Prompt: so can i prompt it? aymitch saying i love you to effie during sex (post mj) and hers and his reactions to it? :D
Maybe One Day
Haymitch was focused on his book but he was aware of Effie's quiet coming and going around the bedroom. He had developed a sixth sense a long time ago when she was concerned but he had honed it down since the war.
They had developed some sort of a routine in the last year. It had been rocky at first, her coming to live in Twelve… It hadn't been easy sailing… She had stayed in the guest room at first although not for long… And they had remained platonic even less long… There was something about them… They just couldn't help themselves.
Nowadays their life was so boring it was a relief. It was the good kind of boring. They had habits, they were content, happy… Sickeningly domestic, as Johanna liked to put it.
"Are you reading that book or falling asleep on it?" she teased, dropping her dressing gown at the foot of the bed and untucking the sheets on her side to climb in.
"'M thinking about you actually." he smirked, tossing the book on the nightstand, not really caring when it missed and flopped down on the floor.
Her eyes were twinkling when she lied down against her pillow, not making a move to tug the sheets up to cover her body. She was wearing one of those nightgowns that looked falsely modest but were actually all lace and frills. It was blue and it made her eyes look that much bluer.
"I wonder why." she hummed with suppressed amusement.
She bent her leg seemingly at random but he wasn't fooled for one second. The nightgown rode high on her thighs and she never wore underwear to sleep so not only did it brought his attention to her endless legs but it also very much made him hungry for what hid between them.
"'Cause you're gorgeous and you're in my bed?" he suggested, trailing his fingers from her knee down her inner thigh.
"Oh, you must want it very badly to resort to flattery." she laughed.
"Always want it very badly, sweetheart." he hummed, inching her nightgown higher, making her indecent. Well… Not as indecent as when she opened her legs wide in invitation with a sassy grin on her lips.
She didn't have to offer twice.
By all means, they should have been bored sick of each other by then. They had been sleeping together for more than a decade and yet they were still attracted to each other, they still got hot and bothered with a mere touch or a too deep kiss… It was tame compared to what they used to share, of course, less rough, less wild… She hadn't been in any state to bear rough or wild for a while after her capture.
Not to say that they were boring in bed.
They could never be boring.
Not together. They were far too good for that.
The way she made him feel…
Hands roamed on skin, clothes flew off, lips wandered, kept coming back to each other… He felt pleasure build like an inescapable fever… His thrusts were lazy almost, unhurried… They had the whole night ahead, their whole life…
She kissed him, touched him, arched under him when he reciprocated in kind…
He was basking in her warmth, panting hard, on the edge of release…
She exploded around him with a cry of his name…
"I love you…" he groaned in her neck, lost to his own rapture.
He didn't realize what he had said until after, once he had found his breath back and he had his wits about him. He rolled off her but she didn't let him go far, she snuggled close to his side before he could panic and flee. She was acting so… normal he thought that maybe she hadn't heard, that she had been recovering from her own climax and…
She kissed his naked shoulder, her fingernails drawing random patterns on his chest, unhurried and soothing… He relaxed a little. She slowly lulled him to sleep and it was only when he was on the verge of drifting of that he felt her lips on his neck, mouthing the words back against his skin.
She had a habit of doing that when she thought he was asleep. Because she knew saying it out loud would have petrified him or sent him running… Because they didn't need the words to be uttered to know them to be true… Because…
But it felt good to have them mouthed against his flesh, it felt good to feel them…
And maybe one day…
Maybe he would heal enough to be able to hear them and to offer them back proudly…
Maybe…