Emerald: Paris, France. 1940.
He'd always been a little guilty of keeping one eye on Lucy at all times - whether that was for the sake of her safety or to satiate his own uncompromising attraction to her, he couldn't really say - but tonight that habit was proving to be a bit more of a preoccupation than he'd like to admit; she was absolutely sparkling in a slim-cut emerald evening gown, leaving a torrent of admiring eyes trailing after her wherever she went. He couldn't blame them for staring. He was just as powerless to her presence as everyone else in the room, probably even more so considering just how entangled his heart was in the matter.
Wyatt had caught fragments of what happened the last time his team had been in Paris. They never spoke too candidly about it in front of him, but he knew the basics. Flynn blasted Lindbergh's plane out of the sky, Lucy had tried - and eventually failed, according to the history books - to convince the young pilot to rebel against Rittenhouse's influence, and BamBam hadn't come home. With an end result like that, it was no wonder that they kept the flow of information to a minimum. What they couldn't possibly understand - or maybe they did, and they just granted him the blessing of never confessing it out loud - was that Wyatt carried far more blame for the losses than they did. BamBam never should have been there in the first place, Lucy shouldn't have been alone with Charles Lindbergh or any of Flynn's goons, and Rufus deserved better backup. The bottom line was that Wyatt was supposed to be there and he'd let them all down.
He'd expected the cloud of their previous setbacks in this city to hang over their heads as they set out for another jump to France, but if anything, there'd been a buzz of excitement as they landed. It didn't matter that the beginning of World War II was already underway or that Paris would be under attack in just a few days; Lucy was thriving in the midst of such a pivotal era of history, eagerly dragging the rest of them through every boulevard and back alley in pursuit of Emma and her conspirators. It wasn't hard to discern the pattern anymore - Emma was scrambling frantically to salvage as many lost Rittenhouse members as possible, meaning she was blazing a winding trail throughout the city in hopes of convincing certain important expatriates to evacuate before the Germans could invade.
Lucy had been sure that Emma's next move would occur here, at an absurdly impractical rooftop party thrown for the most exclusive - and most deluded - members of café society, the ones who might as well have plugged their fingers in their ears like children for all the more they wanted to acknowledge the truth of what was happening all around them. The world was changing, war was just a breath away from their silly little party, and yet they drank and danced as if nothing could ever touch them beyond this self-indulgent bubble of theirs.
Wyatt couldn't be too ungrateful, though. This silly party was the sole excuse for Lucy to go out and buy that stunning green dress. Talk about a head-turner. And with no Emma in sight for the better part of an hour now, he was content to let his head turn and follow Lucy as often as possible. Now his feet were getting in on the action too, shadowing her as she cut through the crowd with a flute of champagne dangling from her fingertips, not stopping until he'd cornered her in a cozy little alcove, a tiny balcony that stood apart from the rest of the rollicking commotion.
"Hell of a party, isn't it?"
Lucy glanced back at him, her silhouette accentuated in profile against the fervent skyline. "The party's alright. But the view? God, isn't Paris beautiful?"
He shrugged halfheartedly and took a purposeful step toward her. "You're all I see tonight, Lucy."
"That's a good line."
There was something wickedly bashful in her countering smile, an elusive sense of magic that came with the radiant lights falling over her pale skin, a spell that had been cast in the surrounding bouquets of flowers and mingling perfumes from the party. There was a low rumble of traffic below them, barely audible in the symphony of buoyant laughter and lilting instruments playing on other end of the terrace. They were removed from the busyness of the streets and hidden away from the revelry of their fellow guests, and with the tremendous outline of the Eiffel Tower looming beyond Lucy's shoulder, Wyatt couldn't help but feel consumed by the grandness of their surroundings. He wanted her - God, that was no secret - but he felt suddenly unbalanced by just how much he wished to be swept away in the intensity of his desire.
Lucy immediately nudged closer as he approached, abandoning her champagne glass on the balcony's ledge. Her cheek caressed the tip of his nose as she spoke. "'Respirer Paris, cela conserve l'âme.'"
"Translation, s'il vous plaît?" he asked in a voice that was unintentionally raspier than usual.
"'Breathe Paris in," she whispered back with an undeniable lure woven into each word, "it nourishes the soul.' Victor Hugo."
"That's nice, but Paris isn't the only thing I want to be breathing in right now."
Her luminous cinnamon eyes darted surreptitiously behind him, then flickered back to land on his mouth. "Well what are you waiting for then?"
He leaned into her with a ravenous smirk, then caught her up in a kiss that instantly galloped ahead of them, roaring to life like the smooth purr of a brand new engine. Her fingernails scraped across the back of his neck and up into his hair. He teased her lips open and slid his tongue against hers, prompting her hips to snap forward into him. Wyatt lurched with the momentum of the kiss, grasping blindly for the the balcony's wrought iron railing, searching for some point of focus to keep him from floating too far from reality.
She broke the kiss with a ragged, messy exhale, eyes still closed and hands adamantly linked to him. "I...we, um...wow."
He favored her with a dark smile, barely drawing enough oxygen in to keep himself from becoming lightheaded. "Yeah. Me too."
Her hands slid down from around his neck to iron out the crinkled lapels of his suit jacket, blinking slowly with a dazed look. "But the party...Emma..."
"I know," he muttered drearily, "dammit, I know."
She watched him, alert and unflinching, those long slender fingers of her still pressing into his chest with a tantalizingly too-light pressure. "You...you're ready, aren't you?"
Sex was a bridge they hadn't crossed yet, a fact that they were both clearly hyperaware of, and yet equally remiss in their responsibility to actually bring it up in conversation. It hadn't been a possibility when they first made their relationship official, not when she'd just had a bullet removed from her shoulder and he was laid up with the deep gash in his leg still healing. But if she'd pressed him to make a confession, Wyatt would have told her that the physical limitations of their injuries wasn't the only thing holding him back. He'd had a few regrettable encounters with the fairer sex since he'd lost Jessica, had shamefully fallen victim to a few fleeting and insignificant flirtations along the way, but it had always been a blurred mix of loneliness and alcohol that drove him there, leaving him more bitter, more isolated, more broken than before. There was no doubt in his mind that it wouldn't be like that with Lucy, but that hadn't stopped him from taking his time in getting there, a stance that had been majorly put to the test in the last few weeks. Especially when he'd been wrangled into her tent for one hell of a makeout session on the banks of the Schuylkill River in 1781.
But his hesitation was quickly building into a tangible frustration, and now here they were, in a city full of bridges and lights and love, standing right at the edge of a landmark moment that rivaled every impressive sight and experience they'd come across in the last several days. And he knew the wait was over. There was no need for the bullshit meter tonight, because there wasn't even an ounce of apprehension in his body. He knew.
And apparently Lucy knew too, which carried the implication that she'd also known that he hadn't been ready until now. He didn't know if that realization should leave him feeling ashamed of his reservations or floored by her quiet insight, but either way, he was sure that it didn't matter now.
"Yes," he answered, tilting nearer to graze his lips over her cheek, then withdrawing for another glimpse of her bright eyes. "Definitely yes. As long as you're - "
She reeled him in by the lapels and kissed him emphatically on the mouth, extracting a groan from the depths of his throat as she lingered there for longer than he could reasonably handle.
"You can mark that down as definitely yes for me as well," she murmured huskily, lips drifting lower to his chin, his neck, his...
"Emma has arrived."
Lucy jumped with such startled animation that Wyatt would have been tasting blood if not for his own well-honed reflexes. With both hands bracing her to himself - and simultaneously keeping her from staggering any closer to the edge of the balcony - he glanced upward to find Flynn watching them with clinical detachment.
"Excellent," Wyatt breathed out sharply, "thanks for the heads up, pal."
He threaded his fingers through Lucy's as they followed Flynn back into the sloshing hubbub of the wartime soirée, not missing all of the poorly veiled looks of envy that were aimed at him as they descended into the crowd.
Lucy, however, was missing all of it, completely oblivious to the stir that she was causing as she rushed to keep stride with him. "That's twice now. We'd better quit that."
"Hmm?" he said, head still a little clouded with the dredges of lust. "Twice for what?"
"Flynn finding us kissing during a jump," she hissed in his ear, obviously trying to keep her words discreet, but that particular action was doing nothing to help tamp down his desire.
He nodded, clearing his throat resolutely and trying to do the same for his mind. "Don't worry. Third time's a charm, babydoll."
She looked up at him, her expression puzzled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Wyatt didn't get the chance to answer her then. Rufus appeared at his side and Flynn was gesturing slyly to the left, silently indicating their next move in pursuing Emma. They sprang into action like the well-oiled machine they were becoming, sweeping in from opposite directions to center in on their intended target - that redheaded pain in the ass who never seemed to take a break.
But later - on a different terrace several blocks away from the party, with the lights of Paris still swirling around them in a seamlessly breathtaking arrangement of ageless melodies and affecting harmonies - Wyatt found Lucy alone again. She was still in that glittery emerald gown but her hair was loose now, fluttering down around her shoulders as she stood with her back to him, eyes glued to the horizon.
"What took you so long?" she asked without turning around.
He grinned widely, proud of her for sensing his arrival and somehow feeling even more turned on by her cleverness. There was no question that she'd come a long way from that skittish, green civilian that he'd first encountered a year ago in the waiting room of Mason Industries. He crept toward her now with artificial casualness, his heartbeat stuttering in anticipation. "Had to slip away with some discretion, Luce. We both know Rufus would have called me out for stranding him in a hotel room with Flynn. Couldn't move too quickly and risk the mission."
"Don't bring that up," she blurted out in a rush, her expression laughably insistent as he came to a stop next to her. "I'll start worrying about the two of them not getting along, which also means I'll be feeling bad for Rufus, and then I won't want to go through with this, and that would - "
"Whoa now," Wyatt bent his forehead against hers, relishing the forceful inhale that his proximity elicited from her. "I'm going to need your full concentration if we're really doing this tonight, ma'am."
"What have I told you about calling me ma'am?"
She shoved him away playfully, her smile coming so easily, so weightlessly, that he hardly recognized her as the woman who had grieved with such severity when her world had repeatedly crumbled at her feet with each unexpected hit - her sister's disappearance, her biological father's surprise identity, her mother's duplicity. It was like something in this city had revived her, had brought new life into her every movement. If he was being honest, he felt a bit revived himself, but he was sure that the lifting of his spirits was credited entirely to the woman before him.
He took a step backward, nodding his head toward the door that led out into the adjoining hallway. "I can take a hint. If you don't want me to stay..."
Lucy followed after him with a roll of her eyes. "I'm calling bullshit on that, sweetheart. You're bluffing."
"Damn straight," he returned with a smirk.
In three long strides, she was swaying into him. His hands ran down the exposed column of her spine until he reached the low dip of crepe and satin material, delighting in her resulting shiver.
"As great as you look in this dress, I'm much more interested in seeing you out of it now."
"Now there's a line. You've outdone yourself with that one." Lucy reached around for one of his hands, clasping it in hers and bringing it around to her side until he could feel the small hard tab of a zipper against his fingerips. "Would you like to do the honors?"
He gave her a wolfish grin and readily accepted the offer, gliding the zipper down, down, down until the off-the-shoulder straps of her dress were no longer capable of doing their job. He reached past her, yanked the curtains to the outer terrace shut, and then let the dress melt into an enchanting green puddle at her feet. She watched him silently and he saw it all in her shining eyes - the jangle of nerves, the underlying introspection of what this moment meant to her, the burgeoning passion she felt for him; he saw it all and wanted it all, every last inch of her, inside and out.
"You're perfect," he whispered hoarsely, lips dusting over her bare shoulder, "gorgeous."
"And you're - " she bit her lip for a fleeting second as his next kiss fell lower over her racing heart, " - wearing way too much clothing."
Wyatt walked her backwards until she was sitting on the edge of the mattress. "That's an easy fix."
He made quick work of his jacket and tie, then let her take over as she reached for his shirtfront. The buttons split open one by one until the garment was discarded on the floor in a growing pile of unnecessary hindrances. Wyatt leaned over her until she was dissolving backward into the silky sea of sheets. Their lips met again and his head was buzzing away from him, brain taking flight as his body moved instinctively until he felt Lucy going eerily still from beneath him.
"What...what is it?" he asked breathlessly.
Her index finger drew a shudder-inducing shape across his abdomen. "This bruise...is it from tonight?"
He captured her hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles slowly. "Yeah. One of the usual Rittenhouse dunces jumped me from the side when we chased Emma out of the party. Sucker punched me like a coward."
Lucy nodded, then reached out with her other hand, brushing a puckered scar with her thumb. "1865?"
He grunted out an affirmative, then took that hand too and raised both of them above her head, pinning her down to the bed. He nipped his mouth over her collarbone, then made his way to the new pink scar on her shoulder. "The 1800s have not been good to us."
"Time travel has not been good to us," she corrected quietly. "Which is why we're tipping the scales in our favor tonight."
He tilted his head sideways in a symbolic toast to the two of them. "Hear, hear."
She smiled radiantly before pulling him back down to her. Her mouth was warm and sweet with the provocative taste of champagne, and he was desperate for more of it, more of her. Funny how he'd never been much of a champagne fan until it coated her tongue and fizzled right through him like a ring of secondhand smoke.
"I missed you last time," she murmured, her breath coming thin and fast between kisses. "Paris in '27...it wasn't the same without you."
He closed his eyes for a long moment, his lips barely feathering against hers as he worked through the chokehold of a million emotions. Regret. Sorrow. Longing. Love...?
Words were failing him, so he swept another reverent kiss to her mouth before whispering his response at last. "Let me make it up to you."
Wyatt crawled backward just slightly, kissing her neck until he could fumble his way through the complexities of unhooking her old-fashioned strapless bra, and then his lips were migrating further south. She arched upwards at the first touch of his mouth to her breast, his name ripping from her throat as she gripped his shoulders.
Dear God, she was not going to make this easy for him.
From the moment he'd realized where this evening was headed, he'd known it had to be about her first. He was undoubtedly going to be worthless to her otherwise, and he'd rather die on the spot than leave her wanting for anything tonight. So with single-minded determination, he gave her his measureless attention, working his tongue and teeth and lips over every part of her until she was flushed and writhing, looking so on edge that he nearly lost his thinly held control just watching her. She was a goner in another moment or two, clinging and trembling and stammering his name over and over again like a beautiful benediction.
When she rallied herself back to life several minutes later, Wyatt was just as hopeless as he'd imagined himself to be. Sinking inside of her hit him like a red-hot cyclone, picking him up off the ground and catapulting him into a whole different stratosphere faster than he could blink. It was only when they were both completely spent, collapsed against each other in a heap of pillows and mussed up sheets, that he could even begin to feel the clarity of his thoughts returning to him. With a slow, almost unintelligible slur of words, he hummed into her ear, "See...third time's a charm. No interruptions."
Lucy traced his hipbone with languorous affection. "You were right. And now we'll always have Paris."
He knew those words came from something famous, spent half a second trying to place which movie she'd lifted that phrase from, but as her touch wandered lower and lower, his mind went deliciously blank again and he officially didn't give a rats ass in hell about a single movie that had ever been made in the entire history of filmmaking.