Fic: Pour Homme (1/1)
Title: Pour Homme
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tony/Pepper
Word Count: 3,737
Summary: He needs a change. She’s going to help. Movieverse. For thepepperony100 Prompt #67 - Male.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: This is the result of a bunch of challenge elements tied into one absurd little ficlet. I was given the idea doing a sort of snapshot fic - fragmentary, just a little glimpse; and was subsequently given the idea of seeing just how far one could stretch literary minimalism. From there, I went for the task of trying to keep a story going for the mention of twenty separate colognes, and furthermore, I tried to write fluff (which I avoid because I am aware of my immense limitations in that department), and humor, of all things (which I simply do not write, because I am terrible at it). Talk about challenging! Details derived from the mayhem of my own recent perfume shopping experiences, and a random idea that I had, encouraged by the spectulation at tonypepper about what cologne Mr. Stark might in fact wear. I apologize in advance if it’s complete shit; I do rather like the banter between them, here, but the rest of it… yeah, I’m not so sure.
Pour Homme
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
“I cannot believe that I agreed to this.”
Had he been turned towards her, she wouldn’t have risked it; but with his back facing her, she allowed herself the indulgence of an undignified humph, followed a subtle flop onto the comfortable slouch of his bed, the satiny black of the duvet blending with the matte of her skirt, contrasting with the pale cream of her shins.
“Can’t you?” he asked from the bathroom attached at the corner of the room, steam still wafting from the open door in tendrils near the ceiling, the only remaining evidence of his morning ritual of hygiene, aside from the gentle clump of the very ends of his hair, still damp from the shower.
“No...” she reconsidered, crossing her legs so that her left knee now slid over her right . “No, I lied. I can.”
“That’s the spirit, Potts.” She could hear, feel, the smirk in his voice, and where once she may have cringed at it, she now simply ignored it.
The crashing bounce of a large, weighty container landing a few feet from her on the bed elicited a squeak from the unflappable Virginia, and a subsequent snicker from her boss. Pepper stared wide-eyed at the box that had settled next to her, still wobbling with momentum against the mattress, flaps folded under one another and packaging tape curled at the edges.
“Well, dig in.”
Glaring sideways at her employer, she took it in both hands and brought it to sit in her lap, slipping her French-tipped index finger under the intersecting lines of the box, flipping it open slowly and deliberately. “Oh, joy of joys. A cardboard box.”
“Alas,” Tony’s footfalls were soft in the carpeting; sometimes, such as the present, she envied him his bare feet. “Even I can’t get them to deliver in anything more appealing. Personally, I think leather. Velvet. Something classier would be preferable.” He was speaking to his reflection in the mirror, his gaze never faltering, staring himself directly in the eye.
“Are you done, Mr. Stark?”
“Just about, yeah.” He turned, and she realized belatedly that he was shirtless now, the arc reactor shiny and clean against the warm red of his flesh.
She blinked once, and then twice, and prayed he couldn’t see the line of white that was her upper front teeth biting hard upon her lower lip. “Is that necessary?”
“Not entirely.” Blasé. So fucking blasé that it made her want to slap him. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
She arched her eyebrow in reply. “Jarvis, could you please reduce the temperature in this room and all adjoining chambers of the master suite by ten degrees Fahrenheit?”
“As you wish, Miss Potts.”
”Thank you, Jarvis.”
“A pleasure, Miss Potts.” Tony shivered in response to the exchange before the chill began to waft into the room, and Pepper felt vindicated, even if her lips were numb from the lack of circulation her clenched jaw was ensuring.
“Touché, Potts,” he murmured, rapping the pads of his fingers on the circle of metal between his pectorals, the slivers of nail budding past the rounds of his fingertips clinking at random against the surface. “Touché.”
“Hugo Boss,” she announced, moving forward and pulling the first item that her hand had found inside the box next to her, leaning to place the first cologne bottle of his veritable treasure trove of fragrances upon the corner of his wardrobe for his retrieval.
“Which one?”
She flipped the box in her hand, the pressure distorting the shape. “Pure.”
“This looks like chick perfume. Are you trying to give me chick perfume?”
“And here I thought you were perfectly comfortable and secure in your manhood,” she shook her hair from the line of her neck, just beneath her ear, adjusting her glasses at the bridge of her nose as she poked her hand into the box at her side and extracted another bottle of scent at random. “Silly me.”
“Oh, I am.” He grimaced, his hand tightening around the delicately designed cologne in grasp, knowing he sounded too eager to be convincing, and reluctant to watch the soft, understated wash of triumph overcome his assistant’s features. “But it does look like a woman’s product, doesn’t it? Honestly. Your opinion?”
“Perhaps.” She didn’t even grace him with a flicker of her gaze as he approached to replace the selection and trade for another.
He pressed down and released a cloud of aroma, sniffing the air as it dispersed with over-exaggerated zeal. “And it smells like one. Sort of.”
Her nails were poised to pull the top from the rectangular prison of his second choice as she offhandedly replied with a deep, informative breath, “Sort of.”
“Acqua Di Gio.” She thrust out a hand that stopped just shy of his left hip. “Armani.”
“I’ve seen commercials for that,” he pushed it back towards her without even touching the object she held, opting instead to at grip her wrist. “Too popular, wouldn’t you agree?”
She shrugged, not bothering to replace it and simply propping it against the package on the bed. “There’s a board member who favors it.”
“See? I require something more... singular. Signature. More unique.”
“Of course, Mr. Stark.” She fought the curve of her lips as he paused in his retreat towards the mirror, where he was intermittently picking at his chin, and the stubble of his facial hair that graced the skin there.
“And how the hell do you know which cologne one of my board members wears?”
As he turned to confront her, he was only quick enough to grab at the glass bottle flying through the air towards his jugular. “Le Male,” was the sharp commentary accompanying the projectile. “It’s a Jean Paul Gaultier.”
“It almost looks like the bottle has tits,” his thumbs caressed the elaborate design stretching from armpit to armpit on the vial. “It could very easily have tits.”
“I think that’s supposed to be a male torso, Mr. Stark.”
He brought it closer to his nose, studying it closely, tracing a line on the tribal pattern that may or may not have been placed to symbolize cleavage. “Maybe tits?”
Pepper caught the bottle tossed flippantly back at her before returning fire.
“Armani Code.”
“Like the Da Vinci Code, perchance?” She snorted, and he laughed; she blushed, knowing he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.
“Do you think I could even get my hair to look like that Langdon character?” Tony asked, not expecting much of a response as he sniffed at the exposed top of the bottle, wrinkling his nose as he tousled his hair playfully. “I mean, that style took skill to achieve. The poof was just...” he twisted the strands near his neck hopefully, frowning as they fell traitorously back into place, denying him the obscene volume he was craving. “Impressive. It was an impressive poof.”
“Don’t be a smart ass.”
“You’d deny me my fun, Miss Potts?” She caught the look his wide-eyed innocence reflected back to her in the mirror as he chucked the bottle over his shoulder blindly, causing her to duck to avoid a collision with her forehead. “You know I have only the highest opinion of my good friend Mr. Hanks.”
“Prada Amber.”
“Now this is chick shit.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It’s purple.”
Pepper glanced towards her employer, who was currently holding the transparent amethyst cologne at arm’s length with a look of disgust glazing his features. With a sigh, she lifted herself to her feet, taking a moment to dig her substantial heels into the plush carpeting and gain a foothold before making her way towards him, focusing in on the white text printed on the glass and underlining one minuscule phrase with her pinkie.
“Pour Homme. Means for strapping, masculine men, like yourself.”
“Now who’s being a smartass?” She’d have been mortified to know that his eyes followed the sway of her ass with every heel-to-toe roll of her ankles as she returned to sit on the edge of the bed, knees knocked together as she revealed the next cologne du jour.
“Bvlgari, Aqva.” She licked her mouth conspicuously before allowing the rest to drop from her glistening pomegranate-shaded lips: “Pour Homme.”
“Pour homme.” He glanced at it cautiously.
“Pour homme,” she assured him with a nod. He chewed at his lip before spritzing a bit on his collarbone, only to discard the bottle at the very edge of the mirror without enthusiasm.
“Calvin Klein. MAN.”
Tony’s expression lifted at the simple black bottle Pepper held out of him. “Now that looks more like man.” He held it out almost threateningly as he flexed his muscles, grunting in approval: “Man.”
“Oh yes. Please proceed to bang your chest and go all Cro-Magnon-esque, sir,” Pepper rolled her eyes, already unpacking his next selection. “Very attractive.”
He popped the bottle into the air towards her with a flick of his forearm from the elbow, using his now-empty fists to bang at either side of his reactor in emphasis, the contact leaving angry white mark of tension on his exposed skin.
“Versace Man Eau Fraiche.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, that’s really its name. Such comedy.” She was vaguely disappointed that he missed her subtle sarcasm as he continued to study the intricacies of the bottle.
“It’s got little... jewel things.” He fingered the offenders gently as he turned it over in his palm. “On the bottle. It’s fucking bedazzled.”
“Did you even own a Bedazzler?”
He arched a sly eyebrow at her, and she was almost jealous of its shape. For just a second. Half a second. “What do you think?”
She turned back to the box in frustration. “You are impossible, really.”
“Thank you.”
There was more force than necessary, given his proximity, when she flinged her latest extraction from the box towards Tony’s midsection. “Unforgivable Black. Sean Jean.”
“I’m not wearing any Puff Daddy shit. Too mainstream.”
“I do believe that it’s P. Diddy, sir. Or just plain Diddy, nowadays.”
“Oh, no,” Tony clarified with a discreet sample of the fragrance against his shoulder. “He’s back to Puff Daddy. Some legal shit.”
“Really?”
“Breaking news.” She didn’t have to be looking to see the sarcastically jubilant shake of his hands that mocked her from above. In fact, she preferred not looking.
“Huh. Has it been confirmed by his agent?” Pepper made a curious grab for her Blackberry.
“You need a hobby, Potts.” He leaned closer to snatch the next bottle from her clutches.
“Is this bottle patterned in… argyle?”
“Armani Attitude,” she read from the outer packaging.
“Fucking... are they all Armani?”
“No. The last one was Mr. Diddy-slash-Daddy, remember?”
“Argyle. There is a line, that exists, and I am drawing it here. No.” He handed it back, and she had to admit; it did kind of look like a stretched out dress sock.
“Fine. Acqua di Parma. Colonia Intensa.”
“I think there’s a suspicious overuse of vowels there,” he remarked before spraying it on his ribs, just below his right nipple. She tried not to watch the soft mist dry on his chest, the subtle sparkle on the dark pucker of his skin.
“Eh, woody.” Replacing the bottle, she tried to imagine away every possible connotation of the descriptor he used and focus on something more productive, not to mention more appropriate.
“Eau de Cartier Concentree.”
“Nice accent there. Where’d you pick up the Français?”
“High school. I dropped it in college, though.” She paused to swallow. “Took German instead.”
“That’s hot.”
He sprayed, this time on his left, before pronouncing a verdict. “Woody. Woody, too fucking woody. I smell like a goddamn forest. And not all tropically sensual like a rainforest, either. More like... like...” he gestured in the air as he searched for the appropriate simile. “Like a pine forest. I smell like fucking Christmas in Appalachia.”
She stretched out towards him, handing him another bottle from his seemingly endless supply. “Salvatore Ferragamo. Subtil. Pour Homme.”
“Strangely, I don’t think it sounds like me.”
She bit down a chuckle. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
He moved to speak and smell at the same time, pulling back and distancing himself from the scent as he finally replied. “And rightly so. That’s... patchouli. It’s like water and patchouli. No... spark. No panache.”
Pepper wondered what it must have been like to have been Tony Stark’s mother, and felt that, for the moment, she may have gathered a fairly accurate idea.
“Tokyo by Kenzo.”
He eyed this one critically, but there was hope in his gaze. “Vibrant packaging. Snazzy title. Promising...”
He let a puff of the fragrance land on his Adam’s apple, bending his neck low to try and catch it wafting off his skin. “But too fruity. I am not a pitcher of Minute Maid.”
Craving lemonade, Pepper handed over the next bottle in line.
“Valentino V Pour Homme.”
This barely made it to the nook of Tony’s left elbow before he denounced it with a loud, throaty choke. “Ick. No.”
Adventurously, Pepper sniffed at the top of the bottle as she took it from him, tilting her head in consideration when she sprayed a small puff into her immediate vicinity. “I sort of like it.”
“While I appreciate the input, the coughing may pose a problem in applying it daily.”
“Fine. Here.” She held a new bottle out to him testily by the lid, her posture full of an attitude that made him feel warm, radiating from his stomach and down, down before reaching up again. “Givenchy. Xeryus.”
He sprayed this on the inside of his right wrist, though he missed and hit instead his open palm and the empty air beyond. Cursing as his fingers grew sticky and the skin stiff, he dangled his hand in front of his nose and inspected the results. “Huh. Not bad. A little oppressive... comes on a bit too strong.”
“So; appropriate?” Pepper replied with skipping a beat.
“Hah,” Tony barked back. “Such humor. I knew you had it in you, Potts. Along with other things that,” he slunk towards her, a predatory sway in his hips as he slid one foot far in front of the other in crossing the distance between them; “I suspect you may have in you...” he drawled, his kneecaps brushing at hers as he set down the cologne; “that might be revealed...” he lowered his stance so that he was supported solely by his hands on the bed at either side of her body, looming over her so close that he could feel her heat, so close that she could smell each and every fragrance he’d tried, intimately separate from one other and mingling with the scent that was solely Tony Stark; “with the proper persuasion...”
Her hand was between them, holding up her Blackberry like a shield against his humming, heaving chest. “Harassment, sir. I’ve got my lawyer on speed dial.”
“Really? Which number?” It irked her that he didn’t even sound remotely abashed, though not so much that he didn’t back away.
“Seven.”
“Fascinating.” His tone sounded closer to patronizing, but who was she to argue? “I certainly hope I’m number one.”
“Not at all, Mr. Stark.”
His eyebrows disappeared in the expressive lines of his forehead. “Really?”
“Mmm.” She suddenly wanted to run her hands over his chest, just this once; wanted to gather his skin under her nails.
“You’re serious.” She couldn’t tell if he was offended or hurt. She didn’t even know if there was a difference, with him.
“Very much so,” she turned with nonchalance, wanting - needing - him to lead this dialogue; she didn’t have the energy, or the restraint, to decide when they were done, not with him nearly on top of her, nearly touching.
“Who is, then?”
“Who’s what?” He thought it was sexy when she feigned ignorance, and she knew it.
“Number one?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yeah, I would.”
“Hmm...” Noncommittal. She was the master of noncommittal. Discreetly scooting back, so that their legs were no longer in contact, so that his hands drew lines to her thighs on either side and not her hips, she coyly diverted her gaze, and was thus taken completely by surprise when a sudden mass of living, breathing man landed half on top of her, wrestling her Blackberry from her unsuspecting grasp.
“Mr. Stark!” she squeaked, wanting nothing more than to disappear, to not be the trembling breasts and quivering ribs beneath him, but it wasn’t meant to be. One foot half-slipped out of its strappy sandal, she heaved herself upwards and used her momentum to push him off of her; he unsteadily regained his balance and stood, her phone held triumphantly above him like some hard-earned Olympic gold.
“Who is it?”
“Tony...”
“Who is it?” There was a glint; a glint in his eyes that had no name, but that Pepper wanted more than anything, in her heart of hearts, to label as murderous. She found herself strangely drawn to it, found it making her feel oddly alive.
“You are such a child.”
“Tell me,” he urged, his face drawn and pleading, his eyes big and glassy as he pouted for her indulgence.
She sighed and did what she always did. “Number one, Mr. Stark, is my voicemail.”
No fucking willpower. None whatsoever.
“Voicemail.” He sounded dumbstruck, and she huffed impatiently at his juvenility.
“Uh huh.”
“Right.” He sounded, for once, as if he knew he was being foolish. He didn’t sound foolish, really, nor did he sound apologetic for being foolish; but in what may have been a first for him, Tony Stark finally did sound as if he were entirely aware of the fact that jealously wresting a woman’s phone away on account of a rival voicemail box may have been, at the very least, slightly ridiculous.
Silence lingered like the perfume stench in the room for a long moment, before Tony asked with the makings of hesitance; “And I’m...”
“Number two.”
“Two.” He held up his hand in a peace sign, eyes darting between the juncture in the middle of his fingers and Pepper’s expectant, painfully amused gaze.
“Shall we continue?” She was always saving his ass, from things big and small.
“I think we shall.”
“Guerlain Imperiale.”
A whiff, and then: “Eh, lavender. No lavender.”
Pepper paused on the bottle in her hands, and the look on her face before she picked up again and passed him the cologne told him this was going to be good.
“Cumming,” she enunciated carefully, without any emotion. “The Fragrance.”
“Prophetic. Now that’s more like it.”
She’d snatched it back before he could wrap his fingers around the circumference. “You don’t get this one.”
“What?” And he was so looking forward to it, too.
“No, I’m ruling it out.”
“On what authority?”
She quickly sprayed the scent into the cup of her palm and brought it to her nose. “I don’t like it. Too woodsy. You’re not a forest, remember?”
“That’s not why.”
“No, it really is. Perhaps not all of the reason, or even the most prominent of reasons, but it’s true. It smells a bit too much like a furniture outlet for your tastes, I think.”
“Spoilsport.” Perhaps it was for the best. ‘Cumming’ in any context, with Pepper nearby, wasn’t something he’d ever envisioned a box of cologne getting in the way of.
“ZegnaIntenso.”
He snapped out of his train of beautiful fantasy at the strange sounding mash of consonants that reminded him of that odd game with the tower of blocks. “One word?”
“Yes.”
“By?”
“Ermenegildo Zegna.”
“Two words.”
“Indeed.”
“Huh.”
“Oh, Mr. Stark,” Pepper interjected with the JengaZentosomething-or-other’s box in hand. “It describes itself as ‘virile.’ That sounds intriguing, right?”
With a sneer, Tony returned the bottle, plunking it back into the box and watching as Pepper’s hand bobbed at the return of its weight. “Wrong, Potts. If it has to call itself that, it’s obviously compensating.”
“You’re running out of options here, Tony.”
“And we’ll worry about that when the options actually do cease. Next?”
He instinctively curled his fingers around a smooth disc-shaped weight as it was pressed into his hands. “Bvlgari Black.”
He mentally tried to figure what virgin skin he could still test it on before rotating his arm and letting the soft precipitation of the aroma bead in the trail of hair near his navel. “Oooo,” he spoke softly, a note of pleasant surprise as he bent at the stomach to sample the sensual fragrance for himself. “Spicy.” Slowly inhaling, and then exhaling to the half before breathing in again, he contemplated the combination of the scent with his sweat, his flesh, his own tantalizing pheromones. “I like this one,” he sauntered over to her, jutting out his pelvic bone as he approached. “What do you think?”
Her face unexpectedly aligned at the waist of his pants, Pepper looked up at him slowly through her lashes, anything to avoid looking down. “Tony...”
“Come on, Pep,” he tilted his head, and her gaze followed the slight shift of his jaw, the graze of his teeth, top against bottom with the motion. “This isn’t the strangest thing I’ve ever asked of you.”
God only knew.
“You’re the only one I trust with something like this, anyway. My scent, as interpreted by the world at large, is in your lovely hands.”
Her hands, in truth, were currently cracked and rough; white and flaky with lack of moisture, her cuticles uneven and ragged even after the manicure she’d indulged in over the previous weekend.
Her nose almost brushing the line of his skin as she leaned into him, she couldn’t help but smell the fragrance, her breathing labored and deep, so close to the loop of stone-washed denim, the button that held the halves together, the zipper that hid…
“It’s very nice, Mr. Stark.” When her eyes slid closed, still level with his hips, the world was colorful, yet made only from the belt loops of his jeans.
“That close,” he whispered, barely breathing, so high above her, freezing her in place. “That close, and I’m still just a title?”
Her eyes shot open when he pulled back, so unlike himself, but the smirk is genuine when she sees it. It’s still only a game.
“This one’s a keeper, Tony.”
And fuck all; she knows that he’s snatched this round right out from under her. She hates when he wins.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tony/Pepper
Word Count: 3,737
Summary: He needs a change. She’s going to help. Movieverse. For thepepperony100 Prompt #67 - Male.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: This is the result of a bunch of challenge elements tied into one absurd little ficlet. I was given the idea doing a sort of snapshot fic - fragmentary, just a little glimpse; and was subsequently given the idea of seeing just how far one could stretch literary minimalism. From there, I went for the task of trying to keep a story going for the mention of twenty separate colognes, and furthermore, I tried to write fluff (which I avoid because I am aware of my immense limitations in that department), and humor, of all things (which I simply do not write, because I am terrible at it). Talk about challenging! Details derived from the mayhem of my own recent perfume shopping experiences, and a random idea that I had, encouraged by the spectulation at tonypepper about what cologne Mr. Stark might in fact wear. I apologize in advance if it’s complete shit; I do rather like the banter between them, here, but the rest of it… yeah, I’m not so sure.
Pour Homme
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
“I cannot believe that I agreed to this.”
Had he been turned towards her, she wouldn’t have risked it; but with his back facing her, she allowed herself the indulgence of an undignified humph, followed a subtle flop onto the comfortable slouch of his bed, the satiny black of the duvet blending with the matte of her skirt, contrasting with the pale cream of her shins.
“Can’t you?” he asked from the bathroom attached at the corner of the room, steam still wafting from the open door in tendrils near the ceiling, the only remaining evidence of his morning ritual of hygiene, aside from the gentle clump of the very ends of his hair, still damp from the shower.
“No...” she reconsidered, crossing her legs so that her left knee now slid over her right . “No, I lied. I can.”
“That’s the spirit, Potts.” She could hear, feel, the smirk in his voice, and where once she may have cringed at it, she now simply ignored it.
The crashing bounce of a large, weighty container landing a few feet from her on the bed elicited a squeak from the unflappable Virginia, and a subsequent snicker from her boss. Pepper stared wide-eyed at the box that had settled next to her, still wobbling with momentum against the mattress, flaps folded under one another and packaging tape curled at the edges.
“Well, dig in.”
Glaring sideways at her employer, she took it in both hands and brought it to sit in her lap, slipping her French-tipped index finger under the intersecting lines of the box, flipping it open slowly and deliberately. “Oh, joy of joys. A cardboard box.”
“Alas,” Tony’s footfalls were soft in the carpeting; sometimes, such as the present, she envied him his bare feet. “Even I can’t get them to deliver in anything more appealing. Personally, I think leather. Velvet. Something classier would be preferable.” He was speaking to his reflection in the mirror, his gaze never faltering, staring himself directly in the eye.
“Are you done, Mr. Stark?”
“Just about, yeah.” He turned, and she realized belatedly that he was shirtless now, the arc reactor shiny and clean against the warm red of his flesh.
She blinked once, and then twice, and prayed he couldn’t see the line of white that was her upper front teeth biting hard upon her lower lip. “Is that necessary?”
“Not entirely.” Blasé. So fucking blasé that it made her want to slap him. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
She arched her eyebrow in reply. “Jarvis, could you please reduce the temperature in this room and all adjoining chambers of the master suite by ten degrees Fahrenheit?”
“As you wish, Miss Potts.”
”Thank you, Jarvis.”
“A pleasure, Miss Potts.” Tony shivered in response to the exchange before the chill began to waft into the room, and Pepper felt vindicated, even if her lips were numb from the lack of circulation her clenched jaw was ensuring.
“Touché, Potts,” he murmured, rapping the pads of his fingers on the circle of metal between his pectorals, the slivers of nail budding past the rounds of his fingertips clinking at random against the surface. “Touché.”
“Hugo Boss,” she announced, moving forward and pulling the first item that her hand had found inside the box next to her, leaning to place the first cologne bottle of his veritable treasure trove of fragrances upon the corner of his wardrobe for his retrieval.
“Which one?”
She flipped the box in her hand, the pressure distorting the shape. “Pure.”
“This looks like chick perfume. Are you trying to give me chick perfume?”
“And here I thought you were perfectly comfortable and secure in your manhood,” she shook her hair from the line of her neck, just beneath her ear, adjusting her glasses at the bridge of her nose as she poked her hand into the box at her side and extracted another bottle of scent at random. “Silly me.”
“Oh, I am.” He grimaced, his hand tightening around the delicately designed cologne in grasp, knowing he sounded too eager to be convincing, and reluctant to watch the soft, understated wash of triumph overcome his assistant’s features. “But it does look like a woman’s product, doesn’t it? Honestly. Your opinion?”
“Perhaps.” She didn’t even grace him with a flicker of her gaze as he approached to replace the selection and trade for another.
He pressed down and released a cloud of aroma, sniffing the air as it dispersed with over-exaggerated zeal. “And it smells like one. Sort of.”
Her nails were poised to pull the top from the rectangular prison of his second choice as she offhandedly replied with a deep, informative breath, “Sort of.”
“Acqua Di Gio.” She thrust out a hand that stopped just shy of his left hip. “Armani.”
“I’ve seen commercials for that,” he pushed it back towards her without even touching the object she held, opting instead to at grip her wrist. “Too popular, wouldn’t you agree?”
She shrugged, not bothering to replace it and simply propping it against the package on the bed. “There’s a board member who favors it.”
“See? I require something more... singular. Signature. More unique.”
“Of course, Mr. Stark.” She fought the curve of her lips as he paused in his retreat towards the mirror, where he was intermittently picking at his chin, and the stubble of his facial hair that graced the skin there.
“And how the hell do you know which cologne one of my board members wears?”
As he turned to confront her, he was only quick enough to grab at the glass bottle flying through the air towards his jugular. “Le Male,” was the sharp commentary accompanying the projectile. “It’s a Jean Paul Gaultier.”
“It almost looks like the bottle has tits,” his thumbs caressed the elaborate design stretching from armpit to armpit on the vial. “It could very easily have tits.”
“I think that’s supposed to be a male torso, Mr. Stark.”
He brought it closer to his nose, studying it closely, tracing a line on the tribal pattern that may or may not have been placed to symbolize cleavage. “Maybe tits?”
Pepper caught the bottle tossed flippantly back at her before returning fire.
“Armani Code.”
“Like the Da Vinci Code, perchance?” She snorted, and he laughed; she blushed, knowing he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.
“Do you think I could even get my hair to look like that Langdon character?” Tony asked, not expecting much of a response as he sniffed at the exposed top of the bottle, wrinkling his nose as he tousled his hair playfully. “I mean, that style took skill to achieve. The poof was just...” he twisted the strands near his neck hopefully, frowning as they fell traitorously back into place, denying him the obscene volume he was craving. “Impressive. It was an impressive poof.”
“Don’t be a smart ass.”
“You’d deny me my fun, Miss Potts?” She caught the look his wide-eyed innocence reflected back to her in the mirror as he chucked the bottle over his shoulder blindly, causing her to duck to avoid a collision with her forehead. “You know I have only the highest opinion of my good friend Mr. Hanks.”
“Prada Amber.”
“Now this is chick shit.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It’s purple.”
Pepper glanced towards her employer, who was currently holding the transparent amethyst cologne at arm’s length with a look of disgust glazing his features. With a sigh, she lifted herself to her feet, taking a moment to dig her substantial heels into the plush carpeting and gain a foothold before making her way towards him, focusing in on the white text printed on the glass and underlining one minuscule phrase with her pinkie.
“Pour Homme. Means for strapping, masculine men, like yourself.”
“Now who’s being a smartass?” She’d have been mortified to know that his eyes followed the sway of her ass with every heel-to-toe roll of her ankles as she returned to sit on the edge of the bed, knees knocked together as she revealed the next cologne du jour.
“Bvlgari, Aqva.” She licked her mouth conspicuously before allowing the rest to drop from her glistening pomegranate-shaded lips: “Pour Homme.”
“Pour homme.” He glanced at it cautiously.
“Pour homme,” she assured him with a nod. He chewed at his lip before spritzing a bit on his collarbone, only to discard the bottle at the very edge of the mirror without enthusiasm.
“Calvin Klein. MAN.”
Tony’s expression lifted at the simple black bottle Pepper held out of him. “Now that looks more like man.” He held it out almost threateningly as he flexed his muscles, grunting in approval: “Man.”
“Oh yes. Please proceed to bang your chest and go all Cro-Magnon-esque, sir,” Pepper rolled her eyes, already unpacking his next selection. “Very attractive.”
He popped the bottle into the air towards her with a flick of his forearm from the elbow, using his now-empty fists to bang at either side of his reactor in emphasis, the contact leaving angry white mark of tension on his exposed skin.
“Versace Man Eau Fraiche.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, that’s really its name. Such comedy.” She was vaguely disappointed that he missed her subtle sarcasm as he continued to study the intricacies of the bottle.
“It’s got little... jewel things.” He fingered the offenders gently as he turned it over in his palm. “On the bottle. It’s fucking bedazzled.”
“Did you even own a Bedazzler?”
He arched a sly eyebrow at her, and she was almost jealous of its shape. For just a second. Half a second. “What do you think?”
She turned back to the box in frustration. “You are impossible, really.”
“Thank you.”
There was more force than necessary, given his proximity, when she flinged her latest extraction from the box towards Tony’s midsection. “Unforgivable Black. Sean Jean.”
“I’m not wearing any Puff Daddy shit. Too mainstream.”
“I do believe that it’s P. Diddy, sir. Or just plain Diddy, nowadays.”
“Oh, no,” Tony clarified with a discreet sample of the fragrance against his shoulder. “He’s back to Puff Daddy. Some legal shit.”
“Really?”
“Breaking news.” She didn’t have to be looking to see the sarcastically jubilant shake of his hands that mocked her from above. In fact, she preferred not looking.
“Huh. Has it been confirmed by his agent?” Pepper made a curious grab for her Blackberry.
“You need a hobby, Potts.” He leaned closer to snatch the next bottle from her clutches.
“Is this bottle patterned in… argyle?”
“Armani Attitude,” she read from the outer packaging.
“Fucking... are they all Armani?”
“No. The last one was Mr. Diddy-slash-Daddy, remember?”
“Argyle. There is a line, that exists, and I am drawing it here. No.” He handed it back, and she had to admit; it did kind of look like a stretched out dress sock.
“Fine. Acqua di Parma. Colonia Intensa.”
“I think there’s a suspicious overuse of vowels there,” he remarked before spraying it on his ribs, just below his right nipple. She tried not to watch the soft mist dry on his chest, the subtle sparkle on the dark pucker of his skin.
“Eh, woody.” Replacing the bottle, she tried to imagine away every possible connotation of the descriptor he used and focus on something more productive, not to mention more appropriate.
“Eau de Cartier Concentree.”
“Nice accent there. Where’d you pick up the Français?”
“High school. I dropped it in college, though.” She paused to swallow. “Took German instead.”
“That’s hot.”
He sprayed, this time on his left, before pronouncing a verdict. “Woody. Woody, too fucking woody. I smell like a goddamn forest. And not all tropically sensual like a rainforest, either. More like... like...” he gestured in the air as he searched for the appropriate simile. “Like a pine forest. I smell like fucking Christmas in Appalachia.”
She stretched out towards him, handing him another bottle from his seemingly endless supply. “Salvatore Ferragamo. Subtil. Pour Homme.”
“Strangely, I don’t think it sounds like me.”
She bit down a chuckle. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
He moved to speak and smell at the same time, pulling back and distancing himself from the scent as he finally replied. “And rightly so. That’s... patchouli. It’s like water and patchouli. No... spark. No panache.”
Pepper wondered what it must have been like to have been Tony Stark’s mother, and felt that, for the moment, she may have gathered a fairly accurate idea.
“Tokyo by Kenzo.”
He eyed this one critically, but there was hope in his gaze. “Vibrant packaging. Snazzy title. Promising...”
He let a puff of the fragrance land on his Adam’s apple, bending his neck low to try and catch it wafting off his skin. “But too fruity. I am not a pitcher of Minute Maid.”
Craving lemonade, Pepper handed over the next bottle in line.
“Valentino V Pour Homme.”
This barely made it to the nook of Tony’s left elbow before he denounced it with a loud, throaty choke. “Ick. No.”
Adventurously, Pepper sniffed at the top of the bottle as she took it from him, tilting her head in consideration when she sprayed a small puff into her immediate vicinity. “I sort of like it.”
“While I appreciate the input, the coughing may pose a problem in applying it daily.”
“Fine. Here.” She held a new bottle out to him testily by the lid, her posture full of an attitude that made him feel warm, radiating from his stomach and down, down before reaching up again. “Givenchy. Xeryus.”
He sprayed this on the inside of his right wrist, though he missed and hit instead his open palm and the empty air beyond. Cursing as his fingers grew sticky and the skin stiff, he dangled his hand in front of his nose and inspected the results. “Huh. Not bad. A little oppressive... comes on a bit too strong.”
“So; appropriate?” Pepper replied with skipping a beat.
“Hah,” Tony barked back. “Such humor. I knew you had it in you, Potts. Along with other things that,” he slunk towards her, a predatory sway in his hips as he slid one foot far in front of the other in crossing the distance between them; “I suspect you may have in you...” he drawled, his kneecaps brushing at hers as he set down the cologne; “that might be revealed...” he lowered his stance so that he was supported solely by his hands on the bed at either side of her body, looming over her so close that he could feel her heat, so close that she could smell each and every fragrance he’d tried, intimately separate from one other and mingling with the scent that was solely Tony Stark; “with the proper persuasion...”
Her hand was between them, holding up her Blackberry like a shield against his humming, heaving chest. “Harassment, sir. I’ve got my lawyer on speed dial.”
“Really? Which number?” It irked her that he didn’t even sound remotely abashed, though not so much that he didn’t back away.
“Seven.”
“Fascinating.” His tone sounded closer to patronizing, but who was she to argue? “I certainly hope I’m number one.”
“Not at all, Mr. Stark.”
His eyebrows disappeared in the expressive lines of his forehead. “Really?”
“Mmm.” She suddenly wanted to run her hands over his chest, just this once; wanted to gather his skin under her nails.
“You’re serious.” She couldn’t tell if he was offended or hurt. She didn’t even know if there was a difference, with him.
“Very much so,” she turned with nonchalance, wanting - needing - him to lead this dialogue; she didn’t have the energy, or the restraint, to decide when they were done, not with him nearly on top of her, nearly touching.
“Who is, then?”
“Who’s what?” He thought it was sexy when she feigned ignorance, and she knew it.
“Number one?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yeah, I would.”
“Hmm...” Noncommittal. She was the master of noncommittal. Discreetly scooting back, so that their legs were no longer in contact, so that his hands drew lines to her thighs on either side and not her hips, she coyly diverted her gaze, and was thus taken completely by surprise when a sudden mass of living, breathing man landed half on top of her, wrestling her Blackberry from her unsuspecting grasp.
“Mr. Stark!” she squeaked, wanting nothing more than to disappear, to not be the trembling breasts and quivering ribs beneath him, but it wasn’t meant to be. One foot half-slipped out of its strappy sandal, she heaved herself upwards and used her momentum to push him off of her; he unsteadily regained his balance and stood, her phone held triumphantly above him like some hard-earned Olympic gold.
“Who is it?”
“Tony...”
“Who is it?” There was a glint; a glint in his eyes that had no name, but that Pepper wanted more than anything, in her heart of hearts, to label as murderous. She found herself strangely drawn to it, found it making her feel oddly alive.
“You are such a child.”
“Tell me,” he urged, his face drawn and pleading, his eyes big and glassy as he pouted for her indulgence.
She sighed and did what she always did. “Number one, Mr. Stark, is my voicemail.”
No fucking willpower. None whatsoever.
“Voicemail.” He sounded dumbstruck, and she huffed impatiently at his juvenility.
“Uh huh.”
“Right.” He sounded, for once, as if he knew he was being foolish. He didn’t sound foolish, really, nor did he sound apologetic for being foolish; but in what may have been a first for him, Tony Stark finally did sound as if he were entirely aware of the fact that jealously wresting a woman’s phone away on account of a rival voicemail box may have been, at the very least, slightly ridiculous.
Silence lingered like the perfume stench in the room for a long moment, before Tony asked with the makings of hesitance; “And I’m...”
“Number two.”
“Two.” He held up his hand in a peace sign, eyes darting between the juncture in the middle of his fingers and Pepper’s expectant, painfully amused gaze.
“Shall we continue?” She was always saving his ass, from things big and small.
“I think we shall.”
“Guerlain Imperiale.”
A whiff, and then: “Eh, lavender. No lavender.”
Pepper paused on the bottle in her hands, and the look on her face before she picked up again and passed him the cologne told him this was going to be good.
“Cumming,” she enunciated carefully, without any emotion. “The Fragrance.”
“Prophetic. Now that’s more like it.”
She’d snatched it back before he could wrap his fingers around the circumference. “You don’t get this one.”
“What?” And he was so looking forward to it, too.
“No, I’m ruling it out.”
“On what authority?”
She quickly sprayed the scent into the cup of her palm and brought it to her nose. “I don’t like it. Too woodsy. You’re not a forest, remember?”
“That’s not why.”
“No, it really is. Perhaps not all of the reason, or even the most prominent of reasons, but it’s true. It smells a bit too much like a furniture outlet for your tastes, I think.”
“Spoilsport.” Perhaps it was for the best. ‘Cumming’ in any context, with Pepper nearby, wasn’t something he’d ever envisioned a box of cologne getting in the way of.
“ZegnaIntenso.”
He snapped out of his train of beautiful fantasy at the strange sounding mash of consonants that reminded him of that odd game with the tower of blocks. “One word?”
“Yes.”
“By?”
“Ermenegildo Zegna.”
“Two words.”
“Indeed.”
“Huh.”
“Oh, Mr. Stark,” Pepper interjected with the JengaZentosomething-or-other’s box in hand. “It describes itself as ‘virile.’ That sounds intriguing, right?”
With a sneer, Tony returned the bottle, plunking it back into the box and watching as Pepper’s hand bobbed at the return of its weight. “Wrong, Potts. If it has to call itself that, it’s obviously compensating.”
“You’re running out of options here, Tony.”
“And we’ll worry about that when the options actually do cease. Next?”
He instinctively curled his fingers around a smooth disc-shaped weight as it was pressed into his hands. “Bvlgari Black.”
He mentally tried to figure what virgin skin he could still test it on before rotating his arm and letting the soft precipitation of the aroma bead in the trail of hair near his navel. “Oooo,” he spoke softly, a note of pleasant surprise as he bent at the stomach to sample the sensual fragrance for himself. “Spicy.” Slowly inhaling, and then exhaling to the half before breathing in again, he contemplated the combination of the scent with his sweat, his flesh, his own tantalizing pheromones. “I like this one,” he sauntered over to her, jutting out his pelvic bone as he approached. “What do you think?”
Her face unexpectedly aligned at the waist of his pants, Pepper looked up at him slowly through her lashes, anything to avoid looking down. “Tony...”
“Come on, Pep,” he tilted his head, and her gaze followed the slight shift of his jaw, the graze of his teeth, top against bottom with the motion. “This isn’t the strangest thing I’ve ever asked of you.”
God only knew.
“You’re the only one I trust with something like this, anyway. My scent, as interpreted by the world at large, is in your lovely hands.”
Her hands, in truth, were currently cracked and rough; white and flaky with lack of moisture, her cuticles uneven and ragged even after the manicure she’d indulged in over the previous weekend.
Her nose almost brushing the line of his skin as she leaned into him, she couldn’t help but smell the fragrance, her breathing labored and deep, so close to the loop of stone-washed denim, the button that held the halves together, the zipper that hid…
“It’s very nice, Mr. Stark.” When her eyes slid closed, still level with his hips, the world was colorful, yet made only from the belt loops of his jeans.
“That close,” he whispered, barely breathing, so high above her, freezing her in place. “That close, and I’m still just a title?”
Her eyes shot open when he pulled back, so unlike himself, but the smirk is genuine when she sees it. It’s still only a game.
“This one’s a keeper, Tony.”
And fuck all; she knows that he’s snatched this round right out from under her. She hates when he wins.