Wined and Dined

Hughie looked up to see the host leading Ashley across the restaurant to his table, which was tucked away in an obscure corner. He'd asked for something out of the way because he wanted privacy for what they'd be talking about. Out of nerves, he reached up to adjust his tie. Victoria Neuman had helped him pick out his new work wardrobe, and he felt confident that the gray suit he wore was both fashionable and attractive. It certainly was a step into a new tax bracket for someone who'd been working in an electronics store not so long ago.

He stood when she reached him and held her chair while she sat down. "Hughie, it's a pleasure to see you again."

"You too, Ashley." He fell silent for a few moments to look at her. He had never seen her in evening wear; since his new position with Victoria Neuman brought them into contact at Vought, he was already familiar with her corporate power outfits. Tonight, though, an Ashley sat across from the table that he'd never met. Her hair was its usual, loose and touching her shoulders, but the strapless white dress she wore left those shoulders completely exposed and the fitted bodice emphasized her cleavage. The skirt ended at her knees, but the hem in front was like an upside-down V and the tip of the V ended at mid-thigh, and he didn't think she was wearing stockings or pantyhose. Why had she dressed this way for dinner with him? He had to snap himself back to awareness once he became aware of how hard he was staring at her breasts. "How have you been?" he asked, to try to cover his lapse into ogling.

She hadn't seemed to notice, opening the menu and perusing it. "Oh, about as usual, Hughie. And yourself?"

He never thought about Ashley's breasts, as they weren't front and center in her usual wardrobe the way Annie's were—and he flinched at the thought of his girlfriend. What would she say if she were here, witnessing him practically leering over another woman's body? And a woman she despised, at that. "The new job suits me, I think. I'm happier there. I feel like I have a purpose."

"Good, I'm glad," she murmured. "The suit looks good on you."

"Thanks. Your dress looks good too. On you, I mean." He cursed himself for stumbling over a simple compliment when she glanced up from the menu at him. Her eyes were dark blue. Had he ever noticed what color her eyes were?

"Well, thank you, Hughie. Have you ordered yet?"

"Uh, no, but I was going to get the coq au vin. I wanted to wait for you." And the conversation he planned to have with Ashley might go down better for him on a full stomach. Why had he even asked her to have dinner with him, other than the fact that he couldn't discuss his problem with anyone in his circle: not Butcher, not Frenchie or Kimiko, not Marvin, definitely not Victoria? He couldn't reach out to his father in case Homelander still had surveillance in place and would use knowledge of his father's location as leverage, and his mother was long, long gone. So, somehow, that left Ashley as the only one he could confide in. He wondered how that had happened.

She nodded. "It's a good choice." Those dark blue eyes kept scanning the menu until she spotted something that made her face light up. "This place has canard aux Montmorency!"

"What's that?"

"Duck with cherries, but it isn't something you see a lot around here. It's a traditional French dish and almost everywhere in town serves nouvelle cuisine. It's my favorite French food. I can't believe you found a place that serves it!"

Hughie felt himself fill with pride, even though the items on the menu were nothing he'd paid a second's worth of attention to. "Well, I'm glad you're happy. Are you drinking?"

She nodded. "I could use a little relaxation while I'm away from Vought. I don't get much of that when Homelander's around."

"I can imagine." With what Annie and Butcher had told him about Homelander, and what he'd witnessed himself, he could only assume her days at work were a nightmare at best and torture at worst. "Why don't you quit?" It was something he'd wondered about for a long time. Maybe she was in love with Homelander?

Ashley gave him a disbelieving look. "I don't want to get into this too deeply, but I know too much at this point. I think he'd do away with me before he'd let me go."

"Then he's a goddamned moron. Pardon my language," he hastened to say. "There is nobody who would be better at your job than you, and if he can't see that he's pretty stupid."

A smile spread over her face, revealing the gap between her front teeth, and he thought she was a lot cuter than he'd thought on the handful of previous encounters they'd had. "Thank you, Hughie. I'm flattered."

The arrival of the server kept him from having to reply, and he ordered for them. Their server suggested a Pinot Noir to pair with their meal and he got them a bottle of that. Both of them would need some alcoholic fortification for what he needed to talk about with her. After their wine arrived, he took a sip before asking, "Are you in love with Homelander?"

She almost choked on her wine. "I hope you aren't drunk after one sip. I didn't know you were that cheap a date."

He smiled a little. "Not drunk, just wondering. There were a few times I thought there might be something between the two of you."

"Nope," said Ashley, taking another hasty sip of wine. "I don't fuck men who call me a mudperson. It shows a basic lack of respect, in my opinion."

"Jesus. Is he a racist or something?"

Ashley shrugged. "Well, he hates all humans and most supes, so I'm not sure you'd call that racism. Maybe misanthropy?"

Hughie nodded, but his mind wasn't on the subject of Homelander's bigotry. "I had something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Sure. Whatever you need."

"It's…kind of personal. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but I don't have anyone else I can talk to about this and I need some fresh eyes to help me see what's going on."

"Better and better," she said. "What's on your mind, Hughie?"

"It's about Annie. We're having some troubles in our relationship."

"Is she cheating?"

Now it was his turn on choke on wine. "What? No! She doesn't like sex."

Whatever Ashley had expected him to say, it wasn't that. Her mouth opened a little, but she didn't say anything immediately. When she did speak, she asked, "Is that the issue, that she doesn't like sex?"

"That's a big part of it, but not all." He took a breath, then admitted, "She bores me, Ashley. We have no interests in common and nothing to talk about."

"Yeah, I guess the beautiful face and hot body only go so far. Have you tried talking to her about it?"

"What, the boredom or the not liking sex?"

"Both. Either. Is she open to talking?"

Hughie shook his head. "Not really. And it's not just that she bores me because she doesn't have any interests outside of—" He cut himself off, remembering that he shouldn't talk about Butcher and his vendetta in front of Ashley. "Well, any interests, really. She…doesn't seem to have much of an inner life."

"Are you saying she's dumb?"

"No!" he protested, but he couldn't think of a better descriptor for one of his issues with Annie.

"Hey, it's okay if you want to say that. She is, and I say that from the dealings I had with her when I was her handler. She has no idea of cause and effect, or consequences, especially involving her own actions, and a complete inability to see the big picture. Everything becomes about her if you give her long enough to think about it."

That was a surprise, that Ashley agreed with him. It gave him some confidence to move into the more…sensitive areas of his relationship troubles. "She…well, she also bores me in bed." And that was something he'd never counted on in the early days of the relationship, when he was too busy being overjoyed that a woman as beautiful as Annie had even noticed him at all, much less agreed to be in a relationship with him, to fuck him. If he knew then what he knew now…

"How so?" The server arrived with their food and they both fell silent. Hughie took the opportunity to watch Ashley as she regarded the canard aux Montmorency with what he could only call lust. Annie had never looked at him like that, not even when he was naked. He found himself noticing Ashley's mouth, unexpectedly generous, sensuous, under a thin layer of dark rose lipstick. Was it just that she was away from Vought, outside a work environment, that allowed her to soften into sexiness?

The server left and Ashley looked at him expectantly. Almost too late he remembered what she'd asked him. "How she bores me in bed?"

She nodded. "You should know she's never had any sex partners other than Supersonic. Since they were both teenagers when they hooked up, she feels a lot of guilt about it. Losing her virginity, you know. That also comes from the conservative Christian upbringing her mother gave her."

He goggled at her. "And you know this how?" No way would Annie have talked about any of this with her, since she disliked Ashley as strongly as she did. He didn't know why she felt that way, but she had no problem showing her loathing of her former handler.

"Vought has psychological profiles done on any supes under consideration for membership in the Seven. I had access to hers since I was her handler."

"Well, I knew about Supersonic. She did tell me about that." Not about the guilt, though; he had known she was raised a strict Christian.

Ashley took a bite of her food. Her eyes closed in response, and a moan of ecstasy escaped her. Hughie's eyes widened and he felt blood coursing into his cock. How could she be so much sexier than a woman who was objectively so much more beautiful than she was? "Oh, this is wonderful. It's been too long since I had this."

To distract himself he took a bite of his own dish. The chicken with wine was fine, he supposed, since he doubted a restaurant as expensive as this one would allow substandard food to leave the kitchen, but he was too focused on Ashley to give the food proper attention. "I'm glad you like it."

He didn't want to spoil her pleasure in the canard aux Montmorency by peppering her with details about his dissatisfaction with his sex life, so for a long while they both applied themselves to their food and their wine. Hughie felt lighter for talking about his concerns at all, even though he hadn't even told her everything yet. Maybe it was just being listened to without being judged. That might have been an issue with anyone on the team, as he couldn't help but feel that they thought she was more valuable than he was because she was a supe.

After the first edge of hunger was gone, she looked back at him and sipped at her wine. "So how does Starlight bore you in bed?"

Ashley never called Annie by any name other than her supe moniker. He wondered why but didn't ask. Maybe she didn't like Annie any more than Annie liked her. "Could be inexperience, or the not liking sex, but she never does anything but lie there in bed. It's like she only tolerates me and I'm getting sick and tired of it."

Setting her wineglass down, she ran a finger over its stem while looking at him. "Hughie, I'm going to tell you something that might be considered a breach of confidence. That's if she knew about the psych profile, but I'm not sure she knows it exists. She probably just thinks she was sitting there answering hours' worth of senseless questions to get into the Seven, not being profiled." Ashley took another bite while he waited for her to decide. "You…well, she has a kink she may not know about."

His eyebrow tried to climb into his hairline. "What?"

She sighed. "In for a penny, in for a pound. Based on the answers she gave to certain questions the psychiatrists were asking, they concluded that she has a daddy kink."

"What?" His vocabulary seemed to have shrunk to that one word.

"Uh—her father left the family when she was a baby and she had no father figure in her life, so she feels that she was deprived of paternal love. Getting love from a father figure would soothe that need."

"What about mine? Isn't my love anything?" Despite the shock he'd just had, he thanked God he'd been smart enough to invite Ashley to dinner. He wouldn't have a suspicion of this without her.

"Oh, I'm sure she loves you as much as she could love any man who isn't a father figure," she hastened to assure him. "She'd be even dumber than I think she is if she couldn't appreciate you. You're a nice guy, Hughie, and not the kind that is nice until they figure out that won't get them what they want and their true colors show themselves. You may just be sexually mismatched. It happens sometimes. It's nobody's fault."

"Do you think…maybe roleplaying?" His mind cast around for some way to preserve the relationship that he'd been giving serious thought to ending.

Ashley shook her head. "She's not adventurous enough for that. Like I said, she may not know she has this kink. I'd definitely watch for signs, though. Does she spend a lot of time with Mr. Butcher? Does she talk about him a lot? Do they have a relationship that feels like it excludes you?" His mouth fell open and she scoffed. "Please, I know about your little group. So does Homelander, by the way."

"You think she wants Billy?" Had there been interactions between them that he hadn't paid attention to, things that would give away a burgeoning relationship between his best friend and his girlfriend? But it's always the best friend, his mind told him.

"He would be the perfect candidate, short of Homelander. He's twenty years older than she is and the authority figure in your group. Makes sense she'd be attracted to him. She's got the guilt, though, so she might not be comfortable just fucking him. She might need to think she's in love."

Hughie drained his wineglass and filled it again. "I'm not going to put up with that. I don't care how beautiful she is. If she wants that she can have the balls to break up with me."

She reached across the table to pat his hand. "Relax, Hughie. You don't know that any of this is going on. It's only a possibility. But you said she bores you in bed by just lying there like a lump. Have you tried talking to her about it?"

"Yes, but she refuses to listen to anything I say that has to do with sex. She says it's dirty and she won't hear it." He turned his hand over and grasped Ashley's. "And there's no one I can talk to about this except you."

"I'm honored." She left her hand in his. "What would a satisfying sexual relationship look like to you? It might help if you had a clear idea of what you do want in mind, rather than just focusing on what you aren't getting."

"Right. Uh, well, I'd like someone who's responsive when I do something. Someone who's willing to do things to me. Adventurous, like you said. Someone who enjoys doing things to me and having things done. It's the lack of enjoyment that really gets to me. I've been thinking seriously about breaking up with her. It's that bad." What he didn't want to acknowledge was that he suspected Annie had been a rebound relationship after Robin's death. And rebound relationships never lasted.

"I'm sorry you're so unhappy, Hughie."

Suddenly he felt something nudging at his groin, and after a moment of utter frozen shock he realized it was Ashley's foot. He reached under the table to remove it from his lap and his hand slid along the smooth skin on top of her bare foot. He'd been right—she wasn't wearing pantyhose or stockings. Her toes wriggled against his cock and a surge of pleasure went through him. "Ashley—"

"Do you want me to stop, Hughie?" The sole of her foot moved rhythmically against him and he found himself not removing it but pulling it into tighter contact with his cock. She smiled at him, knowing, seductive. "Tell me, do you want to stop?"

"No! Ashley, don't stop." Quickly he took a look around the room to see if anyone had noticed what was going on, but all the other diners and staff seemed engrossed in their own activities.

"Nothing to worry about," she told him. "Linen tablecloth goes all the way to the carpet. As long as you can do a decent job of pretending everything's normal, we can do this as long as you want. We'll pick at our food and leave a big tip. Does it feel good?"

"Yes." His voice cracked on the word, and he cleared his throat before repeating it.

"Do you still like adventurous?" A little smile hovered around her mouth and she squirmed a bit in her chair to curl her toes against the head of his cock. His whole body jumped.

"Yes, I still like it." Annie would never have had a single thought about doing this; the risk of getting caught would have been too much, plus she didn't really like to do anything for him in bed. Whenever he'd made the mistake of asking, early in their relationship, she'd given him an affronted look and told him she wasn't going to do anything dirty. It was an unpleasant shock; when he'd been with Robin, she'd been sweet and giving, wanting to know what he needed, willing to return pleasure for pleasure, and a throb of grief went through him for a moment. Maybe that was the first moment he realized that he and Annie might not be meant to last. But the past vanished at the least movement of Ashley's foot.

He didn't know how long they sat at the table, her foot caressing him beneath concealment of the tablecloth and him finding the limits of his self-control as he tried to keep a pleasant, blank expression with pleasure hitting him in waves. When she made an especially delightful tickle of her toes and he closed his eyes to drag in a deep breath, she murmured, "Drink your wine, Hughie. Nobody's looking. It's all right."

Trusting her, he let the Pinot Noir slide down his throat, smooth and warm as he imagined she would be under his hands, and his eyes half-closed to enjoy her attentions to his cock. Hughie replaced the wineglass on the table and reached under the tablecloth, taking her foot in his hand. The slight smile she had wavered, a hint of doubt appearing. It made him feel…well, he couldn't exactly define how it made him feel, but it did inspire him to say, "It's okay, Ashley," before he unzipped his pants and freed himself from its confines. Then he brought the bottom of her foot back into contact with his hard-on, rubbing, and it sent a thrill through him when he saw her eyes close and a soft gasp leave her opened mouth. So she liked this too, she was getting off on it too, and he liked that.

"Why did you wear that dress, Ashley?" he asked as the arch of her foot rubbed against the head. Her breathing had quickened and now, when she squirmed in her seat, he didn't think it was only for his benefit.

"Do you like it?" Her voice was breathless, the way he'd expect to hear it in his bedroom, both of them naked and aching and needing to be satisfied.

"Yes. Why did you wear it for me? I've never seen you wear anything so sexy."

Ashley opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by the server's chirpy, "Everything okay here?"

Hughie blanched and slammed his knee into the tabletop, which caused everything to shake. The server turned her gaze in his direction, and he stammered, "Just—sorry, you—you startled me."

Ashley cut across his words, telling the server, "Everything's fine. Could you bring us the check, please? I think we're almost done here. And we need a couple of to-go boxes, please."

"Yes, ma'am," she said before disappearing back in the direction of the kitchen.

He let out a breath of relief. "Maybe we should stop, go back to your place."

"Oh, we'll do that if you want, Hughie, but we aren't going to stop. I'm going to get you off, right here in this restaurant, because I don't think you've been with anybody who's actually adventurous. You've got a good idea about conventional but not the opposite." The look of doubt came back. "If you're cool with that?"

"You are…amazing, Ashley." He smiled at her and she relaxed. "Give me your other foot." Hughie didn't hear any sound as she slipped off her other shoe, then both her feet were in his lap. He fitted them against his cock and began rubbing, the slight roughness of their soles making him grit his teeth to keep from making a pleasure sound. "Do you like this?"

Her eyes half-closed, she murmured, "Of course I like it, Hughie. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think I'd like it."

"Would you like to do other things, later? At your place?" He began rocking his hips as subtly as he thought he could to intensify the pleasure.

"Yes, Hughie. I'd like that very much. I'd like to suck you off."

His pulse throbbed in his temples. "I want you to do that. I want to go down on you and make you come until you can't remember your own name."

"Server's on the way over here," she said, and he gritted his teeth as he forced himself to keep his hips still, but he didn't release his grip on her bare feet. Grabbing the wineglass, he took a deep gulp to try to relax enough to seem casual.

The server set the check cover down, carefully equidistant between himself and Ashley because she didn't want to make any assumptions as to who was paying, and handed the to-go boxes to Ashley. "Take as much time as you need," she chirped.

"Thank you," said Ashley, and when the woman turned her back to leave, she rubbed the soles of her feet against Hughie's cock. He was in no mood for more waiting, more teasing, and he pulled his napkin off his lap. The logical thing to do would be to wrap himself in it so there wouldn't be any mess on his pants when he came, but he couldn't endure the thought of not being in contact with her skin, so he wrapped the napkin around her feet and his cock, taking care to make sure the center of the napkin was over the head. She picked up her glass and he watched the wine enter her mouth, imagining it sliding in a warm flow down her throat, and couldn't help but wonder what her lips and tongue would feel like.

But he'd find out once they were back at her place, once they could do whatever they wanted without having to worry about anyone else noticing, when they were alone.

The pleasure boiled through him as he continued to rub her feet against his cock and returned to rocking his hips to intensify the feelings, and now he didn't really care if anyone noticed what they were doing. He was too aroused to be denied anymore, and he was going to go off hard. God, he needed some fucking satisfaction after feeling like a goddamned rapist every time he fucked Annie and she tolerated him, his body, his mouth, his cock. Was it really that much to ask to be with a woman who wanted him and let him know it? His eyes met Ashley's and he knew his pupils were dilated with lust.

"I want you to come, Hughie. I want you to shoot your hot come all over my feet."

And that was all it took at this point; her eyes, her gorgeous mouth, her voice and he was blowing his load, biting down on his lip hard to stifle the cry of satisfaction he wanted to make, shooting into his linen napkin and on her feet, clutching at them so she couldn't pull back, not caring if he bruised her because what was happening was just too fucking good. His hips rocked back and forth as the spasms lessened and finally he sat back in his chair, loosened his grip on her feet, and slowly removed the napkin from his cock. Closing the napkin, he found some dry spots and wiped Ashley's feet clean. "Give me your napkin and keep your feet in my lap," he told her, and she passed it across the table to him. Carefully he went over her feet with the clean napkin, caressing the skin, going between her toes to get any stickiness he might have missed. Her eyes closed, and he had a suspicion that she enjoyed him paying attention to her feet. Well, when they got back to his place, he'd investigate that further.

When he put both napkins on the table, Ashley said, "Spill your wine." A movement caused his glass to teeter, and topple, and she took the napkins and used them to soak up the stains. "The kitchen people will still know what went on, but it will take them a bit to figure it out." It was the work of a few moments for her to transfer their food into the to-go boxes. "Are you paying, or am I?"

"I asked you, so it's me." He put his credit card inside the check cover, added an incredibly generous tip, and then they had to wait for the server to run his card. Once that was done, his tucked himself back into his fly and zipped up, and Ashley slid her shoes back on, and they left.

While they waited for a cab, he slung an arm around her bare shoulders. "Why did you wear that dress for dinner, Ashley? You never did tell me. Had you been looking at me? Thinking things?"

She gave him a smile. "Oh, I looked, Hughie. I'm not blind. But you seemed all wrapped up in Starlight, so I put any thoughts I might have had aside. Until you called me up to invite me out for dinner. I took a chance, and then you started talking about how unhappy you were and how she didn't fuck you right. Then I took another chance."

"Adventurous," he said, and kissed her right out in the street, not caring who saw. "I like that. I like that a lot."