The coat slips away from broad, bony shoulders that are now free from the yoke of childhood. Claire's eyes are wide, dilated. Her breathing is heavy.
"Hope, I-"
"Yes?" He questions softly, moving about unbuttoning the front of his shirt in such a casual fashion. His eyes are hidden from view as he looks down at her, but she can tell that he doesn't look away from her as he moves his hands down his chest and stomach.
"I'm glad. I'm glad that you…you chose me."
"I feel the same way. About you." Hope now shrugs out of his shirt. Claire roves her eyes over his sparse frame. Tauntingly, she brings a hand up and starts tracing the outline of her breasts, which dip in and out of her plunging dress neckline. Mid-groan, Hope responds in kind by unbuckling his belt with a jerk of his wrist. Biting his lip, he pops the fly of his slacks.
Claire's eyes widen infinitesimally at seeing Hope go to zip down his fly, and she starts to sit up, wriggling out of the top of her dress, but Hope stays her with just the slightest touch of his finger.
"Easy there, Claire. Leave something to my imagination."
"I thought you didn't want to imagine me anymore. I thought the time for that was past. I don't want to haunt you. I don't want to be a ghost-just leaving an impression on your life, and then walking away. I'm ready to be here, to be present with you."
"Then let's be present in this moment together now. Nothing more." Claire nods once, and that seals the pact between them. They understand that the morning will bring about a new life, but right now, they both need to let their bodies talk in ways that their voices can't just yet.
With Claire's nod of consent, Hope zips down his fly. Cheeks flushing just the slightest bit, he shuffles forward a half-step, bringing himself closer to her body so that she can't see him when he takes himself in hand. He isn't quite yet confident enough to let her see him so intimately yet. It's also why he wants her in the dress still-it keeps the last shred of modesty for them both. Crossing the line from guardians and friends to lovers is a big step, and their memories that they have of each other glare too brightly for them to be so candid in this first moment. There will be many more moments in the future when they are more accustomed to their new roles as nurturers of one another.
Claire raises an eyebrow, looking Hope dead in the eye. It's her nonverbal way of sensing what he has done, guessing that he took the step up to shield himself from view from her as a defense mechanism.
With cheeks burning, Hope leans forward with his left hand, bracing him next to her. The heel of his right hand digs into the bar. He looks down, and Claire looks down with him. Her dress is bunched up to her thighs, but her eyes look down out of anticipation and delight.
Hope takes himself, feeling that he's hard and ready. He breathes through his nose, and is surprised to find that he's not shaking. His movements are sure and steady as he brings himself to the front of her opening, and pauses at the entrance.
Claire makes a muted sound behind her mouth, and Hope looks up, wondering if he hurt her somehow. Claire sucks on her lower lip, bats her eyelashes once, and leans fully up on her hands to kiss Hope. They kiss, holding onto one another's lips at first, then moving their heads and mouths. After a few moments, Hope starts to move in circles, guiding his dick around Claire's opening with his hand. He still hasn't entered yet, but they start a dance of sorts. Hope echoes the movements he is doing with his tongue down below. Claire cries out in anguish when Hope pulls his mouth away, and he can't help but grin when he hears the plaintive note in her voice after he pulls back. He likes that she wants him to keep kissing her. He doesn't make her wait long. He leans his head close once again, but instead of continuing the kiss, he starts to tentatively stroke the line of her lips with his tongue. She inhales sharply as Hope traces the outline of both of her lips at the same time. He circles her mouth, and her pussy, in gentle circular waves.
Taking a breath, Hope whispers against her mouth. "You tell me the moment that I go in both holes. When you're ready, let me know." Claire nods once to affirm that she understands, and Hope goes back to teasing her. His cock head is wet now, both from the juices of Claire's pussy, and from the slick pre-cum that he is building up from his arousal. Their juices combine at the entrance to her core, and he stirs the batter in slow motions.
They are both quivering. Claire inhales after a moment, sharply, and Hope cracks his eyes open to slits out of concern. He stops for a moment, and Claire bites out, "Don't-you-fucking-stop."
"Yes, my queen." He pulls his tongue back to form the words, then starts back at the exact place where he left off. Claire wastes no time in licking her lips to suck off Hope's taste into her mouth, swallowing loudly and greedily. When at last she is ready, she opens her eyes wide, nostrils flaring, and grabs Hope's jaw with one hand. Hope's cheeks are squeezed, almost painfully, and he stops right where he is, opening his eyes as well and looking into hers.
Claire growls lowly, shifting her knees further apart. "Do it." Their mouths crash together at the speed of light, and Hope dives his hips forward, snaking his arm around her back as he pushes against Claire to brace him to her chest. He's glad that he does so, because with the force that he smacks into her, she would have slammed down onto the bar.
It's perfect. She's so wet, having just came. She's ready and so hot. Her body is like a tiny furnace, pumping out wetness and heat in a deadly combo.
Hope slams into her up to his balls. Her softly cushioned walls part for him, and the noise they both make at joining for the first time is swallowed in the furious passion of the kiss they are in the middle of. He pauses for a long moment, relishing in experiencing his surroundings balls deep inside of her. He immediately jumps after he hits bottom, taking in more of her as he does so. After a while, the urge to move becomes too great, so he pulls back slowly. He pauses, not choosing to fully withdraw. At the opposite end of his pendulum, when he pulls back to where only his head is inside of her, he can feel Claire squeezing him in response. He loves that feeling. His head is massaged and enticed further down Claire's vagina in undulating pulses that she gives him, Kegel muscles flexing with a suction that only an athlete can create.
He dives in once more, and then the friction is on. He can't wait anymore to pause in between strokes. Waiting is something that he's had to do for so long, and he can't stand it another moment. She didn't seem like she was hurt, so that signals Hope to start claiming what he has sorely been craving for too long. He starts thrusting back and forth, sliding out of her tight slick wetness.
"Oh." Claire states once, not elongated enough to be a moan, but not a statement either. She pulls back from the heated kiss, and decides instead to burrow her face into the crook of Hope's neck. Her arms wrap around Hope's back, and he throws his head back as he moves, closing his eyes and absolutely relishing in the moment.
Her butt starts to scoot farther back into the bar as he works, so he decides to lay her back on the surface. He gets Claire's attention by grabbing the tendrils of pink hair that are thrown over her opposite shoulder, and tugging her face upright so that she is looking at him. She doesn't seem to mind the way that he manipulates her body in this moment. Her eyes roll as she opens them, slitting to look at his concentrated face. He guides her lips in for another kiss with a firm grip on her jaw. After sealing his intent with the kiss, Hope leans forward into Claire, gently guiding her backward with a firm handle across her back. She is shaken at first, but immediately trusts Hope as she grabs him by the upper arms while he lays her slowly and gently back to the bartop. Hope moves with her as he fucks, going at the speed that she sets for herself as he pushes her to lie back and enjoy. Claire's shoulders meet the bartop, and Hope kisses her once on the nose, his lips dusting against the snub of her nose once before he rises up to look down at her. Claire's hands never leave the firmness of Hope's triceps, anchoring on to him even as he regains a standing position.
Her eyes are open, and her mouth parts slightly as well as she blinks up at Hope's face. He moves along in a steady rhythm, and the only sounds that can be heard in that lone desert cantina are their out of sync breathing and the slap-slap of flesh hitting against each other in the night. Hope dives in with each thrust all the way down to his balls, and the sound of their flesh hitting one another is a driving tempo to loudly proclaim his triumph over his soulmate.
Slap-slap, love-love. The sound and syllables are synonymous with Hope's intentions for the rest of his life. His balls are moving, and Hope loves the fact that he can feel himself bottoming out against Claire's uterus each time he takes a swing. He becomes a pendulum, a battering ram, and the staccato beat of his movements echo against the walls in the dark. Their exhalations are the only sounds that they make in the moment.
As time slowly marches onward, Claire starts to move and curl in response to Hope's movements. Her back arches, and every so often her eyes roll to the back of her head as she curls up in happiness and gratitude in the moment. When the small of her back rises up against the wood of the bar, her left leg curls up in time with the movement of her body. Her foot slides up against Hope's pants and cups his buttock as he moves, assisting him with gaining entry to her inner sanctum. She squeezes with her bare heel, then slides her foot back down to dangle against his side. After a few moments, she curls inward once more to start the process all over again.
Her eyes are closed when Hope breaks the sounds of their lovemaking.
"I love you." The statement is choked out, and Claire opens her eyelashes with a flutter. She blinks, and focuses on the halo of his silver hair framing his face against the lights of the bar above them. Through her thought processes, the sound of Hope fucking her seems so loud against their breathing.
She smiles, coiling like a cat and pressing him into her once more with the end of her heel. She turns her head and looks at him through the cascading fall of her pink hair, her side eye game strong.
"I've loved you too, Hope. I'm just sorry that it took me this long to realize it." She turns to fully face him now, looking up at him with large, glassy orbs that speak volumes of her feelings. Hope slams into her with meaningful intent, and he enjoys watching her mouth part slightly in heated response. He stills inside of her, throbbing once at his base intentionally so that way she can feel that he's delighted.
He locks eyes with her, and touches her face with the free hand that isn't supporting her back. "I think you realized your feelings a long time ago-you just couldn't come to grips with them, or how to express them." Claire bites her lip and shies away from his gaze at that statement, and Hope grins from the corner of his mouth after garnering that reaction. He pulls back, then swings forward once more, jutting his hips as far forward as they can go into her. She cries out.
"Was it because you have viewed me as a child for so long-and never got the chance to watch me become an adult till now?" He swings back and plants again, but to Claire's credit, she only squeezes her eyes shut at his action. Her mouth is clamped.
"Claire, answer me. Let me know what is going on in that big beautiful brain of yours." Hope slams again, moving his hands to hold her by the hips. She turns to face him, and Hope arches a brow. "I'm going to stop if you don't start talking."
Claire responds in kind by arching a brow of her own. Hope sees the challenge in her eyes, and he can't help but smile wide. "Very well-as my lady commands." He pushes in as far as he can go, holding Claire close to him as possible. He presses his forehead into hers. Claire gives him a naughty look, cocking her head and biting her lip once more. Her arms wrap around his neck loosely. "Talk to me, my Claire. My Light. My everything. Tell me."
"I have loved you, though my heart was so closed off that I didn't realize that the feelings I was experiencing were love. The only love that I felt was from the time before my parents died-those emotions that I experienced before I put up my walls were the only feelings that endured after they had been built. So that means the only person that I thought I cared for was Serah. But I was wrong. Then…you came along." Hope has started moving now, and Claire's speech has gaps as she processes the feeling of getting fucked while thinking. "You came into my life. We helped each other. I helped you become stronger and overcome your feelings of hatred towards Snow-and mine. But you also helped me to trust in someone by my side. I had to trust the people I had worked with in the Guardian Corps, but not fully. With you…it wasn't a competition. It wasn't a mission in itself, persay. That's what I had trouble with. There was no objective, no target, in the way I was experiencing feelings with you. So I couldn't categorize what I felt than to associate it more closely with the few feelings I had allowed myself to feel-friendship, comradery-that sort of thing."
"I'm no longer in need of protecting. You taught me how to lead, and I kept you with me-even though you weren't there. The lessons you instilled in me were what I leaned on after you were taken away. So that's how I became the Director of the Academy so quickly. No other kid my age had the experiences we went through, and they didn't have a teacher like you. I was heads and shoulders above the thought processes and feelings of the other kids my age competing for the same position. It wasn't fair, really-I was an ex-l'Cie. They had always stayed human. The determination, the target-based thinking-it was how I functioned for years after I thought that I would never see you again. That was the part of you that I kept with me, even though I had imagined that you were gone from my reach. It's what kept me alive-I just applied the same thinking you taught me when we were l'Cie to that other life-"
"Ssh, don't say another word. Now we're here. Let's focus on this." Claire tilts her forehead up and cups Hope's chin. "Let's focus on this moment."
"Gladly, my dear." Hope's voice turns rough in an instant, and he picks up their tempo from slow, lingering thrusts while they have talked to something more fast-paced and intensity driven.
With that acknowledgement between them, Hope bears down and grits his teeth. A single bead of sweat forms on his forehead, and he tosses his head to keep it from splashing down on Claire.
The desert heat is hot. Hope allows the single thought to process before tossing it aside and focusing on the minutiae of the moment-the feel of Claire inside, her skin, her breathing, their hair intertwining.
He affirms to himself to let him show her everything he feels with the way that he fucks. He condenses his heart into a ball, and pushes into Claire, bracing her fall on the table while never switching tempo or speed. He wants everything to be perfect. Hope grabs Claire's legs, hooking an arm under her upper thighs, and holds them to his sides.
Hope manipulates the situation to where he is pulling her toward him with her legs as he pushes in with each stroke, eliciting a stifled moan from Claire the first time he does this. Noting her enthusiasm, Hope bores down even further.
The desert air, the rhythmic pounding, the slap-slap of his balls hitting Claire's taint and the squelching of her juices-all of it is categorized in his brain. All of it is beautiful, all of it loud over the sound of his rushing blood pumping through his brain and into his ears.
He needs to show her that he is a man now. He leans forward, wrapping an arm below each knee and driving her legs back and up as he pushes forward. Her ass is completely lifted off the bar now, with him white-knuckling the hold he has on her legs for leverage. He grunts once, baring his teeth.
Claire pants loudly, but otherwise makes no other sound. His pants fall down to his legs, and then pool around his ankles, and still he keeps going. Nothing shall deter him.
A tell-tale ache in his balls tells Hope that he is ready. He can feel his cum building to the point that the pressure is halfway down his dick, and he looks down at the bunched dress shielding themselves from his view, protecting her modesty even in this decadent hour.
He exhales loudly, but doesn't stop. He is mad at himself for being almost ready so fast, but to his credit, it IS the love of his life, and this is their first time. He is still fairly new to sex, after all, and to fuck the lady he's crushed on for so long is the biggest turn-on of his life.
Fuck it, he can't help it. He doesn't even bother to hold back. "Claire-Claire…I'm going to cum." Wheeze. "Soon."
Claire's head is hanging off the end of the bar, and her neck is thrown provocatively back. Looking down at her jiggling tits half-hanging out of the top of that sleeveless dress as he thrusts into her is so damn provocative.
"I-I understand. Hope. I want you. I want you-in me. It's been-too long. Let's make this last. Hope. Let loose. I want to feel you. Hope. Come on. Please. Hope. Yes. Hope-"
It's too much. Hope's temples are throbbing. She's using my name. She's using my name in that tone of voice. He closes his eyes, throws his head back, and opens them, looking down at his lady love like that, her legs bouncing on the front of his shoulders.
He can't deny what his love wants. He can't deny himself-or his longing for so long. Everything about what they are doing feels right-damn the fact that they are banging the shit out of each other in secret in a desert cantina, half drunk, at four in the morning.
"Claire-Claire, are you sure." It's all that he can say. He gasps this out in between thrusts. Her legs, her tits, are showing the strain of his efforts with every thrust that he makes. He is clutching her calves, holding on to dear life, as he pounds away at her soft center. This moment is beautiful, is necessary, is needed. It had been too long. Now is the time for reckoning.
"Hope Estheim." Claire doesn't elaborate further, just says his name as she brings her head up to look at him, straining to look into his eyes from hanging off the edge of the bar. They look into each other's eyes, a mutual understanding passing between souls, even in this very physical moment of communication between the two of them.
His name from her lips, his full name, is all that Hope needs to hear. She is in charge, she lets him know what is okay and what is not. He takes her cue, takes her lead, and takes her. All with her blessing.
"I'm here!" Is what he chooses to say at that moment, and in the moment, the phrase seems right. With a mighty roar up to the ceiling, veins bulging at his neck, he thrusts one last time into her, and jettisons what he has inside him inside of Claire with all of his remaining strength.
Her legs support him, uphold him in the most literal sense, and he throbs and juts inside of her. It is his contribution, burrowing himself inside of her, letting her know that he is connected to her in the deepest sense.
The orgasm lasts for so long, and a single tear trickles down from his face as his lower half ejaculates as well. He drops his head and cracks his eyes open mid-orgasm to look at Claire, to show her the effect that she is having on him as he cums into her.
Claire's eyes are liquid magic, and they capture him in their wide-eyed stare as he finishes his work. Neither of the two look away from each other as Hope takes his time emptying into her. The moment is so intimate, so full of magic.
Hope expends himself finally with an exhale, and folds farther into Claire, his back crumpling and nearly losing control of holding him upright. He catches himself, pulling himself up with the help of bracing his hands again around Claire's calves. She hasn't moved, but Hope notices that she leans her head back and closes her eyes in recognition of the heat and liquid that Hope gives her, pouring into her as the seconds tick by.
She opens her eyes the moment that she doesn't feel anything anymore, and looks into Hope's face. He is breathing rapidly, and pushes himself up. Holding himself, he looks down after a long while, pulling himself out of her opening by grabbing his dick around its base.
There is a sucking sound as the two audibly disconnect, and with Hope pulling back, a hot stream of juices from the both of them flow from where he was plugging them together. He blinks, pulling out the last beady drop from the top of his head. There is a last jolt that passes through him, a spasm at the back, and he moves forward to wipe the last drop of cum at the top of Claire's opening. He allows his love to keep her dignity to the end, only moving by feel and not sight as he wipes himself in an almost banal way off on her opening, then pulls back to quickly zip up. Her dress still blocks her pussy, and Claire makes no move to cover herself in the first few seconds that tick by from their uncoupling.
There is only the sound of their panting breaths at first, until Claire takes the initiative and breaks the silence.
"Hope-that was long overdue."