Games We Play on the Couch
The first time it happens, it annoys him.
They are having a lazy afternoon, staying at a S.H.I.E.L.D. base in South Africa with nothing to do, really, other than waiting for their next mission, so he grabs the book he's currently reading, and settles in the lounge, taking a seat at the end of the couch.
He has about ten peaceful minutes before Skye appears.
She doesn't say a word – not even a hello –, just, with her tablet in her hand, she sits down on the opposite end of the couch. He lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding – seems like she'll let him to get lost in the world of his novel, something he's grateful for. It's not like he doesn't like her – it's just that sometimes she's a little too much. And right now, he needs some quiet.
Five minutes after joining him, she changes position, turning sideways, resting against the armrest, and pulling her feet up to the couch, her knees bent. He gives her a sideways glace, but that's it; she seems just as absorbed by her tablet as he is by his book. At least as absorbed as he pretends to be.
Five more minutes pass, and she makes her move: straightening first her left leg, she boldly places her foot in his lap. He stops reading for a moment, just to witness as she repeats the process with her right. He raises an eyebrow at her, but her face is hidden by the table, so she doesn't see it – or at least pretends no to see it.
He dips his head backwards, looking at the ceiling for one, two, three seconds, then grabs her ankles and places her feet back on the couch. She doesn't react in any way – not even with a scoff.
For two minutes, he can return to his novel.
The next moment her feet are, once again, in his lap.
This time he lets out a sigh before putting her feet back to where they belong.
Two minutes later they are back in his lap, without her saying a word.
They play two more rounds of this before he gives up. Letting out a long breath he decides that this position is not even that uncomfortable. And anyway, letting her have her way makes him the bigger man. Sort of. And anyway, who cares? It's not like it means anything.
(His gaze forcefully glued to the pages, he misses Skye's triumphant smirk.)
The second time it happens, he takes it with resignation.
It's almost exactly like the last time, only now it happens in Argentina, and with shorter playtime – now it takes her less than three minutes to get from sitting down next to him to putting her feet in his lap. Also, this time he doesn't try to get rid of them.
No, he just looks at her and somehow she feels it – she lowers her glossy magazine and looks at him with twinkling eyes.
"Hi," she says, smirking.
"Hi," he answers, pointing at her feet. "Do you mind?"
She does the pouty-considering thing with her lips, then shakes her head and says, "No, not at all."
The she continues reading, her feet still firmly placed in his lap.
He doesn't even try to fight her.
The third time he starts to wonder.
Not about big things like why he is letting her do this at all (maybe because he likes it), but about small thing.
Like that she has tiny feet. Like, ridiculously tiny. And it's cute – it actually should alarm him that he finds her feet cute, but they really are adorable, especially in those rainbow socks with the individual fingers for her toes. And she has slim ankles – graceful ones, that are, he's sure, would look great in stilettos. Also, her calves are great – shapely and strong, and he kind of wants to run his hands along them.
But he is not ready to cross that line yet. So he just keeps admiring her feet while pretending to read his book.
(Later that night he vaguely laments if he has some kind of a foot fetish, then decides that it's more like a Skye fetish.)
By the fourth time, it becomes almost like a second nature.
When she sits down next to him, he is already lifting his arms a little to give her space. And when she does finally put her feet in his lap, one of his hands almost automatically moves to her right one, absent-mindedly starting massage it, while he keeps reading – he is good at multitasking, after all.
After hitting a particularly sensitive spot in her instep, she lets out a tiny moan – which shouldn't affect him as much as it does –, and lowers the file she's been reading.
"I don't know where you've picked it up," she tells him, "but keep doing it. It feels amazing."
His only response to her words is just a tiny smile, but then he spends the next twenty minutes with giving extra attention to that spot – on both or her feet –, just to see if he can elicit more of this tiny, mesmerizing moan from her, while pretending that he is not painfully aware of her eyes fixed on him.
It becomes sort of a tradition for them after this.
There is one time when they vary this ceremony a little.
They are watching a movie in the lounge, him, Skye and FitzSimmons, and Skye starts off with simply sitting next to him. Then she places her head on his shoulder. Then it slides down to his biceps. And then it somehow ends up pillowed on his thigh, her hand softly rubbing his knee. He doesn't even think about it, just starts playing with her hair, his eyes still glued to the screen – twirling a lock around his pinkie, burying his fingers in her waves, caressing her scalp.
He does it until she completely relaxes and falls asleep hallway through the movie.
(Simmons takes a picture of them, one he later gets for himself and sets as the wallpaper of his phone.)
Around the umpteenth times, she starts to play dirty.
It starts like any other time, with him reading, her lying next to him and placing her feet in his lap. Only, this time, before he could start his massage, she starts hers.
Flexing her foot downwards, she starts rubbing her toes against his thigh. He stops reading in an instant and looks at her with raised eyebrows – and all he gets as an answer is a wicked little smirk and a tiny shrug, as her foot starts wandering upwards.
His breathing stops for a moment as her foot skirts along his inseam, forcing itself between his thighs. He wonders for a moment if he should stop her, but it feels so damn good, so he simply puts his book down, closes his eyes and lets his head fall back as her toes play with the junction of his thigh.
But when she finds his hardening member and rubs it gently, teasingly, he loses it.
He grabs her ankles and pulls her up and towards himself, until she is kneeling with her legs on either side of his thighs, straddling him, grinding her center against his erection, and presses a hot, frenzied kiss to her lips before she could give out more than a little, surprised squeal. With his tongue thrusting into her mouth – a promise of what's to come – he grabs her ass and stands up, and with her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, he starts walking towards his bunk.
He loves that couch and what they do it; but he loves his bed and what she does in it more.
