Summary: Leslie and Ben get back together and take a bath.
Rating: R-ish?
Timeline: post-Smallest Park, but also references to The Trial of Leslie Knope
Notes: I just wanted to write 1200+ words of Leslie/Ben in a bathtub.
“I hated it when you walked away from me last week. With Chris. After you cut the ribbon,” Leslie pauses briefly, before adding under her breath, “You didn’t even use the right scissors.”
“You were grilling burgers, encouraging picketers, and sabotaging your own park project,” Ben tells her in return, keeping his voice neutral and kind, even if he’s making a bit of an exasperated face.
“Yeah, but…it just seemed so easy for you to-”
“It wasn’t.” As he says this, Ben lifts his foot out of the hot, vanilla-scented, soapy water and brushes his big toe lightly on the side of her right breast.
They’re spread out on opposite ends of the big soaking tub at a Comfy Cabin, 60 miles from Pawnee on Lake Monroe. After leaving the Smallest Park, they’d spent the night at Leslie’s and then decided to go away for a day and just be together-not rush right into the chaos of a waiting sex scandal.
Honestly, it was pretty easy for Leslie to talk him into it. Because it’s not like they can tell Chris if they aren’t even in Pawnee, right? Right.
She laughs, grabs his foot quickly in her hand. “Do you want me to tickle you?”
“No. No. Leslie…” he trails off, but he’s still smiling at her. “It was not easy. And I know that it hurt you. And I’m very sorry.”
Leslie sighs. “No. I’m sorry. I deserved that, I was being impossible…and obtuse. And I hurt you too. We should just forget about everything that happened when we were apart. We talked enough about it all last night.”
“Okay,” Ben readily agrees. But when Leslie still doesn’t let go of him, he reaches down into the water and grabs her foot, pulls it up, and rests it on his chest, his fingers gripping at her arch in a light massage.
“What?”
“Mutually-assured destruction.”
She gives him a look. “On the count of three we let go. No one gets tickled. We disarm.”
“Okay,” Ben agrees.
Leslie counts it down. “One, two, three.”
They both keep the others foot in their hands.
“Ben!”
“What?”
“You didn’t let go!”
“Um, well…” He gestures to her, where she still has a firm grip around the ball of his foot. He looks down at her toes. “These were bright pink the last time I saw them.”
“Do you like the orange? It’s festive.”
“It is,” he agrees, leaning forward so he can kiss the tip of her big toe. Then he licks it-it tastes like bubble bath.
“Oh.” Her voice comes out in a soft rush of breath and a second later, after he kisses her again, Leslie’s eyes are all big when she asks, “Have you turned into a foot fetishist?”
Ben grins. “Your toes are cute. I can see how it could happen.”
She smiles back. “I don’t want to go back tomorrow. Can’t we just stay here and do mildly kinky things to each other?”
“We could. But we should probably just get it over with. We go back and into work on Friday, we tell Chris, we’ll feel better, and then we have the weekend to…leave town again.”
“Right. We could come back here to this cabin,” Leslie agrees. “Hey, here’s an idea-why don’t we just stay here and never go back. We can change our names, start new lives. I mean we have another bottle of red wine, and there’s a pizza place down the highway. They might even have calzones! And of course, I have my emergency s'mores supplies for the fireplace.”
“Leslie.”
It’s not that her idea doesn’t have its charms, because it definitely does, but they can’t run away from this forever. Besides, it already looks pretty suspicious that they both took two personal days off at the same time, Ben thinks.
“I know. I know,” she relents. “We’re going to tell Chris on Friday morning. And then we’re going to deal with my campaign. And it’s going to be okay. But we should still make s'mores tonight.”
“It is going to be okay. Although you don’t really sound convinced about anything other than the s'mores.”
“No, I am,” she nods, almost convincingly. “It’s going to be okay. Because I have you again,” Leslie pauses. “but also s'mores.”
Ben lets go of her foot, laughing, while she releases his and he sits forward. His hand finds her thigh and rubs it lightly. “Do I need to make you relax again?”
Leslie closes her eyes, makes a noise. His hand is slow, moving up her thigh and then down, following the curve until he’s palming her mound, running his fingers through the short, silky hair.
“You’re so soft. Can I…?”
“Yeah.”
He moves in and separates her folds with his fingers, seeking out her clit, then rubs against her opening. She feels different underwater, more lush. Of course, that could also be because-
“This was really lousy timing,” she says, interrupting his thoughts and rolling her eyes. She adjusts her neck against the back of the tub and a few tendrils of her blonde hair, the ones not pulled back in a ponytail, float down in the water. Her nipples are just visible below the bubbles, but even though he knows she feels tired and achy, Leslie looks really happy. Naked and wet and happy.
“It’s no big deal,” Ben answers, although he finds himself really looking forward to going down on her by the weekend. He slowly slides a finger inside her just a little, watches her reaction closely.
“I packed a big dark brown towel. The green one last night was incredibly ineffective.”
Ben smiles. “It looked like a holiday massacre afterwards. Like all of the elves went insane and stabbed each other to death with broken Christmas toys in a festive, insanity-fueled bloodbath.”
Leslie giggles in response to his words. “God, Ben, that was so needlessly disgusting.” She’s still grinning at him as he resumes his movements, brushes his thumb across her clit again. It makes her hips buck and he smiles. “I missed you so much,” she tells him in a rush.
Ben takes his time making her come and Leslie, uncharacteristically, doesn’t seem to be in a rush either. He’s slow and methodical, dragging it out. Slowing down, then speeding up. Watching her face react to his movements and her breasts rise and fall with an occasional deep breath. Even though Ben’s beyond turned on, he’s not in a hurry to leave the warmth of the tub.
He’s also definitely not in a hurry to head back to Pawnee. Because every single way he’s looked at this since they got back together yesterday, he knows one thing for sure-he’s not going to let her be fired over this. And because of that, there’s no way that he’s not going to be leaving his job in disgrace after Chris finds out about their relationship. And it’s fine, he’s made peace with it…it will be worth it because he is completely in love with Leslie Knope.
A couple of minutes later, Leslie screams when she orgasms. It’s not super loud, but he’s still glad they mostly have the whole resort to themselves on this cold, Wednesday night in November, with no other guests in the cabins next door to theirs.
When she opens her eyes, she has a sleepy, contented look on her face.
“Come on, my little menstruating snuggle-bunny. Let’s get out of the bathtub and go destroy another towel if you feel up to it. Then you can turn over and I’ll give you a happy ending.”
“Oh god, that sounds perfect. You give the most amazing backrubs.”