A/N: Twitter conversations showed this scenario is probably OOC for a lot of people, but the idea had already come to me and it felt plausible enough so I decided to write it anyway.
The statistic at the beginning came from a Time article - I couldn't figure out if the study was recent or not, because a lot of different numbers came up on my research, but the article was recent so I decided it must be credible, haha (and it helps that it was on a magazine Harvey might actually read).
Hope you like it :)
"Holy shit," Harvey murmurs next to her on the couch.
"What?" Donna asks distractedly, flipping a page on her book.
"This article says that research found that almost 80% of the women interviewed had faked an orgasm," he shows her the magazine he's reading. Donna leans over, takes a quick look at what he just read and goes back to her book, unsurprised.
"That makes sense."
"It does?"
"Yeah. Pretty much every woman I know who has sex with men has faked it at some point," she comments absentmindedly.
"Have you?" comes the question in the usual tone Harvey has when he's particularly curious about something.
"Pfff, of course," Donna snorts, barely having to think about her response. She thinks back to her late teens and early twenties, to fumbly nights in the back of cars, stolen moments in dorm rooms, risky escapades while parents watched TV downstairs. There was such a strong desire to please and to fit in even despite her self-assuredness and strong personality, and there were many good moments, but also many not-great moments, moments she felt she couldn't be honest to her partners about. And, of course, there's always the cocky guys who think too highly of themselves and refuse to entertain the idea that they might not know how to please a woman, and will keep trying until they succeed (or so they think).
So, yeah. Be it out of insecurity, affection for who she was with, or simply to put an end to the sex without the need for further arguments, Donna has faked her fair share of orgasms, though that practice got almost eradicated once she grew into herself enough to start being honest about not coming.
While she's still musing about her past adventures, she sees out of the corner of her eye Harvey's expression shifting from amused surprise at her response, presumably unexpected to him, into troubled realization.
He doesn't even need to say anything for her to know exactly what he's thinking, and she closes her book and shakes her head, wanting to put a stop to his train of thought before it even makes it out of his head. "Harvey...," she warns.
"Come on, you can't tell me that and expect me not to wonder," he complains.
"You know I love having sex with you," she tries to assuage his worries.
"That's not an answer."
"Yes, it is."
"Fine, that's not the answer, then," he rolls his eyes at her lawyerism, audibly impatient.
Donna just watches him, trying to call his bluff while she silently decides whether to be honest with him or not.
"Seriously, I wanna know," he insists, and she figures she has gone too long in silence to be able to credibly lie to him anyway, so she just sighs and braces herself.
"Okay, fine. Once."
His face falls so instantly and visibly, it would almost be comical if it were a different context.
"It was back when Faye was at the firm," she rushes to explain. "She'd dumped a ton of work on me and I couldn't get it done on time and I decided to just leave it and come home, but then I kept thinking about everything I had to finish the next day and I just couldn't let it go for long enough to focus."
She normally wouldn't explain herself - she did nothing wrong. But she knows guys can get touchy about this sort of thing, and this particular situation wasn't Harvey's fault anyway.
"I thought I was good at distracting you with sex," Harvey continues around a pout, clearly on a train of thought all of his own.
She chuckles at his almost-childlike whine. "You are," she assures him, because he is almost too good at that. She has lost count of the amount of times he's been successful at that. "It just… didn't work that day," she shrugs.
Harvey contemplates her words, clearly troubled, and she sighs internally at the average male's fragile masculinity. Harvey is better than most of the guys she's met, comfortable in his own skin and very committed to her pleasure regardless of what it entails, but, at the end of the day, he still hasn't fully outgrown his proclivity for some macho man antics.
"You could have at least told me," he complains once again, though he now sounds a little more resigned, and she figures that's a fair point. She did have issues sharing some things at the beginning of their relationship, and she knows how important it is to Harvey that she trust him.
It wasn't really about trust, though. "I did it because I knew it would put a damper on your side of things and I didn't want that to happen," she explains. "And also because I didn't want you to think you were doing something wrong."
"Well, I sure am now," he grouches petulantly.
"Hey," Donna chastises him instantly, though not unkindly, "You were the one who wanted to know." She'll gladly explain herself and reassure him, but she will not allow him to make her feel guilty because of his wounded pride.
To his benefit, Harvey instantly catches himself, his neck and cheeks tinging with pink as he presses his lips together sheepishly. "Sorry." Then, after a beat, "I just hate the idea that I might have made you feel like you had to lie to me about enjoying yourself."
At that, she softens, finally understanding his true concern – not about his virility, but about her potential residual discomfort about opening up to him.
"You didn't make me feel that, Harvey," she tells him gently, "And I was enjoying myself. A lot." He's still visibly unconvinced, picking at a piece of lint on his sweatpants, and she turns to him on the couch, leaning against the backrest.
"You know, besides the Faye thing, that was a perfect night. You left the office earlier, cooked me your mother's casserole recipe and put one of Gordon's records on when I got home. It was one of the first times I got a glimpse of your romantic streak," she tells him amusedly, reaching over to stroke his hair and disheveling it a little. "You did everything right. I just didn't get there," she concludes, shrugging a shoulder.
He bites the inside of his cheek and watches her closely, and she waits patiently while he works through his feelings on the matter.
"You know you can tell me when that's the case, right? For whatever reason. I don't want you to feel like you owe me anything," he finally tells her, tone serious.
"I do know that. And I've been telling you ever since," she reassures him again, because it's true. Sex with him has always been incredible, and on days when her body isn't cooperating much, Harvey is dedicated and patient, doing everything he can to make her feel good, as well as taking every direction she gives him on the rare occasions when what he's doing isn't what she's looking for.
But here and there, there have been a few times when it became clear that it just wasn't going to happen, and she was honest about it, and Harvey took it well despite an understandable tinge of disappointment. It really wasn't personal that night, everything was just going so great she didn't want to burst the bubble for either one of them.
Harvey exhales and she thinks she detects a certain amount of weight lifting off his shoulders. "You're sure it was just that one time?"
"Just that one time, I promise."
"Okay," the corner of his mouth finally quirks upwards and he squeezes her knee, eliciting a smile from her in return.
"I mean, when you consider one time in a universe of hundreds of thousands-" he goes on, his smirk growing deviously, and Donna erupts into laughter.
"We have not done it hundreds of thousands of times."
"Hm, I think we're pretty close to that," he pretends to consider the matter, arguing it like he would in court, and she shakes her head at him.
"You're an idiot," she tells him with a quirked brow and a chuckle, and the grin he gives her tells her he heard the underlying "I love you" in her words.
He leans over and gives her a noisy smooch, effectively ending their discussion, and she kisses him back, happy to give in to him. They go for minutes on end, and she takes the moment to thank the Heavens once again that they get to have this after so many years of uncertainty.
Harvey shakes her out of her reverie by pulling back just enough to murmur, "How about I make you come twice right now to make up for that night?"
She laughs, her whole body filled with glee and love and desire for him. "I could get behind that."
He smiles against her lips. "Speaking of getting behind…" In a swift movement, he grabs her waist and maneuvers her underneath him on the couch. Donna squeals in delighted surprise, but promptly parts her legs to accommodate him, and the go hours making up for that night and every other night they'd wanted to be together and couldn't.