Harvey isn't sure when Donna figured out that he unequivocally cannot handle his champagne, but she did, and she's definitely weaponised it against him.
Harvey can handle his whisky, and a couple of glasses deep he's fine - he'll flirt and stare more overtly, in that way that makes her blush. He'll say her name in that long, languid way she loves, like treacle, the way that makes her body twitch towards him and makes her touch the fabric of his suit just to get a tactile sense of him, of being his, under her palm. He'll get bold, in public, dancing fingertips up the small of her back, seeking out skin if her dress has a gap at the base of her spine (she buys lots of dresses with gaps these days) or plucking idly at the hem where her back curves into her ass if she doesn't. He'll lean in, negate their height difference, so he can bump his lips against her ear and murmur that he has about twenty minutes left in him before he's calling a cab or taking her into the bathroom to taste and touch her.
All I can think about is making you come, he'll murmur, the low rumble of his voice just enough of a whisper to make her heart jump.
Harvey, drinking whisky, just on the loose side of sober, is devastating.
Harvey, drinking champagne, on the other hand, is a big goofy idiot.
She always lulls him into a false sense of security, buries the lead first with a couple of double whiskies when they're out at a show or a bar, or like tonight, at home with both of them in his old sweats - just enough so that he stops paying attention when the drinks stop being Macallan and start being Moet. She's learned to listen out for the moment her name changes in his throat when he's just buzzed enough, the middle of her name drawn out and said like foreplay. When she hears it, she'll switch out the lowballs for champagne flutes and distract him with idle chatter about her day.
She loves that he loves her to infatuation, that she can tell him about her lunch or how yoga went after work, and he'll lean into her on the sofa, knock a knee against hers and not notice that the drink in his hand is suddenly not what he's been drinking up until that moment.
She chats to him about the day, waits for the moment his eyes crinkle in the corners and his low honeyed flirting pitches into the kind of giggling that he usually reserves for the nights he still seeks out the coffee cart guy.
She loves it when he laughs like that.
A year ago, all she could think about was him in the hurt of it'll never happen, and her imaginings were all guttural and intense, visions of him finding her out of nowhere and crowding her up against the wall, intense and heated, breaking down that barrier they could never quite figure out what to do with. She'd thought about him like that, raw and visceral, often, in her day dreaming and her nighttime fantasies.
She'd never really thought about how playful he is, how they laugh and flirt and tease, how they've always laughed more than they've fought, and how that would come into the rhythms of their sex.
He laughs quickly and easily when he's drunk. It's still devastating, just in a totally different way.
So tonight when the champagne has soaked past his senses, and got his chin turned and tucked into his shoulder, giggling like a teenager over some snafu Louis got himself into and Donna got him back out of, it's the easiest thing in the world to push up along the couch, and catch his mouth in an open, laughing kiss.
She feels his laugh push through even as he kisses back, smile lines in the corners of his eyes creasing under her thumbs as she slips her hands to the sides of his jaw, tickling. His head drops back against the sofa arm, letting her weight settle into his hips.
"Donna Paulsen, are you trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me?" he mumbles, his hands finding the bottom of her harvard sweatshirt, thumbing under the elastic and scratching along her spine. He palms against her hips, slow circles tickling and kicking up goosebumps.
"Oh please, like you need to be drunk to get taken advantage of," she says, and feels him huff a laugh, mouth opening enough for her to slip her tongue against his.
It had taken them a little while to find this ease. Not that either of them didn't know sex was as much about fun, about the lightness and joy of being with someone, as much as it was about passion and the intensity that pushed them together in the first place. Neither of them were strangers to relationships - the long term connection that brought comfort and ease and the one night stands that brought release.
But 15 years has a way of working itself out in sex that is all consuming. And so the first months was all crashing together in ways that felt out of control and on the edge of terrifying, both of them trying to hang onto whatever the fuck was between them and had kicked into life with a fury. It was long nights and fast orgasms, fucks and god harvey and jesus scattered out into the atmosphere.
That was beautiful, but this is wonder. The wonder of laughter and ease, of just being. Of recognising sex is as awkward as it is exquisite, of loving someone to orgasm, or not, of stopping to double over in laughter because he slipped or she caught his nipple too hard between her teeth and elicited a high pitched yelp like she'd never heard before.
That's a bit cute, she'd said when he'd done it, and he'd tugged her ear and said, don't breathe a word.
I'll tell everyone you shrieked in a manly way, she'd said, and then laughed when he tickled up her side.
So as she lets him hitch her sweatshirt over her head and drop it on the floor, the flush of cool on her skin tickling goosebumps, she hmms at the same time as he giggles into her mouth, and it's bliss, him like this.
He's just looped enough from the champagne to not be able to get control of himself as she gets her hands up to his buttons and pops them loose. He pushes her track pants low down on her waist, seeking skin under his fingers and huffing when she kisses up his sternum, stopping to make him tread the line between amusement and arousal when she lays her tongue over a nipple, teasing him until he hums her name.
He cups her ass, hitches him against her, finds that friction he's seeking. He grunts loosely and slips a hand up to tangle in her hair, drops a kiss on the crown of her head as she kisses over his chest.
She lays her tongue into the notch at the bottom of his throat, sucking just light enough to tickle, breathing a murmur against his skin when he gets his hand in between her legs, circling around her clit for a moment before slicking his thumb over her, stroking lightly and broadly.
She says his name, then drags his sweats off his hips, but she needs both hands to balance herself suddenly because he's spiking need through her, so she settles herself over his cock, rocking over his hips to slide along his length. He knocks his head back against the couch and grunts.
"Jesus," he says. "New rule. We are never leaving the house again."
"Good plan," Donna agrees, through heavy, hitching breaths. "Nail the door shut."
"We should probably order a pizza first. For survival."
She laughs at that, mixing humour with the way her eyes are dilated and her skin is flushed, pupils blown black. She sits forward for more purchase, leaning in and bracing her hands on his torso. Her hair is falling into his face, which is hot and endearing all at once and she loves the way he wrinkles his nose to avoid the tickle. He's gorgeous and she doesn't think she's ever wanted him more and it's all exactly where she's always hoped to find herself, loving and in love with this man and his smile.
"Stop giggling," he says finally, but he's on the edge of a laughing fit himself. Donna huffs a bit that breathes out into a low punch through her cheeks as he grips himself at the base, slides his other hand onto her hips and guides her down, slipping into her with a delicious, slow stretch.
She breathes out, bottoming her lungs as she lets herself stretch around him. Laughter slips into tender smiles, and she lets herself settle for a long moment while he takes his hand in hers, guiding her wrist and hand to his mouth, finding unkissed spots to press his lips against. He calls her Donna, which she's used to, and honey, which she's not quite yet, and she loves this, these moments with him.
He seeks out rhythm, but it's easy and light, a slow build taking its time around him slipping his hands up over her body, palming breasts and tweaking her nipples under his thumbs.
He's talkative when he's been drinking, always has been, which leads to pet names and into running gags about pet names being stupid, which spirals into a competition, which Donna ends by slapping his chest lightly and telling him he's a fucking idiot when he calls her snookums.
There's a point at which all the teasing fades out and the mood shifts, a little, just enough for Donna to slip into silence and focus on the way his pubic bone knocks against her clit when she bumps her hips just so. She plants her hands on his torso for purchase, leaning in deliciously, says his name, and she's leaning forward enough that he can slip fingers around her jaw and pull her to him to kiss her, loose and generous. She rocks, belly to belly, slipping along his length, pushing away the urge to push faster, deeper, harder. Instead, she lets the pace sit long, light, slow, and when she needs more she finds it in his eyes instead and in the feeling of his arms around her back and the ease with which they fit, they love, they smile.
She comes, and that's just right too - not so much a crash but a slow wave, taking its time to wash over them, while he says her name and presses his fingerprints into her soul.
"That's it," she says, when they've drifted for long moments afterwards, the feeling of his fingertips drifting over her spine. "You're not allowed to drink whisky anymore. Only champagne for you from now on."
"I didn't know you had a thing for wine moms."
"I'm planning on leaving you for one. I hoped you wouldn't find out this way."
He laughs, drifting, and the couch feels like the perfect place to sleep the night.
Oh come on, I can't with these two.
Thanks for joining. As always, reviews and thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Thanks to Luisa for the inspiration, and to the most miserable fic I've ever written for inspiring this one which might be the cutest.