A/N: Here's a fun, spicy, adorable oneshot where I worked in some different writing style.
Hope you enjoy :)
Charlottesville, Virginia – 1991
The bedroom is only dimly lit from the lamp in the corner of the room, the one on the desk they share in their small apartment. The same one, in fact, that is lighting Henry's face as he sits and catches his breath, his body strewn back in the chair.
She had walked over to their bed already and pulled the sheets back, the comforter rumpled at the end of the bed on this warm series of nights they'd been having. As he looked over his shoulder, she was crawling in on her knees and catching her breath, too, dragging her middle finger down the corner of her mouth. Her cheeks still felt flushed, but when she met his eye, she just smirked and wiped the other side of her mouth, too.
He just moaned, and something inside her lit up again. "That good, hm?" she asked, shimmying down underneath the sheets and letting the chills engulf her body under the covers.
"Jesus, Elizabeth," he murmured, and it made her bite her lip as she turned on her side, propping her head up to look at him. He let out a hoarse laugh as he met her eye again, and she just shrugged innocently. "You're gonna kill me if you keep doing it like that."
She snorted and felt the covers settle down on her warm skin, just murmuring a little "hmm" before settling into the bed more. She heard him getting up from the desk and heard the lamp switch off, then she saw him walking in the darkness over to his side and turn the bedside lamp on. She had her hands folded over her stomach underneath the covers, wrapped like a mummy even though she was warm—she had this fuzzy feeling in her that only the blankets seemed to help weigh down.
"I like doing it," she mumbled finally as he crawled into the bed, foregoing the sheets over his body. She glanced over and saw his lower half completely naked, realizing he left his pants and boxers in a crumpled mess underneath the desk where she'd put them minutes earlier.
The bed dipped and she felt herself roll down toward him a little, their cheap mattress already breaking down. She gave in and rolled over, propping her head up on her hand again as she watched him settle into the bed with his tee still on.
"I mean, yeah," Henry said, huffing a laugh, "I kind of picked up on that."
She huffed, too, and she bit her lip as she watched his toes curl up and then stretch out, a sure sign, she's learned over the year, that he's tired. "I mean I really like it," she said, her gaze fixed somewhere on his legs as she got lost in her thoughts.
He moved his head so that he was looking at her while lying on his back, "Yeah?" he asked.
She nodded, bringing her eyes up quietly to meet his and watching for a moment. "Yeah," she admitted, feeling her heart pounding in her chest again at the very thought of what she'd just done.
Henry's gaze didn't waver, he didn't tease like he maybe originally was going to do. Instead, he shifted onto his side, too, and bent his arm underneath his cheek to get a better look at her. She felt her cheeks flush again when his hips touched hers, and she wished she would've taken her pajamas off before getting in bed.
"Tell me why?" he whispered, his tone curious as his eyes searched hers.
She bit her lip again and thought for a moment, searching for the right words to say. When she thought of the act itself, she got warm all over again, her already toasty body becoming even redder and more fiery. Not just her skin, either, but something deep inside her lit up, too. Sure, something sexual, but something even she didn't know how to describe.
"I just…" she started, then shifted into the bed more and looked at him more intently, "I like seeing you like that."
"Half dead?" he asked.
She snorted, and then he smiled. "No," she said, "You're always so…you're the one who makes us feel like we are holding it together, you know?" she said, "You're the one who's more straight-laced, who knows the emergency plans and who knows the routes to get to where we're driving to quicker. You're the one who has it together."
"You do too," he said, his voice sounding a little more confused and making it out to seem like a question.
She nodded, "I do," she agreed, "But not in the same way. So when I see you just…I don't know…trusting me…" she stumbled over her words a bit and it made her feel naïve, so she paused and took a breath without looking at him. Once she gained her composure, she looked into his eyes, "You trust me enough to just let go."
Henry's face shifted from confusion to something softer, and then she saw a slight, boyish grin.
"It's not about…" she pushed her lips together and thought again, "I don't know…technique." She shook her head a little and laid her head down, too, just like he was—with her arm underneath her cheek. "It's about the way you sound, the way you look at me…like there's nothing else in the world except us, and it makes me want to come undone," she breathed, almost losing her breath just from the way those words felt like fire on her tongue.
She felt his fingers underneath the covers, and she realized he was searching for hers even though he'd touched her stomach first. Threading his fingers into hers, she looked into his eyes again.
"It makes me feel…" she huffed again, looking down and smiling innocently. Her cheeks first, but it pulled all the way back to her ears before a red tone flushed over her skin once more. "Strong. And a little powerful. And like I have a lot weighing on your trust, and that I have to keep it like it's the most precious thing in the world."
He smiled this time and she felt her body go limp again, "I know exactly what you mean," he whispered, his thumb rubbing against the back of her hand. She bit her lip once more and he looked down at her shoulder, "I love it. It's not just about…what you're doing…"
"It's about what you're giving," Elizabeth filled in.
He nodded, and they locked eyes for a few quiet moments, listening to each other's soft breaths that physically felt hot in each other's airspace. Then, he leaned in first, and she met him across their arms, shifting both of their bodies so that they were closer together and, eventually, wrapped up together again. She threaded her leg between his, and his lower leg threaded into hers, too. When she felt his knee at her center, she let out a quiet moan against his lips, rolling her hips so that she felt some friction under her pajamas.
Henry made a sound against her lips, too, and she loved the way she could make him want to come undone again, already, so soon after making him come undone the first time. His hand slid from her waist down to her hip, steadying her as she rocked her hips against his knee. She pulled back just slightly and then rested her forehead on his, looking intensely into his eyes and bringing her hand up to rest on his cheek. Her rhythm never faltered, even as she felt his fingers dig into the softness of her backside, spurring her on. Spurring her, but also telling her how much he wanted her again.
She smiled, and it wasn't something coy or teasing—it was just a genuine smile, one that said, I'd do anything for you.
And then her brain just shuts off, or maybe it switches into autopilot, she can't tell, all she can tell is that she's moving and shifting against his body like her own body knows something her brain doesn't. Like it's chasing heat, like it's chasing in his direction, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing.
The way his hands steady her even when she feels like she's drifting too far from chasing, like she's exhausting herself. The way his hands linger at the waistband of her pajama shorts until she moves one of his inside the elastic, inside her underwear, and urges him to take them off her silently by pushing his hand down further but she cannot stop her hips and she feels like she might come undone anyway before he ever even gets this pesky material out from between the two of them, the only thing blocking her from feeling him, from feeling the confirmation that she's his, and he's hers.
His hands are everywhere now that her pajama bottoms are nowhere to be found and there's no material keeping her from feeling the warmth of his skin, the friction of his leg hair rubbing the inside of her thighs, the way his muscles jump underneath her when she moves and rolls and rubs and she thinks that this is what she means by trusting someone so fully because she cannot think and her brain is shut off and she's just letting him touch her anywhere he can get his hands on her.
She's forgotten the name of the day and maybe even her own name too, she knows she's a McCord, and that's all she knows because he's let his hand cup her in perfect ways and let his fingers follow their map into her, and she's coming undone again as she rolls her hips against his two fingers and against his palm and against his body and needing, somehow, to get even more of him.
But then she hears him shush, and she realizes she's about to be too urgent, she realizes they have all the time in the world because it is just the two of them and it is just their world and they are just together in this bed for the next however many hours until they have to wake up and report to their jobs. And he slows her down by setting his own pace with his fingers, the way they curl and release and pull her back down to earth after she'd flown too, too high.
Her body curls into his when she feels his fingers curl into her, when she feels another finger slide in with almost no difficulty because of how much she wants him. Her lips fall onto his collarbone, the natural landing place, and she gasps for air against him as he holds her in his palm as though she is the most precious thing in the world. Precious. Didn't I say something about precious? God. God. She bites her lip and shoves her face into his neck, her teeth unable to keep her mouth from flying open and gasping against his skin and desperately needing to suck on something to keep her from not being able to breathe entirely. Her hand grasps the bottom of his shirt and crumples it into a ball as she sucks on his skin, holding onto him like she's about to be pulled under by a river current and God maybe she is about to be pulled under by a river current and maybe he's the river current after all.
Her toes curl.
She wants to drown. She wants to drown in him. She wants to float on his body and be pulled under by his power, let her trust weigh her down under the surface of him.
When she gasps again, her lips are positioned near his jaw, and she doesn't cry out and she doesn't scream his name and she doesn't tell him how good she feels, she just gives in and surrenders to the current, the way his rip current has curled around her, the way she's melted into his palm.
And then she's sagging, she's boneless against him as his fingers still inside of her and she feels her body throbbing around him and against him and she's so greedy because she wants him again already after he's just taken her soul out of her body and put it back in. She laughs. And he laughs, too, and she kisses him sloppily because her brain is still so far gone that all she can think about is him, is his touch, is his length, is his rhythm, is his heartbeat, is his fingertips, is his warmth. She kisses him again, trying to catch her breath between sloppy suctions and fumbling fingers.
And somewhere in the messy tangle of kisses and gasps and greedy grabs, she understands.
She understands. It's a new understanding, one that settles into your bones and imprints on them forever. It wasn't just sacred to watch him come undone, to watch him trust her, but it's sacred to be undone. It's sacred to be touched like this, held like this, loved like this, to be trusted with your own surrender and not have it broken.
She thought the power was giving.
She knows that the power is letting go.
Without shame. Without apology. With the vulnerability. With wholeness.
He's kissing her neck again and her eyes are shut, and she's still loved, she's still herself, and she moans into the hollow part of his throat and lets the weight of it all settle onto her harder than the orgasm. The wonder of it, the sheer, holy truth of what it means to love and be loved and be seen and to see so fully.
And as their bodies press together, as she drapes her leg over his hip and he guides himself into her, she gets back on the river and hopes that he drowns her once more.