Chuck discreetly holds out the carefully folded wad of money to the bellhop as he wheels the cart draped with a white tablecloth and piled high with dirty dishes out of the hotel room. The denominations making up the tip grow smaller and the scowl on Chuck's face grows deeper with every dart of the bellhop's eyes towards the bed in the center of the room, and Chuck eagerly slams the door shut behind the bellhop just as soon as he crosses the threshold.
He turns on his heels, turns to linger and allow his eyes to follow the outline of her body. The dark red sheet tucked under her arms has slipped down to expose the creamy white skin of her back stopping just at the point of indecency, just above the slope of her ass. He steps forward preparing to pull back the covers and join her, to mold his body around hers once more before all the time in the world runs out.
A flash of light in the mirror situated to the right of the windows causes him to pause, to shift his gaze from her physical form to taken in an entirely different vision. Another version of herself – the furrowed eyebrows, the drop of her lips in sadness, the hesitation buried in the darkness of her eyes – reserved for their eyes only and greedily consumed by him because there was a time when she refused to share these parts of herself with him.
The flash of light dances once more in Technicolor brilliance as she flicks her wrist and dips her hand; the flash of light disappears once more as he curls his hand around wrist. She startles ever so slightly as she rolls her head backwards against the pillow to look up at him, but just as quickly she presses her naked body backwards against his own. Allows the fever fueling the heat of her skin to seep through his thin, silk robe to meet his chilled skin. Allows him to hold her hand as he curls his arm around her waist, abuts his knees against the back of her legs, and presses his lips against the tender skin of her neck to collect the salty tears rolling down her right cheek.
"Did I hurt you?"
His voice cracks as hesitation and concern wraps itself around every letter, every syllable, and Blair is quick to twist her hand until she is the one holding onto him, holding him close in comfort and refusing to let him go.
"No," she replies sharply so there can be no doubt to her meaning before rolling her head and pressing her left cheek against the pillow once more. "I don't want to leave here. I don't want you to go."
"We made a deal, Blair" Chuck reminds her softly, and yet the words are more for himself because he has no idea how he will manage to pull himself away from her in just a few short hours and fly to Dubai. How he will manage to watch her walk away from him with the promise that one day when she figures out what it means to be a powerful woman, she will return to him once again.
But the pressure in the middle of his palm reminds him how the stakes have risen, how they have both laid out their cards and placed their bets in one final gamble, and he unfurls his fingers around hers to expose the diamond ring nestled in the middle of their palms and allow light from the windows filtering through it dance in the mirror once more. To cast a brilliant glow across her features as lifts it up and holds directly in her line of sight.
"I promise this will be on your finger—"
"When you defeat your father once and for all," she parrots back. "When I meet my goals for Waldorf Designs. When we finally meet on equal footing."
His eyelids fall with his deep, involuntary exhale because he knows her well enough to hear the questions – When will that happen? What if it never does? Haven't they spent years trying and failing to reach that point? – hidden behind every statement. Because he knows he doesn't have the answer to her questions only his own reassurances – emotional and physical – that they are both committed to making Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck work this time.
"I love you," he breathes against the flushed skin of her cheek while his left hand strokes the taut skin of her stomach. He presses his cheek against hers and allows the lashes of his closed eyelids to flutter against her skin as his voice dips low. "Please, just take a gamble on me one last time."
"I'm all in, Chuck," she whispers in reply. Her heated skin slides against his chilled skin as she rolls her head against the pillow once more, as she twists her head so she can press her lips against the corner of his mouth. "I don't care about the risk. I'm not afraid of the gamble anymore."
And then she leans forward and presses her lips against his, parts them with just the tease of the tip of her tongue so she can claim his mouth in a slow, languorous manner. The hand holding the ring immediately drops it at the start of the kiss, but the chain around her neck keeps it from falling to the floor and instead allows the cool metal to fall against the heated, flushed skin of her breasts. The diamond scraping across her nipple before it comes to settle in the valley between her breasts.
The eyes shut tight against the resurrection of the memories of past demons immediately open at the feeling of her hand slipping behind her back to tug on the silk tie of his robe. And his eyes dart not downward to look at her but across the room to watch her lips twist into a coy smile when she spies him watching her every movement.
"What time is your flight?"
"One thirty-seven," he murmurs softly, sadly as he presses his lips tenderly against her shoulder.
"Do one thing before you go, Chuck Bass."
"Hmm," he hums in her ear as her hand dips lower, as her nails scrape across his stomach and his mouth grows dry with anticipation.
"Take me now."
Her breathy whisper causes his lips to part and his mouth to dry. And he swallows the lump in his throat as his hand moves from where it is draped across her chest to cup her ass, as her leg slides up and over his. Her purr of delight as his fingers begin to trace, explore, fondle and caress the soft skin just to left of her hip bone causes his mouth to dry further and his lips to search out hers for a kiss.
A kiss that is broken when his hands become pure magic on her skin. His strong palm follows the sculpture of her curves, and her right leg hooks over his to allow his fingers to search out intimate awareness of her body. To allow him to trace the lips at the junction of her thighs, to gather the wet residual from their time here on his fingers as he caresses and strokes, as he slowly penetrates only to retreat until the cooling embers become a fire once more.
Until she thinks she might go mad with unfulfilled desire. Until she takes matters into her own hands using her toes and the friction of her leg against his to push his robe out of the way. Until she feels him hot and hard against her backside and shifts her body upwards so he falls just against the curve of her ass. Until she finds the strength to roll her eyes downward and watch his face in the mirror.
"Condom," he groans in her ear. An irritating reminder she tries to reject with the shake of her head against the pillow because she wants to feel him – all of him – one last time, but the shift of his body away from her as though he means to deny her sends her fingers straining towards the box on the nightstand. The previously torn lid tears off completely in her hand leaving a jagged, messy line down the front of the box and exposing one last square package for her selection.
The arm tucked under her body and pressed up against the mattress pulls out from under her body to take the package from her hand, and she whimpers in relief as the fingers of his right hand continue their ministrations against her skin. Gasps aloud when he stops fidgeting with the condom wrapper or the condom itself and instead pushes her right leg up even further. When his fingers move to curl about her leg and hold her in place as he eagerly and with obvious relief pushes himself inside her.
The sensation of him filling him, stretching her at an entirely different angle than before causes her eyes to roll up towards the ceiling once more so all he sees when he manages to look in the mirror is the whites of her eyes. The whites of her eye, the dark pink of her body as it eagerly accepts him, and the rainbow of light streaming through the diamond of perfect clarity hanging around her neck.
And then finally the dark iris of her eyes as she draws in a huge breath, opens her eyes, and watches in the mirror as she shifts against him and eases him inch by slow inch into her body. As he revels in a sensation he never felt in all of his years of experience without her – that deep longing buried down inside him behind layers of mistakes and defenses finally sedated by the knowledge that they are one.
Both of them battle to keep their eyes open, to focus on their reflections in the mirror as he is slowly encased in her slick, scalding heat before retreating into the cold world for just a moment. Both of them marvel in their likeness as his hips shift to meet hers, as she curls her hand around his hip. Her fingers sink deep into his sink gripping almost desperately to hold him in place for just a moment long, for just long enough that she can commit this visual to memory.
Both of their muscles flexing in greedy anticipation and their breath comes out in an exhale of grateful relief when she finally relents to him moving once more because they can only endure so much of this delicious torture. Can only pause the moment and admire the portrait of Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck before they must rearrange it with bruising, hungry kisses.
Both of them grasp and cling – him to her hip, her to his – as their bodies become slick with sweat, as the fire building around them threatens to burn them both down. His fingers release their hold to slide against her flushed skin and touch the spot just above where they are joined, to caress and touch her in a way she hadn't felt for so long until she pushed all her chips into the middle of the blackjack table. And her eyes roll downward to watch his movements, roll upward to watch the reflection of his face in the mirror before she gasps out one more 'oh my god', before they both become blinded by the fire and the light from the windows filtering through the brilliant diamond and reflecting back to them on the mirror.
Light that casts them in Technicolor and chases out the shadows in favor of reds and yellows and blues and purples as they ride out the powerful surge of feeling that follows their near simultaneous relief. As she lies cradled in curvature of his body and wrapped in the smell of him and her combined while his hand strokes against the nape of her neck; as she slides her hand upward under her pillow and bumps her fingers against a hard, rectangular object.
And she curls her hand around the object while he enjoys the warm weight of her body slumped against him, the feeling of her still hot and pulsing around him, and the last few moments of near completeness. The jarring of her body against his as she pulls the object out from under her pillow causes him to pull her closer to him, to reach for the diamond hanging out her neck and feel the promise of their gamble once more.
But she interrupts his movements pressing something cold and hard into his palm, and he struggles to hold onto it, to understand it give how relaxed and at peace he has become. And rather than forcing himself to move away from her and push up on his forearm, his eyes roll towards the mirror to examine the object pressed into his hand.
"It's one of my chips," Blair informs him as he turns the yellow object over in his hand. She lifts her eyes to find his in the mirror as she moves to grab the diamond ring nestled against her breast. "Now we both have visual reminders of how we are all in and will be winners who take it all in the end."
…and the end is unknown, but I think I'm ready as long as you're with me. Being as in love with you as I am.