She drifts, slow and lazy, to a state half-awake, half-asleep, floating on a sea of quiet euphoria. Everything just feels so… good, as if she's been carrying tension for years that has now been released. She feels good, in the way you only do when you didn't know how bad you felt until the pain was suddenly gone.
She wonders, vaguely — if she'd known, had any inkling of what would be unleashed, if she would still have made that first move. Feeling the pleasant ache in her arms and legs, the faint throb still present between her legs, she thinks that her only real regret is not making it sooner.
A little bit more awake now, she moves her legs to stretch — or tries to, since she finds that she cannot move at all. She's all tangled up, hot enough to border on discomfort, and there's something heavy there, what… she blinks her eyes open to find herself wrapped up in Red.
He's lying curled behind her, his body spooning hers; now that she's more or less awake, she can feel his warm breath on the back of her neck. But he's also got both arms wrapped tightly around her torso, and his legs wound around hers in a puzzle of limbs.
Well, she muses sleepily, snuggling back into the cocoon of his body, who could have guessed that the infamous Raymond Reddington, the Concierge of Crime himself, is a cuddler?
It's scent that first permeates his consciousness — the light, clean scent of Lizzie's shampoo; the healthy salt of sweat; the faint, lingering musk of sex. Then touch arrives — feathery brushes of her hair against his face, his neck; her soft, smooth skin against his own, everywhere he can feel; the welcome pressure of the warm curve of her backside pressed into his belly, his cock.
More awake with every sensation, he starts to hear her soft, even breaths, the hum of the power converter. He opens his eyes to surprising darkness, then realizes his face is buried in her neck, her hair. He shifts back a little, finding he needs to loosen his arms a bit to do it, but he wants to see too, to fill every aspect of his being with her.
In the dim solar light, her hair is a tumble of dark silk, her ivory skin almost luminous. The sleek curve of her back may be the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Cool air starts to float into the small space between their bodies; she gives a little grumble of protest and wriggles backward to regain his solid comfort. The touch of her skin, the little shimmy of her ass against him, is enough to have his cock give a little twitch of interest. He shakes his head inwardly at himself — this insistent wanting is starting to border on ridiculous; his need edging into compulsion.
Then he hears her low little humming laugh, and his spirit quails a tiny bit — but he doesn't need to worry.
"Really, Red?" she murmurs, her tone teasing. "Again? And here I thought that at your age, you'd…"
The rest of her words are muffled and lost as he laughingly twists her underneath him and kisses her, long and hard enough to leave her gasping and glazed. He props himself up on his elbows above her.
"Do you want me to show you again, sweetheart, just what I'm 'still' capable of? Or should we eat?"
She wants to laugh back, but can't help the frisson of heat that runs down her spine at his words.
"Hmmm…" she says, trying to seem conflicted, "As much as I'd love to see what else you have to show me, I am also very, very hungry." She flashes a quick grin. "I think we missed lunch."
He laughs out loud at that, swept with an unexpected wave of warmth, happiness. "Come along, then, sweetheart," he replies cheerily. "And I'll fill you up." With what she can only term a saucy wink, he levers himself up and off the bed.
They fall back on leftovers from the previous night, neither of them willing to wait for something fresh to be ready, both of them attacking the food as if they haven't eaten for weeks. Red maintains his cheer through the meal, making her laugh with one salacious story after another, each more ridiculous than the last.
And she marvels a little, as they sit companionably, eating, talking, laughing, in a way she would have thought impossible — if she had even thought to imagine it. There's an ease between them that's as welcome as it is newfound — Red, shirtless in his faded Jeans; Liz curled in just his soft tee; it feels as if they have been a couple for years.
As they finish up, Red's last story winds to a close; he hesitates, then looks up. The instant their eyes meet, the heat flares again, quicker than the lighting of a match. She wonders at it, at the surge of lust — she's always enjoyed sex, but this animal heat, this burning, insatiable need, is something altogether different. He's taken her twice in the space of a few hours — hard, demanding, rough — taken her and taken her over like a swirl of madness, and she reveled in it.
She shivers, just thinking of it, and sees something flare in the back of his eyes. Delighted to see it — their connection might be new and strange, but she intends to enjoy it — she smiles at him, slow and sultry.
"Well," she says easily, "Sweetheart," with a wink of her own, "Shower?"
She stands and pulls off his shirt in one smooth move; drops the shirt into his lap and saunters out and across the great room toward the bath.
Gauntlet thrown, is it, he thinks, with equal amounts of amusement and hunger. This is one dare he'll be more than happy to take.
He waits a minute, watching her walk, watching it even when he can't see her anymore. He thinks he may have dropped at least a decade in the last couple of days.
When he does get to the bathroom, Jeans left behind on the kitchen floor, steam is already unfurling behind the glass door, leaving him with only brief, tantalizing glimpses of slick skin under the pounding spray.
He was already half-hard just from their exchange of heated glances, her unabashed nudity, the purr of her voice. The sight of her as he slips into the shower takes him the rest of the way in a flash.
She feels the tendril of cold air even as she hears the soft click of the door, and turns to greet him with a smile. His body has been a surprise to her — there's softness to it, yes, and he's a bit thicker in the torso than a younger man might be. But he's solid underneath it, long ropes of muscle and power that make his physical self more than a match for his lightning, formidable mind.
The way she's looking at him, evaluating, is making him want, want all over again with a ferocious need. He puts his hands on her hips to draw her in, wanting to take her mouth, feel her wet, slick skin against his own. But she pulls back, resisting; grabbing a bottle from the shelf beside them, she fills her cupped hand with his spicy body wash.
His breath quickens as she starts to rub her hands over him — across his chest and shoulders, down his arms right to his hands and fingers. She prods at him gently so he turns; she washes his back, carefully tracing the map of his scars, then moving more firmly to the small of his back and over the curve of his ass.
Rather than soap, it feels like she is coating him in electricity, his body lighting like a flare in the wake of her touch. When she runs a finger down the cleft of his ass, steps in close to run her hands around his hips to stroke up and down his cock, twitching and eager, when she cups his balls in a slick palm, he thinks he could easily go off like a rocket then and there.
She's kissing him now, as she touches him, light touches of her lips at the nape of his neck, along a shoulder, in the center of his scar tissue, which sends a spear of sensation straight to his groin. The heat, the water, her mouth and hands; they all act on him like a drug. He feels dizzy and weak, no longer ferocious, his lust now curling and uncurling inside him like a lazy cat stretching.
She's licking at him now, picking up water droplets with little flicks of her tongue that make him jerk in her hand, that start to dial up the heat and cloud his head even more. He groans appreciatively with a growl of her name; she slides under his arm where it's braced on the shower wall so that she can take his mouth with long, hypnotic sweeps of her tongue. Her hands reach up to clasp around the back of his neck; his move to cling to her hips in a desperate effort to stay afloat.
He nips at her lips, then breaks away to lower his mouth to her breasts, sucking an already pebbled nipple into his mouth as she tips her head back on a sigh. Holding her, trapping her between his mouth and a hard arm, he lets a hand slide over her leg and dip into her damp cleft. She moans in heady pleasure as he circles her clit, increasing and lessening the pressure in turn until she's rubbing along his hand, mewling and scratching at his scalp.
"Go on, Lizzie," he grinds out, holding himself back with a huge effort. "Give it to me, now."
Then he pinches her clit firmly and closes his teeth over her nipple at the same time; she cries out and clings to him, her flingers flexing on his neck in rhythm with the wet pulsing of her pussy. So beautiful, he thinks, and lifts his head to plunder her mouth as he backs her into the shower wall.
He dips his hips a little as he yanks her leg up around his hipbone, opening the way for him to push into her fiercely. She wails out his name, God, Red, as the pressure of his cock inside her triggers a fresh orgasm. He thrusts in and out, trying to take it slow, to draw out the experience, but he can't, can't, he's swept away again and drowning in her.
He releases on a heavy moan, kissing her soft and swollen lips over and over, pressing into her as close as he can get.
As they lean against the wall, panting, readjusting their view of the world and of each other, she hears him rasp, "So, now it's my turn to wash you, Lizzie?" and she collapses against him in a fit of helpless giggles.