Blair was going to Hell. She wasn't really a religious person, but if she had been, she knew with absolute certainty that was doomed to Hell.
She had been allowed to pick the first of the three movies they were currently enjoying. A fact that did not slip past Blair as she watched Chuck squirming through Breakfast at Tiffany's. The classic, perfect, first ever, chick flick.
Since Serena had decided to stay for that one, they were only now laying back in her comfortable bed, mostly naked, wrapped around each other, trying to stay warm, despite the chill in the air.
She had protested whole-heartedly at his choice of movies. But finally she gave in and as the screen darkened and disturbing images assaulted her senses, she decided to ignore the movie and instead study the man she was currently draped over.
Seven, that was the movie he had chosen. A movie about a serial killer trying to personify the seven deadly sins.
She smiled to herself as the thought occurred to her that she and Chuck were guilty of every one of them.
There was Lust. Well that was a given. There was always lust between them. Being in the same room with each other inspired the sort of lust in them that most people dream about. The air sparkled around them with the weight of their lust for each other. Sometimes it made it hard for her to breath. It was the kind of heady, lost sensation that most addicts yearn for.
Gluttony was also easy. Because she knew that no matter what, she would never, ever, ever be able to get enough of him. She could drown in him and it still wouldn't be enough. She never tired of the feel of him, under her, over her, beside her. The feel of his skin on hers, the taste of his lips. The sound of his voice, the look in his eyes. She was completely addicted to all of it.
Greed, she was so very greedy with him it was ridiculous. It was hard for her to share him in any way at all with others. She wanted him all to herself, all the time. If she thought there was a way for them to survive it, she would happily lock them two of them away from the rest of the world and never have to share him with another soul for the rest of their lives. She wanted every piece of him. Every smile he gave away to a random stranger on the street. Every word he spoke that wasn't meant for her. Every step he took that wasn't bringing him into her arms. Yes, she was greedy. She wanted all of him, every little piece, all the time.
Envy, every moment he spent away from her, she was envious of those that got to be with him in those moments. But there was more to her envy than that. She envied the first girl he kissed. The first one he touched, the first one he made love to. She wanted to be all those girls. She wanted to be his only girl, ever. Just like he was for her. There would never be another man's hands touching her the way he did. There would never be another man's lips on hers. There would never be another man inside her, surrounding her. But she knew that wasn't the case for her. Chuck was experienced and worldly. He taught her everything she knew about sex. His experience was one of the things that had drawn her to him. But deep down she hated that there had been women before her.
Sloth. She could happily spend the rest of her days, laying in her bed, never leaving it, as long as he was with her. She could so easily become completely indifferent to the world around her, to everything that didn't directly involve Chuck. She could make him her world. And it was actually a fight for her not to indulge in that particular sin. He was all she wanted. Nothing else mattered to her much at all anymore. Her entire universe had somehow come to revolve around him. He was the bright center of her life. The Sun which everything else rotated around. She never wanted to be one of those women. The ones that made the man in their lives everything to them. She loved her independence. It was important to her. But he had robbed her of it. She wasn't sure she could even exist without him anymore.
Wrath, God that could make each other so angry sometimes. No one else on Earth could inspire in her the kind of wrath he could. There were moments when all she wanted was to break him. To hurt him so utterly that he would never recover. Her wrath towards him caused her regret most times. She hated herself for how angry she let herself get at him. But then again, most times, he deserved her anger. And for his part, she had never seen him get so angry at anyone else in his life. As much as he inspired her anger, she inspired his.
Pride. Pride was the one sin keeping them apart. Both them were so damned prideful that admitting they needed each other was almost beyond their capability. It was what was keeping him from telling her how he really felt about her. It had kept her from admitting it to him months before. Of course, superficially, they were both full of pride. They were the beautiful people. The ones others wanted to be like. She couldn't count the number of hours she had spent, alone in her bed, imaging how perfect their children would be. Yes, both of them were so damned full of pride, both superficially and emotionally, it was bordering on irrational.
But today, today she had set her pride aside. Laid herself out for him completely and since she had, he had barely spoken a word to her.
That thought scared her more than she wanted to admit. She told him she didn't care if he said it back. She told him that it didn't matter, but she lied.
It did matter. And as the hours ticked away with the words still unspoken from him, she felt like her chest was closing in and her world was exploding.
She shifted slightly as the dark thoughts assaulted her and resisted the urge to flex her hand where it rested on his shoulder. She didn't want to bring his attention to her inner turmoil.
She pushed the feeling of emptiness away and decided instead, to try to think of a way to combat her impeding trip to Hell.
The virtues. How many of the virtues could she claim where Chuck was concerned.
Well humility, that was the counterpart to pride. She had definitely already achieved that one. The words of her earlier speech came back to her unbidden and she fought to push them away again. Yeah, humility she had.
Love was the opposite of wrath and she knew she had that as well.
Diligence was the virtue associated with Sloth. She had been diligent in her pursuit of the man beside her. She had never given up on him, though there were plenty of times when she felt she should.
The virtue for envy was kindness. And she felt she had been kind towards him. More kind than he deserved a lot of time. There were times, when they were completely alone, that both of them could be so unbelievably kind to each other. The night she spent, right after his father's death, holding him to her and letting him cry on her shoulder like a child, that night she had been kind. More kind than she ever felt herself capable of being. Still, one of the hardest things in the world for them, seemed to be the ability to just be nice to each other. So, kindness she would have to work on.
Another she would have to work on was Charity. She never felt charitable when it came to him. Sharing had never been something she was especially good at. So she promised herself, right then, that she would try to be more giving in the future. It wasn't healthy to be so wrapped up in someone that you couldn't stand to be apart from them even for a few hours. Chuck was an important man and that would only get worse when he took over his father's company. She was would do her best to share him with the rest of the world.
Temperance, the virtue for gluttony, she felt she had that in the bag as well. She had been nothing but patient with him. How many months had she waited to hear him tell her he loved her ? How many of his own sins had she forgiven him for and looked past ? Yes, temperance was not a problem.
That brought her to the last of her virtues, chastity. It was at that moment that he leaned up and brushed his lips lingeringly across her shoulder. The shiver of her response to the gesture made her smile.
Well, six out of seven wasn't bad.
Chuck glanced away from the screen as the ending credits finally began to roll. She had been teasing him for the last half hour. Playing with the hair on his thigh and seemingly innocently running her nail over his skin.
She was driving him insane. He fought several times against his instinct to just grab her up and take her.
But that wasn't what their day together was about and he wasn't going to permit it to turn into that. He wanted it to be more, to mean more. He wanted to know that they could spend an afternoon together without ripping each other's clothes off. He wanted to prove to her and himself that what they had together was about more than just sex.
He had done a remarkable job up until that point and now she wasn't making it easy on him. Her nail played along the leg of his boxers and his breath hitched unconsciously. Okay, so maybe he had been setting himself up to fail when he agreed to slid into her bed in nothing but his boxes while she was beside him in that satiny, silky, lacy thing she called a gown. The champaign color highlighted her tanned skin and the color of her hair.
When he looked down at her, one of the thin, meaningless straps of it had fallen from her shoulder, exposing just the barest hint of her breast under all her curls. He reached a hand up and brushed the hair away, feasting his eyes on her skin and devouring her with his gaze.
" I thought we were going to watch a few movies and just relax." He muttered, leaning down to kiss her shoulder.
She shivered under his lips and he knew he was gone.
" We did. Now its time to move on to more active activities. We wouldn't want anyone to accuse us of being lazy, now would we ?" She smirked as her finger dipped even further under his boxers, grazing the hair of his inner thigh and drawing a hiss from him.
It was ludicrous that just something as simple as her fingers against his skin could instantly cause that reaction in him. He wasn't some virgin on prom night. But despite his experience, her touch inflamed him every time.
" No," He whispered in her ear. " We wouldn't want to be accused of that."
Then he drew her earlobe between his lips and sucked on it, before nipping it gently, the way he knew would make her moan. And he wasn't disappointed as she leaned into him and let the soft sound escape her.
" God, Blair." He groaned as he eased down into the softness of her bed and pulled her into him.
" Yes, Chuck." She smiled against his lips.
" The things you do to me." He muttered, not really paying attention to what he was saying as he palmed her breasts.
" Tell me." She answered, arching her back further into him. "Tell me what I do to you."
" You make me forget anything else exists." He told her, truthfully. " When you're touching me, nothing else matters."
"Chuck," She groaned, her fingertip flicked over his nipple and he clutched her tighter.
He pulled back and eyed her carefully. " Does your head hurt ?"
She shook her head just before it descended to his neck. Her teeth nipped at his flesh and he groaned.
" Are you sure we should be doing this ? You're hurt. Maybe this isn't a good idea." He continued, wanting to know she was alright before they went any further.
She sat up abruptly and he instantly felt at a complete loss. " Okay," She snapped, catching him off guard. " First, you've hardly talk to me since before Serena showed up. Now you're looking for excuses not to have sex. If what I said earlier bothers you this much, I take it all back.."
" What are you talking about ?" He asked, dumbfounded by her sudden outburst.
She put her head in her hands. " I don't want to play this game anymore. It's awful. Can we please just pretend like we never started this. I can go back to pretending to hate you. You can go back to pretending you only want me for sex. It was easy that way. You're right this is getting complicated."
He took her hands and dragged them from her face, then waited until she looked up at him.
His smile was bold and bright as he meet her gaze. " I don't want to go back. I can't. We've come too far now. Please don't even try to take back what you said. You have no idea how much it meant to me to hear it."
" Then why have you been acting all weird since then ?" She pouted, complete with jutting bottom lip.
He wanted to scoop down and drawn that lip between his own. But he held back, knowing it was time. It was time he said the things she had been dying to hear. Eight letters, three little words and all this would be over.
He opened his mouth and waited for a beat for whatever it was that was going to interrupt him this time. When nothing came, he took a deep breath, trying to figure out the best way to go about what he wanted to say.
Her eyes were wide, expectant and eager, like a child getting a Christmas present. He nearly laughed at the expression on her face.
" I haven't been acting weird. Today has been the best day I've had since longer than I can remember. Just you and me, nothing pressing on us, no outside influences, well, except that one little one, but she left fairly quickly."
" CHUCK !" She yelled and squeezed his hands, stopping his ramble.
" Okay, I'm sorry." His eyes twinkled as she wiggled closer to him restlessly. " Like I was saying, today has been wonderful. There isn't anything I could possibly think of that could make it any better. I want the chance to spend more days like this. I think maybe next Friday I could clear my schedule. If you're not busy maybe we could do something like this again, just laying around, watching movies..."
" Chuck ! " It was a whine this time and he couldn't contain his laughter any longer.
She slapped his shoulder in response.
" What ? We're you expecting me to say something else ?" He asked, feigning innocence.
Her eyes blazed at him and she snatched her hands away to plant them on her hips.
" God, you're acting like you were expecting me to propose or something ?" He held out his hands and splayed his fingers. " I swear, I'm not hiding a ring anywhere. But you're welcome to check and make sure."
" Stop teasing ME !" She yelled at last unable to contain herself any longer.
His smile slipped away suddenly and he took her hands again. His eyes found hers and all playfulness was gone from his expression. " Blair, I lo-"
Then the phone rang.
