The Sun Is Burning In The Sky [2/2]
Title: The Sun Is Burning In The Sky
Chapter: 2/2
Warning: Hard R/Borderline NC-17-ish. Fictable prompt #48 - Summer (Same 'verse as Hazy Shade of Winter, but you can read this one without reading that one if you're lazy like me.)
Character: Puck/Rachel
Summary: It's summer and they're young, and it's not like it's unhealthy to have a regular sexual partner.
Word Count: 14,371 (total)
Disclaimer: Don't own.
The next day, Rachel is in much better spirits, and she thinks it probably has everything to do with the fact that she slept until 9:30 and woke up with Puck still sleeping behind her, his hand on her stomach underneath the sweater that smells so much like him it nearly makes her crazy.
She isn't exactly surprised by how amazing he was last night. She seems to understand that he's much more reliable than he likes to let on. That said, they've never really had a conversation about anything important like that, and it makes her feel strange knowing he's capable of being so good with her. He calmed her down in a matter of minutes and then took her mind off everything for the rest of the night. She slept like a baby, and she's very aware it was the first time they'd ever slept next to one another for more than an hour or two.
She's afraid she's in over her head.
They get up and have breakfast with everyone, and she takes a bath in the river with Santana and Brittany, using 100 per cent biodegradable shampoo. They're all wearing bathing suits, of course, but that doesn't stop Mike and Noah from making filthy jokes about it.
After she's dressed and has her hair braided over her shoulder, Puck announces he's taking her fishing, and after her protests (they are rather loud) he concedes that they won't keep any of the fish, and he'll be extra careful when he's taking out the hooks, so none of the fish are really hurt. He also promises she won't have to touch any worms or anything else that might be covered in a coat of slime.
Fishing lasts all of two hours. Rachel gets kind of bored, so she sits back on the shore in her bathing suit and looks over every time he lets out some kind of noise that indicates he has a fish on. Eventually, he gets tired of it and comes over, lays on top of her and they make out for a while, until Mike and Matt get back from their hike. They pass Puck and Rachel and make all sorts of cat calls. Rachel is just glad they happened to walk by after she forced Puck to take his hand out of her bathing suit bottom.
She kisses him in front of everyone when he tells her he remembered her vegan burger things that everyone else forgot. He fishes them out of the bottom of the cooler and throws them towards her. She catches the package and it leaves a big wet mark on her shirt, but she runs over to him and launches herself against him. She lifts her feet off the ground when she knows he's holding her tight enough.
"You so care," she says quietly.
She can't bear to look at him, because she's sure she's said too much and just ruined everything they've been working towards. And for the last little while, she thinks they've been working towards something. But he just kisses her cheek as she sets her feet on the ground.
He doesn't argue the statement. She shouldn't be surprised. She cares about him. A lot. But then again, she's not him, and she knows he feels differently about all these emotions and stuff. He's told her as much. The fact that he's being affectionate in front of all their friends might mean more than he wants to admit.
They all eat dinner together, and everyone but she and Noah is consuming far too much alcohol. She doesn't want to, and he's in charge of both the grill and the fireworks they're going to set off on the beach after dark. So she sits on top of the picnic table and sips bottled water while he cooks. She's already prepared the salads and everything else, since no one else really seemed to want to help. It starts getting chilly, so she goes to their tent and grabs his sweater again. When everyone else is filling their plates with food he cooked, he walks up behind Rachel and slips his arms around her waist, telling her how hot she looks in his clothes.
They all laugh at him as he sets up the fireworks, because he insists there's a method to it and no one believes him. Rachel doesn't comment on just how excited he is about this. It's all he's talked about for a week. She'd be concerned about his apparent love of setting things on fire, but it's really quite cute, the way he checks angles and distance and ground clearance or whatever it is he's doing. But the fireworks show they get is quite spectacular, given that it was all set up by one person.
Rachel starts yawning somewhere around 1:00 am. She catches Noah's eye as she does it so he'll understand that she's faking. Almost everyone is already in bed, just Finn and Emily still up. Rachel knows everyone is either passed out or very close to it.
She absolutely cannot help how attracted she is to Noah right now. As soon as they're inside their tent for the night, he's got her on her back on the air mattress, his hand reaching for the button of her shorts.
"Noah," she laughs, breathless from the kiss he just gave her.
"What?" he asks, smirking as he pulls back. He tugs down her zipper with one hand as the other works to push up her sweatshirt. "You really think I'm gonna let you leave here without fucking you in a tent?"
She laughs again, maybe a little too loudly, and sits up to pull the sweatshirt over her head. "Did they teach you that in the Boy Scouts?"
They both know he was never in Boy Scouts (he told her as much this morning when they were fishing).
He shakes his head, fits himself between her thighs as soon as she's naked. "'S'just raw talent," he says, and he kisses her as he rubs his fingers against her.
She doesn't even care how loud she is when he's inside her and she comes, because, as her friends like to remind her often, they've already heard she and Noah having sex, and because she wouldn't have been able to stop herself anyway.
"You make me crazy," she breathes against the skin of his shoulder after, when she's half asleep and curled against him and he's half asleep and letting her. He lets out this humming sound that is so melodic and beautiful it makes her push herself up on her elbow so she can kiss him. "I care about you, too."
He still doesn't say anything, but he makes that noise again and pulls her closer, and she counts that as a favourable reaction.
... ... ...
Her Daddy comes back home, but that doesn't mean the fighting stops. One night, she's woken up by it after midnight and tries to ignore it, tries to listen to music on her headphones to drown out the shouting match, but nothing works. She texts Noah that she's coming over, and she doesn't wait for his reply before getting into her car and leaving the house without a word to her fathers.
She's probably stupid for driving around in just her nightgown and a pair of panties, but she really just needed to get out of that house. And she thinks she really needs Noah. When she pulls up to his house, she sees that he's sitting on the front step with his elbows on his knees. He stands, pushes the door open and locks it behind them when they're inside. She doesn't need an invitation to head straight to his room, even though she knows he's not right behind her. He comes in minutes later, when she's already laying beneath the sheets, and sets a glass of water on the table next to the bed. He slides in next to her and kisses the back of her shoulder
"I'm sorry I woke you up," she says. She doesn't know why there are tears in her eyes. She's too old for this, and much stronger than it.
"It's okay," he tells her. He runs his hand down her arm as she nods. "Okay?" She nods again and he switches off the light. "It's cool if you wanna sleep here, like, whenever," he says quietly after another few moments.
She says, "thank you," because she doesn't know what else to say, and everything else sounded too eager in her head.
... ... ...
So, the really messed up thing is that he can tell Rachel's getting all attached to him and shit, and he doesn't really care. Shit. No, that's not right. He cares. He totally cares. He just isn't freaking out and ending their arrangement and stuff.
And he can tell himself all he wants that it's just because she's having a rough time with her family and whatever and he just doesn't want to add to it, but it'd be a lie.
It's stupid, and it totally snuck up on him, but he likes her. Maybe it started out as just a fuck buddy situation, but she's grown on him, and not in a bad way. He likes that she can be totally mellow with him. She's generally crazy, sure, but sometimes she'll just lay there with him, or sit there with him, or drive around with him, and be totally quiet. She doesn't even freak out about how quiet she's being. (He saw her do that once before, when they were in high school. Everyone had laughed at her for it.)
And she's been sleeping at his house two or three nights a week. His mom doesn't mind, and Rachel just doesn't want to be at home right now. The other night, he actually took her out to dinner. Neither of them called it a date, but it definitely was one.
She's laying on his bed in his tee shirt when he gets home from work. She's on her side with her legs bent and pulled up. Her back is to him, so he can see the purple panties she's wearing. He doesn't know if she's asleep, but she either hasn't heard him or doesn't want him to see her face for some reason, because she isn't turning around. He pulls off his stupid work polo and drapes it over his desk chair, leaving him in just his jeans and white tee shirt. He sets his cell to vibrate and drops it on the bedside table before laying down and pressing his chest against her back. She weaves their fingers together as he kisses her neck gently.
And you know what? It's nice to come home to her.
"What's wrong?"
"They put me in the middle," she says. He curses under his breath. This isn't the first time. "I told them to either get help, get a divorce, or I'm moving out because I can't handle this anymore."
He doesn't know why he does it, really, but he knows he can't just say nothing. "Sorry."
"I hate this," she admits quietly. She's said it before. She rolls onto her back and wipes angrily at the tears on her cheeks. He moves his hand over her stomach slowly. "I know you don't talk about your dad leaving," she says, and he tries not to tense. No, he doesn't talk about it. "But did you see it coming? How did...What was he like before he left?"
"A bastard," he answers, laughing a little bit. She's just looking up at him. He traces the tiger's mouth on the tee shirt she's wearing from his college. "He didn't give a shit about me or Hannah. I didn't see it at the time, but he was totally screwing around on mom, too." She reaches over and rests his hand on his side under his arm, where he's propped up on his elbow. "It was still a surprise when he left, though." He leans over and kisses her, because she looks like she needs it. "Your dad's not gonna leave."
"You keep saying that, Noah, but nothing is getting any better," she says seriously, turning her head to look at him. She looks kind of pissed. He supposes he can't really blame her.
"I don't know what to tell ya," he says. He really doesn't want her to get mad and leave or something. "My dad leaving was a good thing. Yours leaving wouldn't be."
She turns again so she's facing him and tangles their legs together. "I just want everything to go back to normal."
"Sounds like you told them that," he says, brushing the hair off her face and focusing on that instead of how sad her eyes are. She laughs a little and he looks at her. God, she's pretty.
"I guess spending time with you has made me a little more brazen."
"Rach," he laughs, sinking down into bed more. "You never needed help with that."
She laughs again and he feels really awesome for being able to make her smile when she's feeling like this. She slips her arm around him so her hand is resting at his back, presses herself right up against him.
"I don't know what I'd do without you," she says quietly.
He should probably freak out and tell her she's crossing the line and this is just sex, but it stopped being just sex a while ago and he knows she's as aware of it as he is.
"You'd just wear someone else's tee shirts and lay on his bed instead of mine," he says, and he's kind of joking, but he manages to make himself jealous at the thought of her in some other dude's clothes.
She toys with the hem of the tee shirt and then leans up to kiss him. "I like your tee shirts."
It's the closest they've ever come to talking about being exclusive. If he needed confirmation that she's not gonna fuck around on him, he thinks he just got it.
When her dad calls around 9:00 and asks her if she's coming home for the night, she tells him she's not stepping foot in that house until those two can talk to one another like civilized human beings.
She drops her phone onto the bedside table as Puck smiles at her. When she asks, "can I stay for a while?" and she's half-laughing, he reaches for her and kisses her. They watch Bull Durham and she falls asleep towards the end, but instead of waking her up and telling her she sucks for not paying attention, he just steps out of his jeans and pulls a blanket over the both of them.
... ... ...
Maybe she's overreacting to her parents' troubles just a little bit. It upsets her to no end that they can't even seem to be in the same room as one another without arguing over something. They never used to be like that. They were a loving couple, a perfect example of what she should look for in a relationship. The fact that she continually finds them shouting at one another is driving her crazy.
But maybe a very tiny, little, almost not worth mentioning, part of it is that she really likes sharing a bed and a room with Noah. Her temporary stay at the Puckerman's only lasted three days and two nights before her fathers came over with promises they'd try harder. She believed them, and it's true that they've been better since her little temper tantrum.
They also feel so guilty that last night when Noah came over and she didn't want him to leave, her fathers didn't say anything about the boy in her bed or getting coffee in their kitchen in the morning.
This summer has been so full of Noah - of she and Noah - that she doesn't know what she's going to do in two weeks when she has to go back to New York to move into her tiny rental apartment. She knows she's going to miss him no matter what, but she's not blind to what's been going on. He enjoys being with her as much as she enjoys being with him. He's been amazing to her through all this mess with her fathers, and he's surprisingly sweet to her behind closed doors. Like the morning she woke up to an empty bed and he left her a note to let her know he'd gotten called into work but he didn't want to wake her. He also told her she could stay all day if she wanted, then they'd go to a movie later. She spent the day with his mother and sister until he came home, and he'd dropped a kiss to her forehead right in front of his mother. Then he'd let her pick the movie they went to see, and he admitted (with some prodding on her part) that the new Zac Efron movie was not at all terrible.
Then he'd taken her home to prove that what he said to her in the dark movie theater was true; she could lust over Efron all she wanted, but no one would ever make her come like Noah does. (Actually, he'd proven that three times, in three different ways.)
She doesn't know how, exactly, she managed to agree to get him to come shopping with her. Actually, she thinks all she did was ask, which is very strange, because usually his response to any talk of shopping would be something along the lines of, 'whatever, just get something I can strip off you later.' But he's walking through the mall with her, holding a bag from The Gap, where he just bought a pair of jeans.
"I want a new dress," she states as they head towards Banana Republic.
"You own a million dresses," he tells her. "You're wearing one now."
He reaches out and runs his hand over her back, just above her behind. "A million is a vast exaggeration, and I want a new one."
"God forbid you don't get what you want."
She raises her shoulder as she glances at him. "It would be a shame," she says jokingly. He laughs and drapes his arm around her shoulder.
"Do I have to come in? 'Cause, like, I could just go get a coffee or whatever and meet you somewhere later," he says, eying the window display warily.
She bites her lip and dares to take his hand. They rarely do this at all, let alone in public. He doesn't pull away, though, so she thinks that's probably a good thing. "Would you like to help me pick a dress?"
She watches as he seems to think about it for a moment, then he kind of rolls his eyes, and she knows that means he's agreeing.
When they walk into the fourth store, that's when she starts losing him a little, and she can tell. He finds a chair near the back of the store and sits down. He's carrying the bags holding the stuff she's bought (two tops, a pair of jeans, and a really cute pair of gold flats) and he looks completely bored.
"What do you think of this?" she asks, holding up a navy blue dress.
"Yeah. Fine."
She walks over to where he's sitting. She's got a few dresses draped over her arm so she can try them on. "You're completely disinterested in this."
"Rachel, you're taking forever. I'm fuckin' bored," he insists.
"I'm not forcing you to stay with me," she reminds him with a laugh. "You could go do something else."
"Look, the only reason I even came with you today was 'cause I needed jeans and I thought maybe you'd let me bang you in a fitting room or something."
"Noah!" she gasps. She can feel her cheeks going red. There are a few women around who most definitely just heard him say that. He just shrugs his shoulder and acts innocent, which she of all people knows he isn't. "Not that the chances were good anyway, but they're non-existent now."
He stands up and gathers their bags. "Fine. I'm going. Text me when you're done and I'll find you."
"Fine," she pouts. He kisses her quickly before turning to leave. She finds herself watching him go.
It takes her a half hour and two more stores to find a dress she loves. She thinks he'll like it, too, not that that knowledge made the sale or anything. She's leaving soon anyway, so it's not like he'll see it on her much. She doesn't want to think about that right now. She just texts him asking where he is, and when she finds him, he's sipping from a can of Coke and carrying a bag he wasn't when he left her. It's from Victoria's Secret.
"What on earth did you buy?" she asks, hand on hip as soon as she's in front of him.
"Got you something." He's smirking and she doesn't know if she likes the idea of him shopping for her. "It's for when you sleep at my place."
"Summer's almost over," she says quietly, looking down at the bag, trying to peek inside.
"Yeah, well, you always forget pajamas, and..."
"You don't complain about that," she reminds him.
"Hell no," he says, grinning at her. She's the one who complains and always ends up in his tee shirts. "But I got you this."
He hands her the bag and she peers inside, afraid to just pull something out for fear that it would be completely inappropriate. When she sees a pale yellow satin nightgown with pretty lace detailing, she's more than surprised. And maybe her heart flutters a bit. This boy is not supposed to be this sweet.
"It's really nice," she says, looking up at him. "Thank you."
He winks, then looks down into the bag. "There's a thong in there somewhere, too."
"I don't wear thongs," she tells him, trying not to laugh.
"I know." He looks at her like she's stupid. "That's why I bought you one."
She shakes her head, kisses him, and they walk back through the mall with their arms around one another's waists. That night, she calls home and tells her dads she's staying with Noah. She ends up pulling that nightgown on over her head twice, because it doesn't stay on very long the first time.
... ... ...
He shows up at her place after his last shift at the store, and she's taking a nap on her bed. Her dad is downstairs, but mentioned something in passing about heading out for a meeting, then to counseling (and Puck's really damn happy those two are going to that shit; it makes Rachel way less stressed). He doesn't know if she's got super human hearing or what, but as soon as he's pulling down the zipper of his jeans her eyes are open and she's watching him.
"I was having a dream about you," she admits. She sounds so fucking sexy when she's just woken up.
"Oh yeah?" She nods and he tries really hard not to just strip naked right now. Actually, fuck it. That's where they're headed anyway. "What about?"
She takes a breath and arches her back as she stretches. She gives him this little smile and pulls back the sheet like an invitation. He pushes his boxers down and drops them in the pile with the rest of his clothes.
"That," she admits, looking him up and down. He raises his brow and slides into bed, then on top of her. She's all warm and soft beneath him, wearing just shorts and a little tank top. "It's kind of crazy how much I miss you when you're not around."
They've been doing a lot of this lately, saying shit that's pretty serious and trying to make it sound like it's not serious. And yeah, they haven't been together in a couple days and they're going back to school soon, and Rachel's just pretty sentimental. But he thinks he feels the same way, like he misses her too much when she's not with him, and it's stupid and he kinda feels like he should kick himself for getting so serious about a girl - about this girl specifically - but whatever. She's awesome and he's into her and he doesn't care if she knows it.
But this isn't a conversation he wants to have right now.
"Work sucked so hard today," he tells her. Maybe it's stupid to bring up while he's naked and palming her breast through her shirt, but he wants her to know that however quiet and slow he's being right now, that's not how the sex is gonna be when he gets her naked. "I really gotta blow off some steam." She bites her lip and nods. When she shifts her hips he's half-hard, and she whimpers when he tugs down her top so he can take a nipple in his mouth. "But I know you like it rough."
"Shut up," she breathes out, almost laughing.
He glances up to see her blushing. "That what the dream was about?" She nods and pushes him away just so she can pull her shirt over her head. "Tell me."
"Puck," she whispers. She's pushing at her shorts, now, and he knows she wants him to just take her right now, hard and fast. And he wants to, really. Badly.
"Tell me and I'll act it out for you," he says, hands pulling down her shorts. He has to sit back on his haunches, which pulls the sheet off her and makes it slide down his back so they're both uncovered. He looks at her, legs parted and chest heaving, though he's barely touched her. He can see that she's wet already. "Shit, that must have been some dream."
"In the dream you didn't tease me," she says. She sounds frustrated. He smirks. "And you touched me."
He runs one hand smoothly over her calf, loving the way the muscle twitches beneath his hand. His other hand is stroking his length. It's crazy how hard this girl can make him with basically no contact at all. She twists her body and reaches for a condom, then literally throws it at him. Fuck, she's worked up. She's all impatient and practically begging. That is definitely not a bad thing.
"D'I make you come?" he asks, rolling the condom on.
"I don't know. You woke me up before that part," she says. She tries to part her legs more, but he grabs her behind the knees and hauls her towards him. "I swear, if you don't do something..."
He pulls her closer still, so her ass is perched on his thighs and his hand is on her hip. When he guides himself into her, her back arches and it feels so fucking good it's all he can do not to grunt. He doesn't know if the house is empty yet, so he wants to be careful about the noise level.
"Goddamn," he groans when she rolls her hips. "I love fucking you, Rachel."
And yeah, this angle is hot, but it's not what he needs right now. He ends up pulling out (she whines and it's hot as hell) and driving into her again when he's laying between her legs. Her nails dig into his shoulder and she bends her legs to pull him deeper as she tells him she wants it harder.
So he doesn't really have time to think about how they've never said they 'loved' anything about one another before.
... ... ...
He's helping her pack for school. No, he doesn't really know how he got roped into this.
Actually, he does. He came over when she called and said she had the house to herself and an idea of something they could do. Given the way their relationship works, you can't really expect him to think she meant anything other than loud, hot, sweaty, middle-of-the-day sex.
So it's totally not fair that she's buzzing around her room in this tiny little skirt and a white tee shirt he can see her bra underneath. And she keeps snapping at him, too, telling him where he needs to put things, and that apparently she has one bag for underwear, socks and bras, and nothing else can go in it. Her room is basically a mountain of luggage right now, and he really doesn't envy her dads having to somehow pack all this shit in their car to get it to New York.
He's seen pictures of her apartment, and he knows she's excited for her dads to actually be working together and taking this trip with her. They're going to stay in New York for a week and buy her everything she needs for her place. They're getting along a lot better now, which is a good thing, or Puck would have stepped in and thrown hands. As much as he likes sharing a bed with her, everything's so much better when she's not so fucking sad all the time. And yeah, he really cares about that, okay?
"Noah! That's a bathing suit! It doesn't go in that bag!"
He drops the suit on her bed and holds his hands in the air. Her bed is the only surface in her room not covered in shit, and really, he thinks it's a damn shame that they're not using it right now.
"You're crazy. All this shit's going to the same place. You realize that, right?" he asks, laying down on her bed. She glares at him, but he definitely sees the way her eyes linger somewhere around his belt buckle.
"It's not shit, Noah. These are my things." He almost laughs at her cursing. She does it a little more now, and he takes full credit for it. "I want to know where everything is when I get there," she explains. "Do you even want to help me?"
"Uh, no," he says, like it should be obvious.
She stops what she's doing, puts her hand on her hip and smiles at him. "You thought I wanted sex," she says, finally catching on. "When I called you, you thought I was inviting you over to fool around." He shrugs, nods. "I suppose my wording did imply that perhaps that's what I wanted."
He sits up and manages to catch her wrist to pull her towards him. She stands between his legs and he slips his hands under her shirt at her sides. "It's funny that you're trying to make it seem like you weren't tricking me."
"I wasn't!"
He laughs and shakes his head at her. "Were too," he insists. She bites her lip and he's totally onto her. "You're lucky you're cute."
She beams and leans down to kiss him. "Packing could probably wait," she says quietly, playing with the sleeve of his tee shirt. He lets out a low hum and pulls her closer, slides his hands up the back of her thighs under her skirt. "You know what I need?"
"My co..." She covers his mouth with her hand as they both laugh. "What?"
"My nightgown from your house," she says quietly. He pulls her towards him until her knees are on either side of him and she's straddling his lap, sitting back on his thighs.
"Nuh uhn," he mumbles. Her face falls. He doesn't even want to know what she's thinking right now. She tries to get off him, but he holds her tighter, despite the way she's pushing at his chest. "'M'keepin' it."
"But it's mine," she pouts.
He shakes his head. He doesn't know why he's doing this, really, he just knows that thinking of her wearing it and sleeping next to someone else pisses him off. And thinking of her never wearing it ever again hurts a little, too.
They have less than a week left before she leaves, and they've avoided this conversation until now. He really didn't think he'd be the one to initiate it, but whatever.
"Well, if you wanna wear it, you'll just have to come see me."
"Puck," she says quietly. It's weird, he thinks, how sometimes she whispers his nickname like that at really serious times. He'd be worried about what she's about to say, but there's this fucking adorable smile on her face, and he thinks that probably is a good thing.
"What?" he asks when she doesn't say anything more.
"This wasn't supposed to mean anything," she says quietly, looking downward.
He takes a breath. He doesn't know what she means by that. Is she gonna tell him this is still just a fling to her? How the fuck could that even be possible? There's no way that's how she feels. His hand slides up her back and he watches her lick her lips. Things are going to suck enough just being away from her. If they break up, he's really going to be pissed.
"It does, though," he says, because it's true and maybe if he says it, she'll agree with him and everything will be fine.
"I know," she admits. He pulls her closer and kisses her, and she sighs a little into his mouth, which is weirdly hot. When they part, she playfully slaps him on the chest. "You weren't supposed to develop feelings for me." He laughs and shrugs his shoulder. "This is all a lot less painful because you did, though."
"You totally woulda cried if I ended this shit," he says, all smug, and she rolls her eyes.
"Are we really going to do a long-distance relationship?" she asks after a moment. "I mean, I trust you, and you know that." He smiles at her, kisses the side of her mouth. It's nice to be trusted. "I just don't want this to be hard."
"Buffalo's not that far from New York," he tells her, shrugging one shoulder. "We can visit. And we got phones and computers. Oh! Naked Skype." She laughs. He thinks he could convince her to do it. "We're awesome, Rach. We'll be good."
"Promise?" she asks in this little tiny voice, like she's not really convinced but she will be if he says the word.
"Yeah," he tells her, hand dragging through her hair. "I promise."
He doesn't ever really make promises. Like, ever. But this one seems pretty important, and it doesn't freak him the fuck out to be making it, so whatever. He figures it won't hurt him to, like, commit to her or whatever. He basically has been all along, and she didn't trick him into it or anything, it just happened.
Speaking of tricks.
"C'we bang now? Make it all official?"
"You really are disgusting," she says laughingly as she takes his face in her hands. "You're lucky you're cute."
He's laughing as he rolls her beneath him and tugs down the zipper of her skirt.
... ... ...
She doesn't visit him until the end of September, but she thinks that's perfectly normal, and her classmates who are in long distance relationships have to wait a lot longer than she does.
She really doesn't like the bus, but she trades texts with Noah basically the entire time, and things get a little filthy towards the end when he's telling her that when she gets to his place, she's got three minutes to tell him about her trip, then he's getting her naked and 'fucking you against the closest flat surface.' She spends the rest of the trip trying to decide which surface she should happen to be next to when her three minutes are up. She contemplates discretely pulling her panties off from beneath her skirt in the back of the cab, but the driver is already staring at her strangely and she doesn't need him thinking about her that way.
Noah Puckerman makes her do absolutely insane things, and she kind of loves him for it.
No, she's never told him as much, and she's not going to, not yet. She thinks he knows anyway. She takes it as a good sign that he lets her.
He doesn't even give her three minutes. He's got her backed up against his apartment door and his hand beneath her skirt, and when she tries to joke about his three minute rule, he tells her she's just too sexy and he can't wait any more. She figures as far as reasons go, that's a good one.
The first night, after they eat dinner and fool around on his couch for a while, Rachel steps into Noah's bedroom. She's exhausted from traveling and what they've been doing since she arrived. As tired as she is, she thinks if he wanted to have sex right now, there's no way she could turn him down. She might tell him to be slow and sweet and gentle, and he'd most definitely listen. She knows him well enough to know that.
When he walks into the room behind her, she watches him pull her yellow nightgown off a hook on the back of the door. She smiles and he tosses it at her.
"Do you keep that there all the time, or did you just put it there because you knew I was coming?" she asks as she unbuttons her top. It feels like an important question.
He shrugs. "Stays there."
The idea of him having something of hers, some trace of her, on display in his apartment makes her feel amazing. She's got photos of the two of them at her place; one from the Fourth of July where she's wearing his sweater, and another from one day in his bed when they were both naked and just covered over by a sheet. She's kissing his cheek with her eyes closed, and he's watching her from the corner of his eye. She's really glad she took that picture.
Despite what he says, she knows he's a lot sweeter than anyone would ever expect him to be. Maybe it's silly, but this nightgown may be the best gift she's ever been given. In a weird way, it represents them and the way they ended up together. The fact that he's hanging it on his door like some kind of daily reminder that she's his (and he'd deny that if she said it, but she knows it's the truth) makes her heart beat in a way that cannot be considered normal.
She pushes herself back onto his bed without putting the nightgown on, and he just smiles at her and tugs his shirt over his head. She watches him step out of his jeans and she very nearly groans at the sight of him. She kind of hit the boyfriend jackpot, landing one that looks like this.
As he lays on top of her, kisses her and slides his hand up the outside of her thigh, she realizes it's the last day of summer. After tonight, they're officially not just a summer couple.
"What?" he murmurs against her neck.
"Nothing." She's smiling when he pulls away and looks at her. He raises his brow. They both know she can't lie to him. "Nothing. You just feel..." She stops, takes a breath and parts her legs more, which makes a little more of his weight fall against her. "This is really good."
She's not going to elaborate. She knows he'll figure it out.
Chapter: 2/2
Warning: Hard R/Borderline NC-17-ish. Fictable prompt #48 - Summer (Same 'verse as Hazy Shade of Winter, but you can read this one without reading that one if you're lazy like me.)
Character: Puck/Rachel
Summary: It's summer and they're young, and it's not like it's unhealthy to have a regular sexual partner.
Word Count: 14,371 (total)
Disclaimer: Don't own.
The next day, Rachel is in much better spirits, and she thinks it probably has everything to do with the fact that she slept until 9:30 and woke up with Puck still sleeping behind her, his hand on her stomach underneath the sweater that smells so much like him it nearly makes her crazy.
She isn't exactly surprised by how amazing he was last night. She seems to understand that he's much more reliable than he likes to let on. That said, they've never really had a conversation about anything important like that, and it makes her feel strange knowing he's capable of being so good with her. He calmed her down in a matter of minutes and then took her mind off everything for the rest of the night. She slept like a baby, and she's very aware it was the first time they'd ever slept next to one another for more than an hour or two.
She's afraid she's in over her head.
They get up and have breakfast with everyone, and she takes a bath in the river with Santana and Brittany, using 100 per cent biodegradable shampoo. They're all wearing bathing suits, of course, but that doesn't stop Mike and Noah from making filthy jokes about it.
After she's dressed and has her hair braided over her shoulder, Puck announces he's taking her fishing, and after her protests (they are rather loud) he concedes that they won't keep any of the fish, and he'll be extra careful when he's taking out the hooks, so none of the fish are really hurt. He also promises she won't have to touch any worms or anything else that might be covered in a coat of slime.
Fishing lasts all of two hours. Rachel gets kind of bored, so she sits back on the shore in her bathing suit and looks over every time he lets out some kind of noise that indicates he has a fish on. Eventually, he gets tired of it and comes over, lays on top of her and they make out for a while, until Mike and Matt get back from their hike. They pass Puck and Rachel and make all sorts of cat calls. Rachel is just glad they happened to walk by after she forced Puck to take his hand out of her bathing suit bottom.
She kisses him in front of everyone when he tells her he remembered her vegan burger things that everyone else forgot. He fishes them out of the bottom of the cooler and throws them towards her. She catches the package and it leaves a big wet mark on her shirt, but she runs over to him and launches herself against him. She lifts her feet off the ground when she knows he's holding her tight enough.
"You so care," she says quietly.
She can't bear to look at him, because she's sure she's said too much and just ruined everything they've been working towards. And for the last little while, she thinks they've been working towards something. But he just kisses her cheek as she sets her feet on the ground.
He doesn't argue the statement. She shouldn't be surprised. She cares about him. A lot. But then again, she's not him, and she knows he feels differently about all these emotions and stuff. He's told her as much. The fact that he's being affectionate in front of all their friends might mean more than he wants to admit.
They all eat dinner together, and everyone but she and Noah is consuming far too much alcohol. She doesn't want to, and he's in charge of both the grill and the fireworks they're going to set off on the beach after dark. So she sits on top of the picnic table and sips bottled water while he cooks. She's already prepared the salads and everything else, since no one else really seemed to want to help. It starts getting chilly, so she goes to their tent and grabs his sweater again. When everyone else is filling their plates with food he cooked, he walks up behind Rachel and slips his arms around her waist, telling her how hot she looks in his clothes.
They all laugh at him as he sets up the fireworks, because he insists there's a method to it and no one believes him. Rachel doesn't comment on just how excited he is about this. It's all he's talked about for a week. She'd be concerned about his apparent love of setting things on fire, but it's really quite cute, the way he checks angles and distance and ground clearance or whatever it is he's doing. But the fireworks show they get is quite spectacular, given that it was all set up by one person.
Rachel starts yawning somewhere around 1:00 am. She catches Noah's eye as she does it so he'll understand that she's faking. Almost everyone is already in bed, just Finn and Emily still up. Rachel knows everyone is either passed out or very close to it.
She absolutely cannot help how attracted she is to Noah right now. As soon as they're inside their tent for the night, he's got her on her back on the air mattress, his hand reaching for the button of her shorts.
"Noah," she laughs, breathless from the kiss he just gave her.
"What?" he asks, smirking as he pulls back. He tugs down her zipper with one hand as the other works to push up her sweatshirt. "You really think I'm gonna let you leave here without fucking you in a tent?"
She laughs again, maybe a little too loudly, and sits up to pull the sweatshirt over her head. "Did they teach you that in the Boy Scouts?"
They both know he was never in Boy Scouts (he told her as much this morning when they were fishing).
He shakes his head, fits himself between her thighs as soon as she's naked. "'S'just raw talent," he says, and he kisses her as he rubs his fingers against her.
She doesn't even care how loud she is when he's inside her and she comes, because, as her friends like to remind her often, they've already heard she and Noah having sex, and because she wouldn't have been able to stop herself anyway.
"You make me crazy," she breathes against the skin of his shoulder after, when she's half asleep and curled against him and he's half asleep and letting her. He lets out this humming sound that is so melodic and beautiful it makes her push herself up on her elbow so she can kiss him. "I care about you, too."
He still doesn't say anything, but he makes that noise again and pulls her closer, and she counts that as a favourable reaction.
... ... ...
Her Daddy comes back home, but that doesn't mean the fighting stops. One night, she's woken up by it after midnight and tries to ignore it, tries to listen to music on her headphones to drown out the shouting match, but nothing works. She texts Noah that she's coming over, and she doesn't wait for his reply before getting into her car and leaving the house without a word to her fathers.
She's probably stupid for driving around in just her nightgown and a pair of panties, but she really just needed to get out of that house. And she thinks she really needs Noah. When she pulls up to his house, she sees that he's sitting on the front step with his elbows on his knees. He stands, pushes the door open and locks it behind them when they're inside. She doesn't need an invitation to head straight to his room, even though she knows he's not right behind her. He comes in minutes later, when she's already laying beneath the sheets, and sets a glass of water on the table next to the bed. He slides in next to her and kisses the back of her shoulder
"I'm sorry I woke you up," she says. She doesn't know why there are tears in her eyes. She's too old for this, and much stronger than it.
"It's okay," he tells her. He runs his hand down her arm as she nods. "Okay?" She nods again and he switches off the light. "It's cool if you wanna sleep here, like, whenever," he says quietly after another few moments.
She says, "thank you," because she doesn't know what else to say, and everything else sounded too eager in her head.
... ... ...
So, the really messed up thing is that he can tell Rachel's getting all attached to him and shit, and he doesn't really care. Shit. No, that's not right. He cares. He totally cares. He just isn't freaking out and ending their arrangement and stuff.
And he can tell himself all he wants that it's just because she's having a rough time with her family and whatever and he just doesn't want to add to it, but it'd be a lie.
It's stupid, and it totally snuck up on him, but he likes her. Maybe it started out as just a fuck buddy situation, but she's grown on him, and not in a bad way. He likes that she can be totally mellow with him. She's generally crazy, sure, but sometimes she'll just lay there with him, or sit there with him, or drive around with him, and be totally quiet. She doesn't even freak out about how quiet she's being. (He saw her do that once before, when they were in high school. Everyone had laughed at her for it.)
And she's been sleeping at his house two or three nights a week. His mom doesn't mind, and Rachel just doesn't want to be at home right now. The other night, he actually took her out to dinner. Neither of them called it a date, but it definitely was one.
She's laying on his bed in his tee shirt when he gets home from work. She's on her side with her legs bent and pulled up. Her back is to him, so he can see the purple panties she's wearing. He doesn't know if she's asleep, but she either hasn't heard him or doesn't want him to see her face for some reason, because she isn't turning around. He pulls off his stupid work polo and drapes it over his desk chair, leaving him in just his jeans and white tee shirt. He sets his cell to vibrate and drops it on the bedside table before laying down and pressing his chest against her back. She weaves their fingers together as he kisses her neck gently.
And you know what? It's nice to come home to her.
"What's wrong?"
"They put me in the middle," she says. He curses under his breath. This isn't the first time. "I told them to either get help, get a divorce, or I'm moving out because I can't handle this anymore."
He doesn't know why he does it, really, but he knows he can't just say nothing. "Sorry."
"I hate this," she admits quietly. She's said it before. She rolls onto her back and wipes angrily at the tears on her cheeks. He moves his hand over her stomach slowly. "I know you don't talk about your dad leaving," she says, and he tries not to tense. No, he doesn't talk about it. "But did you see it coming? How did...What was he like before he left?"
"A bastard," he answers, laughing a little bit. She's just looking up at him. He traces the tiger's mouth on the tee shirt she's wearing from his college. "He didn't give a shit about me or Hannah. I didn't see it at the time, but he was totally screwing around on mom, too." She reaches over and rests his hand on his side under his arm, where he's propped up on his elbow. "It was still a surprise when he left, though." He leans over and kisses her, because she looks like she needs it. "Your dad's not gonna leave."
"You keep saying that, Noah, but nothing is getting any better," she says seriously, turning her head to look at him. She looks kind of pissed. He supposes he can't really blame her.
"I don't know what to tell ya," he says. He really doesn't want her to get mad and leave or something. "My dad leaving was a good thing. Yours leaving wouldn't be."
She turns again so she's facing him and tangles their legs together. "I just want everything to go back to normal."
"Sounds like you told them that," he says, brushing the hair off her face and focusing on that instead of how sad her eyes are. She laughs a little and he looks at her. God, she's pretty.
"I guess spending time with you has made me a little more brazen."
"Rach," he laughs, sinking down into bed more. "You never needed help with that."
She laughs again and he feels really awesome for being able to make her smile when she's feeling like this. She slips her arm around him so her hand is resting at his back, presses herself right up against him.
"I don't know what I'd do without you," she says quietly.
He should probably freak out and tell her she's crossing the line and this is just sex, but it stopped being just sex a while ago and he knows she's as aware of it as he is.
"You'd just wear someone else's tee shirts and lay on his bed instead of mine," he says, and he's kind of joking, but he manages to make himself jealous at the thought of her in some other dude's clothes.
She toys with the hem of the tee shirt and then leans up to kiss him. "I like your tee shirts."
It's the closest they've ever come to talking about being exclusive. If he needed confirmation that she's not gonna fuck around on him, he thinks he just got it.
When her dad calls around 9:00 and asks her if she's coming home for the night, she tells him she's not stepping foot in that house until those two can talk to one another like civilized human beings.
She drops her phone onto the bedside table as Puck smiles at her. When she asks, "can I stay for a while?" and she's half-laughing, he reaches for her and kisses her. They watch Bull Durham and she falls asleep towards the end, but instead of waking her up and telling her she sucks for not paying attention, he just steps out of his jeans and pulls a blanket over the both of them.
... ... ...
Maybe she's overreacting to her parents' troubles just a little bit. It upsets her to no end that they can't even seem to be in the same room as one another without arguing over something. They never used to be like that. They were a loving couple, a perfect example of what she should look for in a relationship. The fact that she continually finds them shouting at one another is driving her crazy.
But maybe a very tiny, little, almost not worth mentioning, part of it is that she really likes sharing a bed and a room with Noah. Her temporary stay at the Puckerman's only lasted three days and two nights before her fathers came over with promises they'd try harder. She believed them, and it's true that they've been better since her little temper tantrum.
They also feel so guilty that last night when Noah came over and she didn't want him to leave, her fathers didn't say anything about the boy in her bed or getting coffee in their kitchen in the morning.
This summer has been so full of Noah - of she and Noah - that she doesn't know what she's going to do in two weeks when she has to go back to New York to move into her tiny rental apartment. She knows she's going to miss him no matter what, but she's not blind to what's been going on. He enjoys being with her as much as she enjoys being with him. He's been amazing to her through all this mess with her fathers, and he's surprisingly sweet to her behind closed doors. Like the morning she woke up to an empty bed and he left her a note to let her know he'd gotten called into work but he didn't want to wake her. He also told her she could stay all day if she wanted, then they'd go to a movie later. She spent the day with his mother and sister until he came home, and he'd dropped a kiss to her forehead right in front of his mother. Then he'd let her pick the movie they went to see, and he admitted (with some prodding on her part) that the new Zac Efron movie was not at all terrible.
Then he'd taken her home to prove that what he said to her in the dark movie theater was true; she could lust over Efron all she wanted, but no one would ever make her come like Noah does. (Actually, he'd proven that three times, in three different ways.)
She doesn't know how, exactly, she managed to agree to get him to come shopping with her. Actually, she thinks all she did was ask, which is very strange, because usually his response to any talk of shopping would be something along the lines of, 'whatever, just get something I can strip off you later.' But he's walking through the mall with her, holding a bag from The Gap, where he just bought a pair of jeans.
"I want a new dress," she states as they head towards Banana Republic.
"You own a million dresses," he tells her. "You're wearing one now."
He reaches out and runs his hand over her back, just above her behind. "A million is a vast exaggeration, and I want a new one."
"God forbid you don't get what you want."
She raises her shoulder as she glances at him. "It would be a shame," she says jokingly. He laughs and drapes his arm around her shoulder.
"Do I have to come in? 'Cause, like, I could just go get a coffee or whatever and meet you somewhere later," he says, eying the window display warily.
She bites her lip and dares to take his hand. They rarely do this at all, let alone in public. He doesn't pull away, though, so she thinks that's probably a good thing. "Would you like to help me pick a dress?"
She watches as he seems to think about it for a moment, then he kind of rolls his eyes, and she knows that means he's agreeing.
When they walk into the fourth store, that's when she starts losing him a little, and she can tell. He finds a chair near the back of the store and sits down. He's carrying the bags holding the stuff she's bought (two tops, a pair of jeans, and a really cute pair of gold flats) and he looks completely bored.
"What do you think of this?" she asks, holding up a navy blue dress.
"Yeah. Fine."
She walks over to where he's sitting. She's got a few dresses draped over her arm so she can try them on. "You're completely disinterested in this."
"Rachel, you're taking forever. I'm fuckin' bored," he insists.
"I'm not forcing you to stay with me," she reminds him with a laugh. "You could go do something else."
"Look, the only reason I even came with you today was 'cause I needed jeans and I thought maybe you'd let me bang you in a fitting room or something."
"Noah!" she gasps. She can feel her cheeks going red. There are a few women around who most definitely just heard him say that. He just shrugs his shoulder and acts innocent, which she of all people knows he isn't. "Not that the chances were good anyway, but they're non-existent now."
He stands up and gathers their bags. "Fine. I'm going. Text me when you're done and I'll find you."
"Fine," she pouts. He kisses her quickly before turning to leave. She finds herself watching him go.
It takes her a half hour and two more stores to find a dress she loves. She thinks he'll like it, too, not that that knowledge made the sale or anything. She's leaving soon anyway, so it's not like he'll see it on her much. She doesn't want to think about that right now. She just texts him asking where he is, and when she finds him, he's sipping from a can of Coke and carrying a bag he wasn't when he left her. It's from Victoria's Secret.
"What on earth did you buy?" she asks, hand on hip as soon as she's in front of him.
"Got you something." He's smirking and she doesn't know if she likes the idea of him shopping for her. "It's for when you sleep at my place."
"Summer's almost over," she says quietly, looking down at the bag, trying to peek inside.
"Yeah, well, you always forget pajamas, and..."
"You don't complain about that," she reminds him.
"Hell no," he says, grinning at her. She's the one who complains and always ends up in his tee shirts. "But I got you this."
He hands her the bag and she peers inside, afraid to just pull something out for fear that it would be completely inappropriate. When she sees a pale yellow satin nightgown with pretty lace detailing, she's more than surprised. And maybe her heart flutters a bit. This boy is not supposed to be this sweet.
"It's really nice," she says, looking up at him. "Thank you."
He winks, then looks down into the bag. "There's a thong in there somewhere, too."
"I don't wear thongs," she tells him, trying not to laugh.
"I know." He looks at her like she's stupid. "That's why I bought you one."
She shakes her head, kisses him, and they walk back through the mall with their arms around one another's waists. That night, she calls home and tells her dads she's staying with Noah. She ends up pulling that nightgown on over her head twice, because it doesn't stay on very long the first time.
... ... ...
He shows up at her place after his last shift at the store, and she's taking a nap on her bed. Her dad is downstairs, but mentioned something in passing about heading out for a meeting, then to counseling (and Puck's really damn happy those two are going to that shit; it makes Rachel way less stressed). He doesn't know if she's got super human hearing or what, but as soon as he's pulling down the zipper of his jeans her eyes are open and she's watching him.
"I was having a dream about you," she admits. She sounds so fucking sexy when she's just woken up.
"Oh yeah?" She nods and he tries really hard not to just strip naked right now. Actually, fuck it. That's where they're headed anyway. "What about?"
She takes a breath and arches her back as she stretches. She gives him this little smile and pulls back the sheet like an invitation. He pushes his boxers down and drops them in the pile with the rest of his clothes.
"That," she admits, looking him up and down. He raises his brow and slides into bed, then on top of her. She's all warm and soft beneath him, wearing just shorts and a little tank top. "It's kind of crazy how much I miss you when you're not around."
They've been doing a lot of this lately, saying shit that's pretty serious and trying to make it sound like it's not serious. And yeah, they haven't been together in a couple days and they're going back to school soon, and Rachel's just pretty sentimental. But he thinks he feels the same way, like he misses her too much when she's not with him, and it's stupid and he kinda feels like he should kick himself for getting so serious about a girl - about this girl specifically - but whatever. She's awesome and he's into her and he doesn't care if she knows it.
But this isn't a conversation he wants to have right now.
"Work sucked so hard today," he tells her. Maybe it's stupid to bring up while he's naked and palming her breast through her shirt, but he wants her to know that however quiet and slow he's being right now, that's not how the sex is gonna be when he gets her naked. "I really gotta blow off some steam." She bites her lip and nods. When she shifts her hips he's half-hard, and she whimpers when he tugs down her top so he can take a nipple in his mouth. "But I know you like it rough."
"Shut up," she breathes out, almost laughing.
He glances up to see her blushing. "That what the dream was about?" She nods and pushes him away just so she can pull her shirt over her head. "Tell me."
"Puck," she whispers. She's pushing at her shorts, now, and he knows she wants him to just take her right now, hard and fast. And he wants to, really. Badly.
"Tell me and I'll act it out for you," he says, hands pulling down her shorts. He has to sit back on his haunches, which pulls the sheet off her and makes it slide down his back so they're both uncovered. He looks at her, legs parted and chest heaving, though he's barely touched her. He can see that she's wet already. "Shit, that must have been some dream."
"In the dream you didn't tease me," she says. She sounds frustrated. He smirks. "And you touched me."
He runs one hand smoothly over her calf, loving the way the muscle twitches beneath his hand. His other hand is stroking his length. It's crazy how hard this girl can make him with basically no contact at all. She twists her body and reaches for a condom, then literally throws it at him. Fuck, she's worked up. She's all impatient and practically begging. That is definitely not a bad thing.
"D'I make you come?" he asks, rolling the condom on.
"I don't know. You woke me up before that part," she says. She tries to part her legs more, but he grabs her behind the knees and hauls her towards him. "I swear, if you don't do something..."
He pulls her closer still, so her ass is perched on his thighs and his hand is on her hip. When he guides himself into her, her back arches and it feels so fucking good it's all he can do not to grunt. He doesn't know if the house is empty yet, so he wants to be careful about the noise level.
"Goddamn," he groans when she rolls her hips. "I love fucking you, Rachel."
And yeah, this angle is hot, but it's not what he needs right now. He ends up pulling out (she whines and it's hot as hell) and driving into her again when he's laying between her legs. Her nails dig into his shoulder and she bends her legs to pull him deeper as she tells him she wants it harder.
So he doesn't really have time to think about how they've never said they 'loved' anything about one another before.
... ... ...
He's helping her pack for school. No, he doesn't really know how he got roped into this.
Actually, he does. He came over when she called and said she had the house to herself and an idea of something they could do. Given the way their relationship works, you can't really expect him to think she meant anything other than loud, hot, sweaty, middle-of-the-day sex.
So it's totally not fair that she's buzzing around her room in this tiny little skirt and a white tee shirt he can see her bra underneath. And she keeps snapping at him, too, telling him where he needs to put things, and that apparently she has one bag for underwear, socks and bras, and nothing else can go in it. Her room is basically a mountain of luggage right now, and he really doesn't envy her dads having to somehow pack all this shit in their car to get it to New York.
He's seen pictures of her apartment, and he knows she's excited for her dads to actually be working together and taking this trip with her. They're going to stay in New York for a week and buy her everything she needs for her place. They're getting along a lot better now, which is a good thing, or Puck would have stepped in and thrown hands. As much as he likes sharing a bed with her, everything's so much better when she's not so fucking sad all the time. And yeah, he really cares about that, okay?
"Noah! That's a bathing suit! It doesn't go in that bag!"
He drops the suit on her bed and holds his hands in the air. Her bed is the only surface in her room not covered in shit, and really, he thinks it's a damn shame that they're not using it right now.
"You're crazy. All this shit's going to the same place. You realize that, right?" he asks, laying down on her bed. She glares at him, but he definitely sees the way her eyes linger somewhere around his belt buckle.
"It's not shit, Noah. These are my things." He almost laughs at her cursing. She does it a little more now, and he takes full credit for it. "I want to know where everything is when I get there," she explains. "Do you even want to help me?"
"Uh, no," he says, like it should be obvious.
She stops what she's doing, puts her hand on her hip and smiles at him. "You thought I wanted sex," she says, finally catching on. "When I called you, you thought I was inviting you over to fool around." He shrugs, nods. "I suppose my wording did imply that perhaps that's what I wanted."
He sits up and manages to catch her wrist to pull her towards him. She stands between his legs and he slips his hands under her shirt at her sides. "It's funny that you're trying to make it seem like you weren't tricking me."
"I wasn't!"
He laughs and shakes his head at her. "Were too," he insists. She bites her lip and he's totally onto her. "You're lucky you're cute."
She beams and leans down to kiss him. "Packing could probably wait," she says quietly, playing with the sleeve of his tee shirt. He lets out a low hum and pulls her closer, slides his hands up the back of her thighs under her skirt. "You know what I need?"
"My co..." She covers his mouth with her hand as they both laugh. "What?"
"My nightgown from your house," she says quietly. He pulls her towards him until her knees are on either side of him and she's straddling his lap, sitting back on his thighs.
"Nuh uhn," he mumbles. Her face falls. He doesn't even want to know what she's thinking right now. She tries to get off him, but he holds her tighter, despite the way she's pushing at his chest. "'M'keepin' it."
"But it's mine," she pouts.
He shakes his head. He doesn't know why he's doing this, really, he just knows that thinking of her wearing it and sleeping next to someone else pisses him off. And thinking of her never wearing it ever again hurts a little, too.
They have less than a week left before she leaves, and they've avoided this conversation until now. He really didn't think he'd be the one to initiate it, but whatever.
"Well, if you wanna wear it, you'll just have to come see me."
"Puck," she says quietly. It's weird, he thinks, how sometimes she whispers his nickname like that at really serious times. He'd be worried about what she's about to say, but there's this fucking adorable smile on her face, and he thinks that probably is a good thing.
"What?" he asks when she doesn't say anything more.
"This wasn't supposed to mean anything," she says quietly, looking downward.
He takes a breath. He doesn't know what she means by that. Is she gonna tell him this is still just a fling to her? How the fuck could that even be possible? There's no way that's how she feels. His hand slides up her back and he watches her lick her lips. Things are going to suck enough just being away from her. If they break up, he's really going to be pissed.
"It does, though," he says, because it's true and maybe if he says it, she'll agree with him and everything will be fine.
"I know," she admits. He pulls her closer and kisses her, and she sighs a little into his mouth, which is weirdly hot. When they part, she playfully slaps him on the chest. "You weren't supposed to develop feelings for me." He laughs and shrugs his shoulder. "This is all a lot less painful because you did, though."
"You totally woulda cried if I ended this shit," he says, all smug, and she rolls her eyes.
"Are we really going to do a long-distance relationship?" she asks after a moment. "I mean, I trust you, and you know that." He smiles at her, kisses the side of her mouth. It's nice to be trusted. "I just don't want this to be hard."
"Buffalo's not that far from New York," he tells her, shrugging one shoulder. "We can visit. And we got phones and computers. Oh! Naked Skype." She laughs. He thinks he could convince her to do it. "We're awesome, Rach. We'll be good."
"Promise?" she asks in this little tiny voice, like she's not really convinced but she will be if he says the word.
"Yeah," he tells her, hand dragging through her hair. "I promise."
He doesn't ever really make promises. Like, ever. But this one seems pretty important, and it doesn't freak him the fuck out to be making it, so whatever. He figures it won't hurt him to, like, commit to her or whatever. He basically has been all along, and she didn't trick him into it or anything, it just happened.
Speaking of tricks.
"C'we bang now? Make it all official?"
"You really are disgusting," she says laughingly as she takes his face in her hands. "You're lucky you're cute."
He's laughing as he rolls her beneath him and tugs down the zipper of her skirt.
... ... ...
She doesn't visit him until the end of September, but she thinks that's perfectly normal, and her classmates who are in long distance relationships have to wait a lot longer than she does.
She really doesn't like the bus, but she trades texts with Noah basically the entire time, and things get a little filthy towards the end when he's telling her that when she gets to his place, she's got three minutes to tell him about her trip, then he's getting her naked and 'fucking you against the closest flat surface.' She spends the rest of the trip trying to decide which surface she should happen to be next to when her three minutes are up. She contemplates discretely pulling her panties off from beneath her skirt in the back of the cab, but the driver is already staring at her strangely and she doesn't need him thinking about her that way.
Noah Puckerman makes her do absolutely insane things, and she kind of loves him for it.
No, she's never told him as much, and she's not going to, not yet. She thinks he knows anyway. She takes it as a good sign that he lets her.
He doesn't even give her three minutes. He's got her backed up against his apartment door and his hand beneath her skirt, and when she tries to joke about his three minute rule, he tells her she's just too sexy and he can't wait any more. She figures as far as reasons go, that's a good one.
The first night, after they eat dinner and fool around on his couch for a while, Rachel steps into Noah's bedroom. She's exhausted from traveling and what they've been doing since she arrived. As tired as she is, she thinks if he wanted to have sex right now, there's no way she could turn him down. She might tell him to be slow and sweet and gentle, and he'd most definitely listen. She knows him well enough to know that.
When he walks into the room behind her, she watches him pull her yellow nightgown off a hook on the back of the door. She smiles and he tosses it at her.
"Do you keep that there all the time, or did you just put it there because you knew I was coming?" she asks as she unbuttons her top. It feels like an important question.
He shrugs. "Stays there."
The idea of him having something of hers, some trace of her, on display in his apartment makes her feel amazing. She's got photos of the two of them at her place; one from the Fourth of July where she's wearing his sweater, and another from one day in his bed when they were both naked and just covered over by a sheet. She's kissing his cheek with her eyes closed, and he's watching her from the corner of his eye. She's really glad she took that picture.
Despite what he says, she knows he's a lot sweeter than anyone would ever expect him to be. Maybe it's silly, but this nightgown may be the best gift she's ever been given. In a weird way, it represents them and the way they ended up together. The fact that he's hanging it on his door like some kind of daily reminder that she's his (and he'd deny that if she said it, but she knows it's the truth) makes her heart beat in a way that cannot be considered normal.
She pushes herself back onto his bed without putting the nightgown on, and he just smiles at her and tugs his shirt over his head. She watches him step out of his jeans and she very nearly groans at the sight of him. She kind of hit the boyfriend jackpot, landing one that looks like this.
As he lays on top of her, kisses her and slides his hand up the outside of her thigh, she realizes it's the last day of summer. After tonight, they're officially not just a summer couple.
"What?" he murmurs against her neck.
"Nothing." She's smiling when he pulls away and looks at her. He raises his brow. They both know she can't lie to him. "Nothing. You just feel..." She stops, takes a breath and parts her legs more, which makes a little more of his weight fall against her. "This is really good."
She's not going to elaborate. She knows he'll figure it out.