RPF: here i am leaving you clues (Ben Bass/Missy Peregrym), Part 2/2
Title: here i am leaving you clues (Part 2/2)
Authors: threeguesses and lowriseflare
Fandom/ Pairing: RPF, Ben Bass/Missy Peregrym
Rating: R
Word Count: 11,800+
Summary: The one with the Olympics, and also all the sex.
Missy makes a soft, quiet sound against his mouth. Ben thinks of the first time he ever did it, the blackout episode way back when they barely knew each other, the zing of spearmint gum behind her teeth; Tassie left them alone for half an hour to rehearse it, to give them privacy or something. Let them work it out on their own.
(They rehearsed the breakup that way, too, actually. Didn't talk for a day and a half once they got it on tape.)
Now he kisses her back against the wall of her hotel room, hands planted against the glossy paint on either side of her head. Works one thigh between her denim-covered legs. She's a lot taller than Laura is, long torso and those sharp hips grinding into his body; Ben thinks of Sam and Andy, knew this was trouble from the start. Pretty much stops thinking after that.
"Okay," Missy says suddenly, pulling away with a rough, ragged inhale. Her head thunks back against the wall hard enough that it sounds like it hurts. "Okay, okay, stop, uncle, I--"
"What?" Ben says dumbly. He's half-hard already, brain foggy like he's drunk even though he only ever got halfway there. He sounds irritated even to his own ears, somebody's rejected prom date. "Stop like--?"
Missy scowls. "Stop like I'm not particularly interested in a pity fuck, Ben," she says sharply. Ben feels it like a fist to the jaw.
"MP," he says quietly after a second. His head's starting to bother him a little, a dull throbbing ache. "That's not what it is." He bumps his nose against hers, familiar. "Whatever you think it is, that's--yeah. That's not what it is."
He's trying to reassure her with the contact, his face right close up against hers, but Missy's graceful body goes totally rigid. "Don't do that," she orders. All of a sudden she looks like she's about to burst into tears all over again. "That's not--don't do that to me."
Her thick-sad voice hangs on Ben like a weight. "MP, I can't--" He wants to touch her and keep his arms bracketed around her head in equal amounts, is suddenly terrified that she's going to spook. Now that they've come this far he doesn't want to quit. "What should I do?" he asks. Prays like hell the answer isn't stop.
(Because okay, if it's all going the way of a hand basket anyway--and it is, jesus, Ben can't even begin to imagine how they're going to come back from this--then fuck it, Ben wants once. He's a jackass, probably, but at least he can admit it to himself in words now, one thigh pressing hard enough between Missy's legs that he can feel the heat: he wants to fuck her. Wants it like he wants his next breath and barely even cares what happens afterwards.)
The way she's leaning has her neck exposed; Ben kisses her there, just lightly, right behind one pretty ear.
It's enough to set her off again. "Don't do that," she hisses, jerking away. Ben's about to pull back and start apologizing, try to figure out how they can maintain even a modicum of a professional relationship, but Missy isn't done: "That's them," she hisses, practically spitting. "All that stuff with the--" And then she copies him, nudging her nose at his; when she does it it's violent, this hard butt of her forehead. "It's them, not us, and we can't just pretend--" She breaks off, looking angry and exhausted. "I can't do that with you, okay Ben?"
Ben sags. He doesn't know how to fix it for her; Sam fucks like Ben, probably, because Ben gave him all his own tics. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, now that he's got Missy up against a wall he wants to kiss her neck and pick her up and do all the things he's done before, only this time it'll be for real.
Ben thinks. "Okay," he says slowly. "Okay, I hear you, I just--" He gets his arms around her before he kisses her again; holding her still, yeah, on top of which Sam and Andy don't really hug, so. Feels safe. He keeps kissing her, careful. Tastes salt on her upper lip. Eventually he feels her relax. "Lie down, all right?"
"Ben--" Missy pushes a breath out, a look on her face so bereft that for a second he's back to being totally sure she's about to call it off, to send him home to his empty house to wait for his wife and wonder. Then she sighs. "You're the worst, you know that?" she asks him, wriggling out of his grip and crossing the carpet. The way she says it, it doesn't sound rhetorical. "You're the actual worst."
(She's not wrong.
She lies down anyway.)
It's a big bed, fluffy hotel duvet and about seventeen pillows up at the top of it; Missy chucks one in his general direction, makes a face. Her shirt's riding up again, that same tan strip of stomach. It makes Ben want to bite. "Quit looking at me like that," she orders, planting her feet and pulling her knees up. Tucking one arm behind her head.
How do you want me to look at you? Ben almost asks, then thinks better of it. He raises his eyebrows instead, tries a smirk. Tosses the pillow back at her. "You got a lotta demands, MP."
Missy catches it football-style, spiking it on the ground for a touchdown celebration. "Yep," is all she says. Then she sweeps both arms out behind her like she's making a snow angel, dumps the rest of the pillows down after the first. "Come here." Her bun is falling out a bit more now, all that rolling against the sheets.
Ben crawls up to hover over her obediently, thumbing at that strip of bare skin on the way. It got to him a little, watching her mess up the bed. "What?" He nudges one final teetering pillow over the edge, nods down at the rest on the floor. "You figure we're gonna need the room or something?"
Missy grins. "Or something." She kept her feet planted while Ben situated himself, knees together like she's thinking about holding a penny between them. Ben can't decide whether to swing one out to give himself some space or leave them where they are. If he drops down another inch they'll be bumping up against his crotch.
"I've got a demand," he tells her finally, hands strictly to himself. "Take your hair down."
(That's something Sam can't do. The continuity supervisor always yells at Ben if he musses it.)
"That's it?" Missy lifts herself into a half-crunch so she can get to the elastic, soft chest pressing up against his. "That's a pretty vanilla demand, friend." She grins again, like possibly she's starting to enjoy herself a little. "Had you pegged for kinkier than that."
She lowers herself back down onto her elbows, her hair updo-wavy and pooling on the mattress. "Oh yeah?" Ben can't resist asking, bracing himself on his elbows and twisting a thick smooth strand of it between two fingertips. He smells hotel shampoo; she travels light. "Thought about it, did you?"
"Shut up." Missy narrows her eyes, mouth so close to his that their lips just miss brushing. "Like you didn't."
Her knees are drifting apart, one coming up a bit to rest against the side of his body. Ben drops the rest of the way down. "You shut up," he says. He shifts his weight to one arm, runs a hand up underneath her thigh. Hitches her a little closer. "You already told me, you know I did."
"That's true." It's a thing she likes hearing though, Ben can tell; her hips open up even more to make space for him, breasts pushed out just the slightest bit. She cocks her chin a bit, confident. "What'd you think?"
Ben looks at her, eyelashes curled up black and stiff with mascara, those pretty moles beside her mouth. Missy always wears darker makeup than the kind they put on Andy. Sleeker.
"I thought you'd be bossy," he says. Missy starts to protest, giggling, but Ben isn't done. "Also thought you'd be loud."
That gets a look on her face. "Yeah?" Her leg is hooking around him now, pulling him down, the cradle of her pelvis opening all the way up. "Think about it a lot?"
Ben breathes out against the full contact. "Some," he allows. Missy flexes her hips, grinding, and he hisses. His voice is breathless when he continues, up in a register where he never lets Sam's get. "More than I should. Gonna tell me if I'm right?"
Missy grins, stretching her upper body out all tall and languid. "Find out for yourself." And okay: she's asking for it now, smiling, so probably it should be okay to--
Ben skims off her shirt.
It's a black bra all right, front clasp and these soft sheer cups that almost do him in before anything even happens, her pretty nipples puckered up underneath. Ben looks. Missy takes a deep breath and he feels her ribs expand against the flat of his hand. It's a strange sensation, weirdly intimate all things considered, a sharp little shudder under his palm the only thing that gives her away. "Jesus, MP," he says uselessly. He circles with one thumb until she hardens up even more, Missy's dark gaze cast downward and both of them watching it happen. Ben slides down her body and sucks though the fabric until she gasps.
"Mm." Ben grins, shifting his hips a bit against the mattress. "That wasn't so loud," he murmurs, chiding. Ducks his head and bites.
That gets a sound out of her all right, this high little ah plus a restless squirming underneath him, her hands coming down to yank at the hem of his shirt. "Been working out?" she teases when it hits the sheets beside them, rubbing up and down his chest.
Ben rolls his eyes. "Shut up," he tells her (he's forty fucking three years old and he's half-naked on national television; yes, he goes to the fucking gym). "Not all of us can launch ourselves down hotel hallways as foreplay."
Missy smiles. "Oh, I'm talented," she agrees, arms back up over her head and that long long body. "Probably you should show me what else you can do, though." She raises her dark, neat eyebrows in a challenge. "Like. For foreplay."
Ben smirks. Bites one more time. "See? Bossy."
(He does what she says, though.)
Her jeans are peel-off tight. When Ben starts to roll them down her long long legs--another thing Sam never gets to do, the weird mason-dixon line of tv propriety--they pull her underwear down a bit too, enough that the show would have to hop over to HBO in a hurry. Ben skims a thumb across the exposed skin before tugging them back into place. He left her bra on on purpose, all that damp fabric clinging; it's possible he sort of wants to see the combined effect.
Well. They do match. Ben swallows against a suddenly dry throat.
Missy wiggles impatiently, opening up her hips again. The underwear is sheer too, strategic bits of opaque detailing doing absolutely nothing to undercut that fact. "You are--" Ben starts to tell her, then stops.
Missy looks pleased anyway. "I was promised some effort here," she reminds him quietly. Her voice is gentle, pretty lacquered toes coming up to press into his lap.
Ben smacks a kiss against one arrogant knee. "Patience." He cups both heels and sets them back down on his shoulders. Crawls up the bed until her knees are forced to bend.
"Oh," Missy says, sort of breathless. "That." She's got a tone on her like she's thinking about telling him cunnilingus is a boring foreplay trick (and sure, it absolutely is--in comparison to triple flips) but she's still 100% angling for it, hips rolling up expectantly. "Okay," she gasps as Ben kisses a line down her abdomen. "Um. I know you like the underwear, but I think you're going to have to take them off for this."
Ben considers. "Really?" He licks a long stripe up the middle, listens to Missy gasp. "Because I don't think so."
She's wet right through the thin fabric, smell and taste of her like there's nothing between them at all. Ben finds her clit and rubs. He doesn't know what she likes so he tries a little of everything, glances up at her to watch the play of sensation across her pretty face: she's shifting a bit underneath him, restless, and he's not entirely sure what it means. "Good?" he mutters quietly, and it sounds a lot less confident than it did inside his head.
"Mm-hmm." Missy's got one hand down in his hair, scritching, and she's not the type to lie but still he doesn't entirely trust her. He bites a little, just cautious, just to see what she might do.
(Her hips come clear off the fucking mattress, this whine like nothing he's ever heard.)
So.
Ben grins against the soft skin of her inner thigh, nips along the elastic; he slips his thumb down lower, dips inside. Missy whimpers low and soft. Another couple minutes of that, tongue working hard against the place where she's the wettest, and she's close--like close close, soaked through and her hips rocking up in a specific sort of way, this succession of sharp little breaths--when his phone rings in the back pocket of his jeans.
Just for a second, Ben freezes. It's Laura's ringtone, this country song she likes and programmed in for herself that he wouldn't have the heart to change even if he knew how to, no matter how much ribbing he takes for it at work. Missy recognizes it too, clearly: her dark eyes fly open, whole body going still as winter and those tan thighs tense on either side of his face.
So. Ben makes a choice.
He fumbles back behind him, hits the button to ignore; the sudden silence in enormous, Missy's dark eyes searching for his. "Relax," he tells her, hardly more than a murmur. She tastes sharper than he's used to, everywhere on him at once. "Shh," he says. "Relax, beautiful, you're fine, it's just us, just you and me, I--"
He doesn't know why he gets the feeling it's the talk more than anything else that gets her off.
She isn't actually all that loud, too soon after the awkward silence of the phone call maybe (or possibly--possibly she's just focused on listening to him). But: she does say his name. Right as she's arching, Ben momentarily holding off on telling her she's beautiful in favour of licking her clit, it comes out in this shocked breathy gasp she could charge for by the minute. "Ben."
Ben-- yeah. He likes that way too much.
Her fancy underwear is ruined, no question; Ben's practically eating it off her by the end. Which, incidentally, is another thing he's sort of desperately into. After she's done Ben peels them down her legs, this sticky warm mess of fabric, and for a hot second he honestly considers asking if he can keep them. Like some pervert, christ, or that stupid kid in Sixteen Candles.
"Come here," Missy gasps, hands fluttering down to his shoulders. "Ben, please, I want--" She sounds wrecked.
Ben comes. Crawls right up her body and gives her a kiss without wiping his mouth. Missy doesn't seem to mind, kissing back just as messy, her hands sinking possessively into his hair. Ben reaches around to undo her bra, takes his time peeling the soft cups off of her sensitive nipples. Missy hisses.
"There you go," Ben tells her, bending down to suck a bit. The thing is pretty, sure, but it's left some mean marks in her skin. Ben noses around a bit, finds a birthmark he couldn't see before.
She's working a serious tan line and he wonders where she was all summer; wonders what she did and who she was with, if she's still dating that same skinny kid from last year. If they're serious. It's insane to be jealous, Ben absolutely knows that, when he's the one with the fucking--
fuck.
In any case: the wondering's got him sucking a mark on the soft underside of one pretty breast, possessive. It's a Sam move, no question, but at the moment Ben honestly doesn't give a damn; he uses his teeth and tugs a bit as he does it, right where her skin gets pale and private.
Missy notices, of course, curious chin tipped down to watch (she is--she is real visual, is a thing that is starting to dawn on him), but the strange part is how she doesn't seem to mind at all. In fact, she's actually arching into it, whining a bit more loudly now like maybe she wants him to--jesus. Jesus. All of a sudden Ben's like fifty percent harder than he was already, cock straining against his jeans, pressing hot and heavy against her inner thigh.
Missy notices that, too. "Okay," she gulps, face nudging right up at his like she's totally forgotten all her rules from earlier, or remembered them and decided she doesn't particularly care anymore. "Just let me--" She's reaching down in between them to work the button on his jeans, long fingers slow and clumsy. He thinks her hands might be shaking just the slightest bit. It satisfies him a little, knowing that he got to her like that: she's a steady touch, normally, was the first one out of all of them to learn to take apart a gun.
She gets his zipper down, reaches inside his boxers, and--well. She's steady, all right.
Her palm is damp. She lets go of him briefly to lick it, making it damper. For a minute Ben can't decide if he wants to watch her fist or her face, eyes bouncing back and forth between them like he's at a tennis match.
Missy obviously isn't having the same issue. It feels almost startling blatant, actually, the way she's staring, gaze lingering so heavily between Ben's legs it's practically a physical presence all it's own (and visual, jesus-- yeah). Her mouth opens a bit as she does it, that wet inner lip. Ben resists the impulse to ask her if she likes what she sees.
"Okay," she says again, palm circling the head. Now she's watching his face. "Do you want-- what do you want?" Her mouth is very pink. The suggestion is there before she even licks her lips.
Ben can barely think. He bites her instead of replying, this time on the shoulder. Missy's free hand clenches spastically in response, this sharp flurry of nails against his back that ends almost immediately. "Fuck," she pants. "Don't-- you can't let me do that. I can't do that."
She sounds scared. (And god, Ben knows she can't--Laura will notice immediately, of course she will, there's no way--but. It doesn't make him want it any less.)
Another thing he noticed: she didn't stop him when he did it to her.
So. He bites again.
This time Missy wrenches both hands away from him like she doesn't trust herself, bringing them up to fist in her own pretty hair instead. "Ben."
"I know," he murmurs. He slides his hands up her body to lock with hers, her hair getting caught all between their fingers, how soft it is and the smell of her and the way she’s letting him press her into the mattress making subject-verb agreement feel like a tall order right about now. "I know, I--" and he means to say it again but what comes out is "don't care," and as soon as he says it he realizes he doesn't. He'll wear a t-shirt to bed, he'll think of something, but he just--
He just--
"I don't care," Ben says again, louder, tugging her hands down out of the tangles. One wavy strand gets caught around his ring finger; she gasps as he pulls himself free. "Just--whatever, MP, please."
Missy's staring at him wide-eyed (and the please, that was a surprise, he didn't totally mean to--jesus. Ben's head swims). She's nakedly terrified now, he's pretty sure, look on her face like he just gave her carte blanche and she doesn't know what the fuck to do with it, all the rest of her rules right out the window. Like she thought this would go a certain way and now it's not.
(The next time he bites, though, just behind her earlobe:
Missy bites back.)
She does more than bite, actually, short shiny nails raking over his hips as she works his pants the rest of the way off and flips him over, her on all fours above him and those gymnast arms braced on either side of his head. Ben's leaking all over his stomach. Her body is absurdly, heartbreakingly warm.
"We're in trouble," she murmurs, nipping her way down his rib cage and a tone in her voice like there's nothing to be done about it. She tongues at the wet line of hair just below his navel. Drops down and takes his cock in her mouth.
Ben groans helplessly, so sensitive her tongue feels almost rough. She clamps both hands down on his hips as she sucks, bossy, and it honestly might be the nail marks that are doing it for him the most. "MP," he starts, mainly just to say her name. Her mouth is about ten degrees warmer than the rest of her.
Missy looks up and hums, cheeks hollowed out pornographically. Which-- yeah. That right there is almost the end of him. Still, Ben blows out a long breath and tries to stand it, playing a dangerous little game with himself of counting down the seconds (he just, he wants to remember). He can feel the orgasm in the base of his spine.
"So much trouble," he echoes, sliding a thumb down to touch her busy jaw. He's actually considering rolling his hips a little, see how mean she's willing to get with those nails, but he's pretty sure he'd lose it all over himself if he even tried. Missy hums again like she agrees.
He finally twists away when she starts trying to swallow down as much as she can, a party trick Ben hasn't seen performed nearly enough times to stay cool about. "Jesus, MP." He grabs her hands and pulls. "Don't--I want to--" Fuck you first sounds crass. (And god, Ben thinks suddenly--what if she actually doesn't? Want to, that is. What if that's the last rule, some line in the sand she's drawing for herself?)
"Want what?" Missy asks, letting him manhandle her onto her back, dark hair all splayed across the mattress. He keeps his hands wrapped tight around her wrists. "Hm? Ben. You want what?"
Ben kisses her to avoid answering, not that Missy seems to mind particularly. He still tastes like her, he knows he does, which adds a whole different angle to how focused she is on licking her way deep into his mouth. "You know what," he mutters, when they finally come up for air.
Missy grins. "I do," she admits, rolling her hips up hard and dirty. She wasn't kidding about the shaving, this smooth wet slide all against his cock; he thinks about her doing that with the intention of him seeing, almost loses it all over again. "But I wanna hear you say it."
So. It doesn't exactly sound like she's got another rule she's waiting to spring on him. Ben looks up at her pretty face to check.
(It came down to them and another couple, for Sam and for Andy. Tassie had them switching out all day like some kind of Shakespearean farce. Ben read with another girl most of the morning, a shorter brunette with no trace of an accent; they brought Missy in after lunch and had them do the locker room scene from the pilot, tackled me and tried to kiss me. The script said that Sam took his clothes off, so Ben did.
"I was hoping it was going to be you," Missy said later, their first day of work and her throwing her arms around him like they were old friends after summer vacation. He hadn't remembered her eyes being so dark. "The other guy didn't get naked at all."
And Ben--yeah. He'd been hoping it was her right back.)
"Ben," she says again, pulling him back like she's bent on his full attention, that same demanding voice from earlier. "Say it."
Ben rolls his eyes, letting go of her wrists to catch her under the knees and pull up, answering with actions. Missy lets him, opening up her hips wide and easy. The bare skin between her legs is baby-soft.
When he starts trying to line himself up though-- "Nope, sorry." She plants a foot on his thigh, this firm steady pressure. "Say it."
Ben lets go of his cock and pets her instead, how ridiculously smooth she is. Missy hums. "I like this," he tells her quietly, turning his hand to feel her against his knuckles.
That gets her looking a little less cocky, a pink blush peeking out from underneath her tan. "Say it," she demands again, but her voice is dialed closer to the neighbourhood of pleading. Ben-- yeah, Ben says it.
"Wanna fuck you," he tells her, right down by her pretty ear. She's slick as a seal all down her thighs. "Wanted to since forever. God, MP, I can't-- please. Let me."
(And okay, yes, she might be visual, but. Ben thinks she likes hearing that please most of all.)
"Okay," Missy says, soft and desperate. She's nodding now, tugging at his shoulder with one hand and reaching down in between them with the other. All of a sudden she's in a hurry, like it's too much to linger over or maybe she's worried they're wasting valuable time. "Okay, yes, god, of course, I--" She shoots him this look as she gets her fist around him, lines him up herself; it's an expression he recognizes immediately, hopelessness and desire. He's been trying not to let her see it on his face for two and a half years.
(It occurs to Ben just as they catch, as he's nudging the very tip of his cock inside her slippery body: there's no way this is going to be a one time thing.)
She doesn't say anything about a condom and so he doesn't either, which in theory he knows is colossally stupid; he'll pull out or something, Ben promises himself, working himself deeper even as he thinks it. He'll cross that particular bridge when it's time. Right this second he just wants to feel all of her, jesus, every tight wet inch with nothing in between them: she's gripping like crazy, knees pulled up to give him access and her nails digging into his back.
"Wanna fuck you, too," she declares half a second after he's finally deep as she can take him, the groan barely working itself halfway out of his mouth. Missy kisses him hard and sloppy. Rolls them over until she's on top.
"God, MP." Ben pulls away to breathe, watching open-mouthed as she plants both on arms on either side of his head. There's enough air between their upper bodies that he can see straight down to-- "Fuck."
(How bare she is between her legs, christ; it is possible it's giving him a hell of a view.)
"That's the idea," Missy tells him, but she's definitely watching too, head tucked down against his shoulder as she starts up a rhythm. Ben can hardly take it, all that pink skin and the couple inches of cock that keep appearing and disappearing like a coin trick. He is suddenly, obscenely glad there's no latex.
Missy starts whimpering after about the fourth thrust, this quiet needy sound that never gets any louder but doesn't quit either. Ben covers the side of her throat with his hand, feeling the vibrations. "MP, christ, you're so--" All of a sudden he wants to confess everything, how tight she is, how beautiful. How he's spent the last two years thinking about-- "Is it good?" He doesn't know her well enough for tells, not like this. He's fucking bond and determined to learn, though. "Tell me how to make it good."
"It's good," she chokes out, this sound that's more like a sob than a word; she grabs his wrist and shoves it down in between them anyway, though, twisting his hand until she gets his fingers where she wants them. "Shit, Ben, it's--yeah. It's good."
"Good." Ben works her clit obligingly, watches her face; he wants it to be better, though (wants to be the best she's ever--jesus, he's being ridiculous, but it's true, it is one hundred percent fucking true). He runs his free hand up her side, squeezes a breast. She's sweating, her skin slick and salty with it, baby hairs sticking to her temples, and that--that's a thing Ben likes. "Sit up," he hears himself tell her, voice low and rough. "Sit up a sec, let me see all of you, I--"
"Uh-huh." Missy nods right away but it's a few seconds before she actually does it, like she's not a hundred percent confident she can push herself upright. Eventually she braces herself on his chest. Ben steadies her around the waist as she shifts her weight back, her nails scritching through the hair on his torso. She takes her time sitting all the way up.
(And just--god almighty. Ben is never, ever going to be able to look at her again and not think of this.)
It's more of a stretch at this angle, he can feel it--she can too, judging by the beat she takes to settle herself, getting used to it. She rocks her hips a bit, experimental. Both of them groan out loud.
"Just like that," Ben murmurs. He keeps his hand between them while she starts back into the rhythm, this push-pull drag that's absolutely going to end him inside of five minutes. She's so wet he can barely work up the right kind of friction. "You're perfect, MP, just like that." Her cheeks are flushed and her upper lip is damp. She is 100% the prettiest thing to ever sit up on his cock and Ben tells her so.
"Shut up." But she likes hearing it, he can tell. Her back is arching a bit, either putting on a show or feeling it. Ben runs his knuckles up the sweaty curve.
Sometime in the last few minutes she got loud, gasping sighs every time he rubs up inside her a certain way (and Ben has figured it out, why this position is so very-- she's got a different angle to her than Laura does, an observation that should probably cool him down a notch and really, really doesn't). He tips her hips, trying to help her find it again.
It pays off. "There," Missy practically squeaks. "There, there, ohmygod Ben, don't stop."
"Not gonna stop," he promises, fingertips digging into her slippery body. He's really not, either; he'll do this all night if she wants him to, fuck her hard and steady, hit that spot over and over until she detonates around him like a bomb.
Missy doesn't need that kind of time, apparently: half a minute later and she's coming apart on top of him, one hand clamped on her forehead like she's feeling for a fever. She's way noisier this time than she was before. She rides him like crazy while it's happening, falling forward a bit so her damp palms skid against his chest, fingers clutching. Ben reaches up, rolls both nipples between his thumbs and his forefingers. Watches her face.
He wants to give her some time when it's over (wants to pulls her down on top of him, feel her ribs expanding against his as she breathes) but MP's shaking her head almost immediately, hips still moving like she doesn't want to lose the rhythm. "What do you want?" she asks breathlessly. "Ben. Hey." She leans down to kiss him fast and sloppy, nipping along his bottom lip (marking him up everywhere, jesus christ, he has no idea what the fuck he's going to--). "Make a demand."
Ben doesn't want anything but this, though (anything that she can conceivably give him in the next two minutes, at least). "Just-- stay," he tells her finally, holding her wrists so she doesn't sit back up. "Stay here for a sec." And oh god, Ben is just-- he's pretty sure what he really wants here is promises.
Missy stays, leaning down even further until her breasts are squished soft and flat against his chest. Her hips never stop, knees tucked up on either side of his body, but he's deeper now, slower rhythm like she's trying to drag it out. Ben breathes. He has to pull out, he has to, but Missy has all the control in this position.
"MP," he says finally, guiding her hand down to wrap around the base of him. "Gotta switch it up now."
Missy doesn't answer, not with language anyway. Instead she squeezes like a reflex, hard and rough. Ben's hips jump. "MP," he says again, a little helpless. He runs his palms all up and down her ribs and sides, nervous; he can't decide what to do with his hands exactly, is way too close to the edge to be safe. "I can't--"
"Hm?" Missy's pushed up on one toned arm like she's in the fucking army, looks at him with her eyebrows quirked like question marks. "Can't what?" she asks innocently, squeezing once more for good measure. Lets go and drops right back down onto his cock.
(Fuck.)
She knows. She absolutely knows, or she wouldn't be working him the way she is right now, this aching grip all along the length of him, rhythm speeding up again. "MP," Ben starts, trying and then completely failing to follow it up in any meaningful way. Her hair brushes the side of his face every single time she rocks.
"Tell me you don't want to," she murmurs suddenly. "Tell me you don't want to, and I'll move." Her expression has gone completely serious. And that-- that right there is almost it.
"Missy." He could ask. He could straight up fucking ask if she's on anything, if it's safe, but Ben has this horrible feeling that no matter what her answer is he's still going to want-- "I can't," he repeats uselessly, rubbing up and down her planted arms. Even he isn't sure if he means 'can't come' or 'can't lie'. (And god, he's probably already leaking everywhere, this is the most dangerous, fucked-up--)
"You can." Ben isn't sure which one that's referring to either, but Missy's got her hips right back up at top speed now, this half-second pause every time she bottoms out (waiting, Ben realizes, she's actually waiting to see if he'll--) "Not gonna move unless you say so," she gasps. "Tell me. Tell me you don't want it." It sounds like she's begging.
Ben's hands have finally settled, one on her pretty face and the other curling around her thigh. His back is actually starting to bow. "MP." He looks at her determined expression, apparently hell-bent on immolating them both, and something in him just-- gives. "Fuck, Missy. Missy." He loves her name. He loves-- "You know I do."
Missy sinks all the way down and stays.
"I know," she agrees, so fucking quiet, angling her sharp face down to watch him. She gets as close as humanly possible, the press of her lush mouth up against his. "I want it too."
Which--god almighty. Just like that he's done for, like once she says it out loud he’s totally helpless. Ben grabs her hips and pushes her down deep as he can get her while he comes. She croons a tuneless nonsense in his ear and and jesus, it's good, it's so criminally fucking good, this hot rhythmic pulse inside her and Missy so warm and wet and willing. He wants to stay buried inside her for years.
(Promises, Ben thinks, even while it's happening. He wants--yeah.)
He keeps his eyes open the whole time, looks at her looking back at him (committing it to memory just in case, maybe: her pretty eyelashes and how obscenely pink her mouth is, her makeup smudged all to hell). Holds her close way after the last shuddering twitch. "Christ, MP," he manages finally, when he feels himself start to slip out of her; it's a mess down between them, sticky and seeping. "I--okay."
Missy hums a laugh into his collarbone, this supremely satisfied sound. "I thought we might be good at that," she tells him.
We. Already Ben's hold on her is shifting, getting possessive, both hands slipping around to squeeze her ass before he can stop himself. He wants to sit her back up and look for marks, wants to make them darker, make even more. "You were right," he says helplessly, jostling her a bit so it has half a chance at coming out lighthearted. As it stands he has to clear his throat twice to stop it from catching around the 'Y'.
Missy butts her face against him, all elegantly angled cheekbones. Afterglow apparently turns her kittenish, something Ben simultaneously never would have expected and wants to see happen again and again (and again, and again). "M'always right," she yawns, stretching. Ben keeps a firm hold on her but she seems bent on going nowhere fast, settling bonelessly across him like someone poured her there.
"MP--"
She reaches up to pat blindly at his chest. "Don't, okay? Let's freak out in the morning. You can hate me then." And jesus, her voice, her tone, her posture--everything about her stays so fucking calm. Ben would almost believe it if not for her eyelashes, blinking rapidly against his sternum. "Unless you have to leave now," she adds steadily. "In which case I guess we'll be forced to freak out over text."
"MP." God, Ben can't, he absolutely can't, he isn't going to put her in this position (he is). "MP, listen, I-- of course I don't hate you." Just saying that is too close. "I want to do this again," he blurts out finally, mostly to keep himself from admitting something worse.
"Oh yeah?" Missy lifts her head to eye him, the sharp angle of her chin digging into his chest. Smiles a bit. "I was gonna give you some time to recover, old man, but if you want--" She rolls her hips against his thigh, playful; Ben can feel it leaking out of her, his own--
"No," he says clumsily; then, off her curious expression: "I mean, yes, god, but--" Missy's watching him, careful, and for a second it occurs to him that possibly she misunderstood on purpose. He keeps going anyway. "Not just tonight. When we get back to work, or whenever, I--" He rubs his palms up and down her body one more time, a little desperate. He wants to know the topography of every square inch of her skin. "I want to do this again."
"Oh." Missy gets it then (or lets on that she gets it); she reaches up to thumb along the line of his jaw, eyelashes lowered. Doesn't answer for a long time. The silence feels like it's on fire and he's about to say her name when she looks up suddenly, cuts him off: "I don't have low self esteem," she says with conviction, like it's important he understand this. "I always thought girls who fucked married guys had low self-esteem."
And that--fuck. Ben feels like garbage, truly. He feels like as asshole, he feels like the worst person in the world, and still none of that does a single fucking thing to tamp down the heat of how badly he wants her (how badly he wants to tell her--). He shakes his head a little, powerless, this weird thick feeling in his throat and in his chest. "MP," he says quietly.
Missy rolls her eyes. "I'm not saying no," she tells him, a shade irritably. "I'm not--I'm just thinking it out."
The rush of hope is so fierce it's almost sickening. "Okay." Ben doesn't know what to do with his hands again, suddenly absurdly worried about pressuring her one way or the other. About how that would look. "I shouldn't have asked," he says finally, because of course he shouldn't have (it's the worst kind of greedy, really, like a kid who writes Santa for an astronomical Christmas present he knows his parents can't afford) but also because he understands it's the right thing to say. The smart thing. That if he says it--if he makes all the right moves and looks properly abashed and appropriately ashamed--then Missy might actually consider...
Fuck. Fuck, he is an asshole.
Thank god she's not biting. "You shouldn't've," she agrees, steady. "But--" She waves a hand around; it's shaking just a bit, Ben notices, wants to fold her fingers up inside his fist in the worst way. "It's out there now, so. I mean, god Ben, clearly I'm already a horrible person." She frowns hard, face caving it on itself a little. "I just think there has to be some kind of a limit on it. Like. Shouldn't my awfulness theoretically cap out somewhere?"
Ben laughs hollowly, rubbing up her back. "The sky's the limit." Then: "You aren't a horrible person, MP."
"I am." Calm and flat, like someone who has looked long and hard at her life choices. She touches his face again, thumbs lightly at the corners of his mouth. Ben realizes he's frowning too. "Do you love her? I mean, you love her, right?"
Ben lets out a quiet exhale, tries to fathom a way to answer that isn't somehow a lie. Because of course he loves her, she's his fucking wife, but he doesn't know how in the hell he's supposed to reconcile that with the way he feels when he's with Missy--happier and sadder both at once, full and hollow, this overwhelming sense of just--
more.
Ben's head whoofs back against the headboard. "Yeah, I do," he says finally, looking her dead in the eye. "But I also--"
"Don't," Missy orders, her whole body tensing, pushing up on her arms like she's getting set to run. For a second she looks totally, nakedly afraid. "Seriously, Ben--"
"Easy." Ben raises his eyebrows, tugs her back down against his chest. "You don't even know what I was going to say."
Missy shakes her head, resolute. "I don't have to."
(So. Ben doesn't.)
For a while they just lie there, breathing. Ben can hear the chilly whoosh of the AC. He pulls the sheet up over them, reaches down for one of the pillows scattered on the floor beside the bed. Settles in, even if it's only for tonight.
"My rental's really nice this time," she muses quietly out of nowhere, like somehow that's factoring into whatever decision she's working on deep inside her head. She's got her face tucked down into the crook of his shoulder, one leg over his: all this physical contact he's trying not to interpret either way.
"Oh yeah?" The first summer they filmed Global put them all up at a Marriott Courtyard outside of town, like living in a dorm or something. He and Noam used to watch the rookies do cannonballs into the pool.
"You could-- we could--" Missy pushes her hot sticky face into his neck until the words get cut off against his skin.
Ben takes a deep breath and cups the back of her head protectively. Doesn't let his mind fill in any of the blanks. "What?"
Missy lifts up to look at him. Her hair is everywhere, just truly and ridiculously wrecked. Ben wants to watch while she fixes it in the morning, while she takes off last night's make up, while she takes a shower, while she does a million domestic things he's seen Laura do every day. It makes him feel guilty and sick and elated, and it also isn't going away. "Ben, just-- God." Missy tucks her head back down. "Planning this is going to suck, isn't it?"
(Ben loves her. He does.)
"Yeah." Ben nudges her face up until he can get at her mouth, warm and getting more familiar by the minute. "It is."
Authors: threeguesses and lowriseflare
Fandom/ Pairing: RPF, Ben Bass/Missy Peregrym
Rating: R
Word Count: 11,800+
Summary: The one with the Olympics, and also all the sex.
Missy makes a soft, quiet sound against his mouth. Ben thinks of the first time he ever did it, the blackout episode way back when they barely knew each other, the zing of spearmint gum behind her teeth; Tassie left them alone for half an hour to rehearse it, to give them privacy or something. Let them work it out on their own.
(They rehearsed the breakup that way, too, actually. Didn't talk for a day and a half once they got it on tape.)
Now he kisses her back against the wall of her hotel room, hands planted against the glossy paint on either side of her head. Works one thigh between her denim-covered legs. She's a lot taller than Laura is, long torso and those sharp hips grinding into his body; Ben thinks of Sam and Andy, knew this was trouble from the start. Pretty much stops thinking after that.
"Okay," Missy says suddenly, pulling away with a rough, ragged inhale. Her head thunks back against the wall hard enough that it sounds like it hurts. "Okay, okay, stop, uncle, I--"
"What?" Ben says dumbly. He's half-hard already, brain foggy like he's drunk even though he only ever got halfway there. He sounds irritated even to his own ears, somebody's rejected prom date. "Stop like--?"
Missy scowls. "Stop like I'm not particularly interested in a pity fuck, Ben," she says sharply. Ben feels it like a fist to the jaw.
"MP," he says quietly after a second. His head's starting to bother him a little, a dull throbbing ache. "That's not what it is." He bumps his nose against hers, familiar. "Whatever you think it is, that's--yeah. That's not what it is."
He's trying to reassure her with the contact, his face right close up against hers, but Missy's graceful body goes totally rigid. "Don't do that," she orders. All of a sudden she looks like she's about to burst into tears all over again. "That's not--don't do that to me."
Her thick-sad voice hangs on Ben like a weight. "MP, I can't--" He wants to touch her and keep his arms bracketed around her head in equal amounts, is suddenly terrified that she's going to spook. Now that they've come this far he doesn't want to quit. "What should I do?" he asks. Prays like hell the answer isn't stop.
(Because okay, if it's all going the way of a hand basket anyway--and it is, jesus, Ben can't even begin to imagine how they're going to come back from this--then fuck it, Ben wants once. He's a jackass, probably, but at least he can admit it to himself in words now, one thigh pressing hard enough between Missy's legs that he can feel the heat: he wants to fuck her. Wants it like he wants his next breath and barely even cares what happens afterwards.)
The way she's leaning has her neck exposed; Ben kisses her there, just lightly, right behind one pretty ear.
It's enough to set her off again. "Don't do that," she hisses, jerking away. Ben's about to pull back and start apologizing, try to figure out how they can maintain even a modicum of a professional relationship, but Missy isn't done: "That's them," she hisses, practically spitting. "All that stuff with the--" And then she copies him, nudging her nose at his; when she does it it's violent, this hard butt of her forehead. "It's them, not us, and we can't just pretend--" She breaks off, looking angry and exhausted. "I can't do that with you, okay Ben?"
Ben sags. He doesn't know how to fix it for her; Sam fucks like Ben, probably, because Ben gave him all his own tics. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, now that he's got Missy up against a wall he wants to kiss her neck and pick her up and do all the things he's done before, only this time it'll be for real.
Ben thinks. "Okay," he says slowly. "Okay, I hear you, I just--" He gets his arms around her before he kisses her again; holding her still, yeah, on top of which Sam and Andy don't really hug, so. Feels safe. He keeps kissing her, careful. Tastes salt on her upper lip. Eventually he feels her relax. "Lie down, all right?"
"Ben--" Missy pushes a breath out, a look on her face so bereft that for a second he's back to being totally sure she's about to call it off, to send him home to his empty house to wait for his wife and wonder. Then she sighs. "You're the worst, you know that?" she asks him, wriggling out of his grip and crossing the carpet. The way she says it, it doesn't sound rhetorical. "You're the actual worst."
(She's not wrong.
She lies down anyway.)
It's a big bed, fluffy hotel duvet and about seventeen pillows up at the top of it; Missy chucks one in his general direction, makes a face. Her shirt's riding up again, that same tan strip of stomach. It makes Ben want to bite. "Quit looking at me like that," she orders, planting her feet and pulling her knees up. Tucking one arm behind her head.
How do you want me to look at you? Ben almost asks, then thinks better of it. He raises his eyebrows instead, tries a smirk. Tosses the pillow back at her. "You got a lotta demands, MP."
Missy catches it football-style, spiking it on the ground for a touchdown celebration. "Yep," is all she says. Then she sweeps both arms out behind her like she's making a snow angel, dumps the rest of the pillows down after the first. "Come here." Her bun is falling out a bit more now, all that rolling against the sheets.
Ben crawls up to hover over her obediently, thumbing at that strip of bare skin on the way. It got to him a little, watching her mess up the bed. "What?" He nudges one final teetering pillow over the edge, nods down at the rest on the floor. "You figure we're gonna need the room or something?"
Missy grins. "Or something." She kept her feet planted while Ben situated himself, knees together like she's thinking about holding a penny between them. Ben can't decide whether to swing one out to give himself some space or leave them where they are. If he drops down another inch they'll be bumping up against his crotch.
"I've got a demand," he tells her finally, hands strictly to himself. "Take your hair down."
(That's something Sam can't do. The continuity supervisor always yells at Ben if he musses it.)
"That's it?" Missy lifts herself into a half-crunch so she can get to the elastic, soft chest pressing up against his. "That's a pretty vanilla demand, friend." She grins again, like possibly she's starting to enjoy herself a little. "Had you pegged for kinkier than that."
She lowers herself back down onto her elbows, her hair updo-wavy and pooling on the mattress. "Oh yeah?" Ben can't resist asking, bracing himself on his elbows and twisting a thick smooth strand of it between two fingertips. He smells hotel shampoo; she travels light. "Thought about it, did you?"
"Shut up." Missy narrows her eyes, mouth so close to his that their lips just miss brushing. "Like you didn't."
Her knees are drifting apart, one coming up a bit to rest against the side of his body. Ben drops the rest of the way down. "You shut up," he says. He shifts his weight to one arm, runs a hand up underneath her thigh. Hitches her a little closer. "You already told me, you know I did."
"That's true." It's a thing she likes hearing though, Ben can tell; her hips open up even more to make space for him, breasts pushed out just the slightest bit. She cocks her chin a bit, confident. "What'd you think?"
Ben looks at her, eyelashes curled up black and stiff with mascara, those pretty moles beside her mouth. Missy always wears darker makeup than the kind they put on Andy. Sleeker.
"I thought you'd be bossy," he says. Missy starts to protest, giggling, but Ben isn't done. "Also thought you'd be loud."
That gets a look on her face. "Yeah?" Her leg is hooking around him now, pulling him down, the cradle of her pelvis opening all the way up. "Think about it a lot?"
Ben breathes out against the full contact. "Some," he allows. Missy flexes her hips, grinding, and he hisses. His voice is breathless when he continues, up in a register where he never lets Sam's get. "More than I should. Gonna tell me if I'm right?"
Missy grins, stretching her upper body out all tall and languid. "Find out for yourself." And okay: she's asking for it now, smiling, so probably it should be okay to--
Ben skims off her shirt.
It's a black bra all right, front clasp and these soft sheer cups that almost do him in before anything even happens, her pretty nipples puckered up underneath. Ben looks. Missy takes a deep breath and he feels her ribs expand against the flat of his hand. It's a strange sensation, weirdly intimate all things considered, a sharp little shudder under his palm the only thing that gives her away. "Jesus, MP," he says uselessly. He circles with one thumb until she hardens up even more, Missy's dark gaze cast downward and both of them watching it happen. Ben slides down her body and sucks though the fabric until she gasps.
"Mm." Ben grins, shifting his hips a bit against the mattress. "That wasn't so loud," he murmurs, chiding. Ducks his head and bites.
That gets a sound out of her all right, this high little ah plus a restless squirming underneath him, her hands coming down to yank at the hem of his shirt. "Been working out?" she teases when it hits the sheets beside them, rubbing up and down his chest.
Ben rolls his eyes. "Shut up," he tells her (he's forty fucking three years old and he's half-naked on national television; yes, he goes to the fucking gym). "Not all of us can launch ourselves down hotel hallways as foreplay."
Missy smiles. "Oh, I'm talented," she agrees, arms back up over her head and that long long body. "Probably you should show me what else you can do, though." She raises her dark, neat eyebrows in a challenge. "Like. For foreplay."
Ben smirks. Bites one more time. "See? Bossy."
(He does what she says, though.)
Her jeans are peel-off tight. When Ben starts to roll them down her long long legs--another thing Sam never gets to do, the weird mason-dixon line of tv propriety--they pull her underwear down a bit too, enough that the show would have to hop over to HBO in a hurry. Ben skims a thumb across the exposed skin before tugging them back into place. He left her bra on on purpose, all that damp fabric clinging; it's possible he sort of wants to see the combined effect.
Well. They do match. Ben swallows against a suddenly dry throat.
Missy wiggles impatiently, opening up her hips again. The underwear is sheer too, strategic bits of opaque detailing doing absolutely nothing to undercut that fact. "You are--" Ben starts to tell her, then stops.
Missy looks pleased anyway. "I was promised some effort here," she reminds him quietly. Her voice is gentle, pretty lacquered toes coming up to press into his lap.
Ben smacks a kiss against one arrogant knee. "Patience." He cups both heels and sets them back down on his shoulders. Crawls up the bed until her knees are forced to bend.
"Oh," Missy says, sort of breathless. "That." She's got a tone on her like she's thinking about telling him cunnilingus is a boring foreplay trick (and sure, it absolutely is--in comparison to triple flips) but she's still 100% angling for it, hips rolling up expectantly. "Okay," she gasps as Ben kisses a line down her abdomen. "Um. I know you like the underwear, but I think you're going to have to take them off for this."
Ben considers. "Really?" He licks a long stripe up the middle, listens to Missy gasp. "Because I don't think so."
She's wet right through the thin fabric, smell and taste of her like there's nothing between them at all. Ben finds her clit and rubs. He doesn't know what she likes so he tries a little of everything, glances up at her to watch the play of sensation across her pretty face: she's shifting a bit underneath him, restless, and he's not entirely sure what it means. "Good?" he mutters quietly, and it sounds a lot less confident than it did inside his head.
"Mm-hmm." Missy's got one hand down in his hair, scritching, and she's not the type to lie but still he doesn't entirely trust her. He bites a little, just cautious, just to see what she might do.
(Her hips come clear off the fucking mattress, this whine like nothing he's ever heard.)
So.
Ben grins against the soft skin of her inner thigh, nips along the elastic; he slips his thumb down lower, dips inside. Missy whimpers low and soft. Another couple minutes of that, tongue working hard against the place where she's the wettest, and she's close--like close close, soaked through and her hips rocking up in a specific sort of way, this succession of sharp little breaths--when his phone rings in the back pocket of his jeans.
Just for a second, Ben freezes. It's Laura's ringtone, this country song she likes and programmed in for herself that he wouldn't have the heart to change even if he knew how to, no matter how much ribbing he takes for it at work. Missy recognizes it too, clearly: her dark eyes fly open, whole body going still as winter and those tan thighs tense on either side of his face.
So. Ben makes a choice.
He fumbles back behind him, hits the button to ignore; the sudden silence in enormous, Missy's dark eyes searching for his. "Relax," he tells her, hardly more than a murmur. She tastes sharper than he's used to, everywhere on him at once. "Shh," he says. "Relax, beautiful, you're fine, it's just us, just you and me, I--"
He doesn't know why he gets the feeling it's the talk more than anything else that gets her off.
She isn't actually all that loud, too soon after the awkward silence of the phone call maybe (or possibly--possibly she's just focused on listening to him). But: she does say his name. Right as she's arching, Ben momentarily holding off on telling her she's beautiful in favour of licking her clit, it comes out in this shocked breathy gasp she could charge for by the minute. "Ben."
Ben-- yeah. He likes that way too much.
Her fancy underwear is ruined, no question; Ben's practically eating it off her by the end. Which, incidentally, is another thing he's sort of desperately into. After she's done Ben peels them down her legs, this sticky warm mess of fabric, and for a hot second he honestly considers asking if he can keep them. Like some pervert, christ, or that stupid kid in Sixteen Candles.
"Come here," Missy gasps, hands fluttering down to his shoulders. "Ben, please, I want--" She sounds wrecked.
Ben comes. Crawls right up her body and gives her a kiss without wiping his mouth. Missy doesn't seem to mind, kissing back just as messy, her hands sinking possessively into his hair. Ben reaches around to undo her bra, takes his time peeling the soft cups off of her sensitive nipples. Missy hisses.
"There you go," Ben tells her, bending down to suck a bit. The thing is pretty, sure, but it's left some mean marks in her skin. Ben noses around a bit, finds a birthmark he couldn't see before.
She's working a serious tan line and he wonders where she was all summer; wonders what she did and who she was with, if she's still dating that same skinny kid from last year. If they're serious. It's insane to be jealous, Ben absolutely knows that, when he's the one with the fucking--
fuck.
In any case: the wondering's got him sucking a mark on the soft underside of one pretty breast, possessive. It's a Sam move, no question, but at the moment Ben honestly doesn't give a damn; he uses his teeth and tugs a bit as he does it, right where her skin gets pale and private.
Missy notices, of course, curious chin tipped down to watch (she is--she is real visual, is a thing that is starting to dawn on him), but the strange part is how she doesn't seem to mind at all. In fact, she's actually arching into it, whining a bit more loudly now like maybe she wants him to--jesus. Jesus. All of a sudden Ben's like fifty percent harder than he was already, cock straining against his jeans, pressing hot and heavy against her inner thigh.
Missy notices that, too. "Okay," she gulps, face nudging right up at his like she's totally forgotten all her rules from earlier, or remembered them and decided she doesn't particularly care anymore. "Just let me--" She's reaching down in between them to work the button on his jeans, long fingers slow and clumsy. He thinks her hands might be shaking just the slightest bit. It satisfies him a little, knowing that he got to her like that: she's a steady touch, normally, was the first one out of all of them to learn to take apart a gun.
She gets his zipper down, reaches inside his boxers, and--well. She's steady, all right.
Her palm is damp. She lets go of him briefly to lick it, making it damper. For a minute Ben can't decide if he wants to watch her fist or her face, eyes bouncing back and forth between them like he's at a tennis match.
Missy obviously isn't having the same issue. It feels almost startling blatant, actually, the way she's staring, gaze lingering so heavily between Ben's legs it's practically a physical presence all it's own (and visual, jesus-- yeah). Her mouth opens a bit as she does it, that wet inner lip. Ben resists the impulse to ask her if she likes what she sees.
"Okay," she says again, palm circling the head. Now she's watching his face. "Do you want-- what do you want?" Her mouth is very pink. The suggestion is there before she even licks her lips.
Ben can barely think. He bites her instead of replying, this time on the shoulder. Missy's free hand clenches spastically in response, this sharp flurry of nails against his back that ends almost immediately. "Fuck," she pants. "Don't-- you can't let me do that. I can't do that."
She sounds scared. (And god, Ben knows she can't--Laura will notice immediately, of course she will, there's no way--but. It doesn't make him want it any less.)
Another thing he noticed: she didn't stop him when he did it to her.
So. He bites again.
This time Missy wrenches both hands away from him like she doesn't trust herself, bringing them up to fist in her own pretty hair instead. "Ben."
"I know," he murmurs. He slides his hands up her body to lock with hers, her hair getting caught all between their fingers, how soft it is and the smell of her and the way she’s letting him press her into the mattress making subject-verb agreement feel like a tall order right about now. "I know, I--" and he means to say it again but what comes out is "don't care," and as soon as he says it he realizes he doesn't. He'll wear a t-shirt to bed, he'll think of something, but he just--
He just--
"I don't care," Ben says again, louder, tugging her hands down out of the tangles. One wavy strand gets caught around his ring finger; she gasps as he pulls himself free. "Just--whatever, MP, please."
Missy's staring at him wide-eyed (and the please, that was a surprise, he didn't totally mean to--jesus. Ben's head swims). She's nakedly terrified now, he's pretty sure, look on her face like he just gave her carte blanche and she doesn't know what the fuck to do with it, all the rest of her rules right out the window. Like she thought this would go a certain way and now it's not.
(The next time he bites, though, just behind her earlobe:
Missy bites back.)
She does more than bite, actually, short shiny nails raking over his hips as she works his pants the rest of the way off and flips him over, her on all fours above him and those gymnast arms braced on either side of his head. Ben's leaking all over his stomach. Her body is absurdly, heartbreakingly warm.
"We're in trouble," she murmurs, nipping her way down his rib cage and a tone in her voice like there's nothing to be done about it. She tongues at the wet line of hair just below his navel. Drops down and takes his cock in her mouth.
Ben groans helplessly, so sensitive her tongue feels almost rough. She clamps both hands down on his hips as she sucks, bossy, and it honestly might be the nail marks that are doing it for him the most. "MP," he starts, mainly just to say her name. Her mouth is about ten degrees warmer than the rest of her.
Missy looks up and hums, cheeks hollowed out pornographically. Which-- yeah. That right there is almost the end of him. Still, Ben blows out a long breath and tries to stand it, playing a dangerous little game with himself of counting down the seconds (he just, he wants to remember). He can feel the orgasm in the base of his spine.
"So much trouble," he echoes, sliding a thumb down to touch her busy jaw. He's actually considering rolling his hips a little, see how mean she's willing to get with those nails, but he's pretty sure he'd lose it all over himself if he even tried. Missy hums again like she agrees.
He finally twists away when she starts trying to swallow down as much as she can, a party trick Ben hasn't seen performed nearly enough times to stay cool about. "Jesus, MP." He grabs her hands and pulls. "Don't--I want to--" Fuck you first sounds crass. (And god, Ben thinks suddenly--what if she actually doesn't? Want to, that is. What if that's the last rule, some line in the sand she's drawing for herself?)
"Want what?" Missy asks, letting him manhandle her onto her back, dark hair all splayed across the mattress. He keeps his hands wrapped tight around her wrists. "Hm? Ben. You want what?"
Ben kisses her to avoid answering, not that Missy seems to mind particularly. He still tastes like her, he knows he does, which adds a whole different angle to how focused she is on licking her way deep into his mouth. "You know what," he mutters, when they finally come up for air.
Missy grins. "I do," she admits, rolling her hips up hard and dirty. She wasn't kidding about the shaving, this smooth wet slide all against his cock; he thinks about her doing that with the intention of him seeing, almost loses it all over again. "But I wanna hear you say it."
So. It doesn't exactly sound like she's got another rule she's waiting to spring on him. Ben looks up at her pretty face to check.
(It came down to them and another couple, for Sam and for Andy. Tassie had them switching out all day like some kind of Shakespearean farce. Ben read with another girl most of the morning, a shorter brunette with no trace of an accent; they brought Missy in after lunch and had them do the locker room scene from the pilot, tackled me and tried to kiss me. The script said that Sam took his clothes off, so Ben did.
"I was hoping it was going to be you," Missy said later, their first day of work and her throwing her arms around him like they were old friends after summer vacation. He hadn't remembered her eyes being so dark. "The other guy didn't get naked at all."
And Ben--yeah. He'd been hoping it was her right back.)
"Ben," she says again, pulling him back like she's bent on his full attention, that same demanding voice from earlier. "Say it."
Ben rolls his eyes, letting go of her wrists to catch her under the knees and pull up, answering with actions. Missy lets him, opening up her hips wide and easy. The bare skin between her legs is baby-soft.
When he starts trying to line himself up though-- "Nope, sorry." She plants a foot on his thigh, this firm steady pressure. "Say it."
Ben lets go of his cock and pets her instead, how ridiculously smooth she is. Missy hums. "I like this," he tells her quietly, turning his hand to feel her against his knuckles.
That gets her looking a little less cocky, a pink blush peeking out from underneath her tan. "Say it," she demands again, but her voice is dialed closer to the neighbourhood of pleading. Ben-- yeah, Ben says it.
"Wanna fuck you," he tells her, right down by her pretty ear. She's slick as a seal all down her thighs. "Wanted to since forever. God, MP, I can't-- please. Let me."
(And okay, yes, she might be visual, but. Ben thinks she likes hearing that please most of all.)
"Okay," Missy says, soft and desperate. She's nodding now, tugging at his shoulder with one hand and reaching down in between them with the other. All of a sudden she's in a hurry, like it's too much to linger over or maybe she's worried they're wasting valuable time. "Okay, yes, god, of course, I--" She shoots him this look as she gets her fist around him, lines him up herself; it's an expression he recognizes immediately, hopelessness and desire. He's been trying not to let her see it on his face for two and a half years.
(It occurs to Ben just as they catch, as he's nudging the very tip of his cock inside her slippery body: there's no way this is going to be a one time thing.)
She doesn't say anything about a condom and so he doesn't either, which in theory he knows is colossally stupid; he'll pull out or something, Ben promises himself, working himself deeper even as he thinks it. He'll cross that particular bridge when it's time. Right this second he just wants to feel all of her, jesus, every tight wet inch with nothing in between them: she's gripping like crazy, knees pulled up to give him access and her nails digging into his back.
"Wanna fuck you, too," she declares half a second after he's finally deep as she can take him, the groan barely working itself halfway out of his mouth. Missy kisses him hard and sloppy. Rolls them over until she's on top.
"God, MP." Ben pulls away to breathe, watching open-mouthed as she plants both on arms on either side of his head. There's enough air between their upper bodies that he can see straight down to-- "Fuck."
(How bare she is between her legs, christ; it is possible it's giving him a hell of a view.)
"That's the idea," Missy tells him, but she's definitely watching too, head tucked down against his shoulder as she starts up a rhythm. Ben can hardly take it, all that pink skin and the couple inches of cock that keep appearing and disappearing like a coin trick. He is suddenly, obscenely glad there's no latex.
Missy starts whimpering after about the fourth thrust, this quiet needy sound that never gets any louder but doesn't quit either. Ben covers the side of her throat with his hand, feeling the vibrations. "MP, christ, you're so--" All of a sudden he wants to confess everything, how tight she is, how beautiful. How he's spent the last two years thinking about-- "Is it good?" He doesn't know her well enough for tells, not like this. He's fucking bond and determined to learn, though. "Tell me how to make it good."
"It's good," she chokes out, this sound that's more like a sob than a word; she grabs his wrist and shoves it down in between them anyway, though, twisting his hand until she gets his fingers where she wants them. "Shit, Ben, it's--yeah. It's good."
"Good." Ben works her clit obligingly, watches her face; he wants it to be better, though (wants to be the best she's ever--jesus, he's being ridiculous, but it's true, it is one hundred percent fucking true). He runs his free hand up her side, squeezes a breast. She's sweating, her skin slick and salty with it, baby hairs sticking to her temples, and that--that's a thing Ben likes. "Sit up," he hears himself tell her, voice low and rough. "Sit up a sec, let me see all of you, I--"
"Uh-huh." Missy nods right away but it's a few seconds before she actually does it, like she's not a hundred percent confident she can push herself upright. Eventually she braces herself on his chest. Ben steadies her around the waist as she shifts her weight back, her nails scritching through the hair on his torso. She takes her time sitting all the way up.
(And just--god almighty. Ben is never, ever going to be able to look at her again and not think of this.)
It's more of a stretch at this angle, he can feel it--she can too, judging by the beat she takes to settle herself, getting used to it. She rocks her hips a bit, experimental. Both of them groan out loud.
"Just like that," Ben murmurs. He keeps his hand between them while she starts back into the rhythm, this push-pull drag that's absolutely going to end him inside of five minutes. She's so wet he can barely work up the right kind of friction. "You're perfect, MP, just like that." Her cheeks are flushed and her upper lip is damp. She is 100% the prettiest thing to ever sit up on his cock and Ben tells her so.
"Shut up." But she likes hearing it, he can tell. Her back is arching a bit, either putting on a show or feeling it. Ben runs his knuckles up the sweaty curve.
Sometime in the last few minutes she got loud, gasping sighs every time he rubs up inside her a certain way (and Ben has figured it out, why this position is so very-- she's got a different angle to her than Laura does, an observation that should probably cool him down a notch and really, really doesn't). He tips her hips, trying to help her find it again.
It pays off. "There," Missy practically squeaks. "There, there, ohmygod Ben, don't stop."
"Not gonna stop," he promises, fingertips digging into her slippery body. He's really not, either; he'll do this all night if she wants him to, fuck her hard and steady, hit that spot over and over until she detonates around him like a bomb.
Missy doesn't need that kind of time, apparently: half a minute later and she's coming apart on top of him, one hand clamped on her forehead like she's feeling for a fever. She's way noisier this time than she was before. She rides him like crazy while it's happening, falling forward a bit so her damp palms skid against his chest, fingers clutching. Ben reaches up, rolls both nipples between his thumbs and his forefingers. Watches her face.
He wants to give her some time when it's over (wants to pulls her down on top of him, feel her ribs expanding against his as she breathes) but MP's shaking her head almost immediately, hips still moving like she doesn't want to lose the rhythm. "What do you want?" she asks breathlessly. "Ben. Hey." She leans down to kiss him fast and sloppy, nipping along his bottom lip (marking him up everywhere, jesus christ, he has no idea what the fuck he's going to--). "Make a demand."
Ben doesn't want anything but this, though (anything that she can conceivably give him in the next two minutes, at least). "Just-- stay," he tells her finally, holding her wrists so she doesn't sit back up. "Stay here for a sec." And oh god, Ben is just-- he's pretty sure what he really wants here is promises.
Missy stays, leaning down even further until her breasts are squished soft and flat against his chest. Her hips never stop, knees tucked up on either side of his body, but he's deeper now, slower rhythm like she's trying to drag it out. Ben breathes. He has to pull out, he has to, but Missy has all the control in this position.
"MP," he says finally, guiding her hand down to wrap around the base of him. "Gotta switch it up now."
Missy doesn't answer, not with language anyway. Instead she squeezes like a reflex, hard and rough. Ben's hips jump. "MP," he says again, a little helpless. He runs his palms all up and down her ribs and sides, nervous; he can't decide what to do with his hands exactly, is way too close to the edge to be safe. "I can't--"
"Hm?" Missy's pushed up on one toned arm like she's in the fucking army, looks at him with her eyebrows quirked like question marks. "Can't what?" she asks innocently, squeezing once more for good measure. Lets go and drops right back down onto his cock.
(Fuck.)
She knows. She absolutely knows, or she wouldn't be working him the way she is right now, this aching grip all along the length of him, rhythm speeding up again. "MP," Ben starts, trying and then completely failing to follow it up in any meaningful way. Her hair brushes the side of his face every single time she rocks.
"Tell me you don't want to," she murmurs suddenly. "Tell me you don't want to, and I'll move." Her expression has gone completely serious. And that-- that right there is almost it.
"Missy." He could ask. He could straight up fucking ask if she's on anything, if it's safe, but Ben has this horrible feeling that no matter what her answer is he's still going to want-- "I can't," he repeats uselessly, rubbing up and down her planted arms. Even he isn't sure if he means 'can't come' or 'can't lie'. (And god, he's probably already leaking everywhere, this is the most dangerous, fucked-up--)
"You can." Ben isn't sure which one that's referring to either, but Missy's got her hips right back up at top speed now, this half-second pause every time she bottoms out (waiting, Ben realizes, she's actually waiting to see if he'll--) "Not gonna move unless you say so," she gasps. "Tell me. Tell me you don't want it." It sounds like she's begging.
Ben's hands have finally settled, one on her pretty face and the other curling around her thigh. His back is actually starting to bow. "MP." He looks at her determined expression, apparently hell-bent on immolating them both, and something in him just-- gives. "Fuck, Missy. Missy." He loves her name. He loves-- "You know I do."
Missy sinks all the way down and stays.
"I know," she agrees, so fucking quiet, angling her sharp face down to watch him. She gets as close as humanly possible, the press of her lush mouth up against his. "I want it too."
Which--god almighty. Just like that he's done for, like once she says it out loud he’s totally helpless. Ben grabs her hips and pushes her down deep as he can get her while he comes. She croons a tuneless nonsense in his ear and and jesus, it's good, it's so criminally fucking good, this hot rhythmic pulse inside her and Missy so warm and wet and willing. He wants to stay buried inside her for years.
(Promises, Ben thinks, even while it's happening. He wants--yeah.)
He keeps his eyes open the whole time, looks at her looking back at him (committing it to memory just in case, maybe: her pretty eyelashes and how obscenely pink her mouth is, her makeup smudged all to hell). Holds her close way after the last shuddering twitch. "Christ, MP," he manages finally, when he feels himself start to slip out of her; it's a mess down between them, sticky and seeping. "I--okay."
Missy hums a laugh into his collarbone, this supremely satisfied sound. "I thought we might be good at that," she tells him.
We. Already Ben's hold on her is shifting, getting possessive, both hands slipping around to squeeze her ass before he can stop himself. He wants to sit her back up and look for marks, wants to make them darker, make even more. "You were right," he says helplessly, jostling her a bit so it has half a chance at coming out lighthearted. As it stands he has to clear his throat twice to stop it from catching around the 'Y'.
Missy butts her face against him, all elegantly angled cheekbones. Afterglow apparently turns her kittenish, something Ben simultaneously never would have expected and wants to see happen again and again (and again, and again). "M'always right," she yawns, stretching. Ben keeps a firm hold on her but she seems bent on going nowhere fast, settling bonelessly across him like someone poured her there.
"MP--"
She reaches up to pat blindly at his chest. "Don't, okay? Let's freak out in the morning. You can hate me then." And jesus, her voice, her tone, her posture--everything about her stays so fucking calm. Ben would almost believe it if not for her eyelashes, blinking rapidly against his sternum. "Unless you have to leave now," she adds steadily. "In which case I guess we'll be forced to freak out over text."
"MP." God, Ben can't, he absolutely can't, he isn't going to put her in this position (he is). "MP, listen, I-- of course I don't hate you." Just saying that is too close. "I want to do this again," he blurts out finally, mostly to keep himself from admitting something worse.
"Oh yeah?" Missy lifts her head to eye him, the sharp angle of her chin digging into his chest. Smiles a bit. "I was gonna give you some time to recover, old man, but if you want--" She rolls her hips against his thigh, playful; Ben can feel it leaking out of her, his own--
"No," he says clumsily; then, off her curious expression: "I mean, yes, god, but--" Missy's watching him, careful, and for a second it occurs to him that possibly she misunderstood on purpose. He keeps going anyway. "Not just tonight. When we get back to work, or whenever, I--" He rubs his palms up and down her body one more time, a little desperate. He wants to know the topography of every square inch of her skin. "I want to do this again."
"Oh." Missy gets it then (or lets on that she gets it); she reaches up to thumb along the line of his jaw, eyelashes lowered. Doesn't answer for a long time. The silence feels like it's on fire and he's about to say her name when she looks up suddenly, cuts him off: "I don't have low self esteem," she says with conviction, like it's important he understand this. "I always thought girls who fucked married guys had low self-esteem."
And that--fuck. Ben feels like garbage, truly. He feels like as asshole, he feels like the worst person in the world, and still none of that does a single fucking thing to tamp down the heat of how badly he wants her (how badly he wants to tell her--). He shakes his head a little, powerless, this weird thick feeling in his throat and in his chest. "MP," he says quietly.
Missy rolls her eyes. "I'm not saying no," she tells him, a shade irritably. "I'm not--I'm just thinking it out."
The rush of hope is so fierce it's almost sickening. "Okay." Ben doesn't know what to do with his hands again, suddenly absurdly worried about pressuring her one way or the other. About how that would look. "I shouldn't have asked," he says finally, because of course he shouldn't have (it's the worst kind of greedy, really, like a kid who writes Santa for an astronomical Christmas present he knows his parents can't afford) but also because he understands it's the right thing to say. The smart thing. That if he says it--if he makes all the right moves and looks properly abashed and appropriately ashamed--then Missy might actually consider...
Fuck. Fuck, he is an asshole.
Thank god she's not biting. "You shouldn't've," she agrees, steady. "But--" She waves a hand around; it's shaking just a bit, Ben notices, wants to fold her fingers up inside his fist in the worst way. "It's out there now, so. I mean, god Ben, clearly I'm already a horrible person." She frowns hard, face caving it on itself a little. "I just think there has to be some kind of a limit on it. Like. Shouldn't my awfulness theoretically cap out somewhere?"
Ben laughs hollowly, rubbing up her back. "The sky's the limit." Then: "You aren't a horrible person, MP."
"I am." Calm and flat, like someone who has looked long and hard at her life choices. She touches his face again, thumbs lightly at the corners of his mouth. Ben realizes he's frowning too. "Do you love her? I mean, you love her, right?"
Ben lets out a quiet exhale, tries to fathom a way to answer that isn't somehow a lie. Because of course he loves her, she's his fucking wife, but he doesn't know how in the hell he's supposed to reconcile that with the way he feels when he's with Missy--happier and sadder both at once, full and hollow, this overwhelming sense of just--
more.
Ben's head whoofs back against the headboard. "Yeah, I do," he says finally, looking her dead in the eye. "But I also--"
"Don't," Missy orders, her whole body tensing, pushing up on her arms like she's getting set to run. For a second she looks totally, nakedly afraid. "Seriously, Ben--"
"Easy." Ben raises his eyebrows, tugs her back down against his chest. "You don't even know what I was going to say."
Missy shakes her head, resolute. "I don't have to."
(So. Ben doesn't.)
For a while they just lie there, breathing. Ben can hear the chilly whoosh of the AC. He pulls the sheet up over them, reaches down for one of the pillows scattered on the floor beside the bed. Settles in, even if it's only for tonight.
"My rental's really nice this time," she muses quietly out of nowhere, like somehow that's factoring into whatever decision she's working on deep inside her head. She's got her face tucked down into the crook of his shoulder, one leg over his: all this physical contact he's trying not to interpret either way.
"Oh yeah?" The first summer they filmed Global put them all up at a Marriott Courtyard outside of town, like living in a dorm or something. He and Noam used to watch the rookies do cannonballs into the pool.
"You could-- we could--" Missy pushes her hot sticky face into his neck until the words get cut off against his skin.
Ben takes a deep breath and cups the back of her head protectively. Doesn't let his mind fill in any of the blanks. "What?"
Missy lifts up to look at him. Her hair is everywhere, just truly and ridiculously wrecked. Ben wants to watch while she fixes it in the morning, while she takes off last night's make up, while she takes a shower, while she does a million domestic things he's seen Laura do every day. It makes him feel guilty and sick and elated, and it also isn't going away. "Ben, just-- God." Missy tucks her head back down. "Planning this is going to suck, isn't it?"
(Ben loves her. He does.)
"Yeah." Ben nudges her face up until he can get at her mouth, warm and getting more familiar by the minute. "It is."