Troy's not used to getting visitors at this hour. Between SR2 and SR3!
Troy had high hopes for this day when he woke up. He'd hit the office early, cut through the last set of papers from the night before, and have most of it organized and ready to go by lunch. Two phone calls and one informal meeting later, he found himself staring down a stack of papers twice the size of the one he had left, and wasn't sure there was an end in sight.
Somehow he managed to thin it down to a more reasonable mountain to attempt to scale the following day, but part of it was coming home with him that night. No matter how many feats of bureaucratic finesse he pulled out of his hat, it was only going to lead to more shit tomorrow if he didn't try to get a head start on it.
Troy climbed out of his car, and grabbed the stack of papers in the passenger seat before crushing the stub of his cigarette beneath his shoe. There wasn't much left of it, and seeing as he had yet to finalize what the hell they were doing for the fundraiser next month, he was going to have reach for another before the night was out. Maybe two, if the coffee he paired it with lacked its usual kick.
His eyes were on his watch when he unlocked the front door, so when he stumbled, there was no warning for it. The papers in his hands flew all over the place, as he swore loudly and struggled to regain his footing. Clenching his teeth, he grabbed for the last few in the air, but gave up when he noticed the red boots by his feet. Both were lightly scuffed, and piled right by the door, haphazardly tossed there after being removed.
A loud sound made his hand jump to his firearm, but the dull explosion that followed made him shift so he could get a clear look at the living room. The lights were on, along with the television, and he took in the flashing images as he slid the door shut behind him. He locked it and set the deadbolt, before slowly stepping right over the mess scattered in the doorway. A low whistle followed a familiar rhythm as he moved further inside, and by the time he reached the kitchen the sound rose to a high note.
Troy blinked at the woman rummaging through his refrigerator, and if he hadn't tripped over her boots on the way in, the purple fleur emblazoned on the back of V's red leather jacket would've been a dead giveaway. Her whistling faded to a hum as she continued her search, poking around without any sign of unease as he gaped at her back. She stood up straight when she managed to find her prize, and the beer bottle dangling from her fingers nearly fell to the floor the moment he caught her eye.
Righting herself after the non-jump didn't take long, but that didn't stop the nervous laugh from slipping out. "Uh, hi," she said, reaching for the bottle opener on the counter. "Long night?"
The lid popped off, clattering to the floor somewhere to their right, and Troy felt his eyebrows crease.
"Lots of shit crossing your desk, eh?" She tilted the beer back, and leaned her shoulder against the wall. Her red jacket was undone, and he watched her fingers play with zipper as her eyes darted from the bottle to him. "All sorts of boring stuff, right? Hungry? Pizza should be here in ten."
"How did you-"
"Online order," V said, "You had a number to a place on your fridge, but I decided to skip the whole calling bit. Strange women calling from the Chief's would've been fun to explain, though I don't think much explaining would've been needed. Still, better safe than sorry. Pepperoni good?"
Troy raised his eyes. "Did you pick the lock?"
"I…" Troy gave her a look. "Okay, fine. I did, but I didn't fuck with it too much. And no one saw me, because I know you're going to ask about that. You have some neighbors that are nosy as hell, but I picked a time when they weren't looking. Promise."
He took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "V, I would've given you a spare."
She studied him for a few minutes, tilting her head as she considered him. The moment it sunk in, however, her posture went rigid. "Oh."
A minute passed as he watched her start to seriously chew on the corner of her lip, and after taking another swig of her beer, she put it down on the counter and tried to cut past him. He intercepted her, and cut off her next words with a kiss. V made a noise as her arms flew up, but relaxed into it when his hand moved to cup her face. They stood there, half in his kitchen, and half not, his attention completely taken by the way her mouth moved against his.
"You know," she said after a minute, "I didn't just break in for the hell of it."
He didn't deepen the kiss, but the touch of her tongue had him wanting to. "No?"
"Would've done it weeks ago, if that was the case." His thumb moved over her cheek, and she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. "I got impatient. It's been tough waiting for a free moment for either of us."
Private and tucked away, his hotel room had been the ideal place for them to escape to. To get away for a little while, and breathe easy for once. However, it had been weeks since their last night together, and with events on his schedule amping up, it didn't seem like they would be able to get back there anytime soon.
He did manage to see her the week before, but it was at a meeting with Ultor. One of the driest talks on record, if he remembered it right, and when she slid into the chair next to him, his eyes spent more time on her than the slides. Especially when she started playing with a loose strand of her hair, twirling it idly around her fingers. The urge to touch her again, even innocently, had him lighting up a cigarette in no time flat, and when she asked for one, he didn't chance it. Just passed her the pack across the table, and fixed his eyes on the people talking in front of them.
Their next meeting was a few days out, but he'd been swamped. He barely had time to call or text, and as good as it was to hear her voice, it had nothing on this. Because he still couldn't believe it in a way. That she wanted to be here – was here - close and in his arms.
When her tongue slipped into his mouth, he followed her lead. Let her tug him close by his jacket, while he wrapped his arms around her, and took her in. Her sighs, the hint of citrus that always came with her perfume, all of it. It took him a few seconds to reel his senses in, but he did, and he gazed at her warmly. "Stepping out during a meeting would raise a few eyebrows," he murmured.
"It would." The next kiss – and the way V curled her tongue - made his fingers press into her lower back. "Probably piss off Gryphon too."
"And you're already enough of a handful." The bite he received caused him to suck in a breath. "…Okay, I might've earned that one."
"Damn straight. But on another topic, the pizza guy's going to be here soon, so…we might want to slow down. Since you'll probably want to be wearing clothes when you answer. Propriety and all that shit."
It would help. It would also help if he didn't have an erection, but judging by the tightening of his pants, he was already failing that fast. Swallowing hard, he extricated himself from her and stepped back. Getting a better look at her flushed face, or her growing grin, didn't help in the slightest, so he went for the one thing he could handle.
"Just…give me a second," Troy said, and ran a hand over his face before making his way back to the door.
The distance cleared some of the fog, but the shaky breath he took in as he gathered the papers by the front told him it wasn't going to be that easy. Not with the way his heart rate spiked.
"You want some help, Chief?" she asked, her tone low.
He shoved more of the papers into an order he could work with, and chanced a glance over his shoulder. Her fingers tugged at her gloves as her eyes raked over him, and he turned away when her eyebrows went up. "Help? Sure. Don't know if you're offering the kind I'm looking for right now."
"Oh, give me some credit. I can keep my hands to myself. Even down on my hands and knees with you, I think I can exercise some self-control."
Looking up at her again, he noticed the way her lips were parted, and glanced back at the pile in his hands. "Fuck it," he muttered, dropping it.
The broad grin on her face went wicked when he reached her, and she let out a laugh the moment he swept her up. It wasn't far to his room at all, but with her mouth on his it was far enough.
"It wasn't too awkward, was it?" V took a large bite out of the slice of pizza, and swallowed it down. "I mean, robes aren't all that bad. That guy had to have seen worse. Years ago, I knew someone who used to deliver, and he spent half his time going to Stilwater U. That was some wild shit."
"Sure, but the moment some guy in a bathrobe shoves a wad of bills at your face, you can only draw so many conclusions."
Troy took a long drag off of his cigarette, and tried not to think too hard about the look of amusement on the delivery guy's face. Disheveled and grumpy as hell, he had to have been a sight when he answered the door, barely exchanging ten words with him. The money left his hands, and the moment the transaction was over, and the door securely shut behind him, he'd left the dark blue bathrobe right in the living room. …Where it still was, actually, if he angled his head just right to catch it.
Now in a pair of pajama pants and a white t-shirt, he felt every muscle in his body ease as the tension melted away. The vice grip on his nerves that had kept him puffing away at his cigarettes a few hours had loosened completely, and he relaxed into the couch next to V as they caught a rerun of the football game he missed earlier that night.
The silly grin still hadn't faded from her face, and whenever she flashed it at him, he was tempted to return it. She slid closer to him, making the gray t-shirt he'd lent her ride up, and nudged him with her elbow. "You told him to keep the change, right?" Troy glared at her, only to receive a shrug in response. "What? It's a valid question. If you wanted to swap bills, I could've waited."
"Waited? With the grip you had on me before I went out there?"
"Yes," she scoffed, blushing. "Well, not that I wanted to, but I could've."
Her lips had been wrapped around him when the bell rang, both of his hands tangled in her hair, and while he froze, she hadn't. She kept up the speed, sucking him harder as her tongue moved over him, and it took another ring of the doorbell for his self-control to finally kick in and ask her to stop. Even then, with her leaning over him, red-faced and panting, he'd almost pulled her right back down again.
With her eyes on him as he tossed on the robe, he knew all it would take was one step closer to her for that last sliver of willpower to break. And judging by her heated look at the time, hers had been just as frayed.
So he didn't hesitate to say the first thing that came to mind. "Bullshit."
V took another chunk out of her pizza. "Uh huh. Says the man that nearly dropped the box on the way back in."
Troy felt his face heat as he put his hand over his eyes. The papers really were a lost cause now, until he made new copies that weren't crumpled. The fact that he nearly wiped out because of them was only adding salt to the wound. "Touche."
She put the plate down and guided the hand with his cigarette to her mouth. Her lips brushed against his fingers – applying just enough pressure for him to call it a kiss - and after taking in a long inhale, she leaned back to exhale a ring.
It wasn't bad, and the corners of his mouth quirked up when it held its shape. "I see you've been practicing."
Her tentative glance at him brightened. "A bit. I've picked up a few tricks too."
He kissed her hand, and slipped the cigarette between her fingers. "Like?"
Withdrawing to her side of the couch with a smile, V draped her legs over his lap and shrugged. "Nothing fancy, just fun more than anything." Taking one last draw, she didn't do anything special with the smoke that left her lips. Just let it out in an easy blow, and pulled over the glass ashtray on his coffee table to set the cigarette down. "Some of them do take two, though, so I might have to get your assistance for those."
His hand ran over the tattoo curling up her leg, tracing the lines as they wound up and around her knee. The dragon was gorgeous, something that had to have taken some serious time in the chair, and the longer he studied it, the more details he picked out. The scales, the deep colors, all of it was bold against her skin, and that he was able to get this close of a look at it now wasn't lost on him one bit.
He noticed her tilt her head out of the corner of his eye, and when she moved forward he helped her settle onto his lap. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she leaned in and pressed a small kiss to the corner of his mouth, then to his jaw. He let her keep on going for a few minutes, letting the heat from her body sink into him, and closed his eyes.
"I'll call ahead next time," she murmured, her breath warm against his skin. "Give you some warning before I drop by, so I don't spook you or the neighbors. It'd be a pain in the ass if I did, right?"
Next time. Troy leaned into her, and when she relaxed against him, he buried his face in her hair. "Getting a call about the head of the Third Street Saints loitering on my property? It'd be something."
"And then Jane would come around, and yeah. Kind of a clusterfuck in the making." V kissed his jaw, and held him tighter. "Would ruin your night too, I bet. But that's only if I get caught."
"Might want to be careful then, eh?"
He guided her lips back to his, and felt her grin. "Yeah, real careful."