Chapter Text
They’re painted like a dreamscape. The late December sky colored in strokes of black blended with clouds of smoky gray, dark lamp posts glimmer through the frosty night guiding the path ahead, two lovers stroll hand-in-hand through impressionist brushstrokes. It doesn’t seem real.
It’s all a haze.
The late night chill brushes her cheeks pink, yet she doesn’t feel it sting her skin. She’s floating. Floating and following the lead of the force at her fingertips. Her breath catches, trying to regulate from the quick pace of their steps over cobblestone. Leisurely was not in the cards, not when so much time has been hanging on this - the thread of hope of this night and them and a weight of the past finally dropping into the abyss.
There aren’t any maybe’ s anymore. There’s here and now and this is happening .
There’s a tug on her hand and a whip of her head before cold seeps through the thin clothing at her back. Then there’s warmth. Fierce and insistent warmth of pillowy lips against hers combating the frozen stone of the wall she’s pressed up to. Everything is overshadowed by the glow of his body moving with hers. Golds and whites sparkle behind her eyelids as this boy kisses her with purpose. A promise and a reminder and an impertinence all at once. Everything is Colin. Her body hums as she tugs her fantasy closer, wraps an arm around his neck until there’s no space left between them.
It’s all a dream.
He pulls away. The most toe-curling smile, roguish and cheeky and familiar all at once, taking over his features and has her all fogged up again. She may be drunk. She may be doing something reckless and borderline stupid. She may be clouded by the hope of it all. Or she may have conjured this moment into manifestation over the years. She doesn’t know. All she knows is she will follow him through the dark and cobbled streets. Through the blissful ignorance.
Until the blaring orange light of the building brought her back down to earth.
Penelope had been to the only upscale hotel in town only once before, when Stella’s parents came to visit during First Year and invited the girls back to their room for a nightcap. Once was enough to know that Colin had led her through the back entrance, away from the grandeur and attentive staff of the lobby - away from eyes that could catch them together. He happily tugged her up the two flights of stairs and down the corridor to the very end, all the while still holding tightly onto her hand. Letting it go only to unlock the door with his key fob and usher her in with a humble ‘ after you ’.
She’s definitely not drunk now.
The scent of fresh linen and lingering dredges of cologne fill her every breath as she moves further into his space, touches of sobriety carried on every inhale.
“Want a drink?” he asks as they step through the door to his hotel room. The thick reinforced wood closes behind him with the faintest of clicks.
Penelope strolls through the tiny little foyer, past the bathroom and the wet bar, into the modest bedroom. Her eyes take everything in keenly - from the massive bed with white linens and more pillows than necessary, to the window with only the sheer curtain pulled encouraging faint city lights to spill in, the empty desk with a lone chair angled and inviting. To the imposing hardwood dresser with a flat screen television perched on top, and to the half opened hand luggage discarded to the side. Looking everywhere but over at the wet bar where Colin pours two crystal tumblers of whiskey.
“Making mini bar money now?” she squeaks out a critical joke.
“Oh you know me,” he smiles and shoots her a wink.
There’s silence. She stands rooted in the middle of his rented bedroom, watches his shoulders move, his effortless ministrations as he leans and pours and tilts and caps. Everything he does is elegant and enchanting and… and she’s feeling just as bad as she did back then for thinking these lewd things.
Penelope fiddles with the hem of her leather jacket with anxious hands.
This may be a mistake. Probably is one of the biggest decisions of her life - regret , what if , and want all culminating into this . Years had gone by wondering what it would be like to see him again, to speak to him, to… to rewrite their past in only ways she could ever envisage under the cover of night alone in her bed.
Colin’s changed, and yet he hasn’t. His clothes and his stance and parts of his shape, but the ease in which he is - his being and how he makes her feel is still the same. Light in her chest and lightning crackling through her veins and on the edge of a cliff about to fall into waters below and anxiously an… - and maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Her eyes are still looking everywhere but at him. Landed on the white trim of the door visible over his shoulder as he takes long strides towards her.
“Brought my own,” he says as he hands her the cool drink. “I’m on my way back from Scotland.”
She nods halfway. Her fingertips grazing his at the handoff - there’s that electricity again. The impact of the jolt keeps her from lingering, quickly she brings the liquid to her lips to stop the gasp that’s nearly fallen with reality, here and now .
“It’s so good to see you again, Pen.”
There it was. That nickname. She hasn’t been Pen in ages. Barely goes by Penelope these days, either. And just like that she’s a kid again. A kid with a crush and it’s all so overwhelming feeling these things again, so she takes a larger gulp of amber liquid.
He follows suit and she can feel his gaze on her, unyielding and scorching her cheeks, her wrists, and the tips of her ears down past her chest. She swallows her imminent fear to look him in the eye.
And oh what a sight it is.
His are clear aquamarine - the sea in sunlight, like the stones they’d find in the sand of his family’s lake way back when. She can tell he’s not drunk, far from it in fact. But there’s a glass in his eye she’s only ever had an inkling of before. He’s in a sweater so unlike the boy she used to know, and his hair perfectly positioned to draw attention to his defined jaw. She remembers when he used to be round and squishy and baby-faced but still handsome as hell. She remembers the way he used to look at her back then and how she’d always have to look away, deflect with a sardonic jab to keep the blush from coating her cheeks. She remembers the rush it brought. The weightless onslaught of butterflies. It’s happening now. He’s looking at her like that now. Like she’s capable of hanging the moon in the sky and summoning snow with a flick of her fingers. And she’s back there - that room they’ve spent their youth in, dim under the glow of the LED screen. For a moment she’s seventeen again.
“I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
He’s close. In front of her once more and it's oh so different than the bar. Colin places his barely touched drink on the dresser, then moves towards her intently, brushes tresses of straightened dyed blonde hair behind her shoulder. She doesn’t dare look anywhere but his hand the entire time. Watches as it rests at the base of her neck - skin on skin. Intention hanging in the air. Intention and heat and promise and all without expectation. There’s still time to back out. Before she truly makes a mistake she can’t take back.
Penelope takes one more sip and places her drink on the side, too. When she looks up at him through long lashes, something’s changed. The air is heavy now - not stifling but weighted; waiting and wanting stirring in the silence. Colin’s eyes are still big and curious and his lips are full and tinged by her lipstick and he’s so close . Handsome, even more so than before. The dim light of the room illuminates them, casting hues laden with lust. His hands move towards her jacket.
“May I?” The way he dropped his voice low, and the way he looked like a cat about to catch a bird… there was no way she would turn him down; she was wet just thinking about it. About his hands on her and hopefully more .
She nods.
Colin slips the jacket off her shoulders. Slowly. His eyes follow every inch of her newly revealed form, anticipation swirling in his irises. A smirk pulled at the corner of his lips as he artfully threw the jacket onto the lone desk chair.
The kiss in the bar was another world away. Some time that maybe only exists in a dreamland. Because now they’re in a quiet lily white bedroom and it’s ever so apparent recklessness has been abandoned. There’s something meaningful swirling between them neither cares to acknowledge but can’t help but feel. Pen elongates her body up towards him at the same time Colin moves until there isn’t an ounce of space left between them.
It’s glorious.
To feel him. To have his hands trailing her body, tracing more defined curves that were only shadows before. To outline the slope of his shoulders with her fingertips and feel the taut muscle there. To be pulled closer and closer, and twirled to a dance he’s leading.
Fireworks ran rampant in her gut, every nerve ending on fire. It’s all too slow and too fast at the same time. One of his hands holding her head in place as he slipped his tongue between her awaiting lips. Oh, Penelope moaned softly as his tongue moved with hers. As he kissed her slow and purposefully. As she let herself get lost in the way he tasted like scotch and home - sweet and reassuring, like the lazy days they’d spend bundled in his mother’s drawing room eating sweets and watching films. Domestic and nostalgic, a fantasy she always coveted since. She’s lost to the feeling, putty in his hands as she lets him take control.
She’s pulled forward, tugged by his teeth at her bottom lip as Colin backs himself up to sit on the bed. Large hands fisting in the light fabric at her waist as he draws her towards him once more, missing the press of their bodies. Pen is helpless to the sensations coursing her body, can’t do anything but lift her legs to straddle him - precariously kneeling at the edge of the mattress to keep her full womanly weight off him.
But Colin pulls her down harder. Kisses her into delirium until she can’t keep herself up. Wanting - needing every bit of their bodies touching. Penelope’s entire being cedes to this and now . Leaning in, her arms wrapped around his neck and fingers fisted in his chestnut locks, heads tilting together deepening the kiss until there’s no fine point where he ends and she begins. Colin’s fingers run delicately across her pilant body, careful and purposeful and feather-light making her skin tingle, arching and asking for more of everything.
And he’s handling her with care. God , she doesn’t want to think. Doesn’t want her brain to ruin this and compare it to her fantasies, or worse - think about how she compares to all his past others . So she kisses him, harder. Gives a raspy beg of ‘ please ’ as her hips roll into his. Colin is all too eager to oblige - to obliterate everything else but here and now .
Hands move to places unseen. Places friends don’t explore with friends.
There’s never been anything friendly between them.
It’s more. More gasps and moans as lips find hidden treasure. More please. More off. More hands everywhere. More clothes on the floor. Hearts beating erratically.
“ You’re beautiful ,” he all but whispered in earnest. Soft sage eyes on hers, boring and imploring her to believe him.
The look of reverence on his face as he uncovered more bits of her body she always kept covered up… - it's so much .
For the first time Penelope Featherington felt herself bloom under the attention.
Instead of closing her eyes and letting it happen, she took control. Her hands trailed down his chest to the hem of his undershirt.
“ I want to see you ,” she muttered against his lips and her fingers worked to expose the hot skin underneath.
He raised his arms and she slid off his top.
A second passed. Then another with only shallow breaths passing between them. Her darkened stare stuck on the dips of his chest, the curves of this man’s body.
“ Touch me .”
So she does. Her filed nails caressing, exploring his pecs and down to the outline of abs that surely weren’t there when they’d known one another. He’s muscular and manly, not soft and boyish. Far from the fantasy she used to have of him - of them together in ways more than just this over years and years. And he has tufts of chest hair now too. Her finger cards through the dark wiry strands that curl around her little pink fingertip.
Colin watches her, hands on her hips still rooting her there, here .
He wants to say something, so does she. But what can really be said at a moment like this. Idle conversation couldn’t withstand it.
When words fail mouths move.
Colin took one of her bare breasts in his mouth. Shifted her higher up his body to eagerly plop his lips around her. Pen’s fingers twirled and tangled in the hair at the back of his head, holding him in place whilst he flicked his tongue across her nipple, before grazing his teeth and nipping her just enough to elicit a whimper. Without complaint he moved to the other, lavishing her body in the only way he’d know how.
It’s too much .
The circles he was swirling against her sensitive skin mimicked the patterns she was grinding against him, driving her wild - seeking a pressure that wasn’t close enough. Colin’s hand slid between them, thumbing at her center through her jeans, trying to match her place and grant her some release. But it wasn’t enough.
An annoyed whine passed Pen’s lips. A huff as she pushed his shoulders away.
“Off,” she declares as soon as his concerned gaze found hers, and Colin drops his hold completely. Concedes so she can get off him, disappointment beginning to creep into his thick brow.
Penelope steps back, just enough to fully use all her limbs without any impediments. His eyes are still on her and she watches him, too. Stares with a sinister smirk as her thumbs work the buttons of her jeans. Colin catches her eye, as much as the sight of watching her strip could be his undoing, he quirks a brow in askance.
A simple nod is all he gets in response.
And no sooner does Colin launch himself in the air to rid himself of his trousers. The speed and fumbling by which he obliges is endearing as ever. Light laughter filling the spaces of this prelude.
This isn’t weird, or awkward as most first times would go. No, this is a long time coming. They’ve played this scene out many times in the back of her mind. She knows exactly what comes next, now.
Penelope moves towards him, but Colin keeps her at arms length. His eyes rove her body - curvy and alabaster and every flaw on display with the din of the foyer light spilling in on her like a spotlight. And for a brief moment she recedes into herself - steels herself from the rejection that’s about to come. This was nice, but it’s over now . This isn’t supposed to happen for them. Unrequited love is meant to be just that - fruitless and never real .
Colin breathes, gravel on his tongue. “ You’re beautiful .”
“ Thank you ,” what else is she meant to say.
His hands caress her sides, up and down the swell of her hips, her waist, the sides of her chest. Pads of fingers ghosting her breasts, circling her areolas as he considers her attentively. She waits. And waits for the rejection she knows is coming.
“ B- ” there it is, on the tip of his tongue, the but we should stop.
She knows it’s coming and the strings of her chest are dangling by a frayed thread, waiting to drop. Her lips part, ready to finish the sentence for him, her eyes darting to the side to find the quickest path to her clothes. But
“ Before we continue… ” he strides over to his rucksack, riddles around for two heartbeats too long, and finds what he’s looking for. The look on his face as he saunters over holding the ream of two condoms is contagious enough to have her smiling back. “ Safety first. ”
Pen hops on the tips of her toes, practically throws herself to wrap her arms around his neck, kissing him with all the jittery hope she felt at the bar. And Colin laughs into the quick press of their lips. He pulls away only to chuck the condoms up by the pillows.
And they’re standing there, naked. Completely bare. Bodies on display for the other for the first time, truly. No illicit touches or attempted rendezvous that always ended in a mishap or miscommunication. No give and take and making it halfway before a fakeout.
Penelope wasn’t anywhere near ready to accept her feelings back then. Couldn’t understand them in the slightest. Denial and naïveté built walls around her heart - the finest of fortresses keeping everything locked and sealed. Looking back, she can see it for what it was: his attempts to scale her walls again and again. Maybe now it’s time to lower the drawbridge, open the gates even if it means letting the Trojan horse of insecurity and past mistakes in.
Colin stood so close, his heated gaze sending a shiver down her spine. Vulnerable as she was, she let him scrutinize her. Let him look at all of her without covering a single portion of her stomach - the rolls of her belly, the sure smudge of her makeup, stretch marks at her hips, and white marks at her heavy breasts.
The air around them crackled and the light on her turned brighter, washing out everything save for them.
Colin trailed the tip of his forefinger down her jaw, and around her lips. Pen tilted into his touch, daring goosebumps to prick her skin. She watched intently as his adam’s apple bobbed, swallowed down a small keen as she closed her lips around the tip of his finger and gave it a chaste lick. Before she even had time to think about what she was doing Colin replaced the finger on her mouth with his lips, slipping his tongue against hers while his hands cupped her pretty, round face. There was no hesitation.
They responded in earnest. Pen closing the small slivers of breadth between them until their bodies were finally skin to skin. And Colin’s hands on her bare ass, cupping, kneading, pulling her hips up and forward, a joined moan slipping as she ground against his ever present erection. His tongue gliding with hers, not desperate but intent. Soft and deliberate and drawn out, the way it feels when you’ve been running for miles and finally stop to take a drink: breathless and hot and perfect against her lips.
He sucked her bottom between his teeth as he guided her backwards. Towards the bed once again. Sapphire eyes shot open as soon as the cold linen grazed the back of her knees. To watch his face as he sent them into free fall - to feel the grin against her skin and be rewarded with its beauty, accompanied by the lightness of his green eyes. It made her feel like the center of the universe, like she only existed for him.
How simple life would be if that were true - if they could carry out this unspoken arrangement until both of them were too old to remember who they were, who they used to be and what that meant for them. It was too easy to forget all about the ‘ what ifs ’ when his lips were on hers. What if they actually dated years ago? What if instead of pushing all Bridgerton’s away, she’d answered his texts? What if she’d been able to voice her true feelings instead of keeping them locked away? Maybe they’d be friends, maybe more. Maybe they would have done this many times before.
As if he could feel her thoughts, Colin tickled the spot below her upper arm, evoking her giggle and bringing her back into the moment, back to him. Penelope laughed a breathy laugh, dropping her head back against the duvet. Her back arching with her mirth as his fingers continued to work her.
Sheets rustled, and the bed dipped, and the heat of his body receded. Before Pen could even think, his hands wrapped around her calves and dragged her bum to the edge of the bed. Colin knelt on the carpeted floor and leaned towards her, between her legs. Even in the low lighting she could clearly see his smile, wide enough to show a dimple as his thumb grazes her - she was slick to the touch at the sight.
Colin parted her legs fully. Ran his palms up and down the soft skin, taking handfuls of her thighs as he worked his way up, like a lion stalking his prey. The look he shot her was truly wicked. Then, when Penelope thought she’d surely perish, he put her out of her imminent misery, lips hot as they mapped their way to her core. Never daring to break eye contact as he dropped his head down. Watching him lavish her was its own kind of erotic.
Pen’s head thrown back against the mattress, anticipating his mouth where she desires him most. He’s at her knee, a kiss at the underside, and at the other one for good measure. Trails up her thigh. One languid open mouth kiss, then another, and a third and he’s swirling his tongue, grazing his teeth against her flesh, then placing a fourth and then - then he stops?
She feels him take a deep breath. So she holds hers.
Colin’s gaze is darker than she’s ever seen, animalistic even. It would be her undoing if he wasn’t so still - wasn’t looking at her face so steadily. A reverence that would make her self conscious if it wasn’t for how intoxicatingly seductive he looks with hooded eyes - if she didn’t feel every drop of infatuation she had harbored for years begin to bubble over.
A small placating smile was all the signaling he needs.
Oh Colin Bridgerton does not disappoint.
His tongue found her in an instant - drawing long strokes through her folds and alternating with quicker movements around her clit. Sucking and running his teeth across it just barely but enough to make her whole body shudder. She couldn’t help but weave her fingers into his locks, pulling him against her, tighter, causing him to moan against her for a whole other level of pleasure.. Oh god she loved him talking like this - loved the way her name sounded when he said it, a deep and afflicted ‘ Pen’ . That name reserved only for him. Loved the lips that smiled after he told a terrible pun and especially loved the things they could do to her now.
She was so close. Her whole body thrumming with impatience that she was practically fucking his face with the erratic way her hips were moving to meet him, to ignite more friction, fast. Colin reached up to pinch a nipple making waves shoot down through her body as his teeth grazed her clit. Lord . Pen bit the inside of her lips, stifling a shout.
“I want to hear you. Don’t hold back, Penelope .”
She could feel herself losing it, dizzy and unaware of what was happening as he kept licking and sucking and - she’s so close . Knows he can feel it even if she’s having trouble stringing together coherent words. Colin kept going, devoutly. Hungry. As if she were his favorite plate of biscuits, and he’s been starved for years. Groaning, sending mind-blowing vibrations as she gyrated, harder. Faster. Circles and straights and nonsensical chase, going and going and keep going . Until there was pain at his scalp. Until she cried out.
Colin slowed his tongue, letting her ride out her orgasm as she clamors through, as her walls tightened against the finger she hardly noticed slipped in. Her undoing, surely. Stars glittered behind her lids, angels sung a high-pitched hymn in her ears as her entire body combusted into a supernova. Floating almighty above, and crashing down through the stratosphere until she’s back on earth, on this bed. Here . The fog from all those moments prior clearing completely.
Slowly, ever so carefully, her heavy eyes opened. Before her, with all the poise and grandeur of a Grecian statue, Colin Bridgerton was knelt between her legs, hands in his lap and illuminated by the soft bedside lighting. Watching. Amorously gazing in her glow as her chest rapidly rose up and down in quick succession, as she delighted in his gratification.
A thoughtless whine escaped her as she spread her legs wider and let him keep doing whatever he liked to her. Colin chuckled, blithe and delightful - jingling chimes on a blissful spring day.
“Good?” he asks.
Doesn’t wait for a nod or a response before he’s moving again.
He’s hovering. Crawling up to cover her body with his. Slowly. Ever so slowly she aches . Aches at the loss of contact - of his touch - as the rest of her body thrums and comes down from the peak he brought her to seconds before.
Her heavy eyes watch as he moves up up up. Broad shoulders squared and creeping, hunched like a lion stalking his prey, and his dark stare hungry and tender and never straying from hers. And that simper - that cheeky lopsided tug of the corner of his mouth, highlighting a dimple she never realized she missed more than rain after a drought, and the air he breathes passes through parted lips coating her balmy skin. His presence just as striking as the setting sun.
Finally, finally , he touched her. Ducked down just enough to kiss her dazed lips. Then her chin. Then her cheek. Then the other. And that was all she needed to truly, decidedly, be recovered from her previous pleasure and on to the next. Insatiable as ever - for him. Only ever for him.
Pen’s arms wrapped around his neck, tugging Colin closer and keeping him in place pressed blissfully against her. Blessed, haughty, skin on skin.
She ran her tongue up the column of his neck to his ear and nibbled on the soft lobe. Colin’s hot ragged breath brushing her shoulder spurring her on. Enough to keep going - to take the next step. Pen wraps her shorter legs around his thighs, wriggles her hips just enough to have his cock pressed up where it should always be. Just the tip teasing her entrance as she spoke filthy little remarks at the shell of his ear between distractingly sucking and pulling his earlobe between her teeth. And just as Colin thought to shift so he could press into her, Pen moved to close the gap herself. Reached between them, grasped him, jerking him slowly.
Colin stopped moving, stopped rutting against her and trying to take more than she was ready to give. Penelope’s turn to take the lead.
She moved her hand, pumped him once, she could hear his gulp. Twice, all the air in his lungs exhaled through his nose, and as she rotated her wrist for a third, he swatted her away.
“Pen,” he groaned. “Let me feel you.”
She was about to jest - to comment on how he just spent the last fifteen minutes feeling her, intimately and with his tongue eliciting all sorts of reckless sensations coursing through her veins.
He felt the comment before she could speak -
“In you. I need to be inside you.”
Oh there were no greater words spoken. It didn’t matter how wicked their words got or how many different ways he could pull pleasure from her without convention, because those words did it for her. They threw her brain into another tizzy and already she was near humming yes yes yes .
She lined him up with her and let Colin do the rest.
She was soaked. An after-effect of Part One mixed with her endless libidinous fascination for him. Colin entered her easily, not a moment needed to adjust. But he gave it to her. Or was it for him?
The look on the others face as they stayed motionless in the din of his bedroom with them connected in the most evolutionary of ways... its something else. It’s adoration, excitement, years of yearning, and something bigger than them swirling in their irises. The intensity of his stare is enough to turn her cheeks deliciously pink if she wasn’t already flushed beyond belief. The way he looks at her - not scrutinizing like she’s just his kid sister’s friend, nor is it the baseless regard saved for his public persona, but with knowing eyes that sees right through her and into her very core, makes her vulnerable. And just a little scared that something heavier looms over them - that even though they’ve nearly gone all the way (he’s inside her, for fucks sake!), it can all be over just as quickly, if their sensibilities are shaken back into reality.
So she rolled her hips. And squeezed.
And he let out a guttural moan.
And they were back in motion. Moving as they should.
As Colin fucked her, Pen couldn’t help but wonder how this could feel so new yet so familiar. How all this time could have gone by, and nothing seems to have changed. If Penelope allowed herself to indulge frivolous thoughts of her youth, she’d think they were fated. That she was made for him, and he for her, and no amount of complications or disastrous persons could stand in their way - every odyssey they’d make their way back to one another. But this isn’t a fairytale. She’s old enough to realize that now. No matter what this meant, he was always Eloise’s brother and she was always insipid Penelope Featherington.
Lost to the feelings, Colin’s groan, more angrily than anything, brought her back.
Pen stopped, her arms dropping from around him. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m fucking close already.”
She couldn’t help but giggle - that sing-song giggle she doesn’t know feels like home to him. Pen bit her lip to stop it, but her mind thought of something better, gratifying. Her eyes darkened like a vixen, tongue drags across her plump lips.
“Come for me, Colin. Come in me. Fill me.”
Whatever chord he was holding himself back with snapped. His thrusts came quicker, deeper. Pen buried her face in his neck, her chest pressed into him so firmly her breasts didn’t move with every motion, holding onto him for dear life. Colin propped himself up by his elbows, forearms cradling her head and his fingers fisting in her wayward strands over the pillowcase. Her nails digging into his back and her legs hiked up around his hips for the deepest most mind-blowing angle.
The near-punishing pace had her eyes rolling back in her head. She’s consumed by him. His scent - the last notes of cologne lingering with the seductive stickiness of his sweat, the lasting taste of her left on her tongue by his. Colin’s body on her, in her, around her. She is on fire. She’s never felt so alive.
She buried him to the hilt, and Pen swears he whimpered into her hair.
But it wasn’t enough.
Colin kissed his way down her body until she released him enough so he was kneeling at her alter. Holding her hips up, watching her tits bounce, tummy jiggle as he pulled back, fucking her purposely. Quickly. Hard. Every vigorous drive of his hips pushing him further and further to the edge, losing control as he chased his release.
“Feels- so- good,” she whined with every devoted smack of their sticky bodies.
“Shit, Pen.” He whispered short of breath and so fucking turned on .
He rocked into her with fervor, held her knees in his large hands. The way she arched her back into him meeting his every move, ran a hand down her torso and up to pinch her nipples while she rolled her hips was irresistible. The erratic circles she was making with her body gave him shivers. She feels like a goddess before him. Hair fanned out on his pillows, alabaster skin coated in a golden hue under the table light, everything about her soft and pliable and everything. She mewled, and it was Colin’s undoing.
Colin dove down to capture her lips as he rode out his orgasm. Pen’s teeth biting down softly on his bottom lip as he came deep inside her. Oh, it’s something else . He nearly cries out when he feels her start to tighten on his cock, her form trembling underneath him. The kiss hot and messy, mouths open and wicked want spilling from them.
When it’s all over, when they’ve caught their breaths and found enough sense, Colin pulled back. Just enough to fully see her face.
He’s looking at her and she knows she’s a wreck - she feels like a wreck. Her hot ironed hair frizzing and wild, makeup smudged and her lipstick marking his lips, his neck, his shoulder, and unattractive labored breaths.
And through it all, he grinned.
***
Bathing In the afterglow, tangled in sheets, both dining silly satisfied smiles, Colin pulls her to him. Penelope’s eyes closed in content, she nuzzles into the space he created for her - under his arm and her head perfectly nestled in the crook of his neck. They lay there for minutes upon minutes, enjoying the feel of their hearts beating and the sound of their breaths. His fingers in her hair twisting strands and her drawing nonsensical patterns along his chest twining the hairs there. It’d be romantic if it was anyone else. It’s domestic and comfortable and… weird.
“What’re you doing here?” she breaks the silence, asking the question that’s been on her mind all night.
“The truth?”
Looking up at him she nods.
“I was traveling around Scotland with some mates,” he prefaces. “Was going to drive straight back to mum’s but decided to call on some friends - take the long way home.”
After all these years she could still see right through the bravado.
“What happened?”
“How do you know something happened?”
“That forlorn look on your face is very telling.”
He grabs a strand of her hair and twirls it around his deft fingers. “Here I thought I was sated and glowing beyond recognition.”
“Colin…”
His lips pinch and he averts his eyes. “My contract was dropped. Months ago. Haven’t had the heart to tell Mother.”
They’ve only just met one another again, definitely not the time for serious conversation nor prying into the way one handles faux-pas of life. Rather hypocritical to be anything but supportive.
Colin looks at her, cups her cheek and stares with those big green eyes she thinks she may just be powerless against. Pen does the same; it feels wrong to look so intently at him now that it is all done, so she chooses a spot on his forehead or the beauty mark at the side of his eye. No direct contact. No point in being barer than she already is.
She lets the moment last a little longer before breaking it and heading to the bathroom.
When Penelope returns, Colin is reclined back on the bed pouring two glasses of water from a glass bottle no doubt from the mini bar. The lights are on a little brighter, the blackout curtain is pulled, duvet pulled down and inviting, and the used condom she stepped over isn’t on the floor where they left it.
He notices her, a satisfied smile playing as soon as their eyes meet. Then he’s up, still nude and well endowed, and striding over to her before Penelope can pick up her neglected panty.
“Stay,” he says, reaching for her fingertips before they catch the fabric.
“I really sh-”
It’s a half hearted attempt and they both know it.
“Stay.”
And his kiss seals her fate.