Every time he had to visit that junkyard of statues and tapestries that Bluebeard called his home, he rolled his eyes at the taste. Having a castle magically smashed into a New York apartment was always going to be tacky, but… whatever.
He knocked on the door. Within seconds Bluebeard's goblin butler was there.
"Official Fabletown business" said Bigby and took a drag of his cigarette.
Without a word, but with a dubious look Hobbes let him in and led to Bluebeard's office, where he was to wait for the suspect. There were a few armchairs padded with pillows, but he didn't sit down. It wasn't the kind of business that was done sitting at the desk.
And Bluebeard was making him wait, just to annoy him. And he was successful at that, Bigby was in fact annoyed that it was taking more time than it should, when he already had plans for the night. Getting to tell Bluebeard he was caught would be a great way to spend an evening a month ago, but now he had more enjoyable things to do, and it was already past working hours, because during the day Bluebeard was often out of the house, as was the case today.
When he finally showed up, wearing a robe over a shirt like it made any sense, he smelled like he was lately having sex with Rose Red. Bigby barely noted it, almost everyday he learned about some affair, he didn't care.
"What brings the sheriff to my doorstep?" Bluebeard didn't comment on smoking, but looked at the cigarette with disdain.
"Tax fraud suspicion, the date of the start of your process will be appointed soon."
His face reddened in indignation. No shame, no remorse, he was just mad at the audacity it took to bring him to justice.
"Who is behind those claims? I demand to know the names." He was making up his rights at the spot. Might've worked on somebody else.
"You're sued by Fabletown."
"It's an unfounded plea…" Of course, what else was Bluebeard to do, but get infuriated and deny everything. It was easy to predict, but still just as irritating.
"Oh, shut the fuck up, it was long time coming. You could've at least stuck to your own lies."
"This kind of language is below my dignity, I will report…"
"Be my guest," Bigby stated. "You're not allowed to leave the city until the process ends. If you do, I will bring you back and add a few allegations. And I can't promise you'd get to keep all of your limbs." After all, Snow allowed him to have fun with it.
That was all he had to say, so he left. And he had to give one thing to Bluebeard, he wasn't trying to waste any more of his time, and just kept quiet.
"You got it over with?" Snow asked him the moment he opened the door. She must've heard him from the corridor, because she was standing in the middle of the anteroom with her arms crossed. He saw her in the office a few hours earlier, but he had to deny himself the pleasure of appreciating how sexy she looked in that tight, white dress.
"Yes, he's all yours."
"How did he react?" She had a small smile on her face when she asked that. Bigby came closer and put his hand on her waist. Her smile got wider the moment he touched her. He missed her so much since he left her apartment in the morning. The happiness he felt from her when they were together was melting his heart.
"He got angry and started lying, we'll see how long he will keep it up," he answered calmly. All the irritation at Bluebeard was gone when he looked at her.
Instead of answering him, she leaned in for a kiss. And he missed that too, and a lot. Every time it felt so electrifying. Could he ever get used to it? It was only getting better with time. When she parted her lips… fuck, nothing else mattered to him.
He was barely thinking, when he pushed her against the wall and she started unbuttoning his shirt. Through the joy of seeing her again he got very horny in a very short time. Snow jumped onto him, he was holding her with one hand on her back and the other he slid under her skirt, gripping her ass. She was wearing garters.
As his shirt got unbuttoned, she took advantage of it with her hands wandering all over his chest. Knowing how much into it she was made him so much more turned on, and there was no way for her to not notice it, when she was smashed between the wall and him. He didn't need much more to just fuck her on that wall, wouldn't even be the first time.
All of the sudden he heard the door being swung wide open with a momentum. Within not even a second Snow sprang off him and he turned his head to see Bluebeard standing on the doorstep.
"Miss White… You're sleeping together?" he said, surprised by what he was seeing.
"You're a genius, how did you figure that out?" Bigby answered and turned back to Snow. She had no patience for being smug, her face showed nothing but anger.
"Get the fuck away from here," she said dryly to the intruder.
For some fucking reason, he didn't just leave. He tried to say something, but lost his train of thought.
"She told you to get the fuck away," Bigby said, walking Bluebeard's way to throw him out. That got him back to his senses and he finally just went out and even closed the door behind himself. For a moment Bigby regretted that Bluebeard didn't start anything, he felt like punching him.
"Why didn't you lock the door?" He heard Snow's voice.
"Were you thinking about locking the door?" he turned the question before getting to it and finally turning the stupid lock.
"Fuck," she said looking at the ceiling and marched out to the living room. He buttoned up his shirt, wiped lipstick from his face and went after her. She was sitting on the couch with her head tilted back on the backrest.
"I can go out and kill him," he said, then sat down next to her.
"Don't kill him. It would only make it worse." He liked how matter-of-factly she said that. She wasn't mad at the proposition at all. "We cannot keep it a secret anymore, it's the only way he won't be able to use it against me."
"How do you know anyone will believe him?" Not that he was against telling everyone the truth, but he didn't want her to make choices she wasn't fully behind. He could hear in her voice how averse she still was to the thought of announcing publicly that she had relations with him.
"They won't believe Miss Muffet, they will believe him. It's not just gossip when he says it. I bet he's planning to blackmail me as we speak."
"What was he even trying to do?"
"Bribe me, I'm quite sure." She exhaled and looked at him. "And now he feels like he won't even have to do that."
"How are you planning to go about it? Just start telling everybody?"
"No, that's… I don't know. Just stop denying it." She was visibly tired by the idea. "Maybe I will do something to fuel the rumors. Ask Briar for a favor."
So to not let Bluebeard get away with damaging the city budget she was going to tarnish her reputation – which is only gonna be tarnished, because some of the fables she's trying to help suck.
"I'm sorry about it." He didn't question her logic, even though he felt like too many fables already believed they were fucking for anything that Bluebeard could say to have any leverage. He said that many times and it didn't change her outlook. "I should've locked the door."
"It doesn't matter now." Snow looked at him with sorrow in her eyes and he wanted to hug her, but didn't. She might've thought that he just wanted to get back to foreplay. "You know, I was thinking about it before. How would it feel if everybody just knew and if it wouldn't be in some way easier if I could learn to not care. I thought perhaps someday that could be possible for me…" That was new. However things turned out, it was nice to know stopping hiding wasn't out of the question in the first place. She told him it wasn't about being ashamed of him, but he didn't fully believe it until now.
"So it happened faster, but maybe you can make peace with it."
"I've never made peace with one thing in my entire life."
"Maybe you can live with it."
"That's more achievable," she stated with empty sadness that was heart-breaking to watch. It was insufferably frustrating that he could do nothing about it. And it was in some way, again, his fault.
"Do you even want me to stay or do you want to be left alone?"
"Do you want to stay when I'm not in the mood?"
"Of course." She slightly smiled at him. He wanted to reach for her hand, but didn't, but when Snow moved closer to him and leaned against his shoulder, he gladly embraced her.
"Don't be gross when you talk about us."
"I wouldn't do that." The mere thought was unappealing. What they had was beautiful and pure, at least to him, he would never talk about her like he didn't care about her. It would be so disloyal. "Everyone who will hold it against you is a piece of shit," he said while warily caressing her hair.
"I guess being called a whore for actually having sex will be better than for being raped." People were just so fucking disgusting. He didn't consider himself to hold especially high moral standard, obviously, but fuck, some things were still so far below him. "And I know you like going around hitting people for offending me, limit that, to zero, preferably. I don't want you to do that and I know you'd like to do it even more now."
"I'll do what I can," he promised, because he had to. She was right, he would love to keep hitting people for offending her honor.
"In general you could use less violence. I'm getting complaints as it is, now they will start saying that I let you do whatever you want because we're having sex."
"You hired me because I can be violent," he reminded her.
"Yes, but you can limit that to situations that demand it."
"And you get to decide which situations demand it."
"Well, yes."
"I wanted to say you're not the boss of me, but that's not true," he said to, hopefully, lighten the mood. It partially worked. Snow brushed her head against his chest.
"Do you want to lie down in bed with me?" Stupid question.
Snow cuddled with him like she often did at night and he didn't know what to make of it. He loved that she turned to him for support, but he didn't want to take it for more than it was. But how much was it?
"I'm trying to think positively about this," she said into his collarbone.
"Hmm…?" He embraced her waist.
"Everybody hates me anyway, now I will at least make the very specific audience of fables who desperately want you to fuck them even more jealous than I already have." He wanted to laugh because he wasn't sure how big that alleged audience actually was, but he was definitely happy she felt better.
"How often do you get offers?"
"It happens…" But he was never interested in fables that weren't her. He could fuck a mundy woman, sure, but he didn't want to have history with anyone who's gonna be around in the community forever. Also many times those propositions were presented to him in exchange for getting away with minor crimes. "How often do you get offers?"
"I used to, I don't anymore, if you don't count Crane. I think I've rejected enough men so they don't even try anymore. And 'offer' is a very elegant word to call it."
"I didn't try, because I was sure you would reject me. And fire me presumably?"
"Even if I wasn't longing for your dick I wouldn't fire you, you're too important."
"Who else would do this job for this pay?"
"And with no prospects of a raise. Especially now that people are about to find out."
"Satisfaction working with you brings me suffices."
She smiled at his words and looked at him with… he wasn't sure. Excitement? He wasn't expecting it for a while, he thought she would be upset longer. Not that it was unwelcome.
They looked into each other's eyes for a bit and then slowly leaned closer to kiss. It seemed more tender than usual, like they were doing it for the first time.
He didn't know for how long they were kissing before he felt her hands reaching to the buttons of his shirt. It was different to how she did it when he showed up in her apartment. Her movement wasn't hastened, she was careful, taking her time. In hindsight he could've predicted it would end like this when she asked him to go to bed with her, but he didn't.
He reached out and unzipped her dress, wondering how she even put it on alone. She straightened up and then moved to the side to help him take it off her. He slid it down her legs to see yet another set of white, lacy lingerie that made her look even more sexy than she did in that dress.
He took off his shirt before getting on top of her. He was hard from smelling her arousal, but didn't move further. He enjoyed how slowly the situation was developing. They went back to kissing, it was just hotter with less clothes on. It was still more affectionate than most times when they were intimate before. He couldn't explain it, and maybe it was just him, but it felt like they didn't just spend three days fucking, but were working late hours and started to feel some tension. Something that he could maybe imagine happening before she outwardly asked him if he wanted them to start having sex, but always bashed himself for dwelling on the fantasy.
Kissing her in this almost innocent way, with their lips touching rather than tongues, was very nice, but he had to admit it was starting to turn him on too much. The thought of ardently licking her pussy was more difficult to push away from his mind every moment, so he decided to not oppose it. Maybe he didn't rip her panties off, but he started to kiss her neck and move lower down her cleavage.
Her partially transparent bra made her pink nipples look like they were sprinkled with snow. It was cute, but he wanted to touch her skin, so he reached behind her back to take it off.
Bigby always reacted the same way to the sight of her naked breasts. It was a mixture of awe, arousal and honor. He kissed her lips again, this time playing with her nipple at the same time. She was more wet every moment and it solidified his erection. Now the desire to just fuck her was fighting his initial plan of going down on her. After such a long foreplay he knew she was ready for him.
He would've asked her what she wanted to do next, if she didn't repeatedly tell him it was a turn on for her when he was making decisions. He decided to listen to his body and take off his pants. When he got off her to undress, she immediately knew what he wanted and took off her panties, leaving black stockings and garters on.
He didn't take much more time before putting it in. She moaned as he entered, she was waiting for it. He started very slowly, not as usual. He kept kissing her, when did he get to kiss her during sex last time? He loved it, he should do it more often. And it was turning him on so much, too much, maybe, but he was keeping it slow enough he could keep it up as long as he needed to. He focused on thrusting it deeply instead of quickly, while making small circles around her clit with his right thumb. His left elbow was sadly necessary for support, so he couldn't touch her breasts at the same time.
Every thrust caused a reaction from her. He felt her breathing deeply and moving her hips to match his rhythm. There was calmness in it, but it didn't mean there wasn't also excitement, on both sides. She was relaxed and blissful, like she wasn't on the verge of screaming or crying not that long ago. He wanted to believe that those sad, angry thoughts left her for a bit because of him, that she found comfort in his arms.
When Snow was close to her orgasm, she once again started to moan under him, and it sounded amazing. Every sound, every sign of pleasure she gave was welcome. He didn't expect it, but right before she climaxed she reached for his left hand, situated just above her head, and held it like they were a couple taking a walk in the park. It was delightful and he almost broke his rhythm because of it, not that he was mad about it.
When it was his time to come, he lifted his head to look at her glowing, smiling face and he couldn't think about anything else but how much he loved her and hoped he would never lose her. He didn't feel such a strong inclination to just confess to it for a long time.