A/N: Well, I suppose you've waited long enough. Sorry. I lost that loving feeling for a bit. But I was very impressed and encouraged by the surge in fandom when last we met, even if I'm terrible at showing it. This chapter turned out lighter than I thought it would. A bit fluffy, as they say. A bit smutty perhaps. And more dialogue than you've come to expect from me. But moving the plot along. I hope you like it.

Most importantly, biggest shout-out EVER to my pal 1Strangeness-Charm1. Thanks for the ceaseless encouragement, laughs, occasional distractions, and the very kind flattery. You've made my day many times over. And I love your contributions to the Olicity cause.

I've gushed too long. The people want what they came for. Enjoy.

"Oh."

"Wow."

"Oh my god."

Oliver gave up. His lips pulled almost soundlessly from the spot they'd been attached to somewhere between Felicity's jaw and her hairline turning into a slight frown in the process. He let his head drop until his forehead rested in the warm crook of her neck. His defeated breath came out hot against her mostly bare collarbone. His fingers traced down her spine before his hands came to rest loosely on the concrete behind her.

This was not what he'd had in mind.

Not what he'd distracted himself thinking of all afternoon, waiting for her, while Diggle and Roy stared accusingly at him. They trained. He waited. Unsuccessful at any task he started and they knew it. When she texted to say she was on her way, Oliver had bolted up the stairs without a word and found himself trying to calm his nerves in the long abandoned loading dock of the former butcher shop.

Felicity Smoak made him nervous. She'd never believe it but she had from day one, for so many reasons. And it had only gotten worse. Yet, somehow, he went still as her car pulled up and he got his first glimpse of her in days. His shoulders eased as she got out, oversized bag on her arm, phone in hand. He exhaled and found himself leaning against the half wall of the dock.

Her hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back starting to curl from the heat but catching every ray of the sunlight she squinted against. It had been a while since Oliver had seen that. He could feel his heart stutter in his chest. She barely took a step before she noticed him, a tiny smile starting that broke wide open as she almost laughed at herself.

Oliver took in the rarity of the moment, in the lives they'd both chosen, possibility wasn't something he thought to leave room for. He watched possibility bite her bright pink lip and move toward him, only straightening up when she was inches from him, her gaze shifting, her single word produced like a sigh.

"Hi."

Oliver knew. He was their worst enemy. His silence, his brooding, his past would weigh them down, would break them if he let it. He couldn't keep overthinking it, like he'd done for months. Pushing her away, pulling her closer when just her voice in his head wasn't enough. Felicity wasn't a choice. She was a fact.

So he didn't think much beyond sinking his fingers into the slight softness at her waist and pulling her against him. She didn't resist. A tremble rolled from her chest to her knees and he felt every shake of it. He pivoted, pushing her back to the wall, letting his hips pin her there so his hands were free to travel up her neck into her hair, relishing in the things he could never do before. Her hands were still full of her own belongings. Her back bowed as she tried to get closer to him, unable to move anything else. His only thought now was getting her lips under his again. Her near permanent pout the only invitation he needed anymore.

Joy was short lived. Her bottom lip just nestling between his as he hoisted her onto the wall. Her phone buzzed with notifications and she actually broke away to check them, though Oliver was not immediately put off, only detoured. Their posture nearly mimicking that of the other night except her knees only pushed lightly into his sides and the hands looped around his neck fiddled with the phone in her hand as she gasped at the news on the screen and not his tongue behind her ear.

"Oh my god."

He lifted his head from her shoulder. "Should I leave you two alone?"

She pulled back with a little too much zeal. Eyes closing tightly as her nose and forehead wrinkled. The sudden motion of her arms causing the black bag to slip from her elbow. Bottom heavy, it landed flat and remained. The first syllable of an apology out just as the phone, too, escaped her grasp. Felicity only attempted one flailing motion to retrieve it before it was landing in Oliver's barely outstretched hand. Probably for the first time ever, he cursed his learned reflexes. He caught her glance between raised fingers which she quickly closed.

He gave her a minute to hide, setting the phone beside her without looking at it, before finally wrapping a hand around each of her wrists and coaxing them away from her face. He turned them over in her lap, running his thumbs down her palms, seeing just how small they were. Had he made a mistake?

"Oliver." The almost shed tears in her eyes were embarrassment but the soft plea in her voice wasn't only seeking forgiveness.

He thought his fear was realized but he held onto her hands all the same. "Too much? Too fast? Too weird?" His words poured slowly but he was frantically searching her eyes for an answer, a favorable answer.

Her eyes brightened and narrowed in a single beat. Her knees finally hugging his hips properly. "Too fast? You are kidding, right?"

Oliver felt the ease setting in again at her returning affection but she wasn't quite smiling. Her breathing was too metered, controlled. He nodded toward her phone. "Is it bad?"

Her first answer was too quick. "It isn't anything. Not yet."

"Felicity-"

Her hands turned to tighten around his. "Speculation," she shook her head lightly trying to brush it off. "Rumors and gossip. If it has anything to do with you, Thea, QC – I get cc-ed. You can read it." She offers but even she doesn't think it's a good idea and neither of them makes a move for the now somewhat ominous device beside them.

Oliver agrees. "I'll take it better if it comes from you."

She studied him for a moment, jaw set, her upper lip sucked adorably between her teeth at the corner of her mouth. She swallowed, licked her lips. She was hesitant but she didn't look away from him and it was somehow reassuring to both of them. Felicity couldn't sugar coat it for him, rather she wouldn't and he wouldn't want her to. Maybe none of it would turn out as badly as it sounded. But she leaned forward to press her slightly damp lips firmly against his, glad to now have a way of softening the headlines. His mouth only tried to follow hers for a second when she pulled back. His brows raised but he didn't say anything.

She recited them as she'd read them. "Merlyn Global finally out of yearlong arbitration. Tech Superman Ray Palmer eyeing both Merlyn and Queen for massive corporate takeover. Ex-billionaire playboy Oliver Queen plays at philanthropy while sometime addict sister hides in rehab."

Oliver's eyes flared at the last one, like Felicity'd known they would. His hands slackened instead of tightening around her fingers. He gave nothing else away and he was even slower to speak than usual.

Felicity's arms brushed lightly over his shoulders and intertwined behind his neck. His head fell as she pulled him closer until he was breathing lightly against her ear and his own arms wrapped a little urgently around her rib cage. It took a few minutes but she finally felt Oliver relax against her, his fingers starting to swirl on her shoulder blades.

"I could make it all disappear," Felicity whispered. "I'm kind of good with computers, you know?" She felt the pull of his smile against her cheek. And she decided to try for another. "Or we could give them something else to talk about?"

Stubble brushed across her fair skin as his mouth dropped open and closed again slowly. Then opened again. "What exactly are you suggesting Miss Smoak?"

And when she didn't reply he loosened his hold to step back and look her in the eye, his hands never leaving her completely.

Felicity blinked in rapid succession. "I don't-"

She was mercifully interrupted by more chimes from her phone. A tone Oliver was familiar with this time. "Digg." He set the phone in her hand.

"Why do I need to remind you that you have 13 minutes and 47 seconds left?" Felicity stared quizzically at the screen.

Oliver laughed. "He has 13 minutes. I have all the time in the world."

He watched Felicity's finger swim around the keyboard unable to imagine how that produced words. And there was another chime.

"Are you keeping me out here on purpose?"

"Definitely."

Felicity tilted her head at his too swift, too suave answer.

"I know what John's been hiding."

That earned him a punch to the shoulder.

"I thought you only hit when guacamole was involved?"

"Oliver!" She tried to squirm away from him and might have made it off the wall if his hands hadn't clamped down on her thighs. It never ceased to amaze her how his eyes could paralyze her.

"He wanted to tell you himself. I gave him twenty four hours."

Felicity tried her best to compete with his unyielding blue orbs and she must have been succeeding because Oliver hadn't so much as blinked. "How very The Hood of you. Why are we not downstairs right now?"

"Because," Oliver started bringing his lips down to her shoulder. "I haven't seen you in two days. " He moved to her neck. The vibration from his voice alighting goose bumps in its wake. "And I can't do this in front of Digg and Roy."

Felicity suddenly caught his ascending face between her hands. Her looking guilty once again. "Should we be doing this?"

So she did have doubts. "Felicity-"

"This – you and me," she couldn't help but smile as she said it. And Oliver's lungs filled with a kind of pride. "I want this. But we're rebuilding a city, Oliver. Trying to win back a company. And there's about a million minutes of video from the night of the siege that I'm just starting to get eyes on which I know you didn't ask me to do but if there is even a ghost of chance that Thea is there somewhere – "

"Felicity-"

"I can't miss something because I'm too distracted by- this."

He couldn't stop himself. Oliver knew he was looking at her, well, like he was in love with her. And that eventually she would figure that out just like she did everything else about him. But she didn't leave him much of a choice. It was hardly the first time she'd mesmerized him just by being herself. Her truly remarkable self. Right then, he couldn't hide it.

Confusion was stitched across her face. "What?"

"You wouldn't let that happen," Oliver had to try harder than usual to keep an even tone. Because he could have sworn his heart was swelling bigger and bigger with every breath, making it near impossible to get normal words out. It took another beat before he felt in control again. "Have Roy help you with the video."

"Really? You think he-"

"He needs it." Oliver was sure about that. And he was sure he could still salvage this rendezvous. He leaned into her again, pulling a little at her hips but she barely moved on the concrete.

"You're not worried?"

"I've seen you work distracted." He said it into the hollow at the base of her throat. Every bit of skin he could see flushed at the many, many, memories he'd brought to her mind. He tugged her more roughly until he felt her heels in the backs of his knees. Oliver took too long choosing his next target and she nipped at his neck sending an unexpected shiver down his arms.

Felicity's fingers were suddenly very needy. One set dug into the front his shirt and muscles momentarily tensed at the light bite of her nails. The other was sneaking under the hem at his waist, surprising warm against his skin.

The Digg tone sounded again. But Felicity's lips were just meeting his again. She murmured something that sounded like, "I'm ignoring it."

"Sure?" Oliver managed on an inhale.

"He can sweat it out for another 10 minutes."

It only took Oliver one minute to realize something was off. He didn't have near as much skin under his hands as she did. His hands ran down her thighs in disbelief before gripping them in mild frustration and pulling his lips from Felicity's with a mild growl to look down between them.

"Since when do you wear pants?" How desperate he sounded registered only vaguely.

On cue, without a pause, he got the response he never would have expected but certainly would have paid good money for.

"Since people started trying to get in them. Not people. You. Just you. Not that you're trying to get into my pants. I mean you're not not – I'm the one that keeps spreading my knees – stop smiling at me."

Felicity closed her eyes leaning her forehead against his, catching her breath.

"I am."

"Hm?"

"Trying." Oliver admitted. And he almost bit his own tongue trying to contain a cheeky laugh. He decided instead to place an innocent kiss on the tip of her nose. And finally pulled her to her feet. She swayed slightly in his arms.

"That one's asleep," she cringed leaning her back against the wall, waiting for her blood to circulate properly again. Oliver kept a hand on her waist.

"Ray Palmer?" It suddenly dawned on him. "That tool with the watches?"