All Along The Watchtower - Part 26.4 - Let's Spend The Night Together
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
Thank you so much as usual to my betas and my readers who leave feedback. I deeply appreciate all of you :) I'm sorry I am so behind on responding to feedback, particularly if you've asked me a question. I'll try to get to that as soon as possible!
Fair warning -- it may be a while before I can post Ch 27, since it's not started, and the next 3 weekends will be VERY busy for me. I don't expect any huge gaps like post-24, but unless a miracle happens, you can expect at least 3 weeks of radio silence.
As far as this chapter goes, it's not work safe. Really, really not. Also, if you have no idea what a fluffer is, I suggest that you Google it, or you're going to be a little lost on some of the humor in this. If you think you know what a fluffer is, and your answer is g-rated, you should probably still Google it :)
All Along The Watchtower - Part 26.4
Let's Spend The Night Together
His lady had a craving.
Derek stood in the kitchen in nothing but his fuzzy blue bathrobe, the one Meredith had bought for him on their first Post-it Christmas, sated and relaxed and smiling. They'd made love, languishing in their bed for over an hour, and... it'd brought him home again. Almost like when she'd announced she was pregnant, he'd forgotten what little had been left of his bad mood. Forgotten his disease. Enjoyed the moments. Been happy in her arms. With her in his arms.
They'd dozed afterward, and as he'd hit that twilight before dreaming, he'd felt...
Replete.
Derek Shepherd. Likes to brood unnecessarily. Has bad fashion-sense. Comforts Meredith really well. Listens. Is maybe strong. Is very good at sex.
He couldn't stop smiling, because he loved his wife. And he loved his baby. He was alive to love both of them, and life was good. He ached in all the right places from biceps to heart to hamstrings. Good aches. Except he was smiling at the fridge. Smiling at the open fridge, letting out all the cold air.
He shook his head and grabbed the sleeve full of fresh bacon from the shelf. He pulled the jar of mayo from the rack on the door. He tried not to grimace at it. Bacon and mayonnaise. Arterial death on bread. Wonder Bread, she'd specified. Not the wholewheat whole grain crap full of seeds we buy for you. Bacon and mayonnaise and Wonder Bread. He couldn't think of anything more disgusting in this particular moment.
But he forbore.
His lady had a craving, and he'd happily offered to fix her something while she rested upstairs. It was the first time she'd asked him for anything other than his pancakes. And, just like with the cliched pickles and ice cream of his replacement thoughts, he wanted to do right by her. She was carrying his baby. The least he could do was fix her a sandwich, no matter how appalling he found its contents.
He pulled five paper towels away from the roll and laid them on the microwave floor. Then he took four greasy strips of bacon from the sleeve and placed them in a line before he closed the door. She liked her bacon crispy. Not just a little crunch. C-r-i-s-p-y. He put three minutes on the microwave timer. He'd work from there. He hit start.
The strips began to pop and sizzle while he waited. The room filled with the scent of cooking bacon. Samantha arrived in moments. She'd been sleeping in her crate, but now her gaze held an air of carnivorous glee in it. Samantha sat down on the floor by the microwave and stared up at it.
“It's not for you,” Derek said, despite the dog's wagging stump-tail.
Meredith walked through the kitchen door with thirty seconds left on the microwave timer. Her feet were bare, her hair mussed and tussled. She wore her red bathrobe, and she looked beautiful. The glow of sex and pregnancy and her general, pleased, relaxed demeanor made her radiant, and he had to kiss her again.
“Hey,” he said as he cut her off on the way to the counter to follow his heady kissing impulse. He loved the way her breath caught when his lips met hers. The way her body melded against him in the space between one heartbeat and the next. The feel of her hands on his hips, squeezing. Very, very good at sex, she told him in a million ways without a single word.
“You didn't have to come downstairs,” he murmured when he finally pulled away.
“I changed my mind,” she said.
“No bacon?” he said.
She slipped past him toward the countertop where he'd placed the mayonnaise and picked it up. “I think I'd rather have a fluffernutter. A real one.”
He couldn't stop his look of horror as the microwave dinged. “A fluffernutter with bacon?”
She giggled. “No, silly.” She put the mayonnaise back into the refrigerator and pulled out an open jar of marshmallow paste. She'd bought it after their Lake Cushman trip, her mind newly reawakened to the possibilities of peanut butter and marshmallows, he supposed. She grinned at him. The sky outside was black, and the way her eyes caught the light in the kitchen made him sigh as his thoughts became laden with old memories.
I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you... forever.
She'd worn a lilac-colored shirt with a gray... thing underneath. Her hair had been down. The wine glasses she'd been cleaning had clinked as she'd put them in the sink. He'd stumbled all over himself, then. Stumbled with his words.
I'm a little late. I know I'm a little late...
But he'd told her how he felt.
“Just a fluffernutter,” she said, pulling him away from his mental trip. “But thank you for making the bacon, anyway.”
She pulled the Wonder Bread from the top of the fridge. The plastic bag crinkled. She walked to the dinette set with the bag, a knife, the jar of marshmallow paste, and a jar of peanut butter from the countertop, all in an awkward bundle. She plunked down in the chair and dropped everything in a pile on the place mat.
Bacon forgotten, he slid into the chair across from her and watched while she made her sandwich. Watched with his usual quiet amazement while she stuffed her face with it. He really didn't understand where she put it, or why her blood tests were always so pristine. If he were to eat like she did, he'd be overweight and minutes from a heart attack, if not already dead.
“You sure you don't want one?” she said around a full mouth, more than half the sandwich already gone.
He nodded, staring at her while he rested his chin on his hands. “I'm sure,” he said softly.
“I swear, it's better with the paste,” she said.
“You're actually advocating that it's better with fake marshmallows than with real ones?” he said.
“Mmm,” she said. She took another huge bite. “Yes.” She grinned at him. “You seem like you're feeling a lot better. You look... good.”
“I am feeling better,” he said.
She waggled her eyebrows. “When I get that feeling, I want sexual healing?”
He laughed. “Minor epiphanies. Sex. I'll take anything I can get.”
She pouted. “But you won't try a real fluffernutter. You won't even give it a chance. You're prejudiced against fake marshmallows! What if they're a magical PTSD cure?”
“I won our bet,” he said haughtily. “I don't need to try them. And I'm pretty sure fake marshmallows won't cure my PTSD.”
“You never know!” she said.
“Admit it,” he teased. “Your woman's intuition may be suspect.”
“We're still having a girl,” she said.
“Assuming you're right, that'll put you at a fifty percent average, which is still an F, Mere.”
“Well, you should try a real fluffernutter at least once!”
“You're changing the subject,” he said.
“And you're a frustrating ass!”
“My ass is not frustrated,” he said, grinning.
Her nose scrunched adorably. “Jerk,” she said, the word a curious amalgamation of affection and irritation.
“I just don't like marshmallows,” he countered.
“You love s'mores,” she countered back. “Those have marshmallows.”
“Okay, fine,” he said, conceding her point. “Maybe, it's the peanut butter and marshmallow combination I don't like. Either way, it's gross.”
“It's not gross,” she said. “It's the best. Thing. Ever. And you won't even try it.” She chomped on the last bite of her sandwich as if to prove her point.
He smirked. “Are we really fighting about this?”
She sniffed, though her eyes twinkled. “I'm ashamed by your close-minded marshmallow bigotry,” she said as she chewed. “Everybody should have one real fluffernutter before they die. It's a rite of passage.”
“Oh, it's a rite of passage, now, in addition to a PTSD cure?” he said, incredulous.
She nodded.
“Meredith, I think the only way I'd ever try a real fluffernutter is if I have to lick it off you,” he said.
She stopped chewing. Swallowed. Stared at him for a long, silent moment.
“What?” he said.
She reached for the marshmallow paste. Unscrewed the cap.
“Meredith, what are you doing?” he said. He'd been joking. Honestly joking. Surely, she couldn't...
She did. She dipped her index finger into the paste, and then she drew a white, sticky line on her lips.
“That's not a real fluffernutter,” he said. “That's just the paste.”
“Now, you're mincing details?” she said.
Fabric rustled as she shrugged away her robe, leaving her sitting naked in front of him. Pregnancy had swollen her breasts. Her nipples perked in the cool air. He'd known her carnally an hour ago. All the delightful details of joining with her roared back into his head. The way she called his name. The way her hands slipped down his spine. The soft, wet, warm way she squeezed around him when he drove to her center again and again and again.
“Um...” he said. “Isn't Lexie home? I thought...” He didn't really have thoughts.
“She and Alex are both on-call tonight,” Meredith said. “We're all alone.”
“Oh,” he said.
She dipped her fingers in the paste once more. Rubbed it in her cleavage. Over her nipples. She shifted provocatively in the chair. Her robe slipped from her hips to the hardwood floor, leaving nothing to the imagination. She drew her palms down the front of her body in a languorous accentuation of all her beautiful features. Her hands came to a stop over her womb, a subtle swell that had once been flat.
Breaths tightened in his chest as she drew a sticky line around her navel. She spread her legs as she did so. He swallowed at the view.
“I have a new craving, Derek,” she said in a singsong voice.
“Tell me more,” he said.
“You did say you'd eat me if you won.”
He swallowed. “I did.”
"Well," she said, "you won."
He stared. "I did, didn't I?"
She stood. Walked confidently around the table to the space in front of him, dragging the marshmallow paste jar with her. The bag of bread and the peanut butter and the knife lay forgotten on her place mat. She stood with her butt against the table, facing him, a mere twelve inches away. He looked up at her. She leaned down and forward, and she kissed him, marshmallow paste and all.
A blast of sweet sugar hit the back of his throat. She made a soft, bleating sound that decimated him. He drank her down, and the paste came away from her lips as he laved her with attention.
“Okay,” he whispered, panting. He scooped his hands underneath her thighs and pulled up. She sat on the table at his behest with a thud, naked and... He kissed her. Naked. His brain mostly stopped at naked. “Maybe, fake marshmallows do taste okay.”
Her fingers tore through his hair. “We can skip the peanut butter then,” she murmured.
“Thank you,” he said.
She arched back, putting her hands behind her for support. The peanut butter jar crashed to the ground, followed by the clatter of the knife. He didn't flinch at the unexpected racket. He was too engrossed with her. She pushed her chest at him. “Taste me,” she said.
He wandered down her throat to her cleavage and licked. Licked a long line from below the place where her ribs fused in the center to the little dip between her clavicles. He sucked each of her nipples with attentive care, removing the sticky marshmallow mess she'd left for him. She moaned. The bread bag slipped off the table and landed in a pile on the seat of the far chair. He licked her navel. Stopped to press his ear against the small swell of her belly. Their baby was in there.
Maybe, I'm more fertile than the garden of freaking Eden, she'd said. Don't me and my hoo-hoo get any credit?
The thought made him laugh. He looked up at her and smiled.
“This is why I feel better,” he said. “I like the world when it's only this bubble. Just us three.”
“Me, too,” she said.
“You're beautiful, Meredith,” he said, the words deep and dumbstruck. “I hope you know that.”
She bit her lip, looking at him. “You make me know it,” she said. “Do I taste good?” she said.
His breaths tightened in his chest. “Yes.”
She shifted off one hand. Dipped her fingers in the marshmallow paste. And then she cupped herself. Touched herself between the thighs. Spread her legs wide for him, giving him a glorious, glistening view of his favorite color pink.
“Taste me, then,” she said. Commanded.
He grinned. “Bossy woman.”
You know you love it, she said with her eyes, and he agreed with her.
She gazed at him through her eyelashes. Her gray irises sparkled at him in the light.
I'm in love with you, he'd said.
“I've been in love with you forever,” he murmured aloud. She lay back on the table. Put her knees up. Rested her feet on the edge of the table. Her toes curled around the edge.
He bent down, pressed his palms gently against her thighs, spreading her as wide as she could go, and he opened his gift with his tongue. The hair at her cleft was coarse, colored light honey-brown like the hair on her head when she didn't dye it. He found her favorite spot in moments. He sucked. The heady taste of marshmallows, and her, and the vague, salty remnants of him mixed in a swirl.
Her muscles tensed. She called out. A nonsensical syllable that, out of context, sounded like a moan of pain, but he knew her well enough to know it wasn't pain. At all.
He tasted her again, and she scrabbled for purchase. For his body. For anything. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she pulled him into her. Into the warmth that defined her center. He kissed her. Worshiped the confined, slippery, wonderful space he found himself in. His insides tightened more. Every time she cried out. Music. That, and the thumps she made as she thrashed on the table for him. All for him. Her short, skipping breaths were drumbeats in his ears. Her words...
“Derek,” she bleated. “Derek, Derek, Derek.”
And it was what he needed to hear.
He drank her body like wine, and she screamed for him.
Good screams.
Moments passed in blissful, stretched succession, slow and fast all at once. He made sure to clean every last bit of the marshmallow from her skin. Drove her to frenzy. Until she lay on the table, legs spread, body shaking, a grimace on her face as she stared, blank and drunk on the pleasure and tension of it.
He breathed her in. The scent of her below. He loved it.
He nuzzled her there, and she twitched.
Well, do you want to stay here a while? she'd said.
I just want my wife.
Is that the top of your list, then? she'd replied with a wink.
When he lay his cheek against her inner thigh and looked up, along the length of her body, at her, he saw the small swell of their baby at her navel. Saw her breasts, perked nipples pointing at the ceiling. Saw her gaze, which had been undone by need. For a moment, awe overwhelmed him. Awe at her trust. Awe at the intimacy. He kissed his favorite pink, and she squirmed, and she moaned, and she spoke his name in a long, dark, twisty way that made his spine tingle with the need to respond to her desires.
He loved it. Loved that he could do that for her. Undo her. Build her world. Help her find euphoria.
He blew softly on her skin, and she twitched. Moaned, long and low.
“Do you like that?” he purred.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes.”
He sucked, and her long, low moan became a whine became a pulsing scream as he built her into the stratosphere. And then he pulled away. She flailed while he directed his attention to her thighs instead. To anything but her center. When she relaxed, he returned. He built her again. Higher. And then he let her relax. He took her high to low. High to low. Waxing, waning, like the moon, eclipsed.
You were like coming up for fresh air, he'd said, so long ago.
He lost track of the time because he was lost in the bubble that was her.
It's like I was drowning, and you saved me.
When he let her go at last, her release made her moan. She flailed. The remaining place mats went flying. She needed to hold something. Anything. He pulled her into his arms and let her twitch and pant and eventually ride back to earth. She rested in his arms, naked, half sitting on the table, half collapsed in his arms, her eyelids hanging low over glazed, sated eyes. Her fingers curled around the soft terrycloth of his bathrobe as her breathing relaxed from the endless cascade of tension.
“I think I like fluffernutters if that's your definition of a real one,” he said.
She snorted weakly against him. “Half of one,” she croaked. “That was really... real.”
“Is that what you had in mind?”
She nodded.
“Glad I could oblige,” he said, snickering. He licked his lips, finishing off the last remnants of sugar and her. Derek Shepherd. Damned awesome at sex. “You do taste very good,” he said. “But if that was only half, would that make you the fluffer? Or the nutter?”
She laughed. “There was no peanut butter. I'm definitely not the nutter.”
“There were nuts, but they were spectating,” he said with a leer.
“Yes,” she said with a snort and a gleaming gaze. You are so dirty, she said with her eyes. She slid her hands into his robe. Cupped him with her warm palm. He pressed against her hand. “Yes,” she said, “but... those were definitely not me.”
He kissed her. “Fluffer it is.”
She giggled. “Fluffer is... so...”
“Wrong but right?” he said, his voice a low purr.
“Very,” she said. She kissed him. “Very freaking wrong.”
Still, he was proud. Proud he could do that so well if nothing else. Please her. Beyond their first night together since he'd been shot, when he'd still been in too much pain to be very mobile, and they'd needed to rehearse for sex, no hint of Gary Clark's voice had ever surfaced again during intimate moments. Never made him doubt what he knew. He knew he pleased her when he put his mind to it. He more than pleased her. Finding that sort of confidence, even for such a limited thing; it was... freeing. Maybe, that was why he loved this bubble so much. Beyond the fact that he loved her, and it was fun, and it felt good. He felt like himself again when they made love. Even when the Paxil gave him trouble, he could still give her a great time, and that made him feel... like strutting and bragging.
Made him feel... whole.
Undamaged.
If you could brag about one thing, what would it be? Dr. Wyatt had said.
Derek Shepherd. Likes to brood unnecessarily. Has bad fashion-sense. Comforts Meredith really well. Listens. Is maybe strong. Is damned awesome at sex.
“What are you thinking?” she said.
He looked at her. “That I love you, and that I'm glad I'm good enough to show you that.”
She gave him a lazy, sated smile and kissed his chest through the terrycloth. “You're more than good, Derek.”
“Damned awesome?” he said.
She nodded. “Oh, yes. It's one of those many things I do love about you.”
“So, yes to sex and comforting. No to fashion-sense and brooding,” he said. “Got it.”
She laughed. And then her gaze grew more serious. She ran her fingers through his hair. “You do know it's not just about you being good at sex for me. I hope.”
“I know,” he said. “I mean, maybe I don't understand the rest, yet, but...” He nuzzled her. “I know you. You're not superficial. I know there's more. And I'm just... basking at the moment.”
“Basking,” she said, echoing him.
He nodded. “In my awesomeness.”
She laughed again. Petted him, her palms against the soft terrycloth over his pectorals. He supposed he could believe her about being funny, too. Not even hesitantly. She laughed so much when she was happy. He clearly made her happy, if nothing else, and it was hard to feel bleak when she made lovely noises like that. Her giggle was infectious.
Derek Shepherd. Likes to brood unnecessarily. Has bad fashion-sense. Comforts Meredith really well. Listens. Is maybe strong. Is damned awesome at sex. Is funny ha-ha, not funny strange.
Sweat had pasted loose strands of hair to her skin. He brushed one out of the way. Rested his cheek against the top of her head and sighed. “I just wish it would stick when I walk outside,” he said.
She stroked his arm. “Wish what would stick?”
“This feeling that I'm something,” he said. “I feel like something when I'm with you.”
Maybe, it would stick a little this time. He felt... different. Ever since he'd realized she wore sunglasses, too. He didn't expect a miracle. Didn't expect to love himself overnight or anything, but he actually had a tiny list of things to like that didn't feel like a blatant lie. Having a real world example of the same paint-it-black behavior in someone else helped him establish reasonable doubt with his own self-criticisms.
“You're always something,” she said. She slipped off his lap and stood on wobbly feet, unabashed by her nakedness. “Always.”
“You are, too, Meredith,” he said. “You're strong, and you're there for me in so many ways I can't even quantify. I never would have made it this far without your help.” He would never be stingy with compliments again. Not that he'd ever been stingy, but... he wanted her to know. Maybe, he could help her take off her sunglasses, too.
Maybe, they could heal together.
She gave him a watery smile. “Ditto,” she said, and he hugged her close, refusing to let himself argue with her no matter what kind of damning crap Mr. Clark whispered in his head. He loved her, and now, he had a project. Helping her, too. Another empowering thing that made him feel good. Telling her nice things because she deserved to hear them. He could do that.
Moments passed, and he didn't let her go. He held her close, terrycloth-to-skin. Breathing. Being. He found so much peace with her about so many things. For long, stretching silence, he listened to her breathing, and she listened to his heartbeat, and they were both content. He could listen to her breathing for hours. A pure, simple sound that told him she was alive and safe.
His.
You're like a piece of me, she'd tried to explain. I can't call you my best friend or my person. Derek, losing you would be like losing a limb, or...
She's your person. I'm your arm. Got it.
Meredith pressed her nose against the juncture of his throat and chin and kissed him there. He felt the wet press of her tongue. She rose to her tiptoes and kissed his lips, plunging deep. He let her in, and he purred at her invitation.
“Again?” he murmured.
“Mmm-hmm. I'm having another craving,” she said.
“What kind of craving?” he said suggestively.
She looked at him with a heady, hooded gaze, only to giggle as her attention shifted somewhere behind him. He twisted to see what-- He laughed, too. Samantha still sat by the microwave. Staring forlornly at it like she expected the bacon to jump out at any moment.
Meredith frowned. “That's...”
“Sad?” Derek said.
Meredith nodded. “We can't have gratuitous, kinky, kitchen sex while our dog is suffering. It isn't fair.”
“I concur,” he said.
Meredith walked to the microwave, and grabbed the uneaten bacon from the greasy, soaked paper towels. Samantha bounced on her hind legs, whining. Meredith dropped the four crunchy pieces into Samantha's empty food bowl.
That done, though, Meredith didn't return to him immediately. He watched as she pulled a familiar jar from the cupboard and then closed the door while the dog inhaled her treat.
“What are you doing?” he said.
Meredith shrugged. “Having a craving,” she said, her tone innocent enough.
“You want me to get fat, don't you?” Derek said, frowning as she came back to him. She clutched the lapels of his bathrobe, and she kissed him. “This is going to require some gym time, but I'll do it,” he murmured against her lips. “I'll make the sacrifice.” He kissed her on the nose. “For you.”
She laughed.
“No,” she said. “This is for me.”
“The Nutella is for you,” he said stupidly.
“It's my turn,” she said. She pressed against him, Nutella jar in hand, and he backed into the table.
He smirked. “What exactly are you planning to do with that?”
“You,” she said, matching his leer with one of her own. “I thought that was obvious.”
She put the Nutella jar on the table by his hip, pressed her palms against his robe, and stroked him waist to shoulder. Then she kissed and kissed and kissed him until he saw spots. He cupped her ass with splayed hands, and on instinct, he growled and tried to spin them around.
“Nope,” she murmured against his lips. “You had your turn.”
“McBossy,” he replied.
She nipped his lower lip, a playful gleam in her eyes. “McSexHypocrite.”
“Touché!”
Her hands slid to the bow tie knot at his waist, where he'd tied the thick belt of the bathrobe he wore. She fumbled blindly with it as she plundered his mouth. She tasted of peanut butter and marshmallows, but with her tongue dueling his, he didn't mind the combination. He felt the terrycloth of his robe sliding against his shoulders and his back and then his hips. He felt cool air against his skin, and the robe pooled on the table behind him, obscuring the Nutella jar from view.
And then she pushed him. Not hard. Enough to catch his undivided attention.
“Lie back,” she commanded.
“You want me on the table?” he said.
“It's more polite to eat at the table,” she replied, and he couldn't help but chuckle.
He squeezed the edge of the table with his fingers and hoisted himself up. A brief, unhappy line of pain lanced down his sternum, but it disappeared as soon as his weight had settled on his robe instead of on his arms. The Nutella jar slid to the side. She moved in front of him. Her waist hit the table edge between his knees. He pressed his knees against her hips. She wrapped her arms around him, and she kissed him, and he kissed her.
“Lie back,” she repeated.
The robe underneath his back let him slide down the length of the table easily. He brought his feet up with him, and she climbed on top after him, coming to rest with her knees beside his hips. He blinked at the overhead light and grinned.
“So,” he said. “This must be what our turkey feels like at Thanksgiving.”
Meredith snickered. “What straddles the turkey?”
“Point,” he said. “And I don't think Nutella counts as good brine.”
He heard the jar of Nutella open. He stared at her through a hooded gaze, his palms resting on her thighs. The dim light overhead caught the remnants of her sweat and made her body glisten.
Her tussled hair captivated him. He wanted to run his fingers through it. The subtle swell of her navel captivated him. He wanted to lay his hands on it. Her swollen breasts captivated him. He wanted to suckle them.
He lay underneath her, captive.
She was beautiful.
How do you want me, Derek?
He remembered lying underneath her by the roaring fire. Remembered the way she'd faux-tied his hands and his legs as a motivator to remain passive. Remembered the way that, even when he'd been helpless, she'd given him choices at every opportunity.
What she'd done for him had worked.
He lay underneath her now, confined, offered no choices at all except to lie still and be loved, and he didn't mind at all.
In fact, he rather looked forward to the possibilities.
She dipped her thumb into the Nutella jar and drew out a glob. The sticky paste slid against his skin. He watched her draw a long line down his chest, covering the ugly, twisting, pink scar of his surgery from view. She dipped down like a swan, her body lithe and arched, and she pressed her lips against the space where he'd been cut in half.
“Mmm,” he said, and his eyes closed.
She spent long, languorous moments there, laving the ugly marks with love.
“You stayed,” she said for emphasis, her voice a low murmur. She pressed her nose against the scarred dip between his pecs, and she kissed him again and again. “You stayed when it would have been easier to go, and you're the strongest person I know. You kept your promise to me.”
Mr. Clark said nothing.
Derek blinked. He was floating. His breaths squeezed into something choppy. He wiped his face with his hands.
Maybe strong.
“Are you okay?” she said.
He nodded. Grunted. “Yeah. I'm okay.”
She kissed him, and he laughed, releasing the swirl of lighter things that had pent up inside of him like a near-bursting balloon.
“Tickles?” she said.
“No,” he said. “I'm just happy. Being with you makes me very happy. You make me happy.”
She looked down at him. Ran her fingers through his hair in a way that made him want to purr. She smiled a wet, watery smile and she said, deep and shaky with feeling, “I'm really glad you're feeling better, Derek. I'm so glad.”
He put a palm against her navel, unable to resist contributing any longer. “And I'm glad you're feeling better,” he said. “And I'm glad you're here.”
She grinned at him. Dipped her thumb into the open Nutella jar and pressed a glob of spread against the space below his left nipple where the bullet had ripped into him. He'd never liked the pock mark there so much as when she pressed her tongue into it. He moaned and arched back, pressing his upper body into her kiss. He looked through hooded eyes at the upside down, nighttime world behind him.
Only to jerk in surprise at the pair of eyeballs that stared back at him with a dreamy, mocha-colored, bacon-bacon-bacon gleam.
“Our dog is staring,” he said.
“So? Just ignore it,” Meredith said. “She always stares.”
“She what?” Derek sat up so fast the table skidded on the floor. The Nutella jar sat by his hip. Meredith almost lost her balance. She grabbed his shoulders. Her nails dug into his skin, and the pain of it made him grit his teeth, but he didn't complain.
“She always stares,” Meredith said calmly.
“She does not,” Derek said.
“She does,” Meredith insisted. “She's a total voyeur.”
Derek ran his fingers through his hair, agitated, and glanced at Samantha. Her stump tail wagged, and she looked... hungry. And that was just... wrong. He felt like the Thanksgiving turkey for real.
“I'm kind of flattered you never noticed,” Meredith said.
“I... really?” Derek said as his world realigned. “She really always stares?”
“Mmm,” said Meredith with a nod. She guided him back onto the table with a light push. “Just ignore it.”
She shifted and, as if to provide emphasis, she cupped him, touching his penis for the second time since they'd started their kitchen adventures. He found himself unable to stop his eyelids from lowering, unable to stop a moan from punching loose as Meredith shifted his weight in her hands. Her skin was so warm, and she knew exactly how he liked it. Exactly what made him come undone. She pulled on him slightly, not painfully, just... enough to create the pleasing sensation he so often found himself drunk on when they had sex. His favorite thing, and she knew it.
“Okay,” he said. Barely. A soft, pleased sigh fell out of him before he could stop it. “Ignoring, now.”
She smiled. “Good,” she said. She swept upward. Ran her fingers through his pubic hair, following the trail as it tapered to a stop at his navel.
He felt bereft. “You could go back down south, you know,” he suggested hopefully. “South would like some attention.”
She leaned down. Kissed him. Laughed. “Well, I'm not done with north yet. South will have to be patient.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “But I really like south. More south, I say.”
She drew a circle around his nipple with her index finger, tracing the skin softly with her nail. His nipple puckered in response. He sighed.
“Is north getting better, now?” she said.
“Mmm,” he purred. “But when in doubt, Mexico is way nicer than Canada.”
She laughed.
He closed his eyes, relaxed. Thrumming. Happy. Happy with her.
“I love you,” he said.
When she kissed him, he lost himself in it. Lost himself in every touch. Lost himself simply listening to her breathing. When she ran her fingers through his hair, he felt the hairs shift on his scalp in a way that tingled, and he lost himself in that.
She licked a ring of Nutella from around his navel while kissing his hair.
It felt so good.
A deep groan loitered by his Adam's apple--
Wait.
What?
His eyes snapped open. He turned his head. And there was the damned dog, tongue dangling from her mouth, eyes gleaming as if to say, Dad likes kissing a lot. I like bacon a lot. I kissed Dad. Do I get more bacon, now?
“Go away, Sam,” he said.
Samantha didn't move, and he tensed when he felt Meredith's tongue approach Mexico at a what-should-have-been-tantalizing crawl. Her fingers wrapped around him. She kissed the tip of his penis. His world went off-kilter for a moment.
When he regathered his wits, he barked, “Sam, for god's sake, shoo!”
The dog merely said, “Woof.”
It was really hard to muster any kind of authority with Meredith's tongue invading Mexico.
“Mere, really, the dog--”
Mere lifted her head. “Samantha, crate!” Samantha pouted. Meredith pointed at the dining room. “Crate! Now!”
Samantha left, her feet padding on the floor as she whined dejectedly.
Derek slumped back onto the table with a sigh. “Our dog is a voyeur,” he said. “How did I not know this?”
Meredith laughed. “I think I have a more pressing problem,” she said.
“What's more a pressing problem than the dog licking me during the Mexican invasion?” he said.
“This angle. I don't like it,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “I think I need you standing. I'm used to doing this on my knees.”
He shook his head. “On the table. Off the table. It's like sex on a seesaw,” he said.
She snorted.
He climbed off the table with another fleeting lance of pain that he barely noticed. She guided him, hands on his shoulders, to the edge, almost where he'd been sitting when he'd pleasured her earlier, but she pushed the chair aside. She pulled away his robe from the surface of the table and dropped it onto the floor, presumably to pad her knees.
“Your fluffer,” she said with a mock salute that made him laugh. “Reporting for duty.”
“Why does this feel like it could be a Julia Childs porno?” he quipped.
She giggled. “Did Julia Childs cook with Nutella?”
“No, but crepes are French,” he said. “And she cooked French food.”
“And that has to do with Nutella?”
He snorted. “Nutella goes on crepes. Even I know that. Don't you pay attention to the coffee carts at work?”
She licked her lips lasciviously. “Oh, right. I'll have to have one. Later. At work.” She stared at his body as though it were an unpainted canvas. “Now, shh. I need to concentrate. We haven't done this in a while.”
“We've never done this,” he said, staring down at her.
Her eyes widened. “We have, too! In your office that one time, we--”
“That,” he said, interrupting her, “did not involve Nutella. I would remember Nutella on the nutters, Ms. Fluffer.”
She snorted. “I didn't mean we've done that part before. God, you're dirty today.”
“Today?” he said.
“Okay, maybe, that's also one of the things I love about you,” she said. “People have this mistaken, quaint idea that you're respectable.”
“I don't have sex with most people,” Derek said, and she laughed again. “Derek Shepherd,” he said. “Likes to brood unnecessarily. Has bad fashion-sense. Comforts Meredith really well. Listens. Is maybe strong. Is damned awesome at sex. Is funny ha-ha, not funny strange, and is really...” He leaned down. “Really...” Pressed his lips against hers. “Dirty.”
She pushed him away with a sexy gleam in her eye. “Hold still,” she said.
“Only if you promise to be very thorough,” he said. “That shit is sticky.”
“Very thorough,” she agreed. Then she dropped to the ground in front of him with the Nutella jar.
He closed his eyes as the cool air laved his skin. He wasn't erect. Not even a little. Even with the kissing and the dirty jokes and her sitting on top him licking Nutella off his chest. His one dance with the spontaneous function of yore had happened in a damned store, of all the luck. He really hated the Paxil, sometimes.
“Never fear,” Meredith said playfully as if she'd read his mind. “That's why your fluffer is here.”
He laughed, at ease again. Gripped the sides of the table. Leaned his head back and sighed. He loved that she was here. Loved spending time with her, wherever that time happened to lead. Loved her.
You know you're my best friend, right? he'd said.
He made a soft grunt when he felt her slide back his foreskin with her fingertips. That was pleasant. More than pleasant. But the Nutella was cold. And definitely sticky. He tried not to squirm at first while she put it on, only to realize after about twenty seconds, he'd inadvertently started pressing himself against her hand. The rubbing... That felt... nice.
Really nice. He sighed a soft sigh. “That feels good,” he assured her.
“Really good?” she said.
“Mmm,” he answered. “Yes.”
He felt himself starting to fill.
He forgot about everything, though, when she kissed the head of his penis, setting nerve endings that had been sheathed on fire. Then she licked the underside of his length. He gripped the table. “Oh,” he said, and then he felt her mouth close around him. “Oh,” he said more deeply, a bark more than speech. His eyes opened to stars, and he grinned. And then the stars faded, and he frowned. “Wait.”
“Wait?” she said. He felt her mouth on him. Fought not to press into the motion.
“The dog is back. I can't have gratuitous, kinky, kitchen sex while our dog is watching. It's weird.”
Meredith turned her head. Samantha stared at them with the bacon-bacon-bacon-where's-more-bacon eyes. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
Meredith pointed at the door. “Crate!” she said. “Seriously. I need to blow your dad.”
Derek's eyes widened. “And you think I'm dirty?”
Meredith bit her lip to keep from giggling. “Crate!” she managed in a loud, firm voice despite her scarlet face and trembling limbs. “Go, now!”
Samantha slumped, like her favorite steak squeak toy had been put away, and she wandered out of the room again. Meredith turned back to him. Looked up at him with a sly smile. She rubbed her hands against his inner thighs. “Now, where were we?” she said.
“You tell me,” he said with a wink.
“How about I show you?” she said.
She dipped her head toward him. His eyelids lowered as he felt the wet slide of her mouth on his skin. When she sucked, he lost it. The table groaned against the wood floor as he pushed backward, surprised.
“Fuck,” he said. “That was...” He'd forgotten. He'd forgotten what this felt like; it'd been so long since he'd allowed her to do it. Sitting wetly sheathed inside her body felt like coming home. Felt beautiful and perfect and all sorts of euphoric, and he would never, could never, replace that feeling with anything. But it had never sucked.
He laughed.
Her mouth left him. Cool air snapped at his skin. “What's funny?” she said, looking up at him.
He glanced down. His partial erection looked a bit like a banana she'd greased up with Nutella to eat, though it was a partial erection, so the banana wasn't smiling yet. It was frowning. Kind of pointing toward the doorjamb, actually. That wasn't good. And he laughed again.
“I'm sorry,” he said. And he laughed again. “I'm sorry. My head is going weird places.”
“Weird good?” she said.
“Well, let's see,” he said. “I just thought a joke about you sucking. And now I'm comparing my own erection to fruit.”
Her eyes gleamed. She kissed his head, and he tensed as the zing of pleasure twisted through him. “What fruit?” she said. She licked.
“A sad banana.”
She giggled. “You have lots to say about bananas, today,” she said.
“What can I say?” Derek said. “It's a phallic fruit. Very vulnerable to raunchy humor.”
“Only because your dirty, dirty mind goes there,” she said. And then she shook her head. “And your fluffer is not doing a good job if your banana is sad.”
“It'll be happy in a minute if you keep doing that,” he said. Barely.
“It does look a little like a banana,” she said. “A banana covered in Nutella.”
“See!” he said, and they both laughed. And then he huffed. “Wait. A little?”
“In similarity,” she clarified, kissing him. “Not in size.”
“Okay, then,” he said, appeased.
“This is much, much more tasty than a banana, though,” she replied. And then she enveloped him once more, and a wet sound filled the air between them.
The air punched from his chest in a sharp grunt. His body wouldn't let him inhale as the sensation took him almost out of his own body. His toes curled. His lower lip quivered and his face pulled into a grimace. It felt good. It felt good. It felt-- her tongue did something delightful and the air rushed back into him so quickly he felt dizzy.
“Mere,” he said. “Mere. Meredith. Meredi...” He was lost in useless babble.
And then she stopped again. “I'd say the banana is very happy, now,” she said, though his ears buzzed, and it took him a while to interpret her. He glanced down, panting. That was definitely a smile. An upward, rock-solid curve that told him he was full to the brim.
She had Nutella on her lips. Her skin blushed with the promise of sex. He blinked. Once. Twice. She licked his corona. His jaw fell open, but his moan got stuck in his throat. It'd been a long, long time since he'd had this level of attention down there, and he could barely keep his thoughts straight. The only way he stayed on his feet was by keeping his knees locked.
He panted.
“Feels good?” she murmured during a tactical pause.
He nodded, panting, but he didn't have a chance to speak before she'd taken his full length into her throat to the hilt. “Holy fuck,” he managed, unable to stop himself from thrusting. Thrusting deeper. She gripped his hips to steady herself, and he fought not to get his fingers tangled in her hair. He heard the wet, slick sound of skin on skin. Sliding.
He thought he might die in the best way imaginable.
You're like a lightning strike.
He scrabbled for purchase. The light over the table split in two as his eyes lost focus. And then she was gone from him again, and he was cold as what she'd left behind evaporated. He couldn't find words for a moment.
She wiped her lips and looked at him with a sly smile. “Forgot I could do that?”
“My memory,” he said between short, panting breaths. “May have. Omitted it. I blame. The hypovolemic. Shock.”
“I learned in college,” she said.
“In what. The fuck. Class?” he said.
“French cooking?”
He barked with laughter, only to lose it when she kissed his head, and his thoughts dissolved all over again.
“I missed some spots, earlier,” she announced while his mind was still reeling. He shivered. She shifted. And she licked his scrotum instead.
She'd never done that before.
“They taught tea-bagging in French cooking, too?” he said incredulously, unable to stop the moan that punctuated the question.
She paused. “They might have taught tea-bagging.”
“Our daughter is never going to Dartmouth,” he said.
She giggled. “Got it all, I think.”
She gave him a kiss and a last lick for good measure. She enveloped him to the hilt once more, and he shouted. He couldn't stop himself. His insides tightened to an unbearable level, paradigmatic of torture, yet also pleasure. Pressure gathered in his center.
“Meredith,” he said, panting. “Meredith, I'm going to--” He tried to push at her despite the fireworks in his vision, but she kept slip sliding along his hard length, sucking. “Meredith, I'm going--”
And then it was too late. He pulled in a breath as though it were a riptide. He remained stuck on the precipice for an eternity moment. The world collapsed into a pinpoint and then exploded into a whorl of light, a single, brilliant star gone nova. He shouted. His muscles twitched out of control. He spilled into her. She squeezed his hips, her fingers like talons against his skin, and she drank it all. Every last drop.
When the explosion left him, he collapsed his weight against the table. His knees shook. She let him go, licking the underside of his length as she withdrew. His erection sagged and left him spent. He panted as she rose to her feet.
“Wasn't that salty?” he said, incredulous and hoarse. She hadn't done that before, either.
She licked her lips. “I hear salt goes with nuts.”
He grunted. Sort of a laugh. “I feel like I should make a spit or swallow joke, but my head is empty right now.”
“Literally,” she said. She leaned over him and kissed his flaccid privates.
“Not that head,” he said, snickering. “I think you're taking home the dirty prize tonight,” he said. “I can't win against that.”
She'd always been a bit more... experimental than him. He happily went along for the ride when she took him, but most of the more unusual things they'd tried were at her behest. Well, other than the glow-in-the-dark condoms, which he still found novel and funny.
They glowed, Derek, she'd said. In the dark. They made sex look like a freaking UFO encounter.
She hummed a soft tune in her throat.
A chuckle ratcheted out of his sore throat when he realized it was the Batman theme from the horrible Biff-Pow-Thwack Adam West version that had been popular when he'd been a kid. “That song is by the Kinks, you know.”
She nodded. “So appropriate, isn't it?”
“Does this mean I should call you Fluffergirl from now on?”
Her eyes sparkled. “I fluffed, and I fluffed, and I blew your house down.”
“Now,” he said, kissing her on the lips, “you're mixing naughty stories. And double entendres.”
She sighed, leaning against the table next to him. They were both sweat-slicked and smelled of sex. She kissed his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her. Pulled her close.
“This is why I love you, Derek,” she said softly. “You're fun to be with, and you happily go along with my freak show.”
“It's not a freak show,” he said. “And you're not a freak.”
You're the love of my life, he'd said, and I'm really looking forward to spending my future with you.
She shrugged. “Well, whatever it is, you go along with it. And you don't judge me. And I just...” She kissed him. “I just love you. Okay?”
He met her eyes. In this moment, he could believe anything. She could sell him a bridge. A fake bridge that went to Neverland. He'd buy it, no questions asked.
“I'll try to remember,” he said. “You might have to keep telling me for a while.”
“I don't mind,” she said.
He nuzzled her. “I love you, too,” he said. “Very much.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Except I think I'm still sticky.”
“Me, too,” she said. She grinned at him. “Sex in the shower, next?”
He nodded. “Good plan.”
“Bendy thing?” she said.
“If you insist,” Derek replied with a wink.
“Oh. My. God,” said Lexie, her eyes wide like saucers as she stood in the kitchen doorway.
Derek snatched for his robe from the table behind them, only to remember it was lying on the floor at their feet as a pad for Meredith's knees. Meredith leaped in front of him, grabbing his shoulder for balance as she stumbled. He crossed his palms in front of his lower body, despite already having Meredith as a shield, but from the look on Lexie's face, it was too late for modesty, anyway. Lexie had clearly gotten an eyeful, from the tips of his toes to the scarred mess on his chest to Meredith's little baby bump.
“Again?” Lexie said as she turned redder than Rudolph's nose. “Seriously, again!? You'd better wash that table with Pine-Sol. And bleach. And more Pine-Sol.” She darted out of the room. “And get a freaking room!” she called through the door as it slammed. And then she was gone.
Derek glared at the door. He really, really hated that. Hated people barging in. Hated people seeing him with his shirt off since the shooting, let alone buck naked. The day they moved into their new house could not arrive soon enough.
“The kitchen is totally a room,” Meredith said at the closed door.
“I thought you said she was working tonight,” he said, his tone rueful.
Meredith bit her lip and gave him a guilty look. “She told me she was working tonight!”
He sighed. There wasn't much they could do about it, now. “It's okay,” he said. He took her palm from his shoulder and kissed her hand to prove it. She smiled.
Meredith bent to pick up his robe from the floor. “You know what else I love about you?”
“What?” he said.
“That you somehow haven't stashed her body in the woods, yet.”
He laughed hoarsely . “Batman doesn't kill people. At least not for failing to knock, anyway.”
Meredith raised her eyebrows. “Does Fluffergirl?”
He laughed again as they put on their robes and headed to the shower.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
Thank you so much as usual to my betas and my readers who leave feedback. I deeply appreciate all of you :) I'm sorry I am so behind on responding to feedback, particularly if you've asked me a question. I'll try to get to that as soon as possible!
Fair warning -- it may be a while before I can post Ch 27, since it's not started, and the next 3 weekends will be VERY busy for me. I don't expect any huge gaps like post-24, but unless a miracle happens, you can expect at least 3 weeks of radio silence.
As far as this chapter goes, it's not work safe. Really, really not. Also, if you have no idea what a fluffer is, I suggest that you Google it, or you're going to be a little lost on some of the humor in this. If you think you know what a fluffer is, and your answer is g-rated, you should probably still Google it :)
All Along The Watchtower - Part 26.4
Let's Spend The Night Together
His lady had a craving.
Derek stood in the kitchen in nothing but his fuzzy blue bathrobe, the one Meredith had bought for him on their first Post-it Christmas, sated and relaxed and smiling. They'd made love, languishing in their bed for over an hour, and... it'd brought him home again. Almost like when she'd announced she was pregnant, he'd forgotten what little had been left of his bad mood. Forgotten his disease. Enjoyed the moments. Been happy in her arms. With her in his arms.
They'd dozed afterward, and as he'd hit that twilight before dreaming, he'd felt...
Replete.
Derek Shepherd. Likes to brood unnecessarily. Has bad fashion-sense. Comforts Meredith really well. Listens. Is maybe strong. Is very good at sex.
He couldn't stop smiling, because he loved his wife. And he loved his baby. He was alive to love both of them, and life was good. He ached in all the right places from biceps to heart to hamstrings. Good aches. Except he was smiling at the fridge. Smiling at the open fridge, letting out all the cold air.
He shook his head and grabbed the sleeve full of fresh bacon from the shelf. He pulled the jar of mayo from the rack on the door. He tried not to grimace at it. Bacon and mayonnaise. Arterial death on bread. Wonder Bread, she'd specified. Not the wholewheat whole grain crap full of seeds we buy for you. Bacon and mayonnaise and Wonder Bread. He couldn't think of anything more disgusting in this particular moment.
But he forbore.
His lady had a craving, and he'd happily offered to fix her something while she rested upstairs. It was the first time she'd asked him for anything other than his pancakes. And, just like with the cliched pickles and ice cream of his replacement thoughts, he wanted to do right by her. She was carrying his baby. The least he could do was fix her a sandwich, no matter how appalling he found its contents.
He pulled five paper towels away from the roll and laid them on the microwave floor. Then he took four greasy strips of bacon from the sleeve and placed them in a line before he closed the door. She liked her bacon crispy. Not just a little crunch. C-r-i-s-p-y. He put three minutes on the microwave timer. He'd work from there. He hit start.
The strips began to pop and sizzle while he waited. The room filled with the scent of cooking bacon. Samantha arrived in moments. She'd been sleeping in her crate, but now her gaze held an air of carnivorous glee in it. Samantha sat down on the floor by the microwave and stared up at it.
“It's not for you,” Derek said, despite the dog's wagging stump-tail.
Meredith walked through the kitchen door with thirty seconds left on the microwave timer. Her feet were bare, her hair mussed and tussled. She wore her red bathrobe, and she looked beautiful. The glow of sex and pregnancy and her general, pleased, relaxed demeanor made her radiant, and he had to kiss her again.
“Hey,” he said as he cut her off on the way to the counter to follow his heady kissing impulse. He loved the way her breath caught when his lips met hers. The way her body melded against him in the space between one heartbeat and the next. The feel of her hands on his hips, squeezing. Very, very good at sex, she told him in a million ways without a single word.
“You didn't have to come downstairs,” he murmured when he finally pulled away.
“I changed my mind,” she said.
“No bacon?” he said.
She slipped past him toward the countertop where he'd placed the mayonnaise and picked it up. “I think I'd rather have a fluffernutter. A real one.”
He couldn't stop his look of horror as the microwave dinged. “A fluffernutter with bacon?”
She giggled. “No, silly.” She put the mayonnaise back into the refrigerator and pulled out an open jar of marshmallow paste. She'd bought it after their Lake Cushman trip, her mind newly reawakened to the possibilities of peanut butter and marshmallows, he supposed. She grinned at him. The sky outside was black, and the way her eyes caught the light in the kitchen made him sigh as his thoughts became laden with old memories.
I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you... forever.
She'd worn a lilac-colored shirt with a gray... thing underneath. Her hair had been down. The wine glasses she'd been cleaning had clinked as she'd put them in the sink. He'd stumbled all over himself, then. Stumbled with his words.
I'm a little late. I know I'm a little late...
But he'd told her how he felt.
“Just a fluffernutter,” she said, pulling him away from his mental trip. “But thank you for making the bacon, anyway.”
She pulled the Wonder Bread from the top of the fridge. The plastic bag crinkled. She walked to the dinette set with the bag, a knife, the jar of marshmallow paste, and a jar of peanut butter from the countertop, all in an awkward bundle. She plunked down in the chair and dropped everything in a pile on the place mat.
Bacon forgotten, he slid into the chair across from her and watched while she made her sandwich. Watched with his usual quiet amazement while she stuffed her face with it. He really didn't understand where she put it, or why her blood tests were always so pristine. If he were to eat like she did, he'd be overweight and minutes from a heart attack, if not already dead.
“You sure you don't want one?” she said around a full mouth, more than half the sandwich already gone.
He nodded, staring at her while he rested his chin on his hands. “I'm sure,” he said softly.
“I swear, it's better with the paste,” she said.
“You're actually advocating that it's better with fake marshmallows than with real ones?” he said.
“Mmm,” she said. She took another huge bite. “Yes.” She grinned at him. “You seem like you're feeling a lot better. You look... good.”
“I am feeling better,” he said.
She waggled her eyebrows. “When I get that feeling, I want sexual healing?”
He laughed. “Minor epiphanies. Sex. I'll take anything I can get.”
She pouted. “But you won't try a real fluffernutter. You won't even give it a chance. You're prejudiced against fake marshmallows! What if they're a magical PTSD cure?”
“I won our bet,” he said haughtily. “I don't need to try them. And I'm pretty sure fake marshmallows won't cure my PTSD.”
“You never know!” she said.
“Admit it,” he teased. “Your woman's intuition may be suspect.”
“We're still having a girl,” she said.
“Assuming you're right, that'll put you at a fifty percent average, which is still an F, Mere.”
“Well, you should try a real fluffernutter at least once!”
“You're changing the subject,” he said.
“And you're a frustrating ass!”
“My ass is not frustrated,” he said, grinning.
Her nose scrunched adorably. “Jerk,” she said, the word a curious amalgamation of affection and irritation.
“I just don't like marshmallows,” he countered.
“You love s'mores,” she countered back. “Those have marshmallows.”
“Okay, fine,” he said, conceding her point. “Maybe, it's the peanut butter and marshmallow combination I don't like. Either way, it's gross.”
“It's not gross,” she said. “It's the best. Thing. Ever. And you won't even try it.” She chomped on the last bite of her sandwich as if to prove her point.
He smirked. “Are we really fighting about this?”
She sniffed, though her eyes twinkled. “I'm ashamed by your close-minded marshmallow bigotry,” she said as she chewed. “Everybody should have one real fluffernutter before they die. It's a rite of passage.”
“Oh, it's a rite of passage, now, in addition to a PTSD cure?” he said, incredulous.
She nodded.
“Meredith, I think the only way I'd ever try a real fluffernutter is if I have to lick it off you,” he said.
She stopped chewing. Swallowed. Stared at him for a long, silent moment.
“What?” he said.
She reached for the marshmallow paste. Unscrewed the cap.
“Meredith, what are you doing?” he said. He'd been joking. Honestly joking. Surely, she couldn't...
She did. She dipped her index finger into the paste, and then she drew a white, sticky line on her lips.
“That's not a real fluffernutter,” he said. “That's just the paste.”
“Now, you're mincing details?” she said.
Fabric rustled as she shrugged away her robe, leaving her sitting naked in front of him. Pregnancy had swollen her breasts. Her nipples perked in the cool air. He'd known her carnally an hour ago. All the delightful details of joining with her roared back into his head. The way she called his name. The way her hands slipped down his spine. The soft, wet, warm way she squeezed around him when he drove to her center again and again and again.
“Um...” he said. “Isn't Lexie home? I thought...” He didn't really have thoughts.
“She and Alex are both on-call tonight,” Meredith said. “We're all alone.”
“Oh,” he said.
She dipped her fingers in the paste once more. Rubbed it in her cleavage. Over her nipples. She shifted provocatively in the chair. Her robe slipped from her hips to the hardwood floor, leaving nothing to the imagination. She drew her palms down the front of her body in a languorous accentuation of all her beautiful features. Her hands came to a stop over her womb, a subtle swell that had once been flat.
Breaths tightened in his chest as she drew a sticky line around her navel. She spread her legs as she did so. He swallowed at the view.
“I have a new craving, Derek,” she said in a singsong voice.
“Tell me more,” he said.
“You did say you'd eat me if you won.”
He swallowed. “I did.”
"Well," she said, "you won."
He stared. "I did, didn't I?"
She stood. Walked confidently around the table to the space in front of him, dragging the marshmallow paste jar with her. The bag of bread and the peanut butter and the knife lay forgotten on her place mat. She stood with her butt against the table, facing him, a mere twelve inches away. He looked up at her. She leaned down and forward, and she kissed him, marshmallow paste and all.
A blast of sweet sugar hit the back of his throat. She made a soft, bleating sound that decimated him. He drank her down, and the paste came away from her lips as he laved her with attention.
“Okay,” he whispered, panting. He scooped his hands underneath her thighs and pulled up. She sat on the table at his behest with a thud, naked and... He kissed her. Naked. His brain mostly stopped at naked. “Maybe, fake marshmallows do taste okay.”
Her fingers tore through his hair. “We can skip the peanut butter then,” she murmured.
“Thank you,” he said.
She arched back, putting her hands behind her for support. The peanut butter jar crashed to the ground, followed by the clatter of the knife. He didn't flinch at the unexpected racket. He was too engrossed with her. She pushed her chest at him. “Taste me,” she said.
He wandered down her throat to her cleavage and licked. Licked a long line from below the place where her ribs fused in the center to the little dip between her clavicles. He sucked each of her nipples with attentive care, removing the sticky marshmallow mess she'd left for him. She moaned. The bread bag slipped off the table and landed in a pile on the seat of the far chair. He licked her navel. Stopped to press his ear against the small swell of her belly. Their baby was in there.
Maybe, I'm more fertile than the garden of freaking Eden, she'd said. Don't me and my hoo-hoo get any credit?
The thought made him laugh. He looked up at her and smiled.
“This is why I feel better,” he said. “I like the world when it's only this bubble. Just us three.”
“Me, too,” she said.
“You're beautiful, Meredith,” he said, the words deep and dumbstruck. “I hope you know that.”
She bit her lip, looking at him. “You make me know it,” she said. “Do I taste good?” she said.
His breaths tightened in his chest. “Yes.”
She shifted off one hand. Dipped her fingers in the marshmallow paste. And then she cupped herself. Touched herself between the thighs. Spread her legs wide for him, giving him a glorious, glistening view of his favorite color pink.
“Taste me, then,” she said. Commanded.
He grinned. “Bossy woman.”
You know you love it, she said with her eyes, and he agreed with her.
She gazed at him through her eyelashes. Her gray irises sparkled at him in the light.
I'm in love with you, he'd said.
“I've been in love with you forever,” he murmured aloud. She lay back on the table. Put her knees up. Rested her feet on the edge of the table. Her toes curled around the edge.
He bent down, pressed his palms gently against her thighs, spreading her as wide as she could go, and he opened his gift with his tongue. The hair at her cleft was coarse, colored light honey-brown like the hair on her head when she didn't dye it. He found her favorite spot in moments. He sucked. The heady taste of marshmallows, and her, and the vague, salty remnants of him mixed in a swirl.
Her muscles tensed. She called out. A nonsensical syllable that, out of context, sounded like a moan of pain, but he knew her well enough to know it wasn't pain. At all.
He tasted her again, and she scrabbled for purchase. For his body. For anything. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she pulled him into her. Into the warmth that defined her center. He kissed her. Worshiped the confined, slippery, wonderful space he found himself in. His insides tightened more. Every time she cried out. Music. That, and the thumps she made as she thrashed on the table for him. All for him. Her short, skipping breaths were drumbeats in his ears. Her words...
“Derek,” she bleated. “Derek, Derek, Derek.”
And it was what he needed to hear.
He drank her body like wine, and she screamed for him.
Good screams.
Moments passed in blissful, stretched succession, slow and fast all at once. He made sure to clean every last bit of the marshmallow from her skin. Drove her to frenzy. Until she lay on the table, legs spread, body shaking, a grimace on her face as she stared, blank and drunk on the pleasure and tension of it.
He breathed her in. The scent of her below. He loved it.
He nuzzled her there, and she twitched.
Well, do you want to stay here a while? she'd said.
I just want my wife.
Is that the top of your list, then? she'd replied with a wink.
When he lay his cheek against her inner thigh and looked up, along the length of her body, at her, he saw the small swell of their baby at her navel. Saw her breasts, perked nipples pointing at the ceiling. Saw her gaze, which had been undone by need. For a moment, awe overwhelmed him. Awe at her trust. Awe at the intimacy. He kissed his favorite pink, and she squirmed, and she moaned, and she spoke his name in a long, dark, twisty way that made his spine tingle with the need to respond to her desires.
He loved it. Loved that he could do that for her. Undo her. Build her world. Help her find euphoria.
He blew softly on her skin, and she twitched. Moaned, long and low.
“Do you like that?” he purred.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes.”
He sucked, and her long, low moan became a whine became a pulsing scream as he built her into the stratosphere. And then he pulled away. She flailed while he directed his attention to her thighs instead. To anything but her center. When she relaxed, he returned. He built her again. Higher. And then he let her relax. He took her high to low. High to low. Waxing, waning, like the moon, eclipsed.
You were like coming up for fresh air, he'd said, so long ago.
He lost track of the time because he was lost in the bubble that was her.
It's like I was drowning, and you saved me.
When he let her go at last, her release made her moan. She flailed. The remaining place mats went flying. She needed to hold something. Anything. He pulled her into his arms and let her twitch and pant and eventually ride back to earth. She rested in his arms, naked, half sitting on the table, half collapsed in his arms, her eyelids hanging low over glazed, sated eyes. Her fingers curled around the soft terrycloth of his bathrobe as her breathing relaxed from the endless cascade of tension.
“I think I like fluffernutters if that's your definition of a real one,” he said.
She snorted weakly against him. “Half of one,” she croaked. “That was really... real.”
“Is that what you had in mind?”
She nodded.
“Glad I could oblige,” he said, snickering. He licked his lips, finishing off the last remnants of sugar and her. Derek Shepherd. Damned awesome at sex. “You do taste very good,” he said. “But if that was only half, would that make you the fluffer? Or the nutter?”
She laughed. “There was no peanut butter. I'm definitely not the nutter.”
“There were nuts, but they were spectating,” he said with a leer.
“Yes,” she said with a snort and a gleaming gaze. You are so dirty, she said with her eyes. She slid her hands into his robe. Cupped him with her warm palm. He pressed against her hand. “Yes,” she said, “but... those were definitely not me.”
He kissed her. “Fluffer it is.”
She giggled. “Fluffer is... so...”
“Wrong but right?” he said, his voice a low purr.
“Very,” she said. She kissed him. “Very freaking wrong.”
Still, he was proud. Proud he could do that so well if nothing else. Please her. Beyond their first night together since he'd been shot, when he'd still been in too much pain to be very mobile, and they'd needed to rehearse for sex, no hint of Gary Clark's voice had ever surfaced again during intimate moments. Never made him doubt what he knew. He knew he pleased her when he put his mind to it. He more than pleased her. Finding that sort of confidence, even for such a limited thing; it was... freeing. Maybe, that was why he loved this bubble so much. Beyond the fact that he loved her, and it was fun, and it felt good. He felt like himself again when they made love. Even when the Paxil gave him trouble, he could still give her a great time, and that made him feel... like strutting and bragging.
Made him feel... whole.
Undamaged.
If you could brag about one thing, what would it be? Dr. Wyatt had said.
Derek Shepherd. Likes to brood unnecessarily. Has bad fashion-sense. Comforts Meredith really well. Listens. Is maybe strong. Is damned awesome at sex.
“What are you thinking?” she said.
He looked at her. “That I love you, and that I'm glad I'm good enough to show you that.”
She gave him a lazy, sated smile and kissed his chest through the terrycloth. “You're more than good, Derek.”
“Damned awesome?” he said.
She nodded. “Oh, yes. It's one of those many things I do love about you.”
“So, yes to sex and comforting. No to fashion-sense and brooding,” he said. “Got it.”
She laughed. And then her gaze grew more serious. She ran her fingers through his hair. “You do know it's not just about you being good at sex for me. I hope.”
“I know,” he said. “I mean, maybe I don't understand the rest, yet, but...” He nuzzled her. “I know you. You're not superficial. I know there's more. And I'm just... basking at the moment.”
“Basking,” she said, echoing him.
He nodded. “In my awesomeness.”
She laughed again. Petted him, her palms against the soft terrycloth over his pectorals. He supposed he could believe her about being funny, too. Not even hesitantly. She laughed so much when she was happy. He clearly made her happy, if nothing else, and it was hard to feel bleak when she made lovely noises like that. Her giggle was infectious.
Derek Shepherd. Likes to brood unnecessarily. Has bad fashion-sense. Comforts Meredith really well. Listens. Is maybe strong. Is damned awesome at sex. Is funny ha-ha, not funny strange.
Sweat had pasted loose strands of hair to her skin. He brushed one out of the way. Rested his cheek against the top of her head and sighed. “I just wish it would stick when I walk outside,” he said.
She stroked his arm. “Wish what would stick?”
“This feeling that I'm something,” he said. “I feel like something when I'm with you.”
Maybe, it would stick a little this time. He felt... different. Ever since he'd realized she wore sunglasses, too. He didn't expect a miracle. Didn't expect to love himself overnight or anything, but he actually had a tiny list of things to like that didn't feel like a blatant lie. Having a real world example of the same paint-it-black behavior in someone else helped him establish reasonable doubt with his own self-criticisms.
“You're always something,” she said. She slipped off his lap and stood on wobbly feet, unabashed by her nakedness. “Always.”
“You are, too, Meredith,” he said. “You're strong, and you're there for me in so many ways I can't even quantify. I never would have made it this far without your help.” He would never be stingy with compliments again. Not that he'd ever been stingy, but... he wanted her to know. Maybe, he could help her take off her sunglasses, too.
Maybe, they could heal together.
She gave him a watery smile. “Ditto,” she said, and he hugged her close, refusing to let himself argue with her no matter what kind of damning crap Mr. Clark whispered in his head. He loved her, and now, he had a project. Helping her, too. Another empowering thing that made him feel good. Telling her nice things because she deserved to hear them. He could do that.
Moments passed, and he didn't let her go. He held her close, terrycloth-to-skin. Breathing. Being. He found so much peace with her about so many things. For long, stretching silence, he listened to her breathing, and she listened to his heartbeat, and they were both content. He could listen to her breathing for hours. A pure, simple sound that told him she was alive and safe.
His.
You're like a piece of me, she'd tried to explain. I can't call you my best friend or my person. Derek, losing you would be like losing a limb, or...
She's your person. I'm your arm. Got it.
Meredith pressed her nose against the juncture of his throat and chin and kissed him there. He felt the wet press of her tongue. She rose to her tiptoes and kissed his lips, plunging deep. He let her in, and he purred at her invitation.
“Again?” he murmured.
“Mmm-hmm. I'm having another craving,” she said.
“What kind of craving?” he said suggestively.
She looked at him with a heady, hooded gaze, only to giggle as her attention shifted somewhere behind him. He twisted to see what-- He laughed, too. Samantha still sat by the microwave. Staring forlornly at it like she expected the bacon to jump out at any moment.
Meredith frowned. “That's...”
“Sad?” Derek said.
Meredith nodded. “We can't have gratuitous, kinky, kitchen sex while our dog is suffering. It isn't fair.”
“I concur,” he said.
Meredith walked to the microwave, and grabbed the uneaten bacon from the greasy, soaked paper towels. Samantha bounced on her hind legs, whining. Meredith dropped the four crunchy pieces into Samantha's empty food bowl.
That done, though, Meredith didn't return to him immediately. He watched as she pulled a familiar jar from the cupboard and then closed the door while the dog inhaled her treat.
“What are you doing?” he said.
Meredith shrugged. “Having a craving,” she said, her tone innocent enough.
“You want me to get fat, don't you?” Derek said, frowning as she came back to him. She clutched the lapels of his bathrobe, and she kissed him. “This is going to require some gym time, but I'll do it,” he murmured against her lips. “I'll make the sacrifice.” He kissed her on the nose. “For you.”
She laughed.
“No,” she said. “This is for me.”
“The Nutella is for you,” he said stupidly.
“It's my turn,” she said. She pressed against him, Nutella jar in hand, and he backed into the table.
He smirked. “What exactly are you planning to do with that?”
“You,” she said, matching his leer with one of her own. “I thought that was obvious.”
She put the Nutella jar on the table by his hip, pressed her palms against his robe, and stroked him waist to shoulder. Then she kissed and kissed and kissed him until he saw spots. He cupped her ass with splayed hands, and on instinct, he growled and tried to spin them around.
“Nope,” she murmured against his lips. “You had your turn.”
“McBossy,” he replied.
She nipped his lower lip, a playful gleam in her eyes. “McSexHypocrite.”
“Touché!”
Her hands slid to the bow tie knot at his waist, where he'd tied the thick belt of the bathrobe he wore. She fumbled blindly with it as she plundered his mouth. She tasted of peanut butter and marshmallows, but with her tongue dueling his, he didn't mind the combination. He felt the terrycloth of his robe sliding against his shoulders and his back and then his hips. He felt cool air against his skin, and the robe pooled on the table behind him, obscuring the Nutella jar from view.
And then she pushed him. Not hard. Enough to catch his undivided attention.
“Lie back,” she commanded.
“You want me on the table?” he said.
“It's more polite to eat at the table,” she replied, and he couldn't help but chuckle.
He squeezed the edge of the table with his fingers and hoisted himself up. A brief, unhappy line of pain lanced down his sternum, but it disappeared as soon as his weight had settled on his robe instead of on his arms. The Nutella jar slid to the side. She moved in front of him. Her waist hit the table edge between his knees. He pressed his knees against her hips. She wrapped her arms around him, and she kissed him, and he kissed her.
“Lie back,” she repeated.
The robe underneath his back let him slide down the length of the table easily. He brought his feet up with him, and she climbed on top after him, coming to rest with her knees beside his hips. He blinked at the overhead light and grinned.
“So,” he said. “This must be what our turkey feels like at Thanksgiving.”
Meredith snickered. “What straddles the turkey?”
“Point,” he said. “And I don't think Nutella counts as good brine.”
He heard the jar of Nutella open. He stared at her through a hooded gaze, his palms resting on her thighs. The dim light overhead caught the remnants of her sweat and made her body glisten.
Her tussled hair captivated him. He wanted to run his fingers through it. The subtle swell of her navel captivated him. He wanted to lay his hands on it. Her swollen breasts captivated him. He wanted to suckle them.
He lay underneath her, captive.
She was beautiful.
How do you want me, Derek?
He remembered lying underneath her by the roaring fire. Remembered the way she'd faux-tied his hands and his legs as a motivator to remain passive. Remembered the way that, even when he'd been helpless, she'd given him choices at every opportunity.
What she'd done for him had worked.
He lay underneath her now, confined, offered no choices at all except to lie still and be loved, and he didn't mind at all.
In fact, he rather looked forward to the possibilities.
She dipped her thumb into the Nutella jar and drew out a glob. The sticky paste slid against his skin. He watched her draw a long line down his chest, covering the ugly, twisting, pink scar of his surgery from view. She dipped down like a swan, her body lithe and arched, and she pressed her lips against the space where he'd been cut in half.
“Mmm,” he said, and his eyes closed.
She spent long, languorous moments there, laving the ugly marks with love.
“You stayed,” she said for emphasis, her voice a low murmur. She pressed her nose against the scarred dip between his pecs, and she kissed him again and again. “You stayed when it would have been easier to go, and you're the strongest person I know. You kept your promise to me.”
Mr. Clark said nothing.
Derek blinked. He was floating. His breaths squeezed into something choppy. He wiped his face with his hands.
Maybe strong.
“Are you okay?” she said.
He nodded. Grunted. “Yeah. I'm okay.”
She kissed him, and he laughed, releasing the swirl of lighter things that had pent up inside of him like a near-bursting balloon.
“Tickles?” she said.
“No,” he said. “I'm just happy. Being with you makes me very happy. You make me happy.”
She looked down at him. Ran her fingers through his hair in a way that made him want to purr. She smiled a wet, watery smile and she said, deep and shaky with feeling, “I'm really glad you're feeling better, Derek. I'm so glad.”
He put a palm against her navel, unable to resist contributing any longer. “And I'm glad you're feeling better,” he said. “And I'm glad you're here.”
She grinned at him. Dipped her thumb into the open Nutella jar and pressed a glob of spread against the space below his left nipple where the bullet had ripped into him. He'd never liked the pock mark there so much as when she pressed her tongue into it. He moaned and arched back, pressing his upper body into her kiss. He looked through hooded eyes at the upside down, nighttime world behind him.
Only to jerk in surprise at the pair of eyeballs that stared back at him with a dreamy, mocha-colored, bacon-bacon-bacon gleam.
“Our dog is staring,” he said.
“So? Just ignore it,” Meredith said. “She always stares.”
“She what?” Derek sat up so fast the table skidded on the floor. The Nutella jar sat by his hip. Meredith almost lost her balance. She grabbed his shoulders. Her nails dug into his skin, and the pain of it made him grit his teeth, but he didn't complain.
“She always stares,” Meredith said calmly.
“She does not,” Derek said.
“She does,” Meredith insisted. “She's a total voyeur.”
Derek ran his fingers through his hair, agitated, and glanced at Samantha. Her stump tail wagged, and she looked... hungry. And that was just... wrong. He felt like the Thanksgiving turkey for real.
“I'm kind of flattered you never noticed,” Meredith said.
“I... really?” Derek said as his world realigned. “She really always stares?”
“Mmm,” said Meredith with a nod. She guided him back onto the table with a light push. “Just ignore it.”
She shifted and, as if to provide emphasis, she cupped him, touching his penis for the second time since they'd started their kitchen adventures. He found himself unable to stop his eyelids from lowering, unable to stop a moan from punching loose as Meredith shifted his weight in her hands. Her skin was so warm, and she knew exactly how he liked it. Exactly what made him come undone. She pulled on him slightly, not painfully, just... enough to create the pleasing sensation he so often found himself drunk on when they had sex. His favorite thing, and she knew it.
“Okay,” he said. Barely. A soft, pleased sigh fell out of him before he could stop it. “Ignoring, now.”
She smiled. “Good,” she said. She swept upward. Ran her fingers through his pubic hair, following the trail as it tapered to a stop at his navel.
He felt bereft. “You could go back down south, you know,” he suggested hopefully. “South would like some attention.”
She leaned down. Kissed him. Laughed. “Well, I'm not done with north yet. South will have to be patient.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “But I really like south. More south, I say.”
She drew a circle around his nipple with her index finger, tracing the skin softly with her nail. His nipple puckered in response. He sighed.
“Is north getting better, now?” she said.
“Mmm,” he purred. “But when in doubt, Mexico is way nicer than Canada.”
She laughed.
He closed his eyes, relaxed. Thrumming. Happy. Happy with her.
“I love you,” he said.
When she kissed him, he lost himself in it. Lost himself in every touch. Lost himself simply listening to her breathing. When she ran her fingers through his hair, he felt the hairs shift on his scalp in a way that tingled, and he lost himself in that.
She licked a ring of Nutella from around his navel while kissing his hair.
It felt so good.
A deep groan loitered by his Adam's apple--
Wait.
What?
His eyes snapped open. He turned his head. And there was the damned dog, tongue dangling from her mouth, eyes gleaming as if to say, Dad likes kissing a lot. I like bacon a lot. I kissed Dad. Do I get more bacon, now?
“Go away, Sam,” he said.
Samantha didn't move, and he tensed when he felt Meredith's tongue approach Mexico at a what-should-have-been-tantalizing crawl. Her fingers wrapped around him. She kissed the tip of his penis. His world went off-kilter for a moment.
When he regathered his wits, he barked, “Sam, for god's sake, shoo!”
The dog merely said, “Woof.”
It was really hard to muster any kind of authority with Meredith's tongue invading Mexico.
“Mere, really, the dog--”
Mere lifted her head. “Samantha, crate!” Samantha pouted. Meredith pointed at the dining room. “Crate! Now!”
Samantha left, her feet padding on the floor as she whined dejectedly.
Derek slumped back onto the table with a sigh. “Our dog is a voyeur,” he said. “How did I not know this?”
Meredith laughed. “I think I have a more pressing problem,” she said.
“What's more a pressing problem than the dog licking me during the Mexican invasion?” he said.
“This angle. I don't like it,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “I think I need you standing. I'm used to doing this on my knees.”
He shook his head. “On the table. Off the table. It's like sex on a seesaw,” he said.
She snorted.
He climbed off the table with another fleeting lance of pain that he barely noticed. She guided him, hands on his shoulders, to the edge, almost where he'd been sitting when he'd pleasured her earlier, but she pushed the chair aside. She pulled away his robe from the surface of the table and dropped it onto the floor, presumably to pad her knees.
“Your fluffer,” she said with a mock salute that made him laugh. “Reporting for duty.”
“Why does this feel like it could be a Julia Childs porno?” he quipped.
She giggled. “Did Julia Childs cook with Nutella?”
“No, but crepes are French,” he said. “And she cooked French food.”
“And that has to do with Nutella?”
He snorted. “Nutella goes on crepes. Even I know that. Don't you pay attention to the coffee carts at work?”
She licked her lips lasciviously. “Oh, right. I'll have to have one. Later. At work.” She stared at his body as though it were an unpainted canvas. “Now, shh. I need to concentrate. We haven't done this in a while.”
“We've never done this,” he said, staring down at her.
Her eyes widened. “We have, too! In your office that one time, we--”
“That,” he said, interrupting her, “did not involve Nutella. I would remember Nutella on the nutters, Ms. Fluffer.”
She snorted. “I didn't mean we've done that part before. God, you're dirty today.”
“Today?” he said.
“Okay, maybe, that's also one of the things I love about you,” she said. “People have this mistaken, quaint idea that you're respectable.”
“I don't have sex with most people,” Derek said, and she laughed again. “Derek Shepherd,” he said. “Likes to brood unnecessarily. Has bad fashion-sense. Comforts Meredith really well. Listens. Is maybe strong. Is damned awesome at sex. Is funny ha-ha, not funny strange, and is really...” He leaned down. “Really...” Pressed his lips against hers. “Dirty.”
She pushed him away with a sexy gleam in her eye. “Hold still,” she said.
“Only if you promise to be very thorough,” he said. “That shit is sticky.”
“Very thorough,” she agreed. Then she dropped to the ground in front of him with the Nutella jar.
He closed his eyes as the cool air laved his skin. He wasn't erect. Not even a little. Even with the kissing and the dirty jokes and her sitting on top him licking Nutella off his chest. His one dance with the spontaneous function of yore had happened in a damned store, of all the luck. He really hated the Paxil, sometimes.
“Never fear,” Meredith said playfully as if she'd read his mind. “That's why your fluffer is here.”
He laughed, at ease again. Gripped the sides of the table. Leaned his head back and sighed. He loved that she was here. Loved spending time with her, wherever that time happened to lead. Loved her.
You know you're my best friend, right? he'd said.
He made a soft grunt when he felt her slide back his foreskin with her fingertips. That was pleasant. More than pleasant. But the Nutella was cold. And definitely sticky. He tried not to squirm at first while she put it on, only to realize after about twenty seconds, he'd inadvertently started pressing himself against her hand. The rubbing... That felt... nice.
Really nice. He sighed a soft sigh. “That feels good,” he assured her.
“Really good?” she said.
“Mmm,” he answered. “Yes.”
He felt himself starting to fill.
He forgot about everything, though, when she kissed the head of his penis, setting nerve endings that had been sheathed on fire. Then she licked the underside of his length. He gripped the table. “Oh,” he said, and then he felt her mouth close around him. “Oh,” he said more deeply, a bark more than speech. His eyes opened to stars, and he grinned. And then the stars faded, and he frowned. “Wait.”
“Wait?” she said. He felt her mouth on him. Fought not to press into the motion.
“The dog is back. I can't have gratuitous, kinky, kitchen sex while our dog is watching. It's weird.”
Meredith turned her head. Samantha stared at them with the bacon-bacon-bacon-where's-more-bacon eyes. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
Meredith pointed at the door. “Crate!” she said. “Seriously. I need to blow your dad.”
Derek's eyes widened. “And you think I'm dirty?”
Meredith bit her lip to keep from giggling. “Crate!” she managed in a loud, firm voice despite her scarlet face and trembling limbs. “Go, now!”
Samantha slumped, like her favorite steak squeak toy had been put away, and she wandered out of the room again. Meredith turned back to him. Looked up at him with a sly smile. She rubbed her hands against his inner thighs. “Now, where were we?” she said.
“You tell me,” he said with a wink.
“How about I show you?” she said.
She dipped her head toward him. His eyelids lowered as he felt the wet slide of her mouth on his skin. When she sucked, he lost it. The table groaned against the wood floor as he pushed backward, surprised.
“Fuck,” he said. “That was...” He'd forgotten. He'd forgotten what this felt like; it'd been so long since he'd allowed her to do it. Sitting wetly sheathed inside her body felt like coming home. Felt beautiful and perfect and all sorts of euphoric, and he would never, could never, replace that feeling with anything. But it had never sucked.
He laughed.
Her mouth left him. Cool air snapped at his skin. “What's funny?” she said, looking up at him.
He glanced down. His partial erection looked a bit like a banana she'd greased up with Nutella to eat, though it was a partial erection, so the banana wasn't smiling yet. It was frowning. Kind of pointing toward the doorjamb, actually. That wasn't good. And he laughed again.
“I'm sorry,” he said. And he laughed again. “I'm sorry. My head is going weird places.”
“Weird good?” she said.
“Well, let's see,” he said. “I just thought a joke about you sucking. And now I'm comparing my own erection to fruit.”
Her eyes gleamed. She kissed his head, and he tensed as the zing of pleasure twisted through him. “What fruit?” she said. She licked.
“A sad banana.”
She giggled. “You have lots to say about bananas, today,” she said.
“What can I say?” Derek said. “It's a phallic fruit. Very vulnerable to raunchy humor.”
“Only because your dirty, dirty mind goes there,” she said. And then she shook her head. “And your fluffer is not doing a good job if your banana is sad.”
“It'll be happy in a minute if you keep doing that,” he said. Barely.
“It does look a little like a banana,” she said. “A banana covered in Nutella.”
“See!” he said, and they both laughed. And then he huffed. “Wait. A little?”
“In similarity,” she clarified, kissing him. “Not in size.”
“Okay, then,” he said, appeased.
“This is much, much more tasty than a banana, though,” she replied. And then she enveloped him once more, and a wet sound filled the air between them.
The air punched from his chest in a sharp grunt. His body wouldn't let him inhale as the sensation took him almost out of his own body. His toes curled. His lower lip quivered and his face pulled into a grimace. It felt good. It felt good. It felt-- her tongue did something delightful and the air rushed back into him so quickly he felt dizzy.
“Mere,” he said. “Mere. Meredith. Meredi...” He was lost in useless babble.
And then she stopped again. “I'd say the banana is very happy, now,” she said, though his ears buzzed, and it took him a while to interpret her. He glanced down, panting. That was definitely a smile. An upward, rock-solid curve that told him he was full to the brim.
She had Nutella on her lips. Her skin blushed with the promise of sex. He blinked. Once. Twice. She licked his corona. His jaw fell open, but his moan got stuck in his throat. It'd been a long, long time since he'd had this level of attention down there, and he could barely keep his thoughts straight. The only way he stayed on his feet was by keeping his knees locked.
He panted.
“Feels good?” she murmured during a tactical pause.
He nodded, panting, but he didn't have a chance to speak before she'd taken his full length into her throat to the hilt. “Holy fuck,” he managed, unable to stop himself from thrusting. Thrusting deeper. She gripped his hips to steady herself, and he fought not to get his fingers tangled in her hair. He heard the wet, slick sound of skin on skin. Sliding.
He thought he might die in the best way imaginable.
You're like a lightning strike.
He scrabbled for purchase. The light over the table split in two as his eyes lost focus. And then she was gone from him again, and he was cold as what she'd left behind evaporated. He couldn't find words for a moment.
She wiped her lips and looked at him with a sly smile. “Forgot I could do that?”
“My memory,” he said between short, panting breaths. “May have. Omitted it. I blame. The hypovolemic. Shock.”
“I learned in college,” she said.
“In what. The fuck. Class?” he said.
“French cooking?”
He barked with laughter, only to lose it when she kissed his head, and his thoughts dissolved all over again.
“I missed some spots, earlier,” she announced while his mind was still reeling. He shivered. She shifted. And she licked his scrotum instead.
She'd never done that before.
“They taught tea-bagging in French cooking, too?” he said incredulously, unable to stop the moan that punctuated the question.
She paused. “They might have taught tea-bagging.”
“Our daughter is never going to Dartmouth,” he said.
She giggled. “Got it all, I think.”
She gave him a kiss and a last lick for good measure. She enveloped him to the hilt once more, and he shouted. He couldn't stop himself. His insides tightened to an unbearable level, paradigmatic of torture, yet also pleasure. Pressure gathered in his center.
“Meredith,” he said, panting. “Meredith, I'm going to--” He tried to push at her despite the fireworks in his vision, but she kept slip sliding along his hard length, sucking. “Meredith, I'm going--”
And then it was too late. He pulled in a breath as though it were a riptide. He remained stuck on the precipice for an eternity moment. The world collapsed into a pinpoint and then exploded into a whorl of light, a single, brilliant star gone nova. He shouted. His muscles twitched out of control. He spilled into her. She squeezed his hips, her fingers like talons against his skin, and she drank it all. Every last drop.
When the explosion left him, he collapsed his weight against the table. His knees shook. She let him go, licking the underside of his length as she withdrew. His erection sagged and left him spent. He panted as she rose to her feet.
“Wasn't that salty?” he said, incredulous and hoarse. She hadn't done that before, either.
She licked her lips. “I hear salt goes with nuts.”
He grunted. Sort of a laugh. “I feel like I should make a spit or swallow joke, but my head is empty right now.”
“Literally,” she said. She leaned over him and kissed his flaccid privates.
“Not that head,” he said, snickering. “I think you're taking home the dirty prize tonight,” he said. “I can't win against that.”
She'd always been a bit more... experimental than him. He happily went along for the ride when she took him, but most of the more unusual things they'd tried were at her behest. Well, other than the glow-in-the-dark condoms, which he still found novel and funny.
They glowed, Derek, she'd said. In the dark. They made sex look like a freaking UFO encounter.
She hummed a soft tune in her throat.
A chuckle ratcheted out of his sore throat when he realized it was the Batman theme from the horrible Biff-Pow-Thwack Adam West version that had been popular when he'd been a kid. “That song is by the Kinks, you know.”
She nodded. “So appropriate, isn't it?”
“Does this mean I should call you Fluffergirl from now on?”
Her eyes sparkled. “I fluffed, and I fluffed, and I blew your house down.”
“Now,” he said, kissing her on the lips, “you're mixing naughty stories. And double entendres.”
She sighed, leaning against the table next to him. They were both sweat-slicked and smelled of sex. She kissed his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her. Pulled her close.
“This is why I love you, Derek,” she said softly. “You're fun to be with, and you happily go along with my freak show.”
“It's not a freak show,” he said. “And you're not a freak.”
You're the love of my life, he'd said, and I'm really looking forward to spending my future with you.
She shrugged. “Well, whatever it is, you go along with it. And you don't judge me. And I just...” She kissed him. “I just love you. Okay?”
He met her eyes. In this moment, he could believe anything. She could sell him a bridge. A fake bridge that went to Neverland. He'd buy it, no questions asked.
“I'll try to remember,” he said. “You might have to keep telling me for a while.”
“I don't mind,” she said.
He nuzzled her. “I love you, too,” he said. “Very much.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Except I think I'm still sticky.”
“Me, too,” she said. She grinned at him. “Sex in the shower, next?”
He nodded. “Good plan.”
“Bendy thing?” she said.
“If you insist,” Derek replied with a wink.
“Oh. My. God,” said Lexie, her eyes wide like saucers as she stood in the kitchen doorway.
Derek snatched for his robe from the table behind them, only to remember it was lying on the floor at their feet as a pad for Meredith's knees. Meredith leaped in front of him, grabbing his shoulder for balance as she stumbled. He crossed his palms in front of his lower body, despite already having Meredith as a shield, but from the look on Lexie's face, it was too late for modesty, anyway. Lexie had clearly gotten an eyeful, from the tips of his toes to the scarred mess on his chest to Meredith's little baby bump.
“Again?” Lexie said as she turned redder than Rudolph's nose. “Seriously, again!? You'd better wash that table with Pine-Sol. And bleach. And more Pine-Sol.” She darted out of the room. “And get a freaking room!” she called through the door as it slammed. And then she was gone.
Derek glared at the door. He really, really hated that. Hated people barging in. Hated people seeing him with his shirt off since the shooting, let alone buck naked. The day they moved into their new house could not arrive soon enough.
“The kitchen is totally a room,” Meredith said at the closed door.
“I thought you said she was working tonight,” he said, his tone rueful.
Meredith bit her lip and gave him a guilty look. “She told me she was working tonight!”
He sighed. There wasn't much they could do about it, now. “It's okay,” he said. He took her palm from his shoulder and kissed her hand to prove it. She smiled.
Meredith bent to pick up his robe from the floor. “You know what else I love about you?”
“What?” he said.
“That you somehow haven't stashed her body in the woods, yet.”
He laughed hoarsely . “Batman doesn't kill people. At least not for failing to knock, anyway.”
Meredith raised her eyebrows. “Does Fluffergirl?”
He laughed again as they put on their robes and headed to the shower.