NOTE: This story can be read without reading the story this is based off of, Exile All the Longer. However, it'll make more sense with that story's context. It is set between chapters Fifteen and Sixteen of Exile.
Key things to know if you're new to this couple:
+ Leigh and Tony are soulmates; Leigh has the word 'Tony,' his first word spoken to her, on her right wrist (you don't want to know her first words to him, for this fic, lol)
+ Leigh's hair is honey blonde and falls to her waist. Tony is obsessed with it
+ They've been together somewhere around a month to six weeks, at this point
WHEN MY STEPS RETURN
Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.
~ Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda
Chapter One: Deny Me
Tony Stark kind of wishes he was the kind of man who has a doctor on retainer, the kind who will prescribe whatever the heck you want, just because you're rich. He's that kind of rich, but he was never that kind of an addict. He's addicted to pleasure of all kinds, he can admit it. Tony spent years chasing variety, and the truth is, he doesn't really regret that. Now, though, now he has variety in constancy, and he likes it so much better.
Now, he has Leigh. His soulmate.
Except, not right now. Because he's on an airplane, and even though it's a fast one, it'll still be another six hours of flight time, combined with another hour of nonsense before he can come home to his tower. He won't even come directly home to his girlfriend, not really, because she hasn't moved into his penthouse yet, despite the fact that he'd actually begged her to, the day he'd left for this business trip. Begged. Him! Outside some very specific sexual scenarios, Tony Stark simply does not beg. But he's in love, and so is she, so he feels comfortable to push boundaries.
The annoying part is, it's his plane, and it has a bed. If he had a sleeping pill available, if he could skip the rest of this flight by sleeping through it, Tony absolutely would. He's still going to try, but it's not a guarantee, and he doesn't want to drink to do it. The last thing he wants is to come home to Leigh with a hangover. They're due to get in right after dinner, and he wants… well. Thinking about that right now would not be conducive to sleeping. If he heads to that bed in this aircraft, given its history? That'll be what he spends his time thinking about. He'd rather do those things with her instead, in a few hours, instead of by himself, without her.
Tony sighs, pulling the travel pillow out from under his head and hugging it to his chest petulantly. He can fly. He has the power of the internet at his fingertips with an AI smart enough to cut through the busywork bullshit. He has enough money to obtain pretty much anything he wants, whenever he wants it. But he can't make time move any faster, and that's just some kind of bullshit.
8888888888
Tony: The fact that the Concorde is no longer a thing is absolutely not okay
Leigh: I miss you too, three days is too long.
Leigh: You should sleep, the flight will go faster.
Tony: Yeah, I know. I keep thinking about what I want to do when I get home, and it's keeping me awake
Tony: I could tell you if you like. Then you could tell me what you'd do in response
Leigh: Oh I don't think so.
Leigh: You should have thought about this exact scenario before you told me that you have FRIDAY read out your texts when your hands are busy, hmm?
Tony: fuck.
Leigh: Patience, patience.
8888888888
She's not in the penthouse when he gets in, which is probably not surprising. Tony puts his things down and frowns down at his wrinkly suit. He should take a shower, but there's a nonzero chance of doing that with Leigh, and he'd never turn that down. He hops into the elevator and heads down to her floor. When he rings at the door, there's no answer, but five seconds after hitting the button, the door opens. He feels a surge of affection for her. She must have asked FRIDAY to code it to let him in. The sound of the shower is loud when he gets inside, and there's a tantalizing hint of her spicy shampoo. He finds out shortly that this is because she's left the bathroom door open.
Tony undoes his tie and leans in the doorway. "You know you have full access to the penthouse?" he says, by way of greeting her.
Leigh's rinsing suds out of her hair, which apparently means freeing the shower head to handheld mode and lifting chunks of her wet hair with one hand while going over it with the spray. The motion shakes her breasts enticingly, not that he has the greatest view through the mostly fogged over glass of her small shower.
"I don't know how to make the shower head strong enough for my needs," she says.
"Well!" Tony says, laughing. "I can't help but notice there aren't any towels in here."
"I was counting on your plane to come in on time," she says, her voice rich with amusement. "I'm more than a little grateful that worked out."
"What's in it for me?"
The water shuts off, and he can see Leigh move close to the fogged-up door of the shower. Instead of opening it, though, she pushes up against it with her chest. Her nipples pebble up from the cold as soon as they touch the glass, despite the heat of her shower, the rest of her body merely a shadow in the background. She keeps going until her breasts are spread out, literally on display for him.
"You can get me so sweaty and gross I'll need a second shower," she says. Her voice is throaty, with just a hint of vocal fry.
"Towels, coming right up."
Her laugh chases him out into the hallway where the linen closet is. Tony is already so turned on from her visual display that his pants are getting uncomfortably tight, but he wouldn't have it any other way.
He comes back with four towels and a sense of determination. Because she is a complete adorable tease, Leigh takes the first towel and wraps it around herself, tucking it in so the edges overlap in the front, but barely by much.
"Easy access?" he asks.
"First things first," she says, leaning over and taking towel number two. "The receptionist at work bought me one of those super absorbent hair towel turban things in our Secret Santa exchange the first year I worked there. I was really tempted to take a picture of just how little of my hair fits in one of those."
The bathroom in her apartment is a fraction of the size of his. Leigh's faced away, basically standing right beside him, and the rhythmic movement of her arms squeezing the water from her hair as she's bent over is affecting him a lot. The strong clean scent of her spicy shampoo fills the room, enhancing his desire for her. Leigh does a little wiggle as she rubs the towel against her neck. The towel she had wrapped around her body falls off.
"Oops."
Tony pulls her up against him. Her body is damp and warm, and he groans to feel her heat after missing her for so many days and nights. He kisses her shoulder, hearing her hum in approval, and Tony slides his hand up from her stomach to the underside of her breast, straightening her spine so he can access the back of her neck.
"As much as I love where this is heading, the end result right now is a face full of wet hair for me," she reminds him.
"Hair dryer?"
She gasps in affronted horror, and pulls away.
"No hair dryer," Tony says, dutifully.
"Better," she laughs. "I tell you what, can you go into the bedroom and grab my robe? Not the one that looks like you can see through it if you squint hard enough. You can take that up with us, but I would like to be decent for the elevator ride.
"I think I missed a step?" He's stalled out on the racetrack, too horny to remember the steps to fixing a flooded engine.
She tosses her hair back and pulls it onto a shoulder, squeezing the towel against it. Her brown eyes are loving and amused. "You want me in the penthouse, right?"
"I want you everywhere." He grins. "But, yes."
"Well, until you invent a teleporter, I will need to be clothed for that particular trip, Tony."
"Two robes, coming up."
He takes time in her bedroom to adjust the press of his boxer briefs on his erection. Tony has a suspicion that Leigh timed this deliberately, setting obstacles (sexy, fun ones, at that) between him and what he wants to do with her. He is completely certain she wouldn't admit it if he asked, though.
He finds the robe she doesn't want to wear in the elevator and completely understands why. It's white, made of a soft, see-through material covered in lacy vine patterns in a golden yellow color. The only part of it that's in any way opaque is a three inch thick ribbon belt that wouldn't cover anything pertinent anyway. He loves it. Tony grabs the lavender fluffy robe she has hanging in her closet, too.
When he gets back into the bathroom, her hair looks much more dry, and the towel wrapped around her body is back.
"This is my new favorite thing," Tony says, holding up the filmy robe. He drapes it around his neck like a scarf. It barely weighs anything. "And here's your ticket to barely decent-ville," he tells her, waving the purple robe.
"Thanks. My hands are full, though. Can you-" Leigh says. She's toweling off the top of her head and comes over, pushing her chest out where the towel around her torso is precariously tucked in between the valley of her breasts.
"This is a concerted effort to kill me," Tony declares, but he reaches for the towel. Then, he snatches his hand back. Tipping his head to the side, he examines the structural integrity of the tuck, leaning over and closing his lips around the small glimpse of towel hem sticking up between her breasts. Mostly, he's kissing her, but he tugs just a bit, and the towel collapses under its own weight.
He's beyond caring how obvious he is, now, banding an arm around her waist and bending his head to paint his tongue across her damp, delicious skin, lower and lower until he nuzzles her nipple with his nose.
"Tony," Leigh says, her voice urgent.
"Mm hmm," he murmurs, curling his tongue around her nipple, loving the way she catches her breath and clings to him, her towel and still-damp hair forgotten. Tony walks her back against the doorframe so he can slide his hand around and thumb at her other nipple, pressing his knee between her legs in a vain attempt to support her.
Suddenly, Leigh hisses, and he pulls back. "What?"
"Hinge," she says ruefully. With both hands apologetically pressed to his chest, she sucks a kiss to his lips and steps away.
"I put it there vindictively. So you'll move in with me," he says.
"Yes, this hinge stamped with-" Leigh leans over and pretends to read out, "'Hinge-City, purveyors of fine pain inducements to move since 2010 when this tower was built and you hadn't met me yet.' Wow!" she grins at him. "You were right."
"Put on the robe, Miss Balci," Tony says.
She trails a hand along his neck where the revealing robe is resting, then bends down to pick up the purple one.
"Head up, I'll be there soon," Tony says, gritting his teeth. He should just drag her over to her bed and take her, but she's being tempting on purpose, trying to entice him with the ability to have sex with her in two separate places. Really, he wants her up in the penthouse with him all the time, and he will not be dissuaded.
"What?" she asks, fastening the tie around her waist, her hair in disarray, brown eyes dark with how much she wants him.
"I am synched to a completely fucked up time zone, I just spent however long on an airplane, and I want to wake up in my own bed next to you after however much time we spend catching up. I do not , and don't you dare ever quote me on this, want to have sex in the elevator."
Leigh laughs, and he even finds that sexy, Tony realizes. "Okay. See you soon."
She walks out of her apartment barefoot. He almost chases her and reneges, but his back won't thank him, and he never was the kind to have a Dr. Feelgood to fall back on, there.
Besides, the two of them have a great track record when it comes to her waiting for him to show up, horny as all hell.
NOTE: If you're interested in reading the sex scene referenced at the end of this chapter, go to the story Exile All the Longer and advance to chapter 11, it's the first scene.