Chapter Text
In the interest of staying sane and not completely blowing it in an embarrassing amount of time, Jake maintains a steady mantra in his mind as Amy moves to straddle him on his couch. It isn’t the first time she’s straddled him on his couch - that was last night - but it is the first time she’s straddled him on his couch while stone-cold sober. And the warm weight of her, the deliciously slow arch of her spine, the soft and insistent press of her lips and the decidedly less soft tug of her fingers raking through his hair, feels all the more intense now that his mind isn’t clouded with Kamikaze shots.
Of course, it is cloudy with other things - adrenaline, lust, affection, pure slack-jawed awe - but she doesn’t need to know that.
And as his hands grapple along her hips before finding purchase on the taper of her waist while her lips stray ever-closer to his throat, he reminds himself in a firm, stern voice inside his mind, we have time .
Time to take their time. Time to explore. Time to tease and talk and giggle and just be . Gone is the frenetic, borderline-manic energy from the night before that left her dress torn along the seam near the zipper and his shirt divested of three buttons; stoked to a near-roaring flame inside his gut is the overwhelming desire to just worship her.
(And, if he’s being honest, to be worshiped. He’s still not positive that this isn’t some torturous dream his subconscious made up that he’ll jolt awake from at any moment, but he’s beyond caring about that now.)
We have time. We have time. We have time.
No captains barging in and dying on the spot at the sight of them. No sergeants yelling about professionalism in the workplace. No Charles vacillating between squealing like a stuck pig and trying to take credit for their relationship. No fear of the alcohol wearing off and her sense returning to her.
No fear of her leaving.
For once in his long, miserable life, time is on his side.
Above him, Amy gently suckles at his neck - not hard enough to mark him, but enough that he can’t help but squirm a little bit - and lets out a sigh, big and gusty, billowing over his neck and shoulder. It’s this sound that has him gripping her waist a little harder, because he’d felt exactly how bone-deep that sigh was, exactly how much tension had drained from the muscles in her back, how easily she’d settled over him.
Like she belongs here.
It’s a little absurd to be thinking things like that about her, and he knows that, because they’ve only been a them in the real true romantic sense of the word for a matter of hours now. But the cosmic weight of the word is not lost on him; the primal animal that had furiously roared to life so many months ago at the sight of her lips painted pink smiling brightly at someone who wasn’t him purrs in contentment as her lips find his again.
It’s early, and he knows that, but there is an undeniable sense of belonging simmering just below the surface of his skin. It ripples out in waves in the wake of her wandering fingers grazing down his arms and up his chest and back again.
The dance is new, but his partner is as familiar as the moonlight spilling through the windows over his bed.
Amy sighs again, smaller this time, hands traversing the rumpled plane of his chest to gently frame his face, and after two quick swipes of her thumbs over his cheekbones she pulls back for the first time in ten minutes. Jake blinks up at her in a daze, body still humming with electricity, and she smiles with kiss-bruised lips. “I like you,” she murmurs, voice barely cresting above a whisper.
She ruffles his hair right near his hairline and he feels heat pooling in his cheeks - like an overeager kindergartener being complimented by his favorite teacher. “I like you, too,” he breathes, letting his head tilt to the right, following her hand as she lets it fall back to his chest to brace herself. “I’m so glad you came.”
“Title of your sex tape,” she says quickly, and he groans, leaning forward to bury his face in the crook of her neck, grinning at the feeling of her entire body shaking with laughter in his arms.
“I mean it,” he says once he’s back leaning against the couch and she’s looking down at him with an expression softened by affection. “I was gonna go to your place and do the same thing if you hadn’t shown up. I’m so happy, Ames. Seriously.”
It’s clear that she’s touched by the way her smile goes a little shy, a little awed. She reaches up to touch the side of his face - no stroking or caressing, just gently touching - and he leans into her, turning his head quickly to kiss the inside of her wrist. “I’m happy, too, Jake.” she murmurs as her hand drops back to his chest again. “Really. This - it’s something I’ve been, uh, wanting. For a - a long time, now. A really long time.”
He shakes his head slowly, absently dragging his hands up and down her sides. “Me, too,” he admits, trying and failing to bite back his broad grin. She huffs out a laugh through her nose and ducks her head a little bit, but her eyes never leave his. And a voice he scarcely recognizes says I’m keeping her in his mind. Later, he chastises himself. We have time. “I think it’s high time for us to do something about it.” he says instead.
He lifts both eyebrows suggestively and she laughs - more earnest now, more exasperated - and the cadence is so familiar that a dozen fireflies burst to life inside his chest. “ Do you, now?” she asks as she drums her fingers along his chest. “And what exactly are you planning on doing?”
“Oh, if I told you, you wouldn’t be able to handle it,” he says coolly, biting the inside of his cheek at the familiar spark of competitiveness in her eyes.
“I can handle it,” she retorts smoothly. “You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“Why’s that, Santiago?”
She leans in close, her lips a hair’s breadth away from his ear, and he finds himself suddenly scrambling for a tighter grip around her. Her breath washes over the shell of his ear and seconds later he feels the faintest edge of her teeth nipping at his earlobe, and it takes every ounce of self control he possesses to choke down the groan that threatens to bubble up his throat. “Because,” she breathes, “you’re not ready for it.”
He clenches his jaw, screws his eyes shut, forces himself to swallow.
And after a moment he feels her leaning away.
She’s smirking down at him when he finally manages to open his eyes again. “Well? Are you?”
He blinks, mentally scrambling, trying to remember what exactly it was that she whispered in his ear not three seconds ago and coming up absolutely empty. “Am I what?” he asks, surprised to find his voice as gravelly as it is.
Her smirk only grows wider. “Are you ready for it?”
The world around him fades to little more than a muted blur; only the soft folds of her blouse and the warmth of her body and her hands pressing firmly into his chest, only she is real. “Yes,” the word sticks in his throat and drips from his teeth. “Yes, god, yes.”
Her smirk quickly evolves into a genuine smile. “Good.” she whispers, before diving back in again.