Chapter 34: coming down, the world turned over
Before, she wouldn't tell him where they were going, and even when he had been mostly fine with it there had always been this low undercurrent of impatience with her. Because Beth Greene doesn't play games, except she does, her own games - sweet ones, never mean ones, but still games.
She plays with him.
So yeah, that used to be how it was. But not so much now. When she wants him to go somewhere, when she wants it to be a surprise, whatever's on the other end is probably worth it. That's his operating hypothesis, anyway. All the evidence indicates that it's a safe one.
There are a lot of ways in which he trusts her. More all the time.
The rain has let up again, at least for the time being, but the air is saturated, and she's damp when she hops into the truck and kisses him. It's fast and hard and just the slightest bit surprising, and when she pulls back he can make out an excited flush in her cheeks and neck and - because she's wearing a low-cut tank top - all the way down to her chest.
He wants to get a hand on her there. Fit her into his palm the way she did, so fucking perfect. Work her nipple with his fingertips until she's whimpering - and hey, here's a thing: she wouldn't have to make herself be quiet. Here, she could be as loud as she wants. Those cries he was sure he could get out of her - she could let those go if it pleased her to do so. And he suspects she would. He suspects she might like that a lot.
But he doesn't. And it's not exactly a lack of confidence; it's more that Sunday night feels like it might possibly have been an exception to an existing rule, at least maybe, and he's not sure it's a good idea to go assuming things just yet. Not sure it's a good idea to assume it's open season on certain parts of her that have been previously off-limits.
She leans back in the seat and grins at him, and that's when he notices she has a couple of towels in her hand.
Okay.
He's pulling back into the road, turning in the direction of the swimming hole, but she shakes her head. "Nope."
He shoots her a questioning glance. "Nope?"
"Mm-m." She jerks a thumb behind them, her grin a little smaller but something even more deeply gleeful about the curve of her mouth. Girl is up to something. Then again, it seems like she usually is. "Somethin' else."
He shrugs and swings them around, heads off into the dark.
It's not a quiet night. It's a loud one. Thunder is still rolling gently in the distance, but the frogs are going insane, as are the crickets, excited and maybe slightly freaked out by so much wetness. They respectively bellow and scream, and it's deafening even over the sound of the wind rushing in through the rolled-down windows. There's something about it - the way the water hangs in the air, like something you could almost swim through - that fills him with bright anticipation rather than makes him feel weighed down. Might be that electricity again. That sense of something potential, something waiting to snap into light, break everything open.
He lights up a cigarette and feels her looking at him.
"What?"
"Those things." Her arm is half slung out the window, everything in her loose despite her obvious excitement, and out of the corner of his vision he can see she's looking at him with lazy amusement more than any kind of irritation. "They're gonna kill you."
He grunts. "Somethin' else's probably gonna get me first."
"Nice to see you're feelin' optimistic."
He is, is the thing. "'s plenty optimistic. Means I can go ahead'n not worry about it."
She laughs. "You live like that, somethin' really will get you."
"How else should I be livin'?"
She pulls off her boots and props her feet on the dash again. Her toenails are still glittery, but this time blue - that same cornflower blue she seems to favor when it comes to her clothes. That same blue that sets off her hair, makes it look even brighter, richer - not that it needs a whole lot of help in that regard.
She almost always wears those boots. Probably hardly anyone sees her toes. So why does she paint her nails?
He's more and more certain that these pretty things she does and has - all these pretty little things - are far more for her than for anyone else. She's not interested in anyone else's opinion when it comes to this. Or if she is, ultimately it's not the deciding factor.
She leans down and picks at a loose bit of polish, flakes it away. "That's up to you, Mr. Dixon."
He has nothing to say to that. But he watches her, as much as he can without sending them into a ditch, and he fights back a smile. Even though he doesn't need to.
They head toward town about five miles, then she has him take a right onto a smaller road, just as straight, cutting through the same generally flat land with fields on either side, little copses of trees here and there. A few more farmhouses, distant dim hulks against a softly and weirdly glowing sky. This place is far enough from anything majorly important to have avoided any big housing developments, any McMansions, and he's glad of that, and it's not just because those places have always made him feel a deep and almost violent resentment of all the spoiled, prissy assholes who tend to live in those kinds of things. Names like Hunter's Run and Pinewoods Glen. The kinds of places Merle would case, once upon a time, and Daryl would offer no significant objection to hitting.
It's not just about that. It's not just about a general low-level seething hatred. It's about how somehow, when he wasn't looking, he started thinking this place was really pretty beautiful. With its wide fields and meadows, green pastures, open skies, cool shadowy woods. Old trees.
Secrets.
I don't like bein' here.
Huh.
They don't speak. As usual with her, he doesn't feel like either of them needs to; there's nothing awkward about the silence. It's not even silence. Night sounds surrounding them, wrapping them up. It's just after midnight and no one knows they're here. No other cars on the road. They might be the last people on Earth. The last man and woman standing.
That idea isn't as upsetting as maybe it should be.
After another fifteen minutes or so she points to the left, to a drive coming up. Another long one like hers, another farmhouse, but even at a distance Daryl can see it's not as large as the Greenes', nor quite as stately. No lights on, no indications of presence, and he gives her another look as he turns in, brow slightly arched.
She smiles, not quite at him. "Jimmy's place."
He slams his foot down on the brakes, jerking them both forward, and turns to her. Not upset - surprisingly, not at all. But he's going to know what the hell this is about, and he's going to know it now.
"The fuck, Greene?"
She glances at him, still smiling, idly toying with a few strands of her hair. "Dontcha trust me?"
"Ain't about trust. It's about you tellin' me what the fuck we're doin'." He nods at the bundle in her lap. "With towels."
One corner of her mouth inches even higher and it takes every shred of strength at his disposal to keep from tackling her and pinning her to the seat and doing absolutely unspeakable things to her. "You ain't gonna let me surprise you?"
"Girl, what'd I tell you 'bout surprises?"
"Daryl, what'd I tell you about you likin' 'em most of the time?"
God, it's so fucking hard to keep from smiling, because she's so fucking cute, and it wrecks him inside. Just totally ties him in knots. Maybe he's not all that frightened by her anymore, but apparently the part with the knots isn't going anywhere.
He leans in. Gets right in her face. She shifts back a little, but her smile doesn't budge; it's clearly not out of fear. She's not recoiling. It's all in her body language. Chase me, then. "You tell me what we're doin' or I swear to God, I'll turn this thing around right now."
She hesitates for a moment - very purposeful, leaving him hanging - then rolls her eyes and touches the tip of her forefinger to the end of his nose and pushes in a little poke that leaves him completely speechless.
No one has ever done that to him before.
And she abruptly presses close, hand firm against his chest and smile light against his mouth.
"Jimmy's family has a hot tub. And Jimmy's family is outta town for the weekend."
Jimmy's family does indeed have a hot tub.
Daryl stands there for a minute or two and looks at it. It's not large, all wood paneled and surrounded by half a privacy fence, but that doesn't lend it a tremendous amount of privacy - not that it needs it, given that there's no other house from which anyone could see anything much unless someone wanted to make use of a powerful pair of binoculars.
And it's dark, so.
The house - which is, as he thought, a good bit smaller than the Greenes' but also looks newer and with its brick facade and high arched front windows has the vague sense of belonging to a wealthier family - is completely dark and completely silent, but every house they passed appeared dark and seemed silent and he doesn't imagine all those people were out of town. So he stands there and regards the hot tub, and he does this a bit skeptically.
In the past, Merle has been able to talk him into shit about twenty times crazier than this. But Merle isn't here. Beth is.
Then again, she's been introducing him to a whole new kind of crazy.
"Toldja." She bumps his shoulder with hers and shoves the towels into his hands, moves past him to the side of the thing and crouches to open a small door. She reaches in; it looks like she's feeling around, searching for something by touch.
"You need a light or somethin'?"
"Nah, I got it." He hears a soft click and the tub hums to life. Beth lets out a pleased little sound and straightens up again, grasping the handles of the tub's cover and pulling it back and away. Steam billows out. It can't have been off for long. "See?"
"Use this thing a lot?"
"Yeah, actually. He liked havin' parties out here, gettin' everyone to use it. He's not some show-off, I don't want you thinkin' that... But I think he did like showin' this thing off. Does."
He moves closer to her. Something started humming in him the second she told him what this was about, and now it's humming louder with every passing second, like whatever switch she flipped wasn't just for the tub. They might be out here just to relax, sure.
But he doesn't think so.
"You use it alone?" His voice drops. "You use it with just him?"
She crosses her arms over her chest, cocks her head, and again he feels that powerful urge to tackle her. "You jealous, Daryl Dixon?"
He shakes his head. He's actually not. He doesn't think he's ever really been jealous of Jimmy. There was that time in the coffee shop the first night he saw her sing there, but while he and jealousy aren't exactly on intimate terms, it doesn't feel like quite the right one for what he felt in that moment. You're jealous when you feel like something belongs to you. That wasn't it. It might be hair-splitting, but it seems important. He's never owned Beth. Never had a claim on her, at least not the way most people think of it. He doesn't think he ever will. She doesn't seem like the type of girl who tolerates claiming.
No: he was envious. He wanted something he didn't have. Wanted it and never believed he would ever even get near it. And he was wrong.
He has nothing to be jealous about.
She gazes up at him in silence. Then she says, softly, "No. I never did."
That's a little surprising.
Then she surprises him again.
Maybe it shouldn't. Maybe it shouldn't surprise him at all. Last weekend she put his hand on her breast, arched up under him, got her own hand on him, used that hand on herself. Got his fingers on her cunt, got him to make her come. Begged him to make her come. She was hungry for it. She never had a drink before his moonshine, but she was drunk on his hand. He felt how wet she was. People say virgin, and he doesn't think what they have in mind is what Beth Greene appears to be. She's a little hesitant, a little cautious about some things, but she's not some delicate shrinking violet. He would be happy to literally worship the ground she walks on if she told him to, but a significant part of him now thinks of her in terms that don't even approach soft or romantic. She wants to fuck.
She's just not ready.
Except now this is happening, and maybe he shouldn't be surprised, but when she reaches down and grips her top by the hem and tugs it over her head, he still is. He's staring, his mouth slightly open, as all that skin comes into view. Dim view, but view. Not more than he's seen, because she took off everything but her panties and bra that night at the swimming hole, but that...
That didn't feel like this. That was different.
His gaze flicks up to her face. She's staring back at him, eyes wide, lips the slightest bit apart, and she looks... Not scared. Scared is the wrong word. Not even nervous. But something like those things. Something like she's about to take another step and she knows it, and she knows that once she does there isn't any going back.
And there isn't. Because she catches her bottom lip between her teeth, reaches behind her and unhooks the clasp of her bra and shrugs it off, lets it fall into the grass.
"Beth," he whispers, and she stands, clearly uncertain, meeting his eyes and then shifting her own away. And he can't figure out why. Why wouldn't he want to see this - her breasts small and firm, how he already knows how they feel under his hands, how her nipples respond under his fingers, all that smooth skin radiating heat like she's on fire beneath it. Her flat belly, her slim waist, the farm girl muscle there, how her size and her slenderness are in significant part a lie in the weakness they might suggest.
She's so beautiful. His blood is roaring and he's already hard enough to scratch glass, but he's also pained. Those knots she ties him in have risen into his chest. She's so fucking beautiful and he doesn't think she has any idea at all.
Something seems to gather in her and she looks directly at him again, steadies her gaze, resolute. And she toes off her boots, unbuttons her jeans, and starts to slide them and her panties down her thighs.
Beth.
All the feeling disappears from his legs. It's just gone. He might as well not exist from the knees down. Everything upward, everything in his chest and his gut and between his legs, it's all a ball of lightning, crackling, cascades of sparks. He has a sudden crazed image of his own nerves lit up like neon spiderwebs, flickering at the ends, and he's just looking at her. The ends of her ponytail fall across one shoulder as she bends, pushes her jeans the rest of the way down, steps out of them.
Straightens up.
Dry doesn't describe his mouth, his throat. It's not nearly enough. There isn't a word in the English language to describe this total lack of moisture. He tries to swallow and nothing happens but a dull ache.
It's ridiculous. He's seen naked women before. Many times. But this is. It's.
There aren't many real curves in her upper body, but here her hips swell gently outward and flow down to her thighs - which are slim and strong as the rest of her. Graceful, powerful, and still awkward. She's awkward. She's standing there, naked and pale, and he doesn't have a clue where to look.
He touched her. He had his hand between her legs, he stroked his fingers over that little patch of tight curls, he felt the slick, soft, hot wetness just below. But he looks at it and his cock hurts it's so hard, and that total lack of existence creeps up past his knees and he thinks it's entirely possible that if she pokes his nose again he'll just fall the fuck over.
"Daryl," she murmurs.
He lurches his gaze back up to her face, her eyes. He's seen them wide before, but he doesn't think he's seen them like this. Wide and shining and, under the sky's weird, almost apocalyptic glow, seeming to glow with a light of their own.
He wants her to know. He wants her to know how beautiful she is, he wants to find some way to tell her. He's almost frantic with it. His heart would match the thunder on the horizon if it was currently beating at all. His jaw works a bit and he's sure he must be freaking her out; he doesn't have a huge amount of experience in this area but he'd be willing to bet actual money that it's not good to be silent this long when the girl you'd happily die for has just taken her clothes off in front of you.
Say something. God, just fucking say something. Anything.
There's one thing he can go to. Always has. It's always been her for him, just as much her as her name. He shakes his head, slow and very slight, breathes a single awed word.
"Girl."
She breaks into a smile - not wide, but small and pleased and deep. "Alright," she says softly, and turns and walks toward the tub's low wooden steps, shooting a glance over her shoulder and the quirked edge of that smile as she swings a leg over the edge and starts to lower herself into the water. Everything is in that smile. She can do that. It's a talent. She can communicate with the faintest silent movement of her lips.
C'mon.
Fair-minded girl. Tit for tat. A couple of weeks ago he would have turned tail and run, and he might have done it literally. Just sprinted off into the dark and been very, very careful to never see her again and suffer the fallout of it, because his own imaginings of the alternative would have been so much worse.
This isn't a couple of weeks ago. This is now.
He pulls his shirt off over his head and drops it beside hers.
The rest of his clothes come off in a haze. This isn't like the night at the swimming hole, but on the other hand it is, because it's taking on all the logic and sense of a dream. He can see her there, shoulders above the water, and she's watching him. She's not making any pretense of not doing so. This is also the same. She's going to look at him and she's not going to spare his feelings. She's going to let him deal with it.
She has boundless mercy, but sometimes it's not so merciful.
But she showed him something that night, and it wasn't just her wrist. It wasn't just herself.
He leaves it all behind and walks toward the tub, towels in his hands, and he sets them down on the edge and stands there naked as her, and he meets her eyes and doesn't look away. She didn't fix him, didn't make him better, and he feels scraped raw, and it's almost too much. It's almost unbearable. But he lets her look at him, and he knows what she'll see, and she's already seen a lot of it: how he's strong, not the carefully sculpted muscle of someone who spends hours in a gym but instead works for what they have, and the new things, his tattoos and his scars, and his cock jutting up so hard, ready for her if she wants to have it.
He's waiting. He's just waiting for her to tell him.
She draws in a breath, and it's quiet but it comes to him clearly over the tub's hum, and then she slaps him in the face.
"You're beautiful."
He has to look away from her then, suddenly almost shivering. No. That really is too much. She could have warned him that was coming. Should have. "Stop."
"You are."
Fuck that shit about mercy. She has none at all. And he's ripped in half between wanting so bad to look at her and being completely unable to, but between the two he sees her raise a hand to beckon him, smile again, and she looks so light and happy and like she doesn't care about anything. Like there's nothing to worry about. "C'mon."
Just don't say that again.
But he manages to move his numb legs, climbs the steps, swings those slabs of meat and bone into the water and follows them in as she shifts herself backward, facing him.
It's already hot enough to make him hiss and close his eyes, half in pleasure and half in shock at the temperature change. When he opens them again she's there right in front of him, so close but not touching him, her eyes dancing.
She doesn't just wrongfoot him. She hacks his fucking feet off and asks him to juggle them for her.
She lays a hand on his chest, right over his heart, and grazes her lips against his. "It's good, right?"
He makes a low, slightly confused noise and he feels her smile as she pushes him backward. His ass hits a curved ledge under the water and slides onto it, a jet near his lower back, and when she presses herself in closer, lays her hands against the sides of his face...
Jesus. His own hands find her, her hips, her waist, tugging at her, and when he spreads his legs and she drifts between them and his cock nudges her belly-
"You ever done this?" she whispers. She drapes her arms over his shoulders, fingers toying with his damp hair. He wants to keep his eyes open but suddenly it's almost impossible. They're heavy. A buzz is working its way into his head.
"Done what?"
"Just... been like this. With a woman. In a hot tub." There's an odd lilt to her voice, and when he manages to focus on her face her smile has gone crooked, and she's... Shy. She's shy. She's not sure how to talk about this. She's fumbling a little. That shouldn't surprise him either, and if anything it should surprise him less than how goddamn bold she is, but it does. Every time she seems less than sure of herself, it's a bit astonishing. Even if, when he thinks back, it's not even all that rare.
He shakes his head and takes a breath. This is hard to say, and he's not even sure why. "Never actually been in one."
She blinks. "Never... A hot tub?"
He shakes his head. It's just never come up. He's done a lot of other things. That was just never really on the list.
"Wow. Okay." She laughs, soft and once again with that essential lightness, and before he can do anything else she turns in his arms and settles back against him, back into his lap, her ass firm against his cock and her head tipped back on his shoulder. Instinctively he curls his arms around her, and then doesn't do much else with them. Not for the moment. He's trying to get a grip on what he's doing now.
"Tell me somethin'."
She wriggles a little, and she might just be looking for a more comfortable position, but as his breath catches and he presses involuntarily up to meet her, he doesn't think so. He thinks she's knows exactly what she's doing.
"What?"
"How many things... How many things with me are the first time you've done 'em?"
The question is oddly phrased and he doesn't get it immediately, and with the movement of the water and the uneven pressure of her ass against his cock it's hard to think at all. "Why... Why you care?"
"Why you care if I care?" She wriggles again and he can hear her smile. "Just tell me. I wanna know." She turns her head and her wet lips find his jaw, cool in the rest of the heat. "I wanna know how special I am."
He manages to twist his groan into more of a laugh. "You so sure you're special?"
"I know I am. I just wanna know how much."
"Girl, you got one hell of an ego on you."
It's coming to him, slowly through whatever blood is left in his brain, that he can retaliate, and he unwinds his arms from around her, laying his hands against the sides of her waist and trailing them upward across her ribs, light and slow. Now that he's here, now that she's here, now that he's under the water and she's grinding herself slowly against his cock and her whole body feels like it's his to play with, all the hesitation is gone. She wants to tease him? Fine. He's pretty sure he knows enough now to tease her right back, and do it effectively.
Then a breathless little moan slips out of her and he's very sure.
"I never had anyone sing for me before."
"Like... Just for you?"
"Mmhm." Up all the way to the sides of her breasts, barely touching her at all, and her moan is a little sharper - and her squirming increases accordingly. His eyes force themselves closed again and he feels them roll. "I never... had no one sneak out to see me."
Never been worth the sneaking.
"What else?" Her whisper is shaky and he smiles against the edge of her ear, takes a sliver of pity on her and ghosts his fingertips across her nipples - hints of a touch rather than any real touch at all.
"Never kissed no one in the rain before."
"I never did either."
"Seriously?" He cranes his head, trying to get a good look at her face, but the angle is wrong and she's lost in shadow. "You were with that kid how fuckin' long?"
"Too long. Daryl..." Not quite asking him but he thinks she might be getting there, and she's still moving against him, rolling her hips back, her ass a smooth, maddening weight right on him, but she's having trouble finding a rhythm. It comes to him with a hot little shiver of triumph: he's got her. Got her right where he wants her.
Probably right where she wants to be.
"What?"
"Just keep doin' that. More. Like you-" She breaks off into a gasp, her hands braced on his thighs and her back briefly arching like she's chasing his teasing fingers. "Like before, please..."
There we go. He grins, just for a second or two - and it doesn't feel so alien - and then he finds her nipples with his thumbs and strokes across them, and it's like being right at home.
"What about you?"
"I told you." Breathless. She's not panting yet but he thinks he could get her there. Thinks it wouldn't be anything approaching a challenge. Maybe he should have fumbled more with her, had more trouble, but so far, when it comes right down to this, to the most basic mechanics of it, she makes everything so easy. "I never- I never really did anythin'."
"Never touched yourself with anyone?"
"No." She drags in a hard breath and briefly finds herself, rocks back harder against him and rotates her hips, and for a few seconds she has him totally pinned, his hands closing over her breasts as his dexterity vanishes into the steam. "You ever been with anyone when they were touchin' themselves?"
"Not..." He moans; can't help it, doesn't want to. "Not like that. Fuck, Beth..."
"Touch me."
It comes out in a rough, needy whimper, weak, but the words smack him again and then she's lifting his right hand away from her breast and pulling it down between her thighs, over those tight curls and lower, and even in the water he feels how wet she is, thick slickness totally different from the rest of what's around them.
For a few second he doesn't budge. He's motionless, listening to her ragged breathing, feeling her hand tightening on his as she tugs at him with a bit more urgency.
"God, Daryl, please."
He feels her. Soft, smooth, her outer lips and where they draw together, that little nub between them - and sure, he felt it before, but that might as well have been another universe for all its similarity to this. It's right there, and she spreads her legs, pressing his fingers against her, moving them. Moving them how she wants them, using him on herself like a toy.
But she doesn't want a toy.
He remembers what he did. He remembers what worked. It's like groping through a curtain now, but the memory is there, and her hand falls away from his as he starts to work her on his own, making tight little circles with his fingertips, stroking her, and he has to be going slower than she wants, because she's spreading her legs wider and her moans sound almost frustrated, twisted and sharpened at the end.
"Daryl-"
"That feel good?"
He has no idea where this is coming from. He's not asking her because he wants to know. He already knows. He's not an idiot. He can pick up on these things. He's asking for a different reason, because once again - with her - he's finding something in himself he didn't know about. Something new - or maybe not new, but something so deeply buried for so long that it might as well be. And it's bizarre, it's fucking scary- but he barely feels that. Just her body and her skin burning under his hands, and the power thrumming under that question.
He's asking her because he wants to make her tell him.
"Yeah." More of a groan than a word, and he tries not to laugh.
"Say it. Tell me it feels good."
"It... feels good. Oh God, Daryl..."
"You want more?" And it's not just her. Maybe she let that rhythm slip, the way she was rocking her hips, but he's working her back into it on a level that takes no conscious attention, and his cock is pinned and throbbing between her ass and his belly.
"I want more." Anticipating him. That's nice. "Please, I want more, I want-"
"Christ, girl, you sure you're a virgin?"
"Don't be a jerk." His other hand is still on her breast, kneading gently, and her hand suddenly flies up to cover it, like she has to hold onto something besides his thigh or she'll drift off into the water and out to sea. "Daryl."
She's not merciful. But he can be. He falls into something faster, a little rougher, and her head drops loosely against his shoulder, her breath coming in steady, heavy moans - loud, loud as he wanted her to be, and he doesn't try to keep back his laughter.
Laughing like this. Something else he never did before her.
"What about your tits? He ever get his hands on 'em?" More of that, more roughness, coming from somewhere even deeper inside him - someplace that, again, maybe should scare him, except for how natural it feels, his utter lack of fear, and how she's moving against him, her whole body rolling in shallow sine waves. His fingers settle on her nipple again, close over it and pinch, and she yelps.
"He- Just. Just over my- my bra. Oh my God." She's not even talking anymore. She's giving him grating noises into which words are slipping, uneven and oddly shaped and not fitting very well. "Not like that. Not like this. God, Daryl, I-" And she drops her hand again and clutches at his fingers on her clit, and he's about to yank them free and ask her what the fuck she thinks she's doing-
But she drags them lower, using them to nudge her lips apart, and he groans a heavy Oh fucking Christ as she pushes his middle finger into her cunt.
He thought he froze before.
It's not even about freezing. He just forgets how to move, every memory of ever having done so instantly scrubbed from his brain, and it's simply because the rest of the world is gone and it's just his finger, her slickness and her muscles tightening around him, how maybe it's just his imagination but he would swear he can feel her juices coating his hand even in the water.
"Never," she whispers, and breaks off into a laugh. "Never had anyone put their fingers in me. Well." Another laugh, louder. "Never anyone but me."
Never anyone but her. For some reason his mind has never really delivered this image with any real clarity, even after what they did in her bed, but it comes to him now: Beth Greene splayed on the bed, legs wide apart and knees lifted, her head thrown back and her breasts standing out full and sweet and meant for his palms, fingering her cunt with one hand while she works her nipple with the other, hips rising and falling to meet herself as hard, loose moans bleed out of her.
Oh, fuck. He doesn't want to come yet. Not nearly yet.
"You like doin' that?"
"I love it." No thought, no pause to screw up her courage or figure out any words; no sign that she has to do any of these things. She's shoving herself upward, pushing him deeper, that impatient edge returning to her moans. "Daryl... I said it, I love it, do it, please-"
He smiles so wide - probably not especially wide by anyone else's standards but massive by his - and flicks his tongue against her earlobe. "You wanna come in your ex-boyfriend's hot tub?"
For an instant - and then another one - she doesn't speak and though she's still gasping and still moving he's sure he's overstepped somehow, said something fucked up and knocked her out of whatever this is. Sure he's found a way to ruin it yet again, just when it was really starting to get good - like good can even come close to describing what this is, like there's a word for it at all - and wouldn't that be so typical, wouldn't that be so him.
But instead she jerks her hips against his hand and her voice has a pleased, wicked little edge.
"Yeah. Serves him right for cheatin' on me."
The rest of it is so easy.
More laughter rolling through him, through both of them, as he seals his hand over her and shifts into a rapid back-and-forth beckoning rhythm with his finger - despite his imagination he can tell there's not enough of her own juices to make fucking her comfortable, probably, but he can do this and it seems okay - nudging her clit with his thumb and feeling the clench of her muscles as her body tries to grab him and hold on, and he moves with her, cock nestled into the crack of her ass, aware of himself only enough to know how fucking good this feels.
"Oh, Daryl." Her moans are so loud, so continuous - so close to those cries. If he just pushes her a little harder, finds another level to go to- "Oh, oh, Daryl- Do that, yeah, like that, I'm- I'm gonna-"
Her whole body snaps, whips backward with the muscles around his finger squeezing him, and he catches a glimpse of her face, screwed up like she's in pain. And her mouth wide, heaving frantic breaths, and finally, finally there are those cries, those wonderful cries, pulsing out into the dark and the sky's glow, just shy of screams and completely released.
And a significant percentage of it is his name.
He gets lost in it. Maybe even as lost as she does. She's never really done anything, but he hasn't done his fair share of things, and he's never done that, and it's not just that he hasn't fingered someone to orgasm in a goddamn hot tub.
He's never made anyone come like that in his life.
So she shakes against him, hips jerking now and then as she comes back down, and he basks in it, his head back and his gaze locked on the glowing clouds above them. He's still pushing his cock against her ass, looking for friction, but it's mindless and slow and for the moment...
For the moment he has everything he can imagine ever wanting.
"Daryl." Hardly a breath, hardly there, but he shifts his finger inside her, curls it slightly, and she sucks in air and whimpers - laughs again, really. It seems like she fumbles at his name when there isn't anything else to hand, and he's glad, that's so good, because he loves how she says his name. How it sounds like that. Like it's not even about him, about who he is, but instead every indescribable thing she's feeling packed into two syllables. Like she made him into something else.
Made him mean something else.
Redefined.
"Yeah?"
"That was-" She lolls her head back and laughs harder, not loud or deep but instead shuddery little giggles. "Oh, God."
He turns his head and smiles against her neck, strokes the tip of his tongue against her shining skin.
For a while there's nothing else. Just the hum beneath them and the thunder - even more distant now - and it occurs to him that it might have been a bit of a risk getting into water like this, even with the storms apparently far away, but he can't bring himself to care. Might even risk death for this, if it was only his he was risking. His finger slipped out of her at some point but his hand is still there between her legs, cupping her, almost strangely possessive, and his other hand is still kneading her breast, more idle and relaxed than trying to get her anywhere.
She shouldn't be anywhere other than where she is.
It's right, he thinks with a soft wave of surprise. It's right that she's here with him. It's not just all right, it's right.
At last she shifts, wriggling but this time just seemingly trying to center herself, and she tenses up when she feels him still hard against her.
"Daryl, you-"
"'m fine." And he is. She hasn't said she's ready, hasn't invited him inside her that way, and when she is, when she does, he knows somehow it'll be her. She'll say it. Make it clear. It won't be assumed, can't be. And fuck knows that in the course of this insanity he's been left hanging plenty of times. Has wanted to be, intended it. But he feels her shake her head and then move again, this time obviously with more purpose. An experimental little circle of her hips.
"No." Another quiet giggle. "That ain't fair."
But he doesn't want her to move. Fitting like this, her back to his front, her ass in the cradle of his lap - that sweet, full curve, he needs to really get his hands properly on it soon if she'll let him - he honestly can't imagine anything better. Even if he wants more, this is so good, more than good enough, and he'll keep her here if he can.
He thinks for a few seconds, then slides his hand down to her hip and his other away from her cunt, nudging her.
"Lift up. Just a little."
He can feel her confusion even if he can't see her face, but she does, and he reaches between them and takes hold of his cock, angling it forward and down a little and just right, and as he spreads his legs wider and pulls her gently back down against him and between them, it presses into the tight space between her thighs.
She stiffens when she feels it, gasps softly, clutches at his hand. "Daryl, I'm not-"
"I know. 'm not doin' that." He tugs her closer, trying to get her to lean back as he curls an arm around her and smiles faintly against the ridge of her shoulder. "Don't got a rubber anyway. C'mere."
He feels her relax again, loosen back into that soft boneless thing he made - he made - and he holds her by the hips and starts to move.
Something else he's never done, and it's all instinct, the idea itself and what he's doing with it. He suspected it would work, that it would be good, and it is; not her cunt and not even - probably - her hand, and yes, he was thinking about that, but somehow this feels like it might be better. This warm pressure, just enough friction, but more than that, her reclining against him and breathing slow and deep, lifting a hand to trail her fingers along the top of his thigh. Almost experimental.
"Never had anyone do this to me."
"Never did this to anyone." He rolls up a little harder and just then she finds some muscle and presses down against him, and he muffles a groan against her shoulder as thick pleasure pulses through him - then remembers he doesn't have to. He can make all the noise he wants. "Beth..."
The sound she makes is low and happy, almost musical. "That feels good?"
"Yeah."
"Tell me."
He laughs against her nape, shivering and near panting. He's been on the edge for what feels like hours now. He just forgot for a while. "You feel so fuckin' good, Beth."
"I think this is the most I ever heard you talk, Mr. Dixon." She presses down to meet him again and he can tell, with a harder shiver, that she's trying to find his rhythm. Trying to fuck him right back. Least virginal virgin he ever thought possible, if he thought about it at all. "Guess I am special."
"Got a- Shit- Got a mouth to match that ego, girl."
"Think it's gonna feel even better when you fuck me?"
She asks it almost casually, all her breathlessness and those outlines of moans disappearing back into her for the moment, and for that moment he can't move. She's never said the word, not that he can remember, and it's a word he's heard thousands upon thousands of times, a word he uses probably something like thirty or forty times a day, and it should mean nothing, but coming out of her mouth like that, easy as you please, it's the most sweetly filthy thing he's ever heard.
When. He knew she wanted it. She said. But when. When he does.
Just a matter of time.
"Oh," he whispers, and stutters his hips to life again. "Fuckin' hell, Beth."
"Yeah." Her voice is dense with laughter, head thrown back, and suddenly she's basically riding him, lifting herself up and forward and dropping down and back, rolling herself in slow circles, thighs so tight around him, better than he can deal with. Shoving him toward the edge, hauling him by his cock. "You wanna come in my ex-boyfriend's hot tub?"
It takes him a second to gather himself enough to talk. Then he laughs again, drops his head back and laughs low in his chest, closer to a groan. That alone feels so good. Everything feels so good. Every fucking hectic fragment of sensory input, pounding into his skin and head, his ears, her gasps and the sloshing of the water as she moves, the sounds forcing their way up through his throat, twisting from groans into needy, helpless whines.
"Yeah... Yeah, serves him right for cheatin' on you."
"Damn straight," she hisses, and there's not really any malice in it - she said she wasn't all that angry and he could tell she meant it - but there's a kind of sharp glee that sends those sparks at the tips of his nerves stabbing into his cock, and he clutches at her hips, bucking against her, wild.
"C'mon," she breathes, head hanging between her shoulders, spine arched back like a bow's limb. "Lemme make you come, Daryl, Lemme-"
She cried out when she came, a long, strained series of cries, and there was surprise in them, like there was something she couldn't quite believe. When Daryl comes he snarls, bares his teeth against her shoulder and is aware enough that he wants to bite down on her to fight the impulse. He can't feel it, and most of his higher brain function is completely gone, yet another thing dissolving into the steam, but the image does slide into him: his come hot and slick on her skin, running down between her legs, coating her and mingling with her own juices.
And that grabs him, stretches him out over the waves of pleasure crashing into him, and the snarl is a cry, half wordless and rough and beneath it her name and a string of obscenities that don't feel obscene at all.
Once again, she's not a goddess. But he wants to worship her anyway.
More of that haze. Steam in his brain. Then she's there, stroking his hands, his legs, so slow. So gentle. He sorts through the wreckage of his head, finds a couple shards of usable words. Not especially new or creative, but they're there.
"Oh my God, girl."
Soft giggle. His eyes are half closed, unfocused, and he can't see anything much at all, but she turns in his arms and faces him again, slides forward to straddle his lap and rests her hands on his shoulders. "So that was good?"
He huffs a laugh. He's still shaking a little. "That's a stupid fuckin' question."
She ducks her head and nuzzles at his jaw. "Tell me anyway."
"Yeah." Okay, sure; he'll tell her. He can do that. He's starting to scrape together more words, and she wants him to, and what, at this moment, wouldn't he do to make her happy?
If she told him to go kill a man, he would probably just ask her if she had any specific target in mind.
He lifts his head and leans forward, his brow against hers and one hand catching hold of her ponytail - wet now and extremely tangled. "Beth. That was so fuckin' good."
Her whole face lights up and that light seems and feels literal, and she presses in even closer and nods their mouths together and kisses him for a while.
At some point she loosens again, settles - still straddling him - and she rests her head on his shoulder and he wraps his arms around her, the water swirling and the breeze collecting the higher wisps of steam and carrying them away. Unreal. It all feels so goddamn unreal. He shouldn't be able to feel this good. Never has. His hand and whatever he can weave out of the material his brain has stored away; even with how sure he was that she would give him more, those things were all that seemed real. All that seemed possible, seemed solid enough to grasp. Now she comes along and she does it, actually does it, delivers everything he found the courage to hope for and then some.
He said it felt good. No, it didn't. How it felt is something he can't quite believe.
After another while: "Daryl?"
"Mm?" Words are too hard again. But there's something about the quality of that, the upward inflection, that catches his attention. She's a little nervous about this, about whatever's behind his name, and while it's sort of beyond him to be nervous at the moment, he doesn't miss it. Wonders at it.
"Can I ask you somethin'?"
He's always found that one of the most useless fucking questions, because how the hell is he supposed to answer it without knowing the nature of the question coming next? But irritation with her is something else he can't find. It's lost beneath the wreckage.
"I guess."
"I mean... You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, you don't have to answer it, I'm... I don't wanna..." She trails off, just the slightest bit tense now, though her head is still against his shoulder and her breath is still coming deep and slow.
"Spit it out, girl."
"How did you get your scars? On your back?"
His turn to tense up, though not more than her. He knew this question was coming - pretty certain, anyway - but not here, and for a few seconds he feels - a little angrily - like he's been ambushed. Like she got him loose and acquiescent and she sprung it on him because she knew he would be too weak to push back.
But of course that's not what she did. She's open to him right now. She wants him to be open too.
She wants to know him.
He squeezes his eyes shut. He can try. She's made him feel safer than he's ever felt with anyone. She won't judge him, not for this. She never has.
And he really doesn't believe she'll give him any insulting kind of pity.
"My dad."
"He beat you?" Very small. Very soft. He nods.
She's quiet for a moment, but though she isn't speaking she's moving, pressing even closer to him, almost burrowing into him, and she would almost feel like a child seeking some kind of comfort, except he can't escape the overpowering sense that she's trying to comfort him.
Except no. Comfort is the wrong word. That's too close to pity.
She just wants him to know that she's there.
"I'm sorry."
He shakes his head and he holds her tighter. He's not going to let this ruin anything. Not tonight. He's damned if he's going to do that. "Don't matter."
It does matter.
More quiet. He breathes it in and it's gentle in his lungs, just heavy enough to be comfortable - like her, like her body, weighing him down in a way that isn't in the least confining. Safe, he thinks again. He didn't want to answer that, didn't like that she asked it, but he did, he did answer, and it was okay.
Not all of this is going to be easy. He already knew that.
Worth it?
Definitely.
"Should go," he murmurs finally, and she nods.
So they do.
In the truck, hot tub covered and turned off, pulling back down the drive, she leans forward and flicks on the radio, then settles back with a sigh. She sounds tired. Worn out, nothing left- like he feels, so tired he wants to pull over and curl up with her in the truck bed and sleep. But it's not bad. It's not bad at all. They got to this end through the best means.
All fucked out and they haven't even fucked yet.
When.
But back at the oak tree they sit for a moment, that silence still there between them, and she looks at him, her face unreadable. Something has happened between the water and now. A little stab of disquiet finds the soft gap beneath his ribcage, though he's not sure where it comes from.
"I don't know what this is," she says at last, and her hand finds his in his lap. "But Daryl..." She takes a breath and all at once he can read her face again, and her expression is serious. Almost solemn. "I wanna keep goin'. I do."
This isn't a promise. It's not a vow. Or it doesn't feel like that. But it feels like something. Something else that should frighten him, something fundamentally temporal - it touches everything behind it and coils around the present and reaches forward to shape the future.
Something he shouldn't be sure he wants to get into.
But lately he's been doing all kinds of things he probably shouldn't do.
He looks at her all lit up in that strange storm-light - because that's what it is. There will be more storms. The growls and mutters of the thunder are closer, closing in, and all those words for rain that he found and filed... He suddenly knows he's going to need them again.
He already knows he needs her.
"Me too," he whispers, and turns his hand under hers, threads their fingers. Weaves them together.
Wind sweeps over them and buffets the truck, grips the branches of the oak tree and shakes them like it's trying to convince of them of something. There's a shower of wet leaves, smacking flatly against the roof and the windshield and the windows.
Summer might be trying to hold on, but, gradually, it's being torn away.
She's gone into the night, a small pale shape moving along the edge of the dark ribbon of road. He sighs, full up with things he can't define, swirling like those clouds and arguing fiercely with each other about which one matters the most.
And that fucking radio.
a thousand other boys could never reach you
how could I have been the one
It occurs to him, heading back with that wind raking through the grassy fields like a rough hand, shoving itself against him, that the thing about good days is that you can't trust them to last.
Note: Song is "Black Balloon" by the Goo Goo Dolls.