(no subject)
fandom: leverage
author: cata_clysmiic
characters: nate, sophie (nate/sophie)
title: you and I now, we can be alright
rating: m
word count: 3,537...ish.
disclaimer: dooooo noooot oooooown. sadly. D:
summary: “It could have been this way for years,” she told him later, curled against his chest, listening idly to his heartbeat like it was a background radio playing a song that had always been vaguely familiar to her.
notes: set mid to late season 3, right around the time there’s absolutely nothing stopping them sleeping together (srsly Sophie? you’re still mad about the prison thing? I DON’T BELIEVE YOU) besides the fact that they just haven’t yet. written about a week before the season 3 finale, which is kind of ironic? ;) for miss mzmtiger 's leverageland SECRET SANTA. YAY. also, this is the closest thing to fluffy that I will probably ever write.
but you and I now, we can be alright
just hold on to what we know is true
you and I now, though it’s cold inside
feel the tide turning
-mumford & sons “feel the tide”
There were three things Nathan Ford knew about Sophie Devereaux.
The first was that she was the best at what she did.
The second was that her eyes always widened slightly when she was genuinely surprised or shocked or angry, but that this was her only tell, and it happened rarely.
The third was that besides that first and second thing, he knew nothing about her at all.
Nothing he couldn’t figure out on his own from being around her so much, anyway. He knew she took cream and sugar in her coffee but that she always preferred tea, knew that her favorite color was gold, knew that during a con she wore either jasmine or Chanel, but between cons she never wore any perfume at all. He liked this, the way her skin smelled naturally of clove and something else he couldn’t quite decode, something smooth like a river-worn stone, something rich that belonged to her entirely, something she couldn’t cover up with red lipstick and tight dresses, counterfeit accents and names that weren’t her own.
He knew she’d never be the first to look away when they caught each other’s eye. He knew that when their hands brushed she never seemed startled, even though he sometimes did. He knew that often she didn’t like him, but that try as she might, she could never stop loving him.
--
There were three things Sophie Devereaux knew about Nathan Ford.
The first was that he’d never be a whole man again, not after Sam.
The second was that he fared far better on her side of the law than on the other.
The third was that even though he fucked things up a good portion of the time, even though he never said the right thing at the right time (always the wrong thing at the right time or the right thing at the wrong time) or took any hints, even when they were all but outright invitations, he never stopped wanting her. Not since the first time he saw her (the first time he spoke to her, the first time he touched her accidentally, the first time he touched her on purpose, the first time she looked at him and knew suddenly she’d never be the same).
She knew this because the first time he kissed her - really kissed her, a kiss not preceded or followed by a slap or accompanied by the insistent bleat of helicopter blades, a kiss where his hands were free to tangle in her hair instead of struggle defeatedly against a pair of metal cuffs and press against a fresh gunshot wound - he told her so.
He told her so in the way he pulled her into him, the way his hands found her hips and pressed them back against the countertop, the way they slid down and found the bare skin at her thigh, trailed his palms around her every curve like he was memorizing a path he knew he’d take again and again and again.
She’d felt like a wire coil that night; wound so tightly for so many years that she couldn’t remember how to be gentle anymore, couldn’t keep from snapping and letting it all rush forth in a torrent when he hiked her dress up, mouth still moving against hers like a hurricane.
“I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a bit ironic,” she’d breathed into the still night air when he’d dipped his head to kiss her neck, to focus on his own fingers as they slipped her panties down her legs, let them fall soundlessly to the floor.
“That we’re about to fuck in a bar?” His voice sounded about a thousand shades darker than normal, a thousand shades more vulnerable, all lust, all need, like her body wasn’t close enough, like he’d somehow forgotten anything he’d ever known and in this moment she was re-teaching him everything worth remembering (the heat of her skin, the tirelessness of her mouth, the way every moan every cry every breath against his cheek was like a question he needed to answer, the way she didn’t bother stepping out of her heels before she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him close, close, closer).
“Tell me again you weren’t jealous.”
He pulled the fabric of her dress away from her shoulder and felt the slope of her collarbone with his lips; one hand tightened and released in his hair in intervals while the other scrambled and then braced like a steel rod against the bar; a few whiskey tumblers tipped and shattered against the floor while she tried not to let go and do the exact same thing.
“I wasn’t jealous.”
He’d been jealous. The guy (the mark) had been all over her and she hadn’t stopped him, not even after he’d already said everything they needed to hear. She’d let him push her up against the wall of the backroom while Nate listened from the crowded bar. The kids were busy elsewhere; Hardison and Parker were gathering information from his central office and Eliot was playing guard dog at the security entrance. Nate and Sophie had opted for ear buds in case the guy said something worth remembering later, but Parker, Hardison and Eliot were on their own. They’d planned to rendezvous back at the office after the job was done.
She’d been wearing this same black dress, the one that fit across her hips like a glove and sloped down into such a deep V that anyone who looked at her probably thought it had been worn on a dare. She hadn’t even bothered to change afterward. Somehow he thought it was on purpose. (All of it, not just the dress).
Later, much later, two o’clock in the morning kind of later, he’d closed the door behind Eliot and turned to Sophie, fingers still resting against the handle. She was sitting on the couch in the otherwise empty apartment, still as a painting. Staring at him. The knuckle of her left thumb lingered against her lips like she was apprehensive about something, but her eyes were black, defiant, challenging.
“I’m going for a drink,” he said. “Lock up when you leave.”
“You were jealous,” she murmured when he was halfway out the door, and even though her voice hadn’t risen at all in volume, he felt a deafening silence in its wake.
He heard her come up behind him. She laid one hand right next to his beside the latch, the other on the back of the open door. He said nothing.
“Nate. For Christ’s sake. Just say it.”
“I wasn’t jealous. Why would I be jealous?” It was a mechanical reply, and that was what hurt her most. What angered her.
“Because just a few hours ago a man had his hand up my bloody skirt and it wasn’t you, Nate! Look at me and tell me you don’t care about that!”
He’d turned away then and headed down the stairs. He was on his third shot of Irish when she appeared in the doorway, and on his fourth when she pulled up a stool beside him.
“Look. Sometimes I just…” she gave an exasperated sigh, blew a strand of hair from her face. She propped an elbow up on the bar, fingers raked back through her hair. Looked at him seriously, bluntly, and then bit her lip. “…I just need to know if this is still what you want.”
“What do you mean by ‘this’?”
“I mean me, Nate.”
A couple beats passed. She reached out and poured herself an ounce or two from the open bottle on the counter and he didn’t bother trying to cover up the fact that he was staring at her now, just like she’d been staring at him a few minutes earlier across the space of his apartment (a space that felt like a breathless inch and the widest mile at the exact same time). He watched the alcohol glisten on her lips in the dim backlight.
“Sophie.”
“Mmm?”
He leaned over and kissed her like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like the moment wasn’t tense, like they’d never fought over anything a day in their lives. Like maybe he realized there wasn’t a damn thing stopping them anymore, and all either of them wanted these days was for the other to stop skirting, stop running, and give in. It was gentle at first, the kiss, and soft; it was familiar, something they both remembered how to do, right up until the moment she opened her mouth to him with something like a whimper and he ran his tongue experimentally along her bottom lip (tasted the whiskey there). After that, it became territory uncharted. Their bodies flared up, a fire stoked sky-high: two bar stools crashed to the ground and they flew together like magnets.
--
“Right,” Sophie was murmuring now, breaths catching in her throat like snares against a wool sweater because he’d peeled her bra away from bare flesh and taken a nipple into his mouth; the damp heat make her ache and swell from the inside out, made the wire coil in her belly snarl and spark. “One of these days you’ll learn not to lie to me, Nathan Ford. Like I’ve learned not to lie to you.”
He was incredulous at these words, but it was then, at that moment, that Nate learned something else about Sophie Devereaux, something he should have known before (something he should have realized could break him down, pull him completely apart until all that was left were the pieces of him in her hands, at which point she could scatter them for miles in a pattern only she could decipher): in a situation like this, she could turn the tables whenever she wanted to. She could push him away, one hand against his chest while the other tugged his belt free like she’d done this a thousand times before, and she could slip her tongue past his lips, fill his mouth with more of her than he could handle. He’d seen her do it with other men before. Never him. But also never with quite the same abandon, quite the same sense of urgency or promise of follow-through (like she wanted this every bit as much as he did, but still needed to prove a point).
Her arm wrapped around his neck for support and her hand pushed deep inside his jeans; the blood was rising between his legs, up his neck, through his chest, thundering through his heart like a tornado in a narrow corridor.
“Excuse me, Miss Devereaux, but I don’t even know your real name - I’d consider that a lie of omission.” He managed to get this out in a single breath, surprisingly steady, but it was still her hand on his cock and both of his braced against the counter in front of him. (Obviously, she was winning.)
“Nate,” she scolded against his ear, soft, affectionate. “You’re assuming that that’s still important. I assure you it’s not. Does anything else matter now, really? Besides this?” And she took his earlobe between her teeth at the same time she did something with her hand he couldn’t see but could most certainly, definitely feel. He cried out; turned his face suddenly, wanting (needing) to kiss her again.
She laid a finger against his lips and withdrew her hand. He hissed.
Her fingertips trailed his jaw line slowly, not quite a retreat, but a pause. Blowing on the heat to cool it just enough to ease back into it. His breath was heavy and he pushed a hand back through her hair, looked into her face, caught her gaze and held it steady. Couldn’t imagine looking away this time. Not for anything. Not if the building caught fire, not if Damien fucking Moreau crashed through the door and clicked a gun to their heads while the all the stars fell glittering out of the sky.
They could stop playing games now, like they always had. The opportunity was right there in front of them. They could cast their pride and stubbornness and past and present aside like rune stones, see where they fell. If there was ever a time for surrender (and for victory) it was now. They could tear each other apart with more than just lust; they could do it with love, an entire ocean of it, enough to fill the whole atmosphere, the kind that had waited entirely too long to spill over (the kind that they’d kept at bay with misplaced words and silent looks because they didn’t know how to let it break loose without it drowning them both).
But things had never been that simple between them, and they never would be. They would always play these ridiculous games, there would always be an invincible thread between them, each tugging and pushing and always bending and flowing, never quite breaking, never pulling tight.
But it was the way he whispered her name, the one he’d still keep using long after he knew better, over and over that night and the way she let him touch her anywhere (everywhere) that made them both realize it didn’t matter. It had never mattered.
The only relevant thing in their entire world, past present and future, was this moment, and the way they proceeded within it, the way everything they’d gone through had become like combinations clicking into place or planets slowly aligning across a vast and empty space (an inch the first time they locked eyes, a foot in Paris, a yard when he’d picked her up in Chicago, and miles, miles this last year when they’d become the sort of friends they never thought they’d ever have, let alone be to each other).
And it didn’t matter that they didn’t truly know each other the way they should, the way that was embarrassing because they didn’t, not after all this time together, not after all these years (some lessons you never learn). It didn’t matter, because they knew each other now: Sophie knew the way Nate’s skin felt under her fingertips, the way he moaned louder than she did when he brushed the inside of her thigh, when he felt how wet she was, how it was all because of him (how it had always been because of him); and later, she knew the way he moved inside of her (gently but like he didn’t want to be gentle, like he was too much of a gentleman, too considerate, to be rough - she also knew that he knew she could care less about tenderness right now, but that she appreciated the sentiment).
Nate knew the way Sophie’s hands grasped fistfuls of his hair, fumbled along his spine, holding on so he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t let go, holding on so she wouldn’t loose herself completely inside him (she’d spent an entire year getting that part of herself back, she wasn’t about to loose it again, not even as a sacrifice to this very worthy moment).
The bar top was littered with glasses and spilled alcohol, but Sophie thought it was oddly symbolic (and Nate thought it was oddly appropriate). The edge of the counter dug into the back of her thighs, not nearly as hard as Nate’s fingers had, but enough so that the blunt sting grounded her and kept her stable, even as their bodies rocked against it precariously. She’d never have thought that this is how things would eventually play out between them, but Nate’s hands holding her hips felt exactly as she’d imagined they would, and she considered that a triumph.
Ten years of the best kind of foreplay was more than enough to set their bodies on edge right from the beginning, right from that first (second) kiss, enough to tip gasoline onto an already steady flame. It was just the knowledge that the tension was finally being diffused and that did it, set that coil in Sophie’s belly twisting unbearably; their bodies did the rest without even trying. They came, hard enough to bruise, within seconds of each other.
Nate buckled, muttered something Sophie didn’t quite catch as she immediately pulled him in close to her, slid her hands around his neck and pulled down gently, chest heaving, eyes shut tight. Her entire body felt like liquid, like she might be able to tilt to the side and pour herself empty, until all that was left was her mind, still spinning, still completely unraveled, littered with bright shards of light. She opened her mouth and pressed her lips to his ear like she might say something, but the words escaped her. She simply breathed, deeply and slowly, against him.
--
He straightened her skirt for her, hands lingering against her legs (she was still shaking, but only slightly, only if you looked closely), and tugged on her hand until she stood and followed him out of the bar, up two flights of stairs, into his apartment, and then up another.
He pulled his shirt up over his head while she took her dress off. He lay down onto his unmade bed and pulled her down with him.
He felt like he hadn’t ever really rested, hadn’t breathed in, hadn’t exhaled, until this moment.
--
At dawn she woke him with her mouth; with a warm, damp trail down his chest and he came up out of the deep sleep slowly, clung to his white bed sheets with fingers that began to tremble the more conscious he became. She laid a hand against his heart and brought him right to the edge, let him down slowly, took her time. He opened himself up and let her. It was the most intimate thing he’d felt in a long, long time.
--
“It could have been this way for years,” she told him later, curled against his chest, listening idly to his heartbeat like it was a background radio playing a song that had always been vaguely familiar to her.
His face was half buried in her hair and he was drifting in and out of something halfway between sleep and meditation. “It’s this way now,” he murmured against her. There was an I’m sorry nestled somewhere between his lips and hers, but it didn’t matter. She leaned up to kiss him a moment later, and they both felt it. No need to say it aloud (a familiar routine).
--
He brought her a cup of hot tea when the sun came up, and coffee for himself (a little cream this morning, not black or shot through with vodka like usual). He pressed his lips to her forehead as she took the steaming mug, went to stand by the window. Watched the fresh sunshine start pouring in, listened to the early cars begin to hum along the Boston streets. It didn’t feel strange being like this with her, like maybe it should have.
“You’re my best friend, Soph. It’s been you. For years.” He thought his voice sounded a little corny, but at least it was honest for once; she thought she’d never heard anything quite so exquisite as those ten words, as that calm voice (and she’d heard a lot, a lot, in her crazy life).
“Nate,” he heard her say quietly, and still: hearing this woman say his name was something he’d never be able to prepare himself for. Some things between them would never ever change. “Come on. Come back to bed.”
He set his mug against the windowsill and went to lie beside her. She was half-reclined, shoulder blades against the headboard; he rested his head against the soft curve of her hip. “Think they’ll notice something?”
She didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about. “Eliot will, but he won’t say anything. The moment Hardison catches on, he won’t be able to keep his mouth shut. Parker will be thrilled.”
Nate chuckled, felt Sophie’s abdomen tighten and then relax as she did the same. “Sounds about right.”
Sophie smiled, cupping her mug with both hands. “Just another Saturday morning, love. Things needn’t have changed.” But they both knew that things had changed. It had been too long, too exhausting a fight to cross that line and then, like cowards, step back again.
“No, of course not. It’s just that now we’ve seen each other without clothes on.”
“Arrogant bastard,” she joked. Swatted his arm. “I’m fairly certain last night wasn’t the first time.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot about Singapore.”
She snorted. “That’s a downright lie.”
He looked up at her, his fingers laced together, resting against the rise and fall of his chest. “You’re making me forget pretty quickly, here.”
She leaned down, threaded a few fingers into his hair; he closed his eyes at the touch. Her voice was low, half a caress, half a gentle warning: “Just keep playing your cards right.”
“I will.” He grinned, eyes still shut, her fingers still warm against him. That heavy something inside him, the thing that had been weighing him down since he couldn’t even remember when, suddenly felt a little lighter. “Oh, I will.”
--
author: cata_clysmiic
characters: nate, sophie (nate/sophie)
title: you and I now, we can be alright
rating: m
word count: 3,537...ish.
disclaimer: dooooo noooot oooooown. sadly. D:
summary: “It could have been this way for years,” she told him later, curled against his chest, listening idly to his heartbeat like it was a background radio playing a song that had always been vaguely familiar to her.
notes: set mid to late season 3, right around the time there’s absolutely nothing stopping them sleeping together (srsly Sophie? you’re still mad about the prison thing? I DON’T BELIEVE YOU) besides the fact that they just haven’t yet. written about a week before the season 3 finale, which is kind of ironic? ;) for miss mzmtiger 's leverageland SECRET SANTA. YAY. also, this is the closest thing to fluffy that I will probably ever write.
but you and I now, we can be alright
just hold on to what we know is true
you and I now, though it’s cold inside
feel the tide turning
-mumford & sons “feel the tide”
There were three things Nathan Ford knew about Sophie Devereaux.
The first was that she was the best at what she did.
The second was that her eyes always widened slightly when she was genuinely surprised or shocked or angry, but that this was her only tell, and it happened rarely.
The third was that besides that first and second thing, he knew nothing about her at all.
Nothing he couldn’t figure out on his own from being around her so much, anyway. He knew she took cream and sugar in her coffee but that she always preferred tea, knew that her favorite color was gold, knew that during a con she wore either jasmine or Chanel, but between cons she never wore any perfume at all. He liked this, the way her skin smelled naturally of clove and something else he couldn’t quite decode, something smooth like a river-worn stone, something rich that belonged to her entirely, something she couldn’t cover up with red lipstick and tight dresses, counterfeit accents and names that weren’t her own.
He knew she’d never be the first to look away when they caught each other’s eye. He knew that when their hands brushed she never seemed startled, even though he sometimes did. He knew that often she didn’t like him, but that try as she might, she could never stop loving him.
--
There were three things Sophie Devereaux knew about Nathan Ford.
The first was that he’d never be a whole man again, not after Sam.
The second was that he fared far better on her side of the law than on the other.
The third was that even though he fucked things up a good portion of the time, even though he never said the right thing at the right time (always the wrong thing at the right time or the right thing at the wrong time) or took any hints, even when they were all but outright invitations, he never stopped wanting her. Not since the first time he saw her (the first time he spoke to her, the first time he touched her accidentally, the first time he touched her on purpose, the first time she looked at him and knew suddenly she’d never be the same).
She knew this because the first time he kissed her - really kissed her, a kiss not preceded or followed by a slap or accompanied by the insistent bleat of helicopter blades, a kiss where his hands were free to tangle in her hair instead of struggle defeatedly against a pair of metal cuffs and press against a fresh gunshot wound - he told her so.
He told her so in the way he pulled her into him, the way his hands found her hips and pressed them back against the countertop, the way they slid down and found the bare skin at her thigh, trailed his palms around her every curve like he was memorizing a path he knew he’d take again and again and again.
She’d felt like a wire coil that night; wound so tightly for so many years that she couldn’t remember how to be gentle anymore, couldn’t keep from snapping and letting it all rush forth in a torrent when he hiked her dress up, mouth still moving against hers like a hurricane.
“I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a bit ironic,” she’d breathed into the still night air when he’d dipped his head to kiss her neck, to focus on his own fingers as they slipped her panties down her legs, let them fall soundlessly to the floor.
“That we’re about to fuck in a bar?” His voice sounded about a thousand shades darker than normal, a thousand shades more vulnerable, all lust, all need, like her body wasn’t close enough, like he’d somehow forgotten anything he’d ever known and in this moment she was re-teaching him everything worth remembering (the heat of her skin, the tirelessness of her mouth, the way every moan every cry every breath against his cheek was like a question he needed to answer, the way she didn’t bother stepping out of her heels before she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him close, close, closer).
“Tell me again you weren’t jealous.”
He pulled the fabric of her dress away from her shoulder and felt the slope of her collarbone with his lips; one hand tightened and released in his hair in intervals while the other scrambled and then braced like a steel rod against the bar; a few whiskey tumblers tipped and shattered against the floor while she tried not to let go and do the exact same thing.
“I wasn’t jealous.”
He’d been jealous. The guy (the mark) had been all over her and she hadn’t stopped him, not even after he’d already said everything they needed to hear. She’d let him push her up against the wall of the backroom while Nate listened from the crowded bar. The kids were busy elsewhere; Hardison and Parker were gathering information from his central office and Eliot was playing guard dog at the security entrance. Nate and Sophie had opted for ear buds in case the guy said something worth remembering later, but Parker, Hardison and Eliot were on their own. They’d planned to rendezvous back at the office after the job was done.
She’d been wearing this same black dress, the one that fit across her hips like a glove and sloped down into such a deep V that anyone who looked at her probably thought it had been worn on a dare. She hadn’t even bothered to change afterward. Somehow he thought it was on purpose. (All of it, not just the dress).
Later, much later, two o’clock in the morning kind of later, he’d closed the door behind Eliot and turned to Sophie, fingers still resting against the handle. She was sitting on the couch in the otherwise empty apartment, still as a painting. Staring at him. The knuckle of her left thumb lingered against her lips like she was apprehensive about something, but her eyes were black, defiant, challenging.
“I’m going for a drink,” he said. “Lock up when you leave.”
“You were jealous,” she murmured when he was halfway out the door, and even though her voice hadn’t risen at all in volume, he felt a deafening silence in its wake.
He heard her come up behind him. She laid one hand right next to his beside the latch, the other on the back of the open door. He said nothing.
“Nate. For Christ’s sake. Just say it.”
“I wasn’t jealous. Why would I be jealous?” It was a mechanical reply, and that was what hurt her most. What angered her.
“Because just a few hours ago a man had his hand up my bloody skirt and it wasn’t you, Nate! Look at me and tell me you don’t care about that!”
He’d turned away then and headed down the stairs. He was on his third shot of Irish when she appeared in the doorway, and on his fourth when she pulled up a stool beside him.
“Look. Sometimes I just…” she gave an exasperated sigh, blew a strand of hair from her face. She propped an elbow up on the bar, fingers raked back through her hair. Looked at him seriously, bluntly, and then bit her lip. “…I just need to know if this is still what you want.”
“What do you mean by ‘this’?”
“I mean me, Nate.”
A couple beats passed. She reached out and poured herself an ounce or two from the open bottle on the counter and he didn’t bother trying to cover up the fact that he was staring at her now, just like she’d been staring at him a few minutes earlier across the space of his apartment (a space that felt like a breathless inch and the widest mile at the exact same time). He watched the alcohol glisten on her lips in the dim backlight.
“Sophie.”
“Mmm?”
He leaned over and kissed her like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like the moment wasn’t tense, like they’d never fought over anything a day in their lives. Like maybe he realized there wasn’t a damn thing stopping them anymore, and all either of them wanted these days was for the other to stop skirting, stop running, and give in. It was gentle at first, the kiss, and soft; it was familiar, something they both remembered how to do, right up until the moment she opened her mouth to him with something like a whimper and he ran his tongue experimentally along her bottom lip (tasted the whiskey there). After that, it became territory uncharted. Their bodies flared up, a fire stoked sky-high: two bar stools crashed to the ground and they flew together like magnets.
--
“Right,” Sophie was murmuring now, breaths catching in her throat like snares against a wool sweater because he’d peeled her bra away from bare flesh and taken a nipple into his mouth; the damp heat make her ache and swell from the inside out, made the wire coil in her belly snarl and spark. “One of these days you’ll learn not to lie to me, Nathan Ford. Like I’ve learned not to lie to you.”
He was incredulous at these words, but it was then, at that moment, that Nate learned something else about Sophie Devereaux, something he should have known before (something he should have realized could break him down, pull him completely apart until all that was left were the pieces of him in her hands, at which point she could scatter them for miles in a pattern only she could decipher): in a situation like this, she could turn the tables whenever she wanted to. She could push him away, one hand against his chest while the other tugged his belt free like she’d done this a thousand times before, and she could slip her tongue past his lips, fill his mouth with more of her than he could handle. He’d seen her do it with other men before. Never him. But also never with quite the same abandon, quite the same sense of urgency or promise of follow-through (like she wanted this every bit as much as he did, but still needed to prove a point).
Her arm wrapped around his neck for support and her hand pushed deep inside his jeans; the blood was rising between his legs, up his neck, through his chest, thundering through his heart like a tornado in a narrow corridor.
“Excuse me, Miss Devereaux, but I don’t even know your real name - I’d consider that a lie of omission.” He managed to get this out in a single breath, surprisingly steady, but it was still her hand on his cock and both of his braced against the counter in front of him. (Obviously, she was winning.)
“Nate,” she scolded against his ear, soft, affectionate. “You’re assuming that that’s still important. I assure you it’s not. Does anything else matter now, really? Besides this?” And she took his earlobe between her teeth at the same time she did something with her hand he couldn’t see but could most certainly, definitely feel. He cried out; turned his face suddenly, wanting (needing) to kiss her again.
She laid a finger against his lips and withdrew her hand. He hissed.
Her fingertips trailed his jaw line slowly, not quite a retreat, but a pause. Blowing on the heat to cool it just enough to ease back into it. His breath was heavy and he pushed a hand back through her hair, looked into her face, caught her gaze and held it steady. Couldn’t imagine looking away this time. Not for anything. Not if the building caught fire, not if Damien fucking Moreau crashed through the door and clicked a gun to their heads while the all the stars fell glittering out of the sky.
They could stop playing games now, like they always had. The opportunity was right there in front of them. They could cast their pride and stubbornness and past and present aside like rune stones, see where they fell. If there was ever a time for surrender (and for victory) it was now. They could tear each other apart with more than just lust; they could do it with love, an entire ocean of it, enough to fill the whole atmosphere, the kind that had waited entirely too long to spill over (the kind that they’d kept at bay with misplaced words and silent looks because they didn’t know how to let it break loose without it drowning them both).
But things had never been that simple between them, and they never would be. They would always play these ridiculous games, there would always be an invincible thread between them, each tugging and pushing and always bending and flowing, never quite breaking, never pulling tight.
But it was the way he whispered her name, the one he’d still keep using long after he knew better, over and over that night and the way she let him touch her anywhere (everywhere) that made them both realize it didn’t matter. It had never mattered.
The only relevant thing in their entire world, past present and future, was this moment, and the way they proceeded within it, the way everything they’d gone through had become like combinations clicking into place or planets slowly aligning across a vast and empty space (an inch the first time they locked eyes, a foot in Paris, a yard when he’d picked her up in Chicago, and miles, miles this last year when they’d become the sort of friends they never thought they’d ever have, let alone be to each other).
And it didn’t matter that they didn’t truly know each other the way they should, the way that was embarrassing because they didn’t, not after all this time together, not after all these years (some lessons you never learn). It didn’t matter, because they knew each other now: Sophie knew the way Nate’s skin felt under her fingertips, the way he moaned louder than she did when he brushed the inside of her thigh, when he felt how wet she was, how it was all because of him (how it had always been because of him); and later, she knew the way he moved inside of her (gently but like he didn’t want to be gentle, like he was too much of a gentleman, too considerate, to be rough - she also knew that he knew she could care less about tenderness right now, but that she appreciated the sentiment).
Nate knew the way Sophie’s hands grasped fistfuls of his hair, fumbled along his spine, holding on so he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t let go, holding on so she wouldn’t loose herself completely inside him (she’d spent an entire year getting that part of herself back, she wasn’t about to loose it again, not even as a sacrifice to this very worthy moment).
The bar top was littered with glasses and spilled alcohol, but Sophie thought it was oddly symbolic (and Nate thought it was oddly appropriate). The edge of the counter dug into the back of her thighs, not nearly as hard as Nate’s fingers had, but enough so that the blunt sting grounded her and kept her stable, even as their bodies rocked against it precariously. She’d never have thought that this is how things would eventually play out between them, but Nate’s hands holding her hips felt exactly as she’d imagined they would, and she considered that a triumph.
Ten years of the best kind of foreplay was more than enough to set their bodies on edge right from the beginning, right from that first (second) kiss, enough to tip gasoline onto an already steady flame. It was just the knowledge that the tension was finally being diffused and that did it, set that coil in Sophie’s belly twisting unbearably; their bodies did the rest without even trying. They came, hard enough to bruise, within seconds of each other.
Nate buckled, muttered something Sophie didn’t quite catch as she immediately pulled him in close to her, slid her hands around his neck and pulled down gently, chest heaving, eyes shut tight. Her entire body felt like liquid, like she might be able to tilt to the side and pour herself empty, until all that was left was her mind, still spinning, still completely unraveled, littered with bright shards of light. She opened her mouth and pressed her lips to his ear like she might say something, but the words escaped her. She simply breathed, deeply and slowly, against him.
--
He straightened her skirt for her, hands lingering against her legs (she was still shaking, but only slightly, only if you looked closely), and tugged on her hand until she stood and followed him out of the bar, up two flights of stairs, into his apartment, and then up another.
He pulled his shirt up over his head while she took her dress off. He lay down onto his unmade bed and pulled her down with him.
He felt like he hadn’t ever really rested, hadn’t breathed in, hadn’t exhaled, until this moment.
--
At dawn she woke him with her mouth; with a warm, damp trail down his chest and he came up out of the deep sleep slowly, clung to his white bed sheets with fingers that began to tremble the more conscious he became. She laid a hand against his heart and brought him right to the edge, let him down slowly, took her time. He opened himself up and let her. It was the most intimate thing he’d felt in a long, long time.
--
“It could have been this way for years,” she told him later, curled against his chest, listening idly to his heartbeat like it was a background radio playing a song that had always been vaguely familiar to her.
His face was half buried in her hair and he was drifting in and out of something halfway between sleep and meditation. “It’s this way now,” he murmured against her. There was an I’m sorry nestled somewhere between his lips and hers, but it didn’t matter. She leaned up to kiss him a moment later, and they both felt it. No need to say it aloud (a familiar routine).
--
He brought her a cup of hot tea when the sun came up, and coffee for himself (a little cream this morning, not black or shot through with vodka like usual). He pressed his lips to her forehead as she took the steaming mug, went to stand by the window. Watched the fresh sunshine start pouring in, listened to the early cars begin to hum along the Boston streets. It didn’t feel strange being like this with her, like maybe it should have.
“You’re my best friend, Soph. It’s been you. For years.” He thought his voice sounded a little corny, but at least it was honest for once; she thought she’d never heard anything quite so exquisite as those ten words, as that calm voice (and she’d heard a lot, a lot, in her crazy life).
“Nate,” he heard her say quietly, and still: hearing this woman say his name was something he’d never be able to prepare himself for. Some things between them would never ever change. “Come on. Come back to bed.”
He set his mug against the windowsill and went to lie beside her. She was half-reclined, shoulder blades against the headboard; he rested his head against the soft curve of her hip. “Think they’ll notice something?”
She didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about. “Eliot will, but he won’t say anything. The moment Hardison catches on, he won’t be able to keep his mouth shut. Parker will be thrilled.”
Nate chuckled, felt Sophie’s abdomen tighten and then relax as she did the same. “Sounds about right.”
Sophie smiled, cupping her mug with both hands. “Just another Saturday morning, love. Things needn’t have changed.” But they both knew that things had changed. It had been too long, too exhausting a fight to cross that line and then, like cowards, step back again.
“No, of course not. It’s just that now we’ve seen each other without clothes on.”
“Arrogant bastard,” she joked. Swatted his arm. “I’m fairly certain last night wasn’t the first time.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot about Singapore.”
She snorted. “That’s a downright lie.”
He looked up at her, his fingers laced together, resting against the rise and fall of his chest. “You’re making me forget pretty quickly, here.”
She leaned down, threaded a few fingers into his hair; he closed his eyes at the touch. Her voice was low, half a caress, half a gentle warning: “Just keep playing your cards right.”
“I will.” He grinned, eyes still shut, her fingers still warm against him. That heavy something inside him, the thing that had been weighing him down since he couldn’t even remember when, suddenly felt a little lighter. “Oh, I will.”
--