The first time it happens she blames it on the whisky. The whisky and his insufferable smirk and his three piece suit and the memory that always lingers in the back of her brain of him sliding in and out of her mouth.
He tells her that night, emboldened by alcohol and that air of invincibility that he wears after winning a huge case, that she gave the best he'd ever had.
She's tipsy and feeling bold and he was looking at her with dark hooded eyes that seemed to dance with the image of her on her knees in front of him. Desire, running stark and unfettered in her bloodstream, made her decide to throw caution to the wind and bring that memory to life.
He looks wary as she falls to her knees and positions herself between his legs.
"What are you doing?"
"Isn't it obvious?" She smirks up at him coquettishly and drags a finger across the front of his pants, pleasantly surprised to feel him semi hard already. She tugs down his fly and frees him from his pants and god she'd forgotten just how beautiful his dick was, so thick and long. He continues to grow in her hand as she licks her lips, need burning through her body.
She flutters her tongue across the head before sinking her mouth down his length and he hisses.
"Fuck, Donna, are your sure?"
She lets her actions speak for her, bobbing her head, sucking him in deeper with each slide her lips make down his cock, her fingers teasing his base.
It's quick, both of them too eager and swept up in desire to draw things out and he's groaning and spilling himself down her throat in a matter of minutes.
He tugs her back up and kisses her, tongue sliding into her mouth and his hands running up her thighs and underneath the hem of her skirt. His fingers graze over her throbbing centre, her panties damp to the touch.
"No," she breathes, extricating herself from his hold and stepping out of reach. "We can't."
"But…you just…" he mumbles, and then says more earnestly, "I want to make you feel good too."
"That's not what this is. That's not why I did it." She draws in a deep breath. "It's just easier this way."
"Why?"
"Because then it would be more," she answers and he doesn't seem to know how to respond.
She goes home with his taste in her mouth and something that feels like power flowing in her veins.
They don't talk about it the next day. He nods at her as he arrives in the morning and later she chastises him about being too harsh with Louis and neither of them let their eyes glance in the direction of his couch.
They both pretend it didn't happen and that's what she wants, because then she can convince herself that no rules were broken.
Until one night six months later when he's stressed and overwhelmed in a way she rarely sees him, trying to find the solution to fix a last minute problem with a merger he's spent months working on.
"You need to relax so you can think," she tells him.
"Donna, I need to find the answer tonight, I don't have time to relax."
He throws his hands up and launches himself out of the chair, stalking to the window and glaring out at the city lights below them.
It makes for a fine sight, even if she can see the tension rippling off his shoulders. His jacket has long been discarded, leaving him in rolled up sleeves and that damn vest that has always been a weakness, her eyes running down to the tight fit of his suit pants over his backside. Harvey Specter most definitely has a nice ass.
She can feel desire spreading through her body as her mind begins to wander. Maybe the decision is impulsive, but she's already done it before and the world didn't come crashing down around them.
She wants to help him, wants to make him feel better, give him a release of all that pent up energy she can see radiating off him so that he could focus. And she wants to do it for herself, because she wasn't to taste him and feel him again.
She moves to stand beside him, glancing over at him.
"Let me help then. I can be quick," she says, lowering herself to her knees.
He looks down at her, his eyes already blown wide and dark. He doesn't say anything this time, doesn't question her out loud, and instead they trade conversation back and forth with their eyes. She knows he wants this, just as much as he needs it and just as much as she wants to do it.
She's not quick this time though. She's enjoying herself too much, enjoying the feel of him under fingers, and the taste of him, the way he brushes the roof of her mouth and the feel of his fingers pulling lightly at her hair. She's thorough as she works him, building him gradually as his quiet moans become an echoing cry as he empties himself on her tongue.
She tucks him back away, pushes to her feet and tells him to do what only he can do, and fix the goddamn problem. She stays to help him, as though nothing happened, as though her lips weren't still tingling from being wrapped around his impressive width.
After that night it just becomes a thing she does. They don't talk about it and she doesn't do it often, maybe a few times a year at most. She does it on the days when she just can't hold it back anymore. When he's too much, too close, too damn attractive in his suits. She does it when he protects her or looks at her in that way that spreads goosebumps over her body. When he's defeated or stressed, or when he's high on winning.
She doesn't give him any warning, doesn't ask if he wants her to do it, but of course he never turns her down. In some ways it's not for him, although she's sure he would argue that fact. It's for her and she does it only because she wants to. Because for a brief moment of time, while he slides inside her mouth, he belongs to her. Because when she holds him in her hands she feels a heady combination of powerful and submissive. She does it because she enjoys it, making him feel good, the rush of endorphins it gives her, and because sometimes she's just so damn horny for him she can't hold it any more.
So when she needs to feel something or because she's feeling too much, she'll drop to her knees, pull down his zipper and go to work.
He doesn't question her anymore, allows her to have her way with him more than willingly. They never do anything else, even though he always asks if she wants or needs more. She doesn't even let him kiss her because somehow that feels more intimate than having her lips wrapped around his cock with his semen running down her throat.
She goes home with his taste lingering on her tongue and her memories refreshed and when she brings her hand between her legs she thinks of herself on her knees in front of him, of the feel of him sliding between her lips and of his fingers in her hair. She hears his muted sighs and groans, hears the way he always cuts off crying out her name like he knows saying it would break whatever spell they exist under during that time.
She skirts around her rule, because they don't talk about it, and because nothing else happens and because she tells herself it's just her doing something she wants to. She tells herself it's not more.
She blows him a week after they hire Mike because they're both still so buzzed by the secret they're getting away with and the extra layer of intimacy it builds between them. She does it again after telling Mike the feelings go away. Because the hardest truth of all is they don't and she couldn't ignore them for another second that day, cornering him in his office and getting to work without saying a single word.
She only ever does it in his office. It helps with the boundaries, helps with the pretending. Allowing other locations seems dangerous, like it's opening it up to being more than it is. Making it more than just her making them both feel good.
She does it the night she returns to work, because she's exhilarated being back beside him and because she felt the way he stared at her breasts all day. So she blows him to celebrate her return and they both determinedly don't think about all the words and accusations that got thrown around during her absence.
She doesn't do it when either of them are with other people because she'd never want to be the person that turns him into his mother. But after she tells him he's a good man and he looks at her, broken and lost and worn down by try and failing, she falls to her knees and shows him just how much she believes in him
There's a night, just a few days before the liberty rail debacle blows up in her face, when she feels overwhelmed by arousal and soothes it with her tongue and hands on him. But then fateful words said by them both create a wedge so deep between them she doesn't know how they ever found a way back.
It takes a long time before she next finds herself on her knees with him thrusting in her mouth. It takes until Mike is free and safe from jail and they can both let themselves breathe again. And she breathes in the relief and celebration in the only way she knows how.
She knows they'd both missed it, this unspoken thing they had going between them. She'd missed the moment when he looked down at her and met her eye while her lips glided over his dick.
Sometimes it's quick. She's fast and focused and has him spilling into her mouth in a matter of minutes. Other times she's slow, taking her time to enjoy and tease, kissing and licking and touching, dragging out the moment of his release like she never wants the moment to end.
She blows him for motivation after telling him to fix things with his mother and then does it again just days later as reward for doing just that. She breaks her own self imposed timeframe because he stood there beside her looking so handsome and whole in a way she hadn't seen before and she felt a little whisper of maybe now he's ready brush along her spine.
She doesn't blow him the night she asks for more, because she doesn't just want to suck him off. She wants it all. But she runs scared though, and the next day asks for a different, though no less desired, type of more.
It changes them though, changes their dynamic and while he's always treated her as his equal, for the first time they truly are now and she's not sure it sits right with her anymore to sink to the ground and let him fuck her mouth.
Weeks go by and the change lingers. She doesn't know what it is, can't put her finger in it exactly, but Harvey is different. But she's different too, and maybe this is a different that means something. Maybe this is the different they've always needed to reach to be able to be more.
It's a random Thursday night when it happens. They've both been busy and the firm has been through yet another crisis. But they've survived the attack by Bratton Gould and even though she knows Mike isn't going to let the prison case go anytime soon, despite stating otherwise, for the moment there feels like a brief moment of peace.
She's only seen Harvey briefly that day, he dropped by her office earlier that morning to let her know something ridiculous Louis had said and then got swallowed up in meetings all day. She's not sure what makes her decide, what triggers her choice, but she finds herself shutting down her computer and heading next door to his office, anticipation prickling over her skin.
She pours them a drink without asking him first and then leans against his desk beside him as she hands him the glass.
"Tough day?" He asks, tilting the glass in her direction before swallowing a mouthful.
"Just busy," she answers. "Like you as welI, I feel like I haven't seen you much lately."
She downs the rest of her drink in one gulp, setting the glass down on the desk.
"I've missed you," she says quietly, and he looks at her curiously. Before he can answer she drops to her knees in front of his chair, running her hands up his thighs.
"God I've so missed doing this," she groans, hearing her arousal wrap around the words. Her fingers nimbly work down his zipper and she slides her hand into his boxers, sighing softly as she feels his hot flesh in her palm. She really has missed doing this, missed these secrets moments of time that she etches out for herself.
She can already feel him growing in her hand. She runs her thumb over the tip and that's when he speaks and shatters everything.
"Fuck, Donna, I can't," he gasps.
She glances up at him, on her knees in front of him with her hand wrapped around his cock.
"We can't. I'm….I've been seeing someone," he explains softly.
She feels suddenly cold, like ice is running in her veins. Her mind grasps for an emotion to cling to from her swirling thoughts and soon humiliation is the one that wins out over the others. She was seconds away from wrapping her lips around him, but he doesn't need her for that, because he's got someone at home who's been doing that for him now. She's not sure if she wants to cry or throw up.
She releases her hold on him and starts to stand. Harvey's hand reaches for her elbow to help her up but she shakes him off, desperately needing him to not touch her. She can feel heat on her cheeks, burning with embarrassment and rejection.
He hadn't told her and that's big. He's never kept his conquests a secret before and she knows that means this time it's different. This time he's really trying with time it's serious.
She's lost him.
The thought crashes into her heavily. He's not really even hers to lose, but that still doesn't stop her from feeling like he's just suddenly slipped from her fingertips.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm happy for you Harvey." She smiles at him as she forces out the lie and she hates herself for it.
Pulling in the threads of herself she swallows down the bile rising in her stomach. Sickness brought about by shame and humiliation and jealousy and loss.
He's still doing up his zipper when she walks out the door, almost holding her breath to keep herself in check. Until she escapes into the cold, empty confines of the elevator and lets out a sob. Just one is all she allows herself though, because she won't let herself cry over the loss of something she never had in the first place.
As the elevator sinks towards the ground floor she firmly tucks away the knowledge that tonight she had been planning to say yes when he asked if she wanted more.