childhood friend group who ever got his obscure literary and film references, or who giggled appreciatively when he was morbidly cynical. The only one who stubbornly called him out on his crap when he got so grumpy he acted like a moody little shit.
His dream girl, in so many words. But even when there were times he could have sworn she seemed just as interested as him in more than close friendship, Betty Cooper always remained an intangible dream. Never his reality.
Jughead crept forward slowly now, trying hard not to make a sound. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar and he allowed himself to peek his head in.
Damn was the image before him mesmerizing.
Betty was splayed out on her bed. Wearing only a skimpy pink camisole and shorts set. Tousled blonde hair liberated from its usual uptight ponytail and spread out over her pillow. Lavender-painted toes arched and digging into the mattress. A petite hand down the front of her shorts. Touching herself.
His breath hitched in his throat at the wondrous view, his cock hardening instantly.
He could see her fingers curling underneath the silky fabric, no apparent underwear to speak of. Her beautiful, lust-filled green eyes sealed shut as she searched for the sweet spot to bring relief. "Oh," she whined, the delicious popping sound of her fingers making contact with her soaking wet folds following closely on the heels of her soft moans.
Jughead instinctively palmed himself over his jeans, a small shudder running through his body. He was nanoseconds away from succumbing to masturbating at the sight of her. Until he managed to think better of it. The minuscule part of his brain still functioning flashed a warning light to his dick. This was a very bad idea. He needed to walk away. He needed to go straight into his room and distract himself from any thoughts of the blonde siren.
Your best friend's little sister is off limits, Jughead reminded himself for the umpteenth time. No matter how tempting the current situation he found himself in, or how irresistibly naughty she looked moaning like that.
Jughead forced himself to turn his head away and take a step further down the hallway. But her next breathless words stopped him in his tracks and he swung back sharply.
"More," the blonde was now whimpering to herself, the way her fingers were straining against the silk suggesting she was rubbing circles over her clit. "Don't stop, Juggie, please."
What the actual fuck, Jughead thought, his heart rate speeding up. The nickname was too specific, and she was the only one who dared to call him something that cutesy.
Betty Cooper, the near-exclusive object of his deepest fantasies, was almost definitely getting herself off to thoughts of him pleasuring her senseless.
That did him in. He gazed fitfully at her body as she kept up her ministrations, his hand snaking down the front of his jeans and finding his ridiculously hard length. He curled his fingers around himself, pumping up and down. He hissed quietly at the sensation, trying to keep his voice down lest he alert Betty to his presence.
He continued to watch her touch herself, too aroused for words. He stroked himself in sync with her, imagining himself naked on the full white bed beside Betty. Her graceful hand, or maybe even her pretty pink mouth, around his cock. He could feel a drop of pre-cum dripping into his boxers, but he didn't care. The view before him was way too intoxicating.
Betty was soon arching her back up off the sheets, the camisole riding up to expose the taut skin of her stomach, much to Jughead's delight. The blonde's expression was close to euphoric as her fingers sped up impossibly fast. She was very clearly approaching her climax.
"Yes, Juggie, yes," she gasped as she teetered on the edge.
Jughead nearly lost it at the sight, picturing it was his skillful fingers rubbing the sweet little nub into oblivion, taking her to heights of pleasure so satisfying she screamed out his name.
He was so engrossed, so turned on, literally about to erupt all over himself, that the palm of his free hand accidentally connected with a loud thwack against the hallway wall.
Betty's eyes shot open at the sound, irises darting around in panic, and Jughead cursed inwardly, shoving up his jeans and practically sprinting to his room next door. He hoped to all hell she hadn't caught sight of him.
Hastily tearing off his clothes, he ran into the bathroom adjoining their two bedrooms and scrambled to turn the shower on. He jumped into the water cold, not caring his teeth were soon chattering. He rested his head against the ceramic tiles, waiting for his breathing to calm down. He could feel his cock angrily start to soften at its lack of release and he sighed.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, he groaned aloud. What had he done? Betty for sure had realized someone was there. He was in such deep shit.
He turned the faucet, hoping some steaming hot water would help him compose himself, and also soothe his now screaming muscles. Okay, simmer down, Jughead, he muttered. This wasn't his screw-up. He came home and unknowingly passed by her bedroom on his way to take a shower. No one told her to masturbate with her freaking door open in the middle of the day. It was beyond careless. Anyone could have walked by. And as for the fact it had prompted him to do something equally as stupid as jerk off in his host family's hallway, well he was 20 years' old and still basically a hormonal teenager. If anything, it was her fault for being so enticing. Jughead shook his head. Not the most convincing logic, but he was not exactly at his mental best.
He closed his eyes and relaxed slightly, groping for the shampoo to wash his hair and body. Everything would be alright. He'd just avoid her for the rest of the day. She'd be busy with her graduation soon enough anyway. He'd attend the ceremony and pretend like everything was normal. All would be forgotten tomorrow, or in a few days. This too shall pass, and all those other stupid cliches.
Jughead continued to reassure himself as he applied the shampoo and washed off, letting the soapy suds sink down the drain. When he felt clean and as close to calm as he was going to get, he shut off the water stream and stepped out of the shower. He rubbed his wet feet off on the bath mat and grabbed two towels to dry himself.
He walked out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom, one towel slung low on his hips and a smaller one in his hand as he attempted to wring out the droplets of water falling from his wavy raven hair. He was so distracted with the task he didn't notice her until she spoke.
"Hi," Betty said, her voice barely above a whisper.
He glanced up, nearly dropping the towel from his hand at the sound of her velvety voice.
The blonde was perched awkwardly against his temporary bed, peering up at him shyly. She bit her plump lower lip and Jughead had to close his eyes to stop himself from getting hard again at how innocent she looked doing that, despite the lingerie-like sleepwear she was still donning.
"Hey," he choked out in response.
"Did you just get back?" she asked, skirting close to but not yet bridging the inevitable question.
"Uh, yeah," he answered. "Fred let the crew off early. First day."
She nodded wordlessly, her eyes poring over his body, seemingly trained anywhere but his face.
The way she was staring at him left him feeling awfully exposed with just a fluffy towel around his waist. Despite the fact Betty had probably seen him shirtless countless of times. He cautiously took a seat at the desk chair, his fingers thrumming apprehensively against his knee. He looked back toward her, her eyes hesitantly connecting with his.
The current of tension in the room was discomfiting, but he felt powerless to break it.
"So…um…I… I guess you saw me," she tentatively asked, understandably afraid of the answer.
He winced slightly but nodded, incapable of lying to her. Betty blushed furiously in response.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, her voice starting to break. "God, I'm so embarrassed, Jug. I didn't think anyone would be home this early."
He could see her face crumpling and he suddenly felt like an asshole. He didn't want her to cry or to feel like she'd done something wrong by taking an opportunity when she thought she was alone. It was natural after all. Certainly not something she should feel humiliated about.
"Hey, hey, no, it's okay," he said softly, standing up from the chair and walking over to her. His hand instinctively stretched down to rub her shoulder when he reached the base of the bed.
Jughead didn't even realize his touch was lingering until he felt her green, doe-like eyes locking intimately on his. He swallowed nervously, before taking a seat beside her on the bed and gently lifting his hand from her skin.
"No need to be embarrassed," he continued, hoping to somehow diffuse the anxiety he intuited they were both feeling. "Honestly, I've had a few close calls with FP myself," he told her with a self-deprecating chuckle. "No harm, no foul."
Betty offered him a small smile at his attempt to assure her.
Her mien was mostly grateful, but there was also something else in the way her eyes were gazing up at him, helpless and demure, yet with an amused gleam that seemed almost wanton. That look was so seductive it stimulated Jughead into entering territory he'd never dared breach before.
"Do you do that often?" Jughead questioned, his voice husky. He knew he was treading a dangerous path, but he was suddenly too overcome with desperation to know the answer to care.
"Sometimes," Betty whispered, evidently still bashful, although not enough not to answer his question. "Every so often. Before I go to sleep."
"And you think about me when you do?" he asked hotly, leadingly, his blue eyes dark like saucers as he probed hers.
Betty's pretty green eyes widened in surprise, only now seeming to grasp that not only had he seen her in a delicate position but that she'd been caught whimpering very compromising words as well.
The blonde looked away and tried to shrug noncommittally. But she was biting her lip again, a sure tell she was both nervous and attempting to evade telling him the truth.
Jughead licked his lips and smirked. He could read her so well. She definitely thought about him more often than not. The notion filled him with a mix of heady pride and arousal, and he was determined to push her buttons until she admitted it aloud.
"Something you want to tell me, Betts?" he asked, using his special nickname for her. His voice was purposefully flirtatious now that he had a good inkling of the extent of her attraction to him. It made him feel he had the upper hand.
"Like what?" she squeaked out.
"Like what really prompted today's deviation," he said, adding a slow wink for good measure. He knew his not so subtle use of double entendre was bound to rile her up enough to reveal what he wanted to hear.
She blinked several times, weighing her words, before finally breathing out, "It's just…you…you looked really hot in that tank top today…your arms especially…"
His smirk widened as she trailed off, embarrassed. He may not have been as brawny or ripped as their various jock friends from high school, but his lean frame was still fit, thanks to Archie's insistence Jughead join him regularly at the university gym. At least lifting all those boring weights had proved good for something. If strong, toned biceps were Betty's thing, so much so that just a glimpse of his arms was enough to arouse her into rushing home to take care of herself in the middle of a Monday afternoon, he would gladly go work out every day.
"You looked really hot in those tight little overalls, too," he teasingly replied.
She blushed again, the rosy shade of pink spreading from her cheeks down to the exposed skin of her shoulders and chest. It was fucking sexy. Impulsively, Jughead reached out a finger to trace a squiggle just above where the flush dipped down into her cleavage. Betty shivered in response.
The sexual tension between them was positively crackling now, thick with a mutual attraction just begging to be explored.
"What you were fantasizing about," he continued, unable or unwilling to stop himself from taking things even further. "Have you done that with other guys?"
Part of him really did not care to contemplate Betty being with anyone else, but he was undeniably a masochist when it came to her and his feverish brain was now fixated on finding out this nugget of information.
Betty shook her head. "I've barely gotten past second base," she confessed to him shyly.
Jughead's heart raced at her admittance. He knew it was regressive, but the caveman in him was way too turned on by the fact that no other guy had gotten even a glimpse of Betty where he was dying to touch her.
"Have…have you been with a lot of girls?" she asked timidly, interrupting his amorous thoughts.
"A couple," he said, the words coming out more nonchalantly than he intended. He knew if the roles were reversed, he'd be scared shitless to ask such a question and he didn't want to give her any reason to become more skittish now. Not when she was so close to putty in his hands.
"A few," he corrected, softening his tone, sounding almost apologetic. "At school."
"Oh," she muttered, her cheeks reddening.
He couldn't tell if her blush was a result of insecurity or maybe even jealousy. The truth was, he was so used to the sassy side of Betty—the girl chiding him for his over-reliance on irony in his short fiction or berating him for ignoring the misogynistic overtones in Tarantino's movies—that it was strange now to see her intimidated and so out of her element. He couldn't deny, though, that it was more than a little thrilling. In fact, it was downright inviting.
Fuck it, Jughead thought. He was already knee-deep in these sensuous dark waters, he might as well dive down to the depths and take what he had been craving for years.
He leaned in close to her slender neck, inhaling the delicious scent of her vanilla body wash. It drove him crazy under normal circumstances, but being this close to her, he felt positively insane.
"For the record though," he whispered against her ear, his voice a low simmer, "I've never seen anything quite as sexy as you getting yourself off to thoughts of me." His teeth nibbled gently against her earlobe, before adding, "I started to touch myself too, watching you."
Betty's whole body was quivering in anticipation as he leaned back to meet her wild-eyed gaze, a small gasp of air catching eagerly in her throat.
She wanted him just as much as he wanted her. Her breathless response had given her away.
Jughead smirked victoriously. And then, lifting his hands up to cup her face, he greedily captured her perfect pink lips in his.